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[
"Johnny Unitas",
"1964 MVP season"
] | C_2ba58216460d43aa986fc0e897537239_0 | what team did unitas play for | 1 | what team did Johnny Unitas play for? | Johnny Unitas | The 1964 season would see the Colts return to the top of the Western Conference. After dropping their season opener to the Minnesota Vikings, the Colts ran off 10 straight victories to finish with a 12-2 record. The season was one of Unitas' best as he finished with 2,824 yards passing, a league-best 9.26 yards per pass attempt, 19 touchdown passes and only 6 interceptions. He was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player by the AP and UPI for a second time. However, the season would end on a disappointing note for the Colts as they were upset by the Cleveland Browns in the 1964 NFL Championship Game, losing 27-0. Unitas resumed his torrid passing in 1965, as he threw for 2,530 yards, 23 touchdowns and finished with a league-high and career best 97.1 passer rating. But he was lost for the balance of the season due to a knee injury in a week 12 loss to the Bears. More postseason heartbreak would follow in 1965. The Colts and Packers finished in a tie for first place in the Western Conference and a one-game playoff was played in Green Bay to decide who would be the conference representative in the 1965 NFL Championship Game. The Colts lost in overtime 13-10 due in large part to a game-tying field goal by Don Chandler that many say was incorrectly ruled good. Backup quarterback Gary Cuozzo also suffered a season-ending injury the following week and it would be running back Tom Matte who filled in as the emergency QB for the regular-season finale and the playoff loss to the Packers. Unitas, healthy once more, threw for 2748 yards and 22 touchdowns in 1966 in a return to Pro Bowl form. However, he posted a league-high 24 interceptions. CANNOTANSWER | The Colts | John Constantine Unitas (; May 7, 1933 – September 11, 2002) was an American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 18 seasons, primarily with the Baltimore Colts. Following a career that spanned from 1956 to 1973, he has been consistently listed as one of the greatest NFL players of all time.
Unitas set many NFL records and was named Most Valuable Player three times in 1959, 1964, and 1967, in addition to receiving 10 Pro Bowl and five first-team All-Pro honors. He helped lead the Colts to four championship titles; three pre-merger era in 1958, 1959, 1968, and one Super Bowl era in Super Bowl V. His first championship victory is regarded as one of the league's greatest games and credited with helping popularize the NFL. Between 1956 and 1960, he set the record for most consecutive games with a touchdown pass at 47, which held for 52 years.
Nicknamed "Johnny U" and the "Golden Arm", Unitas was considered the prototype of the modern era marquee quarterback. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979.
Early life
John Constantine Unitas was born in Pittsburgh in 1933 to Francis J. Unitas and Helen Superfisky, both of Lithuanian descent; he grew up in the Mount Washington neighborhood in a Roman Catholic upbringing. When Unitas was five years old, his father died of cardiovascular renal disease complicated by pneumonia, leaving the young boy to be raised by his mother, who worked two jobs to support the family. His surname was a result of a phonetic transliteration of a common Lithuanian last name Jonaitis. Attending St. Justin's High School in Pittsburgh, Unitas played halfback and quarterback.
College career
In his younger years, Unitas dreamed about being part of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team, but when he tried out for the team, coach Frank Leahy said that he was just too skinny and he would "get murdered" if he was put on the field.
Instead, he attended the University of Louisville. In his four-year career as a Louisville Cardinal, Unitas completed 245 passes for 3,139 yards and 27 touchdowns. Reportedly, the Unitas weighed on his first day of practice. His first start was in the fifth game of the 1951 season against St. Bonaventure, where he threw 11 consecutive passes and three touchdowns to give the Cardinals a 21–19 lead. Louisville ended up losing the game 22–21 on a disputed field goal, but found a new starting quarterback. Unitas completed 12 of 19 passes for 240 yards and four touchdowns in a 35–28 victory over Houston. The team finished the season 5–5 overall and 4–1 with Unitas starting. He completed 46 of 99 passes for 602 yards and nine touchdowns (44).
By the 1952 season, the university decided to de-emphasize sports. The new president at Louisville, Dr. Philip Grant Davidson, reduced the amount of athletic aid, and tightened academic standards for athletes. As a result, 15 returning players could not meet the new standards and lost their scholarships. Unitas maintained his by taking on a new elective: square dancing. In 1952, coach Frank Camp switched the team to two-way football. Unitas not only played safety or linebacker on defense and quarterback on offense, but also returned kicks and punts on special teams. The Cardinals won their first game against Wayne State, and then Florida State in the second game. Unitas completed 16 of 21 passes for 198 yards and three touchdowns. It was said that Unitas put on such a show at the Florida State game that he threw a pass under his legs for 15 yards. The rest of the season was a struggle for the Cardinals, who finished 3–5. Unitas completed 106 of 198 passes for 1,540 yards and 12 touchdowns.
The team won their first game in 1953, against Murray State, and lost the rest for a record of 1–7. One of the most memorable games of the season came in a 59–6 loss against Tennessee. Unitas completed 9 out of 19 passes for 73 yards, rushed 9 times for 52 yards, returned six kickoffs for 85 yards, one punt for three yards, and had 86 percent of the team's tackles. The only touchdown the team scored was in the fourth quarter when Unitas made a fake pitch to the running back and ran the ball 23 yards for a touchdown. Unitas was hurt later in the fourth quarter while trying to run the ball. On his way off the field, he received a standing ovation. When he got to the locker room he was so tired that his jersey and shoulder pads had to be cut off because he could not lift his arms. Louisville ended the season with a 20–13 loss to Eastern Kentucky. Unitas completed 49 of 95 passes for 470 yards and three touchdowns.
Unitas was elected captain for the 1954 season, but due to an early injury did not see much playing time. His first start was the third game of the season, against Florida State. Of the 34-man team, 21 were freshmen. The 1954 Cardinals went 3–6, with their last win at home against Morehead State. Unitas was slowed by so many injuries his senior year his 527 passing yards ended second to Jim Houser's 560.
Professional career
Pittsburgh Steelers
After his collegiate career, the Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL drafted Unitas in the ninth round. However, he was released before the season began as the odd man out among four quarterbacks trying to fill three spots. Steelers' head coach Walt Kiesling had made up his mind about Unitas; he thought he was not smart enough to quarterback an NFL team, and he was not given any snaps in practice with the Steelers. Among those edging out Unitas was Ted Marchibroda, future longtime NFL head coach. Out of pro football, Unitas—by this time married—worked in construction in Pittsburgh to support his family. On the weekends, he played quarterback, safety and punter on a local semi-professional team called the Bloomfield Rams for $6 a game.
Baltimore Colts
In 1956, Unitas joined the Baltimore Colts of the NFL under legendary coach Weeb Ewbank, after being asked at the last minute to join Bloomfield Rams lineman Jim Deglau, a Croatian steelworker with a life much like Unitas, at the latter's scheduled Colts tryout. The pair borrowed money from friends to pay for the gas to make the trip. Deglau later told a reporter after Unitas's death, "[His] uncle told him not to come. [He] was worried that if he came down and the Colts passed on him, it would look bad (to other NFL teams)." The Colts signed Unitas, much to the chagrin of the Cleveland Browns, who had hoped to claim the former Steeler quarterback.
Unitas made his NFL debut with an inauspicious "mop-up" appearance against Detroit, going 0–2 with one interception. Two weeks later, starting quarterback George Shaw suffered a broken leg against the Chicago Bears. In his first serious action, Unitas's initial pass was intercepted and returned for a touchdown. Then he botched a hand-off on his next play, a fumble recovered by the Bears. Unitas rebounded quickly from that 58–27 loss, leading the Colts to an upset of Green Bay and their first win over Cleveland. He threw nine touchdown passes that year, including one in the season finale that started his record 47-game streak. His 55.6-percent completion mark was a rookie record.
In 1957, his first season as the Colts full-time starter at quarterback, Unitas finished first in the NFL in passing yards (2,550) and touchdown passes (24) as he helped lead the Colts to a 7–5 record, the first winning record in franchise history. At season's end, Unitas received the Jim Thorpe Trophy as the NFL's Most Valuable Player by the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA).
1958: "The Greatest Game Ever Played"
Unitas continued his prowess in 1958 passing for 2,007 yards and 19 touchdowns as the Colts won the Western Conference title. The Colts won the NFL championship under his leadership on December 28, 1958, by defeating the New York Giants 23–17 in sudden death overtime on a touchdown by fullback Alan Ameche. It was the first overtime game in NFL history, and is often referred to as the "greatest game ever played". The game, nationally televised by NBC, has been credited for sparking the rise in popularity of professional football during the 1960s.
1959 MVP season
In 1959, Unitas was named the NFL's MVP by the Associated Press (AP) for the first time, as well as United Press International's player of the year, after leading the NFL in passing yards (2,899), touchdown passes (32), and completions (193). He then led the Colts to a repeat championship, beating the Giants again 31–16 in the title game.
Beginning of the 1960s
As the 1960s began, the Colts' fortunes (and win totals) declined. Injuries to key players such as Alan Ameche, Raymond Berry, and Lenny Moore were a contributing factor. Unitas's streak of 47 straight games with at least one touchdown pass ended against the Los Angeles Rams in week 11 of the 1960 season. In spite of this, he topped the 3,000-yard passing mark for the first time and led the league in touchdown passes for the fourth consecutive season.
After three middle-of-the-pack seasons, Colts owner Carroll Rosenbloom fired Weeb Ewbank and replaced him with Don Shula, who at the time was the youngest head coach in NFL history (33 years of age when he was hired). The Colts finished 8–6 in Shula's first season at the helm, good enough for only third place in the NFL's Western Conference, but they did end the season on a strong note by winning their final three games. The season was very successful for Unitas personally, as he led the NFL in passing yards with a career-best total of 3,481 and also led in completions with 237.
1964 MVP season
In the 1964 season the Colts returned to the top of the Western Conference. After dropping their season opener to the Minnesota Vikings, the Colts ran off 10 straight victories to finish with a 12–2 record. The season was one of Unitas's best as he finished with 2,824 yards passing, a league-best 9.26 yards per pass attempt, 19 touchdown passes and only 6 interceptions. He was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player by the AP and UPI for a second time. However, the season ended on a disappointing note for the Colts as they were upset by the Cleveland Browns in the 1964 NFL Championship Game, losing 27–0.
Unitas resumed his torrid passing in 1965, throwing for 2,530 yards, 23 touchdowns and finishing with a league-high and career-best 97.1 passer rating. But he was lost for the balance of the season due to a knee injury in a week 12 loss to the Bears. Backup quarterback Gary Cuozzo also suffered a season-ending injury the following week, and running back Tom Matte filled in as the emergency quarterback for the regular season finale and in a playoff loss to the Packers. The Colts and Packers finished in a tie for first place in the Western Conference and a one-game playoff was played in Green Bay to decide who would be the conference representative in the 1965 NFL Championship Game. The Colts lost in overtime 13–10 due in large part to a game-tying field goal by Don Chandler that many say was incorrectly ruled good.
Unitas, healthy once more, threw for 2,748 yards and 22 touchdowns in 1966 in a return to Pro Bowl form. However, he posted a league-high 24 interceptions.
1967 MVP season
After once again finishing second in the Western Conference in 1966, the Colts rebounded to finish 11–1–2 in 1967 tying the Los Angeles Rams for the NFL's best record. In winning his third MVP award from the AP and UPI in 1967 (and his second from the NEA), Unitas had a league-high 58.5 completion percentage and passed for 3,428 yards and 20 touchdowns. He openly complained about having tennis elbow and he threw eight interceptions and only three touchdown passes in the final five games. Once again, the season ended in loss for the Colts, as they were shut out of the newly instituted four-team NFL playoff after losing the divisional tiebreaker to the Rams, a 34–10 rout in the regular season finale.
Super Bowls and final Colt years
In the final game of the 1968 preseason, the muscles in Unitas's arm were torn when he was hit by a member of the Dallas Cowboys defense. Unitas wrote in his autobiography that he felt his arm was initially injured by the use of the "night ball" that the NFL was testing for better TV visibility during night games. In a post-game interview the previous year, he noted having constant pain in his elbow for several years prior. He would spend most of the season sitting on the bench. The Colts still marched to a league-best 13–1 record behind backup quarterback and ultimate 1968 NFL MVP Earl Morrall. Although he was injured through most of the season, Unitas came off the bench to play in Super Bowl III, the famous game where Joe Namath guaranteed a New York Jets win despite conventional wisdom. Unitas's insertion was a desperation move in an attempt to retrieve dominance of the NFL over the upstart AFL. Although the Colts won an NFL Championship in 1968, they lost the Super Bowl to the AFL Champion New York Jets, thus becoming the first-ever NFL champions that were not also deemed world champions. Unitas helped put together the Colts' only score, a touchdown late in the game. Unitas also drove the Colts into scoring position following the touchdown and successful onside kick, but head coach Don Shula eschewed a field goal attempt, which (if successful) would have cut the Jets' lead to 16–10. Despite not playing until late in the third quarter, he still finished the game with more passing yards than the team's starter, Earl Morrall.
After an off-season of rehabilitation on his elbow, Unitas rebounded in 1969, passing for 2,342 yards and 12 touchdowns with 20 interceptions. But the Colts finished with a disappointing 8–5–1 record, and missed the playoffs.
In 1970, the NFL and AFL had merged into one league, and the Colts moved to the new American Football Conference, along with the Cleveland Browns and the Pittsburgh Steelers. He threw for 2,213 yards and 14 touchdowns while leading the Colts to an 11–2–1 season. In their first rematch with the Jets, Unitas and Namath threw a combined nine interceptions in a 29–22 Colts win. Namath threw 62 passes and broke his hand on the final play of the game, ending his season.
Unitas threw for 390 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions in AFC playoff victories over the Cincinnati Bengals and the Oakland Raiders. In Super Bowl V against the Dallas Cowboys, he was knocked out of the game with a rib injury in the second quarter, soon after throwing a 75-yard touchdown pass (setting a then-Super Bowl record) to John Mackey. However, he had also tossed two interceptions before his departure from the game. Earl Morrall came in to lead the team to a last-second, 16–13 victory.
In 1971, Unitas split playing time with Morrall, throwing only three touchdown passes. He started both playoff games, a win over the Cleveland Browns that sent the Colts to the AFC Championship game against the Miami Dolphins, which they lost by a score of 21–0. Unitas threw three interceptions in the game, one of which was returned for a touchdown by safety Dick Anderson.
The 1972 season saw the Colts declining. After losing the season opener, Unitas was involved in the second and final regular season head-to-head meeting with "Broadway" Joe Namath. The first was in 1970 (won by the Colts, 29–22). The last meeting took place on September 24, 1972 at Memorial Stadium. He threw for 376 yards and three touchdowns, but Namath upstaged him again, bombing the Colts for 496 yards and six touchdowns in a 44–34 Jets victory – their first over Baltimore since the 1970 merger. After losing four of their first five games, the Colts fired head coach Don McCafferty, and benched Unitas.
One of the more memorable moments in football history came on Unitas's last game in a Colts uniform at Memorial Stadium, in a game against the Buffalo Bills. He was not the starter for this game, but the Colts were blowing the Bills out by a score of 28–0 behind Marty Domres; Unitas entered the game due to the fans chanting, "We want Unitas!!!", and a plan devised by head coach John Sandusky to convince Unitas that the starting quarterback was injured. Unitas came onto the field, and threw two passes, one of which was a long touchdown to wide receiver Eddie Hinton which would be his last pass as a Colt. The Colts won the game by the score of 35–7.
San Diego, retirement, and records
Unitas was traded from the Colts to the San Diego Chargers on January 20, 1973, in a transaction that originally had future considerations returning to Baltimore. The deal's only obstacle was the personal services contract he had signed with the Colts in 1970 which would've kept him employed within the organization on an annual salary of $30,000 over ten years once his career as an active player ended. The pact had been signed when the ballclub was owned by Carroll Rosenbloom who subsequently acquired the Los Angeles Rams on July 13, 1972, in a franchise swap with Robert Irsay. The deal was completed when the Chargers purchased that contract. Eager to sever all ties with the Colts, Unitas signed a new two-year contract with the Chargers on June 8, 1973. He succeeded John Hadl who had requested and was granted a trade to the Rams.
Unitas started the season with a 38–0 loss to the Washington Redskins. He threw for just 55 yards and 3 interceptions, and was sacked 8 times. His final victory as a starter came against the Buffalo Bills in week two. Unitas was 10–18 for 175 yards, two touchdown passes, and no interceptions in a 34–7 Chargers rout. Many were questioning his role as a starter after a loss to the Bengals in week three. Two weeks later, he threw two first-half interceptions, passed for only 19 yards, and went 2-for-9 against the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was then replaced by rookie quarterback, future Hall of Famer Dan Fouts. After having posted a 1–3 record as a starter, Unitas retired in the preseason of 1974.
Unitas finished his 18 NFL seasons with 2,830 completions in 5,186 attempts for 40,239 yards and 290 touchdowns, with 253 interceptions. He also rushed for 1,777 yards and 13 touchdowns. Plagued by arm trouble in his later seasons, he threw more interceptions (64) than touchdowns (38) in 1968–1973. After averaging 215.8 yards per game in his first 12 seasons, his production fell to 124.4 in his final six. His passer rating plummeted from 82.9 to 60.4 for the same periods. Even so, Unitas set many passing records during his career. He was the first quarterback to throw for more than 40,000 yards, despite playing during an era when NFL teams played shorter seasons of 12 or 14 games (as opposed to today's 17-game seasons) and prior to modern passing-friendly rules implemented in 1978. His 32 touchdown passes in 1959 were a record at the time, making Unitas the first quarterback to hit the 30 touchdown mark in a season. His 47-game consecutive touchdown streak between 1956 and 1960 was a record considered by many to be unbreakable. The streak stood for 52 years before being broken by New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees in a game against the San Diego Chargers on October 7, 2012.
Post-playing days
After his playing days were finished, Unitas settled in Baltimore where he raised his family while also pursuing a career in broadcasting, doing color commentary for NFL games on CBS in the 1970s. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979. After Robert Irsay moved the Colts franchise to Indianapolis in 1984, a move known to this day in Baltimore as "Bob Irsay's Midnight Ride," he was so outraged that he cut all ties to the relocated team (though his No. 19 jersey is still retired by the Colts), declaring himself strictly a Baltimore Colt for the remainder of his life. Some other prominent old-time Colts followed his lead, although many attended the 1975 team's reunion at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis in 2009. A total of 39 Colts players from that 1975 team attended said reunion in Indianapolis, including Bert Jones and Lydell Mitchell. Unitas asked the Pro Football Hall of Fame on numerous occasions (including on Roy Firestone's Up Close) to remove his display unless it was listed as belonging to the Baltimore Colts. The Hall of Fame has never complied with the request. Unitas donated his Colts memorabilia to the Babe Ruth Museum in Baltimore; they are now on display in the Sports Legends Museum at Camden Yards.
Unitas was inducted into the American Football Association's Semi Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1987.
Unitas actively lobbied for another NFL team to come to Baltimore. After the Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore in 1996 and changed their name to the Ravens, he and some of the other old-time Colts attended the Ravens' first game ever against the Raiders on Opening Day at Memorial Stadium. He was frequently seen on the Ravens' sidelines at home games (most prominently in 1998 when the now-Indianapolis Colts played the Ravens in Baltimore) and received a thunderous ovation every time he was pictured on each of the huge widescreens at M&T Bank Stadium. He was often seen on the 30-yard line on the Ravens side. When the NFL celebrated its first 50 years, Unitas was voted the league's best player. Retired Bears quarterback Sid Luckman said of Unitas, "He was better than me, better than Sammy Baugh, better than anyone."
Unitas lived most of the final years of his life severely hobbled. Due to an elbow injury suffered during his playing career, he had only very limited use of his right hand, and could not perform any physical activity more strenuous than golf due to his artificial knees.
NFL career statistics
Source:
In 1957, Unitas was named MVP by the Newspaper Enterprise Association.
Personal life
At the age of 21 on November 20, 1954, Unitas married his high school sweetheart Dorothy Hoelle; they lived in Towson and had five children before divorcing. Unitas's second wife was Sandra Lemon, whom he married on June 26, 1972; they had three children, lived in Baldwin, and remained married until his death.
Towson University, where Unitas was a major fund-raiser and which his children attended, named its football and lacrosse complex Johnny Unitas Stadium in recognition of both his football career and service to the university.
Toward the end of his life, Unitas brought media attention to the many permanent physical disabilities that he and his fellow players suffered during their careers before heavy padding and other safety features became popular. Unitas himself lost almost total use of his right hand, with the middle finger and thumb noticeably disfigured from being repeatedly broken during games.
On September 11, 2002, Unitas died from a heart attack while working out at the Kernan Physical Therapy Center (now The University of Maryland Rehabilitation & Orthopaedic Institute) in Baltimore. His funeral was held at Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore, Maryland. Between his death and October 4, 2002, 56,934 people signed an online petition urging the Baltimore Ravens to rename the Ravens' home stadium (owned by the State of Maryland) after Unitas. These requests were unsuccessful since the lucrative naming rights had already been leased by the Ravens to Buffalo-based M&T Bank. However, on October 20, 2002, the Ravens dedicated the front area of the stadium's main entrance as Unitas Plaza and unveiled a statue of Unitas as the centerpiece of the plaza.
Unitas is buried at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens in Timonium, Maryland.
Legacy
Unitas held the record for most Pro Bowl appearances (10) by a quarterback until Brett Favre broke his record in 2009.
Unitas set the original standard for most wins as a starting quarterback with 118 regular season victories (since surpassed by multiple quarterbacks).
Unitas was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979.
Unitas is 11th in all-time number of regular season games won by an NFL starting quarterback with 118 wins.
Unitas is 16th in all-time percentage of regular season games won by an NFL starting quarterback with a percentage of 64.5.
1987 American Football Association Semi Pro Hall of Fame
Unitas's no. 16 is the first number retired by the football program at the University of Louisville.
Unitas Tower, a dormitory at the University of Louisville, is named for Johnny Unitas.
A statue of Unitas sits in the north end zone of Cardinal Stadium at the University of Louisville. It is a tradition for each Cardinal player to touch the statue as he enters the field.
Since 1987, the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award has been awarded to the top senior quarterback of the current year in college football. The award is presented annually in Louisville.
In 1999, he was ranked No. 5 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players, behind only Joe Montana among quarterbacks.
In 2004, The Sporting News ranked Unitas No. 1 among the NFL's 50 Greatest Quarterbacks, with Joe Montana at No. 2.
In 1999, ESPN's Sportscentury: 50 Greatest Athletes of the 20th Century ranked Unitas No. 32.
Just before his death, Johnny Unitas became the community liaison for athletics in Towson, Maryland. The football stadium at Towson University was renamed Johnny Unitas Stadium in 2002. Unitas died less than a week after throwing his last pass in the grand opening of the stadium.
Set the record for consecutive games with at least one touchdown pass at 47 games. This record was surpassed by Drew Brees in 2012.
Set the record for consecutive games with at least two touchdown passes at 12 games. This record was surpassed by Don Meredith, Peyton Manning (twice), Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Philip Rivers, and Patrick Mahomes.
Set the record for most consecutive games with at least a 120 passer rating (4); this record was later matched by Kurt Warner
For the game following his death, Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning asked to wear a pair of black cleats as a tribute to Johnny's signature black boots. The league denied his request and threatened Manning with a US$25,000 fine; Manning decided not to wear them. Despite the threatened fine, Chris Redman, a Louisville alum like Unitas, and then quarterback of the Baltimore Ravens, decided to pay homage by wearing the signature cleats during a game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
In 2013, a movie project was announced by The Baltimore Sun called Unitas We Stand, which will feature Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco as Unitas during the 1958 NFL Championship.
19th Street in Ocean City, Maryland is named "Johnny Unitas Way" in his honor.
Johnny Unitas Stadium on the campus of Towson University in Towson, Maryland, home of the Towson Tigers football and Towson Tigers men's lacrosse teams is named in his honor.
Unitas was posthumously inducted into the National Lithuanian American Hall of Fame on August 24, 2013.
See also
List of most consecutive starts by a National Football League quarterback
Most wins by a starting quarterback (NFL)
Notes
References
Sources
Bolus, Jim, and Billy Reed. Cardinal Football. Champaign, IL: Sports Pub Inc., 1999.
Callahan, Tom. Johnny U: the life and times of John Unitas. New York: Crown Publishers, 2006.
Lazenby, Roland. Johnny Unitas: the best there ever was. Chicago: Triumph Books, 2002.
Schaap, Dick (1999). "Johnny Unitas: Sunday's Best". In ESPN SportsCentury. Michael MacCambridge, Editor. New York: ESPN-Hyperion Books. pp. 154–65.
Cavanaugh, Jack (2008), Giants Among Men. New York:Random House.
MacCambridge, Michael (2005), America's Game. New York:Anchor Books.
External links
1933 births
2002 deaths
American football quarterbacks
American people of Lithuanian descent
Baltimore Colts players
Burials at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens
Catholics from Maryland
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Louisville Cardinals football players
National Football League announcers
National Football League Most Valuable Player Award winners
National Football League players with retired numbers
People from Timonium, Maryland
People from Towson, Maryland
Pittsburgh Steelers players
Players of American football from Baltimore
Players of American football from Pittsburgh
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
San Diego Chargers players
Sportspeople from Baltimore County, Maryland
Western Conference Pro Bowl players | true | [
"The Gorinchemse Voetbalvereniging Unitas is a Dutch association football club from Gorinchem. It is among the oldest football clubs of the Netherlands and for most of the 20th century played in the highest leagues of amateur football. In 2018 the first team of GVV Unitas returned to the Hoofdklasse. They won promotion to the Derde Divisie in 2020.\n\nHistory\nGVV Unitas was founded on 19 April 1898. It joined the main KNVB leagues in 2007, initially as a Derde Klasse team. In 2011 Unitas promoted to the Tweede Klasse. In 1924 it won a Tweede Klasse championship, promoting to the Eerste Klasse, at that time the highest league of Dutch football. In 1926 Unitas relegated to the Tweede Klasse. It won Tweede Klasse championships in 1928, 1944, and 1946 but did not promote to the costly leading league.\n\nIn 1956 Unitas promoted for a second time to the Eerste Klasse, after winning its fifth Tweede Klasse championship, and after a league above the Eerste Klasse had been established. In 1963 and 1967 it became champion of the Eerste Klasse without promoting. In 1970 Unitas relegated to the Tweede Klasse, immediately returning to the Eerste with a sixth Tweede Klasse championship.\n\nIn 1998 the club celebrated 100 years with several events. Coen Moulijn suffered a heart attack at the event he attended.\n\nSince 2018 Unitas is back the Hoofdklasse, after taking a championship in the Eerste Klasse. It finished the first Hoofdklasse season in decades in 5th position. Last game of the first Saturday squad of the 2018–2019 season ended in a 7–0 loss to SV Meerkerk.\n\nPlayers who became internationals\n Jan Peters\n Robert Verbeek\n Hans Vonk\n Frank Wels\n\nReferences\n\nAssociation football clubs established in 1898\n1898 establishments in the Netherlands\nFootball clubs in the Netherlands\nFootball clubs in South Holland\nSports clubs in Gorinchem",
"The 1972 New York Jets season was the 13th season for the team and the third in the National Football League. It began with the team trying to improve upon its 6–8 record from 1971 under head coach Weeb Ewbank. The Jets star quarterback Joe Namath was healthy for a full season for the first time in three years but the rest of the squad was decimated by injuries and, after a strong start, the Jets finished with a record of 7–7.\n\nDuring the 1972 preseason, a squad composed of the Jets’ rookies defeated the Long Island Chiefs of the Seaboard Football League, 29–3.(In 1974, the Houston Oilers rookie squad played a preseason game vs the minor league San Antonio Toros) \n\nNamath threw for 496 yards and six touchdowns (on 15 of 28 passes) in a 44–34 victory over the Baltimore Colts in his first appearance at Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium in week two, but the next week, the Jets were humbled 26–20 by the Houston Oilers, the Oilers' only victory of 1972 and their last before embarking on an 18-game losing streak.\n\nThey Jets were eliminated from playoff contention in the season’s thirteenth week, a Monday Night Game with the Raiders in which a battered and bruised Namath threw for 403 yards and nearly pulled off the upset. After the game Raiders coach John Madden went into the Jets locker room and shook Namath’s hand out of respect; it was the only time in his coaching career Madden ever did that. Eliminated from postseason play, the Jets’ coaches decided Namath would sit out the final game of the season to make sure no serious injuries were incurred prior to the 1973 season.\n\nRoster\n\nOffseason\n\nSchedule \n\nNote: Intra-division opponents are in bold text.\n\nGame summaries\n\nWeek 2: at Baltimore Colts \n\n Source:\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\nThe rivalry between Joe Namath and Johnny Unitas had never resulted in both quarterbacks meeting for a full game until this meeting. Namath and Unitas exploded to a combined 872 passing yards. Namath threw for 496 yards and six touchdowns despite only 15 completions in 28 attempts. Unitas scored twice but was sacked six times. Don McCauley also scored twice for the Colts as the Jets won 44–34.\n\nStandings\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n 1972 statistics\n\nNew York Jets seasons\nNew York Jets\nNew York Jets season\n20th century in Queens\nShea Stadium"
] |
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"Johnny Unitas",
"1964 MVP season",
"what team did unitas play for",
"The Colts"
] | C_2ba58216460d43aa986fc0e897537239_0 | how many games did the colts win | 2 | how many games did the colts win | Johnny Unitas | The 1964 season would see the Colts return to the top of the Western Conference. After dropping their season opener to the Minnesota Vikings, the Colts ran off 10 straight victories to finish with a 12-2 record. The season was one of Unitas' best as he finished with 2,824 yards passing, a league-best 9.26 yards per pass attempt, 19 touchdown passes and only 6 interceptions. He was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player by the AP and UPI for a second time. However, the season would end on a disappointing note for the Colts as they were upset by the Cleveland Browns in the 1964 NFL Championship Game, losing 27-0. Unitas resumed his torrid passing in 1965, as he threw for 2,530 yards, 23 touchdowns and finished with a league-high and career best 97.1 passer rating. But he was lost for the balance of the season due to a knee injury in a week 12 loss to the Bears. More postseason heartbreak would follow in 1965. The Colts and Packers finished in a tie for first place in the Western Conference and a one-game playoff was played in Green Bay to decide who would be the conference representative in the 1965 NFL Championship Game. The Colts lost in overtime 13-10 due in large part to a game-tying field goal by Don Chandler that many say was incorrectly ruled good. Backup quarterback Gary Cuozzo also suffered a season-ending injury the following week and it would be running back Tom Matte who filled in as the emergency QB for the regular-season finale and the playoff loss to the Packers. Unitas, healthy once more, threw for 2748 yards and 22 touchdowns in 1966 in a return to Pro Bowl form. However, he posted a league-high 24 interceptions. CANNOTANSWER | the Colts ran off 10 straight victories to finish with a 12-2 record. | John Constantine Unitas (; May 7, 1933 – September 11, 2002) was an American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 18 seasons, primarily with the Baltimore Colts. Following a career that spanned from 1956 to 1973, he has been consistently listed as one of the greatest NFL players of all time.
Unitas set many NFL records and was named Most Valuable Player three times in 1959, 1964, and 1967, in addition to receiving 10 Pro Bowl and five first-team All-Pro honors. He helped lead the Colts to four championship titles; three pre-merger era in 1958, 1959, 1968, and one Super Bowl era in Super Bowl V. His first championship victory is regarded as one of the league's greatest games and credited with helping popularize the NFL. Between 1956 and 1960, he set the record for most consecutive games with a touchdown pass at 47, which held for 52 years.
Nicknamed "Johnny U" and the "Golden Arm", Unitas was considered the prototype of the modern era marquee quarterback. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979.
Early life
John Constantine Unitas was born in Pittsburgh in 1933 to Francis J. Unitas and Helen Superfisky, both of Lithuanian descent; he grew up in the Mount Washington neighborhood in a Roman Catholic upbringing. When Unitas was five years old, his father died of cardiovascular renal disease complicated by pneumonia, leaving the young boy to be raised by his mother, who worked two jobs to support the family. His surname was a result of a phonetic transliteration of a common Lithuanian last name Jonaitis. Attending St. Justin's High School in Pittsburgh, Unitas played halfback and quarterback.
College career
In his younger years, Unitas dreamed about being part of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team, but when he tried out for the team, coach Frank Leahy said that he was just too skinny and he would "get murdered" if he was put on the field.
Instead, he attended the University of Louisville. In his four-year career as a Louisville Cardinal, Unitas completed 245 passes for 3,139 yards and 27 touchdowns. Reportedly, the Unitas weighed on his first day of practice. His first start was in the fifth game of the 1951 season against St. Bonaventure, where he threw 11 consecutive passes and three touchdowns to give the Cardinals a 21–19 lead. Louisville ended up losing the game 22–21 on a disputed field goal, but found a new starting quarterback. Unitas completed 12 of 19 passes for 240 yards and four touchdowns in a 35–28 victory over Houston. The team finished the season 5–5 overall and 4–1 with Unitas starting. He completed 46 of 99 passes for 602 yards and nine touchdowns (44).
By the 1952 season, the university decided to de-emphasize sports. The new president at Louisville, Dr. Philip Grant Davidson, reduced the amount of athletic aid, and tightened academic standards for athletes. As a result, 15 returning players could not meet the new standards and lost their scholarships. Unitas maintained his by taking on a new elective: square dancing. In 1952, coach Frank Camp switched the team to two-way football. Unitas not only played safety or linebacker on defense and quarterback on offense, but also returned kicks and punts on special teams. The Cardinals won their first game against Wayne State, and then Florida State in the second game. Unitas completed 16 of 21 passes for 198 yards and three touchdowns. It was said that Unitas put on such a show at the Florida State game that he threw a pass under his legs for 15 yards. The rest of the season was a struggle for the Cardinals, who finished 3–5. Unitas completed 106 of 198 passes for 1,540 yards and 12 touchdowns.
The team won their first game in 1953, against Murray State, and lost the rest for a record of 1–7. One of the most memorable games of the season came in a 59–6 loss against Tennessee. Unitas completed 9 out of 19 passes for 73 yards, rushed 9 times for 52 yards, returned six kickoffs for 85 yards, one punt for three yards, and had 86 percent of the team's tackles. The only touchdown the team scored was in the fourth quarter when Unitas made a fake pitch to the running back and ran the ball 23 yards for a touchdown. Unitas was hurt later in the fourth quarter while trying to run the ball. On his way off the field, he received a standing ovation. When he got to the locker room he was so tired that his jersey and shoulder pads had to be cut off because he could not lift his arms. Louisville ended the season with a 20–13 loss to Eastern Kentucky. Unitas completed 49 of 95 passes for 470 yards and three touchdowns.
Unitas was elected captain for the 1954 season, but due to an early injury did not see much playing time. His first start was the third game of the season, against Florida State. Of the 34-man team, 21 were freshmen. The 1954 Cardinals went 3–6, with their last win at home against Morehead State. Unitas was slowed by so many injuries his senior year his 527 passing yards ended second to Jim Houser's 560.
Professional career
Pittsburgh Steelers
After his collegiate career, the Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL drafted Unitas in the ninth round. However, he was released before the season began as the odd man out among four quarterbacks trying to fill three spots. Steelers' head coach Walt Kiesling had made up his mind about Unitas; he thought he was not smart enough to quarterback an NFL team, and he was not given any snaps in practice with the Steelers. Among those edging out Unitas was Ted Marchibroda, future longtime NFL head coach. Out of pro football, Unitas—by this time married—worked in construction in Pittsburgh to support his family. On the weekends, he played quarterback, safety and punter on a local semi-professional team called the Bloomfield Rams for $6 a game.
Baltimore Colts
In 1956, Unitas joined the Baltimore Colts of the NFL under legendary coach Weeb Ewbank, after being asked at the last minute to join Bloomfield Rams lineman Jim Deglau, a Croatian steelworker with a life much like Unitas, at the latter's scheduled Colts tryout. The pair borrowed money from friends to pay for the gas to make the trip. Deglau later told a reporter after Unitas's death, "[His] uncle told him not to come. [He] was worried that if he came down and the Colts passed on him, it would look bad (to other NFL teams)." The Colts signed Unitas, much to the chagrin of the Cleveland Browns, who had hoped to claim the former Steeler quarterback.
Unitas made his NFL debut with an inauspicious "mop-up" appearance against Detroit, going 0–2 with one interception. Two weeks later, starting quarterback George Shaw suffered a broken leg against the Chicago Bears. In his first serious action, Unitas's initial pass was intercepted and returned for a touchdown. Then he botched a hand-off on his next play, a fumble recovered by the Bears. Unitas rebounded quickly from that 58–27 loss, leading the Colts to an upset of Green Bay and their first win over Cleveland. He threw nine touchdown passes that year, including one in the season finale that started his record 47-game streak. His 55.6-percent completion mark was a rookie record.
In 1957, his first season as the Colts full-time starter at quarterback, Unitas finished first in the NFL in passing yards (2,550) and touchdown passes (24) as he helped lead the Colts to a 7–5 record, the first winning record in franchise history. At season's end, Unitas received the Jim Thorpe Trophy as the NFL's Most Valuable Player by the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA).
1958: "The Greatest Game Ever Played"
Unitas continued his prowess in 1958 passing for 2,007 yards and 19 touchdowns as the Colts won the Western Conference title. The Colts won the NFL championship under his leadership on December 28, 1958, by defeating the New York Giants 23–17 in sudden death overtime on a touchdown by fullback Alan Ameche. It was the first overtime game in NFL history, and is often referred to as the "greatest game ever played". The game, nationally televised by NBC, has been credited for sparking the rise in popularity of professional football during the 1960s.
1959 MVP season
In 1959, Unitas was named the NFL's MVP by the Associated Press (AP) for the first time, as well as United Press International's player of the year, after leading the NFL in passing yards (2,899), touchdown passes (32), and completions (193). He then led the Colts to a repeat championship, beating the Giants again 31–16 in the title game.
Beginning of the 1960s
As the 1960s began, the Colts' fortunes (and win totals) declined. Injuries to key players such as Alan Ameche, Raymond Berry, and Lenny Moore were a contributing factor. Unitas's streak of 47 straight games with at least one touchdown pass ended against the Los Angeles Rams in week 11 of the 1960 season. In spite of this, he topped the 3,000-yard passing mark for the first time and led the league in touchdown passes for the fourth consecutive season.
After three middle-of-the-pack seasons, Colts owner Carroll Rosenbloom fired Weeb Ewbank and replaced him with Don Shula, who at the time was the youngest head coach in NFL history (33 years of age when he was hired). The Colts finished 8–6 in Shula's first season at the helm, good enough for only third place in the NFL's Western Conference, but they did end the season on a strong note by winning their final three games. The season was very successful for Unitas personally, as he led the NFL in passing yards with a career-best total of 3,481 and also led in completions with 237.
1964 MVP season
In the 1964 season the Colts returned to the top of the Western Conference. After dropping their season opener to the Minnesota Vikings, the Colts ran off 10 straight victories to finish with a 12–2 record. The season was one of Unitas's best as he finished with 2,824 yards passing, a league-best 9.26 yards per pass attempt, 19 touchdown passes and only 6 interceptions. He was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player by the AP and UPI for a second time. However, the season ended on a disappointing note for the Colts as they were upset by the Cleveland Browns in the 1964 NFL Championship Game, losing 27–0.
Unitas resumed his torrid passing in 1965, throwing for 2,530 yards, 23 touchdowns and finishing with a league-high and career-best 97.1 passer rating. But he was lost for the balance of the season due to a knee injury in a week 12 loss to the Bears. Backup quarterback Gary Cuozzo also suffered a season-ending injury the following week, and running back Tom Matte filled in as the emergency quarterback for the regular season finale and in a playoff loss to the Packers. The Colts and Packers finished in a tie for first place in the Western Conference and a one-game playoff was played in Green Bay to decide who would be the conference representative in the 1965 NFL Championship Game. The Colts lost in overtime 13–10 due in large part to a game-tying field goal by Don Chandler that many say was incorrectly ruled good.
Unitas, healthy once more, threw for 2,748 yards and 22 touchdowns in 1966 in a return to Pro Bowl form. However, he posted a league-high 24 interceptions.
1967 MVP season
After once again finishing second in the Western Conference in 1966, the Colts rebounded to finish 11–1–2 in 1967 tying the Los Angeles Rams for the NFL's best record. In winning his third MVP award from the AP and UPI in 1967 (and his second from the NEA), Unitas had a league-high 58.5 completion percentage and passed for 3,428 yards and 20 touchdowns. He openly complained about having tennis elbow and he threw eight interceptions and only three touchdown passes in the final five games. Once again, the season ended in loss for the Colts, as they were shut out of the newly instituted four-team NFL playoff after losing the divisional tiebreaker to the Rams, a 34–10 rout in the regular season finale.
Super Bowls and final Colt years
In the final game of the 1968 preseason, the muscles in Unitas's arm were torn when he was hit by a member of the Dallas Cowboys defense. Unitas wrote in his autobiography that he felt his arm was initially injured by the use of the "night ball" that the NFL was testing for better TV visibility during night games. In a post-game interview the previous year, he noted having constant pain in his elbow for several years prior. He would spend most of the season sitting on the bench. The Colts still marched to a league-best 13–1 record behind backup quarterback and ultimate 1968 NFL MVP Earl Morrall. Although he was injured through most of the season, Unitas came off the bench to play in Super Bowl III, the famous game where Joe Namath guaranteed a New York Jets win despite conventional wisdom. Unitas's insertion was a desperation move in an attempt to retrieve dominance of the NFL over the upstart AFL. Although the Colts won an NFL Championship in 1968, they lost the Super Bowl to the AFL Champion New York Jets, thus becoming the first-ever NFL champions that were not also deemed world champions. Unitas helped put together the Colts' only score, a touchdown late in the game. Unitas also drove the Colts into scoring position following the touchdown and successful onside kick, but head coach Don Shula eschewed a field goal attempt, which (if successful) would have cut the Jets' lead to 16–10. Despite not playing until late in the third quarter, he still finished the game with more passing yards than the team's starter, Earl Morrall.
After an off-season of rehabilitation on his elbow, Unitas rebounded in 1969, passing for 2,342 yards and 12 touchdowns with 20 interceptions. But the Colts finished with a disappointing 8–5–1 record, and missed the playoffs.
In 1970, the NFL and AFL had merged into one league, and the Colts moved to the new American Football Conference, along with the Cleveland Browns and the Pittsburgh Steelers. He threw for 2,213 yards and 14 touchdowns while leading the Colts to an 11–2–1 season. In their first rematch with the Jets, Unitas and Namath threw a combined nine interceptions in a 29–22 Colts win. Namath threw 62 passes and broke his hand on the final play of the game, ending his season.
Unitas threw for 390 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions in AFC playoff victories over the Cincinnati Bengals and the Oakland Raiders. In Super Bowl V against the Dallas Cowboys, he was knocked out of the game with a rib injury in the second quarter, soon after throwing a 75-yard touchdown pass (setting a then-Super Bowl record) to John Mackey. However, he had also tossed two interceptions before his departure from the game. Earl Morrall came in to lead the team to a last-second, 16–13 victory.
In 1971, Unitas split playing time with Morrall, throwing only three touchdown passes. He started both playoff games, a win over the Cleveland Browns that sent the Colts to the AFC Championship game against the Miami Dolphins, which they lost by a score of 21–0. Unitas threw three interceptions in the game, one of which was returned for a touchdown by safety Dick Anderson.
The 1972 season saw the Colts declining. After losing the season opener, Unitas was involved in the second and final regular season head-to-head meeting with "Broadway" Joe Namath. The first was in 1970 (won by the Colts, 29–22). The last meeting took place on September 24, 1972 at Memorial Stadium. He threw for 376 yards and three touchdowns, but Namath upstaged him again, bombing the Colts for 496 yards and six touchdowns in a 44–34 Jets victory – their first over Baltimore since the 1970 merger. After losing four of their first five games, the Colts fired head coach Don McCafferty, and benched Unitas.
One of the more memorable moments in football history came on Unitas's last game in a Colts uniform at Memorial Stadium, in a game against the Buffalo Bills. He was not the starter for this game, but the Colts were blowing the Bills out by a score of 28–0 behind Marty Domres; Unitas entered the game due to the fans chanting, "We want Unitas!!!", and a plan devised by head coach John Sandusky to convince Unitas that the starting quarterback was injured. Unitas came onto the field, and threw two passes, one of which was a long touchdown to wide receiver Eddie Hinton which would be his last pass as a Colt. The Colts won the game by the score of 35–7.
San Diego, retirement, and records
Unitas was traded from the Colts to the San Diego Chargers on January 20, 1973, in a transaction that originally had future considerations returning to Baltimore. The deal's only obstacle was the personal services contract he had signed with the Colts in 1970 which would've kept him employed within the organization on an annual salary of $30,000 over ten years once his career as an active player ended. The pact had been signed when the ballclub was owned by Carroll Rosenbloom who subsequently acquired the Los Angeles Rams on July 13, 1972, in a franchise swap with Robert Irsay. The deal was completed when the Chargers purchased that contract. Eager to sever all ties with the Colts, Unitas signed a new two-year contract with the Chargers on June 8, 1973. He succeeded John Hadl who had requested and was granted a trade to the Rams.
Unitas started the season with a 38–0 loss to the Washington Redskins. He threw for just 55 yards and 3 interceptions, and was sacked 8 times. His final victory as a starter came against the Buffalo Bills in week two. Unitas was 10–18 for 175 yards, two touchdown passes, and no interceptions in a 34–7 Chargers rout. Many were questioning his role as a starter after a loss to the Bengals in week three. Two weeks later, he threw two first-half interceptions, passed for only 19 yards, and went 2-for-9 against the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was then replaced by rookie quarterback, future Hall of Famer Dan Fouts. After having posted a 1–3 record as a starter, Unitas retired in the preseason of 1974.
Unitas finished his 18 NFL seasons with 2,830 completions in 5,186 attempts for 40,239 yards and 290 touchdowns, with 253 interceptions. He also rushed for 1,777 yards and 13 touchdowns. Plagued by arm trouble in his later seasons, he threw more interceptions (64) than touchdowns (38) in 1968–1973. After averaging 215.8 yards per game in his first 12 seasons, his production fell to 124.4 in his final six. His passer rating plummeted from 82.9 to 60.4 for the same periods. Even so, Unitas set many passing records during his career. He was the first quarterback to throw for more than 40,000 yards, despite playing during an era when NFL teams played shorter seasons of 12 or 14 games (as opposed to today's 17-game seasons) and prior to modern passing-friendly rules implemented in 1978. His 32 touchdown passes in 1959 were a record at the time, making Unitas the first quarterback to hit the 30 touchdown mark in a season. His 47-game consecutive touchdown streak between 1956 and 1960 was a record considered by many to be unbreakable. The streak stood for 52 years before being broken by New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees in a game against the San Diego Chargers on October 7, 2012.
Post-playing days
After his playing days were finished, Unitas settled in Baltimore where he raised his family while also pursuing a career in broadcasting, doing color commentary for NFL games on CBS in the 1970s. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979. After Robert Irsay moved the Colts franchise to Indianapolis in 1984, a move known to this day in Baltimore as "Bob Irsay's Midnight Ride," he was so outraged that he cut all ties to the relocated team (though his No. 19 jersey is still retired by the Colts), declaring himself strictly a Baltimore Colt for the remainder of his life. Some other prominent old-time Colts followed his lead, although many attended the 1975 team's reunion at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis in 2009. A total of 39 Colts players from that 1975 team attended said reunion in Indianapolis, including Bert Jones and Lydell Mitchell. Unitas asked the Pro Football Hall of Fame on numerous occasions (including on Roy Firestone's Up Close) to remove his display unless it was listed as belonging to the Baltimore Colts. The Hall of Fame has never complied with the request. Unitas donated his Colts memorabilia to the Babe Ruth Museum in Baltimore; they are now on display in the Sports Legends Museum at Camden Yards.
Unitas was inducted into the American Football Association's Semi Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1987.
Unitas actively lobbied for another NFL team to come to Baltimore. After the Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore in 1996 and changed their name to the Ravens, he and some of the other old-time Colts attended the Ravens' first game ever against the Raiders on Opening Day at Memorial Stadium. He was frequently seen on the Ravens' sidelines at home games (most prominently in 1998 when the now-Indianapolis Colts played the Ravens in Baltimore) and received a thunderous ovation every time he was pictured on each of the huge widescreens at M&T Bank Stadium. He was often seen on the 30-yard line on the Ravens side. When the NFL celebrated its first 50 years, Unitas was voted the league's best player. Retired Bears quarterback Sid Luckman said of Unitas, "He was better than me, better than Sammy Baugh, better than anyone."
Unitas lived most of the final years of his life severely hobbled. Due to an elbow injury suffered during his playing career, he had only very limited use of his right hand, and could not perform any physical activity more strenuous than golf due to his artificial knees.
NFL career statistics
Source:
In 1957, Unitas was named MVP by the Newspaper Enterprise Association.
Personal life
At the age of 21 on November 20, 1954, Unitas married his high school sweetheart Dorothy Hoelle; they lived in Towson and had five children before divorcing. Unitas's second wife was Sandra Lemon, whom he married on June 26, 1972; they had three children, lived in Baldwin, and remained married until his death.
Towson University, where Unitas was a major fund-raiser and which his children attended, named its football and lacrosse complex Johnny Unitas Stadium in recognition of both his football career and service to the university.
Toward the end of his life, Unitas brought media attention to the many permanent physical disabilities that he and his fellow players suffered during their careers before heavy padding and other safety features became popular. Unitas himself lost almost total use of his right hand, with the middle finger and thumb noticeably disfigured from being repeatedly broken during games.
On September 11, 2002, Unitas died from a heart attack while working out at the Kernan Physical Therapy Center (now The University of Maryland Rehabilitation & Orthopaedic Institute) in Baltimore. His funeral was held at Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore, Maryland. Between his death and October 4, 2002, 56,934 people signed an online petition urging the Baltimore Ravens to rename the Ravens' home stadium (owned by the State of Maryland) after Unitas. These requests were unsuccessful since the lucrative naming rights had already been leased by the Ravens to Buffalo-based M&T Bank. However, on October 20, 2002, the Ravens dedicated the front area of the stadium's main entrance as Unitas Plaza and unveiled a statue of Unitas as the centerpiece of the plaza.
Unitas is buried at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens in Timonium, Maryland.
Legacy
Unitas held the record for most Pro Bowl appearances (10) by a quarterback until Brett Favre broke his record in 2009.
Unitas set the original standard for most wins as a starting quarterback with 118 regular season victories (since surpassed by multiple quarterbacks).
Unitas was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979.
Unitas is 11th in all-time number of regular season games won by an NFL starting quarterback with 118 wins.
Unitas is 16th in all-time percentage of regular season games won by an NFL starting quarterback with a percentage of 64.5.
1987 American Football Association Semi Pro Hall of Fame
Unitas's no. 16 is the first number retired by the football program at the University of Louisville.
Unitas Tower, a dormitory at the University of Louisville, is named for Johnny Unitas.
A statue of Unitas sits in the north end zone of Cardinal Stadium at the University of Louisville. It is a tradition for each Cardinal player to touch the statue as he enters the field.
Since 1987, the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award has been awarded to the top senior quarterback of the current year in college football. The award is presented annually in Louisville.
In 1999, he was ranked No. 5 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players, behind only Joe Montana among quarterbacks.
In 2004, The Sporting News ranked Unitas No. 1 among the NFL's 50 Greatest Quarterbacks, with Joe Montana at No. 2.
In 1999, ESPN's Sportscentury: 50 Greatest Athletes of the 20th Century ranked Unitas No. 32.
Just before his death, Johnny Unitas became the community liaison for athletics in Towson, Maryland. The football stadium at Towson University was renamed Johnny Unitas Stadium in 2002. Unitas died less than a week after throwing his last pass in the grand opening of the stadium.
Set the record for consecutive games with at least one touchdown pass at 47 games. This record was surpassed by Drew Brees in 2012.
Set the record for consecutive games with at least two touchdown passes at 12 games. This record was surpassed by Don Meredith, Peyton Manning (twice), Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Philip Rivers, and Patrick Mahomes.
Set the record for most consecutive games with at least a 120 passer rating (4); this record was later matched by Kurt Warner
For the game following his death, Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning asked to wear a pair of black cleats as a tribute to Johnny's signature black boots. The league denied his request and threatened Manning with a US$25,000 fine; Manning decided not to wear them. Despite the threatened fine, Chris Redman, a Louisville alum like Unitas, and then quarterback of the Baltimore Ravens, decided to pay homage by wearing the signature cleats during a game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
In 2013, a movie project was announced by The Baltimore Sun called Unitas We Stand, which will feature Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco as Unitas during the 1958 NFL Championship.
19th Street in Ocean City, Maryland is named "Johnny Unitas Way" in his honor.
Johnny Unitas Stadium on the campus of Towson University in Towson, Maryland, home of the Towson Tigers football and Towson Tigers men's lacrosse teams is named in his honor.
Unitas was posthumously inducted into the National Lithuanian American Hall of Fame on August 24, 2013.
See also
List of most consecutive starts by a National Football League quarterback
Most wins by a starting quarterback (NFL)
Notes
References
Sources
Bolus, Jim, and Billy Reed. Cardinal Football. Champaign, IL: Sports Pub Inc., 1999.
Callahan, Tom. Johnny U: the life and times of John Unitas. New York: Crown Publishers, 2006.
Lazenby, Roland. Johnny Unitas: the best there ever was. Chicago: Triumph Books, 2002.
Schaap, Dick (1999). "Johnny Unitas: Sunday's Best". In ESPN SportsCentury. Michael MacCambridge, Editor. New York: ESPN-Hyperion Books. pp. 154–65.
Cavanaugh, Jack (2008), Giants Among Men. New York:Random House.
MacCambridge, Michael (2005), America's Game. New York:Anchor Books.
External links
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American people of Lithuanian descent
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Western Conference Pro Bowl players | false | [
"The 1991 Indianapolis Colts season was the 39th season for the team in the National Football League and eighth in Indianapolis. The team was looking to improve on the 7–9 record they had recorded in 1990. Instead, the Colts put together a campaign that ranked as one of the worst in NFL history.\n\nThe Colts only recorded one victory in sixteen games, becoming the fourth team since the extension of the NFL's regular season to sixteen games to accomplish this. To date it is their worst full season record in the entire history of the franchise, and the second worst overall record in team history. The 1991 Colts’ futility was beaten only by the 1982 Baltimore Colts squad, where the team failed to record a victory in the strike-shortened season and finished at 0-8-1.\n\nThe Colts’ poor performance cost sixth-year head coach Ron Meyer his job after the Colts’ fifth consecutive loss to open the season. Meyer had been with the Colts since Week 14 in 1986, when he replaced the fired Rod Dowhower after the Colts had lost their first thirteen games of the season. Defensive coordinator Rick Venturi was promoted to interim head coach; he would lead the team to its only win, a one-point defeat of the Jets on the road. The 1991 Colts are one of three 1-15 teams to win their lone game by one point; the others are the 1980 Saints and 2000 Chargers.\n\nThe Colts scored the fewest points up to that point (143) of any team in NFL history in a sixteen-game schedule, scoring in the single digits in 11 games. The Colts never scored more than 28 points in any game (doing so in their lone victory), scored less than ten points eleven times, were shut out twice, and failed to score one single touchdown in nine of their sixteen games, which remains the largest proportion of games without scoring a touchdown since the 1977 “Zero Gang” Buccaneers did not score a touchdown in eight of fourteen games. Statistics site Football Outsiders said of the Colts 1991 season:\n\nTheir futility was mentioned in a Thanksgiving edition of Bill Swerski's Superfans, a recurring Saturday Night Live sketch. The four characters, all Chicago Bears fans, commented on how some cities aren't as fortunate as Chicago to have a good football team, citing Indianapolis as an example. Coincidentally, six days before the skit aired, the Bears defeated the Colts 31–17 at Indianapolis.\n\nOffseason\n\nNFL Draft\n\nPersonnel\n\nStaff\n\nRoster\n\nRegular season \nThe Colts were victorious only once in the regular season, finishing last in the AFC East, and their fifteen losses tied an NFL record that was initially set by the 1980 New Orleans Saints and tied by the 1989 Dallas Cowboys and 1990 New England Patriots in the previous two NFL seasons. The 1991 Colts had a much weaker schedule to play than either the 1990 Patriots or 1989 Cowboys, playing eleven games against teams with non-winning records, as against only five for the 1990 Patriots and four for the 1989 Cowboys. The Colts lost nine consecutive games to start the season before rallying to defeat the playoff-bound New York Jets by a single point in Week 11. The win against their division rivals came at Giants Stadium; the Colts went 0–8 in the Hoosier Dome. (Incidentally, the Jets would become the next team to finish 1–15, doing so five years later.)\n\nSince the Colts finished with the worst record in the NFL, they won the right to draft Steve Emtman, a defensive lineman from Washington whose career was derailed by injuries. It would take them until 1995 to reach the playoffs again, and the Colts did not become consistently successful until Peyton Manning joined the team near the end of the 1990s.\n\nSchedule \n\nNote: Intra-division opponents are in bold text.\n\nGame summaries\n\nWeek 11: at New York Jets\n\nWeek 16\n\nJim Kelly and Frank Reich managed just thirteen completions, but four of them were touchdowns as the Bills romped 35–7. Jeff George was benched after completing just 83 yards and Mark Herrmann was even worse, throwing three interceptions. The win secured the #1 playoff seed for the Bills.\n\nStandings\n\nSee also \n History of the Indianapolis Colts\n List of Indianapolis Colts seasons\n Colts–Patriots rivalry\n\nNotes\n\nReferences \n\nIndianapolis Colts\nIndianapolis Colts seasons\nColts",
"The 1986 Indianapolis Colts season was the 34th season for the team in the National Football League (NFL) and third in Indianapolis. The team finished the year with a record of 3 wins and 13 losses, and fifth in the AFC East division.\n\nThe 1986 Colts were the last team until the 2007 Miami Dolphins to lose their first thirteen games in a season. Head Coach Rod Dowhower was fired with three games left in the season and was replaced by Ron Meyer. It appeared that the Colts could be on their way to the NFL's first anti-perfect season since the 1976 Buccaneers, and indeed there were many critics who argued that Colts wanted to go 0–16 to gain hot college quarterback prospect Vinny Testaverde, despite some fears Testaverde – like John Elway – would refuse to play for the team.\n\nHowever, at 0–13, the Colts defeated the Atlanta Falcons 28–23 in Week 14, by returning a blocked punt for a touchdown. They then won their last two games, to finish with three wins on the season. The Colts are the only team in NFL history to win the remainder of their games after starting winless.\n\nPersonnel\n\nStaff\n\nRoster\n\nSchedule \n\nNote: Intra-division opponents are in bold text.\n\nStandings\n\nReferences\n\nSee also \n History of the Indianapolis Colts\n List of Indianapolis Colts seasons\n Colts–Patriots rivalry\n\nIndianapolis Colts\nIndianapolis Colts seasons\nBaltimore"
] |
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"1964 MVP season",
"what team did unitas play for",
"The Colts",
"how many games did the colts win",
"the Colts ran off 10 straight victories to finish with a 12-2 record."
] | C_2ba58216460d43aa986fc0e897537239_0 | who did they play in the playoffs | 3 | who did the Colts play in the playoffs? | Johnny Unitas | The 1964 season would see the Colts return to the top of the Western Conference. After dropping their season opener to the Minnesota Vikings, the Colts ran off 10 straight victories to finish with a 12-2 record. The season was one of Unitas' best as he finished with 2,824 yards passing, a league-best 9.26 yards per pass attempt, 19 touchdown passes and only 6 interceptions. He was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player by the AP and UPI for a second time. However, the season would end on a disappointing note for the Colts as they were upset by the Cleveland Browns in the 1964 NFL Championship Game, losing 27-0. Unitas resumed his torrid passing in 1965, as he threw for 2,530 yards, 23 touchdowns and finished with a league-high and career best 97.1 passer rating. But he was lost for the balance of the season due to a knee injury in a week 12 loss to the Bears. More postseason heartbreak would follow in 1965. The Colts and Packers finished in a tie for first place in the Western Conference and a one-game playoff was played in Green Bay to decide who would be the conference representative in the 1965 NFL Championship Game. The Colts lost in overtime 13-10 due in large part to a game-tying field goal by Don Chandler that many say was incorrectly ruled good. Backup quarterback Gary Cuozzo also suffered a season-ending injury the following week and it would be running back Tom Matte who filled in as the emergency QB for the regular-season finale and the playoff loss to the Packers. Unitas, healthy once more, threw for 2748 yards and 22 touchdowns in 1966 in a return to Pro Bowl form. However, he posted a league-high 24 interceptions. CANNOTANSWER | Cleveland Browns | John Constantine Unitas (; May 7, 1933 – September 11, 2002) was an American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 18 seasons, primarily with the Baltimore Colts. Following a career that spanned from 1956 to 1973, he has been consistently listed as one of the greatest NFL players of all time.
Unitas set many NFL records and was named Most Valuable Player three times in 1959, 1964, and 1967, in addition to receiving 10 Pro Bowl and five first-team All-Pro honors. He helped lead the Colts to four championship titles; three pre-merger era in 1958, 1959, 1968, and one Super Bowl era in Super Bowl V. His first championship victory is regarded as one of the league's greatest games and credited with helping popularize the NFL. Between 1956 and 1960, he set the record for most consecutive games with a touchdown pass at 47, which held for 52 years.
Nicknamed "Johnny U" and the "Golden Arm", Unitas was considered the prototype of the modern era marquee quarterback. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979.
Early life
John Constantine Unitas was born in Pittsburgh in 1933 to Francis J. Unitas and Helen Superfisky, both of Lithuanian descent; he grew up in the Mount Washington neighborhood in a Roman Catholic upbringing. When Unitas was five years old, his father died of cardiovascular renal disease complicated by pneumonia, leaving the young boy to be raised by his mother, who worked two jobs to support the family. His surname was a result of a phonetic transliteration of a common Lithuanian last name Jonaitis. Attending St. Justin's High School in Pittsburgh, Unitas played halfback and quarterback.
College career
In his younger years, Unitas dreamed about being part of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team, but when he tried out for the team, coach Frank Leahy said that he was just too skinny and he would "get murdered" if he was put on the field.
Instead, he attended the University of Louisville. In his four-year career as a Louisville Cardinal, Unitas completed 245 passes for 3,139 yards and 27 touchdowns. Reportedly, the Unitas weighed on his first day of practice. His first start was in the fifth game of the 1951 season against St. Bonaventure, where he threw 11 consecutive passes and three touchdowns to give the Cardinals a 21–19 lead. Louisville ended up losing the game 22–21 on a disputed field goal, but found a new starting quarterback. Unitas completed 12 of 19 passes for 240 yards and four touchdowns in a 35–28 victory over Houston. The team finished the season 5–5 overall and 4–1 with Unitas starting. He completed 46 of 99 passes for 602 yards and nine touchdowns (44).
By the 1952 season, the university decided to de-emphasize sports. The new president at Louisville, Dr. Philip Grant Davidson, reduced the amount of athletic aid, and tightened academic standards for athletes. As a result, 15 returning players could not meet the new standards and lost their scholarships. Unitas maintained his by taking on a new elective: square dancing. In 1952, coach Frank Camp switched the team to two-way football. Unitas not only played safety or linebacker on defense and quarterback on offense, but also returned kicks and punts on special teams. The Cardinals won their first game against Wayne State, and then Florida State in the second game. Unitas completed 16 of 21 passes for 198 yards and three touchdowns. It was said that Unitas put on such a show at the Florida State game that he threw a pass under his legs for 15 yards. The rest of the season was a struggle for the Cardinals, who finished 3–5. Unitas completed 106 of 198 passes for 1,540 yards and 12 touchdowns.
The team won their first game in 1953, against Murray State, and lost the rest for a record of 1–7. One of the most memorable games of the season came in a 59–6 loss against Tennessee. Unitas completed 9 out of 19 passes for 73 yards, rushed 9 times for 52 yards, returned six kickoffs for 85 yards, one punt for three yards, and had 86 percent of the team's tackles. The only touchdown the team scored was in the fourth quarter when Unitas made a fake pitch to the running back and ran the ball 23 yards for a touchdown. Unitas was hurt later in the fourth quarter while trying to run the ball. On his way off the field, he received a standing ovation. When he got to the locker room he was so tired that his jersey and shoulder pads had to be cut off because he could not lift his arms. Louisville ended the season with a 20–13 loss to Eastern Kentucky. Unitas completed 49 of 95 passes for 470 yards and three touchdowns.
Unitas was elected captain for the 1954 season, but due to an early injury did not see much playing time. His first start was the third game of the season, against Florida State. Of the 34-man team, 21 were freshmen. The 1954 Cardinals went 3–6, with their last win at home against Morehead State. Unitas was slowed by so many injuries his senior year his 527 passing yards ended second to Jim Houser's 560.
Professional career
Pittsburgh Steelers
After his collegiate career, the Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL drafted Unitas in the ninth round. However, he was released before the season began as the odd man out among four quarterbacks trying to fill three spots. Steelers' head coach Walt Kiesling had made up his mind about Unitas; he thought he was not smart enough to quarterback an NFL team, and he was not given any snaps in practice with the Steelers. Among those edging out Unitas was Ted Marchibroda, future longtime NFL head coach. Out of pro football, Unitas—by this time married—worked in construction in Pittsburgh to support his family. On the weekends, he played quarterback, safety and punter on a local semi-professional team called the Bloomfield Rams for $6 a game.
Baltimore Colts
In 1956, Unitas joined the Baltimore Colts of the NFL under legendary coach Weeb Ewbank, after being asked at the last minute to join Bloomfield Rams lineman Jim Deglau, a Croatian steelworker with a life much like Unitas, at the latter's scheduled Colts tryout. The pair borrowed money from friends to pay for the gas to make the trip. Deglau later told a reporter after Unitas's death, "[His] uncle told him not to come. [He] was worried that if he came down and the Colts passed on him, it would look bad (to other NFL teams)." The Colts signed Unitas, much to the chagrin of the Cleveland Browns, who had hoped to claim the former Steeler quarterback.
Unitas made his NFL debut with an inauspicious "mop-up" appearance against Detroit, going 0–2 with one interception. Two weeks later, starting quarterback George Shaw suffered a broken leg against the Chicago Bears. In his first serious action, Unitas's initial pass was intercepted and returned for a touchdown. Then he botched a hand-off on his next play, a fumble recovered by the Bears. Unitas rebounded quickly from that 58–27 loss, leading the Colts to an upset of Green Bay and their first win over Cleveland. He threw nine touchdown passes that year, including one in the season finale that started his record 47-game streak. His 55.6-percent completion mark was a rookie record.
In 1957, his first season as the Colts full-time starter at quarterback, Unitas finished first in the NFL in passing yards (2,550) and touchdown passes (24) as he helped lead the Colts to a 7–5 record, the first winning record in franchise history. At season's end, Unitas received the Jim Thorpe Trophy as the NFL's Most Valuable Player by the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA).
1958: "The Greatest Game Ever Played"
Unitas continued his prowess in 1958 passing for 2,007 yards and 19 touchdowns as the Colts won the Western Conference title. The Colts won the NFL championship under his leadership on December 28, 1958, by defeating the New York Giants 23–17 in sudden death overtime on a touchdown by fullback Alan Ameche. It was the first overtime game in NFL history, and is often referred to as the "greatest game ever played". The game, nationally televised by NBC, has been credited for sparking the rise in popularity of professional football during the 1960s.
1959 MVP season
In 1959, Unitas was named the NFL's MVP by the Associated Press (AP) for the first time, as well as United Press International's player of the year, after leading the NFL in passing yards (2,899), touchdown passes (32), and completions (193). He then led the Colts to a repeat championship, beating the Giants again 31–16 in the title game.
Beginning of the 1960s
As the 1960s began, the Colts' fortunes (and win totals) declined. Injuries to key players such as Alan Ameche, Raymond Berry, and Lenny Moore were a contributing factor. Unitas's streak of 47 straight games with at least one touchdown pass ended against the Los Angeles Rams in week 11 of the 1960 season. In spite of this, he topped the 3,000-yard passing mark for the first time and led the league in touchdown passes for the fourth consecutive season.
After three middle-of-the-pack seasons, Colts owner Carroll Rosenbloom fired Weeb Ewbank and replaced him with Don Shula, who at the time was the youngest head coach in NFL history (33 years of age when he was hired). The Colts finished 8–6 in Shula's first season at the helm, good enough for only third place in the NFL's Western Conference, but they did end the season on a strong note by winning their final three games. The season was very successful for Unitas personally, as he led the NFL in passing yards with a career-best total of 3,481 and also led in completions with 237.
1964 MVP season
In the 1964 season the Colts returned to the top of the Western Conference. After dropping their season opener to the Minnesota Vikings, the Colts ran off 10 straight victories to finish with a 12–2 record. The season was one of Unitas's best as he finished with 2,824 yards passing, a league-best 9.26 yards per pass attempt, 19 touchdown passes and only 6 interceptions. He was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player by the AP and UPI for a second time. However, the season ended on a disappointing note for the Colts as they were upset by the Cleveland Browns in the 1964 NFL Championship Game, losing 27–0.
Unitas resumed his torrid passing in 1965, throwing for 2,530 yards, 23 touchdowns and finishing with a league-high and career-best 97.1 passer rating. But he was lost for the balance of the season due to a knee injury in a week 12 loss to the Bears. Backup quarterback Gary Cuozzo also suffered a season-ending injury the following week, and running back Tom Matte filled in as the emergency quarterback for the regular season finale and in a playoff loss to the Packers. The Colts and Packers finished in a tie for first place in the Western Conference and a one-game playoff was played in Green Bay to decide who would be the conference representative in the 1965 NFL Championship Game. The Colts lost in overtime 13–10 due in large part to a game-tying field goal by Don Chandler that many say was incorrectly ruled good.
Unitas, healthy once more, threw for 2,748 yards and 22 touchdowns in 1966 in a return to Pro Bowl form. However, he posted a league-high 24 interceptions.
1967 MVP season
After once again finishing second in the Western Conference in 1966, the Colts rebounded to finish 11–1–2 in 1967 tying the Los Angeles Rams for the NFL's best record. In winning his third MVP award from the AP and UPI in 1967 (and his second from the NEA), Unitas had a league-high 58.5 completion percentage and passed for 3,428 yards and 20 touchdowns. He openly complained about having tennis elbow and he threw eight interceptions and only three touchdown passes in the final five games. Once again, the season ended in loss for the Colts, as they were shut out of the newly instituted four-team NFL playoff after losing the divisional tiebreaker to the Rams, a 34–10 rout in the regular season finale.
Super Bowls and final Colt years
In the final game of the 1968 preseason, the muscles in Unitas's arm were torn when he was hit by a member of the Dallas Cowboys defense. Unitas wrote in his autobiography that he felt his arm was initially injured by the use of the "night ball" that the NFL was testing for better TV visibility during night games. In a post-game interview the previous year, he noted having constant pain in his elbow for several years prior. He would spend most of the season sitting on the bench. The Colts still marched to a league-best 13–1 record behind backup quarterback and ultimate 1968 NFL MVP Earl Morrall. Although he was injured through most of the season, Unitas came off the bench to play in Super Bowl III, the famous game where Joe Namath guaranteed a New York Jets win despite conventional wisdom. Unitas's insertion was a desperation move in an attempt to retrieve dominance of the NFL over the upstart AFL. Although the Colts won an NFL Championship in 1968, they lost the Super Bowl to the AFL Champion New York Jets, thus becoming the first-ever NFL champions that were not also deemed world champions. Unitas helped put together the Colts' only score, a touchdown late in the game. Unitas also drove the Colts into scoring position following the touchdown and successful onside kick, but head coach Don Shula eschewed a field goal attempt, which (if successful) would have cut the Jets' lead to 16–10. Despite not playing until late in the third quarter, he still finished the game with more passing yards than the team's starter, Earl Morrall.
After an off-season of rehabilitation on his elbow, Unitas rebounded in 1969, passing for 2,342 yards and 12 touchdowns with 20 interceptions. But the Colts finished with a disappointing 8–5–1 record, and missed the playoffs.
In 1970, the NFL and AFL had merged into one league, and the Colts moved to the new American Football Conference, along with the Cleveland Browns and the Pittsburgh Steelers. He threw for 2,213 yards and 14 touchdowns while leading the Colts to an 11–2–1 season. In their first rematch with the Jets, Unitas and Namath threw a combined nine interceptions in a 29–22 Colts win. Namath threw 62 passes and broke his hand on the final play of the game, ending his season.
Unitas threw for 390 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions in AFC playoff victories over the Cincinnati Bengals and the Oakland Raiders. In Super Bowl V against the Dallas Cowboys, he was knocked out of the game with a rib injury in the second quarter, soon after throwing a 75-yard touchdown pass (setting a then-Super Bowl record) to John Mackey. However, he had also tossed two interceptions before his departure from the game. Earl Morrall came in to lead the team to a last-second, 16–13 victory.
In 1971, Unitas split playing time with Morrall, throwing only three touchdown passes. He started both playoff games, a win over the Cleveland Browns that sent the Colts to the AFC Championship game against the Miami Dolphins, which they lost by a score of 21–0. Unitas threw three interceptions in the game, one of which was returned for a touchdown by safety Dick Anderson.
The 1972 season saw the Colts declining. After losing the season opener, Unitas was involved in the second and final regular season head-to-head meeting with "Broadway" Joe Namath. The first was in 1970 (won by the Colts, 29–22). The last meeting took place on September 24, 1972 at Memorial Stadium. He threw for 376 yards and three touchdowns, but Namath upstaged him again, bombing the Colts for 496 yards and six touchdowns in a 44–34 Jets victory – their first over Baltimore since the 1970 merger. After losing four of their first five games, the Colts fired head coach Don McCafferty, and benched Unitas.
One of the more memorable moments in football history came on Unitas's last game in a Colts uniform at Memorial Stadium, in a game against the Buffalo Bills. He was not the starter for this game, but the Colts were blowing the Bills out by a score of 28–0 behind Marty Domres; Unitas entered the game due to the fans chanting, "We want Unitas!!!", and a plan devised by head coach John Sandusky to convince Unitas that the starting quarterback was injured. Unitas came onto the field, and threw two passes, one of which was a long touchdown to wide receiver Eddie Hinton which would be his last pass as a Colt. The Colts won the game by the score of 35–7.
San Diego, retirement, and records
Unitas was traded from the Colts to the San Diego Chargers on January 20, 1973, in a transaction that originally had future considerations returning to Baltimore. The deal's only obstacle was the personal services contract he had signed with the Colts in 1970 which would've kept him employed within the organization on an annual salary of $30,000 over ten years once his career as an active player ended. The pact had been signed when the ballclub was owned by Carroll Rosenbloom who subsequently acquired the Los Angeles Rams on July 13, 1972, in a franchise swap with Robert Irsay. The deal was completed when the Chargers purchased that contract. Eager to sever all ties with the Colts, Unitas signed a new two-year contract with the Chargers on June 8, 1973. He succeeded John Hadl who had requested and was granted a trade to the Rams.
Unitas started the season with a 38–0 loss to the Washington Redskins. He threw for just 55 yards and 3 interceptions, and was sacked 8 times. His final victory as a starter came against the Buffalo Bills in week two. Unitas was 10–18 for 175 yards, two touchdown passes, and no interceptions in a 34–7 Chargers rout. Many were questioning his role as a starter after a loss to the Bengals in week three. Two weeks later, he threw two first-half interceptions, passed for only 19 yards, and went 2-for-9 against the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was then replaced by rookie quarterback, future Hall of Famer Dan Fouts. After having posted a 1–3 record as a starter, Unitas retired in the preseason of 1974.
Unitas finished his 18 NFL seasons with 2,830 completions in 5,186 attempts for 40,239 yards and 290 touchdowns, with 253 interceptions. He also rushed for 1,777 yards and 13 touchdowns. Plagued by arm trouble in his later seasons, he threw more interceptions (64) than touchdowns (38) in 1968–1973. After averaging 215.8 yards per game in his first 12 seasons, his production fell to 124.4 in his final six. His passer rating plummeted from 82.9 to 60.4 for the same periods. Even so, Unitas set many passing records during his career. He was the first quarterback to throw for more than 40,000 yards, despite playing during an era when NFL teams played shorter seasons of 12 or 14 games (as opposed to today's 17-game seasons) and prior to modern passing-friendly rules implemented in 1978. His 32 touchdown passes in 1959 were a record at the time, making Unitas the first quarterback to hit the 30 touchdown mark in a season. His 47-game consecutive touchdown streak between 1956 and 1960 was a record considered by many to be unbreakable. The streak stood for 52 years before being broken by New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees in a game against the San Diego Chargers on October 7, 2012.
Post-playing days
After his playing days were finished, Unitas settled in Baltimore where he raised his family while also pursuing a career in broadcasting, doing color commentary for NFL games on CBS in the 1970s. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979. After Robert Irsay moved the Colts franchise to Indianapolis in 1984, a move known to this day in Baltimore as "Bob Irsay's Midnight Ride," he was so outraged that he cut all ties to the relocated team (though his No. 19 jersey is still retired by the Colts), declaring himself strictly a Baltimore Colt for the remainder of his life. Some other prominent old-time Colts followed his lead, although many attended the 1975 team's reunion at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis in 2009. A total of 39 Colts players from that 1975 team attended said reunion in Indianapolis, including Bert Jones and Lydell Mitchell. Unitas asked the Pro Football Hall of Fame on numerous occasions (including on Roy Firestone's Up Close) to remove his display unless it was listed as belonging to the Baltimore Colts. The Hall of Fame has never complied with the request. Unitas donated his Colts memorabilia to the Babe Ruth Museum in Baltimore; they are now on display in the Sports Legends Museum at Camden Yards.
Unitas was inducted into the American Football Association's Semi Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1987.
Unitas actively lobbied for another NFL team to come to Baltimore. After the Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore in 1996 and changed their name to the Ravens, he and some of the other old-time Colts attended the Ravens' first game ever against the Raiders on Opening Day at Memorial Stadium. He was frequently seen on the Ravens' sidelines at home games (most prominently in 1998 when the now-Indianapolis Colts played the Ravens in Baltimore) and received a thunderous ovation every time he was pictured on each of the huge widescreens at M&T Bank Stadium. He was often seen on the 30-yard line on the Ravens side. When the NFL celebrated its first 50 years, Unitas was voted the league's best player. Retired Bears quarterback Sid Luckman said of Unitas, "He was better than me, better than Sammy Baugh, better than anyone."
Unitas lived most of the final years of his life severely hobbled. Due to an elbow injury suffered during his playing career, he had only very limited use of his right hand, and could not perform any physical activity more strenuous than golf due to his artificial knees.
NFL career statistics
Source:
In 1957, Unitas was named MVP by the Newspaper Enterprise Association.
Personal life
At the age of 21 on November 20, 1954, Unitas married his high school sweetheart Dorothy Hoelle; they lived in Towson and had five children before divorcing. Unitas's second wife was Sandra Lemon, whom he married on June 26, 1972; they had three children, lived in Baldwin, and remained married until his death.
Towson University, where Unitas was a major fund-raiser and which his children attended, named its football and lacrosse complex Johnny Unitas Stadium in recognition of both his football career and service to the university.
Toward the end of his life, Unitas brought media attention to the many permanent physical disabilities that he and his fellow players suffered during their careers before heavy padding and other safety features became popular. Unitas himself lost almost total use of his right hand, with the middle finger and thumb noticeably disfigured from being repeatedly broken during games.
On September 11, 2002, Unitas died from a heart attack while working out at the Kernan Physical Therapy Center (now The University of Maryland Rehabilitation & Orthopaedic Institute) in Baltimore. His funeral was held at Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore, Maryland. Between his death and October 4, 2002, 56,934 people signed an online petition urging the Baltimore Ravens to rename the Ravens' home stadium (owned by the State of Maryland) after Unitas. These requests were unsuccessful since the lucrative naming rights had already been leased by the Ravens to Buffalo-based M&T Bank. However, on October 20, 2002, the Ravens dedicated the front area of the stadium's main entrance as Unitas Plaza and unveiled a statue of Unitas as the centerpiece of the plaza.
Unitas is buried at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens in Timonium, Maryland.
Legacy
Unitas held the record for most Pro Bowl appearances (10) by a quarterback until Brett Favre broke his record in 2009.
Unitas set the original standard for most wins as a starting quarterback with 118 regular season victories (since surpassed by multiple quarterbacks).
Unitas was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979.
Unitas is 11th in all-time number of regular season games won by an NFL starting quarterback with 118 wins.
Unitas is 16th in all-time percentage of regular season games won by an NFL starting quarterback with a percentage of 64.5.
1987 American Football Association Semi Pro Hall of Fame
Unitas's no. 16 is the first number retired by the football program at the University of Louisville.
Unitas Tower, a dormitory at the University of Louisville, is named for Johnny Unitas.
A statue of Unitas sits in the north end zone of Cardinal Stadium at the University of Louisville. It is a tradition for each Cardinal player to touch the statue as he enters the field.
Since 1987, the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award has been awarded to the top senior quarterback of the current year in college football. The award is presented annually in Louisville.
In 1999, he was ranked No. 5 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players, behind only Joe Montana among quarterbacks.
In 2004, The Sporting News ranked Unitas No. 1 among the NFL's 50 Greatest Quarterbacks, with Joe Montana at No. 2.
In 1999, ESPN's Sportscentury: 50 Greatest Athletes of the 20th Century ranked Unitas No. 32.
Just before his death, Johnny Unitas became the community liaison for athletics in Towson, Maryland. The football stadium at Towson University was renamed Johnny Unitas Stadium in 2002. Unitas died less than a week after throwing his last pass in the grand opening of the stadium.
Set the record for consecutive games with at least one touchdown pass at 47 games. This record was surpassed by Drew Brees in 2012.
Set the record for consecutive games with at least two touchdown passes at 12 games. This record was surpassed by Don Meredith, Peyton Manning (twice), Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Philip Rivers, and Patrick Mahomes.
Set the record for most consecutive games with at least a 120 passer rating (4); this record was later matched by Kurt Warner
For the game following his death, Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning asked to wear a pair of black cleats as a tribute to Johnny's signature black boots. The league denied his request and threatened Manning with a US$25,000 fine; Manning decided not to wear them. Despite the threatened fine, Chris Redman, a Louisville alum like Unitas, and then quarterback of the Baltimore Ravens, decided to pay homage by wearing the signature cleats during a game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
In 2013, a movie project was announced by The Baltimore Sun called Unitas We Stand, which will feature Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco as Unitas during the 1958 NFL Championship.
19th Street in Ocean City, Maryland is named "Johnny Unitas Way" in his honor.
Johnny Unitas Stadium on the campus of Towson University in Towson, Maryland, home of the Towson Tigers football and Towson Tigers men's lacrosse teams is named in his honor.
Unitas was posthumously inducted into the National Lithuanian American Hall of Fame on August 24, 2013.
See also
List of most consecutive starts by a National Football League quarterback
Most wins by a starting quarterback (NFL)
Notes
References
Sources
Bolus, Jim, and Billy Reed. Cardinal Football. Champaign, IL: Sports Pub Inc., 1999.
Callahan, Tom. Johnny U: the life and times of John Unitas. New York: Crown Publishers, 2006.
Lazenby, Roland. Johnny Unitas: the best there ever was. Chicago: Triumph Books, 2002.
Schaap, Dick (1999). "Johnny Unitas: Sunday's Best". In ESPN SportsCentury. Michael MacCambridge, Editor. New York: ESPN-Hyperion Books. pp. 154–65.
Cavanaugh, Jack (2008), Giants Among Men. New York:Random House.
MacCambridge, Michael (2005), America's Game. New York:Anchor Books.
External links
1933 births
2002 deaths
American football quarterbacks
American people of Lithuanian descent
Baltimore Colts players
Burials at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens
Catholics from Maryland
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Louisville Cardinals football players
National Football League announcers
National Football League Most Valuable Player Award winners
National Football League players with retired numbers
People from Timonium, Maryland
People from Towson, Maryland
Pittsburgh Steelers players
Players of American football from Baltimore
Players of American football from Pittsburgh
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
San Diego Chargers players
Sportspeople from Baltimore County, Maryland
Western Conference Pro Bowl players | true | [
"The 2014 J.League Division 2 season was the 43rd season of the second-tier club football in Japan and the 16th season since the establishment of J2 League. The season commenced on 2 March and ended on 23 November. Post-season promotion and relegation playoffs will be played until 7 December.\n\nClubs\nGamba Osaka and Vissel Kobe have stayed in the second division for just a year, winning a promotion as champions and runners-up respectively. Fourth-placed Tokushima Vortis won the promotion playoffs and become the very first Shikoku club to play in the top flight since the establishment of Japan Soccer League, the first amateur nationwide football league in Japan. Shonan Bellmare and Oita Trinita were relegated from the first division immediately after promotion, and Júbilo Iwata have suffered their debut relegation after 20 years in the first division.\n\nOn the other end of the table, Kamatamare Sanuki have been promoted from 2013 Japan Football League, replacing Gainare Tottori whom they defeated in the J2–JFL playoffs.\n\nOn 29 September the J.League licensing board issued J1 licenses to all J2 clubs except Mito HollyHock, FC Gifu, and Giravanz Kitakyushu. This means these three clubs are not eligible to play in J1 for 2015 season and therefore cannot be promoted directly or via playoffs.\n\nThe participating clubs are listed in the following table:\n\nForeign players\n\nLeague table\n\nResults\n\nPlay-offs\n\nPromotion Playoffs to Division 1\n2014 J.League Road To J1 Play-Offs (2014 J1昇格プレーオフ)\nBecause Giravanz Kitakyushu did not obtain J1 license for 2015 season, they were ineligible to participate in the playoffs. Thus, JEF United Chiba who finished third in the season received a bye into the final.\n\nSemifinal\n\nFinal\n\nMontedio Yamagata was promoted to J1 League.\n\nJ3 Relegation Playoffs\n2014 J2/J3 Play-Offs (2014 J2・J3入れ替え戦)\n\nKamatamare Sanuki remains in J2 League.Nagano Parceiro remains in J3 League.\n\nTop scorers\n\nUpdated to games played on 23 November 2014\nSource: J. League data\n\nAttendances\n\nReferences\n\nJ2 League seasons\n2\nJapan\nJapan",
"The 2017 Weber State Wildcats football team represented Weber State University in the 2017 NCAA Division I FCS football season. The Wildcats were led by fourth-year head coach Jay Hill and played their games at Stewart Stadium as members of the Big Sky Conference. They finished the season 11–3, 7–1 in Big Sky play to finish in a tie for the Big Sky championship with Southern Utah. Due to their head-to-head loss to Southern Utah in the regular season, they did not receive the Big Sky's automatic bid to the FCS Playoffs, but did receive an at-large bid to the FCS Playoffs, their second straight trip to the playoffs. In the first round, they defeated Western Illinois. In the second round, they avenged their regular season loss to Southern Utah. In the quarterfinals, they lost to eventual national runner-up, James Madison.\n\nPrevious season \nThe Wildcats finished the 2016 season 7–5, 6–2 in Big Sky play to finish in third place. They received an at-large bid to the FCS Playoffs, their first trip to the playoffs since 2009, where they lost to Chattanooga in the first round.\n\nSchedule\n\nDespite also being a member of the Big Sky Conference, the game with Sacramento State on September 16 was considered a non-conference game.\n\nGame summaries\n\nMontana Western\n\nat California\n\nat Sacramento State\n\nUC Davis\n\nat Montana State\n\nSouthern Utah\n\nat Cal Poly\n\nMontana\n\nat Eastern Washington\n\nat Portland State\n\nIdaho State\n\nFCS Playoffs\n\nWestern Illinois–First Round\n\nat Southern Utah–Second Round\n\nat James Madison–Quarterfinals\n\nRanking movements\n\nReferences\n\nWeber State\nWeber State Wildcats football seasons\nBig Sky Conference football champion seasons\nWeber State\nWeber State Wildcats football"
] |
[
"Johnny Unitas",
"1964 MVP season",
"what team did unitas play for",
"The Colts",
"how many games did the colts win",
"the Colts ran off 10 straight victories to finish with a 12-2 record.",
"who did they play in the playoffs",
"Cleveland Browns"
] | C_2ba58216460d43aa986fc0e897537239_0 | did they win the super bowl | 4 | did the Colts win the super bowl? | Johnny Unitas | The 1964 season would see the Colts return to the top of the Western Conference. After dropping their season opener to the Minnesota Vikings, the Colts ran off 10 straight victories to finish with a 12-2 record. The season was one of Unitas' best as he finished with 2,824 yards passing, a league-best 9.26 yards per pass attempt, 19 touchdown passes and only 6 interceptions. He was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player by the AP and UPI for a second time. However, the season would end on a disappointing note for the Colts as they were upset by the Cleveland Browns in the 1964 NFL Championship Game, losing 27-0. Unitas resumed his torrid passing in 1965, as he threw for 2,530 yards, 23 touchdowns and finished with a league-high and career best 97.1 passer rating. But he was lost for the balance of the season due to a knee injury in a week 12 loss to the Bears. More postseason heartbreak would follow in 1965. The Colts and Packers finished in a tie for first place in the Western Conference and a one-game playoff was played in Green Bay to decide who would be the conference representative in the 1965 NFL Championship Game. The Colts lost in overtime 13-10 due in large part to a game-tying field goal by Don Chandler that many say was incorrectly ruled good. Backup quarterback Gary Cuozzo also suffered a season-ending injury the following week and it would be running back Tom Matte who filled in as the emergency QB for the regular-season finale and the playoff loss to the Packers. Unitas, healthy once more, threw for 2748 yards and 22 touchdowns in 1966 in a return to Pro Bowl form. However, he posted a league-high 24 interceptions. CANNOTANSWER | losing 27-0. | John Constantine Unitas (; May 7, 1933 – September 11, 2002) was an American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 18 seasons, primarily with the Baltimore Colts. Following a career that spanned from 1956 to 1973, he has been consistently listed as one of the greatest NFL players of all time.
Unitas set many NFL records and was named Most Valuable Player three times in 1959, 1964, and 1967, in addition to receiving 10 Pro Bowl and five first-team All-Pro honors. He helped lead the Colts to four championship titles; three pre-merger era in 1958, 1959, 1968, and one Super Bowl era in Super Bowl V. His first championship victory is regarded as one of the league's greatest games and credited with helping popularize the NFL. Between 1956 and 1960, he set the record for most consecutive games with a touchdown pass at 47, which held for 52 years.
Nicknamed "Johnny U" and the "Golden Arm", Unitas was considered the prototype of the modern era marquee quarterback. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979.
Early life
John Constantine Unitas was born in Pittsburgh in 1933 to Francis J. Unitas and Helen Superfisky, both of Lithuanian descent; he grew up in the Mount Washington neighborhood in a Roman Catholic upbringing. When Unitas was five years old, his father died of cardiovascular renal disease complicated by pneumonia, leaving the young boy to be raised by his mother, who worked two jobs to support the family. His surname was a result of a phonetic transliteration of a common Lithuanian last name Jonaitis. Attending St. Justin's High School in Pittsburgh, Unitas played halfback and quarterback.
College career
In his younger years, Unitas dreamed about being part of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team, but when he tried out for the team, coach Frank Leahy said that he was just too skinny and he would "get murdered" if he was put on the field.
Instead, he attended the University of Louisville. In his four-year career as a Louisville Cardinal, Unitas completed 245 passes for 3,139 yards and 27 touchdowns. Reportedly, the Unitas weighed on his first day of practice. His first start was in the fifth game of the 1951 season against St. Bonaventure, where he threw 11 consecutive passes and three touchdowns to give the Cardinals a 21–19 lead. Louisville ended up losing the game 22–21 on a disputed field goal, but found a new starting quarterback. Unitas completed 12 of 19 passes for 240 yards and four touchdowns in a 35–28 victory over Houston. The team finished the season 5–5 overall and 4–1 with Unitas starting. He completed 46 of 99 passes for 602 yards and nine touchdowns (44).
By the 1952 season, the university decided to de-emphasize sports. The new president at Louisville, Dr. Philip Grant Davidson, reduced the amount of athletic aid, and tightened academic standards for athletes. As a result, 15 returning players could not meet the new standards and lost their scholarships. Unitas maintained his by taking on a new elective: square dancing. In 1952, coach Frank Camp switched the team to two-way football. Unitas not only played safety or linebacker on defense and quarterback on offense, but also returned kicks and punts on special teams. The Cardinals won their first game against Wayne State, and then Florida State in the second game. Unitas completed 16 of 21 passes for 198 yards and three touchdowns. It was said that Unitas put on such a show at the Florida State game that he threw a pass under his legs for 15 yards. The rest of the season was a struggle for the Cardinals, who finished 3–5. Unitas completed 106 of 198 passes for 1,540 yards and 12 touchdowns.
The team won their first game in 1953, against Murray State, and lost the rest for a record of 1–7. One of the most memorable games of the season came in a 59–6 loss against Tennessee. Unitas completed 9 out of 19 passes for 73 yards, rushed 9 times for 52 yards, returned six kickoffs for 85 yards, one punt for three yards, and had 86 percent of the team's tackles. The only touchdown the team scored was in the fourth quarter when Unitas made a fake pitch to the running back and ran the ball 23 yards for a touchdown. Unitas was hurt later in the fourth quarter while trying to run the ball. On his way off the field, he received a standing ovation. When he got to the locker room he was so tired that his jersey and shoulder pads had to be cut off because he could not lift his arms. Louisville ended the season with a 20–13 loss to Eastern Kentucky. Unitas completed 49 of 95 passes for 470 yards and three touchdowns.
Unitas was elected captain for the 1954 season, but due to an early injury did not see much playing time. His first start was the third game of the season, against Florida State. Of the 34-man team, 21 were freshmen. The 1954 Cardinals went 3–6, with their last win at home against Morehead State. Unitas was slowed by so many injuries his senior year his 527 passing yards ended second to Jim Houser's 560.
Professional career
Pittsburgh Steelers
After his collegiate career, the Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL drafted Unitas in the ninth round. However, he was released before the season began as the odd man out among four quarterbacks trying to fill three spots. Steelers' head coach Walt Kiesling had made up his mind about Unitas; he thought he was not smart enough to quarterback an NFL team, and he was not given any snaps in practice with the Steelers. Among those edging out Unitas was Ted Marchibroda, future longtime NFL head coach. Out of pro football, Unitas—by this time married—worked in construction in Pittsburgh to support his family. On the weekends, he played quarterback, safety and punter on a local semi-professional team called the Bloomfield Rams for $6 a game.
Baltimore Colts
In 1956, Unitas joined the Baltimore Colts of the NFL under legendary coach Weeb Ewbank, after being asked at the last minute to join Bloomfield Rams lineman Jim Deglau, a Croatian steelworker with a life much like Unitas, at the latter's scheduled Colts tryout. The pair borrowed money from friends to pay for the gas to make the trip. Deglau later told a reporter after Unitas's death, "[His] uncle told him not to come. [He] was worried that if he came down and the Colts passed on him, it would look bad (to other NFL teams)." The Colts signed Unitas, much to the chagrin of the Cleveland Browns, who had hoped to claim the former Steeler quarterback.
Unitas made his NFL debut with an inauspicious "mop-up" appearance against Detroit, going 0–2 with one interception. Two weeks later, starting quarterback George Shaw suffered a broken leg against the Chicago Bears. In his first serious action, Unitas's initial pass was intercepted and returned for a touchdown. Then he botched a hand-off on his next play, a fumble recovered by the Bears. Unitas rebounded quickly from that 58–27 loss, leading the Colts to an upset of Green Bay and their first win over Cleveland. He threw nine touchdown passes that year, including one in the season finale that started his record 47-game streak. His 55.6-percent completion mark was a rookie record.
In 1957, his first season as the Colts full-time starter at quarterback, Unitas finished first in the NFL in passing yards (2,550) and touchdown passes (24) as he helped lead the Colts to a 7–5 record, the first winning record in franchise history. At season's end, Unitas received the Jim Thorpe Trophy as the NFL's Most Valuable Player by the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA).
1958: "The Greatest Game Ever Played"
Unitas continued his prowess in 1958 passing for 2,007 yards and 19 touchdowns as the Colts won the Western Conference title. The Colts won the NFL championship under his leadership on December 28, 1958, by defeating the New York Giants 23–17 in sudden death overtime on a touchdown by fullback Alan Ameche. It was the first overtime game in NFL history, and is often referred to as the "greatest game ever played". The game, nationally televised by NBC, has been credited for sparking the rise in popularity of professional football during the 1960s.
1959 MVP season
In 1959, Unitas was named the NFL's MVP by the Associated Press (AP) for the first time, as well as United Press International's player of the year, after leading the NFL in passing yards (2,899), touchdown passes (32), and completions (193). He then led the Colts to a repeat championship, beating the Giants again 31–16 in the title game.
Beginning of the 1960s
As the 1960s began, the Colts' fortunes (and win totals) declined. Injuries to key players such as Alan Ameche, Raymond Berry, and Lenny Moore were a contributing factor. Unitas's streak of 47 straight games with at least one touchdown pass ended against the Los Angeles Rams in week 11 of the 1960 season. In spite of this, he topped the 3,000-yard passing mark for the first time and led the league in touchdown passes for the fourth consecutive season.
After three middle-of-the-pack seasons, Colts owner Carroll Rosenbloom fired Weeb Ewbank and replaced him with Don Shula, who at the time was the youngest head coach in NFL history (33 years of age when he was hired). The Colts finished 8–6 in Shula's first season at the helm, good enough for only third place in the NFL's Western Conference, but they did end the season on a strong note by winning their final three games. The season was very successful for Unitas personally, as he led the NFL in passing yards with a career-best total of 3,481 and also led in completions with 237.
1964 MVP season
In the 1964 season the Colts returned to the top of the Western Conference. After dropping their season opener to the Minnesota Vikings, the Colts ran off 10 straight victories to finish with a 12–2 record. The season was one of Unitas's best as he finished with 2,824 yards passing, a league-best 9.26 yards per pass attempt, 19 touchdown passes and only 6 interceptions. He was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player by the AP and UPI for a second time. However, the season ended on a disappointing note for the Colts as they were upset by the Cleveland Browns in the 1964 NFL Championship Game, losing 27–0.
Unitas resumed his torrid passing in 1965, throwing for 2,530 yards, 23 touchdowns and finishing with a league-high and career-best 97.1 passer rating. But he was lost for the balance of the season due to a knee injury in a week 12 loss to the Bears. Backup quarterback Gary Cuozzo also suffered a season-ending injury the following week, and running back Tom Matte filled in as the emergency quarterback for the regular season finale and in a playoff loss to the Packers. The Colts and Packers finished in a tie for first place in the Western Conference and a one-game playoff was played in Green Bay to decide who would be the conference representative in the 1965 NFL Championship Game. The Colts lost in overtime 13–10 due in large part to a game-tying field goal by Don Chandler that many say was incorrectly ruled good.
Unitas, healthy once more, threw for 2,748 yards and 22 touchdowns in 1966 in a return to Pro Bowl form. However, he posted a league-high 24 interceptions.
1967 MVP season
After once again finishing second in the Western Conference in 1966, the Colts rebounded to finish 11–1–2 in 1967 tying the Los Angeles Rams for the NFL's best record. In winning his third MVP award from the AP and UPI in 1967 (and his second from the NEA), Unitas had a league-high 58.5 completion percentage and passed for 3,428 yards and 20 touchdowns. He openly complained about having tennis elbow and he threw eight interceptions and only three touchdown passes in the final five games. Once again, the season ended in loss for the Colts, as they were shut out of the newly instituted four-team NFL playoff after losing the divisional tiebreaker to the Rams, a 34–10 rout in the regular season finale.
Super Bowls and final Colt years
In the final game of the 1968 preseason, the muscles in Unitas's arm were torn when he was hit by a member of the Dallas Cowboys defense. Unitas wrote in his autobiography that he felt his arm was initially injured by the use of the "night ball" that the NFL was testing for better TV visibility during night games. In a post-game interview the previous year, he noted having constant pain in his elbow for several years prior. He would spend most of the season sitting on the bench. The Colts still marched to a league-best 13–1 record behind backup quarterback and ultimate 1968 NFL MVP Earl Morrall. Although he was injured through most of the season, Unitas came off the bench to play in Super Bowl III, the famous game where Joe Namath guaranteed a New York Jets win despite conventional wisdom. Unitas's insertion was a desperation move in an attempt to retrieve dominance of the NFL over the upstart AFL. Although the Colts won an NFL Championship in 1968, they lost the Super Bowl to the AFL Champion New York Jets, thus becoming the first-ever NFL champions that were not also deemed world champions. Unitas helped put together the Colts' only score, a touchdown late in the game. Unitas also drove the Colts into scoring position following the touchdown and successful onside kick, but head coach Don Shula eschewed a field goal attempt, which (if successful) would have cut the Jets' lead to 16–10. Despite not playing until late in the third quarter, he still finished the game with more passing yards than the team's starter, Earl Morrall.
After an off-season of rehabilitation on his elbow, Unitas rebounded in 1969, passing for 2,342 yards and 12 touchdowns with 20 interceptions. But the Colts finished with a disappointing 8–5–1 record, and missed the playoffs.
In 1970, the NFL and AFL had merged into one league, and the Colts moved to the new American Football Conference, along with the Cleveland Browns and the Pittsburgh Steelers. He threw for 2,213 yards and 14 touchdowns while leading the Colts to an 11–2–1 season. In their first rematch with the Jets, Unitas and Namath threw a combined nine interceptions in a 29–22 Colts win. Namath threw 62 passes and broke his hand on the final play of the game, ending his season.
Unitas threw for 390 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions in AFC playoff victories over the Cincinnati Bengals and the Oakland Raiders. In Super Bowl V against the Dallas Cowboys, he was knocked out of the game with a rib injury in the second quarter, soon after throwing a 75-yard touchdown pass (setting a then-Super Bowl record) to John Mackey. However, he had also tossed two interceptions before his departure from the game. Earl Morrall came in to lead the team to a last-second, 16–13 victory.
In 1971, Unitas split playing time with Morrall, throwing only three touchdown passes. He started both playoff games, a win over the Cleveland Browns that sent the Colts to the AFC Championship game against the Miami Dolphins, which they lost by a score of 21–0. Unitas threw three interceptions in the game, one of which was returned for a touchdown by safety Dick Anderson.
The 1972 season saw the Colts declining. After losing the season opener, Unitas was involved in the second and final regular season head-to-head meeting with "Broadway" Joe Namath. The first was in 1970 (won by the Colts, 29–22). The last meeting took place on September 24, 1972 at Memorial Stadium. He threw for 376 yards and three touchdowns, but Namath upstaged him again, bombing the Colts for 496 yards and six touchdowns in a 44–34 Jets victory – their first over Baltimore since the 1970 merger. After losing four of their first five games, the Colts fired head coach Don McCafferty, and benched Unitas.
One of the more memorable moments in football history came on Unitas's last game in a Colts uniform at Memorial Stadium, in a game against the Buffalo Bills. He was not the starter for this game, but the Colts were blowing the Bills out by a score of 28–0 behind Marty Domres; Unitas entered the game due to the fans chanting, "We want Unitas!!!", and a plan devised by head coach John Sandusky to convince Unitas that the starting quarterback was injured. Unitas came onto the field, and threw two passes, one of which was a long touchdown to wide receiver Eddie Hinton which would be his last pass as a Colt. The Colts won the game by the score of 35–7.
San Diego, retirement, and records
Unitas was traded from the Colts to the San Diego Chargers on January 20, 1973, in a transaction that originally had future considerations returning to Baltimore. The deal's only obstacle was the personal services contract he had signed with the Colts in 1970 which would've kept him employed within the organization on an annual salary of $30,000 over ten years once his career as an active player ended. The pact had been signed when the ballclub was owned by Carroll Rosenbloom who subsequently acquired the Los Angeles Rams on July 13, 1972, in a franchise swap with Robert Irsay. The deal was completed when the Chargers purchased that contract. Eager to sever all ties with the Colts, Unitas signed a new two-year contract with the Chargers on June 8, 1973. He succeeded John Hadl who had requested and was granted a trade to the Rams.
Unitas started the season with a 38–0 loss to the Washington Redskins. He threw for just 55 yards and 3 interceptions, and was sacked 8 times. His final victory as a starter came against the Buffalo Bills in week two. Unitas was 10–18 for 175 yards, two touchdown passes, and no interceptions in a 34–7 Chargers rout. Many were questioning his role as a starter after a loss to the Bengals in week three. Two weeks later, he threw two first-half interceptions, passed for only 19 yards, and went 2-for-9 against the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was then replaced by rookie quarterback, future Hall of Famer Dan Fouts. After having posted a 1–3 record as a starter, Unitas retired in the preseason of 1974.
Unitas finished his 18 NFL seasons with 2,830 completions in 5,186 attempts for 40,239 yards and 290 touchdowns, with 253 interceptions. He also rushed for 1,777 yards and 13 touchdowns. Plagued by arm trouble in his later seasons, he threw more interceptions (64) than touchdowns (38) in 1968–1973. After averaging 215.8 yards per game in his first 12 seasons, his production fell to 124.4 in his final six. His passer rating plummeted from 82.9 to 60.4 for the same periods. Even so, Unitas set many passing records during his career. He was the first quarterback to throw for more than 40,000 yards, despite playing during an era when NFL teams played shorter seasons of 12 or 14 games (as opposed to today's 17-game seasons) and prior to modern passing-friendly rules implemented in 1978. His 32 touchdown passes in 1959 were a record at the time, making Unitas the first quarterback to hit the 30 touchdown mark in a season. His 47-game consecutive touchdown streak between 1956 and 1960 was a record considered by many to be unbreakable. The streak stood for 52 years before being broken by New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees in a game against the San Diego Chargers on October 7, 2012.
Post-playing days
After his playing days were finished, Unitas settled in Baltimore where he raised his family while also pursuing a career in broadcasting, doing color commentary for NFL games on CBS in the 1970s. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979. After Robert Irsay moved the Colts franchise to Indianapolis in 1984, a move known to this day in Baltimore as "Bob Irsay's Midnight Ride," he was so outraged that he cut all ties to the relocated team (though his No. 19 jersey is still retired by the Colts), declaring himself strictly a Baltimore Colt for the remainder of his life. Some other prominent old-time Colts followed his lead, although many attended the 1975 team's reunion at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis in 2009. A total of 39 Colts players from that 1975 team attended said reunion in Indianapolis, including Bert Jones and Lydell Mitchell. Unitas asked the Pro Football Hall of Fame on numerous occasions (including on Roy Firestone's Up Close) to remove his display unless it was listed as belonging to the Baltimore Colts. The Hall of Fame has never complied with the request. Unitas donated his Colts memorabilia to the Babe Ruth Museum in Baltimore; they are now on display in the Sports Legends Museum at Camden Yards.
Unitas was inducted into the American Football Association's Semi Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1987.
Unitas actively lobbied for another NFL team to come to Baltimore. After the Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore in 1996 and changed their name to the Ravens, he and some of the other old-time Colts attended the Ravens' first game ever against the Raiders on Opening Day at Memorial Stadium. He was frequently seen on the Ravens' sidelines at home games (most prominently in 1998 when the now-Indianapolis Colts played the Ravens in Baltimore) and received a thunderous ovation every time he was pictured on each of the huge widescreens at M&T Bank Stadium. He was often seen on the 30-yard line on the Ravens side. When the NFL celebrated its first 50 years, Unitas was voted the league's best player. Retired Bears quarterback Sid Luckman said of Unitas, "He was better than me, better than Sammy Baugh, better than anyone."
Unitas lived most of the final years of his life severely hobbled. Due to an elbow injury suffered during his playing career, he had only very limited use of his right hand, and could not perform any physical activity more strenuous than golf due to his artificial knees.
NFL career statistics
Source:
In 1957, Unitas was named MVP by the Newspaper Enterprise Association.
Personal life
At the age of 21 on November 20, 1954, Unitas married his high school sweetheart Dorothy Hoelle; they lived in Towson and had five children before divorcing. Unitas's second wife was Sandra Lemon, whom he married on June 26, 1972; they had three children, lived in Baldwin, and remained married until his death.
Towson University, where Unitas was a major fund-raiser and which his children attended, named its football and lacrosse complex Johnny Unitas Stadium in recognition of both his football career and service to the university.
Toward the end of his life, Unitas brought media attention to the many permanent physical disabilities that he and his fellow players suffered during their careers before heavy padding and other safety features became popular. Unitas himself lost almost total use of his right hand, with the middle finger and thumb noticeably disfigured from being repeatedly broken during games.
On September 11, 2002, Unitas died from a heart attack while working out at the Kernan Physical Therapy Center (now The University of Maryland Rehabilitation & Orthopaedic Institute) in Baltimore. His funeral was held at Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore, Maryland. Between his death and October 4, 2002, 56,934 people signed an online petition urging the Baltimore Ravens to rename the Ravens' home stadium (owned by the State of Maryland) after Unitas. These requests were unsuccessful since the lucrative naming rights had already been leased by the Ravens to Buffalo-based M&T Bank. However, on October 20, 2002, the Ravens dedicated the front area of the stadium's main entrance as Unitas Plaza and unveiled a statue of Unitas as the centerpiece of the plaza.
Unitas is buried at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens in Timonium, Maryland.
Legacy
Unitas held the record for most Pro Bowl appearances (10) by a quarterback until Brett Favre broke his record in 2009.
Unitas set the original standard for most wins as a starting quarterback with 118 regular season victories (since surpassed by multiple quarterbacks).
Unitas was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979.
Unitas is 11th in all-time number of regular season games won by an NFL starting quarterback with 118 wins.
Unitas is 16th in all-time percentage of regular season games won by an NFL starting quarterback with a percentage of 64.5.
1987 American Football Association Semi Pro Hall of Fame
Unitas's no. 16 is the first number retired by the football program at the University of Louisville.
Unitas Tower, a dormitory at the University of Louisville, is named for Johnny Unitas.
A statue of Unitas sits in the north end zone of Cardinal Stadium at the University of Louisville. It is a tradition for each Cardinal player to touch the statue as he enters the field.
Since 1987, the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award has been awarded to the top senior quarterback of the current year in college football. The award is presented annually in Louisville.
In 1999, he was ranked No. 5 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players, behind only Joe Montana among quarterbacks.
In 2004, The Sporting News ranked Unitas No. 1 among the NFL's 50 Greatest Quarterbacks, with Joe Montana at No. 2.
In 1999, ESPN's Sportscentury: 50 Greatest Athletes of the 20th Century ranked Unitas No. 32.
Just before his death, Johnny Unitas became the community liaison for athletics in Towson, Maryland. The football stadium at Towson University was renamed Johnny Unitas Stadium in 2002. Unitas died less than a week after throwing his last pass in the grand opening of the stadium.
Set the record for consecutive games with at least one touchdown pass at 47 games. This record was surpassed by Drew Brees in 2012.
Set the record for consecutive games with at least two touchdown passes at 12 games. This record was surpassed by Don Meredith, Peyton Manning (twice), Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Philip Rivers, and Patrick Mahomes.
Set the record for most consecutive games with at least a 120 passer rating (4); this record was later matched by Kurt Warner
For the game following his death, Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning asked to wear a pair of black cleats as a tribute to Johnny's signature black boots. The league denied his request and threatened Manning with a US$25,000 fine; Manning decided not to wear them. Despite the threatened fine, Chris Redman, a Louisville alum like Unitas, and then quarterback of the Baltimore Ravens, decided to pay homage by wearing the signature cleats during a game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
In 2013, a movie project was announced by The Baltimore Sun called Unitas We Stand, which will feature Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco as Unitas during the 1958 NFL Championship.
19th Street in Ocean City, Maryland is named "Johnny Unitas Way" in his honor.
Johnny Unitas Stadium on the campus of Towson University in Towson, Maryland, home of the Towson Tigers football and Towson Tigers men's lacrosse teams is named in his honor.
Unitas was posthumously inducted into the National Lithuanian American Hall of Fame on August 24, 2013.
See also
List of most consecutive starts by a National Football League quarterback
Most wins by a starting quarterback (NFL)
Notes
References
Sources
Bolus, Jim, and Billy Reed. Cardinal Football. Champaign, IL: Sports Pub Inc., 1999.
Callahan, Tom. Johnny U: the life and times of John Unitas. New York: Crown Publishers, 2006.
Lazenby, Roland. Johnny Unitas: the best there ever was. Chicago: Triumph Books, 2002.
Schaap, Dick (1999). "Johnny Unitas: Sunday's Best". In ESPN SportsCentury. Michael MacCambridge, Editor. New York: ESPN-Hyperion Books. pp. 154–65.
Cavanaugh, Jack (2008), Giants Among Men. New York:Random House.
MacCambridge, Michael (2005), America's Game. New York:Anchor Books.
External links
1933 births
2002 deaths
American football quarterbacks
American people of Lithuanian descent
Baltimore Colts players
Burials at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens
Catholics from Maryland
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Louisville Cardinals football players
National Football League announcers
National Football League Most Valuable Player Award winners
National Football League players with retired numbers
People from Timonium, Maryland
People from Towson, Maryland
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Sportspeople from Baltimore County, Maryland
Western Conference Pro Bowl players | false | [
"The Patriots–Steelers rivalry is a National Football League (NFL) rivalry between the New England Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers. The two winningest franchises in the Super Bowl era with six championships each, the Patriots and Steelers have played each other intermittently since the 1970s, but the two teams did not become full-fledged rivals until the late 1990s, when they became Super Bowl contenders.\n\nHistory\nThe Steelers initially dominated the rivalry, winning 10 of its first 13 meetings with the Patriots. But in the 1996 AFC Divisional Round, the Patriots routed the Steelers 28–3 at Foxboro Stadium, ending Pittsburgh's five-game winning streak against New England. It also began a stretch where the Patriots won 14 of the next 20 meetings with the Steelers, including four of five postseason matchups. The Patriots would go on to reach and then lose Super Bowl XXXI against the Green Bay Packers. The following year, also in the divisional round, the Steelers exacted revenge at Three Rivers Stadium, winning by a 7–6 score to reach their third AFC championship game in four years. This was also the only playoff meeting in which the winner did not eventually advance to the Super Bowl, as the Steelers lost to the eventual champion Denver Broncos in the AFC championship game. Earlier that season, the Steelers overcame a 14–0 deficit to beat the Patriots on the road 24–21 in overtime. In that game, quarterback Kordell Stewart managed a game-tying drive late in the fourth quarter culminating in a touchdown to Mark Bruener and a two-point conversion to Yancey Thigpen. In overtime, placekicker Norm Johnson won the game with a 31-yard field goal. The win gave the Steelers a first-round bye and ensured a home game in the divisional round.\n\nIn the 2001 season, the Steelers finished with the top seed in the AFC at 13–3. Meanwhile, the Patriots overcame an early-season injury to Drew Bledsoe, and led by then-second year quarterback Tom Brady and coached by Bill Belichick, rallied to finish second at 11–5. The two teams met in the AFC championship game at Heinz Field, and with Bledsoe replacing Brady due to injury, the Patriots upset the Steelers 24–17 and went on to win their first Super Bowl.\n\nThe 2004 season saw the emergence of Ben Roethlisberger as the Steelers' starting quarterback. En route to a 15–1 season, Roethlisberger and the Steelers ended the Patriots' record 21-game winning streak on October 31, taking home a 31–24 victory. The Steelers entered the AFC championship game having won all 15 games Roethlisberger started in his rookie season. However, the streak ended at home as New England defeated Pittsburgh 41–27 en route to winning their third Super Bowl championship. The defeat also prevented the Steelers from facing their in-state rival Philadelphia Eagles, who had clinched the NFC championship.\n\nThe Patriots and Steelers would not meet in the postseason again until 2016. Between those playoff meetings, the Steelers made three Super Bowl appearances and won two (Super Bowl XL and XLIII), while the Patriots also made three Super Bowls but won only once (Super Bowl XLIX). Facing each other at Gillette Stadium in the AFC championship game, the Patriots again routed the Steelers 36–17 and went on to win their fifth Super Bowl. The Patriots would win their sixth Super Bowl two seasons later, tying the Steelers with the most Super Bowl championships.\n\nGame results\n\n|-\n| \n| style=\"|Steelers 33–3\n| Three Rivers Stadium\n| Steelers 1–0\n| First meeting in the series. Most lopsided Steelers win in the series.\n|-\n| \n| style=\"|Steelers 21–17\n| Schaefer Stadium\n| Steelers 2–0\n| Steelers win Super Bowl IX.\n|-\n| \n|style=\"|Patriots 30–27\n| Three Rivers Stadium\n| Steelers 2–1\n| \n|-\n| \n|style=\"|Steelers \n| Schaefer Stadium\n| Steelers 3–1\n| Steelers win Super Bowl XIV.\n|-\n\n|-\n| \n| style=\"|Steelers \n| Three Rivers Stadium\n| Steelers 4–1\n| \n|-\n| \n| style=\"|Steelers 37–14\n| Three Rivers Stadium\n| Steelers 5–1\n| \n|-\n| \n|style=\"|Patriots 28–23\n| Three Rivers Stadium\n| Steelers 5–2\n| \n|-\n| \n|style=\"|Patriots 34–0\n| Three Rivers Stadium\n| Steelers 5–3\n| Most lopsided Patriots win in the series. Also the largest margin of victory in the series.\n|-\n| \n|style=\"|Steelers 28–10\n| Three Rivers Stadium\n| Steelers 6–3\n| \n|-\n\n|-\n| \n| style=\"|Steelers 24–3\n| Three Rivers Stadium\n| Steelers 7–3\n| \n|-\n| \n| style=\"|Steelers 20–6\n| Three Rivers Stadium\n| Steelers 8–3\n| \n|-\n| \n|style=\"|Steelers 17–14\n| Three Rivers Stadium\n| Steelers 9–3\n| \n|-\n| \n|style=\"|Steelers 41–27\n| Three Rivers Stadium\n| Steelers 10–3\n| Steelers lose Super Bowl XXX.\n|-\n! 1996 playoffs\n! style=\"|Patriots 28–3\n! Foxboro Stadium\n! Steelers 10–4\n! AFC Divisional Round. First postseason meeting in the series. Patriots host first playoff game since 1978. Largest margin of victory in a playoff game in the series. This was the only Patriots' home victory over the Steelers prior to the Tom Brady era. Patriots lose Super Bowl XXXI.\n|-\n| \n|style=\"|Steelers \n| Foxboro Stadium\n| Steelers 11–4\n| Final meeting at Foxboro Stadium\n|-\n! 1997 playoffs\n!style=\"|Steelers 7–6\n! Three Rivers Stadium\n! Steelers 12–4\n! AFC Divisional Round. Kordell Stewart's 40-yard touchdown run in the first quarter proved to be the winning score. Most recent NFL playoff game in which neither team scored at least 10 points.\n|-\n| \n|style=\"|Patriots 23–9\n| Three Rivers Stadium\n| Steelers 12–5\n| Final meeting at Three Rivers Stadium\n|-\n\n|-\n! 2001 playoffs\n!style=\"|Patriots 24–17\n! Heinz Field\n! Steelers 12–6\n! AFC Championship Game. First meeting at Heinz Field. First start in the series for Tom Brady. Later replaced by Drew Bledsoe due to injury. Patriots win Super Bowl XXXVI.\n|-\n| \n|style=\"|Patriots 30–14\n| Gillette Stadium\n| Steelers 12–7\n| First meeting at Gillette Stadium.\n|-\n| \n|style=\"|Steelers 34–20\n| Heinz Field\n| Steelers 13–7\n| First start in the series for Ben Roethlisberger. Steelers end Patriots' record 21-game winning streak.\n|-\n! 2004 playoffs\n!style=\"|Patriots 41–27\n! Heinz Field\n! Steelers 13–8\n! AFC Championship Game. Patriots win Super Bowl XXXIX.\n|-\n| \n|style=\"|Patriots 23–20\n| Heinz Field\n| Steelers 13–9\n| Steelers win Super Bowl XL.\n|-\n| \n|style=\"|Patriots 34–13\n| Gillette Stadium\n| Steelers 13–10\n| Patriots complete 16–0 regular season. Patriots lose Super Bowl XLII. \n|-\n| \n|style=\"|Steelers 33–10\n| Gillette Stadium\n| Steelers 14–10\n| Steelers' first win at Gillette Stadium. Steelers win Super Bowl XLIII.\n|-\n\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Patriots 39–26\n| Heinz Field\n| Steelers 14–11\n| Steelers lose Super Bowl XLV.\n|-\n| \n| style=\"|Steelers 25–17\n| Heinz Field\n| Steelers 15–11\n| Patriots lose Super Bowl XLVI.\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Patriots 55–31\n| Gillette Stadium\n| Steelers 15–12\n| Highest scoring game in the series.\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Patriots 28–21\n| Gillette Stadium\n| Steelers 15–13\n|\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Patriots 27–16\n| Heinz Field\n| Steelers 15–14\n| \n|-\n! 2016 playoffs\n! style=\"| Patriots 36–17\n! Gillette Stadium\n! Tied 15–15\n! AFC Championship Game. Last postseason meeting to date. Patriots surpass the Steelers for most Super Bowl appearances. Patriots win Super Bowl LI.\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Patriots 27–24\n| Heinz Field\n| Patriots 16–15\n| Patriots take first lead in the series. In the closing seconds, Jesse James of the Steelers appeared to have scored a go-ahead touchdown that would have clinched the AFC's #1 seed, but after review, the call was overturned ruling that Jesse James didn't maintain control of the ball. Two plays later, Duron Harmon's interception of Ben Roethlisberger sealed the win for the Patriots, who would instead finish as the AFC's #1 seed. Patriots lose Super Bowl LII.\n|-\n| \n| style=\"|Steelers 17–10\n| Heinz Field\n| Tied 16–16\n| Patriots win Super Bowl LIII.\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Patriots 33–3\n| Gillette Stadium\n| Patriots 17–16\n| Final start in the series for Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger.\n|-\n\n|-\n|\n| TBD\n| Heinz Field\n| \n|\n|-\n\n|-\n| Regular season\n| style=\"|\n| Patriots 5–4\n| Steelers 11–8\n| \n|-\n| Postseason\n| style=\"|\n| Patriots 2–0\n| Patriots 2–1\n| AFC Divisional playoffs: 1996–1997. AFC Championship Game: 2001, 2004, 2016.\n|-\n| Regular and postseason \n| style=\"|\n| Patriots 7–4\n| Steelers 12–10\n| \n|-\n\nSee also\n National Football League rivalries\n\nNotes and references\n\nNational Football League rivalries\nNew England Patriots\nPittsburgh Steelers",
"Marty Moore (born March 19, 1971) is a former professional American football player who played linebacker for eight seasons for the New England Patriots and Cleveland Browns. Moore was the first Mr. Irrelevant ever to play in a Super Bowl (Super Bowl XXXI). He also became the first Mr. Irrelevant to win a Super Bowl (Super Bowl XXXVI). \n\nMoore did not play in Super Bowl XXXVI because he was on injured reserve due to a torn Achilles tendon earlier in the season. Because of this, Moore is not the first Mr. Irrelevant to both play in and win a Super Bowl, with that achievement going to placekicker Ryan Succop. Succop was the Mr. Irrelevant of the 2009 NFL Draft, and was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers starting kicker in their Super Bowl LV championship over the Kansas City Chiefs, which was coincidentally the team that drafted him. Moore played high school football for Highlands High in Fort Thomas, Kentucky and college football at the University of Kentucky, playing in the 1993 Peach Bowl and becoming the final pick in the 1994 NFL Draft after his senior season.\n\nReferences\n\n1971 births\nAmerican football linebackers\nKentucky Wildcats football players\nNew England Patriots players\nCleveland Browns players\nLiving people\nHighlands High School (Fort Thomas, Kentucky) alumni\nPlayers of American football from Phoenix, Arizona"
] |
[
"Johnny Unitas",
"1964 MVP season",
"what team did unitas play for",
"The Colts",
"how many games did the colts win",
"the Colts ran off 10 straight victories to finish with a 12-2 record.",
"who did they play in the playoffs",
"Cleveland Browns",
"did they win the super bowl",
"losing 27-0."
] | C_2ba58216460d43aa986fc0e897537239_0 | who did they play in the super bowl | 5 | who did the Colts play in the super bowl? | Johnny Unitas | The 1964 season would see the Colts return to the top of the Western Conference. After dropping their season opener to the Minnesota Vikings, the Colts ran off 10 straight victories to finish with a 12-2 record. The season was one of Unitas' best as he finished with 2,824 yards passing, a league-best 9.26 yards per pass attempt, 19 touchdown passes and only 6 interceptions. He was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player by the AP and UPI for a second time. However, the season would end on a disappointing note for the Colts as they were upset by the Cleveland Browns in the 1964 NFL Championship Game, losing 27-0. Unitas resumed his torrid passing in 1965, as he threw for 2,530 yards, 23 touchdowns and finished with a league-high and career best 97.1 passer rating. But he was lost for the balance of the season due to a knee injury in a week 12 loss to the Bears. More postseason heartbreak would follow in 1965. The Colts and Packers finished in a tie for first place in the Western Conference and a one-game playoff was played in Green Bay to decide who would be the conference representative in the 1965 NFL Championship Game. The Colts lost in overtime 13-10 due in large part to a game-tying field goal by Don Chandler that many say was incorrectly ruled good. Backup quarterback Gary Cuozzo also suffered a season-ending injury the following week and it would be running back Tom Matte who filled in as the emergency QB for the regular-season finale and the playoff loss to the Packers. Unitas, healthy once more, threw for 2748 yards and 22 touchdowns in 1966 in a return to Pro Bowl form. However, he posted a league-high 24 interceptions. CANNOTANSWER | the Packers. | John Constantine Unitas (; May 7, 1933 – September 11, 2002) was an American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 18 seasons, primarily with the Baltimore Colts. Following a career that spanned from 1956 to 1973, he has been consistently listed as one of the greatest NFL players of all time.
Unitas set many NFL records and was named Most Valuable Player three times in 1959, 1964, and 1967, in addition to receiving 10 Pro Bowl and five first-team All-Pro honors. He helped lead the Colts to four championship titles; three pre-merger era in 1958, 1959, 1968, and one Super Bowl era in Super Bowl V. His first championship victory is regarded as one of the league's greatest games and credited with helping popularize the NFL. Between 1956 and 1960, he set the record for most consecutive games with a touchdown pass at 47, which held for 52 years.
Nicknamed "Johnny U" and the "Golden Arm", Unitas was considered the prototype of the modern era marquee quarterback. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979.
Early life
John Constantine Unitas was born in Pittsburgh in 1933 to Francis J. Unitas and Helen Superfisky, both of Lithuanian descent; he grew up in the Mount Washington neighborhood in a Roman Catholic upbringing. When Unitas was five years old, his father died of cardiovascular renal disease complicated by pneumonia, leaving the young boy to be raised by his mother, who worked two jobs to support the family. His surname was a result of a phonetic transliteration of a common Lithuanian last name Jonaitis. Attending St. Justin's High School in Pittsburgh, Unitas played halfback and quarterback.
College career
In his younger years, Unitas dreamed about being part of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team, but when he tried out for the team, coach Frank Leahy said that he was just too skinny and he would "get murdered" if he was put on the field.
Instead, he attended the University of Louisville. In his four-year career as a Louisville Cardinal, Unitas completed 245 passes for 3,139 yards and 27 touchdowns. Reportedly, the Unitas weighed on his first day of practice. His first start was in the fifth game of the 1951 season against St. Bonaventure, where he threw 11 consecutive passes and three touchdowns to give the Cardinals a 21–19 lead. Louisville ended up losing the game 22–21 on a disputed field goal, but found a new starting quarterback. Unitas completed 12 of 19 passes for 240 yards and four touchdowns in a 35–28 victory over Houston. The team finished the season 5–5 overall and 4–1 with Unitas starting. He completed 46 of 99 passes for 602 yards and nine touchdowns (44).
By the 1952 season, the university decided to de-emphasize sports. The new president at Louisville, Dr. Philip Grant Davidson, reduced the amount of athletic aid, and tightened academic standards for athletes. As a result, 15 returning players could not meet the new standards and lost their scholarships. Unitas maintained his by taking on a new elective: square dancing. In 1952, coach Frank Camp switched the team to two-way football. Unitas not only played safety or linebacker on defense and quarterback on offense, but also returned kicks and punts on special teams. The Cardinals won their first game against Wayne State, and then Florida State in the second game. Unitas completed 16 of 21 passes for 198 yards and three touchdowns. It was said that Unitas put on such a show at the Florida State game that he threw a pass under his legs for 15 yards. The rest of the season was a struggle for the Cardinals, who finished 3–5. Unitas completed 106 of 198 passes for 1,540 yards and 12 touchdowns.
The team won their first game in 1953, against Murray State, and lost the rest for a record of 1–7. One of the most memorable games of the season came in a 59–6 loss against Tennessee. Unitas completed 9 out of 19 passes for 73 yards, rushed 9 times for 52 yards, returned six kickoffs for 85 yards, one punt for three yards, and had 86 percent of the team's tackles. The only touchdown the team scored was in the fourth quarter when Unitas made a fake pitch to the running back and ran the ball 23 yards for a touchdown. Unitas was hurt later in the fourth quarter while trying to run the ball. On his way off the field, he received a standing ovation. When he got to the locker room he was so tired that his jersey and shoulder pads had to be cut off because he could not lift his arms. Louisville ended the season with a 20–13 loss to Eastern Kentucky. Unitas completed 49 of 95 passes for 470 yards and three touchdowns.
Unitas was elected captain for the 1954 season, but due to an early injury did not see much playing time. His first start was the third game of the season, against Florida State. Of the 34-man team, 21 were freshmen. The 1954 Cardinals went 3–6, with their last win at home against Morehead State. Unitas was slowed by so many injuries his senior year his 527 passing yards ended second to Jim Houser's 560.
Professional career
Pittsburgh Steelers
After his collegiate career, the Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL drafted Unitas in the ninth round. However, he was released before the season began as the odd man out among four quarterbacks trying to fill three spots. Steelers' head coach Walt Kiesling had made up his mind about Unitas; he thought he was not smart enough to quarterback an NFL team, and he was not given any snaps in practice with the Steelers. Among those edging out Unitas was Ted Marchibroda, future longtime NFL head coach. Out of pro football, Unitas—by this time married—worked in construction in Pittsburgh to support his family. On the weekends, he played quarterback, safety and punter on a local semi-professional team called the Bloomfield Rams for $6 a game.
Baltimore Colts
In 1956, Unitas joined the Baltimore Colts of the NFL under legendary coach Weeb Ewbank, after being asked at the last minute to join Bloomfield Rams lineman Jim Deglau, a Croatian steelworker with a life much like Unitas, at the latter's scheduled Colts tryout. The pair borrowed money from friends to pay for the gas to make the trip. Deglau later told a reporter after Unitas's death, "[His] uncle told him not to come. [He] was worried that if he came down and the Colts passed on him, it would look bad (to other NFL teams)." The Colts signed Unitas, much to the chagrin of the Cleveland Browns, who had hoped to claim the former Steeler quarterback.
Unitas made his NFL debut with an inauspicious "mop-up" appearance against Detroit, going 0–2 with one interception. Two weeks later, starting quarterback George Shaw suffered a broken leg against the Chicago Bears. In his first serious action, Unitas's initial pass was intercepted and returned for a touchdown. Then he botched a hand-off on his next play, a fumble recovered by the Bears. Unitas rebounded quickly from that 58–27 loss, leading the Colts to an upset of Green Bay and their first win over Cleveland. He threw nine touchdown passes that year, including one in the season finale that started his record 47-game streak. His 55.6-percent completion mark was a rookie record.
In 1957, his first season as the Colts full-time starter at quarterback, Unitas finished first in the NFL in passing yards (2,550) and touchdown passes (24) as he helped lead the Colts to a 7–5 record, the first winning record in franchise history. At season's end, Unitas received the Jim Thorpe Trophy as the NFL's Most Valuable Player by the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA).
1958: "The Greatest Game Ever Played"
Unitas continued his prowess in 1958 passing for 2,007 yards and 19 touchdowns as the Colts won the Western Conference title. The Colts won the NFL championship under his leadership on December 28, 1958, by defeating the New York Giants 23–17 in sudden death overtime on a touchdown by fullback Alan Ameche. It was the first overtime game in NFL history, and is often referred to as the "greatest game ever played". The game, nationally televised by NBC, has been credited for sparking the rise in popularity of professional football during the 1960s.
1959 MVP season
In 1959, Unitas was named the NFL's MVP by the Associated Press (AP) for the first time, as well as United Press International's player of the year, after leading the NFL in passing yards (2,899), touchdown passes (32), and completions (193). He then led the Colts to a repeat championship, beating the Giants again 31–16 in the title game.
Beginning of the 1960s
As the 1960s began, the Colts' fortunes (and win totals) declined. Injuries to key players such as Alan Ameche, Raymond Berry, and Lenny Moore were a contributing factor. Unitas's streak of 47 straight games with at least one touchdown pass ended against the Los Angeles Rams in week 11 of the 1960 season. In spite of this, he topped the 3,000-yard passing mark for the first time and led the league in touchdown passes for the fourth consecutive season.
After three middle-of-the-pack seasons, Colts owner Carroll Rosenbloom fired Weeb Ewbank and replaced him with Don Shula, who at the time was the youngest head coach in NFL history (33 years of age when he was hired). The Colts finished 8–6 in Shula's first season at the helm, good enough for only third place in the NFL's Western Conference, but they did end the season on a strong note by winning their final three games. The season was very successful for Unitas personally, as he led the NFL in passing yards with a career-best total of 3,481 and also led in completions with 237.
1964 MVP season
In the 1964 season the Colts returned to the top of the Western Conference. After dropping their season opener to the Minnesota Vikings, the Colts ran off 10 straight victories to finish with a 12–2 record. The season was one of Unitas's best as he finished with 2,824 yards passing, a league-best 9.26 yards per pass attempt, 19 touchdown passes and only 6 interceptions. He was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player by the AP and UPI for a second time. However, the season ended on a disappointing note for the Colts as they were upset by the Cleveland Browns in the 1964 NFL Championship Game, losing 27–0.
Unitas resumed his torrid passing in 1965, throwing for 2,530 yards, 23 touchdowns and finishing with a league-high and career-best 97.1 passer rating. But he was lost for the balance of the season due to a knee injury in a week 12 loss to the Bears. Backup quarterback Gary Cuozzo also suffered a season-ending injury the following week, and running back Tom Matte filled in as the emergency quarterback for the regular season finale and in a playoff loss to the Packers. The Colts and Packers finished in a tie for first place in the Western Conference and a one-game playoff was played in Green Bay to decide who would be the conference representative in the 1965 NFL Championship Game. The Colts lost in overtime 13–10 due in large part to a game-tying field goal by Don Chandler that many say was incorrectly ruled good.
Unitas, healthy once more, threw for 2,748 yards and 22 touchdowns in 1966 in a return to Pro Bowl form. However, he posted a league-high 24 interceptions.
1967 MVP season
After once again finishing second in the Western Conference in 1966, the Colts rebounded to finish 11–1–2 in 1967 tying the Los Angeles Rams for the NFL's best record. In winning his third MVP award from the AP and UPI in 1967 (and his second from the NEA), Unitas had a league-high 58.5 completion percentage and passed for 3,428 yards and 20 touchdowns. He openly complained about having tennis elbow and he threw eight interceptions and only three touchdown passes in the final five games. Once again, the season ended in loss for the Colts, as they were shut out of the newly instituted four-team NFL playoff after losing the divisional tiebreaker to the Rams, a 34–10 rout in the regular season finale.
Super Bowls and final Colt years
In the final game of the 1968 preseason, the muscles in Unitas's arm were torn when he was hit by a member of the Dallas Cowboys defense. Unitas wrote in his autobiography that he felt his arm was initially injured by the use of the "night ball" that the NFL was testing for better TV visibility during night games. In a post-game interview the previous year, he noted having constant pain in his elbow for several years prior. He would spend most of the season sitting on the bench. The Colts still marched to a league-best 13–1 record behind backup quarterback and ultimate 1968 NFL MVP Earl Morrall. Although he was injured through most of the season, Unitas came off the bench to play in Super Bowl III, the famous game where Joe Namath guaranteed a New York Jets win despite conventional wisdom. Unitas's insertion was a desperation move in an attempt to retrieve dominance of the NFL over the upstart AFL. Although the Colts won an NFL Championship in 1968, they lost the Super Bowl to the AFL Champion New York Jets, thus becoming the first-ever NFL champions that were not also deemed world champions. Unitas helped put together the Colts' only score, a touchdown late in the game. Unitas also drove the Colts into scoring position following the touchdown and successful onside kick, but head coach Don Shula eschewed a field goal attempt, which (if successful) would have cut the Jets' lead to 16–10. Despite not playing until late in the third quarter, he still finished the game with more passing yards than the team's starter, Earl Morrall.
After an off-season of rehabilitation on his elbow, Unitas rebounded in 1969, passing for 2,342 yards and 12 touchdowns with 20 interceptions. But the Colts finished with a disappointing 8–5–1 record, and missed the playoffs.
In 1970, the NFL and AFL had merged into one league, and the Colts moved to the new American Football Conference, along with the Cleveland Browns and the Pittsburgh Steelers. He threw for 2,213 yards and 14 touchdowns while leading the Colts to an 11–2–1 season. In their first rematch with the Jets, Unitas and Namath threw a combined nine interceptions in a 29–22 Colts win. Namath threw 62 passes and broke his hand on the final play of the game, ending his season.
Unitas threw for 390 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions in AFC playoff victories over the Cincinnati Bengals and the Oakland Raiders. In Super Bowl V against the Dallas Cowboys, he was knocked out of the game with a rib injury in the second quarter, soon after throwing a 75-yard touchdown pass (setting a then-Super Bowl record) to John Mackey. However, he had also tossed two interceptions before his departure from the game. Earl Morrall came in to lead the team to a last-second, 16–13 victory.
In 1971, Unitas split playing time with Morrall, throwing only three touchdown passes. He started both playoff games, a win over the Cleveland Browns that sent the Colts to the AFC Championship game against the Miami Dolphins, which they lost by a score of 21–0. Unitas threw three interceptions in the game, one of which was returned for a touchdown by safety Dick Anderson.
The 1972 season saw the Colts declining. After losing the season opener, Unitas was involved in the second and final regular season head-to-head meeting with "Broadway" Joe Namath. The first was in 1970 (won by the Colts, 29–22). The last meeting took place on September 24, 1972 at Memorial Stadium. He threw for 376 yards and three touchdowns, but Namath upstaged him again, bombing the Colts for 496 yards and six touchdowns in a 44–34 Jets victory – their first over Baltimore since the 1970 merger. After losing four of their first five games, the Colts fired head coach Don McCafferty, and benched Unitas.
One of the more memorable moments in football history came on Unitas's last game in a Colts uniform at Memorial Stadium, in a game against the Buffalo Bills. He was not the starter for this game, but the Colts were blowing the Bills out by a score of 28–0 behind Marty Domres; Unitas entered the game due to the fans chanting, "We want Unitas!!!", and a plan devised by head coach John Sandusky to convince Unitas that the starting quarterback was injured. Unitas came onto the field, and threw two passes, one of which was a long touchdown to wide receiver Eddie Hinton which would be his last pass as a Colt. The Colts won the game by the score of 35–7.
San Diego, retirement, and records
Unitas was traded from the Colts to the San Diego Chargers on January 20, 1973, in a transaction that originally had future considerations returning to Baltimore. The deal's only obstacle was the personal services contract he had signed with the Colts in 1970 which would've kept him employed within the organization on an annual salary of $30,000 over ten years once his career as an active player ended. The pact had been signed when the ballclub was owned by Carroll Rosenbloom who subsequently acquired the Los Angeles Rams on July 13, 1972, in a franchise swap with Robert Irsay. The deal was completed when the Chargers purchased that contract. Eager to sever all ties with the Colts, Unitas signed a new two-year contract with the Chargers on June 8, 1973. He succeeded John Hadl who had requested and was granted a trade to the Rams.
Unitas started the season with a 38–0 loss to the Washington Redskins. He threw for just 55 yards and 3 interceptions, and was sacked 8 times. His final victory as a starter came against the Buffalo Bills in week two. Unitas was 10–18 for 175 yards, two touchdown passes, and no interceptions in a 34–7 Chargers rout. Many were questioning his role as a starter after a loss to the Bengals in week three. Two weeks later, he threw two first-half interceptions, passed for only 19 yards, and went 2-for-9 against the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was then replaced by rookie quarterback, future Hall of Famer Dan Fouts. After having posted a 1–3 record as a starter, Unitas retired in the preseason of 1974.
Unitas finished his 18 NFL seasons with 2,830 completions in 5,186 attempts for 40,239 yards and 290 touchdowns, with 253 interceptions. He also rushed for 1,777 yards and 13 touchdowns. Plagued by arm trouble in his later seasons, he threw more interceptions (64) than touchdowns (38) in 1968–1973. After averaging 215.8 yards per game in his first 12 seasons, his production fell to 124.4 in his final six. His passer rating plummeted from 82.9 to 60.4 for the same periods. Even so, Unitas set many passing records during his career. He was the first quarterback to throw for more than 40,000 yards, despite playing during an era when NFL teams played shorter seasons of 12 or 14 games (as opposed to today's 17-game seasons) and prior to modern passing-friendly rules implemented in 1978. His 32 touchdown passes in 1959 were a record at the time, making Unitas the first quarterback to hit the 30 touchdown mark in a season. His 47-game consecutive touchdown streak between 1956 and 1960 was a record considered by many to be unbreakable. The streak stood for 52 years before being broken by New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees in a game against the San Diego Chargers on October 7, 2012.
Post-playing days
After his playing days were finished, Unitas settled in Baltimore where he raised his family while also pursuing a career in broadcasting, doing color commentary for NFL games on CBS in the 1970s. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979. After Robert Irsay moved the Colts franchise to Indianapolis in 1984, a move known to this day in Baltimore as "Bob Irsay's Midnight Ride," he was so outraged that he cut all ties to the relocated team (though his No. 19 jersey is still retired by the Colts), declaring himself strictly a Baltimore Colt for the remainder of his life. Some other prominent old-time Colts followed his lead, although many attended the 1975 team's reunion at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis in 2009. A total of 39 Colts players from that 1975 team attended said reunion in Indianapolis, including Bert Jones and Lydell Mitchell. Unitas asked the Pro Football Hall of Fame on numerous occasions (including on Roy Firestone's Up Close) to remove his display unless it was listed as belonging to the Baltimore Colts. The Hall of Fame has never complied with the request. Unitas donated his Colts memorabilia to the Babe Ruth Museum in Baltimore; they are now on display in the Sports Legends Museum at Camden Yards.
Unitas was inducted into the American Football Association's Semi Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1987.
Unitas actively lobbied for another NFL team to come to Baltimore. After the Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore in 1996 and changed their name to the Ravens, he and some of the other old-time Colts attended the Ravens' first game ever against the Raiders on Opening Day at Memorial Stadium. He was frequently seen on the Ravens' sidelines at home games (most prominently in 1998 when the now-Indianapolis Colts played the Ravens in Baltimore) and received a thunderous ovation every time he was pictured on each of the huge widescreens at M&T Bank Stadium. He was often seen on the 30-yard line on the Ravens side. When the NFL celebrated its first 50 years, Unitas was voted the league's best player. Retired Bears quarterback Sid Luckman said of Unitas, "He was better than me, better than Sammy Baugh, better than anyone."
Unitas lived most of the final years of his life severely hobbled. Due to an elbow injury suffered during his playing career, he had only very limited use of his right hand, and could not perform any physical activity more strenuous than golf due to his artificial knees.
NFL career statistics
Source:
In 1957, Unitas was named MVP by the Newspaper Enterprise Association.
Personal life
At the age of 21 on November 20, 1954, Unitas married his high school sweetheart Dorothy Hoelle; they lived in Towson and had five children before divorcing. Unitas's second wife was Sandra Lemon, whom he married on June 26, 1972; they had three children, lived in Baldwin, and remained married until his death.
Towson University, where Unitas was a major fund-raiser and which his children attended, named its football and lacrosse complex Johnny Unitas Stadium in recognition of both his football career and service to the university.
Toward the end of his life, Unitas brought media attention to the many permanent physical disabilities that he and his fellow players suffered during their careers before heavy padding and other safety features became popular. Unitas himself lost almost total use of his right hand, with the middle finger and thumb noticeably disfigured from being repeatedly broken during games.
On September 11, 2002, Unitas died from a heart attack while working out at the Kernan Physical Therapy Center (now The University of Maryland Rehabilitation & Orthopaedic Institute) in Baltimore. His funeral was held at Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore, Maryland. Between his death and October 4, 2002, 56,934 people signed an online petition urging the Baltimore Ravens to rename the Ravens' home stadium (owned by the State of Maryland) after Unitas. These requests were unsuccessful since the lucrative naming rights had already been leased by the Ravens to Buffalo-based M&T Bank. However, on October 20, 2002, the Ravens dedicated the front area of the stadium's main entrance as Unitas Plaza and unveiled a statue of Unitas as the centerpiece of the plaza.
Unitas is buried at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens in Timonium, Maryland.
Legacy
Unitas held the record for most Pro Bowl appearances (10) by a quarterback until Brett Favre broke his record in 2009.
Unitas set the original standard for most wins as a starting quarterback with 118 regular season victories (since surpassed by multiple quarterbacks).
Unitas was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979.
Unitas is 11th in all-time number of regular season games won by an NFL starting quarterback with 118 wins.
Unitas is 16th in all-time percentage of regular season games won by an NFL starting quarterback with a percentage of 64.5.
1987 American Football Association Semi Pro Hall of Fame
Unitas's no. 16 is the first number retired by the football program at the University of Louisville.
Unitas Tower, a dormitory at the University of Louisville, is named for Johnny Unitas.
A statue of Unitas sits in the north end zone of Cardinal Stadium at the University of Louisville. It is a tradition for each Cardinal player to touch the statue as he enters the field.
Since 1987, the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award has been awarded to the top senior quarterback of the current year in college football. The award is presented annually in Louisville.
In 1999, he was ranked No. 5 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players, behind only Joe Montana among quarterbacks.
In 2004, The Sporting News ranked Unitas No. 1 among the NFL's 50 Greatest Quarterbacks, with Joe Montana at No. 2.
In 1999, ESPN's Sportscentury: 50 Greatest Athletes of the 20th Century ranked Unitas No. 32.
Just before his death, Johnny Unitas became the community liaison for athletics in Towson, Maryland. The football stadium at Towson University was renamed Johnny Unitas Stadium in 2002. Unitas died less than a week after throwing his last pass in the grand opening of the stadium.
Set the record for consecutive games with at least one touchdown pass at 47 games. This record was surpassed by Drew Brees in 2012.
Set the record for consecutive games with at least two touchdown passes at 12 games. This record was surpassed by Don Meredith, Peyton Manning (twice), Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Philip Rivers, and Patrick Mahomes.
Set the record for most consecutive games with at least a 120 passer rating (4); this record was later matched by Kurt Warner
For the game following his death, Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning asked to wear a pair of black cleats as a tribute to Johnny's signature black boots. The league denied his request and threatened Manning with a US$25,000 fine; Manning decided not to wear them. Despite the threatened fine, Chris Redman, a Louisville alum like Unitas, and then quarterback of the Baltimore Ravens, decided to pay homage by wearing the signature cleats during a game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
In 2013, a movie project was announced by The Baltimore Sun called Unitas We Stand, which will feature Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco as Unitas during the 1958 NFL Championship.
19th Street in Ocean City, Maryland is named "Johnny Unitas Way" in his honor.
Johnny Unitas Stadium on the campus of Towson University in Towson, Maryland, home of the Towson Tigers football and Towson Tigers men's lacrosse teams is named in his honor.
Unitas was posthumously inducted into the National Lithuanian American Hall of Fame on August 24, 2013.
See also
List of most consecutive starts by a National Football League quarterback
Most wins by a starting quarterback (NFL)
Notes
References
Sources
Bolus, Jim, and Billy Reed. Cardinal Football. Champaign, IL: Sports Pub Inc., 1999.
Callahan, Tom. Johnny U: the life and times of John Unitas. New York: Crown Publishers, 2006.
Lazenby, Roland. Johnny Unitas: the best there ever was. Chicago: Triumph Books, 2002.
Schaap, Dick (1999). "Johnny Unitas: Sunday's Best". In ESPN SportsCentury. Michael MacCambridge, Editor. New York: ESPN-Hyperion Books. pp. 154–65.
Cavanaugh, Jack (2008), Giants Among Men. New York:Random House.
MacCambridge, Michael (2005), America's Game. New York:Anchor Books.
External links
1933 births
2002 deaths
American football quarterbacks
American people of Lithuanian descent
Baltimore Colts players
Burials at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens
Catholics from Maryland
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Louisville Cardinals football players
National Football League announcers
National Football League Most Valuable Player Award winners
National Football League players with retired numbers
People from Timonium, Maryland
People from Towson, Maryland
Pittsburgh Steelers players
Players of American football from Baltimore
Players of American football from Pittsburgh
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
San Diego Chargers players
Sportspeople from Baltimore County, Maryland
Western Conference Pro Bowl players | true | [
"The 2011 Pro Bowl was the National Football League's all-star game for the 2010 season. It took place at 7:00 p.m. EST (2:00 p.m. local time) on Sunday, January 30, 2011 at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii. The NFC won 55–41, despite leading 42-0.\n\nReturn to Hawaii\nIn 2010, the NFL's contract with Hawaii's Aloha Stadium expired, and commissioner (Roger Goodell) reviewed several options of locations for the Pro Bowl. Eventually, it was decided that the 2010 Pro Bowl would be played at Sun Life Stadium in Miami, Florida where Super Bowl XLIV would be held. Goodell also decided the Pro Bowl would be played before Super Bowl XLIV after \"looking at alternatives to strengthen the Pro Bowl.\"\n\nSoon after Goodell made the decision to play the 2010 Pro Bowl in Miami, it was immediately criticized by coaches and players such as Eli Manning, who said, \"if the tradition continues, eventually the game will be held in cities that are not desirable vacation destinations.\"\n\nAs a result of backlash from players and critics about the decision to move the 2010 Pro Bowl to Miami, and the state of Hawaii offering a US$4,000,000 subsidy to the league, the NFL moved the game back to Hawaii for 2011, but the game remained before the Super Bowl for the second straight season. Therefore, players on the teams participating in Super Bowl XLV, the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers, did not play in the Pro Bowl the Sunday prior.\n\nScoring summary\n\nAFC roster\n\nOffense\n\nDefense\n\nSpecial teams\n\nNFC roster\n\nOffense\n\nDefense\n\nSpecial teams\n\nNotes:\nbold denotes player who participated in game\nReplacement selection due to injury or vacancy\nInjured player; selected but did not play\nReplacement starter; selected as reserve\n\"Need player\"; named by coach\nSelected but did not play because his team advanced to Super Bowl XLV\nGriffin was selected as free safety\nVilma originally backed out of the game and was replaced by Henderson who played instead of him, but Vilma later decided to play and Henderson was inactive\n\nNumber of selections per team\n\nReferences\n\nhttp://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/129273523.html\n\nExternal links\n Official Pro Bowl website at NFL.com\n \n\nPro Bowl\nPro Bowl\nPro Bowl\nPro\nPro Bowl\nAmerican football in Hawaii\nSports in Honolulu\nJanuary 2011 sports events in the United States",
"Marty Moore (born March 19, 1971) is a former professional American football player who played linebacker for eight seasons for the New England Patriots and Cleveland Browns. Moore was the first Mr. Irrelevant ever to play in a Super Bowl (Super Bowl XXXI). He also became the first Mr. Irrelevant to win a Super Bowl (Super Bowl XXXVI). \n\nMoore did not play in Super Bowl XXXVI because he was on injured reserve due to a torn Achilles tendon earlier in the season. Because of this, Moore is not the first Mr. Irrelevant to both play in and win a Super Bowl, with that achievement going to placekicker Ryan Succop. Succop was the Mr. Irrelevant of the 2009 NFL Draft, and was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers starting kicker in their Super Bowl LV championship over the Kansas City Chiefs, which was coincidentally the team that drafted him. Moore played high school football for Highlands High in Fort Thomas, Kentucky and college football at the University of Kentucky, playing in the 1993 Peach Bowl and becoming the final pick in the 1994 NFL Draft after his senior season.\n\nReferences\n\n1971 births\nAmerican football linebackers\nKentucky Wildcats football players\nNew England Patriots players\nCleveland Browns players\nLiving people\nHighlands High School (Fort Thomas, Kentucky) alumni\nPlayers of American football from Phoenix, Arizona"
] |
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"how many games did the colts win",
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] | C_2ba58216460d43aa986fc0e897537239_0 | what were unitas stats | 6 | what were Johnny Unitas stats? | Johnny Unitas | The 1964 season would see the Colts return to the top of the Western Conference. After dropping their season opener to the Minnesota Vikings, the Colts ran off 10 straight victories to finish with a 12-2 record. The season was one of Unitas' best as he finished with 2,824 yards passing, a league-best 9.26 yards per pass attempt, 19 touchdown passes and only 6 interceptions. He was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player by the AP and UPI for a second time. However, the season would end on a disappointing note for the Colts as they were upset by the Cleveland Browns in the 1964 NFL Championship Game, losing 27-0. Unitas resumed his torrid passing in 1965, as he threw for 2,530 yards, 23 touchdowns and finished with a league-high and career best 97.1 passer rating. But he was lost for the balance of the season due to a knee injury in a week 12 loss to the Bears. More postseason heartbreak would follow in 1965. The Colts and Packers finished in a tie for first place in the Western Conference and a one-game playoff was played in Green Bay to decide who would be the conference representative in the 1965 NFL Championship Game. The Colts lost in overtime 13-10 due in large part to a game-tying field goal by Don Chandler that many say was incorrectly ruled good. Backup quarterback Gary Cuozzo also suffered a season-ending injury the following week and it would be running back Tom Matte who filled in as the emergency QB for the regular-season finale and the playoff loss to the Packers. Unitas, healthy once more, threw for 2748 yards and 22 touchdowns in 1966 in a return to Pro Bowl form. However, he posted a league-high 24 interceptions. CANNOTANSWER | Gary Cuozzo also suffered a season-ending injury the following | John Constantine Unitas (; May 7, 1933 – September 11, 2002) was an American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 18 seasons, primarily with the Baltimore Colts. Following a career that spanned from 1956 to 1973, he has been consistently listed as one of the greatest NFL players of all time.
Unitas set many NFL records and was named Most Valuable Player three times in 1959, 1964, and 1967, in addition to receiving 10 Pro Bowl and five first-team All-Pro honors. He helped lead the Colts to four championship titles; three pre-merger era in 1958, 1959, 1968, and one Super Bowl era in Super Bowl V. His first championship victory is regarded as one of the league's greatest games and credited with helping popularize the NFL. Between 1956 and 1960, he set the record for most consecutive games with a touchdown pass at 47, which held for 52 years.
Nicknamed "Johnny U" and the "Golden Arm", Unitas was considered the prototype of the modern era marquee quarterback. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979.
Early life
John Constantine Unitas was born in Pittsburgh in 1933 to Francis J. Unitas and Helen Superfisky, both of Lithuanian descent; he grew up in the Mount Washington neighborhood in a Roman Catholic upbringing. When Unitas was five years old, his father died of cardiovascular renal disease complicated by pneumonia, leaving the young boy to be raised by his mother, who worked two jobs to support the family. His surname was a result of a phonetic transliteration of a common Lithuanian last name Jonaitis. Attending St. Justin's High School in Pittsburgh, Unitas played halfback and quarterback.
College career
In his younger years, Unitas dreamed about being part of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team, but when he tried out for the team, coach Frank Leahy said that he was just too skinny and he would "get murdered" if he was put on the field.
Instead, he attended the University of Louisville. In his four-year career as a Louisville Cardinal, Unitas completed 245 passes for 3,139 yards and 27 touchdowns. Reportedly, the Unitas weighed on his first day of practice. His first start was in the fifth game of the 1951 season against St. Bonaventure, where he threw 11 consecutive passes and three touchdowns to give the Cardinals a 21–19 lead. Louisville ended up losing the game 22–21 on a disputed field goal, but found a new starting quarterback. Unitas completed 12 of 19 passes for 240 yards and four touchdowns in a 35–28 victory over Houston. The team finished the season 5–5 overall and 4–1 with Unitas starting. He completed 46 of 99 passes for 602 yards and nine touchdowns (44).
By the 1952 season, the university decided to de-emphasize sports. The new president at Louisville, Dr. Philip Grant Davidson, reduced the amount of athletic aid, and tightened academic standards for athletes. As a result, 15 returning players could not meet the new standards and lost their scholarships. Unitas maintained his by taking on a new elective: square dancing. In 1952, coach Frank Camp switched the team to two-way football. Unitas not only played safety or linebacker on defense and quarterback on offense, but also returned kicks and punts on special teams. The Cardinals won their first game against Wayne State, and then Florida State in the second game. Unitas completed 16 of 21 passes for 198 yards and three touchdowns. It was said that Unitas put on such a show at the Florida State game that he threw a pass under his legs for 15 yards. The rest of the season was a struggle for the Cardinals, who finished 3–5. Unitas completed 106 of 198 passes for 1,540 yards and 12 touchdowns.
The team won their first game in 1953, against Murray State, and lost the rest for a record of 1–7. One of the most memorable games of the season came in a 59–6 loss against Tennessee. Unitas completed 9 out of 19 passes for 73 yards, rushed 9 times for 52 yards, returned six kickoffs for 85 yards, one punt for three yards, and had 86 percent of the team's tackles. The only touchdown the team scored was in the fourth quarter when Unitas made a fake pitch to the running back and ran the ball 23 yards for a touchdown. Unitas was hurt later in the fourth quarter while trying to run the ball. On his way off the field, he received a standing ovation. When he got to the locker room he was so tired that his jersey and shoulder pads had to be cut off because he could not lift his arms. Louisville ended the season with a 20–13 loss to Eastern Kentucky. Unitas completed 49 of 95 passes for 470 yards and three touchdowns.
Unitas was elected captain for the 1954 season, but due to an early injury did not see much playing time. His first start was the third game of the season, against Florida State. Of the 34-man team, 21 were freshmen. The 1954 Cardinals went 3–6, with their last win at home against Morehead State. Unitas was slowed by so many injuries his senior year his 527 passing yards ended second to Jim Houser's 560.
Professional career
Pittsburgh Steelers
After his collegiate career, the Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL drafted Unitas in the ninth round. However, he was released before the season began as the odd man out among four quarterbacks trying to fill three spots. Steelers' head coach Walt Kiesling had made up his mind about Unitas; he thought he was not smart enough to quarterback an NFL team, and he was not given any snaps in practice with the Steelers. Among those edging out Unitas was Ted Marchibroda, future longtime NFL head coach. Out of pro football, Unitas—by this time married—worked in construction in Pittsburgh to support his family. On the weekends, he played quarterback, safety and punter on a local semi-professional team called the Bloomfield Rams for $6 a game.
Baltimore Colts
In 1956, Unitas joined the Baltimore Colts of the NFL under legendary coach Weeb Ewbank, after being asked at the last minute to join Bloomfield Rams lineman Jim Deglau, a Croatian steelworker with a life much like Unitas, at the latter's scheduled Colts tryout. The pair borrowed money from friends to pay for the gas to make the trip. Deglau later told a reporter after Unitas's death, "[His] uncle told him not to come. [He] was worried that if he came down and the Colts passed on him, it would look bad (to other NFL teams)." The Colts signed Unitas, much to the chagrin of the Cleveland Browns, who had hoped to claim the former Steeler quarterback.
Unitas made his NFL debut with an inauspicious "mop-up" appearance against Detroit, going 0–2 with one interception. Two weeks later, starting quarterback George Shaw suffered a broken leg against the Chicago Bears. In his first serious action, Unitas's initial pass was intercepted and returned for a touchdown. Then he botched a hand-off on his next play, a fumble recovered by the Bears. Unitas rebounded quickly from that 58–27 loss, leading the Colts to an upset of Green Bay and their first win over Cleveland. He threw nine touchdown passes that year, including one in the season finale that started his record 47-game streak. His 55.6-percent completion mark was a rookie record.
In 1957, his first season as the Colts full-time starter at quarterback, Unitas finished first in the NFL in passing yards (2,550) and touchdown passes (24) as he helped lead the Colts to a 7–5 record, the first winning record in franchise history. At season's end, Unitas received the Jim Thorpe Trophy as the NFL's Most Valuable Player by the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA).
1958: "The Greatest Game Ever Played"
Unitas continued his prowess in 1958 passing for 2,007 yards and 19 touchdowns as the Colts won the Western Conference title. The Colts won the NFL championship under his leadership on December 28, 1958, by defeating the New York Giants 23–17 in sudden death overtime on a touchdown by fullback Alan Ameche. It was the first overtime game in NFL history, and is often referred to as the "greatest game ever played". The game, nationally televised by NBC, has been credited for sparking the rise in popularity of professional football during the 1960s.
1959 MVP season
In 1959, Unitas was named the NFL's MVP by the Associated Press (AP) for the first time, as well as United Press International's player of the year, after leading the NFL in passing yards (2,899), touchdown passes (32), and completions (193). He then led the Colts to a repeat championship, beating the Giants again 31–16 in the title game.
Beginning of the 1960s
As the 1960s began, the Colts' fortunes (and win totals) declined. Injuries to key players such as Alan Ameche, Raymond Berry, and Lenny Moore were a contributing factor. Unitas's streak of 47 straight games with at least one touchdown pass ended against the Los Angeles Rams in week 11 of the 1960 season. In spite of this, he topped the 3,000-yard passing mark for the first time and led the league in touchdown passes for the fourth consecutive season.
After three middle-of-the-pack seasons, Colts owner Carroll Rosenbloom fired Weeb Ewbank and replaced him with Don Shula, who at the time was the youngest head coach in NFL history (33 years of age when he was hired). The Colts finished 8–6 in Shula's first season at the helm, good enough for only third place in the NFL's Western Conference, but they did end the season on a strong note by winning their final three games. The season was very successful for Unitas personally, as he led the NFL in passing yards with a career-best total of 3,481 and also led in completions with 237.
1964 MVP season
In the 1964 season the Colts returned to the top of the Western Conference. After dropping their season opener to the Minnesota Vikings, the Colts ran off 10 straight victories to finish with a 12–2 record. The season was one of Unitas's best as he finished with 2,824 yards passing, a league-best 9.26 yards per pass attempt, 19 touchdown passes and only 6 interceptions. He was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player by the AP and UPI for a second time. However, the season ended on a disappointing note for the Colts as they were upset by the Cleveland Browns in the 1964 NFL Championship Game, losing 27–0.
Unitas resumed his torrid passing in 1965, throwing for 2,530 yards, 23 touchdowns and finishing with a league-high and career-best 97.1 passer rating. But he was lost for the balance of the season due to a knee injury in a week 12 loss to the Bears. Backup quarterback Gary Cuozzo also suffered a season-ending injury the following week, and running back Tom Matte filled in as the emergency quarterback for the regular season finale and in a playoff loss to the Packers. The Colts and Packers finished in a tie for first place in the Western Conference and a one-game playoff was played in Green Bay to decide who would be the conference representative in the 1965 NFL Championship Game. The Colts lost in overtime 13–10 due in large part to a game-tying field goal by Don Chandler that many say was incorrectly ruled good.
Unitas, healthy once more, threw for 2,748 yards and 22 touchdowns in 1966 in a return to Pro Bowl form. However, he posted a league-high 24 interceptions.
1967 MVP season
After once again finishing second in the Western Conference in 1966, the Colts rebounded to finish 11–1–2 in 1967 tying the Los Angeles Rams for the NFL's best record. In winning his third MVP award from the AP and UPI in 1967 (and his second from the NEA), Unitas had a league-high 58.5 completion percentage and passed for 3,428 yards and 20 touchdowns. He openly complained about having tennis elbow and he threw eight interceptions and only three touchdown passes in the final five games. Once again, the season ended in loss for the Colts, as they were shut out of the newly instituted four-team NFL playoff after losing the divisional tiebreaker to the Rams, a 34–10 rout in the regular season finale.
Super Bowls and final Colt years
In the final game of the 1968 preseason, the muscles in Unitas's arm were torn when he was hit by a member of the Dallas Cowboys defense. Unitas wrote in his autobiography that he felt his arm was initially injured by the use of the "night ball" that the NFL was testing for better TV visibility during night games. In a post-game interview the previous year, he noted having constant pain in his elbow for several years prior. He would spend most of the season sitting on the bench. The Colts still marched to a league-best 13–1 record behind backup quarterback and ultimate 1968 NFL MVP Earl Morrall. Although he was injured through most of the season, Unitas came off the bench to play in Super Bowl III, the famous game where Joe Namath guaranteed a New York Jets win despite conventional wisdom. Unitas's insertion was a desperation move in an attempt to retrieve dominance of the NFL over the upstart AFL. Although the Colts won an NFL Championship in 1968, they lost the Super Bowl to the AFL Champion New York Jets, thus becoming the first-ever NFL champions that were not also deemed world champions. Unitas helped put together the Colts' only score, a touchdown late in the game. Unitas also drove the Colts into scoring position following the touchdown and successful onside kick, but head coach Don Shula eschewed a field goal attempt, which (if successful) would have cut the Jets' lead to 16–10. Despite not playing until late in the third quarter, he still finished the game with more passing yards than the team's starter, Earl Morrall.
After an off-season of rehabilitation on his elbow, Unitas rebounded in 1969, passing for 2,342 yards and 12 touchdowns with 20 interceptions. But the Colts finished with a disappointing 8–5–1 record, and missed the playoffs.
In 1970, the NFL and AFL had merged into one league, and the Colts moved to the new American Football Conference, along with the Cleveland Browns and the Pittsburgh Steelers. He threw for 2,213 yards and 14 touchdowns while leading the Colts to an 11–2–1 season. In their first rematch with the Jets, Unitas and Namath threw a combined nine interceptions in a 29–22 Colts win. Namath threw 62 passes and broke his hand on the final play of the game, ending his season.
Unitas threw for 390 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions in AFC playoff victories over the Cincinnati Bengals and the Oakland Raiders. In Super Bowl V against the Dallas Cowboys, he was knocked out of the game with a rib injury in the second quarter, soon after throwing a 75-yard touchdown pass (setting a then-Super Bowl record) to John Mackey. However, he had also tossed two interceptions before his departure from the game. Earl Morrall came in to lead the team to a last-second, 16–13 victory.
In 1971, Unitas split playing time with Morrall, throwing only three touchdown passes. He started both playoff games, a win over the Cleveland Browns that sent the Colts to the AFC Championship game against the Miami Dolphins, which they lost by a score of 21–0. Unitas threw three interceptions in the game, one of which was returned for a touchdown by safety Dick Anderson.
The 1972 season saw the Colts declining. After losing the season opener, Unitas was involved in the second and final regular season head-to-head meeting with "Broadway" Joe Namath. The first was in 1970 (won by the Colts, 29–22). The last meeting took place on September 24, 1972 at Memorial Stadium. He threw for 376 yards and three touchdowns, but Namath upstaged him again, bombing the Colts for 496 yards and six touchdowns in a 44–34 Jets victory – their first over Baltimore since the 1970 merger. After losing four of their first five games, the Colts fired head coach Don McCafferty, and benched Unitas.
One of the more memorable moments in football history came on Unitas's last game in a Colts uniform at Memorial Stadium, in a game against the Buffalo Bills. He was not the starter for this game, but the Colts were blowing the Bills out by a score of 28–0 behind Marty Domres; Unitas entered the game due to the fans chanting, "We want Unitas!!!", and a plan devised by head coach John Sandusky to convince Unitas that the starting quarterback was injured. Unitas came onto the field, and threw two passes, one of which was a long touchdown to wide receiver Eddie Hinton which would be his last pass as a Colt. The Colts won the game by the score of 35–7.
San Diego, retirement, and records
Unitas was traded from the Colts to the San Diego Chargers on January 20, 1973, in a transaction that originally had future considerations returning to Baltimore. The deal's only obstacle was the personal services contract he had signed with the Colts in 1970 which would've kept him employed within the organization on an annual salary of $30,000 over ten years once his career as an active player ended. The pact had been signed when the ballclub was owned by Carroll Rosenbloom who subsequently acquired the Los Angeles Rams on July 13, 1972, in a franchise swap with Robert Irsay. The deal was completed when the Chargers purchased that contract. Eager to sever all ties with the Colts, Unitas signed a new two-year contract with the Chargers on June 8, 1973. He succeeded John Hadl who had requested and was granted a trade to the Rams.
Unitas started the season with a 38–0 loss to the Washington Redskins. He threw for just 55 yards and 3 interceptions, and was sacked 8 times. His final victory as a starter came against the Buffalo Bills in week two. Unitas was 10–18 for 175 yards, two touchdown passes, and no interceptions in a 34–7 Chargers rout. Many were questioning his role as a starter after a loss to the Bengals in week three. Two weeks later, he threw two first-half interceptions, passed for only 19 yards, and went 2-for-9 against the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was then replaced by rookie quarterback, future Hall of Famer Dan Fouts. After having posted a 1–3 record as a starter, Unitas retired in the preseason of 1974.
Unitas finished his 18 NFL seasons with 2,830 completions in 5,186 attempts for 40,239 yards and 290 touchdowns, with 253 interceptions. He also rushed for 1,777 yards and 13 touchdowns. Plagued by arm trouble in his later seasons, he threw more interceptions (64) than touchdowns (38) in 1968–1973. After averaging 215.8 yards per game in his first 12 seasons, his production fell to 124.4 in his final six. His passer rating plummeted from 82.9 to 60.4 for the same periods. Even so, Unitas set many passing records during his career. He was the first quarterback to throw for more than 40,000 yards, despite playing during an era when NFL teams played shorter seasons of 12 or 14 games (as opposed to today's 17-game seasons) and prior to modern passing-friendly rules implemented in 1978. His 32 touchdown passes in 1959 were a record at the time, making Unitas the first quarterback to hit the 30 touchdown mark in a season. His 47-game consecutive touchdown streak between 1956 and 1960 was a record considered by many to be unbreakable. The streak stood for 52 years before being broken by New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees in a game against the San Diego Chargers on October 7, 2012.
Post-playing days
After his playing days were finished, Unitas settled in Baltimore where he raised his family while also pursuing a career in broadcasting, doing color commentary for NFL games on CBS in the 1970s. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979. After Robert Irsay moved the Colts franchise to Indianapolis in 1984, a move known to this day in Baltimore as "Bob Irsay's Midnight Ride," he was so outraged that he cut all ties to the relocated team (though his No. 19 jersey is still retired by the Colts), declaring himself strictly a Baltimore Colt for the remainder of his life. Some other prominent old-time Colts followed his lead, although many attended the 1975 team's reunion at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis in 2009. A total of 39 Colts players from that 1975 team attended said reunion in Indianapolis, including Bert Jones and Lydell Mitchell. Unitas asked the Pro Football Hall of Fame on numerous occasions (including on Roy Firestone's Up Close) to remove his display unless it was listed as belonging to the Baltimore Colts. The Hall of Fame has never complied with the request. Unitas donated his Colts memorabilia to the Babe Ruth Museum in Baltimore; they are now on display in the Sports Legends Museum at Camden Yards.
Unitas was inducted into the American Football Association's Semi Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1987.
Unitas actively lobbied for another NFL team to come to Baltimore. After the Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore in 1996 and changed their name to the Ravens, he and some of the other old-time Colts attended the Ravens' first game ever against the Raiders on Opening Day at Memorial Stadium. He was frequently seen on the Ravens' sidelines at home games (most prominently in 1998 when the now-Indianapolis Colts played the Ravens in Baltimore) and received a thunderous ovation every time he was pictured on each of the huge widescreens at M&T Bank Stadium. He was often seen on the 30-yard line on the Ravens side. When the NFL celebrated its first 50 years, Unitas was voted the league's best player. Retired Bears quarterback Sid Luckman said of Unitas, "He was better than me, better than Sammy Baugh, better than anyone."
Unitas lived most of the final years of his life severely hobbled. Due to an elbow injury suffered during his playing career, he had only very limited use of his right hand, and could not perform any physical activity more strenuous than golf due to his artificial knees.
NFL career statistics
Source:
In 1957, Unitas was named MVP by the Newspaper Enterprise Association.
Personal life
At the age of 21 on November 20, 1954, Unitas married his high school sweetheart Dorothy Hoelle; they lived in Towson and had five children before divorcing. Unitas's second wife was Sandra Lemon, whom he married on June 26, 1972; they had three children, lived in Baldwin, and remained married until his death.
Towson University, where Unitas was a major fund-raiser and which his children attended, named its football and lacrosse complex Johnny Unitas Stadium in recognition of both his football career and service to the university.
Toward the end of his life, Unitas brought media attention to the many permanent physical disabilities that he and his fellow players suffered during their careers before heavy padding and other safety features became popular. Unitas himself lost almost total use of his right hand, with the middle finger and thumb noticeably disfigured from being repeatedly broken during games.
On September 11, 2002, Unitas died from a heart attack while working out at the Kernan Physical Therapy Center (now The University of Maryland Rehabilitation & Orthopaedic Institute) in Baltimore. His funeral was held at Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore, Maryland. Between his death and October 4, 2002, 56,934 people signed an online petition urging the Baltimore Ravens to rename the Ravens' home stadium (owned by the State of Maryland) after Unitas. These requests were unsuccessful since the lucrative naming rights had already been leased by the Ravens to Buffalo-based M&T Bank. However, on October 20, 2002, the Ravens dedicated the front area of the stadium's main entrance as Unitas Plaza and unveiled a statue of Unitas as the centerpiece of the plaza.
Unitas is buried at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens in Timonium, Maryland.
Legacy
Unitas held the record for most Pro Bowl appearances (10) by a quarterback until Brett Favre broke his record in 2009.
Unitas set the original standard for most wins as a starting quarterback with 118 regular season victories (since surpassed by multiple quarterbacks).
Unitas was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979.
Unitas is 11th in all-time number of regular season games won by an NFL starting quarterback with 118 wins.
Unitas is 16th in all-time percentage of regular season games won by an NFL starting quarterback with a percentage of 64.5.
1987 American Football Association Semi Pro Hall of Fame
Unitas's no. 16 is the first number retired by the football program at the University of Louisville.
Unitas Tower, a dormitory at the University of Louisville, is named for Johnny Unitas.
A statue of Unitas sits in the north end zone of Cardinal Stadium at the University of Louisville. It is a tradition for each Cardinal player to touch the statue as he enters the field.
Since 1987, the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award has been awarded to the top senior quarterback of the current year in college football. The award is presented annually in Louisville.
In 1999, he was ranked No. 5 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players, behind only Joe Montana among quarterbacks.
In 2004, The Sporting News ranked Unitas No. 1 among the NFL's 50 Greatest Quarterbacks, with Joe Montana at No. 2.
In 1999, ESPN's Sportscentury: 50 Greatest Athletes of the 20th Century ranked Unitas No. 32.
Just before his death, Johnny Unitas became the community liaison for athletics in Towson, Maryland. The football stadium at Towson University was renamed Johnny Unitas Stadium in 2002. Unitas died less than a week after throwing his last pass in the grand opening of the stadium.
Set the record for consecutive games with at least one touchdown pass at 47 games. This record was surpassed by Drew Brees in 2012.
Set the record for consecutive games with at least two touchdown passes at 12 games. This record was surpassed by Don Meredith, Peyton Manning (twice), Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Philip Rivers, and Patrick Mahomes.
Set the record for most consecutive games with at least a 120 passer rating (4); this record was later matched by Kurt Warner
For the game following his death, Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning asked to wear a pair of black cleats as a tribute to Johnny's signature black boots. The league denied his request and threatened Manning with a US$25,000 fine; Manning decided not to wear them. Despite the threatened fine, Chris Redman, a Louisville alum like Unitas, and then quarterback of the Baltimore Ravens, decided to pay homage by wearing the signature cleats during a game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
In 2013, a movie project was announced by The Baltimore Sun called Unitas We Stand, which will feature Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco as Unitas during the 1958 NFL Championship.
19th Street in Ocean City, Maryland is named "Johnny Unitas Way" in his honor.
Johnny Unitas Stadium on the campus of Towson University in Towson, Maryland, home of the Towson Tigers football and Towson Tigers men's lacrosse teams is named in his honor.
Unitas was posthumously inducted into the National Lithuanian American Hall of Fame on August 24, 2013.
See also
List of most consecutive starts by a National Football League quarterback
Most wins by a starting quarterback (NFL)
Notes
References
Sources
Bolus, Jim, and Billy Reed. Cardinal Football. Champaign, IL: Sports Pub Inc., 1999.
Callahan, Tom. Johnny U: the life and times of John Unitas. New York: Crown Publishers, 2006.
Lazenby, Roland. Johnny Unitas: the best there ever was. Chicago: Triumph Books, 2002.
Schaap, Dick (1999). "Johnny Unitas: Sunday's Best". In ESPN SportsCentury. Michael MacCambridge, Editor. New York: ESPN-Hyperion Books. pp. 154–65.
Cavanaugh, Jack (2008), Giants Among Men. New York:Random House.
MacCambridge, Michael (2005), America's Game. New York:Anchor Books.
External links
1933 births
2002 deaths
American football quarterbacks
American people of Lithuanian descent
Baltimore Colts players
Burials at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens
Catholics from Maryland
Catholics from Pennsylvania
Louisville Cardinals football players
National Football League announcers
National Football League Most Valuable Player Award winners
National Football League players with retired numbers
People from Timonium, Maryland
People from Towson, Maryland
Pittsburgh Steelers players
Players of American football from Baltimore
Players of American football from Pittsburgh
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
San Diego Chargers players
Sportspeople from Baltimore County, Maryland
Western Conference Pro Bowl players | true | [
"Unitas may refer to:\n\n 306 Unitas, a main belt asteroid \n UNITAS, a multi-lateral naval exercise in South and Central America\n Unitas Capital, a private equity firm, formerly known as CCMP Capital Asia\n Humani generis unitas, a planned encyclical of Pope Pius XI before his death on February 10, 1939, which condemned antisemitism, racism and the persecution of Jews.\n Johnny Unitas (1933-2002), professional American football player\n Unitas (mollusc), a genus in family Cancellariidae\n Housing complex Unitas, an apartment complex from 1931 in Bratislava",
"The Wissenschaftliche Katholische Studentenverein (W.K.St.V.) Unitas Stolzenfels Bonn was established in 1910. It is a Catholic student fraternity at the University of Bonn in Germany. It is member of the Unitas-Verband (UV) an umbrella organisation of several Catholic fraternities and sororities. Unitas Stolzenfels is the second oldest of the four today existing Unitas associations in Bonn. Others are W.K.St.V. Unitas-Salia (1847), W.K.St.V. Unitas Rhenania (1912) and the sorority W.K.St.V. Unitas Clara-Schumann (1992).\n\nHistory\n\n1910–1938\n\nFoundation: 1910 \nUnitas Stolzenfels was founded in Bonn on November 28, 1910, as Unitas Sigfridia and was associated with the Unitas-Verband on June 6, 1911, by the 52. general assembly (Generalversammlung, GV) of the Unitas-Verband in Fulda. World War I prevented a fast buildup of the Aktivitas (the active student association). Only in winter term of 1919/20 the fraternity was re-established.\n\nColour-Crisis \nThe colour-crisis was a struggle among the different fraternities of the Unitas-Verband. Some associations wanted to carry colours (hats and ribbons with the colours of the fraternity). Unitas Sigfridia was one of them. Therefore, it left the umbrella association in 1924 and founded with other fraternities the RKDB (Ring Katholischer Deutscher Burschenschaften (Ring of Catholic German fraternities)).\n\n1st Re-establishment \nTogether with 8 other members Hermann-Josef Stumpe, religion teacher, and Dr. Karl Loskant founded Unitas Stolzenfels in 1927, which didn't want to break away from Unitas umbrella association. The name refers to the castle Stolzenfels near Koblenz, Germany. With the other Unitas associations in Bonn Unitas Stolzenfels developed a viable confraternity. Before fraternities were banned by the national socialists, each of the associations in Bonn had 50 to 40 active members. The first house of Stolzenfels is still standing on Bonner Talweg. In 1938 Unitas Stolzenfels as the whole umbrella organisation Unitas was banned.\n\nPost-war period\n\n2nd Re-establishment \nAfter WWII Unitas Stolzenfels was re-established in the winter term of 1949/1950. A few out-of-town members and a few members of Unitas-Salia helped. Once again Hermann-Josef Stumpe, now pastor of the Bonn minster and bank director Dr. Karl Loskant were founding members. Official affiliation followed on August 4, 1950, during the 73rd general assembly (Generalversammlung, GV) in Munich.\n\nIn 1956 a new house had to be bought, since the old house was dispossessed by the national socialists, but was not given back after the war. The house and the parties held in this house will always remain a nice memory of the students of the 50s and 60s. In 1967 the house was sold to the Deutsche Bahn to finance a new house. This wasn't to good for fraternity life, since no festivities could be held in own rooms. It also wasn't possible to provide cheap housing for new students and members. In 1970 this changed at once with the opening of the new house on Hatschiergasse. There was more space for festivities and more rooms for students. The fraternity began to flourish once again. The house was inaugurated during the 95th GV in Bonn in 1972 by the nuncio in Germany, Archbishop Corrado Bafile.\n\nSince 1963 an irregular magazine is published by Stolzenfels called \"Convent\".\n\nTraditions\n\nPrinciples and Motto \n Virtus means you should always pursue a Christian way of life, which considers social engagement and willingness to fulfil our responsibility in church, nation and society.\n Scientia requests every member of Unitas, to deal with other academic subjects than one’s own. It is a possibility to enhance ones general knowledge and to sharpen ones judgement for a better world.\n Amicitia characterises our effort to win friends for life by friendly behaviour with each other and responsibility and concern for each other.\n\nThe motto of W.K.St.V. Unitas Stolzenfels is:\nIn necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas\nIn necessity unanimity, in doubt liberty, but above all charity\n\nFlags and Colours \nThe colours of Unitas Stolzenfels are the colours of the Unitas-Verband in the order of white blue gold \n\nThe flag of Unitas Stolzenfels shows the colours white-blue-gold in horizontal stripes. Embroidered on them is the Monogram. On the other side the coat of arms is depicted on a blue basis. Underneath it reads: „Unitas Stolzenfels sei's panier“ (Flag of Unitas Stolzenfels)\n\nZirkel (Monogram) \n\nThe Zirkel of Unitas Stolzenfels contains the following letters:\n\nThe exclamation mark shows, that this fraternity has active students. A Zirkel without exclamation mark still exists, but has no more active students and therefore has a high possibility of ceasing to exist when the last of the Alte Herren (\"Old Gentlemen\", members who finished studying) dies.\n\nCoat of Arms and Needle \n\nIn the Coat of Arms of the Unitas fraternities and sororities you will find most commonly four fields. These four fields usually show the following:\n A bundle of Arrows (the arrows represent Amicitia, the friendship in the fraternity meaning that the community is strong and cannot be broken like a single arrow)\n The Zirkel\n The Coat of Arms or the Flag of the Local City\n An Owl (Representing Scientia, meaning science and education. Sometimes sitting on a book or completely replaced by a book. The owl also sometimes sits on top of the Coat of Arms.)\n\nOften you will also find two hands grabbing themselves to represent Amicitia.\n\nAs a sign of membership in every fraternity a needle is affixed to the collar of every new member at their official reception into the fraternity. The new member is now a \"Fux\". \"Füxe\" can look into the fraternity for one year and then decide to become lifelong members (\"Burschen\") or to leave the fraternity.\n\nKnown Members \n Maximilian Goffart, auxiliary bishop in Aachen\n Josef Höchst, Member of the federal parliament in Germany\n Heinrich Krone, Federal minister in Germany\n Eduard Ackermann, Head of Department 5 of the German Chancellery during the Kohl-Era\n Joseph Goebbels, Reichspropagandaminister (Member from 1917 until 1919)\n\nLiterature\n\nExternal links\n Internetsite of W.K.St.V. Unitas-Stolzenfels Bonn (German)\n Internetsite of the Unitas-Verband(German)\n\nSources \n\n Unitas Handbuch Band I-V\n Fuxenfibel des Unitas-Verbandes\n\nChristian student societies in Germany\nUniversity of Bonn\nStudent organizations established in 1910\n1910 establishments in Germany"
] |
[
"Mark Taylor (cricketer)",
"Early years"
] | C_ae269bdc0d524b599736eb69a322d5b1_1 | Where was he born? | 1 | Where was Mark Taylor born? | Mark Taylor (cricketer) | The second of three children born to bank manager Tony Taylor, and his wife Judy, Mark Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga, where his family relocated when he was eight. His father had a sporting background, playing first grade rugby in Newcastle. The young Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him. Taylor idolised Arthur Morris, the left-handed opening batsmen from New South Wales who led the aggregates on the 1948 "Invincibles" tour of England. Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga. His family then moved to the north shore of Sydney, where he joined Northern District in Sydney Grade Cricket. Completing his secondary education at Chatswood High School, he later obtained a degree in surveying at the University of New South Wales. Along with the Waugh twins, Steve and Mark, Taylor played in under-19 youth internationals for Australia against Sri Lanka in 1982-83. Taylor made his Sheffield Shield debut in 1985-86 when NSW was depleted by the defection of regular openers Steve Smith and John Dyson to a rebel tour of South Africa. Opening with fellow debutant Mark Waugh, he scored 12 and 56 not out against Tasmania. His first season was highlighted by home and away centuries against South Australia in a total of 937 runs at 49.31 average. He had a lean season in 1987-88, after which he spent the English summer with Greenmount, helping them to win their first Bolton League title by scoring more than 1,300 runs at an average of 70. He originally trained as a surveyor, and received a degree in surveying from the University of New South Wales in 1987. CANNOTANSWER | Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga, | Mark Anthony Taylor (born 27 October 1964) is a former Australian cricketer and currently a Cricket Australia director and Nine Network commentator.
He was Test opening batsman from 1988 to 1999, as well as captain from 1994 to 1999, succeeding Allan Border. His predominant fielding position was first slip. He was widely regarded as an instrumental component in Australia's rise to Test cricket dominance, and his captaincy was regarded as adventurous and highly effective. However, he was considered less than ideal for One-Day International cricket and was eventually dropped as one-day captain after a 0–3 drubbing at the hands of England in 1997.
He moved to Wagga Wagga in 1972 and played for Lake Albert Cricket Club. His debut was for New South Wales in 1985.
He retired from Test cricket on 2 February 1999. In 104 Test matches, he scored 7,525 runs with a batting average of 43.49, including 19 centuries and 40 fifties. He was also an excellent first slip – his 157 catches, at the time, a Test record (now held by Rahul Dravid). In contrast to his predecessor Allan Border, who acquired the nickname 'Captain Grumpy', Taylor won plaudits for his always cheerful and positive demeanour. His successor, Steve Waugh, further honed the Australian team built by Border and Taylor and went on to set numerous records for victories as captain. Having been named Australian of the Year in 1999, he is now a cricket commentator for the Nine Network, and former Director of Cricket Australia.
Early years
The second of three children born to bank manager Tony Taylor, and his wife Judy, Mark Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga, where his family relocated when he was eight. His father had a sporting background, playing first grade rugby in Newcastle. The young Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him. Taylor idolised Arthur Morris, the left-handed opening batsmen from New South Wales who led the aggregates on the 1948 "Invincibles" tour of England.
Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga. His family then moved to the north shore of Sydney, where he joined Northern District in Sydney Grade Cricket. Completing his secondary education at Chatswood High School, he later obtained a degree in surveying at the University of New South Wales in 1987. Along with the Waugh twins, Steve and Mark, Taylor played in under-19 youth internationals for Australia against Sri Lanka in 1982–83.
Taylor made his Sheffield Shield debut in 1985–86 when NSW was depleted by the defection of regular openers Steve Smith and John Dyson to a rebel tour of South Africa. Opening with fellow debutant Mark Waugh, he scored 12 and 56 not out against Tasmania. His first season was highlighted by home and away centuries against South Australia in a total of 937 runs at 49.31 average. He had a lean season in 1987–88, after which he spent the English summer with Greenmount, helping them to win their first Bolton League title by scoring more than 1,300 runs at an average of 70.
International career
Test career
Solid form for NSW in 1988–89 resulted in Taylor's selection for his Test debut in the Fourth Test against the West Indies at the SCG, replacing middle-order batsman Graeme Wood. For three years, the opening combination of Geoff Marsh and David Boon had been successful for Australia. However, team coach Bob Simpson wanted a left and right-handed opening combination, and stability added to the middle order. Therefore, the left-handed Taylor partnered the right-handed Marsh, while Boon batted at number three. Taylor's safe catching at slip was also a factor in his selection. He made 25 and 3 in a winning team, then was run out twice in the Fifth Test. A first-class aggregate of 1,241 runs (at 49.64 average) for the season earned him a place on the 1989 Ashes tour.
Record-breaking start
Beginning with a century at Headingley in his First Test against England, Taylor amassed 839 runs at 83.90 in the six Tests: the second best aggregate in an Ashes series in England, behind Don Bradman's 974 runs in 1930. He occupied the crease for a total of 38 hours, more than six full days of play. The highlight of his tour was the Fifth Test at Trent Bridge when he and Geoff Marsh became the first pair to bat throughout a day's play of Test cricket in England, amassing 301 runs. Taylor made 219 in a partnership of 329, an Ashes record. He finished with 71 and 48 in the Sixth Test to overtake Neil Harvey for the third-highest series aggregate in Test history and totalled 1,669 first-class runs for the tour. Australia won the series 4–0 to regain the Ashes. However, Taylor was overlooked for selection in the ODIs.
Returning to Australia, Taylor made 1,403 first-class runs at 70.15 during the 1989–90 season, and ended 1989 with 1,219 Test runs, thus becoming the first player to better one thousand Test runs in his debut calendar year, something only matched twice since by England opener Alastair Cook and Australian Adam Voges. In Taylor's first nine Tests, Australia passed 400 in the first innings. He scored centuries in successive Tests against Sri Lanka, and against Pakistan his scores were 52 and 101 at the MCG, 77 and 59 at the Adelaide Oval and an unbeaten 101 at Sydney. Australia won both series 1–0. In just over twelve months, he had amassed 1,618 runs at 70.35. This outstanding start to his career earned Taylor nomination as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1990. At the season's end, he demonstrated his leadership abilities for the first time. Standing in as NSW captain in place of the injured Geoff Lawson for the 1989–90 Sheffield Shield final in Sydney, Taylor scored 127 and 100. NSW won by 345 runs to secure its 40th title.
A year after his Test debut, Taylor was selected to make his ODI debut, which came on Boxing Day of 1989 against Sri Lanka. He made 11 as Australia won by 30 runs. He was selected for nine of Australia's ten ODIs for the season's triangular tournament, scoring 294 runs at 32.66 with two half-centuries. His highest score of 76 came as Australia defeated Pakistan by 69 runs to clinch the finals series in Sydney. The season ended with ODI tournaments in New Zealand and Sharjah. He played six of the eight matches, scoring 222 runs at 37.00 with two half-centuries, but was dropped for the final in New Zealand.
Inconsistent form
Taylor experienced a slump during the 1990–91 Ashes series. After making two-half centuries in the first two Tests, he failed to pass 20 in the last three and finished with 213 runs at 23.66 in a team that won 3–0. He found himself on the outer for the ODI triangular tournament, missing all eight of the preliminary matches before returning to score 41 and 71 as Australia won the finals 2–0.
His moderate form continued during the 1991 tour of the West Indies, where he was selected in only two of the five ODIs, scoring three and five. He ended the run with a rear-guard innings of 76 in the second innings of the Fourth Test at Barbados. Despite his effort, Australia lost and the West Indies took an unassailable lead of 2–0. In the Fifth Test St. Johns, Antigua, Australia gained a consolation victory due mainly to Taylor's scores of 59 and 144 (out of a total of 265). This late rush of form boosted his average for the series to 49. In late 1991, before the Australian season started, Taylor was appointed to lead an Australia A side to tour Zimbabwe. The team was composed of younger Test players and other young players who were seeking to break into international cricket. The selectors were attempting to groom Taylor as a potential replacement for Border.
During the 1991–92 Australian season, Taylor batted consistently in a 4–0 series victory over India. He scored 94 and 35* in a ten-wicket win at Brisbane. He scored half-centuries in each of the next two Tests before striking 100 in the second innings of the Fourth Test at Adelaide. It helped Australia to wipe out a first innings deficit of 80 and set up a winning target. His opening partner Marsh was dropped for the Fifth Test, so the selectors elevated Taylor to the vice-captaincy of the team. Over the next twelve months, a number of players were tried as Taylor's opening partner. Taylor struggled in his first match with new partner Wayne N. Phillips, scoring two and 16. Nevertheless, he had scored 422 runs at 46.89. Taylor continued to be overlooked by the selectors in the shorter version of the game, missing selection for all of the season's triangular tournament. He was selected for the squad for the 1992 Cricket World Cup held on home soil, and after Australia lost its first two matches, Taylor was recalled for his first ODI in 12 months. He made 13 as Australia beat India by one run, but scored his first ODI duck in the next match as England won by eight wickets. He was dropped for the remainder of the tournament.
On the 1992 tour of Sri Lanka, Taylor struggled in scoring 148 runs at 24.67. After scoring 42 and 43 in Australia's win in the First Test, Taylor failed to again pass 30. With new opening partner Tom Moody also struggling with 71 runs at 11.83, Australia frequently struggled at the top of their innings. He played in all three ODIs, scoring 138 runs at 46.00. His 94 in the first match was his highest score in ODIs to that point.
Against the West Indies in 1992–93, Taylor was now opening alongside David Boon with Moody having been dropped. Taylor was ineffective and failed to pass fifty in the first four Tests. After Australia failed by one run to win the Fourth Test and thus the series, Taylor was dropped for the deciding Test at Perth, having failed to make double figures in either innings. In his absence, Australia lost by an innings in three days and conceded the series 1–2. He had scored 170 runs at 24.29 for the series. However, he played all of Australia's ten ODIs, scoring 286 runs at 28.60 with two half-centuries.
Taylor and Slater
As a result of the innings defeat in Perth, Taylor was immediately recalled for the tour of New Zealand, where he scored 82 in the First Test at Christchurch to help Australia to an innings victory. He then scored 50 in the drawn Second Test and bowled for the first time at Test level, taking 0/15. He failed to pass 20 in the Third Test and ended the series with 148 runs at 37.00 as the home side squared the series. Australia then played five ODIs in New Zealand before starting the England tour with three more. Taylor played in all eight, scoring 307 runs at 38.38 with four half-centuries.
The problem of finding him a long-term partner was solved on the tour of England that followed. NSW batsman Michael Slater, who also grew up in Wagga Wagga, made his debut in the First Test of the 1993 Ashes series. In the First Test at Old Trafford, Taylor made 124 after an opening partnership of 128, as Australia managed only 289 after being sent in. Australia managed to scrape out a lead of 79, before going on to a 179-run win.
This was followed by a stand of 260 at Lord's in the Second Test, with Taylor making 111. In the process, he passed 1000 Test runs against England and the partnership broke the Ashes partnership record at Lord's, which had been set by Bill Woodfull and Don Bradman in 1930. The partnership laid the platform for Australia's total of 4/632, as the tourists proceeded to an innings victory.
His scoring was more sedate in the remaining Tests as Australia won 4–1, and he finished with 428 runs at 42.80. He passed 30 only once more, with 70 in the first innings of the Sixth Test at The Oval.
Against New Zealand in 1993–94, Taylor made 64 and 142 not out in the First Test at Perth, which ended in a draw. He then scored 27 and 53 as Australia won the next two Tests by an innings, totalling 286 runs at 95.33 in three Tests as Australia won 2–0. In the rain-affected Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Taylor played his 50th Test and celebrated with 170 against South Africa, the first Test between the two countries since 1970. This made him the first batsman to score centuries on Test debut against four countries. In addition, he passed 4,000 Test runs during the innings. Taylor had scored more than 1,000 Test runs for the calendar year, ending with 1106 runs Taylor scored 62 in the Third Test, his only other half-century for the series, which he ended with 304 runs at 60.80.
On the reciprocal tour of South Africa at the end of the season, Taylor missed a Test because of injury for the only time in his career. Matthew Hayden filled in for the First Test in Johannesburg, which Australia lost. On his return for the Second Test at Cape Town, he scored 70 and ended the series with 97 runs at 24.25. Both series were drawn 1–1.
Captaincy
After the retirement of Allan Border, Taylor was appointed captain.
Frequently omitted from the ODI team due to slow scoring, Taylor missed the finals of the ODI series in Australia against South Africa. On the tour of South Africa, he missed three consecutive ODIs when tour selectors and fellow players Ian Healy and Steve Waugh voted him off the team. In all, Taylor had only played in 11 of Australia's 19 ODIs for the season, scoring 281 runs at 25.55. Taylor requested an extended trial as opener for the ODI side to help consolidate his captaincy of both teams.
Taylor started his ODI captaincy with two tournaments in Sharjah and Sri Lanka. Australia missed the finals in both tournaments, winning three of their six matches. After scoring 68* to guide his team to a nine-wicket win in the first match against Sri Lanka in Sharjah, Taylor's form tapered off, scoring only 64 more runs to end the two tournaments with a total of 132 runs at 33.00.
His first task was a tour of Pakistan in 1994, where Australia had not won a Test since the 1959 tour. To make matters worse, Australia's first-choice pace pairing of Craig McDermott and Merv Hughes missed the tour due to injury. The First Test at Karachi was a personal disaster for Taylor as he scored a pair, the first player in Test history to do so on his captaincy debut. Paceman Glenn McGrath then broke down in the middle of the match. Australia was in the box seat with Pakistan needing 56 runs with one wicket in hand, but lost by one wicket after Ian Healy missed a stumping opportunity and the ball went for the winning runs. Recovering to score 69 in the Second Test at Rawalpindi, Taylor forced Pakistan to follow on after taking a 261-run lead. However, he dropped Pakistan captain Salim Malik when he was on 20. Malik went on to make 237 as Pakistan made 537 and saved the Test. Australia again took a first innings lead in the Third Test, but could not force a result, as Malik scored another second innings century to ensure safety and a 1–0 series win. Taylor ended the series with 106 runs at 26.50. Australia fared better in the ODI triangular tournament, winning five of their six matches. Taylor scored 56 in the final as Australia beat Pakistan by 64 runs to end the tournament with 193 runs at 32.16.
Beginning the 1994–95 season with 150 for NSW in a tour match against England, Taylor followed up with 59 in an opening stand of 97 as Australia made 426 in the first innings to take the initiative in the First Test in Brisbane. Australia amassed a 259-run first innings lead, but Taylor, mindful of the Test match at Rawalpindi, became the first Australian captain since 1977–78 to not enforce the follow-on. Although heavily criticised as a conservative decision, Australia still won the match by 184 runs, with Taylor adding 58 in the second innings. Having scored the first win of his Test captaincy, Taylor led his team to a 295-run win in the Second Test.
Taylor played his best cricket of the summer in the Third Test at Sydney. Last man out for 49 in a total of 116 in the first innings, he defied a pitch that had begun to seam and swing after a shower and cloud cover as Australia narrowly avoided the follow on. In the second innings, he made a bold attempt at chasing a world record target of 449 by scoring 113, but Australia played for a draw after Slater and Taylor fell following a double-century stand. Australia collapsed to 7/292 before hanging on in near-darkness. In the final two Tests, he scored half-centuries as Australia won 3–1. Australia dramatically lost the Fourth Test when England led by only 154 on the final day with four wickets in hand. Aggressive lower order batting saw Australia set 263 in just over two sessions, but a heavy collapse saw Australia eight wickets down with more than 2 hours to play. Almost two hours of resistance later, England took a 106-run win late in the day. However, Australia bounced back to win the Fifth Test by 329 runs, the largest margin of the series. Taylor's partnership with Slater yielded three century opening stands at an average of 76.60 for the series and Taylor's individual return was 471 runs at 47.10.
The southern hemisphere summer ended with a quadrangular tournament in New Zealand, where Australia won two of their three group matches to proceed to the final. Taylor scored 44 in a six-wicket triumph over New Zealand and totalled 165 runs at 41.25. His best score was 97 against the hosts in the preliminary round meant that he was still yet to post his first ODI century, five years after his debut.
Caribbean tour 1995
This victory was followed by the 1995 tour of the West Indies, where Australia had not won a Test series for 22 years. Australia lost the ODI series which preceded the Tests 1–4, with Taylor making 152 runs at 30.40. The difficulty of Australia's task was increased when fast bowlers Craig McDermott and Damien Fleming went home injured at the start of the tour. Australia fielded a pace attack of Glenn McGrath, Brendon Julian and Paul Reiffel who had played only 23 Tests between them. Despite this, Australia won by ten wickets in the first Test at Barbados, with Taylor contributing a half-century. After the Second Test was a rained-out draw, the West Indies beat Australia inside three days on a "green" Trinidad pitch in the Third Test. Australia regained the Frank Worrell Trophy with an innings victory in the Fourth Test at Jamaica, with Taylor taking the winning catch from the bowling of Shane Warne. Although he only managed 153 runs (at 25.50 average) for the series, Taylor held nine catches and his leadership was cited as a key factor in the result.
Controversy with Sri Lanka
This was followed by two and three-Test series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka respectively in the 1995–96 Australian season. The Pakistan series began among a media circus when Salim Malik arrived with publicity focused on the bribery allegations which had surfaced a year earlier. Australia won the First Test in Brisbane by an innings in three and a half days, with Taylor contributing 69. In the Second Test at Bellerive Oval, Taylor scored 123 in the second innings to set up a winning total. In the Third Test in Sydney, he made 59 as Australia collapsed for 172 in the second innings and conceded the match. He ended the series with a healthy 338 runs at 67.60.
The subsequent Test and ODI series involving Sri Lanka were overshadowed by a series of spiteful clashes. The Tests were won 3–0 by the Australians with heavy margins of an innings, ten wickets and 148 runs respectively. Taylor's highlight being a 96 in the First Test at Perth as he compiled 159 runs at 39.75. He also made his 100th Test catch during the series. After accusations of ball tampering were levelled against the tourists in the First Test, leading spinner Muttiah Muralitharan was no-balled seven times in the Second Test, and during the ODI series, the Sri Lankans accused Taylor's men of cheating. The season hit a low point with the Sri Lankans which saw the teams refuse to shake hands at the end of the second final of the triangular series which Australia won 2–0. The match had included physical jostling between McGrath and Sanath Jayasuriya mid pitch, with the latter accusing McGrath of making racist attacks. Later in the match, stump microphones showed Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy alleging that portly Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga was feigning injury and calling for a runner because of his lack of physical fitness.
On the field, the ODI tournament saw Mark Waugh elevated to be Taylor's ODI opening partner after the axing of Slater midway through the season. In their first match together in Perth, the pair put on 190, with Taylor scoring 85. They put on another century stand in the second final, with Taylor scoring 82. Taylor scored heavily in the ODI tournament, with 423 runs at 42.30 with four half-centuries. Australia warmed up for the 1996 Cricket World Cup by winning five of their eight round-robin matches, and taking the finals 2–0, but many of the matches were closely contested. The finals were won by 18 and nine runs respectively, while three of the group matches were decided in the last over.
After the spiteful summer, a Tamil Tiger bombing in Colombo coupled with death threats to some members of the team forced Taylor to forfeit his team's scheduled World Cup match against Sri Lanka in Colombo. Taylor made six as Australia started their campaign with a 97-run win over Kenya. He then made 59 in a century stand with Waugh as Australia defeated co-hosts India in Mumbai. Taylor scored 34 in a nine-wicket win over Zimbabwe, before scoring nine in a defeat to the West Indies in the last group match. Australia finished second in their group and faced New Zealand in the quarter-finals. Taylor made only 10 as Australia chased 289 for victory, but made a surprise tactic by sending in Shane Warne as a pinch hitter. Warne made 24 from 15 balls in a partnership with Waugh, to allow Australia to take the momentum and take victory by six wickets. Taylor managed only one in the semi-final as Australia staggered to 8/207 against the West Indies. Australia appeared to be heading out of the tournament when the Caribbean team reached 2/165, but a sudden collapse saw Australia win by six runs in the last over.
Australia managed to reach the final, where they met Sri Lanka. Taylor scored 74, a record score by an Australian captain in the World Cup, but Sri Lanka comfortably triumphed on this occasion by seven wickets to claim the trophy.
Almost retired
After the World Cup, Bob Simpson was replaced as Australia's coach by Geoff Marsh, Taylor's former opening partner. Australia's first tournament after the World Cup was the Singer World Series in Sri Lanka. Taylor opted out of the tournament, and in his absence, Australia reached the final but lost by 50 runs to the hosts.
On a short tour to India, Taylor made his first ODI century at Bangalore, with 105 against India in his 98th match, having been out in the 90s on three previous occasions. Taylor performed strongly in the ODIs, with a total of 302 runs at 60.40. However, it was a disappointing tour for the team; the solitary Test in Delhi was lost, as were all five ODIs played during the Titan Cup.
In 1996–97, Australia confirmed its ascendancy over the West Indies with a 3–2 series win, but Taylor endured a poor season with the bat and failed to pass 50 in nine innings. His partnership with Slater was terminated when the latter was dropped, replaced by Matthew Elliott. Following an injury to Elliott, Matthew Hayden became Taylor's partner for three Tests.
Unable to recover form in the ODI series, Taylor's scratchy batting led to many poor starts for Australia. The team suffered five consecutive defeats, and missed the finals of the tournament for the first time in 17 years. Taylor managed only 143 runs at 17.88 with a highest score of 29.
The early 1997 tour to South Africa brought no upturn in Taylor's batting despite Australia's 2–1 victory in the series: he scored 80 runs at 16.00. His form was such that it influenced the selection of the team. For the Second Test at Port Elizabeth, played on a green pitch, Australia played Michael Bevan as a second spinner batting at number seven to reinforce the batting, instead of a third seamer to exploit the conditions. After scoring seven and 17 in the first two ODIs, Taylor dropped himself from the team for the remaining five matches.
The 1997 Ashes tour started poorly amid rumours that Taylor was on the verge of losing his place in the side. He batted ineffectively as Australia lost the one day series 0–3, scoring seven and 11, before dropping himself for the final match. In the First Test, Australia were dismissed for 118 in the first innings, with Taylor contributing seven: he had not managed to pass 50 in his last 21 Test innings. England amassed a big lead of 360 runs. With Australia facing a heavy defeat, media criticism of his position intensified. The Melbourne Age ran a competition for its readers to forecast how many runs he would make. Most respondents guessed less than 10 runs. The team's erstwhile coach, Bob Simpson, said that Taylor's retention in the team in spite of his poor form was fostering resentment among the players and destabilising the team.
Taylor started nervously in the second innings, but went on to score of 129, which saved his career, but not the match. His performance prompted personal congratulations from Prime Minister John Howard and the team's management allowed the media a rare opportunity to enter the dressing room and interview Taylor. During the period he refused offers by the manager to handle the media on his behalf. Australia went on to win the Third, Fourth and Fifth Tests and retain the Ashes 3–2. Although Taylor made single figures in the three Tests following his century, he contributed 76 and 45 in the series-clinching Test at Nottingham. Taylor ended the series with 317 runs at 31.7.
Dual teams
However, Taylor's ODI form was not to the satisfaction of the selectors. At the start of the 1997–98 season, a new selection policy was announced: the Test and ODI teams became separate entities, with specialists in each form of the game selected accordingly. Taylor was dropped from the ODI team, in favour of the aggressive Michael di Venuto. Tactically, ODI cricket was transformed by Sri Lanka's World Cup success, when it employed the highly aggressive opening pair of Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana.
At this time, Taylor was a central figure in a pay dispute between the players and the ACB, with a strike action threatened by the players. Taylor continued as Test captain and led the team to a 2–0 win over New Zealand. The first two matches were won by 186 runs and an innings, while the Third Test ended with Australia one wicket from victory after almost two days' play was washed out.
Taylor scored a century (112 on the first day of the First Test, and an unbeaten 66 in the Third Test, compiling 214 runs at 53.50 for the series. This was followed by three Tests against South Africa. After South Africa withheld the Australian bowling on the final day to secure a draw in the Boxing Day Test, Australia took a 1–0 lead in the New Year's Test at Sydney with an innings victory. Taylor carried his bat for 169 in the first innings of the Third Test at Adelaide which helped Australia to draw the match and clinch the series.
On the 1998 tour of India, Elliott was dropped and Taylor reunited with Slater as the opening pair. Australia started well by taking a 71-run first-innings lead in the First Test at Chennai, but Sachin Tendulkar's unbeaten 155 put Australia under pressure to save the match on the final day. They were unable to resist and lost by 179 runs. Australia was crushed by an innings and 219 runs in the Second Test at Calcutta, Australia first series loss in four years and the first time that Australia had lost by an innings for five years. Thus, a series victory in India, which Australia had not achieved since 1969–70, remained elusive. Australia won the Third Test in Bangalore by eight wickets, with Taylor scoring an unbeaten 102 in a second innings run chase.
Record equalled
Later in 1998, Taylor led his team to Pakistan, where a convincing win in the First Test at Rawalpindi by an innings and 99 runs was Australia's first Test victory in the country for 39 years. Taylor then attended a court hearing investigating the claims of match-fixing made during the 1994 tour. In the Second Test at Peshawar, Taylor played the longest innings of his career. He batted two days to amass 334 not out, equalling Sir Donald Bradman's Australian record set in 1930. In temperatures above 32 °C, Taylor survived two dropped catches before he had reached 25 and scored slowly on the first day. He shared a 206-run partnership with Justin Langer. The next day, he added 103 runs in a morning session extended from two to three hours. After the tea interval, he discarded his helmet in favour of a white sun hat, to deal with the extreme heat. He passed 311, eclipsing Bob Simpson's record score by an Australian captain. In the final over, Taylor equalled Bradman's Australian Test record when a shot to midwicket was barely stopped by Ijaz Ahmed, which reduced the scoring opportunity to a single run.
At the end of the day's play, Taylor was encouraged by the media, the public and his teammates to attempt to break Brian Lara's world record score of 375. An unusually large crowd turned out the following day in anticipation. However, Taylor declared the innings closed, opting to share the record with Bradman, and making the team's chances of winning the game paramount. He was widely praised for this decision. He made 92 in the second innings, giving him the second highest Test match aggregate after English batsmen Graham Gooch, who scored 333 and 123 for a total of 456 against India at Lord's on 26 July 1990. His fifteen hours batting in one Test was second only to Hanif Mohammad. The match ended in a draw, as did the Third Test, so Australia won the series and Taylor ended with 513 runs at 128.25 average.
Final season
Taylor's swansong was the 1998–99 Ashes series against England, which began with his 100th Test in the First Test in Brisbane. He scored 46 and a duck—his first in Australia—as England were saved when thunderstorms forced the abandonment of play on the final afternoon. Two half centuries in the next two Tests in Perth and Adelaide saw Australia win by seven wickets and 205 runs respectively, thereby retaining the series 2–0. After losing the Fourth Test by 12 runs after a dramatic final day collapse, Taylor headed to his home ground, the Sydney Cricket Ground, for what would be his final Test. Australia went on to win the Test by 98 runs and take the series 3–1. Taylor only scored two in both innings, but he broke Border's world record for the most Test catches. His catch in the first innings equalled Border's 156 and another in the second made him the sole owner of the record.
He also jointly holds the record in Test cricket (along with Ian Healy) of being the only cricketers to have been run out in both innings of a Test on two occasions.
Legacy
The improvement of the Australian team, begun during Border's tenure, continued under the captaincy of Taylor. After the defeat of the West Indies in 1995, Taylor's teams won home and away series against every Test team they played, with the exception of winning a series in India. Wisden wrote:
Taylor talked so well that he raised the standard of debate in Australia—and perhaps of cricket itself—in a way which was an example to all professional cricketers ... Border stopped Australia losing. Taylor made them into winners, the acknowledged if not official world champions of Test cricket.
Taylor made a concerted effort to decrease the amount of sledging committed by his team, a trait that brought criticism of Australian teams during other eras. In total, he captained the side in 50 Tests, winning 26 and losing 13, a success rate unmatched in the previous fifty years except for Don Bradman and Viv Richards.
Career best performances
Retirement
Taylor retired from professional cricket in early 1999 after the Ashes series. On Australia Day, he was named the Australian of the Year. He was awarded an Australian Sports Medal in 2000 and a Centenary Medal in 2001. He was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2002 and made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2003. In 2011, he was inducted into the Cricket Hall of Fame by the CA.
He is now a commentator for Channel Nine for 21 years. Despite the network losing the TV rights in April 2018, Taylor re-signed for another three years to give his expert analysis on the Ashes 2019, 2019 Cricket World Cup & 2020 World Twenty20 and as a digital contributor.
He mainly commentates on One Day International and Test matches in Australia until the network's final year of cricket telecasts, so he can now spend more time with his family. He used to also appear on The Cricket Show with Simon O'Donnell, and is a spokesman for Fujitsu air-conditioners. He also commentates for radio.
Taylor is patron of the Mark Taylor Shield Cricket competition run for NSW Catholic Primary schools in and around the Sydney region. On 6 November 2011, Waitara Oval, the home of the Northern District Cricket Club, had its name formally changed to Mark Taylor Oval, to honour its former First Grade captain and life member.
In October 2015, The Primary Club of Australia announced that Mark Taylor had accepted the role of Twelfth Man and Patron following the passing of their former Patron, Richie Benaud OBE. He also became Director of Cricket Australia, who commissioned a replacement cap for Benaud, only for his ill health and subsequent passing to have the cap presented to his wife.
References
Further reading
External links
1964 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Wagga Wagga
Australia Test cricketers
Australia One Day International cricketers
Australia Test cricket captains
New South Wales cricketers
Wisden Cricketers of the Year
Australian cricket commentators
People educated at Chatswood High School
Australian of the Year Award winners
Officers of the Order of Australia
Recipients of the Australian Sports Medal
Recipients of the Centenary Medal
Sport Australia Hall of Fame inductees
University of New South Wales alumni
Australian Cricket Hall of Fame inductees
People from the Riverina
Chatswood, New South Wales
Australian republicans | true | [
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[
"Mark Taylor (cricketer)",
"Early years",
"Where was he born?",
"Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga,"
] | C_ae269bdc0d524b599736eb69a322d5b1_1 | What did he do growing up? | 2 | What did Mark Taylor do growing up? | Mark Taylor (cricketer) | The second of three children born to bank manager Tony Taylor, and his wife Judy, Mark Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga, where his family relocated when he was eight. His father had a sporting background, playing first grade rugby in Newcastle. The young Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him. Taylor idolised Arthur Morris, the left-handed opening batsmen from New South Wales who led the aggregates on the 1948 "Invincibles" tour of England. Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga. His family then moved to the north shore of Sydney, where he joined Northern District in Sydney Grade Cricket. Completing his secondary education at Chatswood High School, he later obtained a degree in surveying at the University of New South Wales. Along with the Waugh twins, Steve and Mark, Taylor played in under-19 youth internationals for Australia against Sri Lanka in 1982-83. Taylor made his Sheffield Shield debut in 1985-86 when NSW was depleted by the defection of regular openers Steve Smith and John Dyson to a rebel tour of South Africa. Opening with fellow debutant Mark Waugh, he scored 12 and 56 not out against Tasmania. His first season was highlighted by home and away centuries against South Australia in a total of 937 runs at 49.31 average. He had a lean season in 1987-88, after which he spent the English summer with Greenmount, helping them to win their first Bolton League title by scoring more than 1,300 runs at an average of 70. He originally trained as a surveyor, and received a degree in surveying from the University of New South Wales in 1987. CANNOTANSWER | Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him. | Mark Anthony Taylor (born 27 October 1964) is a former Australian cricketer and currently a Cricket Australia director and Nine Network commentator.
He was Test opening batsman from 1988 to 1999, as well as captain from 1994 to 1999, succeeding Allan Border. His predominant fielding position was first slip. He was widely regarded as an instrumental component in Australia's rise to Test cricket dominance, and his captaincy was regarded as adventurous and highly effective. However, he was considered less than ideal for One-Day International cricket and was eventually dropped as one-day captain after a 0–3 drubbing at the hands of England in 1997.
He moved to Wagga Wagga in 1972 and played for Lake Albert Cricket Club. His debut was for New South Wales in 1985.
He retired from Test cricket on 2 February 1999. In 104 Test matches, he scored 7,525 runs with a batting average of 43.49, including 19 centuries and 40 fifties. He was also an excellent first slip – his 157 catches, at the time, a Test record (now held by Rahul Dravid). In contrast to his predecessor Allan Border, who acquired the nickname 'Captain Grumpy', Taylor won plaudits for his always cheerful and positive demeanour. His successor, Steve Waugh, further honed the Australian team built by Border and Taylor and went on to set numerous records for victories as captain. Having been named Australian of the Year in 1999, he is now a cricket commentator for the Nine Network, and former Director of Cricket Australia.
Early years
The second of three children born to bank manager Tony Taylor, and his wife Judy, Mark Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga, where his family relocated when he was eight. His father had a sporting background, playing first grade rugby in Newcastle. The young Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him. Taylor idolised Arthur Morris, the left-handed opening batsmen from New South Wales who led the aggregates on the 1948 "Invincibles" tour of England.
Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga. His family then moved to the north shore of Sydney, where he joined Northern District in Sydney Grade Cricket. Completing his secondary education at Chatswood High School, he later obtained a degree in surveying at the University of New South Wales in 1987. Along with the Waugh twins, Steve and Mark, Taylor played in under-19 youth internationals for Australia against Sri Lanka in 1982–83.
Taylor made his Sheffield Shield debut in 1985–86 when NSW was depleted by the defection of regular openers Steve Smith and John Dyson to a rebel tour of South Africa. Opening with fellow debutant Mark Waugh, he scored 12 and 56 not out against Tasmania. His first season was highlighted by home and away centuries against South Australia in a total of 937 runs at 49.31 average. He had a lean season in 1987–88, after which he spent the English summer with Greenmount, helping them to win their first Bolton League title by scoring more than 1,300 runs at an average of 70.
International career
Test career
Solid form for NSW in 1988–89 resulted in Taylor's selection for his Test debut in the Fourth Test against the West Indies at the SCG, replacing middle-order batsman Graeme Wood. For three years, the opening combination of Geoff Marsh and David Boon had been successful for Australia. However, team coach Bob Simpson wanted a left and right-handed opening combination, and stability added to the middle order. Therefore, the left-handed Taylor partnered the right-handed Marsh, while Boon batted at number three. Taylor's safe catching at slip was also a factor in his selection. He made 25 and 3 in a winning team, then was run out twice in the Fifth Test. A first-class aggregate of 1,241 runs (at 49.64 average) for the season earned him a place on the 1989 Ashes tour.
Record-breaking start
Beginning with a century at Headingley in his First Test against England, Taylor amassed 839 runs at 83.90 in the six Tests: the second best aggregate in an Ashes series in England, behind Don Bradman's 974 runs in 1930. He occupied the crease for a total of 38 hours, more than six full days of play. The highlight of his tour was the Fifth Test at Trent Bridge when he and Geoff Marsh became the first pair to bat throughout a day's play of Test cricket in England, amassing 301 runs. Taylor made 219 in a partnership of 329, an Ashes record. He finished with 71 and 48 in the Sixth Test to overtake Neil Harvey for the third-highest series aggregate in Test history and totalled 1,669 first-class runs for the tour. Australia won the series 4–0 to regain the Ashes. However, Taylor was overlooked for selection in the ODIs.
Returning to Australia, Taylor made 1,403 first-class runs at 70.15 during the 1989–90 season, and ended 1989 with 1,219 Test runs, thus becoming the first player to better one thousand Test runs in his debut calendar year, something only matched twice since by England opener Alastair Cook and Australian Adam Voges. In Taylor's first nine Tests, Australia passed 400 in the first innings. He scored centuries in successive Tests against Sri Lanka, and against Pakistan his scores were 52 and 101 at the MCG, 77 and 59 at the Adelaide Oval and an unbeaten 101 at Sydney. Australia won both series 1–0. In just over twelve months, he had amassed 1,618 runs at 70.35. This outstanding start to his career earned Taylor nomination as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1990. At the season's end, he demonstrated his leadership abilities for the first time. Standing in as NSW captain in place of the injured Geoff Lawson for the 1989–90 Sheffield Shield final in Sydney, Taylor scored 127 and 100. NSW won by 345 runs to secure its 40th title.
A year after his Test debut, Taylor was selected to make his ODI debut, which came on Boxing Day of 1989 against Sri Lanka. He made 11 as Australia won by 30 runs. He was selected for nine of Australia's ten ODIs for the season's triangular tournament, scoring 294 runs at 32.66 with two half-centuries. His highest score of 76 came as Australia defeated Pakistan by 69 runs to clinch the finals series in Sydney. The season ended with ODI tournaments in New Zealand and Sharjah. He played six of the eight matches, scoring 222 runs at 37.00 with two half-centuries, but was dropped for the final in New Zealand.
Inconsistent form
Taylor experienced a slump during the 1990–91 Ashes series. After making two-half centuries in the first two Tests, he failed to pass 20 in the last three and finished with 213 runs at 23.66 in a team that won 3–0. He found himself on the outer for the ODI triangular tournament, missing all eight of the preliminary matches before returning to score 41 and 71 as Australia won the finals 2–0.
His moderate form continued during the 1991 tour of the West Indies, where he was selected in only two of the five ODIs, scoring three and five. He ended the run with a rear-guard innings of 76 in the second innings of the Fourth Test at Barbados. Despite his effort, Australia lost and the West Indies took an unassailable lead of 2–0. In the Fifth Test St. Johns, Antigua, Australia gained a consolation victory due mainly to Taylor's scores of 59 and 144 (out of a total of 265). This late rush of form boosted his average for the series to 49. In late 1991, before the Australian season started, Taylor was appointed to lead an Australia A side to tour Zimbabwe. The team was composed of younger Test players and other young players who were seeking to break into international cricket. The selectors were attempting to groom Taylor as a potential replacement for Border.
During the 1991–92 Australian season, Taylor batted consistently in a 4–0 series victory over India. He scored 94 and 35* in a ten-wicket win at Brisbane. He scored half-centuries in each of the next two Tests before striking 100 in the second innings of the Fourth Test at Adelaide. It helped Australia to wipe out a first innings deficit of 80 and set up a winning target. His opening partner Marsh was dropped for the Fifth Test, so the selectors elevated Taylor to the vice-captaincy of the team. Over the next twelve months, a number of players were tried as Taylor's opening partner. Taylor struggled in his first match with new partner Wayne N. Phillips, scoring two and 16. Nevertheless, he had scored 422 runs at 46.89. Taylor continued to be overlooked by the selectors in the shorter version of the game, missing selection for all of the season's triangular tournament. He was selected for the squad for the 1992 Cricket World Cup held on home soil, and after Australia lost its first two matches, Taylor was recalled for his first ODI in 12 months. He made 13 as Australia beat India by one run, but scored his first ODI duck in the next match as England won by eight wickets. He was dropped for the remainder of the tournament.
On the 1992 tour of Sri Lanka, Taylor struggled in scoring 148 runs at 24.67. After scoring 42 and 43 in Australia's win in the First Test, Taylor failed to again pass 30. With new opening partner Tom Moody also struggling with 71 runs at 11.83, Australia frequently struggled at the top of their innings. He played in all three ODIs, scoring 138 runs at 46.00. His 94 in the first match was his highest score in ODIs to that point.
Against the West Indies in 1992–93, Taylor was now opening alongside David Boon with Moody having been dropped. Taylor was ineffective and failed to pass fifty in the first four Tests. After Australia failed by one run to win the Fourth Test and thus the series, Taylor was dropped for the deciding Test at Perth, having failed to make double figures in either innings. In his absence, Australia lost by an innings in three days and conceded the series 1–2. He had scored 170 runs at 24.29 for the series. However, he played all of Australia's ten ODIs, scoring 286 runs at 28.60 with two half-centuries.
Taylor and Slater
As a result of the innings defeat in Perth, Taylor was immediately recalled for the tour of New Zealand, where he scored 82 in the First Test at Christchurch to help Australia to an innings victory. He then scored 50 in the drawn Second Test and bowled for the first time at Test level, taking 0/15. He failed to pass 20 in the Third Test and ended the series with 148 runs at 37.00 as the home side squared the series. Australia then played five ODIs in New Zealand before starting the England tour with three more. Taylor played in all eight, scoring 307 runs at 38.38 with four half-centuries.
The problem of finding him a long-term partner was solved on the tour of England that followed. NSW batsman Michael Slater, who also grew up in Wagga Wagga, made his debut in the First Test of the 1993 Ashes series. In the First Test at Old Trafford, Taylor made 124 after an opening partnership of 128, as Australia managed only 289 after being sent in. Australia managed to scrape out a lead of 79, before going on to a 179-run win.
This was followed by a stand of 260 at Lord's in the Second Test, with Taylor making 111. In the process, he passed 1000 Test runs against England and the partnership broke the Ashes partnership record at Lord's, which had been set by Bill Woodfull and Don Bradman in 1930. The partnership laid the platform for Australia's total of 4/632, as the tourists proceeded to an innings victory.
His scoring was more sedate in the remaining Tests as Australia won 4–1, and he finished with 428 runs at 42.80. He passed 30 only once more, with 70 in the first innings of the Sixth Test at The Oval.
Against New Zealand in 1993–94, Taylor made 64 and 142 not out in the First Test at Perth, which ended in a draw. He then scored 27 and 53 as Australia won the next two Tests by an innings, totalling 286 runs at 95.33 in three Tests as Australia won 2–0. In the rain-affected Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Taylor played his 50th Test and celebrated with 170 against South Africa, the first Test between the two countries since 1970. This made him the first batsman to score centuries on Test debut against four countries. In addition, he passed 4,000 Test runs during the innings. Taylor had scored more than 1,000 Test runs for the calendar year, ending with 1106 runs Taylor scored 62 in the Third Test, his only other half-century for the series, which he ended with 304 runs at 60.80.
On the reciprocal tour of South Africa at the end of the season, Taylor missed a Test because of injury for the only time in his career. Matthew Hayden filled in for the First Test in Johannesburg, which Australia lost. On his return for the Second Test at Cape Town, he scored 70 and ended the series with 97 runs at 24.25. Both series were drawn 1–1.
Captaincy
After the retirement of Allan Border, Taylor was appointed captain.
Frequently omitted from the ODI team due to slow scoring, Taylor missed the finals of the ODI series in Australia against South Africa. On the tour of South Africa, he missed three consecutive ODIs when tour selectors and fellow players Ian Healy and Steve Waugh voted him off the team. In all, Taylor had only played in 11 of Australia's 19 ODIs for the season, scoring 281 runs at 25.55. Taylor requested an extended trial as opener for the ODI side to help consolidate his captaincy of both teams.
Taylor started his ODI captaincy with two tournaments in Sharjah and Sri Lanka. Australia missed the finals in both tournaments, winning three of their six matches. After scoring 68* to guide his team to a nine-wicket win in the first match against Sri Lanka in Sharjah, Taylor's form tapered off, scoring only 64 more runs to end the two tournaments with a total of 132 runs at 33.00.
His first task was a tour of Pakistan in 1994, where Australia had not won a Test since the 1959 tour. To make matters worse, Australia's first-choice pace pairing of Craig McDermott and Merv Hughes missed the tour due to injury. The First Test at Karachi was a personal disaster for Taylor as he scored a pair, the first player in Test history to do so on his captaincy debut. Paceman Glenn McGrath then broke down in the middle of the match. Australia was in the box seat with Pakistan needing 56 runs with one wicket in hand, but lost by one wicket after Ian Healy missed a stumping opportunity and the ball went for the winning runs. Recovering to score 69 in the Second Test at Rawalpindi, Taylor forced Pakistan to follow on after taking a 261-run lead. However, he dropped Pakistan captain Salim Malik when he was on 20. Malik went on to make 237 as Pakistan made 537 and saved the Test. Australia again took a first innings lead in the Third Test, but could not force a result, as Malik scored another second innings century to ensure safety and a 1–0 series win. Taylor ended the series with 106 runs at 26.50. Australia fared better in the ODI triangular tournament, winning five of their six matches. Taylor scored 56 in the final as Australia beat Pakistan by 64 runs to end the tournament with 193 runs at 32.16.
Beginning the 1994–95 season with 150 for NSW in a tour match against England, Taylor followed up with 59 in an opening stand of 97 as Australia made 426 in the first innings to take the initiative in the First Test in Brisbane. Australia amassed a 259-run first innings lead, but Taylor, mindful of the Test match at Rawalpindi, became the first Australian captain since 1977–78 to not enforce the follow-on. Although heavily criticised as a conservative decision, Australia still won the match by 184 runs, with Taylor adding 58 in the second innings. Having scored the first win of his Test captaincy, Taylor led his team to a 295-run win in the Second Test.
Taylor played his best cricket of the summer in the Third Test at Sydney. Last man out for 49 in a total of 116 in the first innings, he defied a pitch that had begun to seam and swing after a shower and cloud cover as Australia narrowly avoided the follow on. In the second innings, he made a bold attempt at chasing a world record target of 449 by scoring 113, but Australia played for a draw after Slater and Taylor fell following a double-century stand. Australia collapsed to 7/292 before hanging on in near-darkness. In the final two Tests, he scored half-centuries as Australia won 3–1. Australia dramatically lost the Fourth Test when England led by only 154 on the final day with four wickets in hand. Aggressive lower order batting saw Australia set 263 in just over two sessions, but a heavy collapse saw Australia eight wickets down with more than 2 hours to play. Almost two hours of resistance later, England took a 106-run win late in the day. However, Australia bounced back to win the Fifth Test by 329 runs, the largest margin of the series. Taylor's partnership with Slater yielded three century opening stands at an average of 76.60 for the series and Taylor's individual return was 471 runs at 47.10.
The southern hemisphere summer ended with a quadrangular tournament in New Zealand, where Australia won two of their three group matches to proceed to the final. Taylor scored 44 in a six-wicket triumph over New Zealand and totalled 165 runs at 41.25. His best score was 97 against the hosts in the preliminary round meant that he was still yet to post his first ODI century, five years after his debut.
Caribbean tour 1995
This victory was followed by the 1995 tour of the West Indies, where Australia had not won a Test series for 22 years. Australia lost the ODI series which preceded the Tests 1–4, with Taylor making 152 runs at 30.40. The difficulty of Australia's task was increased when fast bowlers Craig McDermott and Damien Fleming went home injured at the start of the tour. Australia fielded a pace attack of Glenn McGrath, Brendon Julian and Paul Reiffel who had played only 23 Tests between them. Despite this, Australia won by ten wickets in the first Test at Barbados, with Taylor contributing a half-century. After the Second Test was a rained-out draw, the West Indies beat Australia inside three days on a "green" Trinidad pitch in the Third Test. Australia regained the Frank Worrell Trophy with an innings victory in the Fourth Test at Jamaica, with Taylor taking the winning catch from the bowling of Shane Warne. Although he only managed 153 runs (at 25.50 average) for the series, Taylor held nine catches and his leadership was cited as a key factor in the result.
Controversy with Sri Lanka
This was followed by two and three-Test series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka respectively in the 1995–96 Australian season. The Pakistan series began among a media circus when Salim Malik arrived with publicity focused on the bribery allegations which had surfaced a year earlier. Australia won the First Test in Brisbane by an innings in three and a half days, with Taylor contributing 69. In the Second Test at Bellerive Oval, Taylor scored 123 in the second innings to set up a winning total. In the Third Test in Sydney, he made 59 as Australia collapsed for 172 in the second innings and conceded the match. He ended the series with a healthy 338 runs at 67.60.
The subsequent Test and ODI series involving Sri Lanka were overshadowed by a series of spiteful clashes. The Tests were won 3–0 by the Australians with heavy margins of an innings, ten wickets and 148 runs respectively. Taylor's highlight being a 96 in the First Test at Perth as he compiled 159 runs at 39.75. He also made his 100th Test catch during the series. After accusations of ball tampering were levelled against the tourists in the First Test, leading spinner Muttiah Muralitharan was no-balled seven times in the Second Test, and during the ODI series, the Sri Lankans accused Taylor's men of cheating. The season hit a low point with the Sri Lankans which saw the teams refuse to shake hands at the end of the second final of the triangular series which Australia won 2–0. The match had included physical jostling between McGrath and Sanath Jayasuriya mid pitch, with the latter accusing McGrath of making racist attacks. Later in the match, stump microphones showed Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy alleging that portly Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga was feigning injury and calling for a runner because of his lack of physical fitness.
On the field, the ODI tournament saw Mark Waugh elevated to be Taylor's ODI opening partner after the axing of Slater midway through the season. In their first match together in Perth, the pair put on 190, with Taylor scoring 85. They put on another century stand in the second final, with Taylor scoring 82. Taylor scored heavily in the ODI tournament, with 423 runs at 42.30 with four half-centuries. Australia warmed up for the 1996 Cricket World Cup by winning five of their eight round-robin matches, and taking the finals 2–0, but many of the matches were closely contested. The finals were won by 18 and nine runs respectively, while three of the group matches were decided in the last over.
After the spiteful summer, a Tamil Tiger bombing in Colombo coupled with death threats to some members of the team forced Taylor to forfeit his team's scheduled World Cup match against Sri Lanka in Colombo. Taylor made six as Australia started their campaign with a 97-run win over Kenya. He then made 59 in a century stand with Waugh as Australia defeated co-hosts India in Mumbai. Taylor scored 34 in a nine-wicket win over Zimbabwe, before scoring nine in a defeat to the West Indies in the last group match. Australia finished second in their group and faced New Zealand in the quarter-finals. Taylor made only 10 as Australia chased 289 for victory, but made a surprise tactic by sending in Shane Warne as a pinch hitter. Warne made 24 from 15 balls in a partnership with Waugh, to allow Australia to take the momentum and take victory by six wickets. Taylor managed only one in the semi-final as Australia staggered to 8/207 against the West Indies. Australia appeared to be heading out of the tournament when the Caribbean team reached 2/165, but a sudden collapse saw Australia win by six runs in the last over.
Australia managed to reach the final, where they met Sri Lanka. Taylor scored 74, a record score by an Australian captain in the World Cup, but Sri Lanka comfortably triumphed on this occasion by seven wickets to claim the trophy.
Almost retired
After the World Cup, Bob Simpson was replaced as Australia's coach by Geoff Marsh, Taylor's former opening partner. Australia's first tournament after the World Cup was the Singer World Series in Sri Lanka. Taylor opted out of the tournament, and in his absence, Australia reached the final but lost by 50 runs to the hosts.
On a short tour to India, Taylor made his first ODI century at Bangalore, with 105 against India in his 98th match, having been out in the 90s on three previous occasions. Taylor performed strongly in the ODIs, with a total of 302 runs at 60.40. However, it was a disappointing tour for the team; the solitary Test in Delhi was lost, as were all five ODIs played during the Titan Cup.
In 1996–97, Australia confirmed its ascendancy over the West Indies with a 3–2 series win, but Taylor endured a poor season with the bat and failed to pass 50 in nine innings. His partnership with Slater was terminated when the latter was dropped, replaced by Matthew Elliott. Following an injury to Elliott, Matthew Hayden became Taylor's partner for three Tests.
Unable to recover form in the ODI series, Taylor's scratchy batting led to many poor starts for Australia. The team suffered five consecutive defeats, and missed the finals of the tournament for the first time in 17 years. Taylor managed only 143 runs at 17.88 with a highest score of 29.
The early 1997 tour to South Africa brought no upturn in Taylor's batting despite Australia's 2–1 victory in the series: he scored 80 runs at 16.00. His form was such that it influenced the selection of the team. For the Second Test at Port Elizabeth, played on a green pitch, Australia played Michael Bevan as a second spinner batting at number seven to reinforce the batting, instead of a third seamer to exploit the conditions. After scoring seven and 17 in the first two ODIs, Taylor dropped himself from the team for the remaining five matches.
The 1997 Ashes tour started poorly amid rumours that Taylor was on the verge of losing his place in the side. He batted ineffectively as Australia lost the one day series 0–3, scoring seven and 11, before dropping himself for the final match. In the First Test, Australia were dismissed for 118 in the first innings, with Taylor contributing seven: he had not managed to pass 50 in his last 21 Test innings. England amassed a big lead of 360 runs. With Australia facing a heavy defeat, media criticism of his position intensified. The Melbourne Age ran a competition for its readers to forecast how many runs he would make. Most respondents guessed less than 10 runs. The team's erstwhile coach, Bob Simpson, said that Taylor's retention in the team in spite of his poor form was fostering resentment among the players and destabilising the team.
Taylor started nervously in the second innings, but went on to score of 129, which saved his career, but not the match. His performance prompted personal congratulations from Prime Minister John Howard and the team's management allowed the media a rare opportunity to enter the dressing room and interview Taylor. During the period he refused offers by the manager to handle the media on his behalf. Australia went on to win the Third, Fourth and Fifth Tests and retain the Ashes 3–2. Although Taylor made single figures in the three Tests following his century, he contributed 76 and 45 in the series-clinching Test at Nottingham. Taylor ended the series with 317 runs at 31.7.
Dual teams
However, Taylor's ODI form was not to the satisfaction of the selectors. At the start of the 1997–98 season, a new selection policy was announced: the Test and ODI teams became separate entities, with specialists in each form of the game selected accordingly. Taylor was dropped from the ODI team, in favour of the aggressive Michael di Venuto. Tactically, ODI cricket was transformed by Sri Lanka's World Cup success, when it employed the highly aggressive opening pair of Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana.
At this time, Taylor was a central figure in a pay dispute between the players and the ACB, with a strike action threatened by the players. Taylor continued as Test captain and led the team to a 2–0 win over New Zealand. The first two matches were won by 186 runs and an innings, while the Third Test ended with Australia one wicket from victory after almost two days' play was washed out.
Taylor scored a century (112 on the first day of the First Test, and an unbeaten 66 in the Third Test, compiling 214 runs at 53.50 for the series. This was followed by three Tests against South Africa. After South Africa withheld the Australian bowling on the final day to secure a draw in the Boxing Day Test, Australia took a 1–0 lead in the New Year's Test at Sydney with an innings victory. Taylor carried his bat for 169 in the first innings of the Third Test at Adelaide which helped Australia to draw the match and clinch the series.
On the 1998 tour of India, Elliott was dropped and Taylor reunited with Slater as the opening pair. Australia started well by taking a 71-run first-innings lead in the First Test at Chennai, but Sachin Tendulkar's unbeaten 155 put Australia under pressure to save the match on the final day. They were unable to resist and lost by 179 runs. Australia was crushed by an innings and 219 runs in the Second Test at Calcutta, Australia first series loss in four years and the first time that Australia had lost by an innings for five years. Thus, a series victory in India, which Australia had not achieved since 1969–70, remained elusive. Australia won the Third Test in Bangalore by eight wickets, with Taylor scoring an unbeaten 102 in a second innings run chase.
Record equalled
Later in 1998, Taylor led his team to Pakistan, where a convincing win in the First Test at Rawalpindi by an innings and 99 runs was Australia's first Test victory in the country for 39 years. Taylor then attended a court hearing investigating the claims of match-fixing made during the 1994 tour. In the Second Test at Peshawar, Taylor played the longest innings of his career. He batted two days to amass 334 not out, equalling Sir Donald Bradman's Australian record set in 1930. In temperatures above 32 °C, Taylor survived two dropped catches before he had reached 25 and scored slowly on the first day. He shared a 206-run partnership with Justin Langer. The next day, he added 103 runs in a morning session extended from two to three hours. After the tea interval, he discarded his helmet in favour of a white sun hat, to deal with the extreme heat. He passed 311, eclipsing Bob Simpson's record score by an Australian captain. In the final over, Taylor equalled Bradman's Australian Test record when a shot to midwicket was barely stopped by Ijaz Ahmed, which reduced the scoring opportunity to a single run.
At the end of the day's play, Taylor was encouraged by the media, the public and his teammates to attempt to break Brian Lara's world record score of 375. An unusually large crowd turned out the following day in anticipation. However, Taylor declared the innings closed, opting to share the record with Bradman, and making the team's chances of winning the game paramount. He was widely praised for this decision. He made 92 in the second innings, giving him the second highest Test match aggregate after English batsmen Graham Gooch, who scored 333 and 123 for a total of 456 against India at Lord's on 26 July 1990. His fifteen hours batting in one Test was second only to Hanif Mohammad. The match ended in a draw, as did the Third Test, so Australia won the series and Taylor ended with 513 runs at 128.25 average.
Final season
Taylor's swansong was the 1998–99 Ashes series against England, which began with his 100th Test in the First Test in Brisbane. He scored 46 and a duck—his first in Australia—as England were saved when thunderstorms forced the abandonment of play on the final afternoon. Two half centuries in the next two Tests in Perth and Adelaide saw Australia win by seven wickets and 205 runs respectively, thereby retaining the series 2–0. After losing the Fourth Test by 12 runs after a dramatic final day collapse, Taylor headed to his home ground, the Sydney Cricket Ground, for what would be his final Test. Australia went on to win the Test by 98 runs and take the series 3–1. Taylor only scored two in both innings, but he broke Border's world record for the most Test catches. His catch in the first innings equalled Border's 156 and another in the second made him the sole owner of the record.
He also jointly holds the record in Test cricket (along with Ian Healy) of being the only cricketers to have been run out in both innings of a Test on two occasions.
Legacy
The improvement of the Australian team, begun during Border's tenure, continued under the captaincy of Taylor. After the defeat of the West Indies in 1995, Taylor's teams won home and away series against every Test team they played, with the exception of winning a series in India. Wisden wrote:
Taylor talked so well that he raised the standard of debate in Australia—and perhaps of cricket itself—in a way which was an example to all professional cricketers ... Border stopped Australia losing. Taylor made them into winners, the acknowledged if not official world champions of Test cricket.
Taylor made a concerted effort to decrease the amount of sledging committed by his team, a trait that brought criticism of Australian teams during other eras. In total, he captained the side in 50 Tests, winning 26 and losing 13, a success rate unmatched in the previous fifty years except for Don Bradman and Viv Richards.
Career best performances
Retirement
Taylor retired from professional cricket in early 1999 after the Ashes series. On Australia Day, he was named the Australian of the Year. He was awarded an Australian Sports Medal in 2000 and a Centenary Medal in 2001. He was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2002 and made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2003. In 2011, he was inducted into the Cricket Hall of Fame by the CA.
He is now a commentator for Channel Nine for 21 years. Despite the network losing the TV rights in April 2018, Taylor re-signed for another three years to give his expert analysis on the Ashes 2019, 2019 Cricket World Cup & 2020 World Twenty20 and as a digital contributor.
He mainly commentates on One Day International and Test matches in Australia until the network's final year of cricket telecasts, so he can now spend more time with his family. He used to also appear on The Cricket Show with Simon O'Donnell, and is a spokesman for Fujitsu air-conditioners. He also commentates for radio.
Taylor is patron of the Mark Taylor Shield Cricket competition run for NSW Catholic Primary schools in and around the Sydney region. On 6 November 2011, Waitara Oval, the home of the Northern District Cricket Club, had its name formally changed to Mark Taylor Oval, to honour its former First Grade captain and life member.
In October 2015, The Primary Club of Australia announced that Mark Taylor had accepted the role of Twelfth Man and Patron following the passing of their former Patron, Richie Benaud OBE. He also became Director of Cricket Australia, who commissioned a replacement cap for Benaud, only for his ill health and subsequent passing to have the cap presented to his wife.
References
Further reading
External links
1964 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Wagga Wagga
Australia Test cricketers
Australia One Day International cricketers
Australia Test cricket captains
New South Wales cricketers
Wisden Cricketers of the Year
Australian cricket commentators
People educated at Chatswood High School
Australian of the Year Award winners
Officers of the Order of Australia
Recipients of the Australian Sports Medal
Recipients of the Centenary Medal
Sport Australia Hall of Fame inductees
University of New South Wales alumni
Australian Cricket Hall of Fame inductees
People from the Riverina
Chatswood, New South Wales
Australian republicans | true | [
"Robert Paul Smith (April 16, 1915 – January 30, 1977) was an American author, most famous for his classic evocation of childhood, Where Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing.\n\nBiography\nRobert Paul Smith was born in Brooklyn, grew up in Mount Vernon, NY, and graduated from Columbia College in 1936. He worked as a writer for CBS Radio and wrote four novels: So It Doesn't Whistle (1946) (1941, according to Avon Publishing Co., Inc., reprint edition ... Plus Blood in Their Veins copyright 1952); The Journey, (1943); Because of My Love (1946); The Time and the Place (1951).\n\nThe Tender Trap, a play by Smith and Dobie Gillis creator Max Shulman, opened in 1954 with Robert Preston in the leading role. It was later made into a movie starring Frank Sinatra and Debbie Reynolds. A classic example of the \"battle-of-the-sexes\" comedy, it revolves around the mutual envy of a bachelor living in New York City and a settled family man living in the New York suburbs.\n\nWhere Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing is a nostalgic evocation of the inner life of childhood. It advocates the value of privacy to children; the importance of unstructured time; the joys of boredom; and the virtues of freedom from adult supervision. He opens by saying \"The thing is, I don't understand what kids do with themselves any more.\" He contrasts the overstructured, overscheduled, oversupervised suburban life of the child in the suburban 1950's with reminiscences of his own childhood. He concludes \"I guess what I am saying is that people who don't have nightmares don't have dreams. If you will excuse me, I have an appointment with myself to sit on the front steps and watch some grass growing.\"\n\nTranslations from the English (1958) collects a series of articles originally published in Good Housekeeping magazine. The first, \"Translations from the Children,\" may be the earliest known example of the genre of humor that consists of a series of translations from what is said (e.g. \"I don't know why. He just hit me\") into what is meant (e.g. \"He hit his brother.\")\n\nHow to Do Nothing With Nobody All Alone By Yourself (1958) is a how-to book, illustrated by Robert Paul Smith's wife Elinor Goulding Smith. It gives step-by-step directions on how to: play mumbly-peg; build a spool tank; make polly-noses; construct an indoor boomerang, etc. It was republished in 2010 by Tin House Books.\n\nList of works\n\nEssays and humor\nWhere Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing (1957)\nTranslations from the English (1958) \nCrank: A Book of Lamentations, Exhortations, Mixed Memories and Desires, All Hard Or Chewy Centers, No Creams(1962)\nHow to Grow Up in One Piece (1963)\nGot to Stop Draggin’ that Little Red Wagon Around (1969)\nRobert Paul Smith’s Lost & Found (1973)\n\nFor children\nJack Mack, illus. Erik Blegvad (1960)\nWhen I Am Big, illus. Lillian Hoban (1965)\nNothingatall, Nothingatall, Nothingatall, illus. Allan E. Cober (1965)\nHow To Do Nothing With No One All Alone By Yourself, illus Elinor Goulding Smith (1958) Republished by Tin House Books (2010)\n\nNovels\nSo It Doesn't Whistle (1941) \nThe Journey (1943) \nBecause of My Love (1946) \nThe Time and the Place (1952)\nWhere He Went: Three Novels (1958)\n\nTheatre\nThe Tender Trap, by Max Shulman and Robert Paul Smith (first Broadway performance, 1954; Random House edition, 1955)\n\nVerse\nThe Man with the Gold-headed Cane (1943)\n…and Another Thing (1959)\n\nExternal links\n\n1915 births\n1977 deaths\n20th-century American novelists\nAmerican children's writers\nAmerican humorists\nAmerican instructional writers\nAmerican male novelists\n20th-century American dramatists and playwrights\nAmerican male dramatists and playwrights\n20th-century American male writers\n20th-century American non-fiction writers\nAmerican male non-fiction writers\nColumbia College (New York) alumni",
"Growing Up Straight: What Every Thoughtful Parent Should Know About Homosexuality is a 1968 guide for parents, by Peter and Barbara Wyden, which he claims can prevent their children from becoming homosexual.\n\nReception\nGrowing Up Straight received a negative review from James Colton in Tangents. Colton ridiculed the Wydens' advice on how to prevent homosexuality, and accused them of making contradictory and inconsistent claims and of citing experts such as Evelyn Hooker and Judd Marmor only when it served their purposes to do so.\n\nThe gay rights activist Dennis Altman compared Growing Up Straight to the journalist and social critic Vance Packard's The Sexual Wilderness, Patricia Sexton's The Feminized Male, and Hendrik Ruitenbeek's The Male Myth. He described them as part of a trend to attack the collapse of American masculinity and femininity and connect it to \"an alleged growth in homosexuality.\" He wrote that the book, \"makes very explicit the connection between the fear of a declining sex role dichotomy and increased homosexuality; mothers and fathers are counseled to act out all those she-woman and he-man stereotypes as a model for their growing children.\"\n\nThe neuroscientist Simon LeVay described Growing Up Straight as an example of psychoanalytic ideas influencing general attitudes toward homosexuality. The reparative therapist Joseph Nicolosi and Linda Ames Nicolosi stated that Growing Up Straight has been seen as a classic.\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography\nBooks\n\n \n \n \n\nJournals\n\n \n\n1968 non-fiction books\nAmerican non-fiction books\nBooks about preventing homosexuality\nEnglish-language books\nStein and Day books"
] |
[
"Mark Taylor (cricketer)",
"Early years",
"Where was he born?",
"Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga,",
"What did he do growing up?",
"Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him."
] | C_ae269bdc0d524b599736eb69a322d5b1_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 3 | Are there any other interesting aspects in addition to this article? | Mark Taylor (cricketer) | The second of three children born to bank manager Tony Taylor, and his wife Judy, Mark Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga, where his family relocated when he was eight. His father had a sporting background, playing first grade rugby in Newcastle. The young Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him. Taylor idolised Arthur Morris, the left-handed opening batsmen from New South Wales who led the aggregates on the 1948 "Invincibles" tour of England. Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga. His family then moved to the north shore of Sydney, where he joined Northern District in Sydney Grade Cricket. Completing his secondary education at Chatswood High School, he later obtained a degree in surveying at the University of New South Wales. Along with the Waugh twins, Steve and Mark, Taylor played in under-19 youth internationals for Australia against Sri Lanka in 1982-83. Taylor made his Sheffield Shield debut in 1985-86 when NSW was depleted by the defection of regular openers Steve Smith and John Dyson to a rebel tour of South Africa. Opening with fellow debutant Mark Waugh, he scored 12 and 56 not out against Tasmania. His first season was highlighted by home and away centuries against South Australia in a total of 937 runs at 49.31 average. He had a lean season in 1987-88, after which he spent the English summer with Greenmount, helping them to win their first Bolton League title by scoring more than 1,300 runs at an average of 70. He originally trained as a surveyor, and received a degree in surveying from the University of New South Wales in 1987. CANNOTANSWER | Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga. | Mark Anthony Taylor (born 27 October 1964) is a former Australian cricketer and currently a Cricket Australia director and Nine Network commentator.
He was Test opening batsman from 1988 to 1999, as well as captain from 1994 to 1999, succeeding Allan Border. His predominant fielding position was first slip. He was widely regarded as an instrumental component in Australia's rise to Test cricket dominance, and his captaincy was regarded as adventurous and highly effective. However, he was considered less than ideal for One-Day International cricket and was eventually dropped as one-day captain after a 0–3 drubbing at the hands of England in 1997.
He moved to Wagga Wagga in 1972 and played for Lake Albert Cricket Club. His debut was for New South Wales in 1985.
He retired from Test cricket on 2 February 1999. In 104 Test matches, he scored 7,525 runs with a batting average of 43.49, including 19 centuries and 40 fifties. He was also an excellent first slip – his 157 catches, at the time, a Test record (now held by Rahul Dravid). In contrast to his predecessor Allan Border, who acquired the nickname 'Captain Grumpy', Taylor won plaudits for his always cheerful and positive demeanour. His successor, Steve Waugh, further honed the Australian team built by Border and Taylor and went on to set numerous records for victories as captain. Having been named Australian of the Year in 1999, he is now a cricket commentator for the Nine Network, and former Director of Cricket Australia.
Early years
The second of three children born to bank manager Tony Taylor, and his wife Judy, Mark Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga, where his family relocated when he was eight. His father had a sporting background, playing first grade rugby in Newcastle. The young Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him. Taylor idolised Arthur Morris, the left-handed opening batsmen from New South Wales who led the aggregates on the 1948 "Invincibles" tour of England.
Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga. His family then moved to the north shore of Sydney, where he joined Northern District in Sydney Grade Cricket. Completing his secondary education at Chatswood High School, he later obtained a degree in surveying at the University of New South Wales in 1987. Along with the Waugh twins, Steve and Mark, Taylor played in under-19 youth internationals for Australia against Sri Lanka in 1982–83.
Taylor made his Sheffield Shield debut in 1985–86 when NSW was depleted by the defection of regular openers Steve Smith and John Dyson to a rebel tour of South Africa. Opening with fellow debutant Mark Waugh, he scored 12 and 56 not out against Tasmania. His first season was highlighted by home and away centuries against South Australia in a total of 937 runs at 49.31 average. He had a lean season in 1987–88, after which he spent the English summer with Greenmount, helping them to win their first Bolton League title by scoring more than 1,300 runs at an average of 70.
International career
Test career
Solid form for NSW in 1988–89 resulted in Taylor's selection for his Test debut in the Fourth Test against the West Indies at the SCG, replacing middle-order batsman Graeme Wood. For three years, the opening combination of Geoff Marsh and David Boon had been successful for Australia. However, team coach Bob Simpson wanted a left and right-handed opening combination, and stability added to the middle order. Therefore, the left-handed Taylor partnered the right-handed Marsh, while Boon batted at number three. Taylor's safe catching at slip was also a factor in his selection. He made 25 and 3 in a winning team, then was run out twice in the Fifth Test. A first-class aggregate of 1,241 runs (at 49.64 average) for the season earned him a place on the 1989 Ashes tour.
Record-breaking start
Beginning with a century at Headingley in his First Test against England, Taylor amassed 839 runs at 83.90 in the six Tests: the second best aggregate in an Ashes series in England, behind Don Bradman's 974 runs in 1930. He occupied the crease for a total of 38 hours, more than six full days of play. The highlight of his tour was the Fifth Test at Trent Bridge when he and Geoff Marsh became the first pair to bat throughout a day's play of Test cricket in England, amassing 301 runs. Taylor made 219 in a partnership of 329, an Ashes record. He finished with 71 and 48 in the Sixth Test to overtake Neil Harvey for the third-highest series aggregate in Test history and totalled 1,669 first-class runs for the tour. Australia won the series 4–0 to regain the Ashes. However, Taylor was overlooked for selection in the ODIs.
Returning to Australia, Taylor made 1,403 first-class runs at 70.15 during the 1989–90 season, and ended 1989 with 1,219 Test runs, thus becoming the first player to better one thousand Test runs in his debut calendar year, something only matched twice since by England opener Alastair Cook and Australian Adam Voges. In Taylor's first nine Tests, Australia passed 400 in the first innings. He scored centuries in successive Tests against Sri Lanka, and against Pakistan his scores were 52 and 101 at the MCG, 77 and 59 at the Adelaide Oval and an unbeaten 101 at Sydney. Australia won both series 1–0. In just over twelve months, he had amassed 1,618 runs at 70.35. This outstanding start to his career earned Taylor nomination as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1990. At the season's end, he demonstrated his leadership abilities for the first time. Standing in as NSW captain in place of the injured Geoff Lawson for the 1989–90 Sheffield Shield final in Sydney, Taylor scored 127 and 100. NSW won by 345 runs to secure its 40th title.
A year after his Test debut, Taylor was selected to make his ODI debut, which came on Boxing Day of 1989 against Sri Lanka. He made 11 as Australia won by 30 runs. He was selected for nine of Australia's ten ODIs for the season's triangular tournament, scoring 294 runs at 32.66 with two half-centuries. His highest score of 76 came as Australia defeated Pakistan by 69 runs to clinch the finals series in Sydney. The season ended with ODI tournaments in New Zealand and Sharjah. He played six of the eight matches, scoring 222 runs at 37.00 with two half-centuries, but was dropped for the final in New Zealand.
Inconsistent form
Taylor experienced a slump during the 1990–91 Ashes series. After making two-half centuries in the first two Tests, he failed to pass 20 in the last three and finished with 213 runs at 23.66 in a team that won 3–0. He found himself on the outer for the ODI triangular tournament, missing all eight of the preliminary matches before returning to score 41 and 71 as Australia won the finals 2–0.
His moderate form continued during the 1991 tour of the West Indies, where he was selected in only two of the five ODIs, scoring three and five. He ended the run with a rear-guard innings of 76 in the second innings of the Fourth Test at Barbados. Despite his effort, Australia lost and the West Indies took an unassailable lead of 2–0. In the Fifth Test St. Johns, Antigua, Australia gained a consolation victory due mainly to Taylor's scores of 59 and 144 (out of a total of 265). This late rush of form boosted his average for the series to 49. In late 1991, before the Australian season started, Taylor was appointed to lead an Australia A side to tour Zimbabwe. The team was composed of younger Test players and other young players who were seeking to break into international cricket. The selectors were attempting to groom Taylor as a potential replacement for Border.
During the 1991–92 Australian season, Taylor batted consistently in a 4–0 series victory over India. He scored 94 and 35* in a ten-wicket win at Brisbane. He scored half-centuries in each of the next two Tests before striking 100 in the second innings of the Fourth Test at Adelaide. It helped Australia to wipe out a first innings deficit of 80 and set up a winning target. His opening partner Marsh was dropped for the Fifth Test, so the selectors elevated Taylor to the vice-captaincy of the team. Over the next twelve months, a number of players were tried as Taylor's opening partner. Taylor struggled in his first match with new partner Wayne N. Phillips, scoring two and 16. Nevertheless, he had scored 422 runs at 46.89. Taylor continued to be overlooked by the selectors in the shorter version of the game, missing selection for all of the season's triangular tournament. He was selected for the squad for the 1992 Cricket World Cup held on home soil, and after Australia lost its first two matches, Taylor was recalled for his first ODI in 12 months. He made 13 as Australia beat India by one run, but scored his first ODI duck in the next match as England won by eight wickets. He was dropped for the remainder of the tournament.
On the 1992 tour of Sri Lanka, Taylor struggled in scoring 148 runs at 24.67. After scoring 42 and 43 in Australia's win in the First Test, Taylor failed to again pass 30. With new opening partner Tom Moody also struggling with 71 runs at 11.83, Australia frequently struggled at the top of their innings. He played in all three ODIs, scoring 138 runs at 46.00. His 94 in the first match was his highest score in ODIs to that point.
Against the West Indies in 1992–93, Taylor was now opening alongside David Boon with Moody having been dropped. Taylor was ineffective and failed to pass fifty in the first four Tests. After Australia failed by one run to win the Fourth Test and thus the series, Taylor was dropped for the deciding Test at Perth, having failed to make double figures in either innings. In his absence, Australia lost by an innings in three days and conceded the series 1–2. He had scored 170 runs at 24.29 for the series. However, he played all of Australia's ten ODIs, scoring 286 runs at 28.60 with two half-centuries.
Taylor and Slater
As a result of the innings defeat in Perth, Taylor was immediately recalled for the tour of New Zealand, where he scored 82 in the First Test at Christchurch to help Australia to an innings victory. He then scored 50 in the drawn Second Test and bowled for the first time at Test level, taking 0/15. He failed to pass 20 in the Third Test and ended the series with 148 runs at 37.00 as the home side squared the series. Australia then played five ODIs in New Zealand before starting the England tour with three more. Taylor played in all eight, scoring 307 runs at 38.38 with four half-centuries.
The problem of finding him a long-term partner was solved on the tour of England that followed. NSW batsman Michael Slater, who also grew up in Wagga Wagga, made his debut in the First Test of the 1993 Ashes series. In the First Test at Old Trafford, Taylor made 124 after an opening partnership of 128, as Australia managed only 289 after being sent in. Australia managed to scrape out a lead of 79, before going on to a 179-run win.
This was followed by a stand of 260 at Lord's in the Second Test, with Taylor making 111. In the process, he passed 1000 Test runs against England and the partnership broke the Ashes partnership record at Lord's, which had been set by Bill Woodfull and Don Bradman in 1930. The partnership laid the platform for Australia's total of 4/632, as the tourists proceeded to an innings victory.
His scoring was more sedate in the remaining Tests as Australia won 4–1, and he finished with 428 runs at 42.80. He passed 30 only once more, with 70 in the first innings of the Sixth Test at The Oval.
Against New Zealand in 1993–94, Taylor made 64 and 142 not out in the First Test at Perth, which ended in a draw. He then scored 27 and 53 as Australia won the next two Tests by an innings, totalling 286 runs at 95.33 in three Tests as Australia won 2–0. In the rain-affected Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Taylor played his 50th Test and celebrated with 170 against South Africa, the first Test between the two countries since 1970. This made him the first batsman to score centuries on Test debut against four countries. In addition, he passed 4,000 Test runs during the innings. Taylor had scored more than 1,000 Test runs for the calendar year, ending with 1106 runs Taylor scored 62 in the Third Test, his only other half-century for the series, which he ended with 304 runs at 60.80.
On the reciprocal tour of South Africa at the end of the season, Taylor missed a Test because of injury for the only time in his career. Matthew Hayden filled in for the First Test in Johannesburg, which Australia lost. On his return for the Second Test at Cape Town, he scored 70 and ended the series with 97 runs at 24.25. Both series were drawn 1–1.
Captaincy
After the retirement of Allan Border, Taylor was appointed captain.
Frequently omitted from the ODI team due to slow scoring, Taylor missed the finals of the ODI series in Australia against South Africa. On the tour of South Africa, he missed three consecutive ODIs when tour selectors and fellow players Ian Healy and Steve Waugh voted him off the team. In all, Taylor had only played in 11 of Australia's 19 ODIs for the season, scoring 281 runs at 25.55. Taylor requested an extended trial as opener for the ODI side to help consolidate his captaincy of both teams.
Taylor started his ODI captaincy with two tournaments in Sharjah and Sri Lanka. Australia missed the finals in both tournaments, winning three of their six matches. After scoring 68* to guide his team to a nine-wicket win in the first match against Sri Lanka in Sharjah, Taylor's form tapered off, scoring only 64 more runs to end the two tournaments with a total of 132 runs at 33.00.
His first task was a tour of Pakistan in 1994, where Australia had not won a Test since the 1959 tour. To make matters worse, Australia's first-choice pace pairing of Craig McDermott and Merv Hughes missed the tour due to injury. The First Test at Karachi was a personal disaster for Taylor as he scored a pair, the first player in Test history to do so on his captaincy debut. Paceman Glenn McGrath then broke down in the middle of the match. Australia was in the box seat with Pakistan needing 56 runs with one wicket in hand, but lost by one wicket after Ian Healy missed a stumping opportunity and the ball went for the winning runs. Recovering to score 69 in the Second Test at Rawalpindi, Taylor forced Pakistan to follow on after taking a 261-run lead. However, he dropped Pakistan captain Salim Malik when he was on 20. Malik went on to make 237 as Pakistan made 537 and saved the Test. Australia again took a first innings lead in the Third Test, but could not force a result, as Malik scored another second innings century to ensure safety and a 1–0 series win. Taylor ended the series with 106 runs at 26.50. Australia fared better in the ODI triangular tournament, winning five of their six matches. Taylor scored 56 in the final as Australia beat Pakistan by 64 runs to end the tournament with 193 runs at 32.16.
Beginning the 1994–95 season with 150 for NSW in a tour match against England, Taylor followed up with 59 in an opening stand of 97 as Australia made 426 in the first innings to take the initiative in the First Test in Brisbane. Australia amassed a 259-run first innings lead, but Taylor, mindful of the Test match at Rawalpindi, became the first Australian captain since 1977–78 to not enforce the follow-on. Although heavily criticised as a conservative decision, Australia still won the match by 184 runs, with Taylor adding 58 in the second innings. Having scored the first win of his Test captaincy, Taylor led his team to a 295-run win in the Second Test.
Taylor played his best cricket of the summer in the Third Test at Sydney. Last man out for 49 in a total of 116 in the first innings, he defied a pitch that had begun to seam and swing after a shower and cloud cover as Australia narrowly avoided the follow on. In the second innings, he made a bold attempt at chasing a world record target of 449 by scoring 113, but Australia played for a draw after Slater and Taylor fell following a double-century stand. Australia collapsed to 7/292 before hanging on in near-darkness. In the final two Tests, he scored half-centuries as Australia won 3–1. Australia dramatically lost the Fourth Test when England led by only 154 on the final day with four wickets in hand. Aggressive lower order batting saw Australia set 263 in just over two sessions, but a heavy collapse saw Australia eight wickets down with more than 2 hours to play. Almost two hours of resistance later, England took a 106-run win late in the day. However, Australia bounced back to win the Fifth Test by 329 runs, the largest margin of the series. Taylor's partnership with Slater yielded three century opening stands at an average of 76.60 for the series and Taylor's individual return was 471 runs at 47.10.
The southern hemisphere summer ended with a quadrangular tournament in New Zealand, where Australia won two of their three group matches to proceed to the final. Taylor scored 44 in a six-wicket triumph over New Zealand and totalled 165 runs at 41.25. His best score was 97 against the hosts in the preliminary round meant that he was still yet to post his first ODI century, five years after his debut.
Caribbean tour 1995
This victory was followed by the 1995 tour of the West Indies, where Australia had not won a Test series for 22 years. Australia lost the ODI series which preceded the Tests 1–4, with Taylor making 152 runs at 30.40. The difficulty of Australia's task was increased when fast bowlers Craig McDermott and Damien Fleming went home injured at the start of the tour. Australia fielded a pace attack of Glenn McGrath, Brendon Julian and Paul Reiffel who had played only 23 Tests between them. Despite this, Australia won by ten wickets in the first Test at Barbados, with Taylor contributing a half-century. After the Second Test was a rained-out draw, the West Indies beat Australia inside three days on a "green" Trinidad pitch in the Third Test. Australia regained the Frank Worrell Trophy with an innings victory in the Fourth Test at Jamaica, with Taylor taking the winning catch from the bowling of Shane Warne. Although he only managed 153 runs (at 25.50 average) for the series, Taylor held nine catches and his leadership was cited as a key factor in the result.
Controversy with Sri Lanka
This was followed by two and three-Test series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka respectively in the 1995–96 Australian season. The Pakistan series began among a media circus when Salim Malik arrived with publicity focused on the bribery allegations which had surfaced a year earlier. Australia won the First Test in Brisbane by an innings in three and a half days, with Taylor contributing 69. In the Second Test at Bellerive Oval, Taylor scored 123 in the second innings to set up a winning total. In the Third Test in Sydney, he made 59 as Australia collapsed for 172 in the second innings and conceded the match. He ended the series with a healthy 338 runs at 67.60.
The subsequent Test and ODI series involving Sri Lanka were overshadowed by a series of spiteful clashes. The Tests were won 3–0 by the Australians with heavy margins of an innings, ten wickets and 148 runs respectively. Taylor's highlight being a 96 in the First Test at Perth as he compiled 159 runs at 39.75. He also made his 100th Test catch during the series. After accusations of ball tampering were levelled against the tourists in the First Test, leading spinner Muttiah Muralitharan was no-balled seven times in the Second Test, and during the ODI series, the Sri Lankans accused Taylor's men of cheating. The season hit a low point with the Sri Lankans which saw the teams refuse to shake hands at the end of the second final of the triangular series which Australia won 2–0. The match had included physical jostling between McGrath and Sanath Jayasuriya mid pitch, with the latter accusing McGrath of making racist attacks. Later in the match, stump microphones showed Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy alleging that portly Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga was feigning injury and calling for a runner because of his lack of physical fitness.
On the field, the ODI tournament saw Mark Waugh elevated to be Taylor's ODI opening partner after the axing of Slater midway through the season. In their first match together in Perth, the pair put on 190, with Taylor scoring 85. They put on another century stand in the second final, with Taylor scoring 82. Taylor scored heavily in the ODI tournament, with 423 runs at 42.30 with four half-centuries. Australia warmed up for the 1996 Cricket World Cup by winning five of their eight round-robin matches, and taking the finals 2–0, but many of the matches were closely contested. The finals were won by 18 and nine runs respectively, while three of the group matches were decided in the last over.
After the spiteful summer, a Tamil Tiger bombing in Colombo coupled with death threats to some members of the team forced Taylor to forfeit his team's scheduled World Cup match against Sri Lanka in Colombo. Taylor made six as Australia started their campaign with a 97-run win over Kenya. He then made 59 in a century stand with Waugh as Australia defeated co-hosts India in Mumbai. Taylor scored 34 in a nine-wicket win over Zimbabwe, before scoring nine in a defeat to the West Indies in the last group match. Australia finished second in their group and faced New Zealand in the quarter-finals. Taylor made only 10 as Australia chased 289 for victory, but made a surprise tactic by sending in Shane Warne as a pinch hitter. Warne made 24 from 15 balls in a partnership with Waugh, to allow Australia to take the momentum and take victory by six wickets. Taylor managed only one in the semi-final as Australia staggered to 8/207 against the West Indies. Australia appeared to be heading out of the tournament when the Caribbean team reached 2/165, but a sudden collapse saw Australia win by six runs in the last over.
Australia managed to reach the final, where they met Sri Lanka. Taylor scored 74, a record score by an Australian captain in the World Cup, but Sri Lanka comfortably triumphed on this occasion by seven wickets to claim the trophy.
Almost retired
After the World Cup, Bob Simpson was replaced as Australia's coach by Geoff Marsh, Taylor's former opening partner. Australia's first tournament after the World Cup was the Singer World Series in Sri Lanka. Taylor opted out of the tournament, and in his absence, Australia reached the final but lost by 50 runs to the hosts.
On a short tour to India, Taylor made his first ODI century at Bangalore, with 105 against India in his 98th match, having been out in the 90s on three previous occasions. Taylor performed strongly in the ODIs, with a total of 302 runs at 60.40. However, it was a disappointing tour for the team; the solitary Test in Delhi was lost, as were all five ODIs played during the Titan Cup.
In 1996–97, Australia confirmed its ascendancy over the West Indies with a 3–2 series win, but Taylor endured a poor season with the bat and failed to pass 50 in nine innings. His partnership with Slater was terminated when the latter was dropped, replaced by Matthew Elliott. Following an injury to Elliott, Matthew Hayden became Taylor's partner for three Tests.
Unable to recover form in the ODI series, Taylor's scratchy batting led to many poor starts for Australia. The team suffered five consecutive defeats, and missed the finals of the tournament for the first time in 17 years. Taylor managed only 143 runs at 17.88 with a highest score of 29.
The early 1997 tour to South Africa brought no upturn in Taylor's batting despite Australia's 2–1 victory in the series: he scored 80 runs at 16.00. His form was such that it influenced the selection of the team. For the Second Test at Port Elizabeth, played on a green pitch, Australia played Michael Bevan as a second spinner batting at number seven to reinforce the batting, instead of a third seamer to exploit the conditions. After scoring seven and 17 in the first two ODIs, Taylor dropped himself from the team for the remaining five matches.
The 1997 Ashes tour started poorly amid rumours that Taylor was on the verge of losing his place in the side. He batted ineffectively as Australia lost the one day series 0–3, scoring seven and 11, before dropping himself for the final match. In the First Test, Australia were dismissed for 118 in the first innings, with Taylor contributing seven: he had not managed to pass 50 in his last 21 Test innings. England amassed a big lead of 360 runs. With Australia facing a heavy defeat, media criticism of his position intensified. The Melbourne Age ran a competition for its readers to forecast how many runs he would make. Most respondents guessed less than 10 runs. The team's erstwhile coach, Bob Simpson, said that Taylor's retention in the team in spite of his poor form was fostering resentment among the players and destabilising the team.
Taylor started nervously in the second innings, but went on to score of 129, which saved his career, but not the match. His performance prompted personal congratulations from Prime Minister John Howard and the team's management allowed the media a rare opportunity to enter the dressing room and interview Taylor. During the period he refused offers by the manager to handle the media on his behalf. Australia went on to win the Third, Fourth and Fifth Tests and retain the Ashes 3–2. Although Taylor made single figures in the three Tests following his century, he contributed 76 and 45 in the series-clinching Test at Nottingham. Taylor ended the series with 317 runs at 31.7.
Dual teams
However, Taylor's ODI form was not to the satisfaction of the selectors. At the start of the 1997–98 season, a new selection policy was announced: the Test and ODI teams became separate entities, with specialists in each form of the game selected accordingly. Taylor was dropped from the ODI team, in favour of the aggressive Michael di Venuto. Tactically, ODI cricket was transformed by Sri Lanka's World Cup success, when it employed the highly aggressive opening pair of Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana.
At this time, Taylor was a central figure in a pay dispute between the players and the ACB, with a strike action threatened by the players. Taylor continued as Test captain and led the team to a 2–0 win over New Zealand. The first two matches were won by 186 runs and an innings, while the Third Test ended with Australia one wicket from victory after almost two days' play was washed out.
Taylor scored a century (112 on the first day of the First Test, and an unbeaten 66 in the Third Test, compiling 214 runs at 53.50 for the series. This was followed by three Tests against South Africa. After South Africa withheld the Australian bowling on the final day to secure a draw in the Boxing Day Test, Australia took a 1–0 lead in the New Year's Test at Sydney with an innings victory. Taylor carried his bat for 169 in the first innings of the Third Test at Adelaide which helped Australia to draw the match and clinch the series.
On the 1998 tour of India, Elliott was dropped and Taylor reunited with Slater as the opening pair. Australia started well by taking a 71-run first-innings lead in the First Test at Chennai, but Sachin Tendulkar's unbeaten 155 put Australia under pressure to save the match on the final day. They were unable to resist and lost by 179 runs. Australia was crushed by an innings and 219 runs in the Second Test at Calcutta, Australia first series loss in four years and the first time that Australia had lost by an innings for five years. Thus, a series victory in India, which Australia had not achieved since 1969–70, remained elusive. Australia won the Third Test in Bangalore by eight wickets, with Taylor scoring an unbeaten 102 in a second innings run chase.
Record equalled
Later in 1998, Taylor led his team to Pakistan, where a convincing win in the First Test at Rawalpindi by an innings and 99 runs was Australia's first Test victory in the country for 39 years. Taylor then attended a court hearing investigating the claims of match-fixing made during the 1994 tour. In the Second Test at Peshawar, Taylor played the longest innings of his career. He batted two days to amass 334 not out, equalling Sir Donald Bradman's Australian record set in 1930. In temperatures above 32 °C, Taylor survived two dropped catches before he had reached 25 and scored slowly on the first day. He shared a 206-run partnership with Justin Langer. The next day, he added 103 runs in a morning session extended from two to three hours. After the tea interval, he discarded his helmet in favour of a white sun hat, to deal with the extreme heat. He passed 311, eclipsing Bob Simpson's record score by an Australian captain. In the final over, Taylor equalled Bradman's Australian Test record when a shot to midwicket was barely stopped by Ijaz Ahmed, which reduced the scoring opportunity to a single run.
At the end of the day's play, Taylor was encouraged by the media, the public and his teammates to attempt to break Brian Lara's world record score of 375. An unusually large crowd turned out the following day in anticipation. However, Taylor declared the innings closed, opting to share the record with Bradman, and making the team's chances of winning the game paramount. He was widely praised for this decision. He made 92 in the second innings, giving him the second highest Test match aggregate after English batsmen Graham Gooch, who scored 333 and 123 for a total of 456 against India at Lord's on 26 July 1990. His fifteen hours batting in one Test was second only to Hanif Mohammad. The match ended in a draw, as did the Third Test, so Australia won the series and Taylor ended with 513 runs at 128.25 average.
Final season
Taylor's swansong was the 1998–99 Ashes series against England, which began with his 100th Test in the First Test in Brisbane. He scored 46 and a duck—his first in Australia—as England were saved when thunderstorms forced the abandonment of play on the final afternoon. Two half centuries in the next two Tests in Perth and Adelaide saw Australia win by seven wickets and 205 runs respectively, thereby retaining the series 2–0. After losing the Fourth Test by 12 runs after a dramatic final day collapse, Taylor headed to his home ground, the Sydney Cricket Ground, for what would be his final Test. Australia went on to win the Test by 98 runs and take the series 3–1. Taylor only scored two in both innings, but he broke Border's world record for the most Test catches. His catch in the first innings equalled Border's 156 and another in the second made him the sole owner of the record.
He also jointly holds the record in Test cricket (along with Ian Healy) of being the only cricketers to have been run out in both innings of a Test on two occasions.
Legacy
The improvement of the Australian team, begun during Border's tenure, continued under the captaincy of Taylor. After the defeat of the West Indies in 1995, Taylor's teams won home and away series against every Test team they played, with the exception of winning a series in India. Wisden wrote:
Taylor talked so well that he raised the standard of debate in Australia—and perhaps of cricket itself—in a way which was an example to all professional cricketers ... Border stopped Australia losing. Taylor made them into winners, the acknowledged if not official world champions of Test cricket.
Taylor made a concerted effort to decrease the amount of sledging committed by his team, a trait that brought criticism of Australian teams during other eras. In total, he captained the side in 50 Tests, winning 26 and losing 13, a success rate unmatched in the previous fifty years except for Don Bradman and Viv Richards.
Career best performances
Retirement
Taylor retired from professional cricket in early 1999 after the Ashes series. On Australia Day, he was named the Australian of the Year. He was awarded an Australian Sports Medal in 2000 and a Centenary Medal in 2001. He was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2002 and made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2003. In 2011, he was inducted into the Cricket Hall of Fame by the CA.
He is now a commentator for Channel Nine for 21 years. Despite the network losing the TV rights in April 2018, Taylor re-signed for another three years to give his expert analysis on the Ashes 2019, 2019 Cricket World Cup & 2020 World Twenty20 and as a digital contributor.
He mainly commentates on One Day International and Test matches in Australia until the network's final year of cricket telecasts, so he can now spend more time with his family. He used to also appear on The Cricket Show with Simon O'Donnell, and is a spokesman for Fujitsu air-conditioners. He also commentates for radio.
Taylor is patron of the Mark Taylor Shield Cricket competition run for NSW Catholic Primary schools in and around the Sydney region. On 6 November 2011, Waitara Oval, the home of the Northern District Cricket Club, had its name formally changed to Mark Taylor Oval, to honour its former First Grade captain and life member.
In October 2015, The Primary Club of Australia announced that Mark Taylor had accepted the role of Twelfth Man and Patron following the passing of their former Patron, Richie Benaud OBE. He also became Director of Cricket Australia, who commissioned a replacement cap for Benaud, only for his ill health and subsequent passing to have the cap presented to his wife.
References
Further reading
External links
1964 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Wagga Wagga
Australia Test cricketers
Australia One Day International cricketers
Australia Test cricket captains
New South Wales cricketers
Wisden Cricketers of the Year
Australian cricket commentators
People educated at Chatswood High School
Australian of the Year Award winners
Officers of the Order of Australia
Recipients of the Australian Sports Medal
Recipients of the Centenary Medal
Sport Australia Hall of Fame inductees
University of New South Wales alumni
Australian Cricket Hall of Fame inductees
People from the Riverina
Chatswood, New South Wales
Australian republicans | true | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Mark Taylor (cricketer)",
"Early years",
"Where was he born?",
"Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga,",
"What did he do growing up?",
"Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga."
] | C_ae269bdc0d524b599736eb69a322d5b1_1 | did he win any awards? | 4 | Did Mark Taylor win any awards? | Mark Taylor (cricketer) | The second of three children born to bank manager Tony Taylor, and his wife Judy, Mark Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga, where his family relocated when he was eight. His father had a sporting background, playing first grade rugby in Newcastle. The young Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him. Taylor idolised Arthur Morris, the left-handed opening batsmen from New South Wales who led the aggregates on the 1948 "Invincibles" tour of England. Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga. His family then moved to the north shore of Sydney, where he joined Northern District in Sydney Grade Cricket. Completing his secondary education at Chatswood High School, he later obtained a degree in surveying at the University of New South Wales. Along with the Waugh twins, Steve and Mark, Taylor played in under-19 youth internationals for Australia against Sri Lanka in 1982-83. Taylor made his Sheffield Shield debut in 1985-86 when NSW was depleted by the defection of regular openers Steve Smith and John Dyson to a rebel tour of South Africa. Opening with fellow debutant Mark Waugh, he scored 12 and 56 not out against Tasmania. His first season was highlighted by home and away centuries against South Australia in a total of 937 runs at 49.31 average. He had a lean season in 1987-88, after which he spent the English summer with Greenmount, helping them to win their first Bolton League title by scoring more than 1,300 runs at an average of 70. He originally trained as a surveyor, and received a degree in surveying from the University of New South Wales in 1987. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Mark Anthony Taylor (born 27 October 1964) is a former Australian cricketer and currently a Cricket Australia director and Nine Network commentator.
He was Test opening batsman from 1988 to 1999, as well as captain from 1994 to 1999, succeeding Allan Border. His predominant fielding position was first slip. He was widely regarded as an instrumental component in Australia's rise to Test cricket dominance, and his captaincy was regarded as adventurous and highly effective. However, he was considered less than ideal for One-Day International cricket and was eventually dropped as one-day captain after a 0–3 drubbing at the hands of England in 1997.
He moved to Wagga Wagga in 1972 and played for Lake Albert Cricket Club. His debut was for New South Wales in 1985.
He retired from Test cricket on 2 February 1999. In 104 Test matches, he scored 7,525 runs with a batting average of 43.49, including 19 centuries and 40 fifties. He was also an excellent first slip – his 157 catches, at the time, a Test record (now held by Rahul Dravid). In contrast to his predecessor Allan Border, who acquired the nickname 'Captain Grumpy', Taylor won plaudits for his always cheerful and positive demeanour. His successor, Steve Waugh, further honed the Australian team built by Border and Taylor and went on to set numerous records for victories as captain. Having been named Australian of the Year in 1999, he is now a cricket commentator for the Nine Network, and former Director of Cricket Australia.
Early years
The second of three children born to bank manager Tony Taylor, and his wife Judy, Mark Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga, where his family relocated when he was eight. His father had a sporting background, playing first grade rugby in Newcastle. The young Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him. Taylor idolised Arthur Morris, the left-handed opening batsmen from New South Wales who led the aggregates on the 1948 "Invincibles" tour of England.
Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga. His family then moved to the north shore of Sydney, where he joined Northern District in Sydney Grade Cricket. Completing his secondary education at Chatswood High School, he later obtained a degree in surveying at the University of New South Wales in 1987. Along with the Waugh twins, Steve and Mark, Taylor played in under-19 youth internationals for Australia against Sri Lanka in 1982–83.
Taylor made his Sheffield Shield debut in 1985–86 when NSW was depleted by the defection of regular openers Steve Smith and John Dyson to a rebel tour of South Africa. Opening with fellow debutant Mark Waugh, he scored 12 and 56 not out against Tasmania. His first season was highlighted by home and away centuries against South Australia in a total of 937 runs at 49.31 average. He had a lean season in 1987–88, after which he spent the English summer with Greenmount, helping them to win their first Bolton League title by scoring more than 1,300 runs at an average of 70.
International career
Test career
Solid form for NSW in 1988–89 resulted in Taylor's selection for his Test debut in the Fourth Test against the West Indies at the SCG, replacing middle-order batsman Graeme Wood. For three years, the opening combination of Geoff Marsh and David Boon had been successful for Australia. However, team coach Bob Simpson wanted a left and right-handed opening combination, and stability added to the middle order. Therefore, the left-handed Taylor partnered the right-handed Marsh, while Boon batted at number three. Taylor's safe catching at slip was also a factor in his selection. He made 25 and 3 in a winning team, then was run out twice in the Fifth Test. A first-class aggregate of 1,241 runs (at 49.64 average) for the season earned him a place on the 1989 Ashes tour.
Record-breaking start
Beginning with a century at Headingley in his First Test against England, Taylor amassed 839 runs at 83.90 in the six Tests: the second best aggregate in an Ashes series in England, behind Don Bradman's 974 runs in 1930. He occupied the crease for a total of 38 hours, more than six full days of play. The highlight of his tour was the Fifth Test at Trent Bridge when he and Geoff Marsh became the first pair to bat throughout a day's play of Test cricket in England, amassing 301 runs. Taylor made 219 in a partnership of 329, an Ashes record. He finished with 71 and 48 in the Sixth Test to overtake Neil Harvey for the third-highest series aggregate in Test history and totalled 1,669 first-class runs for the tour. Australia won the series 4–0 to regain the Ashes. However, Taylor was overlooked for selection in the ODIs.
Returning to Australia, Taylor made 1,403 first-class runs at 70.15 during the 1989–90 season, and ended 1989 with 1,219 Test runs, thus becoming the first player to better one thousand Test runs in his debut calendar year, something only matched twice since by England opener Alastair Cook and Australian Adam Voges. In Taylor's first nine Tests, Australia passed 400 in the first innings. He scored centuries in successive Tests against Sri Lanka, and against Pakistan his scores were 52 and 101 at the MCG, 77 and 59 at the Adelaide Oval and an unbeaten 101 at Sydney. Australia won both series 1–0. In just over twelve months, he had amassed 1,618 runs at 70.35. This outstanding start to his career earned Taylor nomination as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1990. At the season's end, he demonstrated his leadership abilities for the first time. Standing in as NSW captain in place of the injured Geoff Lawson for the 1989–90 Sheffield Shield final in Sydney, Taylor scored 127 and 100. NSW won by 345 runs to secure its 40th title.
A year after his Test debut, Taylor was selected to make his ODI debut, which came on Boxing Day of 1989 against Sri Lanka. He made 11 as Australia won by 30 runs. He was selected for nine of Australia's ten ODIs for the season's triangular tournament, scoring 294 runs at 32.66 with two half-centuries. His highest score of 76 came as Australia defeated Pakistan by 69 runs to clinch the finals series in Sydney. The season ended with ODI tournaments in New Zealand and Sharjah. He played six of the eight matches, scoring 222 runs at 37.00 with two half-centuries, but was dropped for the final in New Zealand.
Inconsistent form
Taylor experienced a slump during the 1990–91 Ashes series. After making two-half centuries in the first two Tests, he failed to pass 20 in the last three and finished with 213 runs at 23.66 in a team that won 3–0. He found himself on the outer for the ODI triangular tournament, missing all eight of the preliminary matches before returning to score 41 and 71 as Australia won the finals 2–0.
His moderate form continued during the 1991 tour of the West Indies, where he was selected in only two of the five ODIs, scoring three and five. He ended the run with a rear-guard innings of 76 in the second innings of the Fourth Test at Barbados. Despite his effort, Australia lost and the West Indies took an unassailable lead of 2–0. In the Fifth Test St. Johns, Antigua, Australia gained a consolation victory due mainly to Taylor's scores of 59 and 144 (out of a total of 265). This late rush of form boosted his average for the series to 49. In late 1991, before the Australian season started, Taylor was appointed to lead an Australia A side to tour Zimbabwe. The team was composed of younger Test players and other young players who were seeking to break into international cricket. The selectors were attempting to groom Taylor as a potential replacement for Border.
During the 1991–92 Australian season, Taylor batted consistently in a 4–0 series victory over India. He scored 94 and 35* in a ten-wicket win at Brisbane. He scored half-centuries in each of the next two Tests before striking 100 in the second innings of the Fourth Test at Adelaide. It helped Australia to wipe out a first innings deficit of 80 and set up a winning target. His opening partner Marsh was dropped for the Fifth Test, so the selectors elevated Taylor to the vice-captaincy of the team. Over the next twelve months, a number of players were tried as Taylor's opening partner. Taylor struggled in his first match with new partner Wayne N. Phillips, scoring two and 16. Nevertheless, he had scored 422 runs at 46.89. Taylor continued to be overlooked by the selectors in the shorter version of the game, missing selection for all of the season's triangular tournament. He was selected for the squad for the 1992 Cricket World Cup held on home soil, and after Australia lost its first two matches, Taylor was recalled for his first ODI in 12 months. He made 13 as Australia beat India by one run, but scored his first ODI duck in the next match as England won by eight wickets. He was dropped for the remainder of the tournament.
On the 1992 tour of Sri Lanka, Taylor struggled in scoring 148 runs at 24.67. After scoring 42 and 43 in Australia's win in the First Test, Taylor failed to again pass 30. With new opening partner Tom Moody also struggling with 71 runs at 11.83, Australia frequently struggled at the top of their innings. He played in all three ODIs, scoring 138 runs at 46.00. His 94 in the first match was his highest score in ODIs to that point.
Against the West Indies in 1992–93, Taylor was now opening alongside David Boon with Moody having been dropped. Taylor was ineffective and failed to pass fifty in the first four Tests. After Australia failed by one run to win the Fourth Test and thus the series, Taylor was dropped for the deciding Test at Perth, having failed to make double figures in either innings. In his absence, Australia lost by an innings in three days and conceded the series 1–2. He had scored 170 runs at 24.29 for the series. However, he played all of Australia's ten ODIs, scoring 286 runs at 28.60 with two half-centuries.
Taylor and Slater
As a result of the innings defeat in Perth, Taylor was immediately recalled for the tour of New Zealand, where he scored 82 in the First Test at Christchurch to help Australia to an innings victory. He then scored 50 in the drawn Second Test and bowled for the first time at Test level, taking 0/15. He failed to pass 20 in the Third Test and ended the series with 148 runs at 37.00 as the home side squared the series. Australia then played five ODIs in New Zealand before starting the England tour with three more. Taylor played in all eight, scoring 307 runs at 38.38 with four half-centuries.
The problem of finding him a long-term partner was solved on the tour of England that followed. NSW batsman Michael Slater, who also grew up in Wagga Wagga, made his debut in the First Test of the 1993 Ashes series. In the First Test at Old Trafford, Taylor made 124 after an opening partnership of 128, as Australia managed only 289 after being sent in. Australia managed to scrape out a lead of 79, before going on to a 179-run win.
This was followed by a stand of 260 at Lord's in the Second Test, with Taylor making 111. In the process, he passed 1000 Test runs against England and the partnership broke the Ashes partnership record at Lord's, which had been set by Bill Woodfull and Don Bradman in 1930. The partnership laid the platform for Australia's total of 4/632, as the tourists proceeded to an innings victory.
His scoring was more sedate in the remaining Tests as Australia won 4–1, and he finished with 428 runs at 42.80. He passed 30 only once more, with 70 in the first innings of the Sixth Test at The Oval.
Against New Zealand in 1993–94, Taylor made 64 and 142 not out in the First Test at Perth, which ended in a draw. He then scored 27 and 53 as Australia won the next two Tests by an innings, totalling 286 runs at 95.33 in three Tests as Australia won 2–0. In the rain-affected Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Taylor played his 50th Test and celebrated with 170 against South Africa, the first Test between the two countries since 1970. This made him the first batsman to score centuries on Test debut against four countries. In addition, he passed 4,000 Test runs during the innings. Taylor had scored more than 1,000 Test runs for the calendar year, ending with 1106 runs Taylor scored 62 in the Third Test, his only other half-century for the series, which he ended with 304 runs at 60.80.
On the reciprocal tour of South Africa at the end of the season, Taylor missed a Test because of injury for the only time in his career. Matthew Hayden filled in for the First Test in Johannesburg, which Australia lost. On his return for the Second Test at Cape Town, he scored 70 and ended the series with 97 runs at 24.25. Both series were drawn 1–1.
Captaincy
After the retirement of Allan Border, Taylor was appointed captain.
Frequently omitted from the ODI team due to slow scoring, Taylor missed the finals of the ODI series in Australia against South Africa. On the tour of South Africa, he missed three consecutive ODIs when tour selectors and fellow players Ian Healy and Steve Waugh voted him off the team. In all, Taylor had only played in 11 of Australia's 19 ODIs for the season, scoring 281 runs at 25.55. Taylor requested an extended trial as opener for the ODI side to help consolidate his captaincy of both teams.
Taylor started his ODI captaincy with two tournaments in Sharjah and Sri Lanka. Australia missed the finals in both tournaments, winning three of their six matches. After scoring 68* to guide his team to a nine-wicket win in the first match against Sri Lanka in Sharjah, Taylor's form tapered off, scoring only 64 more runs to end the two tournaments with a total of 132 runs at 33.00.
His first task was a tour of Pakistan in 1994, where Australia had not won a Test since the 1959 tour. To make matters worse, Australia's first-choice pace pairing of Craig McDermott and Merv Hughes missed the tour due to injury. The First Test at Karachi was a personal disaster for Taylor as he scored a pair, the first player in Test history to do so on his captaincy debut. Paceman Glenn McGrath then broke down in the middle of the match. Australia was in the box seat with Pakistan needing 56 runs with one wicket in hand, but lost by one wicket after Ian Healy missed a stumping opportunity and the ball went for the winning runs. Recovering to score 69 in the Second Test at Rawalpindi, Taylor forced Pakistan to follow on after taking a 261-run lead. However, he dropped Pakistan captain Salim Malik when he was on 20. Malik went on to make 237 as Pakistan made 537 and saved the Test. Australia again took a first innings lead in the Third Test, but could not force a result, as Malik scored another second innings century to ensure safety and a 1–0 series win. Taylor ended the series with 106 runs at 26.50. Australia fared better in the ODI triangular tournament, winning five of their six matches. Taylor scored 56 in the final as Australia beat Pakistan by 64 runs to end the tournament with 193 runs at 32.16.
Beginning the 1994–95 season with 150 for NSW in a tour match against England, Taylor followed up with 59 in an opening stand of 97 as Australia made 426 in the first innings to take the initiative in the First Test in Brisbane. Australia amassed a 259-run first innings lead, but Taylor, mindful of the Test match at Rawalpindi, became the first Australian captain since 1977–78 to not enforce the follow-on. Although heavily criticised as a conservative decision, Australia still won the match by 184 runs, with Taylor adding 58 in the second innings. Having scored the first win of his Test captaincy, Taylor led his team to a 295-run win in the Second Test.
Taylor played his best cricket of the summer in the Third Test at Sydney. Last man out for 49 in a total of 116 in the first innings, he defied a pitch that had begun to seam and swing after a shower and cloud cover as Australia narrowly avoided the follow on. In the second innings, he made a bold attempt at chasing a world record target of 449 by scoring 113, but Australia played for a draw after Slater and Taylor fell following a double-century stand. Australia collapsed to 7/292 before hanging on in near-darkness. In the final two Tests, he scored half-centuries as Australia won 3–1. Australia dramatically lost the Fourth Test when England led by only 154 on the final day with four wickets in hand. Aggressive lower order batting saw Australia set 263 in just over two sessions, but a heavy collapse saw Australia eight wickets down with more than 2 hours to play. Almost two hours of resistance later, England took a 106-run win late in the day. However, Australia bounced back to win the Fifth Test by 329 runs, the largest margin of the series. Taylor's partnership with Slater yielded three century opening stands at an average of 76.60 for the series and Taylor's individual return was 471 runs at 47.10.
The southern hemisphere summer ended with a quadrangular tournament in New Zealand, where Australia won two of their three group matches to proceed to the final. Taylor scored 44 in a six-wicket triumph over New Zealand and totalled 165 runs at 41.25. His best score was 97 against the hosts in the preliminary round meant that he was still yet to post his first ODI century, five years after his debut.
Caribbean tour 1995
This victory was followed by the 1995 tour of the West Indies, where Australia had not won a Test series for 22 years. Australia lost the ODI series which preceded the Tests 1–4, with Taylor making 152 runs at 30.40. The difficulty of Australia's task was increased when fast bowlers Craig McDermott and Damien Fleming went home injured at the start of the tour. Australia fielded a pace attack of Glenn McGrath, Brendon Julian and Paul Reiffel who had played only 23 Tests between them. Despite this, Australia won by ten wickets in the first Test at Barbados, with Taylor contributing a half-century. After the Second Test was a rained-out draw, the West Indies beat Australia inside three days on a "green" Trinidad pitch in the Third Test. Australia regained the Frank Worrell Trophy with an innings victory in the Fourth Test at Jamaica, with Taylor taking the winning catch from the bowling of Shane Warne. Although he only managed 153 runs (at 25.50 average) for the series, Taylor held nine catches and his leadership was cited as a key factor in the result.
Controversy with Sri Lanka
This was followed by two and three-Test series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka respectively in the 1995–96 Australian season. The Pakistan series began among a media circus when Salim Malik arrived with publicity focused on the bribery allegations which had surfaced a year earlier. Australia won the First Test in Brisbane by an innings in three and a half days, with Taylor contributing 69. In the Second Test at Bellerive Oval, Taylor scored 123 in the second innings to set up a winning total. In the Third Test in Sydney, he made 59 as Australia collapsed for 172 in the second innings and conceded the match. He ended the series with a healthy 338 runs at 67.60.
The subsequent Test and ODI series involving Sri Lanka were overshadowed by a series of spiteful clashes. The Tests were won 3–0 by the Australians with heavy margins of an innings, ten wickets and 148 runs respectively. Taylor's highlight being a 96 in the First Test at Perth as he compiled 159 runs at 39.75. He also made his 100th Test catch during the series. After accusations of ball tampering were levelled against the tourists in the First Test, leading spinner Muttiah Muralitharan was no-balled seven times in the Second Test, and during the ODI series, the Sri Lankans accused Taylor's men of cheating. The season hit a low point with the Sri Lankans which saw the teams refuse to shake hands at the end of the second final of the triangular series which Australia won 2–0. The match had included physical jostling between McGrath and Sanath Jayasuriya mid pitch, with the latter accusing McGrath of making racist attacks. Later in the match, stump microphones showed Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy alleging that portly Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga was feigning injury and calling for a runner because of his lack of physical fitness.
On the field, the ODI tournament saw Mark Waugh elevated to be Taylor's ODI opening partner after the axing of Slater midway through the season. In their first match together in Perth, the pair put on 190, with Taylor scoring 85. They put on another century stand in the second final, with Taylor scoring 82. Taylor scored heavily in the ODI tournament, with 423 runs at 42.30 with four half-centuries. Australia warmed up for the 1996 Cricket World Cup by winning five of their eight round-robin matches, and taking the finals 2–0, but many of the matches were closely contested. The finals were won by 18 and nine runs respectively, while three of the group matches were decided in the last over.
After the spiteful summer, a Tamil Tiger bombing in Colombo coupled with death threats to some members of the team forced Taylor to forfeit his team's scheduled World Cup match against Sri Lanka in Colombo. Taylor made six as Australia started their campaign with a 97-run win over Kenya. He then made 59 in a century stand with Waugh as Australia defeated co-hosts India in Mumbai. Taylor scored 34 in a nine-wicket win over Zimbabwe, before scoring nine in a defeat to the West Indies in the last group match. Australia finished second in their group and faced New Zealand in the quarter-finals. Taylor made only 10 as Australia chased 289 for victory, but made a surprise tactic by sending in Shane Warne as a pinch hitter. Warne made 24 from 15 balls in a partnership with Waugh, to allow Australia to take the momentum and take victory by six wickets. Taylor managed only one in the semi-final as Australia staggered to 8/207 against the West Indies. Australia appeared to be heading out of the tournament when the Caribbean team reached 2/165, but a sudden collapse saw Australia win by six runs in the last over.
Australia managed to reach the final, where they met Sri Lanka. Taylor scored 74, a record score by an Australian captain in the World Cup, but Sri Lanka comfortably triumphed on this occasion by seven wickets to claim the trophy.
Almost retired
After the World Cup, Bob Simpson was replaced as Australia's coach by Geoff Marsh, Taylor's former opening partner. Australia's first tournament after the World Cup was the Singer World Series in Sri Lanka. Taylor opted out of the tournament, and in his absence, Australia reached the final but lost by 50 runs to the hosts.
On a short tour to India, Taylor made his first ODI century at Bangalore, with 105 against India in his 98th match, having been out in the 90s on three previous occasions. Taylor performed strongly in the ODIs, with a total of 302 runs at 60.40. However, it was a disappointing tour for the team; the solitary Test in Delhi was lost, as were all five ODIs played during the Titan Cup.
In 1996–97, Australia confirmed its ascendancy over the West Indies with a 3–2 series win, but Taylor endured a poor season with the bat and failed to pass 50 in nine innings. His partnership with Slater was terminated when the latter was dropped, replaced by Matthew Elliott. Following an injury to Elliott, Matthew Hayden became Taylor's partner for three Tests.
Unable to recover form in the ODI series, Taylor's scratchy batting led to many poor starts for Australia. The team suffered five consecutive defeats, and missed the finals of the tournament for the first time in 17 years. Taylor managed only 143 runs at 17.88 with a highest score of 29.
The early 1997 tour to South Africa brought no upturn in Taylor's batting despite Australia's 2–1 victory in the series: he scored 80 runs at 16.00. His form was such that it influenced the selection of the team. For the Second Test at Port Elizabeth, played on a green pitch, Australia played Michael Bevan as a second spinner batting at number seven to reinforce the batting, instead of a third seamer to exploit the conditions. After scoring seven and 17 in the first two ODIs, Taylor dropped himself from the team for the remaining five matches.
The 1997 Ashes tour started poorly amid rumours that Taylor was on the verge of losing his place in the side. He batted ineffectively as Australia lost the one day series 0–3, scoring seven and 11, before dropping himself for the final match. In the First Test, Australia were dismissed for 118 in the first innings, with Taylor contributing seven: he had not managed to pass 50 in his last 21 Test innings. England amassed a big lead of 360 runs. With Australia facing a heavy defeat, media criticism of his position intensified. The Melbourne Age ran a competition for its readers to forecast how many runs he would make. Most respondents guessed less than 10 runs. The team's erstwhile coach, Bob Simpson, said that Taylor's retention in the team in spite of his poor form was fostering resentment among the players and destabilising the team.
Taylor started nervously in the second innings, but went on to score of 129, which saved his career, but not the match. His performance prompted personal congratulations from Prime Minister John Howard and the team's management allowed the media a rare opportunity to enter the dressing room and interview Taylor. During the period he refused offers by the manager to handle the media on his behalf. Australia went on to win the Third, Fourth and Fifth Tests and retain the Ashes 3–2. Although Taylor made single figures in the three Tests following his century, he contributed 76 and 45 in the series-clinching Test at Nottingham. Taylor ended the series with 317 runs at 31.7.
Dual teams
However, Taylor's ODI form was not to the satisfaction of the selectors. At the start of the 1997–98 season, a new selection policy was announced: the Test and ODI teams became separate entities, with specialists in each form of the game selected accordingly. Taylor was dropped from the ODI team, in favour of the aggressive Michael di Venuto. Tactically, ODI cricket was transformed by Sri Lanka's World Cup success, when it employed the highly aggressive opening pair of Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana.
At this time, Taylor was a central figure in a pay dispute between the players and the ACB, with a strike action threatened by the players. Taylor continued as Test captain and led the team to a 2–0 win over New Zealand. The first two matches were won by 186 runs and an innings, while the Third Test ended with Australia one wicket from victory after almost two days' play was washed out.
Taylor scored a century (112 on the first day of the First Test, and an unbeaten 66 in the Third Test, compiling 214 runs at 53.50 for the series. This was followed by three Tests against South Africa. After South Africa withheld the Australian bowling on the final day to secure a draw in the Boxing Day Test, Australia took a 1–0 lead in the New Year's Test at Sydney with an innings victory. Taylor carried his bat for 169 in the first innings of the Third Test at Adelaide which helped Australia to draw the match and clinch the series.
On the 1998 tour of India, Elliott was dropped and Taylor reunited with Slater as the opening pair. Australia started well by taking a 71-run first-innings lead in the First Test at Chennai, but Sachin Tendulkar's unbeaten 155 put Australia under pressure to save the match on the final day. They were unable to resist and lost by 179 runs. Australia was crushed by an innings and 219 runs in the Second Test at Calcutta, Australia first series loss in four years and the first time that Australia had lost by an innings for five years. Thus, a series victory in India, which Australia had not achieved since 1969–70, remained elusive. Australia won the Third Test in Bangalore by eight wickets, with Taylor scoring an unbeaten 102 in a second innings run chase.
Record equalled
Later in 1998, Taylor led his team to Pakistan, where a convincing win in the First Test at Rawalpindi by an innings and 99 runs was Australia's first Test victory in the country for 39 years. Taylor then attended a court hearing investigating the claims of match-fixing made during the 1994 tour. In the Second Test at Peshawar, Taylor played the longest innings of his career. He batted two days to amass 334 not out, equalling Sir Donald Bradman's Australian record set in 1930. In temperatures above 32 °C, Taylor survived two dropped catches before he had reached 25 and scored slowly on the first day. He shared a 206-run partnership with Justin Langer. The next day, he added 103 runs in a morning session extended from two to three hours. After the tea interval, he discarded his helmet in favour of a white sun hat, to deal with the extreme heat. He passed 311, eclipsing Bob Simpson's record score by an Australian captain. In the final over, Taylor equalled Bradman's Australian Test record when a shot to midwicket was barely stopped by Ijaz Ahmed, which reduced the scoring opportunity to a single run.
At the end of the day's play, Taylor was encouraged by the media, the public and his teammates to attempt to break Brian Lara's world record score of 375. An unusually large crowd turned out the following day in anticipation. However, Taylor declared the innings closed, opting to share the record with Bradman, and making the team's chances of winning the game paramount. He was widely praised for this decision. He made 92 in the second innings, giving him the second highest Test match aggregate after English batsmen Graham Gooch, who scored 333 and 123 for a total of 456 against India at Lord's on 26 July 1990. His fifteen hours batting in one Test was second only to Hanif Mohammad. The match ended in a draw, as did the Third Test, so Australia won the series and Taylor ended with 513 runs at 128.25 average.
Final season
Taylor's swansong was the 1998–99 Ashes series against England, which began with his 100th Test in the First Test in Brisbane. He scored 46 and a duck—his first in Australia—as England were saved when thunderstorms forced the abandonment of play on the final afternoon. Two half centuries in the next two Tests in Perth and Adelaide saw Australia win by seven wickets and 205 runs respectively, thereby retaining the series 2–0. After losing the Fourth Test by 12 runs after a dramatic final day collapse, Taylor headed to his home ground, the Sydney Cricket Ground, for what would be his final Test. Australia went on to win the Test by 98 runs and take the series 3–1. Taylor only scored two in both innings, but he broke Border's world record for the most Test catches. His catch in the first innings equalled Border's 156 and another in the second made him the sole owner of the record.
He also jointly holds the record in Test cricket (along with Ian Healy) of being the only cricketers to have been run out in both innings of a Test on two occasions.
Legacy
The improvement of the Australian team, begun during Border's tenure, continued under the captaincy of Taylor. After the defeat of the West Indies in 1995, Taylor's teams won home and away series against every Test team they played, with the exception of winning a series in India. Wisden wrote:
Taylor talked so well that he raised the standard of debate in Australia—and perhaps of cricket itself—in a way which was an example to all professional cricketers ... Border stopped Australia losing. Taylor made them into winners, the acknowledged if not official world champions of Test cricket.
Taylor made a concerted effort to decrease the amount of sledging committed by his team, a trait that brought criticism of Australian teams during other eras. In total, he captained the side in 50 Tests, winning 26 and losing 13, a success rate unmatched in the previous fifty years except for Don Bradman and Viv Richards.
Career best performances
Retirement
Taylor retired from professional cricket in early 1999 after the Ashes series. On Australia Day, he was named the Australian of the Year. He was awarded an Australian Sports Medal in 2000 and a Centenary Medal in 2001. He was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2002 and made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2003. In 2011, he was inducted into the Cricket Hall of Fame by the CA.
He is now a commentator for Channel Nine for 21 years. Despite the network losing the TV rights in April 2018, Taylor re-signed for another three years to give his expert analysis on the Ashes 2019, 2019 Cricket World Cup & 2020 World Twenty20 and as a digital contributor.
He mainly commentates on One Day International and Test matches in Australia until the network's final year of cricket telecasts, so he can now spend more time with his family. He used to also appear on The Cricket Show with Simon O'Donnell, and is a spokesman for Fujitsu air-conditioners. He also commentates for radio.
Taylor is patron of the Mark Taylor Shield Cricket competition run for NSW Catholic Primary schools in and around the Sydney region. On 6 November 2011, Waitara Oval, the home of the Northern District Cricket Club, had its name formally changed to Mark Taylor Oval, to honour its former First Grade captain and life member.
In October 2015, The Primary Club of Australia announced that Mark Taylor had accepted the role of Twelfth Man and Patron following the passing of their former Patron, Richie Benaud OBE. He also became Director of Cricket Australia, who commissioned a replacement cap for Benaud, only for his ill health and subsequent passing to have the cap presented to his wife.
References
Further reading
External links
1964 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Wagga Wagga
Australia Test cricketers
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Australia Test cricket captains
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Recipients of the Australian Sports Medal
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Chatswood, New South Wales
Australian republicans | false | [
"Le Cousin is a 1997 French film directed by Alain Corneau.\n\nPlot \nThe film deals with the relationship of the police and an informant in the drug scene.\n\nAwards and nominations\nLe Cousin was nominated for 5 César Awards but did not win in any category.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1997 films\n1997 crime films\nFilms about drugs\nFilms directed by Alain Corneau\nFrench crime films\nFrench films\nFrench-language films",
"The 23rd Fangoria Chainsaw Awards is an award ceremony presented for horror films that were released in 2020. The nominees were announced on January 20, 2021. The film The Invisible Man won five of its five nominations, including Best Wide Release, as well as the write-in poll of Best Kill. Color Out Of Space and Possessor each took two awards. His House did not win any of its seven nominations. The ceremony was exclusively livestreamed for the first time on the SHUDDER horror streaming service.\n\nWinners and nominees\n\nReferences\n\nFangoria Chainsaw Awards"
] |
[
"Mark Taylor (cricketer)",
"Early years",
"Where was he born?",
"Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga,",
"What did he do growing up?",
"Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga.",
"did he win any awards?",
"I don't know."
] | C_ae269bdc0d524b599736eb69a322d5b1_1 | did he win any championships for his school? | 5 | did Mark Taylor win any championships for his school? | Mark Taylor (cricketer) | The second of three children born to bank manager Tony Taylor, and his wife Judy, Mark Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga, where his family relocated when he was eight. His father had a sporting background, playing first grade rugby in Newcastle. The young Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him. Taylor idolised Arthur Morris, the left-handed opening batsmen from New South Wales who led the aggregates on the 1948 "Invincibles" tour of England. Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga. His family then moved to the north shore of Sydney, where he joined Northern District in Sydney Grade Cricket. Completing his secondary education at Chatswood High School, he later obtained a degree in surveying at the University of New South Wales. Along with the Waugh twins, Steve and Mark, Taylor played in under-19 youth internationals for Australia against Sri Lanka in 1982-83. Taylor made his Sheffield Shield debut in 1985-86 when NSW was depleted by the defection of regular openers Steve Smith and John Dyson to a rebel tour of South Africa. Opening with fellow debutant Mark Waugh, he scored 12 and 56 not out against Tasmania. His first season was highlighted by home and away centuries against South Australia in a total of 937 runs at 49.31 average. He had a lean season in 1987-88, after which he spent the English summer with Greenmount, helping them to win their first Bolton League title by scoring more than 1,300 runs at an average of 70. He originally trained as a surveyor, and received a degree in surveying from the University of New South Wales in 1987. CANNOTANSWER | Along with the Waugh twins, Steve and Mark, Taylor played in under-19 youth internationals for Australia against Sri Lanka in 1982-83. | Mark Anthony Taylor (born 27 October 1964) is a former Australian cricketer and currently a Cricket Australia director and Nine Network commentator.
He was Test opening batsman from 1988 to 1999, as well as captain from 1994 to 1999, succeeding Allan Border. His predominant fielding position was first slip. He was widely regarded as an instrumental component in Australia's rise to Test cricket dominance, and his captaincy was regarded as adventurous and highly effective. However, he was considered less than ideal for One-Day International cricket and was eventually dropped as one-day captain after a 0–3 drubbing at the hands of England in 1997.
He moved to Wagga Wagga in 1972 and played for Lake Albert Cricket Club. His debut was for New South Wales in 1985.
He retired from Test cricket on 2 February 1999. In 104 Test matches, he scored 7,525 runs with a batting average of 43.49, including 19 centuries and 40 fifties. He was also an excellent first slip – his 157 catches, at the time, a Test record (now held by Rahul Dravid). In contrast to his predecessor Allan Border, who acquired the nickname 'Captain Grumpy', Taylor won plaudits for his always cheerful and positive demeanour. His successor, Steve Waugh, further honed the Australian team built by Border and Taylor and went on to set numerous records for victories as captain. Having been named Australian of the Year in 1999, he is now a cricket commentator for the Nine Network, and former Director of Cricket Australia.
Early years
The second of three children born to bank manager Tony Taylor, and his wife Judy, Mark Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga, where his family relocated when he was eight. His father had a sporting background, playing first grade rugby in Newcastle. The young Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him. Taylor idolised Arthur Morris, the left-handed opening batsmen from New South Wales who led the aggregates on the 1948 "Invincibles" tour of England.
Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga. His family then moved to the north shore of Sydney, where he joined Northern District in Sydney Grade Cricket. Completing his secondary education at Chatswood High School, he later obtained a degree in surveying at the University of New South Wales in 1987. Along with the Waugh twins, Steve and Mark, Taylor played in under-19 youth internationals for Australia against Sri Lanka in 1982–83.
Taylor made his Sheffield Shield debut in 1985–86 when NSW was depleted by the defection of regular openers Steve Smith and John Dyson to a rebel tour of South Africa. Opening with fellow debutant Mark Waugh, he scored 12 and 56 not out against Tasmania. His first season was highlighted by home and away centuries against South Australia in a total of 937 runs at 49.31 average. He had a lean season in 1987–88, after which he spent the English summer with Greenmount, helping them to win their first Bolton League title by scoring more than 1,300 runs at an average of 70.
International career
Test career
Solid form for NSW in 1988–89 resulted in Taylor's selection for his Test debut in the Fourth Test against the West Indies at the SCG, replacing middle-order batsman Graeme Wood. For three years, the opening combination of Geoff Marsh and David Boon had been successful for Australia. However, team coach Bob Simpson wanted a left and right-handed opening combination, and stability added to the middle order. Therefore, the left-handed Taylor partnered the right-handed Marsh, while Boon batted at number three. Taylor's safe catching at slip was also a factor in his selection. He made 25 and 3 in a winning team, then was run out twice in the Fifth Test. A first-class aggregate of 1,241 runs (at 49.64 average) for the season earned him a place on the 1989 Ashes tour.
Record-breaking start
Beginning with a century at Headingley in his First Test against England, Taylor amassed 839 runs at 83.90 in the six Tests: the second best aggregate in an Ashes series in England, behind Don Bradman's 974 runs in 1930. He occupied the crease for a total of 38 hours, more than six full days of play. The highlight of his tour was the Fifth Test at Trent Bridge when he and Geoff Marsh became the first pair to bat throughout a day's play of Test cricket in England, amassing 301 runs. Taylor made 219 in a partnership of 329, an Ashes record. He finished with 71 and 48 in the Sixth Test to overtake Neil Harvey for the third-highest series aggregate in Test history and totalled 1,669 first-class runs for the tour. Australia won the series 4–0 to regain the Ashes. However, Taylor was overlooked for selection in the ODIs.
Returning to Australia, Taylor made 1,403 first-class runs at 70.15 during the 1989–90 season, and ended 1989 with 1,219 Test runs, thus becoming the first player to better one thousand Test runs in his debut calendar year, something only matched twice since by England opener Alastair Cook and Australian Adam Voges. In Taylor's first nine Tests, Australia passed 400 in the first innings. He scored centuries in successive Tests against Sri Lanka, and against Pakistan his scores were 52 and 101 at the MCG, 77 and 59 at the Adelaide Oval and an unbeaten 101 at Sydney. Australia won both series 1–0. In just over twelve months, he had amassed 1,618 runs at 70.35. This outstanding start to his career earned Taylor nomination as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1990. At the season's end, he demonstrated his leadership abilities for the first time. Standing in as NSW captain in place of the injured Geoff Lawson for the 1989–90 Sheffield Shield final in Sydney, Taylor scored 127 and 100. NSW won by 345 runs to secure its 40th title.
A year after his Test debut, Taylor was selected to make his ODI debut, which came on Boxing Day of 1989 against Sri Lanka. He made 11 as Australia won by 30 runs. He was selected for nine of Australia's ten ODIs for the season's triangular tournament, scoring 294 runs at 32.66 with two half-centuries. His highest score of 76 came as Australia defeated Pakistan by 69 runs to clinch the finals series in Sydney. The season ended with ODI tournaments in New Zealand and Sharjah. He played six of the eight matches, scoring 222 runs at 37.00 with two half-centuries, but was dropped for the final in New Zealand.
Inconsistent form
Taylor experienced a slump during the 1990–91 Ashes series. After making two-half centuries in the first two Tests, he failed to pass 20 in the last three and finished with 213 runs at 23.66 in a team that won 3–0. He found himself on the outer for the ODI triangular tournament, missing all eight of the preliminary matches before returning to score 41 and 71 as Australia won the finals 2–0.
His moderate form continued during the 1991 tour of the West Indies, where he was selected in only two of the five ODIs, scoring three and five. He ended the run with a rear-guard innings of 76 in the second innings of the Fourth Test at Barbados. Despite his effort, Australia lost and the West Indies took an unassailable lead of 2–0. In the Fifth Test St. Johns, Antigua, Australia gained a consolation victory due mainly to Taylor's scores of 59 and 144 (out of a total of 265). This late rush of form boosted his average for the series to 49. In late 1991, before the Australian season started, Taylor was appointed to lead an Australia A side to tour Zimbabwe. The team was composed of younger Test players and other young players who were seeking to break into international cricket. The selectors were attempting to groom Taylor as a potential replacement for Border.
During the 1991–92 Australian season, Taylor batted consistently in a 4–0 series victory over India. He scored 94 and 35* in a ten-wicket win at Brisbane. He scored half-centuries in each of the next two Tests before striking 100 in the second innings of the Fourth Test at Adelaide. It helped Australia to wipe out a first innings deficit of 80 and set up a winning target. His opening partner Marsh was dropped for the Fifth Test, so the selectors elevated Taylor to the vice-captaincy of the team. Over the next twelve months, a number of players were tried as Taylor's opening partner. Taylor struggled in his first match with new partner Wayne N. Phillips, scoring two and 16. Nevertheless, he had scored 422 runs at 46.89. Taylor continued to be overlooked by the selectors in the shorter version of the game, missing selection for all of the season's triangular tournament. He was selected for the squad for the 1992 Cricket World Cup held on home soil, and after Australia lost its first two matches, Taylor was recalled for his first ODI in 12 months. He made 13 as Australia beat India by one run, but scored his first ODI duck in the next match as England won by eight wickets. He was dropped for the remainder of the tournament.
On the 1992 tour of Sri Lanka, Taylor struggled in scoring 148 runs at 24.67. After scoring 42 and 43 in Australia's win in the First Test, Taylor failed to again pass 30. With new opening partner Tom Moody also struggling with 71 runs at 11.83, Australia frequently struggled at the top of their innings. He played in all three ODIs, scoring 138 runs at 46.00. His 94 in the first match was his highest score in ODIs to that point.
Against the West Indies in 1992–93, Taylor was now opening alongside David Boon with Moody having been dropped. Taylor was ineffective and failed to pass fifty in the first four Tests. After Australia failed by one run to win the Fourth Test and thus the series, Taylor was dropped for the deciding Test at Perth, having failed to make double figures in either innings. In his absence, Australia lost by an innings in three days and conceded the series 1–2. He had scored 170 runs at 24.29 for the series. However, he played all of Australia's ten ODIs, scoring 286 runs at 28.60 with two half-centuries.
Taylor and Slater
As a result of the innings defeat in Perth, Taylor was immediately recalled for the tour of New Zealand, where he scored 82 in the First Test at Christchurch to help Australia to an innings victory. He then scored 50 in the drawn Second Test and bowled for the first time at Test level, taking 0/15. He failed to pass 20 in the Third Test and ended the series with 148 runs at 37.00 as the home side squared the series. Australia then played five ODIs in New Zealand before starting the England tour with three more. Taylor played in all eight, scoring 307 runs at 38.38 with four half-centuries.
The problem of finding him a long-term partner was solved on the tour of England that followed. NSW batsman Michael Slater, who also grew up in Wagga Wagga, made his debut in the First Test of the 1993 Ashes series. In the First Test at Old Trafford, Taylor made 124 after an opening partnership of 128, as Australia managed only 289 after being sent in. Australia managed to scrape out a lead of 79, before going on to a 179-run win.
This was followed by a stand of 260 at Lord's in the Second Test, with Taylor making 111. In the process, he passed 1000 Test runs against England and the partnership broke the Ashes partnership record at Lord's, which had been set by Bill Woodfull and Don Bradman in 1930. The partnership laid the platform for Australia's total of 4/632, as the tourists proceeded to an innings victory.
His scoring was more sedate in the remaining Tests as Australia won 4–1, and he finished with 428 runs at 42.80. He passed 30 only once more, with 70 in the first innings of the Sixth Test at The Oval.
Against New Zealand in 1993–94, Taylor made 64 and 142 not out in the First Test at Perth, which ended in a draw. He then scored 27 and 53 as Australia won the next two Tests by an innings, totalling 286 runs at 95.33 in three Tests as Australia won 2–0. In the rain-affected Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Taylor played his 50th Test and celebrated with 170 against South Africa, the first Test between the two countries since 1970. This made him the first batsman to score centuries on Test debut against four countries. In addition, he passed 4,000 Test runs during the innings. Taylor had scored more than 1,000 Test runs for the calendar year, ending with 1106 runs Taylor scored 62 in the Third Test, his only other half-century for the series, which he ended with 304 runs at 60.80.
On the reciprocal tour of South Africa at the end of the season, Taylor missed a Test because of injury for the only time in his career. Matthew Hayden filled in for the First Test in Johannesburg, which Australia lost. On his return for the Second Test at Cape Town, he scored 70 and ended the series with 97 runs at 24.25. Both series were drawn 1–1.
Captaincy
After the retirement of Allan Border, Taylor was appointed captain.
Frequently omitted from the ODI team due to slow scoring, Taylor missed the finals of the ODI series in Australia against South Africa. On the tour of South Africa, he missed three consecutive ODIs when tour selectors and fellow players Ian Healy and Steve Waugh voted him off the team. In all, Taylor had only played in 11 of Australia's 19 ODIs for the season, scoring 281 runs at 25.55. Taylor requested an extended trial as opener for the ODI side to help consolidate his captaincy of both teams.
Taylor started his ODI captaincy with two tournaments in Sharjah and Sri Lanka. Australia missed the finals in both tournaments, winning three of their six matches. After scoring 68* to guide his team to a nine-wicket win in the first match against Sri Lanka in Sharjah, Taylor's form tapered off, scoring only 64 more runs to end the two tournaments with a total of 132 runs at 33.00.
His first task was a tour of Pakistan in 1994, where Australia had not won a Test since the 1959 tour. To make matters worse, Australia's first-choice pace pairing of Craig McDermott and Merv Hughes missed the tour due to injury. The First Test at Karachi was a personal disaster for Taylor as he scored a pair, the first player in Test history to do so on his captaincy debut. Paceman Glenn McGrath then broke down in the middle of the match. Australia was in the box seat with Pakistan needing 56 runs with one wicket in hand, but lost by one wicket after Ian Healy missed a stumping opportunity and the ball went for the winning runs. Recovering to score 69 in the Second Test at Rawalpindi, Taylor forced Pakistan to follow on after taking a 261-run lead. However, he dropped Pakistan captain Salim Malik when he was on 20. Malik went on to make 237 as Pakistan made 537 and saved the Test. Australia again took a first innings lead in the Third Test, but could not force a result, as Malik scored another second innings century to ensure safety and a 1–0 series win. Taylor ended the series with 106 runs at 26.50. Australia fared better in the ODI triangular tournament, winning five of their six matches. Taylor scored 56 in the final as Australia beat Pakistan by 64 runs to end the tournament with 193 runs at 32.16.
Beginning the 1994–95 season with 150 for NSW in a tour match against England, Taylor followed up with 59 in an opening stand of 97 as Australia made 426 in the first innings to take the initiative in the First Test in Brisbane. Australia amassed a 259-run first innings lead, but Taylor, mindful of the Test match at Rawalpindi, became the first Australian captain since 1977–78 to not enforce the follow-on. Although heavily criticised as a conservative decision, Australia still won the match by 184 runs, with Taylor adding 58 in the second innings. Having scored the first win of his Test captaincy, Taylor led his team to a 295-run win in the Second Test.
Taylor played his best cricket of the summer in the Third Test at Sydney. Last man out for 49 in a total of 116 in the first innings, he defied a pitch that had begun to seam and swing after a shower and cloud cover as Australia narrowly avoided the follow on. In the second innings, he made a bold attempt at chasing a world record target of 449 by scoring 113, but Australia played for a draw after Slater and Taylor fell following a double-century stand. Australia collapsed to 7/292 before hanging on in near-darkness. In the final two Tests, he scored half-centuries as Australia won 3–1. Australia dramatically lost the Fourth Test when England led by only 154 on the final day with four wickets in hand. Aggressive lower order batting saw Australia set 263 in just over two sessions, but a heavy collapse saw Australia eight wickets down with more than 2 hours to play. Almost two hours of resistance later, England took a 106-run win late in the day. However, Australia bounced back to win the Fifth Test by 329 runs, the largest margin of the series. Taylor's partnership with Slater yielded three century opening stands at an average of 76.60 for the series and Taylor's individual return was 471 runs at 47.10.
The southern hemisphere summer ended with a quadrangular tournament in New Zealand, where Australia won two of their three group matches to proceed to the final. Taylor scored 44 in a six-wicket triumph over New Zealand and totalled 165 runs at 41.25. His best score was 97 against the hosts in the preliminary round meant that he was still yet to post his first ODI century, five years after his debut.
Caribbean tour 1995
This victory was followed by the 1995 tour of the West Indies, where Australia had not won a Test series for 22 years. Australia lost the ODI series which preceded the Tests 1–4, with Taylor making 152 runs at 30.40. The difficulty of Australia's task was increased when fast bowlers Craig McDermott and Damien Fleming went home injured at the start of the tour. Australia fielded a pace attack of Glenn McGrath, Brendon Julian and Paul Reiffel who had played only 23 Tests between them. Despite this, Australia won by ten wickets in the first Test at Barbados, with Taylor contributing a half-century. After the Second Test was a rained-out draw, the West Indies beat Australia inside three days on a "green" Trinidad pitch in the Third Test. Australia regained the Frank Worrell Trophy with an innings victory in the Fourth Test at Jamaica, with Taylor taking the winning catch from the bowling of Shane Warne. Although he only managed 153 runs (at 25.50 average) for the series, Taylor held nine catches and his leadership was cited as a key factor in the result.
Controversy with Sri Lanka
This was followed by two and three-Test series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka respectively in the 1995–96 Australian season. The Pakistan series began among a media circus when Salim Malik arrived with publicity focused on the bribery allegations which had surfaced a year earlier. Australia won the First Test in Brisbane by an innings in three and a half days, with Taylor contributing 69. In the Second Test at Bellerive Oval, Taylor scored 123 in the second innings to set up a winning total. In the Third Test in Sydney, he made 59 as Australia collapsed for 172 in the second innings and conceded the match. He ended the series with a healthy 338 runs at 67.60.
The subsequent Test and ODI series involving Sri Lanka were overshadowed by a series of spiteful clashes. The Tests were won 3–0 by the Australians with heavy margins of an innings, ten wickets and 148 runs respectively. Taylor's highlight being a 96 in the First Test at Perth as he compiled 159 runs at 39.75. He also made his 100th Test catch during the series. After accusations of ball tampering were levelled against the tourists in the First Test, leading spinner Muttiah Muralitharan was no-balled seven times in the Second Test, and during the ODI series, the Sri Lankans accused Taylor's men of cheating. The season hit a low point with the Sri Lankans which saw the teams refuse to shake hands at the end of the second final of the triangular series which Australia won 2–0. The match had included physical jostling between McGrath and Sanath Jayasuriya mid pitch, with the latter accusing McGrath of making racist attacks. Later in the match, stump microphones showed Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy alleging that portly Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga was feigning injury and calling for a runner because of his lack of physical fitness.
On the field, the ODI tournament saw Mark Waugh elevated to be Taylor's ODI opening partner after the axing of Slater midway through the season. In their first match together in Perth, the pair put on 190, with Taylor scoring 85. They put on another century stand in the second final, with Taylor scoring 82. Taylor scored heavily in the ODI tournament, with 423 runs at 42.30 with four half-centuries. Australia warmed up for the 1996 Cricket World Cup by winning five of their eight round-robin matches, and taking the finals 2–0, but many of the matches were closely contested. The finals were won by 18 and nine runs respectively, while three of the group matches were decided in the last over.
After the spiteful summer, a Tamil Tiger bombing in Colombo coupled with death threats to some members of the team forced Taylor to forfeit his team's scheduled World Cup match against Sri Lanka in Colombo. Taylor made six as Australia started their campaign with a 97-run win over Kenya. He then made 59 in a century stand with Waugh as Australia defeated co-hosts India in Mumbai. Taylor scored 34 in a nine-wicket win over Zimbabwe, before scoring nine in a defeat to the West Indies in the last group match. Australia finished second in their group and faced New Zealand in the quarter-finals. Taylor made only 10 as Australia chased 289 for victory, but made a surprise tactic by sending in Shane Warne as a pinch hitter. Warne made 24 from 15 balls in a partnership with Waugh, to allow Australia to take the momentum and take victory by six wickets. Taylor managed only one in the semi-final as Australia staggered to 8/207 against the West Indies. Australia appeared to be heading out of the tournament when the Caribbean team reached 2/165, but a sudden collapse saw Australia win by six runs in the last over.
Australia managed to reach the final, where they met Sri Lanka. Taylor scored 74, a record score by an Australian captain in the World Cup, but Sri Lanka comfortably triumphed on this occasion by seven wickets to claim the trophy.
Almost retired
After the World Cup, Bob Simpson was replaced as Australia's coach by Geoff Marsh, Taylor's former opening partner. Australia's first tournament after the World Cup was the Singer World Series in Sri Lanka. Taylor opted out of the tournament, and in his absence, Australia reached the final but lost by 50 runs to the hosts.
On a short tour to India, Taylor made his first ODI century at Bangalore, with 105 against India in his 98th match, having been out in the 90s on three previous occasions. Taylor performed strongly in the ODIs, with a total of 302 runs at 60.40. However, it was a disappointing tour for the team; the solitary Test in Delhi was lost, as were all five ODIs played during the Titan Cup.
In 1996–97, Australia confirmed its ascendancy over the West Indies with a 3–2 series win, but Taylor endured a poor season with the bat and failed to pass 50 in nine innings. His partnership with Slater was terminated when the latter was dropped, replaced by Matthew Elliott. Following an injury to Elliott, Matthew Hayden became Taylor's partner for three Tests.
Unable to recover form in the ODI series, Taylor's scratchy batting led to many poor starts for Australia. The team suffered five consecutive defeats, and missed the finals of the tournament for the first time in 17 years. Taylor managed only 143 runs at 17.88 with a highest score of 29.
The early 1997 tour to South Africa brought no upturn in Taylor's batting despite Australia's 2–1 victory in the series: he scored 80 runs at 16.00. His form was such that it influenced the selection of the team. For the Second Test at Port Elizabeth, played on a green pitch, Australia played Michael Bevan as a second spinner batting at number seven to reinforce the batting, instead of a third seamer to exploit the conditions. After scoring seven and 17 in the first two ODIs, Taylor dropped himself from the team for the remaining five matches.
The 1997 Ashes tour started poorly amid rumours that Taylor was on the verge of losing his place in the side. He batted ineffectively as Australia lost the one day series 0–3, scoring seven and 11, before dropping himself for the final match. In the First Test, Australia were dismissed for 118 in the first innings, with Taylor contributing seven: he had not managed to pass 50 in his last 21 Test innings. England amassed a big lead of 360 runs. With Australia facing a heavy defeat, media criticism of his position intensified. The Melbourne Age ran a competition for its readers to forecast how many runs he would make. Most respondents guessed less than 10 runs. The team's erstwhile coach, Bob Simpson, said that Taylor's retention in the team in spite of his poor form was fostering resentment among the players and destabilising the team.
Taylor started nervously in the second innings, but went on to score of 129, which saved his career, but not the match. His performance prompted personal congratulations from Prime Minister John Howard and the team's management allowed the media a rare opportunity to enter the dressing room and interview Taylor. During the period he refused offers by the manager to handle the media on his behalf. Australia went on to win the Third, Fourth and Fifth Tests and retain the Ashes 3–2. Although Taylor made single figures in the three Tests following his century, he contributed 76 and 45 in the series-clinching Test at Nottingham. Taylor ended the series with 317 runs at 31.7.
Dual teams
However, Taylor's ODI form was not to the satisfaction of the selectors. At the start of the 1997–98 season, a new selection policy was announced: the Test and ODI teams became separate entities, with specialists in each form of the game selected accordingly. Taylor was dropped from the ODI team, in favour of the aggressive Michael di Venuto. Tactically, ODI cricket was transformed by Sri Lanka's World Cup success, when it employed the highly aggressive opening pair of Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana.
At this time, Taylor was a central figure in a pay dispute between the players and the ACB, with a strike action threatened by the players. Taylor continued as Test captain and led the team to a 2–0 win over New Zealand. The first two matches were won by 186 runs and an innings, while the Third Test ended with Australia one wicket from victory after almost two days' play was washed out.
Taylor scored a century (112 on the first day of the First Test, and an unbeaten 66 in the Third Test, compiling 214 runs at 53.50 for the series. This was followed by three Tests against South Africa. After South Africa withheld the Australian bowling on the final day to secure a draw in the Boxing Day Test, Australia took a 1–0 lead in the New Year's Test at Sydney with an innings victory. Taylor carried his bat for 169 in the first innings of the Third Test at Adelaide which helped Australia to draw the match and clinch the series.
On the 1998 tour of India, Elliott was dropped and Taylor reunited with Slater as the opening pair. Australia started well by taking a 71-run first-innings lead in the First Test at Chennai, but Sachin Tendulkar's unbeaten 155 put Australia under pressure to save the match on the final day. They were unable to resist and lost by 179 runs. Australia was crushed by an innings and 219 runs in the Second Test at Calcutta, Australia first series loss in four years and the first time that Australia had lost by an innings for five years. Thus, a series victory in India, which Australia had not achieved since 1969–70, remained elusive. Australia won the Third Test in Bangalore by eight wickets, with Taylor scoring an unbeaten 102 in a second innings run chase.
Record equalled
Later in 1998, Taylor led his team to Pakistan, where a convincing win in the First Test at Rawalpindi by an innings and 99 runs was Australia's first Test victory in the country for 39 years. Taylor then attended a court hearing investigating the claims of match-fixing made during the 1994 tour. In the Second Test at Peshawar, Taylor played the longest innings of his career. He batted two days to amass 334 not out, equalling Sir Donald Bradman's Australian record set in 1930. In temperatures above 32 °C, Taylor survived two dropped catches before he had reached 25 and scored slowly on the first day. He shared a 206-run partnership with Justin Langer. The next day, he added 103 runs in a morning session extended from two to three hours. After the tea interval, he discarded his helmet in favour of a white sun hat, to deal with the extreme heat. He passed 311, eclipsing Bob Simpson's record score by an Australian captain. In the final over, Taylor equalled Bradman's Australian Test record when a shot to midwicket was barely stopped by Ijaz Ahmed, which reduced the scoring opportunity to a single run.
At the end of the day's play, Taylor was encouraged by the media, the public and his teammates to attempt to break Brian Lara's world record score of 375. An unusually large crowd turned out the following day in anticipation. However, Taylor declared the innings closed, opting to share the record with Bradman, and making the team's chances of winning the game paramount. He was widely praised for this decision. He made 92 in the second innings, giving him the second highest Test match aggregate after English batsmen Graham Gooch, who scored 333 and 123 for a total of 456 against India at Lord's on 26 July 1990. His fifteen hours batting in one Test was second only to Hanif Mohammad. The match ended in a draw, as did the Third Test, so Australia won the series and Taylor ended with 513 runs at 128.25 average.
Final season
Taylor's swansong was the 1998–99 Ashes series against England, which began with his 100th Test in the First Test in Brisbane. He scored 46 and a duck—his first in Australia—as England were saved when thunderstorms forced the abandonment of play on the final afternoon. Two half centuries in the next two Tests in Perth and Adelaide saw Australia win by seven wickets and 205 runs respectively, thereby retaining the series 2–0. After losing the Fourth Test by 12 runs after a dramatic final day collapse, Taylor headed to his home ground, the Sydney Cricket Ground, for what would be his final Test. Australia went on to win the Test by 98 runs and take the series 3–1. Taylor only scored two in both innings, but he broke Border's world record for the most Test catches. His catch in the first innings equalled Border's 156 and another in the second made him the sole owner of the record.
He also jointly holds the record in Test cricket (along with Ian Healy) of being the only cricketers to have been run out in both innings of a Test on two occasions.
Legacy
The improvement of the Australian team, begun during Border's tenure, continued under the captaincy of Taylor. After the defeat of the West Indies in 1995, Taylor's teams won home and away series against every Test team they played, with the exception of winning a series in India. Wisden wrote:
Taylor talked so well that he raised the standard of debate in Australia—and perhaps of cricket itself—in a way which was an example to all professional cricketers ... Border stopped Australia losing. Taylor made them into winners, the acknowledged if not official world champions of Test cricket.
Taylor made a concerted effort to decrease the amount of sledging committed by his team, a trait that brought criticism of Australian teams during other eras. In total, he captained the side in 50 Tests, winning 26 and losing 13, a success rate unmatched in the previous fifty years except for Don Bradman and Viv Richards.
Career best performances
Retirement
Taylor retired from professional cricket in early 1999 after the Ashes series. On Australia Day, he was named the Australian of the Year. He was awarded an Australian Sports Medal in 2000 and a Centenary Medal in 2001. He was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2002 and made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2003. In 2011, he was inducted into the Cricket Hall of Fame by the CA.
He is now a commentator for Channel Nine for 21 years. Despite the network losing the TV rights in April 2018, Taylor re-signed for another three years to give his expert analysis on the Ashes 2019, 2019 Cricket World Cup & 2020 World Twenty20 and as a digital contributor.
He mainly commentates on One Day International and Test matches in Australia until the network's final year of cricket telecasts, so he can now spend more time with his family. He used to also appear on The Cricket Show with Simon O'Donnell, and is a spokesman for Fujitsu air-conditioners. He also commentates for radio.
Taylor is patron of the Mark Taylor Shield Cricket competition run for NSW Catholic Primary schools in and around the Sydney region. On 6 November 2011, Waitara Oval, the home of the Northern District Cricket Club, had its name formally changed to Mark Taylor Oval, to honour its former First Grade captain and life member.
In October 2015, The Primary Club of Australia announced that Mark Taylor had accepted the role of Twelfth Man and Patron following the passing of their former Patron, Richie Benaud OBE. He also became Director of Cricket Australia, who commissioned a replacement cap for Benaud, only for his ill health and subsequent passing to have the cap presented to his wife.
References
Further reading
External links
1964 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Wagga Wagga
Australia Test cricketers
Australia One Day International cricketers
Australia Test cricket captains
New South Wales cricketers
Wisden Cricketers of the Year
Australian cricket commentators
People educated at Chatswood High School
Australian of the Year Award winners
Officers of the Order of Australia
Recipients of the Australian Sports Medal
Recipients of the Centenary Medal
Sport Australia Hall of Fame inductees
University of New South Wales alumni
Australian Cricket Hall of Fame inductees
People from the Riverina
Chatswood, New South Wales
Australian republicans | false | [
"Paul Sanders (born 11 January 1962) is a British former track and field sprinter who specialised in the 400 metres. He was a gold medallist at the 1990 European Athletics Championships, running in the British men's 4 × 400 metres relay quartet alongside Kriss Akabusi, John Regis, and Roger Black. Their winning time of 2:58.22 minutes was a European record at the time and remains the European Championship record.\n\nSanders competed twice for Great Britain individually, reaching the semi finals at the 1990 European Athletics Championships and the quarter-finals at the 1991 World Championships in Athletics. He ranked third in Europe on time in the 1991 season, with his lifetime best of 45.33 seconds for the distance.\n\nHe did not win any title at the AAA Championships during his career but did win two titles at the UK Athletics Championships, first in 1989 then again in 1991. He was also runner-up in 1988 (to Brian Whittle) and 1990 (to Roger Black). At sub-national level, he was the 1986 winner of the 400 m at the Inter-Counties Championships.\n\nSanders was coached by Mike Smith, who was also coach to British sprinters Akabusi, Black and Iwan Thomas.\n\nInternational competitions\n\nNational titles\nUK Athletics Championships\n400 m: 1989, 1991\n\nSee also\nList of European Athletics Championships medalists (men)\nList of British champions in 400 metres\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nLiving people\nBritish male sprinters\nEuropean Athletics Championships medalists\nWorld Athletics Championships athletes for Great Britain\n1962 births",
"Isaiah Harris (born October 18, 1996) is an American middle-distance runner. He competed in the Men's 800 metres at the 2017 World Championships in Athletics.\n\nEarly Running Career \nIsaiah Harris was born in Lewiston, Maine. He competed for the Lewiston Blue Devils Cross Country and Outdoor Track & Field teams in high school.\n\nWhile he did not run for the cross country or track teams as a freshman, Isaiah's talent and work ethic was apparent early on, as he had won the 800 meter run and triple jump at the Andy Valley Middle School Championship as an 8th grader.\n\nIsaiah's sophomore year was a \"break-out\" year for the runner, as he finished 6th at the Maine Class A State XC Championships in a time of 16:50.75 in his first XC season. In Isaiah's first high school outdoor track season, his range and talent became apparent - after coming in 2nd in a time of 2:03.78 in his debut 800 meter race he went on to win every single open 800 meter race he ran at the local/state level during his high school career. He finished his sophomore season anchoring the Lewiston Blue Devils' 4x400 and 4x800 relays to 2nd place finishes at the Maine Class A State Championships in splits of 49 and 1:53, respectively, and won the 800 meter run in a Class A record time of 1:54.17, breaking the previous record of 1:54.54 from 1998, held by Ben Fletcher. A week later, Isaiah improved upon his own personal best and state record by finishing 2nd at the New England Track and Field Championships in a time of 1:53.35.\n\nAfter finishing 2nd at the Maine State XC Championships his junior year, Isaiah continued his dominance in outdoor track, by winning every individual race he ran that season, regardless of distance - at the Maine Class A State Championship Isaiah started his meet by running a sub 1:53 anchor leg on his team's 4x800 relay, but the relay was disqualified due to an earlier violation. Undeterred, Isaiah would win his second straight 800 meter title and improve upon his own state record in a time of 1:52.96, winning the race by over 9 seconds. He followed that up by winning the 200 meter dash in a time of 22.76 less than 45 minutes later, and finished the meet by anchoring the 4x400 relay to a school record and second place finish in a time of 3:27.07, contributing a split of 47 seconds. He then won the 800 meter run at the New England Championships in a time of 1:51.47.\n\nAs a senior, Isaiah continued to make a name for himself, as in addition to the 4x400 relay, he attempted a triple that had never been won by any male in Class A Championship meet history - the 200 meter dash, 800 meter run, and 1600 meter run. He would win all three, running 22.25 for the 200 meter dash, 1:55.42 in the 800 meter run, and 4:18.92 in the 1600 meter run, before anchoring the 4x400 meter relay to a win in a time of 3:28.24. Isaiah was responsible for 32.5 of Lewiston's 71 points, and the Lewiston boys team won their first team state championship since 2006. Isaiah attempted the 800/200 double again at the New England Championships, winning the 800 and finishing 4th in the 200 in a new state record time of 21.82. Isaiah finished his high school career by running 1:49.63 and finishing 3rd at New Balance Outdoor Nationals, earning All-American status.\n\nInternational competitions\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1996 births\nLiving people\nAmerican male middle-distance runners\nWorld Athletics Championships athletes for the United States\nPenn State Nittany Lions men's track and field athletes"
] |
[
"Mark Taylor (cricketer)",
"Early years",
"Where was he born?",
"Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga,",
"What did he do growing up?",
"Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga.",
"did he win any awards?",
"I don't know.",
"did he win any championships for his school?",
"Along with the Waugh twins, Steve and Mark, Taylor played in under-19 youth internationals for Australia against Sri Lanka in 1982-83."
] | C_ae269bdc0d524b599736eb69a322d5b1_1 | What jobs did he work? | 6 | What jobs did Mark Taylor work? | Mark Taylor (cricketer) | The second of three children born to bank manager Tony Taylor, and his wife Judy, Mark Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga, where his family relocated when he was eight. His father had a sporting background, playing first grade rugby in Newcastle. The young Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him. Taylor idolised Arthur Morris, the left-handed opening batsmen from New South Wales who led the aggregates on the 1948 "Invincibles" tour of England. Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga. His family then moved to the north shore of Sydney, where he joined Northern District in Sydney Grade Cricket. Completing his secondary education at Chatswood High School, he later obtained a degree in surveying at the University of New South Wales. Along with the Waugh twins, Steve and Mark, Taylor played in under-19 youth internationals for Australia against Sri Lanka in 1982-83. Taylor made his Sheffield Shield debut in 1985-86 when NSW was depleted by the defection of regular openers Steve Smith and John Dyson to a rebel tour of South Africa. Opening with fellow debutant Mark Waugh, he scored 12 and 56 not out against Tasmania. His first season was highlighted by home and away centuries against South Australia in a total of 937 runs at 49.31 average. He had a lean season in 1987-88, after which he spent the English summer with Greenmount, helping them to win their first Bolton League title by scoring more than 1,300 runs at an average of 70. He originally trained as a surveyor, and received a degree in surveying from the University of New South Wales in 1987. CANNOTANSWER | He originally trained as a surveyor, and received a degree in surveying | Mark Anthony Taylor (born 27 October 1964) is a former Australian cricketer and currently a Cricket Australia director and Nine Network commentator.
He was Test opening batsman from 1988 to 1999, as well as captain from 1994 to 1999, succeeding Allan Border. His predominant fielding position was first slip. He was widely regarded as an instrumental component in Australia's rise to Test cricket dominance, and his captaincy was regarded as adventurous and highly effective. However, he was considered less than ideal for One-Day International cricket and was eventually dropped as one-day captain after a 0–3 drubbing at the hands of England in 1997.
He moved to Wagga Wagga in 1972 and played for Lake Albert Cricket Club. His debut was for New South Wales in 1985.
He retired from Test cricket on 2 February 1999. In 104 Test matches, he scored 7,525 runs with a batting average of 43.49, including 19 centuries and 40 fifties. He was also an excellent first slip – his 157 catches, at the time, a Test record (now held by Rahul Dravid). In contrast to his predecessor Allan Border, who acquired the nickname 'Captain Grumpy', Taylor won plaudits for his always cheerful and positive demeanour. His successor, Steve Waugh, further honed the Australian team built by Border and Taylor and went on to set numerous records for victories as captain. Having been named Australian of the Year in 1999, he is now a cricket commentator for the Nine Network, and former Director of Cricket Australia.
Early years
The second of three children born to bank manager Tony Taylor, and his wife Judy, Mark Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga, where his family relocated when he was eight. His father had a sporting background, playing first grade rugby in Newcastle. The young Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him. Taylor idolised Arthur Morris, the left-handed opening batsmen from New South Wales who led the aggregates on the 1948 "Invincibles" tour of England.
Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga. His family then moved to the north shore of Sydney, where he joined Northern District in Sydney Grade Cricket. Completing his secondary education at Chatswood High School, he later obtained a degree in surveying at the University of New South Wales in 1987. Along with the Waugh twins, Steve and Mark, Taylor played in under-19 youth internationals for Australia against Sri Lanka in 1982–83.
Taylor made his Sheffield Shield debut in 1985–86 when NSW was depleted by the defection of regular openers Steve Smith and John Dyson to a rebel tour of South Africa. Opening with fellow debutant Mark Waugh, he scored 12 and 56 not out against Tasmania. His first season was highlighted by home and away centuries against South Australia in a total of 937 runs at 49.31 average. He had a lean season in 1987–88, after which he spent the English summer with Greenmount, helping them to win their first Bolton League title by scoring more than 1,300 runs at an average of 70.
International career
Test career
Solid form for NSW in 1988–89 resulted in Taylor's selection for his Test debut in the Fourth Test against the West Indies at the SCG, replacing middle-order batsman Graeme Wood. For three years, the opening combination of Geoff Marsh and David Boon had been successful for Australia. However, team coach Bob Simpson wanted a left and right-handed opening combination, and stability added to the middle order. Therefore, the left-handed Taylor partnered the right-handed Marsh, while Boon batted at number three. Taylor's safe catching at slip was also a factor in his selection. He made 25 and 3 in a winning team, then was run out twice in the Fifth Test. A first-class aggregate of 1,241 runs (at 49.64 average) for the season earned him a place on the 1989 Ashes tour.
Record-breaking start
Beginning with a century at Headingley in his First Test against England, Taylor amassed 839 runs at 83.90 in the six Tests: the second best aggregate in an Ashes series in England, behind Don Bradman's 974 runs in 1930. He occupied the crease for a total of 38 hours, more than six full days of play. The highlight of his tour was the Fifth Test at Trent Bridge when he and Geoff Marsh became the first pair to bat throughout a day's play of Test cricket in England, amassing 301 runs. Taylor made 219 in a partnership of 329, an Ashes record. He finished with 71 and 48 in the Sixth Test to overtake Neil Harvey for the third-highest series aggregate in Test history and totalled 1,669 first-class runs for the tour. Australia won the series 4–0 to regain the Ashes. However, Taylor was overlooked for selection in the ODIs.
Returning to Australia, Taylor made 1,403 first-class runs at 70.15 during the 1989–90 season, and ended 1989 with 1,219 Test runs, thus becoming the first player to better one thousand Test runs in his debut calendar year, something only matched twice since by England opener Alastair Cook and Australian Adam Voges. In Taylor's first nine Tests, Australia passed 400 in the first innings. He scored centuries in successive Tests against Sri Lanka, and against Pakistan his scores were 52 and 101 at the MCG, 77 and 59 at the Adelaide Oval and an unbeaten 101 at Sydney. Australia won both series 1–0. In just over twelve months, he had amassed 1,618 runs at 70.35. This outstanding start to his career earned Taylor nomination as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1990. At the season's end, he demonstrated his leadership abilities for the first time. Standing in as NSW captain in place of the injured Geoff Lawson for the 1989–90 Sheffield Shield final in Sydney, Taylor scored 127 and 100. NSW won by 345 runs to secure its 40th title.
A year after his Test debut, Taylor was selected to make his ODI debut, which came on Boxing Day of 1989 against Sri Lanka. He made 11 as Australia won by 30 runs. He was selected for nine of Australia's ten ODIs for the season's triangular tournament, scoring 294 runs at 32.66 with two half-centuries. His highest score of 76 came as Australia defeated Pakistan by 69 runs to clinch the finals series in Sydney. The season ended with ODI tournaments in New Zealand and Sharjah. He played six of the eight matches, scoring 222 runs at 37.00 with two half-centuries, but was dropped for the final in New Zealand.
Inconsistent form
Taylor experienced a slump during the 1990–91 Ashes series. After making two-half centuries in the first two Tests, he failed to pass 20 in the last three and finished with 213 runs at 23.66 in a team that won 3–0. He found himself on the outer for the ODI triangular tournament, missing all eight of the preliminary matches before returning to score 41 and 71 as Australia won the finals 2–0.
His moderate form continued during the 1991 tour of the West Indies, where he was selected in only two of the five ODIs, scoring three and five. He ended the run with a rear-guard innings of 76 in the second innings of the Fourth Test at Barbados. Despite his effort, Australia lost and the West Indies took an unassailable lead of 2–0. In the Fifth Test St. Johns, Antigua, Australia gained a consolation victory due mainly to Taylor's scores of 59 and 144 (out of a total of 265). This late rush of form boosted his average for the series to 49. In late 1991, before the Australian season started, Taylor was appointed to lead an Australia A side to tour Zimbabwe. The team was composed of younger Test players and other young players who were seeking to break into international cricket. The selectors were attempting to groom Taylor as a potential replacement for Border.
During the 1991–92 Australian season, Taylor batted consistently in a 4–0 series victory over India. He scored 94 and 35* in a ten-wicket win at Brisbane. He scored half-centuries in each of the next two Tests before striking 100 in the second innings of the Fourth Test at Adelaide. It helped Australia to wipe out a first innings deficit of 80 and set up a winning target. His opening partner Marsh was dropped for the Fifth Test, so the selectors elevated Taylor to the vice-captaincy of the team. Over the next twelve months, a number of players were tried as Taylor's opening partner. Taylor struggled in his first match with new partner Wayne N. Phillips, scoring two and 16. Nevertheless, he had scored 422 runs at 46.89. Taylor continued to be overlooked by the selectors in the shorter version of the game, missing selection for all of the season's triangular tournament. He was selected for the squad for the 1992 Cricket World Cup held on home soil, and after Australia lost its first two matches, Taylor was recalled for his first ODI in 12 months. He made 13 as Australia beat India by one run, but scored his first ODI duck in the next match as England won by eight wickets. He was dropped for the remainder of the tournament.
On the 1992 tour of Sri Lanka, Taylor struggled in scoring 148 runs at 24.67. After scoring 42 and 43 in Australia's win in the First Test, Taylor failed to again pass 30. With new opening partner Tom Moody also struggling with 71 runs at 11.83, Australia frequently struggled at the top of their innings. He played in all three ODIs, scoring 138 runs at 46.00. His 94 in the first match was his highest score in ODIs to that point.
Against the West Indies in 1992–93, Taylor was now opening alongside David Boon with Moody having been dropped. Taylor was ineffective and failed to pass fifty in the first four Tests. After Australia failed by one run to win the Fourth Test and thus the series, Taylor was dropped for the deciding Test at Perth, having failed to make double figures in either innings. In his absence, Australia lost by an innings in three days and conceded the series 1–2. He had scored 170 runs at 24.29 for the series. However, he played all of Australia's ten ODIs, scoring 286 runs at 28.60 with two half-centuries.
Taylor and Slater
As a result of the innings defeat in Perth, Taylor was immediately recalled for the tour of New Zealand, where he scored 82 in the First Test at Christchurch to help Australia to an innings victory. He then scored 50 in the drawn Second Test and bowled for the first time at Test level, taking 0/15. He failed to pass 20 in the Third Test and ended the series with 148 runs at 37.00 as the home side squared the series. Australia then played five ODIs in New Zealand before starting the England tour with three more. Taylor played in all eight, scoring 307 runs at 38.38 with four half-centuries.
The problem of finding him a long-term partner was solved on the tour of England that followed. NSW batsman Michael Slater, who also grew up in Wagga Wagga, made his debut in the First Test of the 1993 Ashes series. In the First Test at Old Trafford, Taylor made 124 after an opening partnership of 128, as Australia managed only 289 after being sent in. Australia managed to scrape out a lead of 79, before going on to a 179-run win.
This was followed by a stand of 260 at Lord's in the Second Test, with Taylor making 111. In the process, he passed 1000 Test runs against England and the partnership broke the Ashes partnership record at Lord's, which had been set by Bill Woodfull and Don Bradman in 1930. The partnership laid the platform for Australia's total of 4/632, as the tourists proceeded to an innings victory.
His scoring was more sedate in the remaining Tests as Australia won 4–1, and he finished with 428 runs at 42.80. He passed 30 only once more, with 70 in the first innings of the Sixth Test at The Oval.
Against New Zealand in 1993–94, Taylor made 64 and 142 not out in the First Test at Perth, which ended in a draw. He then scored 27 and 53 as Australia won the next two Tests by an innings, totalling 286 runs at 95.33 in three Tests as Australia won 2–0. In the rain-affected Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Taylor played his 50th Test and celebrated with 170 against South Africa, the first Test between the two countries since 1970. This made him the first batsman to score centuries on Test debut against four countries. In addition, he passed 4,000 Test runs during the innings. Taylor had scored more than 1,000 Test runs for the calendar year, ending with 1106 runs Taylor scored 62 in the Third Test, his only other half-century for the series, which he ended with 304 runs at 60.80.
On the reciprocal tour of South Africa at the end of the season, Taylor missed a Test because of injury for the only time in his career. Matthew Hayden filled in for the First Test in Johannesburg, which Australia lost. On his return for the Second Test at Cape Town, he scored 70 and ended the series with 97 runs at 24.25. Both series were drawn 1–1.
Captaincy
After the retirement of Allan Border, Taylor was appointed captain.
Frequently omitted from the ODI team due to slow scoring, Taylor missed the finals of the ODI series in Australia against South Africa. On the tour of South Africa, he missed three consecutive ODIs when tour selectors and fellow players Ian Healy and Steve Waugh voted him off the team. In all, Taylor had only played in 11 of Australia's 19 ODIs for the season, scoring 281 runs at 25.55. Taylor requested an extended trial as opener for the ODI side to help consolidate his captaincy of both teams.
Taylor started his ODI captaincy with two tournaments in Sharjah and Sri Lanka. Australia missed the finals in both tournaments, winning three of their six matches. After scoring 68* to guide his team to a nine-wicket win in the first match against Sri Lanka in Sharjah, Taylor's form tapered off, scoring only 64 more runs to end the two tournaments with a total of 132 runs at 33.00.
His first task was a tour of Pakistan in 1994, where Australia had not won a Test since the 1959 tour. To make matters worse, Australia's first-choice pace pairing of Craig McDermott and Merv Hughes missed the tour due to injury. The First Test at Karachi was a personal disaster for Taylor as he scored a pair, the first player in Test history to do so on his captaincy debut. Paceman Glenn McGrath then broke down in the middle of the match. Australia was in the box seat with Pakistan needing 56 runs with one wicket in hand, but lost by one wicket after Ian Healy missed a stumping opportunity and the ball went for the winning runs. Recovering to score 69 in the Second Test at Rawalpindi, Taylor forced Pakistan to follow on after taking a 261-run lead. However, he dropped Pakistan captain Salim Malik when he was on 20. Malik went on to make 237 as Pakistan made 537 and saved the Test. Australia again took a first innings lead in the Third Test, but could not force a result, as Malik scored another second innings century to ensure safety and a 1–0 series win. Taylor ended the series with 106 runs at 26.50. Australia fared better in the ODI triangular tournament, winning five of their six matches. Taylor scored 56 in the final as Australia beat Pakistan by 64 runs to end the tournament with 193 runs at 32.16.
Beginning the 1994–95 season with 150 for NSW in a tour match against England, Taylor followed up with 59 in an opening stand of 97 as Australia made 426 in the first innings to take the initiative in the First Test in Brisbane. Australia amassed a 259-run first innings lead, but Taylor, mindful of the Test match at Rawalpindi, became the first Australian captain since 1977–78 to not enforce the follow-on. Although heavily criticised as a conservative decision, Australia still won the match by 184 runs, with Taylor adding 58 in the second innings. Having scored the first win of his Test captaincy, Taylor led his team to a 295-run win in the Second Test.
Taylor played his best cricket of the summer in the Third Test at Sydney. Last man out for 49 in a total of 116 in the first innings, he defied a pitch that had begun to seam and swing after a shower and cloud cover as Australia narrowly avoided the follow on. In the second innings, he made a bold attempt at chasing a world record target of 449 by scoring 113, but Australia played for a draw after Slater and Taylor fell following a double-century stand. Australia collapsed to 7/292 before hanging on in near-darkness. In the final two Tests, he scored half-centuries as Australia won 3–1. Australia dramatically lost the Fourth Test when England led by only 154 on the final day with four wickets in hand. Aggressive lower order batting saw Australia set 263 in just over two sessions, but a heavy collapse saw Australia eight wickets down with more than 2 hours to play. Almost two hours of resistance later, England took a 106-run win late in the day. However, Australia bounced back to win the Fifth Test by 329 runs, the largest margin of the series. Taylor's partnership with Slater yielded three century opening stands at an average of 76.60 for the series and Taylor's individual return was 471 runs at 47.10.
The southern hemisphere summer ended with a quadrangular tournament in New Zealand, where Australia won two of their three group matches to proceed to the final. Taylor scored 44 in a six-wicket triumph over New Zealand and totalled 165 runs at 41.25. His best score was 97 against the hosts in the preliminary round meant that he was still yet to post his first ODI century, five years after his debut.
Caribbean tour 1995
This victory was followed by the 1995 tour of the West Indies, where Australia had not won a Test series for 22 years. Australia lost the ODI series which preceded the Tests 1–4, with Taylor making 152 runs at 30.40. The difficulty of Australia's task was increased when fast bowlers Craig McDermott and Damien Fleming went home injured at the start of the tour. Australia fielded a pace attack of Glenn McGrath, Brendon Julian and Paul Reiffel who had played only 23 Tests between them. Despite this, Australia won by ten wickets in the first Test at Barbados, with Taylor contributing a half-century. After the Second Test was a rained-out draw, the West Indies beat Australia inside three days on a "green" Trinidad pitch in the Third Test. Australia regained the Frank Worrell Trophy with an innings victory in the Fourth Test at Jamaica, with Taylor taking the winning catch from the bowling of Shane Warne. Although he only managed 153 runs (at 25.50 average) for the series, Taylor held nine catches and his leadership was cited as a key factor in the result.
Controversy with Sri Lanka
This was followed by two and three-Test series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka respectively in the 1995–96 Australian season. The Pakistan series began among a media circus when Salim Malik arrived with publicity focused on the bribery allegations which had surfaced a year earlier. Australia won the First Test in Brisbane by an innings in three and a half days, with Taylor contributing 69. In the Second Test at Bellerive Oval, Taylor scored 123 in the second innings to set up a winning total. In the Third Test in Sydney, he made 59 as Australia collapsed for 172 in the second innings and conceded the match. He ended the series with a healthy 338 runs at 67.60.
The subsequent Test and ODI series involving Sri Lanka were overshadowed by a series of spiteful clashes. The Tests were won 3–0 by the Australians with heavy margins of an innings, ten wickets and 148 runs respectively. Taylor's highlight being a 96 in the First Test at Perth as he compiled 159 runs at 39.75. He also made his 100th Test catch during the series. After accusations of ball tampering were levelled against the tourists in the First Test, leading spinner Muttiah Muralitharan was no-balled seven times in the Second Test, and during the ODI series, the Sri Lankans accused Taylor's men of cheating. The season hit a low point with the Sri Lankans which saw the teams refuse to shake hands at the end of the second final of the triangular series which Australia won 2–0. The match had included physical jostling between McGrath and Sanath Jayasuriya mid pitch, with the latter accusing McGrath of making racist attacks. Later in the match, stump microphones showed Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy alleging that portly Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga was feigning injury and calling for a runner because of his lack of physical fitness.
On the field, the ODI tournament saw Mark Waugh elevated to be Taylor's ODI opening partner after the axing of Slater midway through the season. In their first match together in Perth, the pair put on 190, with Taylor scoring 85. They put on another century stand in the second final, with Taylor scoring 82. Taylor scored heavily in the ODI tournament, with 423 runs at 42.30 with four half-centuries. Australia warmed up for the 1996 Cricket World Cup by winning five of their eight round-robin matches, and taking the finals 2–0, but many of the matches were closely contested. The finals were won by 18 and nine runs respectively, while three of the group matches were decided in the last over.
After the spiteful summer, a Tamil Tiger bombing in Colombo coupled with death threats to some members of the team forced Taylor to forfeit his team's scheduled World Cup match against Sri Lanka in Colombo. Taylor made six as Australia started their campaign with a 97-run win over Kenya. He then made 59 in a century stand with Waugh as Australia defeated co-hosts India in Mumbai. Taylor scored 34 in a nine-wicket win over Zimbabwe, before scoring nine in a defeat to the West Indies in the last group match. Australia finished second in their group and faced New Zealand in the quarter-finals. Taylor made only 10 as Australia chased 289 for victory, but made a surprise tactic by sending in Shane Warne as a pinch hitter. Warne made 24 from 15 balls in a partnership with Waugh, to allow Australia to take the momentum and take victory by six wickets. Taylor managed only one in the semi-final as Australia staggered to 8/207 against the West Indies. Australia appeared to be heading out of the tournament when the Caribbean team reached 2/165, but a sudden collapse saw Australia win by six runs in the last over.
Australia managed to reach the final, where they met Sri Lanka. Taylor scored 74, a record score by an Australian captain in the World Cup, but Sri Lanka comfortably triumphed on this occasion by seven wickets to claim the trophy.
Almost retired
After the World Cup, Bob Simpson was replaced as Australia's coach by Geoff Marsh, Taylor's former opening partner. Australia's first tournament after the World Cup was the Singer World Series in Sri Lanka. Taylor opted out of the tournament, and in his absence, Australia reached the final but lost by 50 runs to the hosts.
On a short tour to India, Taylor made his first ODI century at Bangalore, with 105 against India in his 98th match, having been out in the 90s on three previous occasions. Taylor performed strongly in the ODIs, with a total of 302 runs at 60.40. However, it was a disappointing tour for the team; the solitary Test in Delhi was lost, as were all five ODIs played during the Titan Cup.
In 1996–97, Australia confirmed its ascendancy over the West Indies with a 3–2 series win, but Taylor endured a poor season with the bat and failed to pass 50 in nine innings. His partnership with Slater was terminated when the latter was dropped, replaced by Matthew Elliott. Following an injury to Elliott, Matthew Hayden became Taylor's partner for three Tests.
Unable to recover form in the ODI series, Taylor's scratchy batting led to many poor starts for Australia. The team suffered five consecutive defeats, and missed the finals of the tournament for the first time in 17 years. Taylor managed only 143 runs at 17.88 with a highest score of 29.
The early 1997 tour to South Africa brought no upturn in Taylor's batting despite Australia's 2–1 victory in the series: he scored 80 runs at 16.00. His form was such that it influenced the selection of the team. For the Second Test at Port Elizabeth, played on a green pitch, Australia played Michael Bevan as a second spinner batting at number seven to reinforce the batting, instead of a third seamer to exploit the conditions. After scoring seven and 17 in the first two ODIs, Taylor dropped himself from the team for the remaining five matches.
The 1997 Ashes tour started poorly amid rumours that Taylor was on the verge of losing his place in the side. He batted ineffectively as Australia lost the one day series 0–3, scoring seven and 11, before dropping himself for the final match. In the First Test, Australia were dismissed for 118 in the first innings, with Taylor contributing seven: he had not managed to pass 50 in his last 21 Test innings. England amassed a big lead of 360 runs. With Australia facing a heavy defeat, media criticism of his position intensified. The Melbourne Age ran a competition for its readers to forecast how many runs he would make. Most respondents guessed less than 10 runs. The team's erstwhile coach, Bob Simpson, said that Taylor's retention in the team in spite of his poor form was fostering resentment among the players and destabilising the team.
Taylor started nervously in the second innings, but went on to score of 129, which saved his career, but not the match. His performance prompted personal congratulations from Prime Minister John Howard and the team's management allowed the media a rare opportunity to enter the dressing room and interview Taylor. During the period he refused offers by the manager to handle the media on his behalf. Australia went on to win the Third, Fourth and Fifth Tests and retain the Ashes 3–2. Although Taylor made single figures in the three Tests following his century, he contributed 76 and 45 in the series-clinching Test at Nottingham. Taylor ended the series with 317 runs at 31.7.
Dual teams
However, Taylor's ODI form was not to the satisfaction of the selectors. At the start of the 1997–98 season, a new selection policy was announced: the Test and ODI teams became separate entities, with specialists in each form of the game selected accordingly. Taylor was dropped from the ODI team, in favour of the aggressive Michael di Venuto. Tactically, ODI cricket was transformed by Sri Lanka's World Cup success, when it employed the highly aggressive opening pair of Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana.
At this time, Taylor was a central figure in a pay dispute between the players and the ACB, with a strike action threatened by the players. Taylor continued as Test captain and led the team to a 2–0 win over New Zealand. The first two matches were won by 186 runs and an innings, while the Third Test ended with Australia one wicket from victory after almost two days' play was washed out.
Taylor scored a century (112 on the first day of the First Test, and an unbeaten 66 in the Third Test, compiling 214 runs at 53.50 for the series. This was followed by three Tests against South Africa. After South Africa withheld the Australian bowling on the final day to secure a draw in the Boxing Day Test, Australia took a 1–0 lead in the New Year's Test at Sydney with an innings victory. Taylor carried his bat for 169 in the first innings of the Third Test at Adelaide which helped Australia to draw the match and clinch the series.
On the 1998 tour of India, Elliott was dropped and Taylor reunited with Slater as the opening pair. Australia started well by taking a 71-run first-innings lead in the First Test at Chennai, but Sachin Tendulkar's unbeaten 155 put Australia under pressure to save the match on the final day. They were unable to resist and lost by 179 runs. Australia was crushed by an innings and 219 runs in the Second Test at Calcutta, Australia first series loss in four years and the first time that Australia had lost by an innings for five years. Thus, a series victory in India, which Australia had not achieved since 1969–70, remained elusive. Australia won the Third Test in Bangalore by eight wickets, with Taylor scoring an unbeaten 102 in a second innings run chase.
Record equalled
Later in 1998, Taylor led his team to Pakistan, where a convincing win in the First Test at Rawalpindi by an innings and 99 runs was Australia's first Test victory in the country for 39 years. Taylor then attended a court hearing investigating the claims of match-fixing made during the 1994 tour. In the Second Test at Peshawar, Taylor played the longest innings of his career. He batted two days to amass 334 not out, equalling Sir Donald Bradman's Australian record set in 1930. In temperatures above 32 °C, Taylor survived two dropped catches before he had reached 25 and scored slowly on the first day. He shared a 206-run partnership with Justin Langer. The next day, he added 103 runs in a morning session extended from two to three hours. After the tea interval, he discarded his helmet in favour of a white sun hat, to deal with the extreme heat. He passed 311, eclipsing Bob Simpson's record score by an Australian captain. In the final over, Taylor equalled Bradman's Australian Test record when a shot to midwicket was barely stopped by Ijaz Ahmed, which reduced the scoring opportunity to a single run.
At the end of the day's play, Taylor was encouraged by the media, the public and his teammates to attempt to break Brian Lara's world record score of 375. An unusually large crowd turned out the following day in anticipation. However, Taylor declared the innings closed, opting to share the record with Bradman, and making the team's chances of winning the game paramount. He was widely praised for this decision. He made 92 in the second innings, giving him the second highest Test match aggregate after English batsmen Graham Gooch, who scored 333 and 123 for a total of 456 against India at Lord's on 26 July 1990. His fifteen hours batting in one Test was second only to Hanif Mohammad. The match ended in a draw, as did the Third Test, so Australia won the series and Taylor ended with 513 runs at 128.25 average.
Final season
Taylor's swansong was the 1998–99 Ashes series against England, which began with his 100th Test in the First Test in Brisbane. He scored 46 and a duck—his first in Australia—as England were saved when thunderstorms forced the abandonment of play on the final afternoon. Two half centuries in the next two Tests in Perth and Adelaide saw Australia win by seven wickets and 205 runs respectively, thereby retaining the series 2–0. After losing the Fourth Test by 12 runs after a dramatic final day collapse, Taylor headed to his home ground, the Sydney Cricket Ground, for what would be his final Test. Australia went on to win the Test by 98 runs and take the series 3–1. Taylor only scored two in both innings, but he broke Border's world record for the most Test catches. His catch in the first innings equalled Border's 156 and another in the second made him the sole owner of the record.
He also jointly holds the record in Test cricket (along with Ian Healy) of being the only cricketers to have been run out in both innings of a Test on two occasions.
Legacy
The improvement of the Australian team, begun during Border's tenure, continued under the captaincy of Taylor. After the defeat of the West Indies in 1995, Taylor's teams won home and away series against every Test team they played, with the exception of winning a series in India. Wisden wrote:
Taylor talked so well that he raised the standard of debate in Australia—and perhaps of cricket itself—in a way which was an example to all professional cricketers ... Border stopped Australia losing. Taylor made them into winners, the acknowledged if not official world champions of Test cricket.
Taylor made a concerted effort to decrease the amount of sledging committed by his team, a trait that brought criticism of Australian teams during other eras. In total, he captained the side in 50 Tests, winning 26 and losing 13, a success rate unmatched in the previous fifty years except for Don Bradman and Viv Richards.
Career best performances
Retirement
Taylor retired from professional cricket in early 1999 after the Ashes series. On Australia Day, he was named the Australian of the Year. He was awarded an Australian Sports Medal in 2000 and a Centenary Medal in 2001. He was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2002 and made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2003. In 2011, he was inducted into the Cricket Hall of Fame by the CA.
He is now a commentator for Channel Nine for 21 years. Despite the network losing the TV rights in April 2018, Taylor re-signed for another three years to give his expert analysis on the Ashes 2019, 2019 Cricket World Cup & 2020 World Twenty20 and as a digital contributor.
He mainly commentates on One Day International and Test matches in Australia until the network's final year of cricket telecasts, so he can now spend more time with his family. He used to also appear on The Cricket Show with Simon O'Donnell, and is a spokesman for Fujitsu air-conditioners. He also commentates for radio.
Taylor is patron of the Mark Taylor Shield Cricket competition run for NSW Catholic Primary schools in and around the Sydney region. On 6 November 2011, Waitara Oval, the home of the Northern District Cricket Club, had its name formally changed to Mark Taylor Oval, to honour its former First Grade captain and life member.
In October 2015, The Primary Club of Australia announced that Mark Taylor had accepted the role of Twelfth Man and Patron following the passing of their former Patron, Richie Benaud OBE. He also became Director of Cricket Australia, who commissioned a replacement cap for Benaud, only for his ill health and subsequent passing to have the cap presented to his wife.
References
Further reading
External links
1964 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Wagga Wagga
Australia Test cricketers
Australia One Day International cricketers
Australia Test cricket captains
New South Wales cricketers
Wisden Cricketers of the Year
Australian cricket commentators
People educated at Chatswood High School
Australian of the Year Award winners
Officers of the Order of Australia
Recipients of the Australian Sports Medal
Recipients of the Centenary Medal
Sport Australia Hall of Fame inductees
University of New South Wales alumni
Australian Cricket Hall of Fame inductees
People from the Riverina
Chatswood, New South Wales
Australian republicans | false | [
"A make-work job is a job that has less immediate financial or few benefit at all to the economy than the job costs to support. It may also have no benefit. Make-work jobs are similar to workfare, but are publicly offered on the job market and have otherwise normal employment requirements (workfare jobs, in contrast, may be handed out to a randomly selected applicant or have special requirements such as continuing to search for a non-workfare job).\n\nCriticism and analysis\nSome consider make-work jobs to be harmful when they provide very little practical experience or training for future careers. \n\nAs a part of the New Deal, the Civil Works Administration (CWA) was in 1933 created as a stopgap measure to boost the economic relief provided by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and Public Works Administration. At its peak, the CWA employed 4,230,000 people; however, President Roosevelt was wary of the specter of corruption and accusations of boondoggling, and shut the CWA down after less than a year. Economists like Milton Friedman considered the programs like the CCC and WPA as justified as a temporary response to an emergency. Friedman gave Roosevelt considerable credit for relieving immediate distress and restoring confidence.\n\nExamples\n \n\nMake-work jobs have been introduced during periods of high unemployment to provide as substitutes for regular jobs. In many European countries, social welfare systems provide cash transfers to those who are unable to secure employment. These programs often require the recipient to undertake job training, internships, or job rotations. Make-work jobs can have the benefit of giving workers the chance of meeting new people and learning how to work with others. Such jobs can also help workers learn the importance of coming to work on time and taking responsibility for their actions.\n\nMany of the skills learned while doing make-work jobs help workers when applying for and doing regular jobs. Several make-work jobs that were created in Denmark in 2014 were gardening, cleaning up of beaches and sidewalks, reading to the elderly or disabled, washing toys at day care, working with local bike programs, and counting cars.\n\nIn formerly Warsaw Pact countries make-work jobs are commonly caused by the state's deliberate manipulations to conceal unemployment rates and alter the country's unfavourable statistics (especially for international propaganda purposes), as was a common practice there and then. Especially in those countries, it is often referred to as agrarian or hidden unemployment since it often occurred in agricultural sectors, mostly in rural areas. It was commonly done by increasing the number of employees, which did not increase the production capacity (bureaucratic fiction of creating fake vacancies on paper for people with whom the powers that be did not know what to do, how to utilise their potential workforce - but not admitting to that inability, and paying out the diminutive wages for them to pretend to work and remain silent, as opposed to officially listing them as unemployed and paying out unemployment welfare benefits), thus rendering the overall productivity close to zero. There are no official statistics about the scale of the problem due to its very nature, but it in affected countries it is considered to be one of the major reasons for the unsustainability of the past system and the economic crisis leading to the common people's strikes, which in turn later on led to governments responding with martial law state in places like Poland, and the eventual downfall of USSR and Soviet occupation over the rest of the subjugated states under the Warsaw Pact.\n\nIn popular culture\n In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Bob Ewell loses his New Deal make-work job, and blames Atticus Finch.\n\nSee also\n Bullshit Jobs\n Busy work\n Federal assistance\n Lump of labour fallacy\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n Graeber, David (August 2013). On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs\nOn \"bullshit jobs\": Understanding seemingly meaningless work (August 2013), The Economist\n Massey, Alana. The Cult of Work (July 2015), Hazlitt\n\nEmployment classifications\nWelfare economics\nSocial programs",
"Bullshit Jobs: A Theory is a 2018 book by anthropologist David Graeber that postulates the existence of meaningless jobs and analyzes their societal harm. He contends that over half of societal work is pointless, and becomes psychologically destructive when paired with a work ethic that associates work with self-worth. Graeber describes five types of meaningless jobs, in which workers pretend their role is not as pointless or harmful as they know it to be: flunkies, goons, duct tapers, box tickers, and taskmasters. He argues that the association of labor with virtuous suffering is recent in human history, and proposes unions and universal basic income as a potential solution.\n\nThe book is an extension of a popular essay Graeber published in 2013, which was later translated into 12 languages and whose underlying premise became the subject of a YouGov poll. Graeber subsequently solicited hundreds of testimonials from people with meaningless jobs and revised his case into a book that was published by Simon & Schuster in May 2018.\n\nSummary\n\nIn Bullshit Jobs, American anthropologist David Graeber posits that the productivity benefits of automation have not led to a 15-hour workweek, as predicted by economist John Maynard Keynes in 1930, but instead to \"bullshit jobs\": \"a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case.\" While these jobs can offer good compensation and ample free time, Graeber holds that the pointlessness of the work grates at their humanity and creates a \"profound psychological violence\". \n\nThe author contends that more than half of societal work is pointless, both large parts of some jobs and, as he describes, five types of entirely pointless jobs:\n\n flunkies, who serve to make their superiors feel important, e.g., receptionists, administrative assistants, door attendants, makers of websites whose sites neglect ease of use and speed for looks;\n goons, who act to harm or deceive others on behalf of their employer, e.g., lobbyists, corporate lawyers, telemarketers, public relations specialists, community managers;\n duct tapers, who temporarily fix problems that could be fixed permanently, e.g., programmers repairing bloated code, airline desk staff who calm passengers whose bags do not arrive;\n box tickers, who create the appearance that something useful is being done when it is not, e.g., survey administrators, in-house magazine journalists, corporate compliance officers, quality service managers;\n taskmasters, who create extra work for those who do not need it, e.g., middle management, leadership professionals.\n\nGraeber argues that these jobs are largely in the private sector despite the idea that market competition would root out such inefficiencies. In companies, he concludes that the rise of service sector jobs owes less to economic need than to \"managerial feudalism\", in which employers need underlings in order to feel important and maintain competitive status and power. In society, he credits the Puritan-capitalist work ethic for making the labor of capitalism into religious duty: that workers did not reap advances in productivity as a reduced workday because, as a societal norm, they believe that work determines their self-worth, even as they find that work pointless. Graeber describes this cycle as \"profound psychological violence\" and \"a scar across our collective soul\". Graeber suggests that one of the challenges to confronting our feelings about bullshit jobs is a lack of a behavioral script in much the same way that people are unsure of how to feel if they are the object of unrequited love. In turn, rather than correcting this system, Graeber writes, individuals attack those whose jobs are innately fulfilling.\n\nGraeber holds that work as a source of virtue is a recent idea, that work was disdained by the aristocracy in classical times, but inverted as virtuous through then-radical philosophers like John Locke. The Puritan idea of virtue through suffering justified the toil of the working classes as noble. And so, Graeber continues, bullshit jobs justify contemporary patterns of living: that the pains of dull work are suitable justification for the ability to fulfill consumer desires, and that fulfilling those desires is indeed the reward for suffering through pointless work. Accordingly, over time, the prosperity extracted from technological advances has been reinvested into industry and consumer growth for its own sake rather than the purchase of additional leisure time from work. Bullshit jobs also serve political ends, in which political parties are more concerned about having jobs than whether the jobs are fulfilling. In addition, he contends, populations occupied with busy work have less time to revolt.\n\nAs a potential solution, Graeber suggests universal basic income, a livable benefit paid to all, without qualification, which would let people work at their leisure. The author credits a natural human work cycle of cramming and slacking as the most productive way to work, as farmers, fishers, warriors, and novelists vary in the rigor of work based on the need for productivity, not the standard working hours, which can appear arbitrary when compared to cycles of productivity. Graeber contends that time not spent pursuing pointless work could instead be spent pursuing creative activities.\n\nPublication \n\nIn 2013, Graeber published an essay in the magazine Strike, \"On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs\", which argued the pointlessness of many contemporary jobs, particularly those in fields of finance, law, human resources, public relations, and consultancy. Its popularity, with over one million hits, crashed the website of its publisher, the radical magazine Strike! The essay was subsequently translated into 12 languages.\n\nYouGov undertook a related poll, in which 37% of some surveyed Britons thought that their jobs did not contribute 'meaningfully' to the world.\n\nGraeber subsequently solicited hundreds of testimonials of bullshit jobs and revised his case into a book, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory.\n\nBy the end of 2018, the book was translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, and Chinese.\n\nReception \n\nA review in The Times praises the book's academic rigor and humor, especially in some job examples, but altogether felt that Graeber's argument was \"enjoyably overstated\". The reviewer found Graeber's historical work ethic argument convincing, but offered counterarguments on other points: that the average British workweek has decreased in the last century, that Graeber's argument for the overall proportion of pointless work is overreliant on the YouGov survey, and that the same survey does not hold that \"most people hate their jobs\". The reviewer maintains that while \"managerial feudalism\" can explain the existence of flunkies, Graeber's other types of bullshit jobs owe their existence to competition, government regulation, long supply chains, and the withering of inefficient companies—the same ingredients responsible for luxuries of advanced capitalism such as smartphones and year-round produce.\n\nAn article in Philosophy Now pointed to the initial definition of \"bullshit\" in philosophy. In his 1986, Princeton philosopher Harry Frankfurt turned the word \"bullshit\" into an official philosophical term when defining bullshit as the deceptive misrepresentation of reality that remains different from lying because contrary to the liar, the \"bullshitter\" does not try to deceive (p. 6-7). Along these lines, administrators attempt to establish a work culture that is not false, but merely fake and phony.\n\nA 2021 study empirically tested several of Graeber's claims, such as that bullshit jobs were increasing over time and that they accounted for a sizable amount of the workforce. Using data from the EU-conducted European Working Conditions Survey, the study found that a low and declining proportion of employees considered their jobs to be \"rarely\" or \"never\" useful. The study also found that while there was some correlation between occupation and feelings of uselessness, they did not correspond neatly with Graeber's analysis; bullshit \"taskmasters\" and \"goons\" such as hedge-fund managers or lobbyists were vastly satisfied with their work, while essential workers like refuse collectors and cleaners often felt their jobs were useless. However, the study did confirm that feeling useless in one's job was correlated to poor psychological health, with higher rates of depression and anxiety. To account for the serious effects of working a bullshit job and why someone might feel their job is bullshit, the authors instead draw on the Marxist concept of alienation. The authors suggest that toxic management and work culture may lead individuals to feel that they are not realizing their true potential, regardless of whether or not their job is actually useful or not.\n\n== See also ==\n Busy work\n Decent work\n Make-work job\n Critique of work\n Refusal of work\n Work ethic\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n \"On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant\", Graeber's original essay\n Graeber interviewed on Book TV\n\n2018 non-fiction books\nSimon & Schuster books\nBooks by David Graeber\nEnglish-language books\nAnthropology books\nAmerican non-fiction books\nLiterature critical of work and the work ethic"
] |
[
"Mark Taylor (cricketer)",
"Early years",
"Where was he born?",
"Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga,",
"What did he do growing up?",
"Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga.",
"did he win any awards?",
"I don't know.",
"did he win any championships for his school?",
"Along with the Waugh twins, Steve and Mark, Taylor played in under-19 youth internationals for Australia against Sri Lanka in 1982-83.",
"What jobs did he work?",
"He originally trained as a surveyor, and received a degree in surveying"
] | C_ae269bdc0d524b599736eb69a322d5b1_1 | Did he go to college? | 7 | Did Mark Taylor go to college? | Mark Taylor (cricketer) | The second of three children born to bank manager Tony Taylor, and his wife Judy, Mark Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga, where his family relocated when he was eight. His father had a sporting background, playing first grade rugby in Newcastle. The young Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him. Taylor idolised Arthur Morris, the left-handed opening batsmen from New South Wales who led the aggregates on the 1948 "Invincibles" tour of England. Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga. His family then moved to the north shore of Sydney, where he joined Northern District in Sydney Grade Cricket. Completing his secondary education at Chatswood High School, he later obtained a degree in surveying at the University of New South Wales. Along with the Waugh twins, Steve and Mark, Taylor played in under-19 youth internationals for Australia against Sri Lanka in 1982-83. Taylor made his Sheffield Shield debut in 1985-86 when NSW was depleted by the defection of regular openers Steve Smith and John Dyson to a rebel tour of South Africa. Opening with fellow debutant Mark Waugh, he scored 12 and 56 not out against Tasmania. His first season was highlighted by home and away centuries against South Australia in a total of 937 runs at 49.31 average. He had a lean season in 1987-88, after which he spent the English summer with Greenmount, helping them to win their first Bolton League title by scoring more than 1,300 runs at an average of 70. He originally trained as a surveyor, and received a degree in surveying from the University of New South Wales in 1987. CANNOTANSWER | University of New South Wales in 1987. | Mark Anthony Taylor (born 27 October 1964) is a former Australian cricketer and currently a Cricket Australia director and Nine Network commentator.
He was Test opening batsman from 1988 to 1999, as well as captain from 1994 to 1999, succeeding Allan Border. His predominant fielding position was first slip. He was widely regarded as an instrumental component in Australia's rise to Test cricket dominance, and his captaincy was regarded as adventurous and highly effective. However, he was considered less than ideal for One-Day International cricket and was eventually dropped as one-day captain after a 0–3 drubbing at the hands of England in 1997.
He moved to Wagga Wagga in 1972 and played for Lake Albert Cricket Club. His debut was for New South Wales in 1985.
He retired from Test cricket on 2 February 1999. In 104 Test matches, he scored 7,525 runs with a batting average of 43.49, including 19 centuries and 40 fifties. He was also an excellent first slip – his 157 catches, at the time, a Test record (now held by Rahul Dravid). In contrast to his predecessor Allan Border, who acquired the nickname 'Captain Grumpy', Taylor won plaudits for his always cheerful and positive demeanour. His successor, Steve Waugh, further honed the Australian team built by Border and Taylor and went on to set numerous records for victories as captain. Having been named Australian of the Year in 1999, he is now a cricket commentator for the Nine Network, and former Director of Cricket Australia.
Early years
The second of three children born to bank manager Tony Taylor, and his wife Judy, Mark Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga, where his family relocated when he was eight. His father had a sporting background, playing first grade rugby in Newcastle. The young Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him. Taylor idolised Arthur Morris, the left-handed opening batsmen from New South Wales who led the aggregates on the 1948 "Invincibles" tour of England.
Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga. His family then moved to the north shore of Sydney, where he joined Northern District in Sydney Grade Cricket. Completing his secondary education at Chatswood High School, he later obtained a degree in surveying at the University of New South Wales in 1987. Along with the Waugh twins, Steve and Mark, Taylor played in under-19 youth internationals for Australia against Sri Lanka in 1982–83.
Taylor made his Sheffield Shield debut in 1985–86 when NSW was depleted by the defection of regular openers Steve Smith and John Dyson to a rebel tour of South Africa. Opening with fellow debutant Mark Waugh, he scored 12 and 56 not out against Tasmania. His first season was highlighted by home and away centuries against South Australia in a total of 937 runs at 49.31 average. He had a lean season in 1987–88, after which he spent the English summer with Greenmount, helping them to win their first Bolton League title by scoring more than 1,300 runs at an average of 70.
International career
Test career
Solid form for NSW in 1988–89 resulted in Taylor's selection for his Test debut in the Fourth Test against the West Indies at the SCG, replacing middle-order batsman Graeme Wood. For three years, the opening combination of Geoff Marsh and David Boon had been successful for Australia. However, team coach Bob Simpson wanted a left and right-handed opening combination, and stability added to the middle order. Therefore, the left-handed Taylor partnered the right-handed Marsh, while Boon batted at number three. Taylor's safe catching at slip was also a factor in his selection. He made 25 and 3 in a winning team, then was run out twice in the Fifth Test. A first-class aggregate of 1,241 runs (at 49.64 average) for the season earned him a place on the 1989 Ashes tour.
Record-breaking start
Beginning with a century at Headingley in his First Test against England, Taylor amassed 839 runs at 83.90 in the six Tests: the second best aggregate in an Ashes series in England, behind Don Bradman's 974 runs in 1930. He occupied the crease for a total of 38 hours, more than six full days of play. The highlight of his tour was the Fifth Test at Trent Bridge when he and Geoff Marsh became the first pair to bat throughout a day's play of Test cricket in England, amassing 301 runs. Taylor made 219 in a partnership of 329, an Ashes record. He finished with 71 and 48 in the Sixth Test to overtake Neil Harvey for the third-highest series aggregate in Test history and totalled 1,669 first-class runs for the tour. Australia won the series 4–0 to regain the Ashes. However, Taylor was overlooked for selection in the ODIs.
Returning to Australia, Taylor made 1,403 first-class runs at 70.15 during the 1989–90 season, and ended 1989 with 1,219 Test runs, thus becoming the first player to better one thousand Test runs in his debut calendar year, something only matched twice since by England opener Alastair Cook and Australian Adam Voges. In Taylor's first nine Tests, Australia passed 400 in the first innings. He scored centuries in successive Tests against Sri Lanka, and against Pakistan his scores were 52 and 101 at the MCG, 77 and 59 at the Adelaide Oval and an unbeaten 101 at Sydney. Australia won both series 1–0. In just over twelve months, he had amassed 1,618 runs at 70.35. This outstanding start to his career earned Taylor nomination as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1990. At the season's end, he demonstrated his leadership abilities for the first time. Standing in as NSW captain in place of the injured Geoff Lawson for the 1989–90 Sheffield Shield final in Sydney, Taylor scored 127 and 100. NSW won by 345 runs to secure its 40th title.
A year after his Test debut, Taylor was selected to make his ODI debut, which came on Boxing Day of 1989 against Sri Lanka. He made 11 as Australia won by 30 runs. He was selected for nine of Australia's ten ODIs for the season's triangular tournament, scoring 294 runs at 32.66 with two half-centuries. His highest score of 76 came as Australia defeated Pakistan by 69 runs to clinch the finals series in Sydney. The season ended with ODI tournaments in New Zealand and Sharjah. He played six of the eight matches, scoring 222 runs at 37.00 with two half-centuries, but was dropped for the final in New Zealand.
Inconsistent form
Taylor experienced a slump during the 1990–91 Ashes series. After making two-half centuries in the first two Tests, he failed to pass 20 in the last three and finished with 213 runs at 23.66 in a team that won 3–0. He found himself on the outer for the ODI triangular tournament, missing all eight of the preliminary matches before returning to score 41 and 71 as Australia won the finals 2–0.
His moderate form continued during the 1991 tour of the West Indies, where he was selected in only two of the five ODIs, scoring three and five. He ended the run with a rear-guard innings of 76 in the second innings of the Fourth Test at Barbados. Despite his effort, Australia lost and the West Indies took an unassailable lead of 2–0. In the Fifth Test St. Johns, Antigua, Australia gained a consolation victory due mainly to Taylor's scores of 59 and 144 (out of a total of 265). This late rush of form boosted his average for the series to 49. In late 1991, before the Australian season started, Taylor was appointed to lead an Australia A side to tour Zimbabwe. The team was composed of younger Test players and other young players who were seeking to break into international cricket. The selectors were attempting to groom Taylor as a potential replacement for Border.
During the 1991–92 Australian season, Taylor batted consistently in a 4–0 series victory over India. He scored 94 and 35* in a ten-wicket win at Brisbane. He scored half-centuries in each of the next two Tests before striking 100 in the second innings of the Fourth Test at Adelaide. It helped Australia to wipe out a first innings deficit of 80 and set up a winning target. His opening partner Marsh was dropped for the Fifth Test, so the selectors elevated Taylor to the vice-captaincy of the team. Over the next twelve months, a number of players were tried as Taylor's opening partner. Taylor struggled in his first match with new partner Wayne N. Phillips, scoring two and 16. Nevertheless, he had scored 422 runs at 46.89. Taylor continued to be overlooked by the selectors in the shorter version of the game, missing selection for all of the season's triangular tournament. He was selected for the squad for the 1992 Cricket World Cup held on home soil, and after Australia lost its first two matches, Taylor was recalled for his first ODI in 12 months. He made 13 as Australia beat India by one run, but scored his first ODI duck in the next match as England won by eight wickets. He was dropped for the remainder of the tournament.
On the 1992 tour of Sri Lanka, Taylor struggled in scoring 148 runs at 24.67. After scoring 42 and 43 in Australia's win in the First Test, Taylor failed to again pass 30. With new opening partner Tom Moody also struggling with 71 runs at 11.83, Australia frequently struggled at the top of their innings. He played in all three ODIs, scoring 138 runs at 46.00. His 94 in the first match was his highest score in ODIs to that point.
Against the West Indies in 1992–93, Taylor was now opening alongside David Boon with Moody having been dropped. Taylor was ineffective and failed to pass fifty in the first four Tests. After Australia failed by one run to win the Fourth Test and thus the series, Taylor was dropped for the deciding Test at Perth, having failed to make double figures in either innings. In his absence, Australia lost by an innings in three days and conceded the series 1–2. He had scored 170 runs at 24.29 for the series. However, he played all of Australia's ten ODIs, scoring 286 runs at 28.60 with two half-centuries.
Taylor and Slater
As a result of the innings defeat in Perth, Taylor was immediately recalled for the tour of New Zealand, where he scored 82 in the First Test at Christchurch to help Australia to an innings victory. He then scored 50 in the drawn Second Test and bowled for the first time at Test level, taking 0/15. He failed to pass 20 in the Third Test and ended the series with 148 runs at 37.00 as the home side squared the series. Australia then played five ODIs in New Zealand before starting the England tour with three more. Taylor played in all eight, scoring 307 runs at 38.38 with four half-centuries.
The problem of finding him a long-term partner was solved on the tour of England that followed. NSW batsman Michael Slater, who also grew up in Wagga Wagga, made his debut in the First Test of the 1993 Ashes series. In the First Test at Old Trafford, Taylor made 124 after an opening partnership of 128, as Australia managed only 289 after being sent in. Australia managed to scrape out a lead of 79, before going on to a 179-run win.
This was followed by a stand of 260 at Lord's in the Second Test, with Taylor making 111. In the process, he passed 1000 Test runs against England and the partnership broke the Ashes partnership record at Lord's, which had been set by Bill Woodfull and Don Bradman in 1930. The partnership laid the platform for Australia's total of 4/632, as the tourists proceeded to an innings victory.
His scoring was more sedate in the remaining Tests as Australia won 4–1, and he finished with 428 runs at 42.80. He passed 30 only once more, with 70 in the first innings of the Sixth Test at The Oval.
Against New Zealand in 1993–94, Taylor made 64 and 142 not out in the First Test at Perth, which ended in a draw. He then scored 27 and 53 as Australia won the next two Tests by an innings, totalling 286 runs at 95.33 in three Tests as Australia won 2–0. In the rain-affected Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Taylor played his 50th Test and celebrated with 170 against South Africa, the first Test between the two countries since 1970. This made him the first batsman to score centuries on Test debut against four countries. In addition, he passed 4,000 Test runs during the innings. Taylor had scored more than 1,000 Test runs for the calendar year, ending with 1106 runs Taylor scored 62 in the Third Test, his only other half-century for the series, which he ended with 304 runs at 60.80.
On the reciprocal tour of South Africa at the end of the season, Taylor missed a Test because of injury for the only time in his career. Matthew Hayden filled in for the First Test in Johannesburg, which Australia lost. On his return for the Second Test at Cape Town, he scored 70 and ended the series with 97 runs at 24.25. Both series were drawn 1–1.
Captaincy
After the retirement of Allan Border, Taylor was appointed captain.
Frequently omitted from the ODI team due to slow scoring, Taylor missed the finals of the ODI series in Australia against South Africa. On the tour of South Africa, he missed three consecutive ODIs when tour selectors and fellow players Ian Healy and Steve Waugh voted him off the team. In all, Taylor had only played in 11 of Australia's 19 ODIs for the season, scoring 281 runs at 25.55. Taylor requested an extended trial as opener for the ODI side to help consolidate his captaincy of both teams.
Taylor started his ODI captaincy with two tournaments in Sharjah and Sri Lanka. Australia missed the finals in both tournaments, winning three of their six matches. After scoring 68* to guide his team to a nine-wicket win in the first match against Sri Lanka in Sharjah, Taylor's form tapered off, scoring only 64 more runs to end the two tournaments with a total of 132 runs at 33.00.
His first task was a tour of Pakistan in 1994, where Australia had not won a Test since the 1959 tour. To make matters worse, Australia's first-choice pace pairing of Craig McDermott and Merv Hughes missed the tour due to injury. The First Test at Karachi was a personal disaster for Taylor as he scored a pair, the first player in Test history to do so on his captaincy debut. Paceman Glenn McGrath then broke down in the middle of the match. Australia was in the box seat with Pakistan needing 56 runs with one wicket in hand, but lost by one wicket after Ian Healy missed a stumping opportunity and the ball went for the winning runs. Recovering to score 69 in the Second Test at Rawalpindi, Taylor forced Pakistan to follow on after taking a 261-run lead. However, he dropped Pakistan captain Salim Malik when he was on 20. Malik went on to make 237 as Pakistan made 537 and saved the Test. Australia again took a first innings lead in the Third Test, but could not force a result, as Malik scored another second innings century to ensure safety and a 1–0 series win. Taylor ended the series with 106 runs at 26.50. Australia fared better in the ODI triangular tournament, winning five of their six matches. Taylor scored 56 in the final as Australia beat Pakistan by 64 runs to end the tournament with 193 runs at 32.16.
Beginning the 1994–95 season with 150 for NSW in a tour match against England, Taylor followed up with 59 in an opening stand of 97 as Australia made 426 in the first innings to take the initiative in the First Test in Brisbane. Australia amassed a 259-run first innings lead, but Taylor, mindful of the Test match at Rawalpindi, became the first Australian captain since 1977–78 to not enforce the follow-on. Although heavily criticised as a conservative decision, Australia still won the match by 184 runs, with Taylor adding 58 in the second innings. Having scored the first win of his Test captaincy, Taylor led his team to a 295-run win in the Second Test.
Taylor played his best cricket of the summer in the Third Test at Sydney. Last man out for 49 in a total of 116 in the first innings, he defied a pitch that had begun to seam and swing after a shower and cloud cover as Australia narrowly avoided the follow on. In the second innings, he made a bold attempt at chasing a world record target of 449 by scoring 113, but Australia played for a draw after Slater and Taylor fell following a double-century stand. Australia collapsed to 7/292 before hanging on in near-darkness. In the final two Tests, he scored half-centuries as Australia won 3–1. Australia dramatically lost the Fourth Test when England led by only 154 on the final day with four wickets in hand. Aggressive lower order batting saw Australia set 263 in just over two sessions, but a heavy collapse saw Australia eight wickets down with more than 2 hours to play. Almost two hours of resistance later, England took a 106-run win late in the day. However, Australia bounced back to win the Fifth Test by 329 runs, the largest margin of the series. Taylor's partnership with Slater yielded three century opening stands at an average of 76.60 for the series and Taylor's individual return was 471 runs at 47.10.
The southern hemisphere summer ended with a quadrangular tournament in New Zealand, where Australia won two of their three group matches to proceed to the final. Taylor scored 44 in a six-wicket triumph over New Zealand and totalled 165 runs at 41.25. His best score was 97 against the hosts in the preliminary round meant that he was still yet to post his first ODI century, five years after his debut.
Caribbean tour 1995
This victory was followed by the 1995 tour of the West Indies, where Australia had not won a Test series for 22 years. Australia lost the ODI series which preceded the Tests 1–4, with Taylor making 152 runs at 30.40. The difficulty of Australia's task was increased when fast bowlers Craig McDermott and Damien Fleming went home injured at the start of the tour. Australia fielded a pace attack of Glenn McGrath, Brendon Julian and Paul Reiffel who had played only 23 Tests between them. Despite this, Australia won by ten wickets in the first Test at Barbados, with Taylor contributing a half-century. After the Second Test was a rained-out draw, the West Indies beat Australia inside three days on a "green" Trinidad pitch in the Third Test. Australia regained the Frank Worrell Trophy with an innings victory in the Fourth Test at Jamaica, with Taylor taking the winning catch from the bowling of Shane Warne. Although he only managed 153 runs (at 25.50 average) for the series, Taylor held nine catches and his leadership was cited as a key factor in the result.
Controversy with Sri Lanka
This was followed by two and three-Test series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka respectively in the 1995–96 Australian season. The Pakistan series began among a media circus when Salim Malik arrived with publicity focused on the bribery allegations which had surfaced a year earlier. Australia won the First Test in Brisbane by an innings in three and a half days, with Taylor contributing 69. In the Second Test at Bellerive Oval, Taylor scored 123 in the second innings to set up a winning total. In the Third Test in Sydney, he made 59 as Australia collapsed for 172 in the second innings and conceded the match. He ended the series with a healthy 338 runs at 67.60.
The subsequent Test and ODI series involving Sri Lanka were overshadowed by a series of spiteful clashes. The Tests were won 3–0 by the Australians with heavy margins of an innings, ten wickets and 148 runs respectively. Taylor's highlight being a 96 in the First Test at Perth as he compiled 159 runs at 39.75. He also made his 100th Test catch during the series. After accusations of ball tampering were levelled against the tourists in the First Test, leading spinner Muttiah Muralitharan was no-balled seven times in the Second Test, and during the ODI series, the Sri Lankans accused Taylor's men of cheating. The season hit a low point with the Sri Lankans which saw the teams refuse to shake hands at the end of the second final of the triangular series which Australia won 2–0. The match had included physical jostling between McGrath and Sanath Jayasuriya mid pitch, with the latter accusing McGrath of making racist attacks. Later in the match, stump microphones showed Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy alleging that portly Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga was feigning injury and calling for a runner because of his lack of physical fitness.
On the field, the ODI tournament saw Mark Waugh elevated to be Taylor's ODI opening partner after the axing of Slater midway through the season. In their first match together in Perth, the pair put on 190, with Taylor scoring 85. They put on another century stand in the second final, with Taylor scoring 82. Taylor scored heavily in the ODI tournament, with 423 runs at 42.30 with four half-centuries. Australia warmed up for the 1996 Cricket World Cup by winning five of their eight round-robin matches, and taking the finals 2–0, but many of the matches were closely contested. The finals were won by 18 and nine runs respectively, while three of the group matches were decided in the last over.
After the spiteful summer, a Tamil Tiger bombing in Colombo coupled with death threats to some members of the team forced Taylor to forfeit his team's scheduled World Cup match against Sri Lanka in Colombo. Taylor made six as Australia started their campaign with a 97-run win over Kenya. He then made 59 in a century stand with Waugh as Australia defeated co-hosts India in Mumbai. Taylor scored 34 in a nine-wicket win over Zimbabwe, before scoring nine in a defeat to the West Indies in the last group match. Australia finished second in their group and faced New Zealand in the quarter-finals. Taylor made only 10 as Australia chased 289 for victory, but made a surprise tactic by sending in Shane Warne as a pinch hitter. Warne made 24 from 15 balls in a partnership with Waugh, to allow Australia to take the momentum and take victory by six wickets. Taylor managed only one in the semi-final as Australia staggered to 8/207 against the West Indies. Australia appeared to be heading out of the tournament when the Caribbean team reached 2/165, but a sudden collapse saw Australia win by six runs in the last over.
Australia managed to reach the final, where they met Sri Lanka. Taylor scored 74, a record score by an Australian captain in the World Cup, but Sri Lanka comfortably triumphed on this occasion by seven wickets to claim the trophy.
Almost retired
After the World Cup, Bob Simpson was replaced as Australia's coach by Geoff Marsh, Taylor's former opening partner. Australia's first tournament after the World Cup was the Singer World Series in Sri Lanka. Taylor opted out of the tournament, and in his absence, Australia reached the final but lost by 50 runs to the hosts.
On a short tour to India, Taylor made his first ODI century at Bangalore, with 105 against India in his 98th match, having been out in the 90s on three previous occasions. Taylor performed strongly in the ODIs, with a total of 302 runs at 60.40. However, it was a disappointing tour for the team; the solitary Test in Delhi was lost, as were all five ODIs played during the Titan Cup.
In 1996–97, Australia confirmed its ascendancy over the West Indies with a 3–2 series win, but Taylor endured a poor season with the bat and failed to pass 50 in nine innings. His partnership with Slater was terminated when the latter was dropped, replaced by Matthew Elliott. Following an injury to Elliott, Matthew Hayden became Taylor's partner for three Tests.
Unable to recover form in the ODI series, Taylor's scratchy batting led to many poor starts for Australia. The team suffered five consecutive defeats, and missed the finals of the tournament for the first time in 17 years. Taylor managed only 143 runs at 17.88 with a highest score of 29.
The early 1997 tour to South Africa brought no upturn in Taylor's batting despite Australia's 2–1 victory in the series: he scored 80 runs at 16.00. His form was such that it influenced the selection of the team. For the Second Test at Port Elizabeth, played on a green pitch, Australia played Michael Bevan as a second spinner batting at number seven to reinforce the batting, instead of a third seamer to exploit the conditions. After scoring seven and 17 in the first two ODIs, Taylor dropped himself from the team for the remaining five matches.
The 1997 Ashes tour started poorly amid rumours that Taylor was on the verge of losing his place in the side. He batted ineffectively as Australia lost the one day series 0–3, scoring seven and 11, before dropping himself for the final match. In the First Test, Australia were dismissed for 118 in the first innings, with Taylor contributing seven: he had not managed to pass 50 in his last 21 Test innings. England amassed a big lead of 360 runs. With Australia facing a heavy defeat, media criticism of his position intensified. The Melbourne Age ran a competition for its readers to forecast how many runs he would make. Most respondents guessed less than 10 runs. The team's erstwhile coach, Bob Simpson, said that Taylor's retention in the team in spite of his poor form was fostering resentment among the players and destabilising the team.
Taylor started nervously in the second innings, but went on to score of 129, which saved his career, but not the match. His performance prompted personal congratulations from Prime Minister John Howard and the team's management allowed the media a rare opportunity to enter the dressing room and interview Taylor. During the period he refused offers by the manager to handle the media on his behalf. Australia went on to win the Third, Fourth and Fifth Tests and retain the Ashes 3–2. Although Taylor made single figures in the three Tests following his century, he contributed 76 and 45 in the series-clinching Test at Nottingham. Taylor ended the series with 317 runs at 31.7.
Dual teams
However, Taylor's ODI form was not to the satisfaction of the selectors. At the start of the 1997–98 season, a new selection policy was announced: the Test and ODI teams became separate entities, with specialists in each form of the game selected accordingly. Taylor was dropped from the ODI team, in favour of the aggressive Michael di Venuto. Tactically, ODI cricket was transformed by Sri Lanka's World Cup success, when it employed the highly aggressive opening pair of Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana.
At this time, Taylor was a central figure in a pay dispute between the players and the ACB, with a strike action threatened by the players. Taylor continued as Test captain and led the team to a 2–0 win over New Zealand. The first two matches were won by 186 runs and an innings, while the Third Test ended with Australia one wicket from victory after almost two days' play was washed out.
Taylor scored a century (112 on the first day of the First Test, and an unbeaten 66 in the Third Test, compiling 214 runs at 53.50 for the series. This was followed by three Tests against South Africa. After South Africa withheld the Australian bowling on the final day to secure a draw in the Boxing Day Test, Australia took a 1–0 lead in the New Year's Test at Sydney with an innings victory. Taylor carried his bat for 169 in the first innings of the Third Test at Adelaide which helped Australia to draw the match and clinch the series.
On the 1998 tour of India, Elliott was dropped and Taylor reunited with Slater as the opening pair. Australia started well by taking a 71-run first-innings lead in the First Test at Chennai, but Sachin Tendulkar's unbeaten 155 put Australia under pressure to save the match on the final day. They were unable to resist and lost by 179 runs. Australia was crushed by an innings and 219 runs in the Second Test at Calcutta, Australia first series loss in four years and the first time that Australia had lost by an innings for five years. Thus, a series victory in India, which Australia had not achieved since 1969–70, remained elusive. Australia won the Third Test in Bangalore by eight wickets, with Taylor scoring an unbeaten 102 in a second innings run chase.
Record equalled
Later in 1998, Taylor led his team to Pakistan, where a convincing win in the First Test at Rawalpindi by an innings and 99 runs was Australia's first Test victory in the country for 39 years. Taylor then attended a court hearing investigating the claims of match-fixing made during the 1994 tour. In the Second Test at Peshawar, Taylor played the longest innings of his career. He batted two days to amass 334 not out, equalling Sir Donald Bradman's Australian record set in 1930. In temperatures above 32 °C, Taylor survived two dropped catches before he had reached 25 and scored slowly on the first day. He shared a 206-run partnership with Justin Langer. The next day, he added 103 runs in a morning session extended from two to three hours. After the tea interval, he discarded his helmet in favour of a white sun hat, to deal with the extreme heat. He passed 311, eclipsing Bob Simpson's record score by an Australian captain. In the final over, Taylor equalled Bradman's Australian Test record when a shot to midwicket was barely stopped by Ijaz Ahmed, which reduced the scoring opportunity to a single run.
At the end of the day's play, Taylor was encouraged by the media, the public and his teammates to attempt to break Brian Lara's world record score of 375. An unusually large crowd turned out the following day in anticipation. However, Taylor declared the innings closed, opting to share the record with Bradman, and making the team's chances of winning the game paramount. He was widely praised for this decision. He made 92 in the second innings, giving him the second highest Test match aggregate after English batsmen Graham Gooch, who scored 333 and 123 for a total of 456 against India at Lord's on 26 July 1990. His fifteen hours batting in one Test was second only to Hanif Mohammad. The match ended in a draw, as did the Third Test, so Australia won the series and Taylor ended with 513 runs at 128.25 average.
Final season
Taylor's swansong was the 1998–99 Ashes series against England, which began with his 100th Test in the First Test in Brisbane. He scored 46 and a duck—his first in Australia—as England were saved when thunderstorms forced the abandonment of play on the final afternoon. Two half centuries in the next two Tests in Perth and Adelaide saw Australia win by seven wickets and 205 runs respectively, thereby retaining the series 2–0. After losing the Fourth Test by 12 runs after a dramatic final day collapse, Taylor headed to his home ground, the Sydney Cricket Ground, for what would be his final Test. Australia went on to win the Test by 98 runs and take the series 3–1. Taylor only scored two in both innings, but he broke Border's world record for the most Test catches. His catch in the first innings equalled Border's 156 and another in the second made him the sole owner of the record.
He also jointly holds the record in Test cricket (along with Ian Healy) of being the only cricketers to have been run out in both innings of a Test on two occasions.
Legacy
The improvement of the Australian team, begun during Border's tenure, continued under the captaincy of Taylor. After the defeat of the West Indies in 1995, Taylor's teams won home and away series against every Test team they played, with the exception of winning a series in India. Wisden wrote:
Taylor talked so well that he raised the standard of debate in Australia—and perhaps of cricket itself—in a way which was an example to all professional cricketers ... Border stopped Australia losing. Taylor made them into winners, the acknowledged if not official world champions of Test cricket.
Taylor made a concerted effort to decrease the amount of sledging committed by his team, a trait that brought criticism of Australian teams during other eras. In total, he captained the side in 50 Tests, winning 26 and losing 13, a success rate unmatched in the previous fifty years except for Don Bradman and Viv Richards.
Career best performances
Retirement
Taylor retired from professional cricket in early 1999 after the Ashes series. On Australia Day, he was named the Australian of the Year. He was awarded an Australian Sports Medal in 2000 and a Centenary Medal in 2001. He was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2002 and made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2003. In 2011, he was inducted into the Cricket Hall of Fame by the CA.
He is now a commentator for Channel Nine for 21 years. Despite the network losing the TV rights in April 2018, Taylor re-signed for another three years to give his expert analysis on the Ashes 2019, 2019 Cricket World Cup & 2020 World Twenty20 and as a digital contributor.
He mainly commentates on One Day International and Test matches in Australia until the network's final year of cricket telecasts, so he can now spend more time with his family. He used to also appear on The Cricket Show with Simon O'Donnell, and is a spokesman for Fujitsu air-conditioners. He also commentates for radio.
Taylor is patron of the Mark Taylor Shield Cricket competition run for NSW Catholic Primary schools in and around the Sydney region. On 6 November 2011, Waitara Oval, the home of the Northern District Cricket Club, had its name formally changed to Mark Taylor Oval, to honour its former First Grade captain and life member.
In October 2015, The Primary Club of Australia announced that Mark Taylor had accepted the role of Twelfth Man and Patron following the passing of their former Patron, Richie Benaud OBE. He also became Director of Cricket Australia, who commissioned a replacement cap for Benaud, only for his ill health and subsequent passing to have the cap presented to his wife.
References
Further reading
External links
1964 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Wagga Wagga
Australia Test cricketers
Australia One Day International cricketers
Australia Test cricket captains
New South Wales cricketers
Wisden Cricketers of the Year
Australian cricket commentators
People educated at Chatswood High School
Australian of the Year Award winners
Officers of the Order of Australia
Recipients of the Australian Sports Medal
Recipients of the Centenary Medal
Sport Australia Hall of Fame inductees
University of New South Wales alumni
Australian Cricket Hall of Fame inductees
People from the Riverina
Chatswood, New South Wales
Australian republicans | true | [
"California Concordia College existed in Oakland, California, United States from 1906 until 1973.\n\nAmong the presidents of California Concordia College was Johann Theodore Gotthold Brohm Jr.\n\nCalifornia Concordia College and the Academy of California College were located at 2365 Camden Street, Oakland, California. Some of the school buildings still exist at this location, but older buildings that housed the earlier classrooms and later the dormitories are gone. The site is now the location of the Spectrum Center Camden Campus, a provider of special education services.\n\nThe \"Academy\" was the official name for the high school. California Concordia was a six-year institution patterned after the German gymnasium. This provided four years of high school, plus two years of junior college. Years in the school took their names from Latin numbers and referred to the years to go before graduation. The classes were named:\n\n Sexta - 6 years to go; high school freshman\n Qunita - 5 years to go; high school sophomore\n Quarta - 4 years to go; high school junior\n Tertia - 3 years to go; high school senior\n Secunda - 2 years to go; college freshman\n Prima - 1 year to go; college sophomore\n\nThose in Sexta were usually hazed in a mild way by upperclassmen. In addition, those in Sexta were required to do a certain amount of clean-up work around the school, such as picking up trash.\n\nMost students, even high school freshmen, lived in dormitories. High school students were supervised by \"proctors\" (selected high school seniors in Tertia). High school students were required to study for two hours each night in their study rooms from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. Students could not leave their rooms for any reason without permission. This requirement came as quite a shock to those in Sexta (freshmen) on their first night, when they were caught and scolded by a proctor when they left their study room to go to the bathroom without permission. Seniors (those in Tertia) were allowed one night off where they did not need to be in their study hall.\n\nFrom 9:00 to 9:30 pm all students gathered for a chapel service. From 9:30 to 10 pm, high school students were free to roam, and sometimes went to the local Lucky Supermarket to purchase snacks. All high school students were required to be in bed with lights out by 10:00 pm. There were generally five students in each dormitory room. The room had two sections: a bedroom area and (across the hallway) another room for studying. Four beds, including at least one bunk bed, were in the bedroom, and four or five desks were in the study room\n\nA few interesting words used by Concordia students were \"fink\" and \"rack.\" To \"fink\" meant to \"sing like a canary\" or \"squeal.\" A student who finked told everything he knew about a misbehavior committed by another student. \"Rack\" was actually an official term used by proctors and administrators who lived on campus in the dormitories with students. When students misbehaved they were racked (punished). Proctors held a meeting once a week and decided which students, if any, deserved to be racked. If a student were racked, he might be forbidden from leaving the campus grounds, even during normal free time School hours were from 7:30 am to 3:30 pm. After 3:30 pm and until 7:00 pm, students could normally explore the local area surrounding the school, for example, to go to a local store to buy a snack. However, if a student were racked for the week, he could not do so.\n\nProctors made their rounds in the morning to make sure beds were made and inspected rooms in the evening to ensure that students were in bed by 10:00 pm. Often after the proctors left a room at night, the room lights would go back on and students enjoyed studying their National Geographic magazines. Student might be racked if they failed to make their beds or did not make them neatly enough.\n\nAlthough California Concordia College no longer exists, it does receive some recognition by Concordia University Irvine. This is also the location of its old academic records.\n\nSources\n\nExternal links \n Photos of old campus\n\nEducational institutions disestablished in 1973\nDefunct private universities and colleges in California\nEducational institutions established in 1906\n1906 establishments in California\n1973 disestablishments in California\nUniversities and colleges affiliated with the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod",
"Kyree Walker (born November 20, 2000) is an American professional basketball player for the Capital City Go-Go of the NBA G League. At the high school level, he played for Moreau Catholic High School in Hayward, California before transferring to Hillcrest Prep Academy. A former MaxPreps National Freshman of the Year, Walker was a five-star recruit.\n\nEarly life and high school career\nIn eighth grade, Walker drew national attention for his slam dunks in highlight videos. He often faced older competition, including high school seniors, in middle school with his Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) team Oakland Soldiers. As a high school freshman, Walker played basketball for Moreau Catholic High School in Hayward, California, averaging 21.3 points, 6.5 rebounds and four assists per game. After leading his team to a California Interscholastic Federation Division II runner-up finish, he was named MaxPreps National Freshman of the Year. Entering his sophomore season, Walker transferred to Hillcrest Prep, a basketball program in Phoenix, Arizona, with his father, Khari, joining the coaching staff. On October 25, 2019, during his senior year, he left Hillcrest Prep, intending to move to the college or professional level. In December 2019, Walker graduated from high school but did not play high school basketball while weighing his options.\n\nRecruiting\nOn June 30, 2017, Walker committed to play college basketball for Arizona State over several other NCAA Division I offers. At the time, he was considered a five-star recruit and a top five player in the 2020 class by major recruiting services. On October 21, 2018, Walker decommitted from Arizona State. On April 20, 2020, as a four-star recruit, he announced that he would forego college basketball.\n\nProfessional career\n\nCapital City Go-Go (2021–present)\nWalker joined Chameleon BX to prepare for the 2021 NBA draft. For the 2021-22 season, he signed with the Capital City Go-Go of the NBA G League, joining the team after a successful tryout.\n\nPersonal life\nIn 2018, Walker's mother, Barrissa Gardner, was diagnosed with breast cancer but achieved remission in the following months.\n\nReferences\n\n2000 births\nLiving people\n21st-century African-American sportspeople\nAfrican-American basketball players\nAmerican men's basketball players\nBasketball players from Oakland, California\nCapital City Go-Go players\nSmall forwards\nTwitch (service) streamers"
] |
[
"Mark Taylor (cricketer)",
"Early years",
"Where was he born?",
"Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga,",
"What did he do growing up?",
"Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga.",
"did he win any awards?",
"I don't know.",
"did he win any championships for his school?",
"Along with the Waugh twins, Steve and Mark, Taylor played in under-19 youth internationals for Australia against Sri Lanka in 1982-83.",
"What jobs did he work?",
"He originally trained as a surveyor, and received a degree in surveying",
"Did he go to college?",
"University of New South Wales in 1987."
] | C_ae269bdc0d524b599736eb69a322d5b1_1 | Did he graduate? | 8 | Did Mark Taylor graduate? | Mark Taylor (cricketer) | The second of three children born to bank manager Tony Taylor, and his wife Judy, Mark Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga, where his family relocated when he was eight. His father had a sporting background, playing first grade rugby in Newcastle. The young Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him. Taylor idolised Arthur Morris, the left-handed opening batsmen from New South Wales who led the aggregates on the 1948 "Invincibles" tour of England. Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga. His family then moved to the north shore of Sydney, where he joined Northern District in Sydney Grade Cricket. Completing his secondary education at Chatswood High School, he later obtained a degree in surveying at the University of New South Wales. Along with the Waugh twins, Steve and Mark, Taylor played in under-19 youth internationals for Australia against Sri Lanka in 1982-83. Taylor made his Sheffield Shield debut in 1985-86 when NSW was depleted by the defection of regular openers Steve Smith and John Dyson to a rebel tour of South Africa. Opening with fellow debutant Mark Waugh, he scored 12 and 56 not out against Tasmania. His first season was highlighted by home and away centuries against South Australia in a total of 937 runs at 49.31 average. He had a lean season in 1987-88, after which he spent the English summer with Greenmount, helping them to win their first Bolton League title by scoring more than 1,300 runs at an average of 70. He originally trained as a surveyor, and received a degree in surveying from the University of New South Wales in 1987. CANNOTANSWER | received a degree in surveying | Mark Anthony Taylor (born 27 October 1964) is a former Australian cricketer and currently a Cricket Australia director and Nine Network commentator.
He was Test opening batsman from 1988 to 1999, as well as captain from 1994 to 1999, succeeding Allan Border. His predominant fielding position was first slip. He was widely regarded as an instrumental component in Australia's rise to Test cricket dominance, and his captaincy was regarded as adventurous and highly effective. However, he was considered less than ideal for One-Day International cricket and was eventually dropped as one-day captain after a 0–3 drubbing at the hands of England in 1997.
He moved to Wagga Wagga in 1972 and played for Lake Albert Cricket Club. His debut was for New South Wales in 1985.
He retired from Test cricket on 2 February 1999. In 104 Test matches, he scored 7,525 runs with a batting average of 43.49, including 19 centuries and 40 fifties. He was also an excellent first slip – his 157 catches, at the time, a Test record (now held by Rahul Dravid). In contrast to his predecessor Allan Border, who acquired the nickname 'Captain Grumpy', Taylor won plaudits for his always cheerful and positive demeanour. His successor, Steve Waugh, further honed the Australian team built by Border and Taylor and went on to set numerous records for victories as captain. Having been named Australian of the Year in 1999, he is now a cricket commentator for the Nine Network, and former Director of Cricket Australia.
Early years
The second of three children born to bank manager Tony Taylor, and his wife Judy, Mark Taylor's early years were spent at Wagga Wagga, where his family relocated when he was eight. His father had a sporting background, playing first grade rugby in Newcastle. The young Taylor preferred Australian rules football and cricket. He learned to bat in the family garage, with his father throwing cork balls to him. Taylor idolised Arthur Morris, the left-handed opening batsmen from New South Wales who led the aggregates on the 1948 "Invincibles" tour of England.
Taylor played for his primary school as an opening batsman, and made his first century at the age of thirteen for the Lake Albert club at Bolton Park in Wagga. His family then moved to the north shore of Sydney, where he joined Northern District in Sydney Grade Cricket. Completing his secondary education at Chatswood High School, he later obtained a degree in surveying at the University of New South Wales in 1987. Along with the Waugh twins, Steve and Mark, Taylor played in under-19 youth internationals for Australia against Sri Lanka in 1982–83.
Taylor made his Sheffield Shield debut in 1985–86 when NSW was depleted by the defection of regular openers Steve Smith and John Dyson to a rebel tour of South Africa. Opening with fellow debutant Mark Waugh, he scored 12 and 56 not out against Tasmania. His first season was highlighted by home and away centuries against South Australia in a total of 937 runs at 49.31 average. He had a lean season in 1987–88, after which he spent the English summer with Greenmount, helping them to win their first Bolton League title by scoring more than 1,300 runs at an average of 70.
International career
Test career
Solid form for NSW in 1988–89 resulted in Taylor's selection for his Test debut in the Fourth Test against the West Indies at the SCG, replacing middle-order batsman Graeme Wood. For three years, the opening combination of Geoff Marsh and David Boon had been successful for Australia. However, team coach Bob Simpson wanted a left and right-handed opening combination, and stability added to the middle order. Therefore, the left-handed Taylor partnered the right-handed Marsh, while Boon batted at number three. Taylor's safe catching at slip was also a factor in his selection. He made 25 and 3 in a winning team, then was run out twice in the Fifth Test. A first-class aggregate of 1,241 runs (at 49.64 average) for the season earned him a place on the 1989 Ashes tour.
Record-breaking start
Beginning with a century at Headingley in his First Test against England, Taylor amassed 839 runs at 83.90 in the six Tests: the second best aggregate in an Ashes series in England, behind Don Bradman's 974 runs in 1930. He occupied the crease for a total of 38 hours, more than six full days of play. The highlight of his tour was the Fifth Test at Trent Bridge when he and Geoff Marsh became the first pair to bat throughout a day's play of Test cricket in England, amassing 301 runs. Taylor made 219 in a partnership of 329, an Ashes record. He finished with 71 and 48 in the Sixth Test to overtake Neil Harvey for the third-highest series aggregate in Test history and totalled 1,669 first-class runs for the tour. Australia won the series 4–0 to regain the Ashes. However, Taylor was overlooked for selection in the ODIs.
Returning to Australia, Taylor made 1,403 first-class runs at 70.15 during the 1989–90 season, and ended 1989 with 1,219 Test runs, thus becoming the first player to better one thousand Test runs in his debut calendar year, something only matched twice since by England opener Alastair Cook and Australian Adam Voges. In Taylor's first nine Tests, Australia passed 400 in the first innings. He scored centuries in successive Tests against Sri Lanka, and against Pakistan his scores were 52 and 101 at the MCG, 77 and 59 at the Adelaide Oval and an unbeaten 101 at Sydney. Australia won both series 1–0. In just over twelve months, he had amassed 1,618 runs at 70.35. This outstanding start to his career earned Taylor nomination as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1990. At the season's end, he demonstrated his leadership abilities for the first time. Standing in as NSW captain in place of the injured Geoff Lawson for the 1989–90 Sheffield Shield final in Sydney, Taylor scored 127 and 100. NSW won by 345 runs to secure its 40th title.
A year after his Test debut, Taylor was selected to make his ODI debut, which came on Boxing Day of 1989 against Sri Lanka. He made 11 as Australia won by 30 runs. He was selected for nine of Australia's ten ODIs for the season's triangular tournament, scoring 294 runs at 32.66 with two half-centuries. His highest score of 76 came as Australia defeated Pakistan by 69 runs to clinch the finals series in Sydney. The season ended with ODI tournaments in New Zealand and Sharjah. He played six of the eight matches, scoring 222 runs at 37.00 with two half-centuries, but was dropped for the final in New Zealand.
Inconsistent form
Taylor experienced a slump during the 1990–91 Ashes series. After making two-half centuries in the first two Tests, he failed to pass 20 in the last three and finished with 213 runs at 23.66 in a team that won 3–0. He found himself on the outer for the ODI triangular tournament, missing all eight of the preliminary matches before returning to score 41 and 71 as Australia won the finals 2–0.
His moderate form continued during the 1991 tour of the West Indies, where he was selected in only two of the five ODIs, scoring three and five. He ended the run with a rear-guard innings of 76 in the second innings of the Fourth Test at Barbados. Despite his effort, Australia lost and the West Indies took an unassailable lead of 2–0. In the Fifth Test St. Johns, Antigua, Australia gained a consolation victory due mainly to Taylor's scores of 59 and 144 (out of a total of 265). This late rush of form boosted his average for the series to 49. In late 1991, before the Australian season started, Taylor was appointed to lead an Australia A side to tour Zimbabwe. The team was composed of younger Test players and other young players who were seeking to break into international cricket. The selectors were attempting to groom Taylor as a potential replacement for Border.
During the 1991–92 Australian season, Taylor batted consistently in a 4–0 series victory over India. He scored 94 and 35* in a ten-wicket win at Brisbane. He scored half-centuries in each of the next two Tests before striking 100 in the second innings of the Fourth Test at Adelaide. It helped Australia to wipe out a first innings deficit of 80 and set up a winning target. His opening partner Marsh was dropped for the Fifth Test, so the selectors elevated Taylor to the vice-captaincy of the team. Over the next twelve months, a number of players were tried as Taylor's opening partner. Taylor struggled in his first match with new partner Wayne N. Phillips, scoring two and 16. Nevertheless, he had scored 422 runs at 46.89. Taylor continued to be overlooked by the selectors in the shorter version of the game, missing selection for all of the season's triangular tournament. He was selected for the squad for the 1992 Cricket World Cup held on home soil, and after Australia lost its first two matches, Taylor was recalled for his first ODI in 12 months. He made 13 as Australia beat India by one run, but scored his first ODI duck in the next match as England won by eight wickets. He was dropped for the remainder of the tournament.
On the 1992 tour of Sri Lanka, Taylor struggled in scoring 148 runs at 24.67. After scoring 42 and 43 in Australia's win in the First Test, Taylor failed to again pass 30. With new opening partner Tom Moody also struggling with 71 runs at 11.83, Australia frequently struggled at the top of their innings. He played in all three ODIs, scoring 138 runs at 46.00. His 94 in the first match was his highest score in ODIs to that point.
Against the West Indies in 1992–93, Taylor was now opening alongside David Boon with Moody having been dropped. Taylor was ineffective and failed to pass fifty in the first four Tests. After Australia failed by one run to win the Fourth Test and thus the series, Taylor was dropped for the deciding Test at Perth, having failed to make double figures in either innings. In his absence, Australia lost by an innings in three days and conceded the series 1–2. He had scored 170 runs at 24.29 for the series. However, he played all of Australia's ten ODIs, scoring 286 runs at 28.60 with two half-centuries.
Taylor and Slater
As a result of the innings defeat in Perth, Taylor was immediately recalled for the tour of New Zealand, where he scored 82 in the First Test at Christchurch to help Australia to an innings victory. He then scored 50 in the drawn Second Test and bowled for the first time at Test level, taking 0/15. He failed to pass 20 in the Third Test and ended the series with 148 runs at 37.00 as the home side squared the series. Australia then played five ODIs in New Zealand before starting the England tour with three more. Taylor played in all eight, scoring 307 runs at 38.38 with four half-centuries.
The problem of finding him a long-term partner was solved on the tour of England that followed. NSW batsman Michael Slater, who also grew up in Wagga Wagga, made his debut in the First Test of the 1993 Ashes series. In the First Test at Old Trafford, Taylor made 124 after an opening partnership of 128, as Australia managed only 289 after being sent in. Australia managed to scrape out a lead of 79, before going on to a 179-run win.
This was followed by a stand of 260 at Lord's in the Second Test, with Taylor making 111. In the process, he passed 1000 Test runs against England and the partnership broke the Ashes partnership record at Lord's, which had been set by Bill Woodfull and Don Bradman in 1930. The partnership laid the platform for Australia's total of 4/632, as the tourists proceeded to an innings victory.
His scoring was more sedate in the remaining Tests as Australia won 4–1, and he finished with 428 runs at 42.80. He passed 30 only once more, with 70 in the first innings of the Sixth Test at The Oval.
Against New Zealand in 1993–94, Taylor made 64 and 142 not out in the First Test at Perth, which ended in a draw. He then scored 27 and 53 as Australia won the next two Tests by an innings, totalling 286 runs at 95.33 in three Tests as Australia won 2–0. In the rain-affected Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Taylor played his 50th Test and celebrated with 170 against South Africa, the first Test between the two countries since 1970. This made him the first batsman to score centuries on Test debut against four countries. In addition, he passed 4,000 Test runs during the innings. Taylor had scored more than 1,000 Test runs for the calendar year, ending with 1106 runs Taylor scored 62 in the Third Test, his only other half-century for the series, which he ended with 304 runs at 60.80.
On the reciprocal tour of South Africa at the end of the season, Taylor missed a Test because of injury for the only time in his career. Matthew Hayden filled in for the First Test in Johannesburg, which Australia lost. On his return for the Second Test at Cape Town, he scored 70 and ended the series with 97 runs at 24.25. Both series were drawn 1–1.
Captaincy
After the retirement of Allan Border, Taylor was appointed captain.
Frequently omitted from the ODI team due to slow scoring, Taylor missed the finals of the ODI series in Australia against South Africa. On the tour of South Africa, he missed three consecutive ODIs when tour selectors and fellow players Ian Healy and Steve Waugh voted him off the team. In all, Taylor had only played in 11 of Australia's 19 ODIs for the season, scoring 281 runs at 25.55. Taylor requested an extended trial as opener for the ODI side to help consolidate his captaincy of both teams.
Taylor started his ODI captaincy with two tournaments in Sharjah and Sri Lanka. Australia missed the finals in both tournaments, winning three of their six matches. After scoring 68* to guide his team to a nine-wicket win in the first match against Sri Lanka in Sharjah, Taylor's form tapered off, scoring only 64 more runs to end the two tournaments with a total of 132 runs at 33.00.
His first task was a tour of Pakistan in 1994, where Australia had not won a Test since the 1959 tour. To make matters worse, Australia's first-choice pace pairing of Craig McDermott and Merv Hughes missed the tour due to injury. The First Test at Karachi was a personal disaster for Taylor as he scored a pair, the first player in Test history to do so on his captaincy debut. Paceman Glenn McGrath then broke down in the middle of the match. Australia was in the box seat with Pakistan needing 56 runs with one wicket in hand, but lost by one wicket after Ian Healy missed a stumping opportunity and the ball went for the winning runs. Recovering to score 69 in the Second Test at Rawalpindi, Taylor forced Pakistan to follow on after taking a 261-run lead. However, he dropped Pakistan captain Salim Malik when he was on 20. Malik went on to make 237 as Pakistan made 537 and saved the Test. Australia again took a first innings lead in the Third Test, but could not force a result, as Malik scored another second innings century to ensure safety and a 1–0 series win. Taylor ended the series with 106 runs at 26.50. Australia fared better in the ODI triangular tournament, winning five of their six matches. Taylor scored 56 in the final as Australia beat Pakistan by 64 runs to end the tournament with 193 runs at 32.16.
Beginning the 1994–95 season with 150 for NSW in a tour match against England, Taylor followed up with 59 in an opening stand of 97 as Australia made 426 in the first innings to take the initiative in the First Test in Brisbane. Australia amassed a 259-run first innings lead, but Taylor, mindful of the Test match at Rawalpindi, became the first Australian captain since 1977–78 to not enforce the follow-on. Although heavily criticised as a conservative decision, Australia still won the match by 184 runs, with Taylor adding 58 in the second innings. Having scored the first win of his Test captaincy, Taylor led his team to a 295-run win in the Second Test.
Taylor played his best cricket of the summer in the Third Test at Sydney. Last man out for 49 in a total of 116 in the first innings, he defied a pitch that had begun to seam and swing after a shower and cloud cover as Australia narrowly avoided the follow on. In the second innings, he made a bold attempt at chasing a world record target of 449 by scoring 113, but Australia played for a draw after Slater and Taylor fell following a double-century stand. Australia collapsed to 7/292 before hanging on in near-darkness. In the final two Tests, he scored half-centuries as Australia won 3–1. Australia dramatically lost the Fourth Test when England led by only 154 on the final day with four wickets in hand. Aggressive lower order batting saw Australia set 263 in just over two sessions, but a heavy collapse saw Australia eight wickets down with more than 2 hours to play. Almost two hours of resistance later, England took a 106-run win late in the day. However, Australia bounced back to win the Fifth Test by 329 runs, the largest margin of the series. Taylor's partnership with Slater yielded three century opening stands at an average of 76.60 for the series and Taylor's individual return was 471 runs at 47.10.
The southern hemisphere summer ended with a quadrangular tournament in New Zealand, where Australia won two of their three group matches to proceed to the final. Taylor scored 44 in a six-wicket triumph over New Zealand and totalled 165 runs at 41.25. His best score was 97 against the hosts in the preliminary round meant that he was still yet to post his first ODI century, five years after his debut.
Caribbean tour 1995
This victory was followed by the 1995 tour of the West Indies, where Australia had not won a Test series for 22 years. Australia lost the ODI series which preceded the Tests 1–4, with Taylor making 152 runs at 30.40. The difficulty of Australia's task was increased when fast bowlers Craig McDermott and Damien Fleming went home injured at the start of the tour. Australia fielded a pace attack of Glenn McGrath, Brendon Julian and Paul Reiffel who had played only 23 Tests between them. Despite this, Australia won by ten wickets in the first Test at Barbados, with Taylor contributing a half-century. After the Second Test was a rained-out draw, the West Indies beat Australia inside three days on a "green" Trinidad pitch in the Third Test. Australia regained the Frank Worrell Trophy with an innings victory in the Fourth Test at Jamaica, with Taylor taking the winning catch from the bowling of Shane Warne. Although he only managed 153 runs (at 25.50 average) for the series, Taylor held nine catches and his leadership was cited as a key factor in the result.
Controversy with Sri Lanka
This was followed by two and three-Test series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka respectively in the 1995–96 Australian season. The Pakistan series began among a media circus when Salim Malik arrived with publicity focused on the bribery allegations which had surfaced a year earlier. Australia won the First Test in Brisbane by an innings in three and a half days, with Taylor contributing 69. In the Second Test at Bellerive Oval, Taylor scored 123 in the second innings to set up a winning total. In the Third Test in Sydney, he made 59 as Australia collapsed for 172 in the second innings and conceded the match. He ended the series with a healthy 338 runs at 67.60.
The subsequent Test and ODI series involving Sri Lanka were overshadowed by a series of spiteful clashes. The Tests were won 3–0 by the Australians with heavy margins of an innings, ten wickets and 148 runs respectively. Taylor's highlight being a 96 in the First Test at Perth as he compiled 159 runs at 39.75. He also made his 100th Test catch during the series. After accusations of ball tampering were levelled against the tourists in the First Test, leading spinner Muttiah Muralitharan was no-balled seven times in the Second Test, and during the ODI series, the Sri Lankans accused Taylor's men of cheating. The season hit a low point with the Sri Lankans which saw the teams refuse to shake hands at the end of the second final of the triangular series which Australia won 2–0. The match had included physical jostling between McGrath and Sanath Jayasuriya mid pitch, with the latter accusing McGrath of making racist attacks. Later in the match, stump microphones showed Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy alleging that portly Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga was feigning injury and calling for a runner because of his lack of physical fitness.
On the field, the ODI tournament saw Mark Waugh elevated to be Taylor's ODI opening partner after the axing of Slater midway through the season. In their first match together in Perth, the pair put on 190, with Taylor scoring 85. They put on another century stand in the second final, with Taylor scoring 82. Taylor scored heavily in the ODI tournament, with 423 runs at 42.30 with four half-centuries. Australia warmed up for the 1996 Cricket World Cup by winning five of their eight round-robin matches, and taking the finals 2–0, but many of the matches were closely contested. The finals were won by 18 and nine runs respectively, while three of the group matches were decided in the last over.
After the spiteful summer, a Tamil Tiger bombing in Colombo coupled with death threats to some members of the team forced Taylor to forfeit his team's scheduled World Cup match against Sri Lanka in Colombo. Taylor made six as Australia started their campaign with a 97-run win over Kenya. He then made 59 in a century stand with Waugh as Australia defeated co-hosts India in Mumbai. Taylor scored 34 in a nine-wicket win over Zimbabwe, before scoring nine in a defeat to the West Indies in the last group match. Australia finished second in their group and faced New Zealand in the quarter-finals. Taylor made only 10 as Australia chased 289 for victory, but made a surprise tactic by sending in Shane Warne as a pinch hitter. Warne made 24 from 15 balls in a partnership with Waugh, to allow Australia to take the momentum and take victory by six wickets. Taylor managed only one in the semi-final as Australia staggered to 8/207 against the West Indies. Australia appeared to be heading out of the tournament when the Caribbean team reached 2/165, but a sudden collapse saw Australia win by six runs in the last over.
Australia managed to reach the final, where they met Sri Lanka. Taylor scored 74, a record score by an Australian captain in the World Cup, but Sri Lanka comfortably triumphed on this occasion by seven wickets to claim the trophy.
Almost retired
After the World Cup, Bob Simpson was replaced as Australia's coach by Geoff Marsh, Taylor's former opening partner. Australia's first tournament after the World Cup was the Singer World Series in Sri Lanka. Taylor opted out of the tournament, and in his absence, Australia reached the final but lost by 50 runs to the hosts.
On a short tour to India, Taylor made his first ODI century at Bangalore, with 105 against India in his 98th match, having been out in the 90s on three previous occasions. Taylor performed strongly in the ODIs, with a total of 302 runs at 60.40. However, it was a disappointing tour for the team; the solitary Test in Delhi was lost, as were all five ODIs played during the Titan Cup.
In 1996–97, Australia confirmed its ascendancy over the West Indies with a 3–2 series win, but Taylor endured a poor season with the bat and failed to pass 50 in nine innings. His partnership with Slater was terminated when the latter was dropped, replaced by Matthew Elliott. Following an injury to Elliott, Matthew Hayden became Taylor's partner for three Tests.
Unable to recover form in the ODI series, Taylor's scratchy batting led to many poor starts for Australia. The team suffered five consecutive defeats, and missed the finals of the tournament for the first time in 17 years. Taylor managed only 143 runs at 17.88 with a highest score of 29.
The early 1997 tour to South Africa brought no upturn in Taylor's batting despite Australia's 2–1 victory in the series: he scored 80 runs at 16.00. His form was such that it influenced the selection of the team. For the Second Test at Port Elizabeth, played on a green pitch, Australia played Michael Bevan as a second spinner batting at number seven to reinforce the batting, instead of a third seamer to exploit the conditions. After scoring seven and 17 in the first two ODIs, Taylor dropped himself from the team for the remaining five matches.
The 1997 Ashes tour started poorly amid rumours that Taylor was on the verge of losing his place in the side. He batted ineffectively as Australia lost the one day series 0–3, scoring seven and 11, before dropping himself for the final match. In the First Test, Australia were dismissed for 118 in the first innings, with Taylor contributing seven: he had not managed to pass 50 in his last 21 Test innings. England amassed a big lead of 360 runs. With Australia facing a heavy defeat, media criticism of his position intensified. The Melbourne Age ran a competition for its readers to forecast how many runs he would make. Most respondents guessed less than 10 runs. The team's erstwhile coach, Bob Simpson, said that Taylor's retention in the team in spite of his poor form was fostering resentment among the players and destabilising the team.
Taylor started nervously in the second innings, but went on to score of 129, which saved his career, but not the match. His performance prompted personal congratulations from Prime Minister John Howard and the team's management allowed the media a rare opportunity to enter the dressing room and interview Taylor. During the period he refused offers by the manager to handle the media on his behalf. Australia went on to win the Third, Fourth and Fifth Tests and retain the Ashes 3–2. Although Taylor made single figures in the three Tests following his century, he contributed 76 and 45 in the series-clinching Test at Nottingham. Taylor ended the series with 317 runs at 31.7.
Dual teams
However, Taylor's ODI form was not to the satisfaction of the selectors. At the start of the 1997–98 season, a new selection policy was announced: the Test and ODI teams became separate entities, with specialists in each form of the game selected accordingly. Taylor was dropped from the ODI team, in favour of the aggressive Michael di Venuto. Tactically, ODI cricket was transformed by Sri Lanka's World Cup success, when it employed the highly aggressive opening pair of Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana.
At this time, Taylor was a central figure in a pay dispute between the players and the ACB, with a strike action threatened by the players. Taylor continued as Test captain and led the team to a 2–0 win over New Zealand. The first two matches were won by 186 runs and an innings, while the Third Test ended with Australia one wicket from victory after almost two days' play was washed out.
Taylor scored a century (112 on the first day of the First Test, and an unbeaten 66 in the Third Test, compiling 214 runs at 53.50 for the series. This was followed by three Tests against South Africa. After South Africa withheld the Australian bowling on the final day to secure a draw in the Boxing Day Test, Australia took a 1–0 lead in the New Year's Test at Sydney with an innings victory. Taylor carried his bat for 169 in the first innings of the Third Test at Adelaide which helped Australia to draw the match and clinch the series.
On the 1998 tour of India, Elliott was dropped and Taylor reunited with Slater as the opening pair. Australia started well by taking a 71-run first-innings lead in the First Test at Chennai, but Sachin Tendulkar's unbeaten 155 put Australia under pressure to save the match on the final day. They were unable to resist and lost by 179 runs. Australia was crushed by an innings and 219 runs in the Second Test at Calcutta, Australia first series loss in four years and the first time that Australia had lost by an innings for five years. Thus, a series victory in India, which Australia had not achieved since 1969–70, remained elusive. Australia won the Third Test in Bangalore by eight wickets, with Taylor scoring an unbeaten 102 in a second innings run chase.
Record equalled
Later in 1998, Taylor led his team to Pakistan, where a convincing win in the First Test at Rawalpindi by an innings and 99 runs was Australia's first Test victory in the country for 39 years. Taylor then attended a court hearing investigating the claims of match-fixing made during the 1994 tour. In the Second Test at Peshawar, Taylor played the longest innings of his career. He batted two days to amass 334 not out, equalling Sir Donald Bradman's Australian record set in 1930. In temperatures above 32 °C, Taylor survived two dropped catches before he had reached 25 and scored slowly on the first day. He shared a 206-run partnership with Justin Langer. The next day, he added 103 runs in a morning session extended from two to three hours. After the tea interval, he discarded his helmet in favour of a white sun hat, to deal with the extreme heat. He passed 311, eclipsing Bob Simpson's record score by an Australian captain. In the final over, Taylor equalled Bradman's Australian Test record when a shot to midwicket was barely stopped by Ijaz Ahmed, which reduced the scoring opportunity to a single run.
At the end of the day's play, Taylor was encouraged by the media, the public and his teammates to attempt to break Brian Lara's world record score of 375. An unusually large crowd turned out the following day in anticipation. However, Taylor declared the innings closed, opting to share the record with Bradman, and making the team's chances of winning the game paramount. He was widely praised for this decision. He made 92 in the second innings, giving him the second highest Test match aggregate after English batsmen Graham Gooch, who scored 333 and 123 for a total of 456 against India at Lord's on 26 July 1990. His fifteen hours batting in one Test was second only to Hanif Mohammad. The match ended in a draw, as did the Third Test, so Australia won the series and Taylor ended with 513 runs at 128.25 average.
Final season
Taylor's swansong was the 1998–99 Ashes series against England, which began with his 100th Test in the First Test in Brisbane. He scored 46 and a duck—his first in Australia—as England were saved when thunderstorms forced the abandonment of play on the final afternoon. Two half centuries in the next two Tests in Perth and Adelaide saw Australia win by seven wickets and 205 runs respectively, thereby retaining the series 2–0. After losing the Fourth Test by 12 runs after a dramatic final day collapse, Taylor headed to his home ground, the Sydney Cricket Ground, for what would be his final Test. Australia went on to win the Test by 98 runs and take the series 3–1. Taylor only scored two in both innings, but he broke Border's world record for the most Test catches. His catch in the first innings equalled Border's 156 and another in the second made him the sole owner of the record.
He also jointly holds the record in Test cricket (along with Ian Healy) of being the only cricketers to have been run out in both innings of a Test on two occasions.
Legacy
The improvement of the Australian team, begun during Border's tenure, continued under the captaincy of Taylor. After the defeat of the West Indies in 1995, Taylor's teams won home and away series against every Test team they played, with the exception of winning a series in India. Wisden wrote:
Taylor talked so well that he raised the standard of debate in Australia—and perhaps of cricket itself—in a way which was an example to all professional cricketers ... Border stopped Australia losing. Taylor made them into winners, the acknowledged if not official world champions of Test cricket.
Taylor made a concerted effort to decrease the amount of sledging committed by his team, a trait that brought criticism of Australian teams during other eras. In total, he captained the side in 50 Tests, winning 26 and losing 13, a success rate unmatched in the previous fifty years except for Don Bradman and Viv Richards.
Career best performances
Retirement
Taylor retired from professional cricket in early 1999 after the Ashes series. On Australia Day, he was named the Australian of the Year. He was awarded an Australian Sports Medal in 2000 and a Centenary Medal in 2001. He was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2002 and made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2003. In 2011, he was inducted into the Cricket Hall of Fame by the CA.
He is now a commentator for Channel Nine for 21 years. Despite the network losing the TV rights in April 2018, Taylor re-signed for another three years to give his expert analysis on the Ashes 2019, 2019 Cricket World Cup & 2020 World Twenty20 and as a digital contributor.
He mainly commentates on One Day International and Test matches in Australia until the network's final year of cricket telecasts, so he can now spend more time with his family. He used to also appear on The Cricket Show with Simon O'Donnell, and is a spokesman for Fujitsu air-conditioners. He also commentates for radio.
Taylor is patron of the Mark Taylor Shield Cricket competition run for NSW Catholic Primary schools in and around the Sydney region. On 6 November 2011, Waitara Oval, the home of the Northern District Cricket Club, had its name formally changed to Mark Taylor Oval, to honour its former First Grade captain and life member.
In October 2015, The Primary Club of Australia announced that Mark Taylor had accepted the role of Twelfth Man and Patron following the passing of their former Patron, Richie Benaud OBE. He also became Director of Cricket Australia, who commissioned a replacement cap for Benaud, only for his ill health and subsequent passing to have the cap presented to his wife.
References
Further reading
External links
1964 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Wagga Wagga
Australia Test cricketers
Australia One Day International cricketers
Australia Test cricket captains
New South Wales cricketers
Wisden Cricketers of the Year
Australian cricket commentators
People educated at Chatswood High School
Australian of the Year Award winners
Officers of the Order of Australia
Recipients of the Australian Sports Medal
Recipients of the Centenary Medal
Sport Australia Hall of Fame inductees
University of New South Wales alumni
Australian Cricket Hall of Fame inductees
People from the Riverina
Chatswood, New South Wales
Australian republicans | false | [
"This is a list of people associated with the New York University Graduate School of Arts and Science.\n\nNotable faculty\n\nAlumni\n(*did not graduate)\n\nNobel laureates\n\nPulitzer Prize winners\n\nOther\n\n(*did not graduate)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNew York University\n\nLists of people by university or college in New York City\n\nNew York University-related lists",
"This is a list of notable alumni and students, from the University of Coimbra.\n\nAlumni\n\nNoted professors and lecturers\n\nNobel laureates\nEgas Moniz (1874–1955), physician and neurologist; 1949 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology\n\nOthers\nJosé Bonifácio de Andrade e Silva (1763–1838), Brazilian statesman and naturalist\nFélix Avelar Brotero (1744–1828), botanist and professor\nGeorge Buchanan (1506–1582), a Scottish historian and humanist scholar, professor at the Colegio de la Artes\nLuís Wittnich Carrisso (1886-1937), botanist, professor\nAntónio Castanheira Neves (1929), legal philosopher and professor emeritus at the law faculty\nFernão Lopes de Castanheda (1500–1559), historian, bedel and archivist\nAndré de Gouveia (1497–1548), head teacher, humanist and pedagogue\nAlexandre Rodrigues Ferreira (1756–1815), naturalist\nEduardo Lourenço (born 1923), professor, essayist, critic, philosopher, and writer\nPedro Nunes (1502–1578), mathematician\nSidónio Pais (1872–1918), politician; President in 1918; military; professor of mathematics\nCarlos Mota Pinto (1936–1985), Prime Minister\nAntónio de Oliveira Salazar (1889–1970), politician; Prime Minister; Dictator of Portugal, 1932-1968\nFernando Távora (1923–2004), architect and professor\nDomenico Vandelli (1735–1816), Italian naturalist\n\nNoted attendees\nNoted persons who graduated from or otherwise attended the university include:\n\nZeca Afonso (1929–1987), singer, songwriter and poet; left-winger whose music is considered a symbol of the Carnation Revolution\nManuel Alegre (1936), poet; politician; member of the Socialist Party (did not graduate)\nAntónio José de Almeida (1866–1929), politician, President, founder of Lisbon and Porto universities\nNicolau Tolentino de Almeida (1740–1811), foremost Portuguese satirical poet of the 18th century\nJosé de Anchieta (1534–1597), jesuit missionary, apostle of Brazil, writer and poet\nJosé Alberto de Oliveira Anchieta (1832–1897), 19th century explorer and naturalist (did not graduate)\nLeão Ramos Ascensão (1903–1980), integralist politician and writer\nManuela Azevedo (1970), singer\nJoão Botelho (1949), film director (did not graduate)\nLuís de Almeida Braga, (1890–1970), integralist politician and writer\nTeófilo Braga (1843–1924), politician, President, writer and playwright\nLuís Vaz de Camões, (c. 1524–1580), considered Portugal's greatest poet (did not graduate)\nJorge Chaminé (b, 1956), baritone; Human Rights Medal from the UN; Goodwill Ambassador of Music in ME (Music in the Middle East)\nJosé Cid (1942), singer and composer (did not graduate)\nChristopher Clavius (1538–1612), German mathematician and astronomer; main architect of the modern Gregorian calendar\nNarana Coissoró (1933), lawyer and politician\nFausto Correia (1951–2007), politician; member of the Portuguese Parliament and the Government of Portugal; member of the Parliament of the European Union\nJoão de Deus (1830–1896), poet (did not graduate)\nBishop James Warren Doyle (1786–1834), Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin in Ireland, studied for his doctorate in combria\nVergílio Ferreira (1916–1996), writer and teacher\nArmindo Freitas-Magalhães (1966), psychologist and researcher, working on the psychology of the human smile\nAlmeida Garrett (1799–1854), romanticist and writer\nManuel Teixeira Gomes (1860–1941), political figure (did not graduate)\nRuy Luís Gomes (1905–1984), mathematician\nJoão Mário Grilo (1958), film director (did not graduate)\nMiguel Guedes (1972), musician, songwriter and singer\nGregório de Matos e Guerra (1636-1696), poet and lawyer\nBartolomeu de Gusmão (1685–1724), naturalist, recalled for his early work on lighter-than-air ship design\nArtur Jorge (1946), football coach and former football player (did not graduate at this university but at the University of Lisbon)\nGuerra Junqueiro (1850–1923), lawyer, politician, member of the Portuguese House of Representatives, journalist, author and poet\nValentim Loureiro (1938), military major, politician, mayor, former football club chairman (did not graduate)\nFábio Lucindo (1985-), Brazilian voice actor, best-known for his work in anime.\nBernardino Machado (1851–1944), politician, President\nMarquês de Pombal (1699–1782), Prime Minister to King Joseph I of Portugal throughout his reign\nAristides Sousa Mendes (1885–1954), diplomat, known for protecting European Jews as a consul in France during World War II against government orders\nLuís Marques Mendes, (1957), politician; former leader of the Social Democratic Party\nManoel da Nóbrega, (1517–1570), jesuit priest; first Provincial of the Society of Jesus in colonial Brazil; influential in the early history of Brazil; participated in the founding of several cities\nAntónio Nobre (1867–1900), poet (did not graduate)\nAdriano Correia de Oliveira (1942–1982), musician, famous singer and composer of politically engaged folk music in the 1960s-70s (did not graduate)\nCarlos de Oliveira (1921–1981), poet and novelist\nÁlvaro Santos Pereira (1972), economist and professor\nEça de Queiroz (1845–1900), novelist, one of the leading intellectuals of the Generation of 1870\nAntero de Quental (1842–1891), poet, philosopher, political activist\nJosé Hipólito Raposo (1885–1953), integralist politician and writer\nJosé Adriano Pequito Rebelo (1892–1983), integralist politician and writer\nMaria de Belém Roseira (1949), politician (member of the Socialist Party, former minister)\nAntónio de Almeida Santos (1926), politician and minister\nFernando Machado Soares (1930), fado singer, author, judge\nMiguel Torga, pseudonym of Adolfo Correia da Rocha (1907–1995), writer, poet and physician\nJoão Maria Tudela (1929), singer, musician and entertainer (did not graduate)\nSalgado Zenha (1923–1993), left-wing politician and lawyer\n\nReferences\n\nUniversity of Coimbra\n \nCoimbra, University of"
] |
[
"Gautam Gambhir",
"Indian Premier League"
] | C_c517b95f33a74cf5ac5b8cc32a6889b8_1 | Whe was the Indian premier league? | 1 | Who was Gautam Gambhir in Indian premier league? | Gautam Gambhir | Gambhir was picked up by the Delhi Daredevils franchise in the first player auction of the Indian Premier League for a price of US$725,000 a year. He became the second highest run-scorer of the inaugural season with 534 runs from 14 matches. He was promoted to the post of Captain of the Delhi Daredevils for IPL Season 2010. At the end of the tournament he became the only player from Delhi Daredevils to score more than 1000 runs in the IPL. In the 2011 IPL player auction, Gambhir was the most sought after player, fetching a bid of $2.4 million from The Kolkata Knight Riders, making him the highest paid cricketer in the history of IPL. He was then appointed as the skipper of the team. Under Gambhir's captaincy, the Kolkata Knight Riders qualified for the IPL playoffs and also made it to the Champions League Twenty20 for the first time. He eventually led the side to their first title in 2012 by defeating defending champions Chennai Super Kings by 5 wickets at their home ground in Chennai. Gambhir is the leading run-scorer of the Kolkata Knight Riders. During the same season, he scored 6 half-centuries out of a total of nine from his team and became only the second player to cross the 2000 runs mark in the history of the IPL and the second highest run scorer ever in the tournament. On 27 January 2018, In the 2018 IPL Auction, he was bought by the Delhi Daredevils for Rs2.8 crore, later Kolkata Knight Rider's CEO Venky Mysore revealed that Gambhir had asked the team not to retain him as he wanted to finish his IPL career where he started. CANNOTANSWER | He was promoted to the post of Captain of the Delhi Daredevils for IPL Season 2010. | Gautam Gambhir (; born 14 October 1981) is an Indian politician and former cricketer, who has played all formats of the game. He is a current member of the Lok Sabha since 2019. He received the Padma Shri from the Government of India in 2019, the fourth highest civilian award in India.
As a cricketer, he was a left-handed opening batsman who played domestic cricket for Delhi, and captained Kolkata Knight Riders and Delhi Daredevils in the Indian Premier League (IPL). He made his One Day International (ODI) debut against Bangladesh in 2003, and played his first Test the following year against Australia. He captained the Indian team in six ODIs from late 2010 to late 2011 with India winning all six matches. He played an integral part in India's wins in the finals of both the 2007 World Twenty20 (75 runs from 54 balls) and the 2011 Cricket World Cup (97 from 122). Under Gambhir's captaincy, Kolkata Knight Riders won their first IPL title in 2012 and went on to win the title again in 2014.
Gambhir was the only Indian and one of four international cricketers to have scored hundreds in five consecutive Test matches. He is the only Indian batsman to have scored more than 300 runs in four consecutive Test series. As of April 2018, he is the sixth highest run-scorer for India in Twenty20 Internationals.
In October 2018, during the quarter-finals of the 2018–19 Vijay Hazare Trophy, he scored his 10,000th run in List A cricket. In December 2018, he announced his retirement from all forms of cricket. In 2019, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party and won election to the Lok Sabha from East Delhi.
He was conferred the Arjuna Award, India's second highest sporting award, in the year 2008 by the President of India. In 2009, he was the number one ranked batsman in ICC Test rankings. The same year, he was the recipient of the ICC Test Player of the Year award. He is currently the mentor of Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL.
Early and personal life
Gambhir was born in New Delhi to Deepak Gambhir, who manages a textiles business, and Seema Gambhir, a housewife. Gambhir has a sister, Ekta, who is two years younger to him.His grandfather originally came from Multan to Delhi in 1947.Gambhir was adopted by his maternal grandparents eighteen days after his birth and lived with them ever since. Gambhir started playing cricket at the age of 10. He received his schooling from Modern School, New Delhi and graduated from Hindu College, University of Delhi. He stayed at his maternal uncle Pawan Gulati's residence in the '90s. Gambhir considers Gulati to be his mentor and would often call him up before important matches. Gambhir was coached by Sanjay Bharadwaj of Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy in Delhi, and Raju Tandon. Gambhir was selected for the first intake of the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore in 2000.
In October 2011, Gambhir married Natasha Jain, who belongs to a prominent business family. He currently resides in Delhi's Rajendra Nagar neighbourhood.
Indian Premier League
Gambhir was picked up by the Delhi Daredevils franchise in the first player auction of the Indian Premier League for a price of US$725,000 a year. He became the second highest run-scorer of the inaugural season with 534 runs from 14 matches. For his performances in 2008, he was named in the Cricinfo IPL XI. He was promoted to the post of Captain of the Delhi Daredevils for IPL Season 2010. At the end of the tournament he became the only player from Delhi Daredevils to score more than 1000 runs in the IPL.
In the 2011 IPL player auction, Gambhir was the most sought after player, fetching a bid of $2.4 million from The Kolkata Knight Riders, making him the highest paid cricketer in the history of IPL. He was then appointed as the skipper of the team. Under Gambhir's captaincy, the Kolkata Knight Riders qualified for the IPL playoffs and also made it to the Champions League Twenty20 for the first time. He eventually led the side to their first title in 2012 by defeating defending champions Chennai Super Kings by 5 wickets at their home ground in Chennai. For his performances in 2012, he was named as captain of the Cricinfo IPL XI. Gambhir is the leading run-scorer of the Kolkata Knight Riders. During the same season, he scored 6 half-centuries out of a total of nine from his team and became only the second player to cross the 2000 runs mark in the history of the IPL and the second highest run scorer ever in the tournament. He led Kolkata Knight Riders to their second title in 2014 by beating Kings XI Punjab by 3 wickets. He led Kolkata Knight Riders to the playoffs in the 2016 and 2017 season and was also the highest run-scorer. For his performances in the 2017 IPL season, he was named in the Cricinfo and Cricbuzz IPL XI.
On 27 January 2018, in the 2018 IPL Auction, he was bought by the Delhi Daredevils for ₹2.8 crore, and was appointed as the captain. Later Kolkata Knight Rider's CEO Venky Mysore revealed that Gambhir had asked the team not to retain him as he wanted to finish his IPL career where he started. On 25 April, Gambhir stepped down from captaincy citing poor performances of the team, and announced Shreyas Iyer as the new captain of the Delhi Daredevils.
In December 2021, Gambhir was announced the mentor of the new IPL franchise Lucknow Super Giants.
International career
Early career
While Gambhir was out of the Test team, he played a number of One Day Internationals for India between 2005 and 2007. However, he was not selected for the 2007 World Cup as the selectors opted for a top-order of Sourav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag, and Sachin Tendulkar. It affected him badly and Gambhir later said that "When I got dropped for the World Cup, there were times I didn't want to play anymore. I didn't want to practise. I couldn't motivate myself." With no other career options, Gambhir stuck with cricket. After India's first-round exit from the tournament, Gambhir was selected for the One Day International on India's 2007 tour of Bangladesh. Believing the series could be his last chance, Gambhir scored his second century on that tour and was subsequently selected for the One Day International on India's tour to Ireland in 2007. He scored an unbeaten 80 against Ireland in the first game of that tour and was awarded the man of the match award for that effort. In the post-match interview, he indicated that performing more consistently was a top priority for his career as he had done so in the past.
Gambhir was selected in India's squad for the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, which India went on to win in South Africa, beating Pakistan in the final. Gambhir performed well in the shortest form of the game, ending the tournament as India's top run scorer, with 227 at an average of 37.83, including three half-centuries which included a crucial 75 runs off 54 balls against Pakistan in the final. He was named in the 'Team of the Tournament' by Cricinfo for the 2007 T20I World Cup.
For his performances in 2007, he was named in the World T20I XI by Cricinfo.
Golden form
In 2008, Gambhir was forced to miss the Test series in Australia due to a shoulder injury. In the 2007–08 CB Series, he scored an unbeaten 102 at the Gabba against Sri Lanka in a match washed out due to rain. Three weeks later at Sydney, he scored a career-best 113 off 119 balls against Australia, in a high scoring match which India lost by 18 runs. He finished the CB series as the leading run-scorer with 440 runs.
In 2008 Gambhir finally solidified his place in the Indian Test team with a string of high scores. Opening the batting with Delhi teammate Virender Sehwag, he scored 858 runs at over 61 in seven matches as of December including a double century against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. However, in the same match, he was involved in controversy when he elbowed bowler Shane Watson while taking a run. Gambhir asserted it was accidental, but was banned for one Test. Gambhir scored 463 runs in the series, which despite missing the last match was more than any other player in the series.
He was the leading run-scorer in the Test series against England in December 2008 and against New Zealand in early 2009, meaning that he had achieved this feat in three consecutive series.
For his performances in 2008, he was named in the World Test XI and ODI XI by Cricinfo.
Gambhir played his first major Test series outside the sub-continent, having toured New Zealand in 2009. In the second Test match, he scored a match-saving 137 in the second innings. He stood more than five sessions in the middle and faced over 430 balls. This innings led Virender Sehwag, Gambhir's opening partner, close friend, and captain for the match, to call him 'The Second Wall' in reference to Rahul Dravid. He then scored 167 in the second innings of the Third Test to give India an unassailable lead, but rain helped the New Zealand batsmen to hang on for a draw. Gambhir, with 445 runs in six innings at an average of 89, helped India win 1–0 to script a series win in that country after 41 years.
Through ranks
He was named as the ICC Test Player of the Year for 2009, and was briefly ranked the No. 1 batsman in the ICC rankings in July; at the time India were not playing Tests and his points rating did not change, but other batsmen who were ranked higher lost points before regaining them.
He continued his run in the late-2009 Test series against Sri Lanka at home. He scored a century in the second innings of the First Test in Ahmedabad to force a draw after the visitors had taken a first innings lead of more than 300, and then combined in a double century opening partnership with Sehwag on the first day of the Second Test in Kanpur, scoring 167 himself and helping India to score more than 400 runs on the opening day. This set up their score of 642 and an innings victory. Following the match, Gambhir returned to the top of the ICC rankings. Gambhir withdrew from the Third and final Test against Sri Lanka at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai in order to attend his sister's wedding.
In the First Test against Bangladesh in Chittagong in January 2009, Gambhir hit a rapid 116 from 129 balls. It was his fifth century in as many Tests and made him the fourth player to achieve this feat. Only Don Bradman has managed six centuries in as many matches. In the 29th Test match against Bangladesh at Dhaka, he rewrote the history of IVA Richards by scoring most fifties plus runs in 11 consecutive matches. In this match, he scored 66 runs.
For his performances in 2009, he was named in the World Test XI by the ICC.
Brief captaincy
In 2010, Gambhir was appointed captain of the national team in the ODI series against New Zealand which was hosted by India. He scored an unbeaten 126 in the third match in Vadodara to help seal the series, guiding the hosts to victory in the run-chase. He eventually earned the Man-of-the-Series award for leading India to a 5–0 win. He then returned as captain of the side in India's match against the West Indies in December 2011.
Post-captaincy
In the final of the Cricket World Cup 2011, Gambhir scored a solid knock of 97 from 122 balls. Coming in to bat in the first over after the dismissal of Virender Sehwag, he anchored the Indian inning despite the early dismissal of both the openers. He had a good partnership first with Kohli, and then a match-winning partnership of 109 runs with MS Dhoni.
In 2011, India's batting line-up struggled in Tests, particularly away from home. Out of sixteen innings in away Tests, India passed 300 just twice and both the team's opening batsmen failed to score a century in the format in the whole of 2011. Between February 2010 and November 2011, Gambhir played in 14 Tests. From 25 innings he scored 704 runs at an average of 29.33. In the same period, only two opening batsmen who had played at least 15 innings had a worse average: Phillip Hughes of Australia and Imrul Kayes of Bangladesh. However, while he was struggling in Tests, Gambhir enjoyed a rich run of form in ODIs, averaging 56.90 from 23 matches. Gambhir opened the batting in all four of India's Test defeats against Australia in 2011–12. He scored 181 runs at an average of 22.62.
For his performances in 2012, he was named in the World ODI XI by the ICC.
On 12 February 2012, Gambhir scored 92 off 111 balls in an ODI match against Australia at the Adelaide Oval, to help India win their first match against the hosts at that venue. It was also India's highest successful run chase in Australia. For his effort, Gambhir won the Man of the Match award. On 14 February 2012, against Sri Lanka, Gambhir yet again missed out on an ODI hundred when he was dismissed run out for a fine 91 off 106 balls. This knock from Gambhir was instrumental in securing a thrilling tie in that match. In August 2012,
the Indian selection committee handed him back vice-captaincy of the T20 squad for the World Cup.
Comeback
After a big absence from international cricket, on 8 October 2016, Gambhir was recalled for the Test-Match series against New Zealand, after showing good form in domestic cricket.
Retirement
Gambhir announced his retirement from all forms of cricket on 3 December 2018, ahead of his final match for the Delhi cricket team against the Andhra cricket team in the Ranji Trophy on 6 December 2018. Gambhir went on to score 112 in his final innings, his 43rd century in first-class cricket. Gautam Gambhir began his new innings as a parliamentarian as he took oath as the Lok Sabha MP on 17 June 2019.
Gautam Gambhir Foundation
The Gautam Gambhir Foundation is the philanthropic initiative of Gautam Gambhir. It was started in 2014 and is based out of Delhi. He set up community kitchens in 2017 through the Foundation in Patel Nagar, Delhi, in a bid to make sure no one slept hungry in the city. The key project of the Foundation is to reach out to as many children of paramilitary martyrs as possible and empower them by supporting their entire educational needs. Apart from this, the GGF works with adolescent girls from underprivileged homes in generating awareness on nutrition, health and hygiene, and an effort to make Delhi green by planting trees the city to fight air pollution in the city.
Politics
On 22 March 2019, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the presence of Union ministers Arun Jaitley and Ravi Shankar Prasad. He was the party's candidate from East Delhi in the 2019 Indian general election. After his opponent Atishi Marlena challenged him to a debate, Gambhir declined her challenge, saying he doesn't believe in "dharna and debates." Gautam won the elections by 695,109 votes against Atishi Marlena and Arvinder Singh Lovely.
Other work
Gambhir has started work at his constituency of East Delhi, installing CCTV cameras to tackle the issue of women's safety which has plagued Delhi in recent times. He is also the Brand Ambassador for Pinnacle Industries' Pinnacle Specialty Vehicles.
References
External links
Gautam Gambhir Foundation
Punjabi people
1981 births
Cricketers from Delhi
Living people
India One Day International cricketers
India Test cricketers
India Twenty20 International cricketers
North Zone cricketers
Delhi cricketers
Indian cricket captains
Cricketers at the 2011 Cricket World Cup
Recipients of the Arjuna Award
Delhi Capitals cricketers
Essex cricketers
India Red cricketers
India Blue cricketers
Kolkata Knight Riders cricketers
17th Lok Sabha members
National Democratic Alliance candidates in the 2019 Indian general election
Indian sportsperson-politicians
Recipients of the Padma Shri in sports | true | [
"Murugan Ashwin (born 8 September 1990) is an Indian cricketer who plays for Tamil Nadu.\n\nDomestic career\nAshwin made his List A debut on 11 December 2015 in the 2015–16 Vijay Hazare Trophy. He made his Twenty20 debut on 2 January 2016 in the 2015–16 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.\n\nIndian Premier League\nAshwin was bought at the 2016 Indian Premier League auction by the Rising Pune Supergiants for INR 4.5 crores from his base price of INR 10 lakhs. In February 2017, in the 2017 IPL auction, Ashwin was bought by the Delhi Daredevils team for the 2017 Indian Premier League for INR 1 crore.\n\nIn January 2018, Ashwin was bought by the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the 2018 IPL auction. In December 2018, he was bought by the Kings XI Punjab in the player auction for the 2019 Indian Premier League.\n\nIn February 2022, he has been bought by the Mumbai Indians in the 2022 Indian Premier League auction.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1990 births\nLiving people\nIndian cricketers\nTamil Nadu cricketers\nCricketers from Chennai\nRoyal Challengers Bangalore cricketers\nRising Pune Supergiant cricketers\nDelhi Capitals cricketers\nIndia Red cricketers\nPunjab Kings cricketers",
"[Mumbai Indians]] (MI) are a franchise cricket team based in Mumbai, India, which plays in the Indian Premier League (IPL). They were one of the nine teams that took part in the 2013 Indian Premier League. They were captained by former Australian captain Ricky Ponting during the initial stages of the IPL, but he was later replaced by Rohit Sharma.\n\nMumbai Indians beat the Chennai Super Kings at the 2013 Indian Premier League Final to win their first IPL title. They also emerged victorious at the 2013 Champions League Twenty20, which was their second CLT20 title. This was the last season Sachin Tendulkar played for the side.\n\n.\n\nSquad\n Players with international caps before the start of 2013 IPL are listed in bold.\n denotes players part of the 2013 CLT20 squad.\n\nIndian Premier League\n\nSeason standings\n\nMatch log\n\nChampions League Twenty20\n\nGroup standings\n\nMatch log\n\nReferences\n\n2013 Indian Premier League\nMumbai Indians seasons"
] |
[
"Gautam Gambhir",
"Indian Premier League",
"Whe was the Indian premier league?",
"He was promoted to the post of Captain of the Delhi Daredevils for IPL Season 2010."
] | C_c517b95f33a74cf5ac5b8cc32a6889b8_1 | what did he do as captain? | 2 | what did Gautam Gambhir do as captain? | Gautam Gambhir | Gambhir was picked up by the Delhi Daredevils franchise in the first player auction of the Indian Premier League for a price of US$725,000 a year. He became the second highest run-scorer of the inaugural season with 534 runs from 14 matches. He was promoted to the post of Captain of the Delhi Daredevils for IPL Season 2010. At the end of the tournament he became the only player from Delhi Daredevils to score more than 1000 runs in the IPL. In the 2011 IPL player auction, Gambhir was the most sought after player, fetching a bid of $2.4 million from The Kolkata Knight Riders, making him the highest paid cricketer in the history of IPL. He was then appointed as the skipper of the team. Under Gambhir's captaincy, the Kolkata Knight Riders qualified for the IPL playoffs and also made it to the Champions League Twenty20 for the first time. He eventually led the side to their first title in 2012 by defeating defending champions Chennai Super Kings by 5 wickets at their home ground in Chennai. Gambhir is the leading run-scorer of the Kolkata Knight Riders. During the same season, he scored 6 half-centuries out of a total of nine from his team and became only the second player to cross the 2000 runs mark in the history of the IPL and the second highest run scorer ever in the tournament. On 27 January 2018, In the 2018 IPL Auction, he was bought by the Delhi Daredevils for Rs2.8 crore, later Kolkata Knight Rider's CEO Venky Mysore revealed that Gambhir had asked the team not to retain him as he wanted to finish his IPL career where he started. CANNOTANSWER | At the end of the tournament he became the only player from Delhi Daredevils to score more than 1000 runs in the IPL. | Gautam Gambhir (; born 14 October 1981) is an Indian politician and former cricketer, who has played all formats of the game. He is a current member of the Lok Sabha since 2019. He received the Padma Shri from the Government of India in 2019, the fourth highest civilian award in India.
As a cricketer, he was a left-handed opening batsman who played domestic cricket for Delhi, and captained Kolkata Knight Riders and Delhi Daredevils in the Indian Premier League (IPL). He made his One Day International (ODI) debut against Bangladesh in 2003, and played his first Test the following year against Australia. He captained the Indian team in six ODIs from late 2010 to late 2011 with India winning all six matches. He played an integral part in India's wins in the finals of both the 2007 World Twenty20 (75 runs from 54 balls) and the 2011 Cricket World Cup (97 from 122). Under Gambhir's captaincy, Kolkata Knight Riders won their first IPL title in 2012 and went on to win the title again in 2014.
Gambhir was the only Indian and one of four international cricketers to have scored hundreds in five consecutive Test matches. He is the only Indian batsman to have scored more than 300 runs in four consecutive Test series. As of April 2018, he is the sixth highest run-scorer for India in Twenty20 Internationals.
In October 2018, during the quarter-finals of the 2018–19 Vijay Hazare Trophy, he scored his 10,000th run in List A cricket. In December 2018, he announced his retirement from all forms of cricket. In 2019, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party and won election to the Lok Sabha from East Delhi.
He was conferred the Arjuna Award, India's second highest sporting award, in the year 2008 by the President of India. In 2009, he was the number one ranked batsman in ICC Test rankings. The same year, he was the recipient of the ICC Test Player of the Year award. He is currently the mentor of Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL.
Early and personal life
Gambhir was born in New Delhi to Deepak Gambhir, who manages a textiles business, and Seema Gambhir, a housewife. Gambhir has a sister, Ekta, who is two years younger to him.His grandfather originally came from Multan to Delhi in 1947.Gambhir was adopted by his maternal grandparents eighteen days after his birth and lived with them ever since. Gambhir started playing cricket at the age of 10. He received his schooling from Modern School, New Delhi and graduated from Hindu College, University of Delhi. He stayed at his maternal uncle Pawan Gulati's residence in the '90s. Gambhir considers Gulati to be his mentor and would often call him up before important matches. Gambhir was coached by Sanjay Bharadwaj of Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy in Delhi, and Raju Tandon. Gambhir was selected for the first intake of the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore in 2000.
In October 2011, Gambhir married Natasha Jain, who belongs to a prominent business family. He currently resides in Delhi's Rajendra Nagar neighbourhood.
Indian Premier League
Gambhir was picked up by the Delhi Daredevils franchise in the first player auction of the Indian Premier League for a price of US$725,000 a year. He became the second highest run-scorer of the inaugural season with 534 runs from 14 matches. For his performances in 2008, he was named in the Cricinfo IPL XI. He was promoted to the post of Captain of the Delhi Daredevils for IPL Season 2010. At the end of the tournament he became the only player from Delhi Daredevils to score more than 1000 runs in the IPL.
In the 2011 IPL player auction, Gambhir was the most sought after player, fetching a bid of $2.4 million from The Kolkata Knight Riders, making him the highest paid cricketer in the history of IPL. He was then appointed as the skipper of the team. Under Gambhir's captaincy, the Kolkata Knight Riders qualified for the IPL playoffs and also made it to the Champions League Twenty20 for the first time. He eventually led the side to their first title in 2012 by defeating defending champions Chennai Super Kings by 5 wickets at their home ground in Chennai. For his performances in 2012, he was named as captain of the Cricinfo IPL XI. Gambhir is the leading run-scorer of the Kolkata Knight Riders. During the same season, he scored 6 half-centuries out of a total of nine from his team and became only the second player to cross the 2000 runs mark in the history of the IPL and the second highest run scorer ever in the tournament. He led Kolkata Knight Riders to their second title in 2014 by beating Kings XI Punjab by 3 wickets. He led Kolkata Knight Riders to the playoffs in the 2016 and 2017 season and was also the highest run-scorer. For his performances in the 2017 IPL season, he was named in the Cricinfo and Cricbuzz IPL XI.
On 27 January 2018, in the 2018 IPL Auction, he was bought by the Delhi Daredevils for ₹2.8 crore, and was appointed as the captain. Later Kolkata Knight Rider's CEO Venky Mysore revealed that Gambhir had asked the team not to retain him as he wanted to finish his IPL career where he started. On 25 April, Gambhir stepped down from captaincy citing poor performances of the team, and announced Shreyas Iyer as the new captain of the Delhi Daredevils.
In December 2021, Gambhir was announced the mentor of the new IPL franchise Lucknow Super Giants.
International career
Early career
While Gambhir was out of the Test team, he played a number of One Day Internationals for India between 2005 and 2007. However, he was not selected for the 2007 World Cup as the selectors opted for a top-order of Sourav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag, and Sachin Tendulkar. It affected him badly and Gambhir later said that "When I got dropped for the World Cup, there were times I didn't want to play anymore. I didn't want to practise. I couldn't motivate myself." With no other career options, Gambhir stuck with cricket. After India's first-round exit from the tournament, Gambhir was selected for the One Day International on India's 2007 tour of Bangladesh. Believing the series could be his last chance, Gambhir scored his second century on that tour and was subsequently selected for the One Day International on India's tour to Ireland in 2007. He scored an unbeaten 80 against Ireland in the first game of that tour and was awarded the man of the match award for that effort. In the post-match interview, he indicated that performing more consistently was a top priority for his career as he had done so in the past.
Gambhir was selected in India's squad for the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, which India went on to win in South Africa, beating Pakistan in the final. Gambhir performed well in the shortest form of the game, ending the tournament as India's top run scorer, with 227 at an average of 37.83, including three half-centuries which included a crucial 75 runs off 54 balls against Pakistan in the final. He was named in the 'Team of the Tournament' by Cricinfo for the 2007 T20I World Cup.
For his performances in 2007, he was named in the World T20I XI by Cricinfo.
Golden form
In 2008, Gambhir was forced to miss the Test series in Australia due to a shoulder injury. In the 2007–08 CB Series, he scored an unbeaten 102 at the Gabba against Sri Lanka in a match washed out due to rain. Three weeks later at Sydney, he scored a career-best 113 off 119 balls against Australia, in a high scoring match which India lost by 18 runs. He finished the CB series as the leading run-scorer with 440 runs.
In 2008 Gambhir finally solidified his place in the Indian Test team with a string of high scores. Opening the batting with Delhi teammate Virender Sehwag, he scored 858 runs at over 61 in seven matches as of December including a double century against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. However, in the same match, he was involved in controversy when he elbowed bowler Shane Watson while taking a run. Gambhir asserted it was accidental, but was banned for one Test. Gambhir scored 463 runs in the series, which despite missing the last match was more than any other player in the series.
He was the leading run-scorer in the Test series against England in December 2008 and against New Zealand in early 2009, meaning that he had achieved this feat in three consecutive series.
For his performances in 2008, he was named in the World Test XI and ODI XI by Cricinfo.
Gambhir played his first major Test series outside the sub-continent, having toured New Zealand in 2009. In the second Test match, he scored a match-saving 137 in the second innings. He stood more than five sessions in the middle and faced over 430 balls. This innings led Virender Sehwag, Gambhir's opening partner, close friend, and captain for the match, to call him 'The Second Wall' in reference to Rahul Dravid. He then scored 167 in the second innings of the Third Test to give India an unassailable lead, but rain helped the New Zealand batsmen to hang on for a draw. Gambhir, with 445 runs in six innings at an average of 89, helped India win 1–0 to script a series win in that country after 41 years.
Through ranks
He was named as the ICC Test Player of the Year for 2009, and was briefly ranked the No. 1 batsman in the ICC rankings in July; at the time India were not playing Tests and his points rating did not change, but other batsmen who were ranked higher lost points before regaining them.
He continued his run in the late-2009 Test series against Sri Lanka at home. He scored a century in the second innings of the First Test in Ahmedabad to force a draw after the visitors had taken a first innings lead of more than 300, and then combined in a double century opening partnership with Sehwag on the first day of the Second Test in Kanpur, scoring 167 himself and helping India to score more than 400 runs on the opening day. This set up their score of 642 and an innings victory. Following the match, Gambhir returned to the top of the ICC rankings. Gambhir withdrew from the Third and final Test against Sri Lanka at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai in order to attend his sister's wedding.
In the First Test against Bangladesh in Chittagong in January 2009, Gambhir hit a rapid 116 from 129 balls. It was his fifth century in as many Tests and made him the fourth player to achieve this feat. Only Don Bradman has managed six centuries in as many matches. In the 29th Test match against Bangladesh at Dhaka, he rewrote the history of IVA Richards by scoring most fifties plus runs in 11 consecutive matches. In this match, he scored 66 runs.
For his performances in 2009, he was named in the World Test XI by the ICC.
Brief captaincy
In 2010, Gambhir was appointed captain of the national team in the ODI series against New Zealand which was hosted by India. He scored an unbeaten 126 in the third match in Vadodara to help seal the series, guiding the hosts to victory in the run-chase. He eventually earned the Man-of-the-Series award for leading India to a 5–0 win. He then returned as captain of the side in India's match against the West Indies in December 2011.
Post-captaincy
In the final of the Cricket World Cup 2011, Gambhir scored a solid knock of 97 from 122 balls. Coming in to bat in the first over after the dismissal of Virender Sehwag, he anchored the Indian inning despite the early dismissal of both the openers. He had a good partnership first with Kohli, and then a match-winning partnership of 109 runs with MS Dhoni.
In 2011, India's batting line-up struggled in Tests, particularly away from home. Out of sixteen innings in away Tests, India passed 300 just twice and both the team's opening batsmen failed to score a century in the format in the whole of 2011. Between February 2010 and November 2011, Gambhir played in 14 Tests. From 25 innings he scored 704 runs at an average of 29.33. In the same period, only two opening batsmen who had played at least 15 innings had a worse average: Phillip Hughes of Australia and Imrul Kayes of Bangladesh. However, while he was struggling in Tests, Gambhir enjoyed a rich run of form in ODIs, averaging 56.90 from 23 matches. Gambhir opened the batting in all four of India's Test defeats against Australia in 2011–12. He scored 181 runs at an average of 22.62.
For his performances in 2012, he was named in the World ODI XI by the ICC.
On 12 February 2012, Gambhir scored 92 off 111 balls in an ODI match against Australia at the Adelaide Oval, to help India win their first match against the hosts at that venue. It was also India's highest successful run chase in Australia. For his effort, Gambhir won the Man of the Match award. On 14 February 2012, against Sri Lanka, Gambhir yet again missed out on an ODI hundred when he was dismissed run out for a fine 91 off 106 balls. This knock from Gambhir was instrumental in securing a thrilling tie in that match. In August 2012,
the Indian selection committee handed him back vice-captaincy of the T20 squad for the World Cup.
Comeback
After a big absence from international cricket, on 8 October 2016, Gambhir was recalled for the Test-Match series against New Zealand, after showing good form in domestic cricket.
Retirement
Gambhir announced his retirement from all forms of cricket on 3 December 2018, ahead of his final match for the Delhi cricket team against the Andhra cricket team in the Ranji Trophy on 6 December 2018. Gambhir went on to score 112 in his final innings, his 43rd century in first-class cricket. Gautam Gambhir began his new innings as a parliamentarian as he took oath as the Lok Sabha MP on 17 June 2019.
Gautam Gambhir Foundation
The Gautam Gambhir Foundation is the philanthropic initiative of Gautam Gambhir. It was started in 2014 and is based out of Delhi. He set up community kitchens in 2017 through the Foundation in Patel Nagar, Delhi, in a bid to make sure no one slept hungry in the city. The key project of the Foundation is to reach out to as many children of paramilitary martyrs as possible and empower them by supporting their entire educational needs. Apart from this, the GGF works with adolescent girls from underprivileged homes in generating awareness on nutrition, health and hygiene, and an effort to make Delhi green by planting trees the city to fight air pollution in the city.
Politics
On 22 March 2019, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the presence of Union ministers Arun Jaitley and Ravi Shankar Prasad. He was the party's candidate from East Delhi in the 2019 Indian general election. After his opponent Atishi Marlena challenged him to a debate, Gambhir declined her challenge, saying he doesn't believe in "dharna and debates." Gautam won the elections by 695,109 votes against Atishi Marlena and Arvinder Singh Lovely.
Other work
Gambhir has started work at his constituency of East Delhi, installing CCTV cameras to tackle the issue of women's safety which has plagued Delhi in recent times. He is also the Brand Ambassador for Pinnacle Industries' Pinnacle Specialty Vehicles.
References
External links
Gautam Gambhir Foundation
Punjabi people
1981 births
Cricketers from Delhi
Living people
India One Day International cricketers
India Test cricketers
India Twenty20 International cricketers
North Zone cricketers
Delhi cricketers
Indian cricket captains
Cricketers at the 2011 Cricket World Cup
Recipients of the Arjuna Award
Delhi Capitals cricketers
Essex cricketers
India Red cricketers
India Blue cricketers
Kolkata Knight Riders cricketers
17th Lok Sabha members
National Democratic Alliance candidates in the 2019 Indian general election
Indian sportsperson-politicians
Recipients of the Padma Shri in sports | true | [
"What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? is a 1966 comedy DeLuxe Color film written by William Peter Blatty and directed by Blake Edwards for the Mirisch Company in Panavision. It stars James Coburn and Dick Shawn. Filming was at Lake Sherwood Ranch in Thousand Oaks, northwest of Hollywood. In what had been a cow pasture, designer Fernando Carrere fabricated a storybook Sicilian village which added $800,000 to the production's already elevated $5.5 million budget.\n\nPlot\nDuring the Allied invasion of Sicily, an outfit of U.S. soldiers is assigned to capture the small town of \"Valerno\", but upon arrival, they discover that the townsfolk has been expecting them and will willingly turn themselves over to the Americans' rule, provided they are permitted to complete a soccer match and a wine festival.\n\nRomance and frivolity ensue, as a reluctant, by-the-book Capt. Cash (Dick Shawn) is persuaded by easy-going Lt. Christian (James Coburn) to go along with the locals' wishes. Mistaking the festival for an attack, the town's local German garrison come to the Italians' aid, but the Americans accidentally end up conquering all.\n\nCast\n James Coburn as Lieutenant Jody Christian\n Dick Shawn as Captain Lionel Cash\n Sergio Fantoni as Captain Fausto Oppo\n Giovanna Ralli as Gina Romano\n Aldo Ray as Sergeant Rizzo\n Harry Morgan as Major Pott\n Carroll O'Connor as General Max Bolt\n Leon Askin as Colonel Kastorp\n Rico Cattani as Benedetto (as Henry Rico Cattani)\n Jay Novello as Mayor Giuseppe Romano\n Ralph Manza as Waiter\n Vito Scotti as Frederico\n Johnny Seven as Vittorio\n Art Lewis as Needleman\n William Bryant as Minow\n Kurt Kreuger as German Captain\n\nProduction\nThe title of the film came to Edwards when he was asked the question by his son Geoffrey. As Edwards was having marital problems at the time, he did not want to leave the United States, so Mirisch Productions agreed to film the movie in Lake Sherwood, California, for $5 million that included the construction of a large Italian village set. In his study of Edwards, Myron Meisel stated that Coburn imitated Blake Edwards' mannerisms throughout the film.\n\nThe film was the first of what was originally intended to be six Mirisch-Geoffrey Productions between Edwards and the Mirisch Company. Only one other film, The Party, was completed.\n\nWilliam Peter Blatty recalled that Edwards and he originally agreed to make the film grim and without comedy for the first 20 minutes. This idea was shelved when, during the scene where Captain Cash visits Charlie Company at their chow line, he holds out his hand and one of the GI mess orderlies ladles beans into the captain's hand.\n\nReception\nThe film grossed $2,650,000 at the box office\n\nMusic \nThe score is by Henry Mancini. It includes \"The Swing March\" and \"In the Arms of Love\".\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n \n\n1966 films\n1966 comedy films\nFilms directed by Blake Edwards\nItalian Campaign of World War II films\nMilitary humor in film\nAmerican comedy films\nAmerican films\nFilms set in Italy\nFilms with screenplays by William Peter Blatty\nFilms scored by Henry Mancini",
"\"What Would Steve Do?\" is the second single released by Mumm-Ra on Columbia Records, which was released on February 19, 2007. It is a re-recorded version of the self-release they did in April 2006. It reached #40 in the UK Singles Chart, making it their highest charting single.\n\nTrack listings\nAll songs written by Mumm-Ra.\n\nCD\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"Cute As\"\n\"Without You\"\n\n7\"\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"What Would Steve Do? (Floorboard Mix)\"\n\nGatefold 7\"\n\"What Would Steve Do?\"\n\"Cute As\"\n\nReferences\n\n2007 singles\nMumm-Ra (band) songs\n2006 songs\nColumbia Records singles"
] |
[
"Gautam Gambhir",
"Indian Premier League",
"Whe was the Indian premier league?",
"He was promoted to the post of Captain of the Delhi Daredevils for IPL Season 2010.",
"what did he do as captain?",
"At the end of the tournament he became the only player from Delhi Daredevils to score more than 1000 runs in the IPL."
] | C_c517b95f33a74cf5ac5b8cc32a6889b8_1 | did he set any other records? | 3 | Did Gautam Gambhir set any other records besides scoring more than 1000 runs in the IPL? | Gautam Gambhir | Gambhir was picked up by the Delhi Daredevils franchise in the first player auction of the Indian Premier League for a price of US$725,000 a year. He became the second highest run-scorer of the inaugural season with 534 runs from 14 matches. He was promoted to the post of Captain of the Delhi Daredevils for IPL Season 2010. At the end of the tournament he became the only player from Delhi Daredevils to score more than 1000 runs in the IPL. In the 2011 IPL player auction, Gambhir was the most sought after player, fetching a bid of $2.4 million from The Kolkata Knight Riders, making him the highest paid cricketer in the history of IPL. He was then appointed as the skipper of the team. Under Gambhir's captaincy, the Kolkata Knight Riders qualified for the IPL playoffs and also made it to the Champions League Twenty20 for the first time. He eventually led the side to their first title in 2012 by defeating defending champions Chennai Super Kings by 5 wickets at their home ground in Chennai. Gambhir is the leading run-scorer of the Kolkata Knight Riders. During the same season, he scored 6 half-centuries out of a total of nine from his team and became only the second player to cross the 2000 runs mark in the history of the IPL and the second highest run scorer ever in the tournament. On 27 January 2018, In the 2018 IPL Auction, he was bought by the Delhi Daredevils for Rs2.8 crore, later Kolkata Knight Rider's CEO Venky Mysore revealed that Gambhir had asked the team not to retain him as he wanted to finish his IPL career where he started. CANNOTANSWER | Gambhir is the leading run-scorer of the Kolkata Knight Riders. | Gautam Gambhir (; born 14 October 1981) is an Indian politician and former cricketer, who has played all formats of the game. He is a current member of the Lok Sabha since 2019. He received the Padma Shri from the Government of India in 2019, the fourth highest civilian award in India.
As a cricketer, he was a left-handed opening batsman who played domestic cricket for Delhi, and captained Kolkata Knight Riders and Delhi Daredevils in the Indian Premier League (IPL). He made his One Day International (ODI) debut against Bangladesh in 2003, and played his first Test the following year against Australia. He captained the Indian team in six ODIs from late 2010 to late 2011 with India winning all six matches. He played an integral part in India's wins in the finals of both the 2007 World Twenty20 (75 runs from 54 balls) and the 2011 Cricket World Cup (97 from 122). Under Gambhir's captaincy, Kolkata Knight Riders won their first IPL title in 2012 and went on to win the title again in 2014.
Gambhir was the only Indian and one of four international cricketers to have scored hundreds in five consecutive Test matches. He is the only Indian batsman to have scored more than 300 runs in four consecutive Test series. As of April 2018, he is the sixth highest run-scorer for India in Twenty20 Internationals.
In October 2018, during the quarter-finals of the 2018–19 Vijay Hazare Trophy, he scored his 10,000th run in List A cricket. In December 2018, he announced his retirement from all forms of cricket. In 2019, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party and won election to the Lok Sabha from East Delhi.
He was conferred the Arjuna Award, India's second highest sporting award, in the year 2008 by the President of India. In 2009, he was the number one ranked batsman in ICC Test rankings. The same year, he was the recipient of the ICC Test Player of the Year award. He is currently the mentor of Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL.
Early and personal life
Gambhir was born in New Delhi to Deepak Gambhir, who manages a textiles business, and Seema Gambhir, a housewife. Gambhir has a sister, Ekta, who is two years younger to him.His grandfather originally came from Multan to Delhi in 1947.Gambhir was adopted by his maternal grandparents eighteen days after his birth and lived with them ever since. Gambhir started playing cricket at the age of 10. He received his schooling from Modern School, New Delhi and graduated from Hindu College, University of Delhi. He stayed at his maternal uncle Pawan Gulati's residence in the '90s. Gambhir considers Gulati to be his mentor and would often call him up before important matches. Gambhir was coached by Sanjay Bharadwaj of Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy in Delhi, and Raju Tandon. Gambhir was selected for the first intake of the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore in 2000.
In October 2011, Gambhir married Natasha Jain, who belongs to a prominent business family. He currently resides in Delhi's Rajendra Nagar neighbourhood.
Indian Premier League
Gambhir was picked up by the Delhi Daredevils franchise in the first player auction of the Indian Premier League for a price of US$725,000 a year. He became the second highest run-scorer of the inaugural season with 534 runs from 14 matches. For his performances in 2008, he was named in the Cricinfo IPL XI. He was promoted to the post of Captain of the Delhi Daredevils for IPL Season 2010. At the end of the tournament he became the only player from Delhi Daredevils to score more than 1000 runs in the IPL.
In the 2011 IPL player auction, Gambhir was the most sought after player, fetching a bid of $2.4 million from The Kolkata Knight Riders, making him the highest paid cricketer in the history of IPL. He was then appointed as the skipper of the team. Under Gambhir's captaincy, the Kolkata Knight Riders qualified for the IPL playoffs and also made it to the Champions League Twenty20 for the first time. He eventually led the side to their first title in 2012 by defeating defending champions Chennai Super Kings by 5 wickets at their home ground in Chennai. For his performances in 2012, he was named as captain of the Cricinfo IPL XI. Gambhir is the leading run-scorer of the Kolkata Knight Riders. During the same season, he scored 6 half-centuries out of a total of nine from his team and became only the second player to cross the 2000 runs mark in the history of the IPL and the second highest run scorer ever in the tournament. He led Kolkata Knight Riders to their second title in 2014 by beating Kings XI Punjab by 3 wickets. He led Kolkata Knight Riders to the playoffs in the 2016 and 2017 season and was also the highest run-scorer. For his performances in the 2017 IPL season, he was named in the Cricinfo and Cricbuzz IPL XI.
On 27 January 2018, in the 2018 IPL Auction, he was bought by the Delhi Daredevils for ₹2.8 crore, and was appointed as the captain. Later Kolkata Knight Rider's CEO Venky Mysore revealed that Gambhir had asked the team not to retain him as he wanted to finish his IPL career where he started. On 25 April, Gambhir stepped down from captaincy citing poor performances of the team, and announced Shreyas Iyer as the new captain of the Delhi Daredevils.
In December 2021, Gambhir was announced the mentor of the new IPL franchise Lucknow Super Giants.
International career
Early career
While Gambhir was out of the Test team, he played a number of One Day Internationals for India between 2005 and 2007. However, he was not selected for the 2007 World Cup as the selectors opted for a top-order of Sourav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag, and Sachin Tendulkar. It affected him badly and Gambhir later said that "When I got dropped for the World Cup, there were times I didn't want to play anymore. I didn't want to practise. I couldn't motivate myself." With no other career options, Gambhir stuck with cricket. After India's first-round exit from the tournament, Gambhir was selected for the One Day International on India's 2007 tour of Bangladesh. Believing the series could be his last chance, Gambhir scored his second century on that tour and was subsequently selected for the One Day International on India's tour to Ireland in 2007. He scored an unbeaten 80 against Ireland in the first game of that tour and was awarded the man of the match award for that effort. In the post-match interview, he indicated that performing more consistently was a top priority for his career as he had done so in the past.
Gambhir was selected in India's squad for the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, which India went on to win in South Africa, beating Pakistan in the final. Gambhir performed well in the shortest form of the game, ending the tournament as India's top run scorer, with 227 at an average of 37.83, including three half-centuries which included a crucial 75 runs off 54 balls against Pakistan in the final. He was named in the 'Team of the Tournament' by Cricinfo for the 2007 T20I World Cup.
For his performances in 2007, he was named in the World T20I XI by Cricinfo.
Golden form
In 2008, Gambhir was forced to miss the Test series in Australia due to a shoulder injury. In the 2007–08 CB Series, he scored an unbeaten 102 at the Gabba against Sri Lanka in a match washed out due to rain. Three weeks later at Sydney, he scored a career-best 113 off 119 balls against Australia, in a high scoring match which India lost by 18 runs. He finished the CB series as the leading run-scorer with 440 runs.
In 2008 Gambhir finally solidified his place in the Indian Test team with a string of high scores. Opening the batting with Delhi teammate Virender Sehwag, he scored 858 runs at over 61 in seven matches as of December including a double century against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. However, in the same match, he was involved in controversy when he elbowed bowler Shane Watson while taking a run. Gambhir asserted it was accidental, but was banned for one Test. Gambhir scored 463 runs in the series, which despite missing the last match was more than any other player in the series.
He was the leading run-scorer in the Test series against England in December 2008 and against New Zealand in early 2009, meaning that he had achieved this feat in three consecutive series.
For his performances in 2008, he was named in the World Test XI and ODI XI by Cricinfo.
Gambhir played his first major Test series outside the sub-continent, having toured New Zealand in 2009. In the second Test match, he scored a match-saving 137 in the second innings. He stood more than five sessions in the middle and faced over 430 balls. This innings led Virender Sehwag, Gambhir's opening partner, close friend, and captain for the match, to call him 'The Second Wall' in reference to Rahul Dravid. He then scored 167 in the second innings of the Third Test to give India an unassailable lead, but rain helped the New Zealand batsmen to hang on for a draw. Gambhir, with 445 runs in six innings at an average of 89, helped India win 1–0 to script a series win in that country after 41 years.
Through ranks
He was named as the ICC Test Player of the Year for 2009, and was briefly ranked the No. 1 batsman in the ICC rankings in July; at the time India were not playing Tests and his points rating did not change, but other batsmen who were ranked higher lost points before regaining them.
He continued his run in the late-2009 Test series against Sri Lanka at home. He scored a century in the second innings of the First Test in Ahmedabad to force a draw after the visitors had taken a first innings lead of more than 300, and then combined in a double century opening partnership with Sehwag on the first day of the Second Test in Kanpur, scoring 167 himself and helping India to score more than 400 runs on the opening day. This set up their score of 642 and an innings victory. Following the match, Gambhir returned to the top of the ICC rankings. Gambhir withdrew from the Third and final Test against Sri Lanka at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai in order to attend his sister's wedding.
In the First Test against Bangladesh in Chittagong in January 2009, Gambhir hit a rapid 116 from 129 balls. It was his fifth century in as many Tests and made him the fourth player to achieve this feat. Only Don Bradman has managed six centuries in as many matches. In the 29th Test match against Bangladesh at Dhaka, he rewrote the history of IVA Richards by scoring most fifties plus runs in 11 consecutive matches. In this match, he scored 66 runs.
For his performances in 2009, he was named in the World Test XI by the ICC.
Brief captaincy
In 2010, Gambhir was appointed captain of the national team in the ODI series against New Zealand which was hosted by India. He scored an unbeaten 126 in the third match in Vadodara to help seal the series, guiding the hosts to victory in the run-chase. He eventually earned the Man-of-the-Series award for leading India to a 5–0 win. He then returned as captain of the side in India's match against the West Indies in December 2011.
Post-captaincy
In the final of the Cricket World Cup 2011, Gambhir scored a solid knock of 97 from 122 balls. Coming in to bat in the first over after the dismissal of Virender Sehwag, he anchored the Indian inning despite the early dismissal of both the openers. He had a good partnership first with Kohli, and then a match-winning partnership of 109 runs with MS Dhoni.
In 2011, India's batting line-up struggled in Tests, particularly away from home. Out of sixteen innings in away Tests, India passed 300 just twice and both the team's opening batsmen failed to score a century in the format in the whole of 2011. Between February 2010 and November 2011, Gambhir played in 14 Tests. From 25 innings he scored 704 runs at an average of 29.33. In the same period, only two opening batsmen who had played at least 15 innings had a worse average: Phillip Hughes of Australia and Imrul Kayes of Bangladesh. However, while he was struggling in Tests, Gambhir enjoyed a rich run of form in ODIs, averaging 56.90 from 23 matches. Gambhir opened the batting in all four of India's Test defeats against Australia in 2011–12. He scored 181 runs at an average of 22.62.
For his performances in 2012, he was named in the World ODI XI by the ICC.
On 12 February 2012, Gambhir scored 92 off 111 balls in an ODI match against Australia at the Adelaide Oval, to help India win their first match against the hosts at that venue. It was also India's highest successful run chase in Australia. For his effort, Gambhir won the Man of the Match award. On 14 February 2012, against Sri Lanka, Gambhir yet again missed out on an ODI hundred when he was dismissed run out for a fine 91 off 106 balls. This knock from Gambhir was instrumental in securing a thrilling tie in that match. In August 2012,
the Indian selection committee handed him back vice-captaincy of the T20 squad for the World Cup.
Comeback
After a big absence from international cricket, on 8 October 2016, Gambhir was recalled for the Test-Match series against New Zealand, after showing good form in domestic cricket.
Retirement
Gambhir announced his retirement from all forms of cricket on 3 December 2018, ahead of his final match for the Delhi cricket team against the Andhra cricket team in the Ranji Trophy on 6 December 2018. Gambhir went on to score 112 in his final innings, his 43rd century in first-class cricket. Gautam Gambhir began his new innings as a parliamentarian as he took oath as the Lok Sabha MP on 17 June 2019.
Gautam Gambhir Foundation
The Gautam Gambhir Foundation is the philanthropic initiative of Gautam Gambhir. It was started in 2014 and is based out of Delhi. He set up community kitchens in 2017 through the Foundation in Patel Nagar, Delhi, in a bid to make sure no one slept hungry in the city. The key project of the Foundation is to reach out to as many children of paramilitary martyrs as possible and empower them by supporting their entire educational needs. Apart from this, the GGF works with adolescent girls from underprivileged homes in generating awareness on nutrition, health and hygiene, and an effort to make Delhi green by planting trees the city to fight air pollution in the city.
Politics
On 22 March 2019, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the presence of Union ministers Arun Jaitley and Ravi Shankar Prasad. He was the party's candidate from East Delhi in the 2019 Indian general election. After his opponent Atishi Marlena challenged him to a debate, Gambhir declined her challenge, saying he doesn't believe in "dharna and debates." Gautam won the elections by 695,109 votes against Atishi Marlena and Arvinder Singh Lovely.
Other work
Gambhir has started work at his constituency of East Delhi, installing CCTV cameras to tackle the issue of women's safety which has plagued Delhi in recent times. He is also the Brand Ambassador for Pinnacle Industries' Pinnacle Specialty Vehicles.
References
External links
Gautam Gambhir Foundation
Punjabi people
1981 births
Cricketers from Delhi
Living people
India One Day International cricketers
India Test cricketers
India Twenty20 International cricketers
North Zone cricketers
Delhi cricketers
Indian cricket captains
Cricketers at the 2011 Cricket World Cup
Recipients of the Arjuna Award
Delhi Capitals cricketers
Essex cricketers
India Red cricketers
India Blue cricketers
Kolkata Knight Riders cricketers
17th Lok Sabha members
National Democratic Alliance candidates in the 2019 Indian general election
Indian sportsperson-politicians
Recipients of the Padma Shri in sports | true | [
"Manvel Mamoyan () is an Armenian fitness and bodybuilding trainer, fitness blogger, and three times Guinness World Records holder. He is also a multiple record holder of Armenian Book of Records (Dyutsaznagirk).\n\nBiography\n\nManvel was born on April 6, 1993 in Yerevan. Currently works as fitness and bodybuilding trainer. He has been practising sports since 10, when he started attending Judo classes.\n\nIn 2011-2013 he served in the Armenian Armed Forces.\n\nRecords \n\nUntil 18, Manvel also tried himself in Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling. Manvel set his 11th record in Armenia when he was only 17. His first record was set in Dyutsaznagirk by doing sit up - abdominal exercise for 2 h. 46 min for 3511 reps. For the second time he appeared in Dyutsaznagirk for the most push-ups with one arm using back of the hand in one minute - 89 reps.\n\n2015-2016 \nAfter returning from the army, Manvel set a Guinness world record in October 23, 2015. He did 27 handstand push-ups in a minute. In order to complete one handstand push-up, Manvel’s elbows had to reach 90 degrees or less and then he had to fully straighten his arms. His legs also had to be straight or cross his ankles. He did the exercise in 48,3 seconds. Manvel didn’t have any injury before his performance, and the record was set. He dedicated his victory to the memory of the Genocide of Armenian and Yazidi people promised to update his record throughout the year.\n\n2016-2017 \nOn 25 August, 2016 Manvel dedicated his record in memory of the victims of the 2016 April Four-Day War unleashed in Nagorno-Karabakh. In response to the murder of Hayk Torosyan, Hrant Gharibyan and his compatriot Kyaram Sloyan by Azeris, Manvel Mamoyan set a new record: however, in August, 2016 he couldn’t exceed the record (84 push-ups) of the Canadian Roy Berger from his first performance in the Freedom Square, Yerevan, by reaching 83 reps. According to the Guinness World Records’ rules the athlete has a right to perform the exercise for 3 sets. Manvel managed to set the desired record from his second performance, after having a rest. By doing push-ups for 86 reps in a minute, the athlete exceeded the previous record and set a record in the Guinness World Records.\n\nIn one his interviews Manvel told about his desire to set 10 records in Guinness World Records in a year, particularly by through the Flag exercise, which was set as a record a few years ago by him and was performed for only 20 seconds. It was included in Dyutsaznagirk. He also mentioned he strives to set records more for Guinness World Records. In 2016 Manvel fell behind 5-6 seconds of setting a new world record and the record was 1 min. 5 sec. 71 millisec.\n\n2017-2018 \nIn 2017 Manvel set 4 records in handstand push-ups. He did the exercise 37 reps in a minute. With this result then he set a new record by doing 37 reps non-stop in a minute. \n\nFor his second record he did the same exercise 55 reps in 3 minutes. However, Manvel's last and most important result was doing push-ups for 352 reps in an hour. According to him, the achieved most result was 300 reps and he wished to surpass that record. \n\nIn 2017 Manvel also set a record for the Most jump squats in one minute (male), with 67 reps per minute.\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography \n \n \n\n1993 births\nLiving people\nGuinness World Records\nSportspeople from Yerevan\nMale bodybuilders",
"A number of new Olympic records were set in various events at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.\n\nArchery\n\nTrack & Field\n\nMen's records\n\nWomen's records\n\nCycling\n\nShooting\n\nMen's records\n\nWomen's records\n\n This equalled Renata Mauer's Olympic record.\n This equalled Tao Luna's Olympic record.\n\nSwimming\n\nDue to the use of the LZR Racer, a specialised swimming suit developed by NASA and the Australian Institute of Sport, many records were broken. New world records were set 25 times (affecting 21 distinct world records) and new Olympic records were set 65 times and one other was equalled (affecting 30 distinct Olympic records). Only Ian Thorpe's 3:40.59 in the 400 metres freestyle and Inge de Bruijn's 56.61 in the 100 metres butterfly, both set in Sydney, remained Olympic records. Michael Phelps of the United States also broke the record for the most gold medals ever won by an Olympian with a total of 14; 8 of which were won during the 2008 Summer Olympics - this was also a world record.\n\nMen\n\n* World record split from the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay\n\nNote: At the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay final, anchor Jason Lezak swam the fastest 100 m split (46.06); however, this is not considered an official FINA record, as he did not swim the first leg.\n\nWomen\n\nWeightlifting\n\nMen's records\n\nWomen's records\n\nReferences\n\n2008 Summer Olympics\n2008 Summer Olympics"
] |
[
"Gautam Gambhir",
"Indian Premier League",
"Whe was the Indian premier league?",
"He was promoted to the post of Captain of the Delhi Daredevils for IPL Season 2010.",
"what did he do as captain?",
"At the end of the tournament he became the only player from Delhi Daredevils to score more than 1000 runs in the IPL.",
"did he set any other records?",
"Gambhir is the leading run-scorer of the Kolkata Knight Riders."
] | C_c517b95f33a74cf5ac5b8cc32a6889b8_1 | did he win any awards? | 4 | Did Gautam Gambhir win any awards? | Gautam Gambhir | Gambhir was picked up by the Delhi Daredevils franchise in the first player auction of the Indian Premier League for a price of US$725,000 a year. He became the second highest run-scorer of the inaugural season with 534 runs from 14 matches. He was promoted to the post of Captain of the Delhi Daredevils for IPL Season 2010. At the end of the tournament he became the only player from Delhi Daredevils to score more than 1000 runs in the IPL. In the 2011 IPL player auction, Gambhir was the most sought after player, fetching a bid of $2.4 million from The Kolkata Knight Riders, making him the highest paid cricketer in the history of IPL. He was then appointed as the skipper of the team. Under Gambhir's captaincy, the Kolkata Knight Riders qualified for the IPL playoffs and also made it to the Champions League Twenty20 for the first time. He eventually led the side to their first title in 2012 by defeating defending champions Chennai Super Kings by 5 wickets at their home ground in Chennai. Gambhir is the leading run-scorer of the Kolkata Knight Riders. During the same season, he scored 6 half-centuries out of a total of nine from his team and became only the second player to cross the 2000 runs mark in the history of the IPL and the second highest run scorer ever in the tournament. On 27 January 2018, In the 2018 IPL Auction, he was bought by the Delhi Daredevils for Rs2.8 crore, later Kolkata Knight Rider's CEO Venky Mysore revealed that Gambhir had asked the team not to retain him as he wanted to finish his IPL career where he started. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Gautam Gambhir (; born 14 October 1981) is an Indian politician and former cricketer, who has played all formats of the game. He is a current member of the Lok Sabha since 2019. He received the Padma Shri from the Government of India in 2019, the fourth highest civilian award in India.
As a cricketer, he was a left-handed opening batsman who played domestic cricket for Delhi, and captained Kolkata Knight Riders and Delhi Daredevils in the Indian Premier League (IPL). He made his One Day International (ODI) debut against Bangladesh in 2003, and played his first Test the following year against Australia. He captained the Indian team in six ODIs from late 2010 to late 2011 with India winning all six matches. He played an integral part in India's wins in the finals of both the 2007 World Twenty20 (75 runs from 54 balls) and the 2011 Cricket World Cup (97 from 122). Under Gambhir's captaincy, Kolkata Knight Riders won their first IPL title in 2012 and went on to win the title again in 2014.
Gambhir was the only Indian and one of four international cricketers to have scored hundreds in five consecutive Test matches. He is the only Indian batsman to have scored more than 300 runs in four consecutive Test series. As of April 2018, he is the sixth highest run-scorer for India in Twenty20 Internationals.
In October 2018, during the quarter-finals of the 2018–19 Vijay Hazare Trophy, he scored his 10,000th run in List A cricket. In December 2018, he announced his retirement from all forms of cricket. In 2019, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party and won election to the Lok Sabha from East Delhi.
He was conferred the Arjuna Award, India's second highest sporting award, in the year 2008 by the President of India. In 2009, he was the number one ranked batsman in ICC Test rankings. The same year, he was the recipient of the ICC Test Player of the Year award. He is currently the mentor of Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL.
Early and personal life
Gambhir was born in New Delhi to Deepak Gambhir, who manages a textiles business, and Seema Gambhir, a housewife. Gambhir has a sister, Ekta, who is two years younger to him.His grandfather originally came from Multan to Delhi in 1947.Gambhir was adopted by his maternal grandparents eighteen days after his birth and lived with them ever since. Gambhir started playing cricket at the age of 10. He received his schooling from Modern School, New Delhi and graduated from Hindu College, University of Delhi. He stayed at his maternal uncle Pawan Gulati's residence in the '90s. Gambhir considers Gulati to be his mentor and would often call him up before important matches. Gambhir was coached by Sanjay Bharadwaj of Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy in Delhi, and Raju Tandon. Gambhir was selected for the first intake of the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore in 2000.
In October 2011, Gambhir married Natasha Jain, who belongs to a prominent business family. He currently resides in Delhi's Rajendra Nagar neighbourhood.
Indian Premier League
Gambhir was picked up by the Delhi Daredevils franchise in the first player auction of the Indian Premier League for a price of US$725,000 a year. He became the second highest run-scorer of the inaugural season with 534 runs from 14 matches. For his performances in 2008, he was named in the Cricinfo IPL XI. He was promoted to the post of Captain of the Delhi Daredevils for IPL Season 2010. At the end of the tournament he became the only player from Delhi Daredevils to score more than 1000 runs in the IPL.
In the 2011 IPL player auction, Gambhir was the most sought after player, fetching a bid of $2.4 million from The Kolkata Knight Riders, making him the highest paid cricketer in the history of IPL. He was then appointed as the skipper of the team. Under Gambhir's captaincy, the Kolkata Knight Riders qualified for the IPL playoffs and also made it to the Champions League Twenty20 for the first time. He eventually led the side to their first title in 2012 by defeating defending champions Chennai Super Kings by 5 wickets at their home ground in Chennai. For his performances in 2012, he was named as captain of the Cricinfo IPL XI. Gambhir is the leading run-scorer of the Kolkata Knight Riders. During the same season, he scored 6 half-centuries out of a total of nine from his team and became only the second player to cross the 2000 runs mark in the history of the IPL and the second highest run scorer ever in the tournament. He led Kolkata Knight Riders to their second title in 2014 by beating Kings XI Punjab by 3 wickets. He led Kolkata Knight Riders to the playoffs in the 2016 and 2017 season and was also the highest run-scorer. For his performances in the 2017 IPL season, he was named in the Cricinfo and Cricbuzz IPL XI.
On 27 January 2018, in the 2018 IPL Auction, he was bought by the Delhi Daredevils for ₹2.8 crore, and was appointed as the captain. Later Kolkata Knight Rider's CEO Venky Mysore revealed that Gambhir had asked the team not to retain him as he wanted to finish his IPL career where he started. On 25 April, Gambhir stepped down from captaincy citing poor performances of the team, and announced Shreyas Iyer as the new captain of the Delhi Daredevils.
In December 2021, Gambhir was announced the mentor of the new IPL franchise Lucknow Super Giants.
International career
Early career
While Gambhir was out of the Test team, he played a number of One Day Internationals for India between 2005 and 2007. However, he was not selected for the 2007 World Cup as the selectors opted for a top-order of Sourav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag, and Sachin Tendulkar. It affected him badly and Gambhir later said that "When I got dropped for the World Cup, there were times I didn't want to play anymore. I didn't want to practise. I couldn't motivate myself." With no other career options, Gambhir stuck with cricket. After India's first-round exit from the tournament, Gambhir was selected for the One Day International on India's 2007 tour of Bangladesh. Believing the series could be his last chance, Gambhir scored his second century on that tour and was subsequently selected for the One Day International on India's tour to Ireland in 2007. He scored an unbeaten 80 against Ireland in the first game of that tour and was awarded the man of the match award for that effort. In the post-match interview, he indicated that performing more consistently was a top priority for his career as he had done so in the past.
Gambhir was selected in India's squad for the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, which India went on to win in South Africa, beating Pakistan in the final. Gambhir performed well in the shortest form of the game, ending the tournament as India's top run scorer, with 227 at an average of 37.83, including three half-centuries which included a crucial 75 runs off 54 balls against Pakistan in the final. He was named in the 'Team of the Tournament' by Cricinfo for the 2007 T20I World Cup.
For his performances in 2007, he was named in the World T20I XI by Cricinfo.
Golden form
In 2008, Gambhir was forced to miss the Test series in Australia due to a shoulder injury. In the 2007–08 CB Series, he scored an unbeaten 102 at the Gabba against Sri Lanka in a match washed out due to rain. Three weeks later at Sydney, he scored a career-best 113 off 119 balls against Australia, in a high scoring match which India lost by 18 runs. He finished the CB series as the leading run-scorer with 440 runs.
In 2008 Gambhir finally solidified his place in the Indian Test team with a string of high scores. Opening the batting with Delhi teammate Virender Sehwag, he scored 858 runs at over 61 in seven matches as of December including a double century against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. However, in the same match, he was involved in controversy when he elbowed bowler Shane Watson while taking a run. Gambhir asserted it was accidental, but was banned for one Test. Gambhir scored 463 runs in the series, which despite missing the last match was more than any other player in the series.
He was the leading run-scorer in the Test series against England in December 2008 and against New Zealand in early 2009, meaning that he had achieved this feat in three consecutive series.
For his performances in 2008, he was named in the World Test XI and ODI XI by Cricinfo.
Gambhir played his first major Test series outside the sub-continent, having toured New Zealand in 2009. In the second Test match, he scored a match-saving 137 in the second innings. He stood more than five sessions in the middle and faced over 430 balls. This innings led Virender Sehwag, Gambhir's opening partner, close friend, and captain for the match, to call him 'The Second Wall' in reference to Rahul Dravid. He then scored 167 in the second innings of the Third Test to give India an unassailable lead, but rain helped the New Zealand batsmen to hang on for a draw. Gambhir, with 445 runs in six innings at an average of 89, helped India win 1–0 to script a series win in that country after 41 years.
Through ranks
He was named as the ICC Test Player of the Year for 2009, and was briefly ranked the No. 1 batsman in the ICC rankings in July; at the time India were not playing Tests and his points rating did not change, but other batsmen who were ranked higher lost points before regaining them.
He continued his run in the late-2009 Test series against Sri Lanka at home. He scored a century in the second innings of the First Test in Ahmedabad to force a draw after the visitors had taken a first innings lead of more than 300, and then combined in a double century opening partnership with Sehwag on the first day of the Second Test in Kanpur, scoring 167 himself and helping India to score more than 400 runs on the opening day. This set up their score of 642 and an innings victory. Following the match, Gambhir returned to the top of the ICC rankings. Gambhir withdrew from the Third and final Test against Sri Lanka at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai in order to attend his sister's wedding.
In the First Test against Bangladesh in Chittagong in January 2009, Gambhir hit a rapid 116 from 129 balls. It was his fifth century in as many Tests and made him the fourth player to achieve this feat. Only Don Bradman has managed six centuries in as many matches. In the 29th Test match against Bangladesh at Dhaka, he rewrote the history of IVA Richards by scoring most fifties plus runs in 11 consecutive matches. In this match, he scored 66 runs.
For his performances in 2009, he was named in the World Test XI by the ICC.
Brief captaincy
In 2010, Gambhir was appointed captain of the national team in the ODI series against New Zealand which was hosted by India. He scored an unbeaten 126 in the third match in Vadodara to help seal the series, guiding the hosts to victory in the run-chase. He eventually earned the Man-of-the-Series award for leading India to a 5–0 win. He then returned as captain of the side in India's match against the West Indies in December 2011.
Post-captaincy
In the final of the Cricket World Cup 2011, Gambhir scored a solid knock of 97 from 122 balls. Coming in to bat in the first over after the dismissal of Virender Sehwag, he anchored the Indian inning despite the early dismissal of both the openers. He had a good partnership first with Kohli, and then a match-winning partnership of 109 runs with MS Dhoni.
In 2011, India's batting line-up struggled in Tests, particularly away from home. Out of sixteen innings in away Tests, India passed 300 just twice and both the team's opening batsmen failed to score a century in the format in the whole of 2011. Between February 2010 and November 2011, Gambhir played in 14 Tests. From 25 innings he scored 704 runs at an average of 29.33. In the same period, only two opening batsmen who had played at least 15 innings had a worse average: Phillip Hughes of Australia and Imrul Kayes of Bangladesh. However, while he was struggling in Tests, Gambhir enjoyed a rich run of form in ODIs, averaging 56.90 from 23 matches. Gambhir opened the batting in all four of India's Test defeats against Australia in 2011–12. He scored 181 runs at an average of 22.62.
For his performances in 2012, he was named in the World ODI XI by the ICC.
On 12 February 2012, Gambhir scored 92 off 111 balls in an ODI match against Australia at the Adelaide Oval, to help India win their first match against the hosts at that venue. It was also India's highest successful run chase in Australia. For his effort, Gambhir won the Man of the Match award. On 14 February 2012, against Sri Lanka, Gambhir yet again missed out on an ODI hundred when he was dismissed run out for a fine 91 off 106 balls. This knock from Gambhir was instrumental in securing a thrilling tie in that match. In August 2012,
the Indian selection committee handed him back vice-captaincy of the T20 squad for the World Cup.
Comeback
After a big absence from international cricket, on 8 October 2016, Gambhir was recalled for the Test-Match series against New Zealand, after showing good form in domestic cricket.
Retirement
Gambhir announced his retirement from all forms of cricket on 3 December 2018, ahead of his final match for the Delhi cricket team against the Andhra cricket team in the Ranji Trophy on 6 December 2018. Gambhir went on to score 112 in his final innings, his 43rd century in first-class cricket. Gautam Gambhir began his new innings as a parliamentarian as he took oath as the Lok Sabha MP on 17 June 2019.
Gautam Gambhir Foundation
The Gautam Gambhir Foundation is the philanthropic initiative of Gautam Gambhir. It was started in 2014 and is based out of Delhi. He set up community kitchens in 2017 through the Foundation in Patel Nagar, Delhi, in a bid to make sure no one slept hungry in the city. The key project of the Foundation is to reach out to as many children of paramilitary martyrs as possible and empower them by supporting their entire educational needs. Apart from this, the GGF works with adolescent girls from underprivileged homes in generating awareness on nutrition, health and hygiene, and an effort to make Delhi green by planting trees the city to fight air pollution in the city.
Politics
On 22 March 2019, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the presence of Union ministers Arun Jaitley and Ravi Shankar Prasad. He was the party's candidate from East Delhi in the 2019 Indian general election. After his opponent Atishi Marlena challenged him to a debate, Gambhir declined her challenge, saying he doesn't believe in "dharna and debates." Gautam won the elections by 695,109 votes against Atishi Marlena and Arvinder Singh Lovely.
Other work
Gambhir has started work at his constituency of East Delhi, installing CCTV cameras to tackle the issue of women's safety which has plagued Delhi in recent times. He is also the Brand Ambassador for Pinnacle Industries' Pinnacle Specialty Vehicles.
References
External links
Gautam Gambhir Foundation
Punjabi people
1981 births
Cricketers from Delhi
Living people
India One Day International cricketers
India Test cricketers
India Twenty20 International cricketers
North Zone cricketers
Delhi cricketers
Indian cricket captains
Cricketers at the 2011 Cricket World Cup
Recipients of the Arjuna Award
Delhi Capitals cricketers
Essex cricketers
India Red cricketers
India Blue cricketers
Kolkata Knight Riders cricketers
17th Lok Sabha members
National Democratic Alliance candidates in the 2019 Indian general election
Indian sportsperson-politicians
Recipients of the Padma Shri in sports | false | [
"Le Cousin is a 1997 French film directed by Alain Corneau.\n\nPlot \nThe film deals with the relationship of the police and an informant in the drug scene.\n\nAwards and nominations\nLe Cousin was nominated for 5 César Awards but did not win in any category.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1997 films\n1997 crime films\nFilms about drugs\nFilms directed by Alain Corneau\nFrench crime films\nFrench films\nFrench-language films",
"The 23rd Fangoria Chainsaw Awards is an award ceremony presented for horror films that were released in 2020. The nominees were announced on January 20, 2021. The film The Invisible Man won five of its five nominations, including Best Wide Release, as well as the write-in poll of Best Kill. Color Out Of Space and Possessor each took two awards. His House did not win any of its seven nominations. The ceremony was exclusively livestreamed for the first time on the SHUDDER horror streaming service.\n\nWinners and nominees\n\nReferences\n\nFangoria Chainsaw Awards"
] |
[
"Gautam Gambhir",
"Indian Premier League",
"Whe was the Indian premier league?",
"He was promoted to the post of Captain of the Delhi Daredevils for IPL Season 2010.",
"what did he do as captain?",
"At the end of the tournament he became the only player from Delhi Daredevils to score more than 1000 runs in the IPL.",
"did he set any other records?",
"Gambhir is the leading run-scorer of the Kolkata Knight Riders.",
"did he win any awards?",
"I don't know."
] | C_c517b95f33a74cf5ac5b8cc32a6889b8_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 5 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article aside from Gautam Gambhir record? | Gautam Gambhir | Gambhir was picked up by the Delhi Daredevils franchise in the first player auction of the Indian Premier League for a price of US$725,000 a year. He became the second highest run-scorer of the inaugural season with 534 runs from 14 matches. He was promoted to the post of Captain of the Delhi Daredevils for IPL Season 2010. At the end of the tournament he became the only player from Delhi Daredevils to score more than 1000 runs in the IPL. In the 2011 IPL player auction, Gambhir was the most sought after player, fetching a bid of $2.4 million from The Kolkata Knight Riders, making him the highest paid cricketer in the history of IPL. He was then appointed as the skipper of the team. Under Gambhir's captaincy, the Kolkata Knight Riders qualified for the IPL playoffs and also made it to the Champions League Twenty20 for the first time. He eventually led the side to their first title in 2012 by defeating defending champions Chennai Super Kings by 5 wickets at their home ground in Chennai. Gambhir is the leading run-scorer of the Kolkata Knight Riders. During the same season, he scored 6 half-centuries out of a total of nine from his team and became only the second player to cross the 2000 runs mark in the history of the IPL and the second highest run scorer ever in the tournament. On 27 January 2018, In the 2018 IPL Auction, he was bought by the Delhi Daredevils for Rs2.8 crore, later Kolkata Knight Rider's CEO Venky Mysore revealed that Gambhir had asked the team not to retain him as he wanted to finish his IPL career where he started. CANNOTANSWER | On 27 January 2018, In the 2018 IPL Auction, he was bought by the Delhi Daredevils for Rs2.8 crore, | Gautam Gambhir (; born 14 October 1981) is an Indian politician and former cricketer, who has played all formats of the game. He is a current member of the Lok Sabha since 2019. He received the Padma Shri from the Government of India in 2019, the fourth highest civilian award in India.
As a cricketer, he was a left-handed opening batsman who played domestic cricket for Delhi, and captained Kolkata Knight Riders and Delhi Daredevils in the Indian Premier League (IPL). He made his One Day International (ODI) debut against Bangladesh in 2003, and played his first Test the following year against Australia. He captained the Indian team in six ODIs from late 2010 to late 2011 with India winning all six matches. He played an integral part in India's wins in the finals of both the 2007 World Twenty20 (75 runs from 54 balls) and the 2011 Cricket World Cup (97 from 122). Under Gambhir's captaincy, Kolkata Knight Riders won their first IPL title in 2012 and went on to win the title again in 2014.
Gambhir was the only Indian and one of four international cricketers to have scored hundreds in five consecutive Test matches. He is the only Indian batsman to have scored more than 300 runs in four consecutive Test series. As of April 2018, he is the sixth highest run-scorer for India in Twenty20 Internationals.
In October 2018, during the quarter-finals of the 2018–19 Vijay Hazare Trophy, he scored his 10,000th run in List A cricket. In December 2018, he announced his retirement from all forms of cricket. In 2019, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party and won election to the Lok Sabha from East Delhi.
He was conferred the Arjuna Award, India's second highest sporting award, in the year 2008 by the President of India. In 2009, he was the number one ranked batsman in ICC Test rankings. The same year, he was the recipient of the ICC Test Player of the Year award. He is currently the mentor of Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL.
Early and personal life
Gambhir was born in New Delhi to Deepak Gambhir, who manages a textiles business, and Seema Gambhir, a housewife. Gambhir has a sister, Ekta, who is two years younger to him.His grandfather originally came from Multan to Delhi in 1947.Gambhir was adopted by his maternal grandparents eighteen days after his birth and lived with them ever since. Gambhir started playing cricket at the age of 10. He received his schooling from Modern School, New Delhi and graduated from Hindu College, University of Delhi. He stayed at his maternal uncle Pawan Gulati's residence in the '90s. Gambhir considers Gulati to be his mentor and would often call him up before important matches. Gambhir was coached by Sanjay Bharadwaj of Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy in Delhi, and Raju Tandon. Gambhir was selected for the first intake of the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore in 2000.
In October 2011, Gambhir married Natasha Jain, who belongs to a prominent business family. He currently resides in Delhi's Rajendra Nagar neighbourhood.
Indian Premier League
Gambhir was picked up by the Delhi Daredevils franchise in the first player auction of the Indian Premier League for a price of US$725,000 a year. He became the second highest run-scorer of the inaugural season with 534 runs from 14 matches. For his performances in 2008, he was named in the Cricinfo IPL XI. He was promoted to the post of Captain of the Delhi Daredevils for IPL Season 2010. At the end of the tournament he became the only player from Delhi Daredevils to score more than 1000 runs in the IPL.
In the 2011 IPL player auction, Gambhir was the most sought after player, fetching a bid of $2.4 million from The Kolkata Knight Riders, making him the highest paid cricketer in the history of IPL. He was then appointed as the skipper of the team. Under Gambhir's captaincy, the Kolkata Knight Riders qualified for the IPL playoffs and also made it to the Champions League Twenty20 for the first time. He eventually led the side to their first title in 2012 by defeating defending champions Chennai Super Kings by 5 wickets at their home ground in Chennai. For his performances in 2012, he was named as captain of the Cricinfo IPL XI. Gambhir is the leading run-scorer of the Kolkata Knight Riders. During the same season, he scored 6 half-centuries out of a total of nine from his team and became only the second player to cross the 2000 runs mark in the history of the IPL and the second highest run scorer ever in the tournament. He led Kolkata Knight Riders to their second title in 2014 by beating Kings XI Punjab by 3 wickets. He led Kolkata Knight Riders to the playoffs in the 2016 and 2017 season and was also the highest run-scorer. For his performances in the 2017 IPL season, he was named in the Cricinfo and Cricbuzz IPL XI.
On 27 January 2018, in the 2018 IPL Auction, he was bought by the Delhi Daredevils for ₹2.8 crore, and was appointed as the captain. Later Kolkata Knight Rider's CEO Venky Mysore revealed that Gambhir had asked the team not to retain him as he wanted to finish his IPL career where he started. On 25 April, Gambhir stepped down from captaincy citing poor performances of the team, and announced Shreyas Iyer as the new captain of the Delhi Daredevils.
In December 2021, Gambhir was announced the mentor of the new IPL franchise Lucknow Super Giants.
International career
Early career
While Gambhir was out of the Test team, he played a number of One Day Internationals for India between 2005 and 2007. However, he was not selected for the 2007 World Cup as the selectors opted for a top-order of Sourav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag, and Sachin Tendulkar. It affected him badly and Gambhir later said that "When I got dropped for the World Cup, there were times I didn't want to play anymore. I didn't want to practise. I couldn't motivate myself." With no other career options, Gambhir stuck with cricket. After India's first-round exit from the tournament, Gambhir was selected for the One Day International on India's 2007 tour of Bangladesh. Believing the series could be his last chance, Gambhir scored his second century on that tour and was subsequently selected for the One Day International on India's tour to Ireland in 2007. He scored an unbeaten 80 against Ireland in the first game of that tour and was awarded the man of the match award for that effort. In the post-match interview, he indicated that performing more consistently was a top priority for his career as he had done so in the past.
Gambhir was selected in India's squad for the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, which India went on to win in South Africa, beating Pakistan in the final. Gambhir performed well in the shortest form of the game, ending the tournament as India's top run scorer, with 227 at an average of 37.83, including three half-centuries which included a crucial 75 runs off 54 balls against Pakistan in the final. He was named in the 'Team of the Tournament' by Cricinfo for the 2007 T20I World Cup.
For his performances in 2007, he was named in the World T20I XI by Cricinfo.
Golden form
In 2008, Gambhir was forced to miss the Test series in Australia due to a shoulder injury. In the 2007–08 CB Series, he scored an unbeaten 102 at the Gabba against Sri Lanka in a match washed out due to rain. Three weeks later at Sydney, he scored a career-best 113 off 119 balls against Australia, in a high scoring match which India lost by 18 runs. He finished the CB series as the leading run-scorer with 440 runs.
In 2008 Gambhir finally solidified his place in the Indian Test team with a string of high scores. Opening the batting with Delhi teammate Virender Sehwag, he scored 858 runs at over 61 in seven matches as of December including a double century against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. However, in the same match, he was involved in controversy when he elbowed bowler Shane Watson while taking a run. Gambhir asserted it was accidental, but was banned for one Test. Gambhir scored 463 runs in the series, which despite missing the last match was more than any other player in the series.
He was the leading run-scorer in the Test series against England in December 2008 and against New Zealand in early 2009, meaning that he had achieved this feat in three consecutive series.
For his performances in 2008, he was named in the World Test XI and ODI XI by Cricinfo.
Gambhir played his first major Test series outside the sub-continent, having toured New Zealand in 2009. In the second Test match, he scored a match-saving 137 in the second innings. He stood more than five sessions in the middle and faced over 430 balls. This innings led Virender Sehwag, Gambhir's opening partner, close friend, and captain for the match, to call him 'The Second Wall' in reference to Rahul Dravid. He then scored 167 in the second innings of the Third Test to give India an unassailable lead, but rain helped the New Zealand batsmen to hang on for a draw. Gambhir, with 445 runs in six innings at an average of 89, helped India win 1–0 to script a series win in that country after 41 years.
Through ranks
He was named as the ICC Test Player of the Year for 2009, and was briefly ranked the No. 1 batsman in the ICC rankings in July; at the time India were not playing Tests and his points rating did not change, but other batsmen who were ranked higher lost points before regaining them.
He continued his run in the late-2009 Test series against Sri Lanka at home. He scored a century in the second innings of the First Test in Ahmedabad to force a draw after the visitors had taken a first innings lead of more than 300, and then combined in a double century opening partnership with Sehwag on the first day of the Second Test in Kanpur, scoring 167 himself and helping India to score more than 400 runs on the opening day. This set up their score of 642 and an innings victory. Following the match, Gambhir returned to the top of the ICC rankings. Gambhir withdrew from the Third and final Test against Sri Lanka at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai in order to attend his sister's wedding.
In the First Test against Bangladesh in Chittagong in January 2009, Gambhir hit a rapid 116 from 129 balls. It was his fifth century in as many Tests and made him the fourth player to achieve this feat. Only Don Bradman has managed six centuries in as many matches. In the 29th Test match against Bangladesh at Dhaka, he rewrote the history of IVA Richards by scoring most fifties plus runs in 11 consecutive matches. In this match, he scored 66 runs.
For his performances in 2009, he was named in the World Test XI by the ICC.
Brief captaincy
In 2010, Gambhir was appointed captain of the national team in the ODI series against New Zealand which was hosted by India. He scored an unbeaten 126 in the third match in Vadodara to help seal the series, guiding the hosts to victory in the run-chase. He eventually earned the Man-of-the-Series award for leading India to a 5–0 win. He then returned as captain of the side in India's match against the West Indies in December 2011.
Post-captaincy
In the final of the Cricket World Cup 2011, Gambhir scored a solid knock of 97 from 122 balls. Coming in to bat in the first over after the dismissal of Virender Sehwag, he anchored the Indian inning despite the early dismissal of both the openers. He had a good partnership first with Kohli, and then a match-winning partnership of 109 runs with MS Dhoni.
In 2011, India's batting line-up struggled in Tests, particularly away from home. Out of sixteen innings in away Tests, India passed 300 just twice and both the team's opening batsmen failed to score a century in the format in the whole of 2011. Between February 2010 and November 2011, Gambhir played in 14 Tests. From 25 innings he scored 704 runs at an average of 29.33. In the same period, only two opening batsmen who had played at least 15 innings had a worse average: Phillip Hughes of Australia and Imrul Kayes of Bangladesh. However, while he was struggling in Tests, Gambhir enjoyed a rich run of form in ODIs, averaging 56.90 from 23 matches. Gambhir opened the batting in all four of India's Test defeats against Australia in 2011–12. He scored 181 runs at an average of 22.62.
For his performances in 2012, he was named in the World ODI XI by the ICC.
On 12 February 2012, Gambhir scored 92 off 111 balls in an ODI match against Australia at the Adelaide Oval, to help India win their first match against the hosts at that venue. It was also India's highest successful run chase in Australia. For his effort, Gambhir won the Man of the Match award. On 14 February 2012, against Sri Lanka, Gambhir yet again missed out on an ODI hundred when he was dismissed run out for a fine 91 off 106 balls. This knock from Gambhir was instrumental in securing a thrilling tie in that match. In August 2012,
the Indian selection committee handed him back vice-captaincy of the T20 squad for the World Cup.
Comeback
After a big absence from international cricket, on 8 October 2016, Gambhir was recalled for the Test-Match series against New Zealand, after showing good form in domestic cricket.
Retirement
Gambhir announced his retirement from all forms of cricket on 3 December 2018, ahead of his final match for the Delhi cricket team against the Andhra cricket team in the Ranji Trophy on 6 December 2018. Gambhir went on to score 112 in his final innings, his 43rd century in first-class cricket. Gautam Gambhir began his new innings as a parliamentarian as he took oath as the Lok Sabha MP on 17 June 2019.
Gautam Gambhir Foundation
The Gautam Gambhir Foundation is the philanthropic initiative of Gautam Gambhir. It was started in 2014 and is based out of Delhi. He set up community kitchens in 2017 through the Foundation in Patel Nagar, Delhi, in a bid to make sure no one slept hungry in the city. The key project of the Foundation is to reach out to as many children of paramilitary martyrs as possible and empower them by supporting their entire educational needs. Apart from this, the GGF works with adolescent girls from underprivileged homes in generating awareness on nutrition, health and hygiene, and an effort to make Delhi green by planting trees the city to fight air pollution in the city.
Politics
On 22 March 2019, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the presence of Union ministers Arun Jaitley and Ravi Shankar Prasad. He was the party's candidate from East Delhi in the 2019 Indian general election. After his opponent Atishi Marlena challenged him to a debate, Gambhir declined her challenge, saying he doesn't believe in "dharna and debates." Gautam won the elections by 695,109 votes against Atishi Marlena and Arvinder Singh Lovely.
Other work
Gambhir has started work at his constituency of East Delhi, installing CCTV cameras to tackle the issue of women's safety which has plagued Delhi in recent times. He is also the Brand Ambassador for Pinnacle Industries' Pinnacle Specialty Vehicles.
References
External links
Gautam Gambhir Foundation
Punjabi people
1981 births
Cricketers from Delhi
Living people
India One Day International cricketers
India Test cricketers
India Twenty20 International cricketers
North Zone cricketers
Delhi cricketers
Indian cricket captains
Cricketers at the 2011 Cricket World Cup
Recipients of the Arjuna Award
Delhi Capitals cricketers
Essex cricketers
India Red cricketers
India Blue cricketers
Kolkata Knight Riders cricketers
17th Lok Sabha members
National Democratic Alliance candidates in the 2019 Indian general election
Indian sportsperson-politicians
Recipients of the Padma Shri in sports | false | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Gautam Gambhir",
"Indian Premier League",
"Whe was the Indian premier league?",
"He was promoted to the post of Captain of the Delhi Daredevils for IPL Season 2010.",
"what did he do as captain?",
"At the end of the tournament he became the only player from Delhi Daredevils to score more than 1000 runs in the IPL.",
"did he set any other records?",
"Gambhir is the leading run-scorer of the Kolkata Knight Riders.",
"did he win any awards?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"On 27 January 2018, In the 2018 IPL Auction, he was bought by the Delhi Daredevils for Rs2.8 crore,"
] | C_c517b95f33a74cf5ac5b8cc32a6889b8_1 | did he play for any other teams? | 6 | Did Gautam Gambhir play for any other teams other than Delhi Daredevils? | Gautam Gambhir | Gambhir was picked up by the Delhi Daredevils franchise in the first player auction of the Indian Premier League for a price of US$725,000 a year. He became the second highest run-scorer of the inaugural season with 534 runs from 14 matches. He was promoted to the post of Captain of the Delhi Daredevils for IPL Season 2010. At the end of the tournament he became the only player from Delhi Daredevils to score more than 1000 runs in the IPL. In the 2011 IPL player auction, Gambhir was the most sought after player, fetching a bid of $2.4 million from The Kolkata Knight Riders, making him the highest paid cricketer in the history of IPL. He was then appointed as the skipper of the team. Under Gambhir's captaincy, the Kolkata Knight Riders qualified for the IPL playoffs and also made it to the Champions League Twenty20 for the first time. He eventually led the side to their first title in 2012 by defeating defending champions Chennai Super Kings by 5 wickets at their home ground in Chennai. Gambhir is the leading run-scorer of the Kolkata Knight Riders. During the same season, he scored 6 half-centuries out of a total of nine from his team and became only the second player to cross the 2000 runs mark in the history of the IPL and the second highest run scorer ever in the tournament. On 27 January 2018, In the 2018 IPL Auction, he was bought by the Delhi Daredevils for Rs2.8 crore, later Kolkata Knight Rider's CEO Venky Mysore revealed that Gambhir had asked the team not to retain him as he wanted to finish his IPL career where he started. CANNOTANSWER | later Kolkata Knight Rider's CEO Venky Mysore revealed that Gambhir had asked the team not to retain him as he wanted to finish his IPL career where he started. | Gautam Gambhir (; born 14 October 1981) is an Indian politician and former cricketer, who has played all formats of the game. He is a current member of the Lok Sabha since 2019. He received the Padma Shri from the Government of India in 2019, the fourth highest civilian award in India.
As a cricketer, he was a left-handed opening batsman who played domestic cricket for Delhi, and captained Kolkata Knight Riders and Delhi Daredevils in the Indian Premier League (IPL). He made his One Day International (ODI) debut against Bangladesh in 2003, and played his first Test the following year against Australia. He captained the Indian team in six ODIs from late 2010 to late 2011 with India winning all six matches. He played an integral part in India's wins in the finals of both the 2007 World Twenty20 (75 runs from 54 balls) and the 2011 Cricket World Cup (97 from 122). Under Gambhir's captaincy, Kolkata Knight Riders won their first IPL title in 2012 and went on to win the title again in 2014.
Gambhir was the only Indian and one of four international cricketers to have scored hundreds in five consecutive Test matches. He is the only Indian batsman to have scored more than 300 runs in four consecutive Test series. As of April 2018, he is the sixth highest run-scorer for India in Twenty20 Internationals.
In October 2018, during the quarter-finals of the 2018–19 Vijay Hazare Trophy, he scored his 10,000th run in List A cricket. In December 2018, he announced his retirement from all forms of cricket. In 2019, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party and won election to the Lok Sabha from East Delhi.
He was conferred the Arjuna Award, India's second highest sporting award, in the year 2008 by the President of India. In 2009, he was the number one ranked batsman in ICC Test rankings. The same year, he was the recipient of the ICC Test Player of the Year award. He is currently the mentor of Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL.
Early and personal life
Gambhir was born in New Delhi to Deepak Gambhir, who manages a textiles business, and Seema Gambhir, a housewife. Gambhir has a sister, Ekta, who is two years younger to him.His grandfather originally came from Multan to Delhi in 1947.Gambhir was adopted by his maternal grandparents eighteen days after his birth and lived with them ever since. Gambhir started playing cricket at the age of 10. He received his schooling from Modern School, New Delhi and graduated from Hindu College, University of Delhi. He stayed at his maternal uncle Pawan Gulati's residence in the '90s. Gambhir considers Gulati to be his mentor and would often call him up before important matches. Gambhir was coached by Sanjay Bharadwaj of Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy in Delhi, and Raju Tandon. Gambhir was selected for the first intake of the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore in 2000.
In October 2011, Gambhir married Natasha Jain, who belongs to a prominent business family. He currently resides in Delhi's Rajendra Nagar neighbourhood.
Indian Premier League
Gambhir was picked up by the Delhi Daredevils franchise in the first player auction of the Indian Premier League for a price of US$725,000 a year. He became the second highest run-scorer of the inaugural season with 534 runs from 14 matches. For his performances in 2008, he was named in the Cricinfo IPL XI. He was promoted to the post of Captain of the Delhi Daredevils for IPL Season 2010. At the end of the tournament he became the only player from Delhi Daredevils to score more than 1000 runs in the IPL.
In the 2011 IPL player auction, Gambhir was the most sought after player, fetching a bid of $2.4 million from The Kolkata Knight Riders, making him the highest paid cricketer in the history of IPL. He was then appointed as the skipper of the team. Under Gambhir's captaincy, the Kolkata Knight Riders qualified for the IPL playoffs and also made it to the Champions League Twenty20 for the first time. He eventually led the side to their first title in 2012 by defeating defending champions Chennai Super Kings by 5 wickets at their home ground in Chennai. For his performances in 2012, he was named as captain of the Cricinfo IPL XI. Gambhir is the leading run-scorer of the Kolkata Knight Riders. During the same season, he scored 6 half-centuries out of a total of nine from his team and became only the second player to cross the 2000 runs mark in the history of the IPL and the second highest run scorer ever in the tournament. He led Kolkata Knight Riders to their second title in 2014 by beating Kings XI Punjab by 3 wickets. He led Kolkata Knight Riders to the playoffs in the 2016 and 2017 season and was also the highest run-scorer. For his performances in the 2017 IPL season, he was named in the Cricinfo and Cricbuzz IPL XI.
On 27 January 2018, in the 2018 IPL Auction, he was bought by the Delhi Daredevils for ₹2.8 crore, and was appointed as the captain. Later Kolkata Knight Rider's CEO Venky Mysore revealed that Gambhir had asked the team not to retain him as he wanted to finish his IPL career where he started. On 25 April, Gambhir stepped down from captaincy citing poor performances of the team, and announced Shreyas Iyer as the new captain of the Delhi Daredevils.
In December 2021, Gambhir was announced the mentor of the new IPL franchise Lucknow Super Giants.
International career
Early career
While Gambhir was out of the Test team, he played a number of One Day Internationals for India between 2005 and 2007. However, he was not selected for the 2007 World Cup as the selectors opted for a top-order of Sourav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag, and Sachin Tendulkar. It affected him badly and Gambhir later said that "When I got dropped for the World Cup, there were times I didn't want to play anymore. I didn't want to practise. I couldn't motivate myself." With no other career options, Gambhir stuck with cricket. After India's first-round exit from the tournament, Gambhir was selected for the One Day International on India's 2007 tour of Bangladesh. Believing the series could be his last chance, Gambhir scored his second century on that tour and was subsequently selected for the One Day International on India's tour to Ireland in 2007. He scored an unbeaten 80 against Ireland in the first game of that tour and was awarded the man of the match award for that effort. In the post-match interview, he indicated that performing more consistently was a top priority for his career as he had done so in the past.
Gambhir was selected in India's squad for the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, which India went on to win in South Africa, beating Pakistan in the final. Gambhir performed well in the shortest form of the game, ending the tournament as India's top run scorer, with 227 at an average of 37.83, including three half-centuries which included a crucial 75 runs off 54 balls against Pakistan in the final. He was named in the 'Team of the Tournament' by Cricinfo for the 2007 T20I World Cup.
For his performances in 2007, he was named in the World T20I XI by Cricinfo.
Golden form
In 2008, Gambhir was forced to miss the Test series in Australia due to a shoulder injury. In the 2007–08 CB Series, he scored an unbeaten 102 at the Gabba against Sri Lanka in a match washed out due to rain. Three weeks later at Sydney, he scored a career-best 113 off 119 balls against Australia, in a high scoring match which India lost by 18 runs. He finished the CB series as the leading run-scorer with 440 runs.
In 2008 Gambhir finally solidified his place in the Indian Test team with a string of high scores. Opening the batting with Delhi teammate Virender Sehwag, he scored 858 runs at over 61 in seven matches as of December including a double century against Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. However, in the same match, he was involved in controversy when he elbowed bowler Shane Watson while taking a run. Gambhir asserted it was accidental, but was banned for one Test. Gambhir scored 463 runs in the series, which despite missing the last match was more than any other player in the series.
He was the leading run-scorer in the Test series against England in December 2008 and against New Zealand in early 2009, meaning that he had achieved this feat in three consecutive series.
For his performances in 2008, he was named in the World Test XI and ODI XI by Cricinfo.
Gambhir played his first major Test series outside the sub-continent, having toured New Zealand in 2009. In the second Test match, he scored a match-saving 137 in the second innings. He stood more than five sessions in the middle and faced over 430 balls. This innings led Virender Sehwag, Gambhir's opening partner, close friend, and captain for the match, to call him 'The Second Wall' in reference to Rahul Dravid. He then scored 167 in the second innings of the Third Test to give India an unassailable lead, but rain helped the New Zealand batsmen to hang on for a draw. Gambhir, with 445 runs in six innings at an average of 89, helped India win 1–0 to script a series win in that country after 41 years.
Through ranks
He was named as the ICC Test Player of the Year for 2009, and was briefly ranked the No. 1 batsman in the ICC rankings in July; at the time India were not playing Tests and his points rating did not change, but other batsmen who were ranked higher lost points before regaining them.
He continued his run in the late-2009 Test series against Sri Lanka at home. He scored a century in the second innings of the First Test in Ahmedabad to force a draw after the visitors had taken a first innings lead of more than 300, and then combined in a double century opening partnership with Sehwag on the first day of the Second Test in Kanpur, scoring 167 himself and helping India to score more than 400 runs on the opening day. This set up their score of 642 and an innings victory. Following the match, Gambhir returned to the top of the ICC rankings. Gambhir withdrew from the Third and final Test against Sri Lanka at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai in order to attend his sister's wedding.
In the First Test against Bangladesh in Chittagong in January 2009, Gambhir hit a rapid 116 from 129 balls. It was his fifth century in as many Tests and made him the fourth player to achieve this feat. Only Don Bradman has managed six centuries in as many matches. In the 29th Test match against Bangladesh at Dhaka, he rewrote the history of IVA Richards by scoring most fifties plus runs in 11 consecutive matches. In this match, he scored 66 runs.
For his performances in 2009, he was named in the World Test XI by the ICC.
Brief captaincy
In 2010, Gambhir was appointed captain of the national team in the ODI series against New Zealand which was hosted by India. He scored an unbeaten 126 in the third match in Vadodara to help seal the series, guiding the hosts to victory in the run-chase. He eventually earned the Man-of-the-Series award for leading India to a 5–0 win. He then returned as captain of the side in India's match against the West Indies in December 2011.
Post-captaincy
In the final of the Cricket World Cup 2011, Gambhir scored a solid knock of 97 from 122 balls. Coming in to bat in the first over after the dismissal of Virender Sehwag, he anchored the Indian inning despite the early dismissal of both the openers. He had a good partnership first with Kohli, and then a match-winning partnership of 109 runs with MS Dhoni.
In 2011, India's batting line-up struggled in Tests, particularly away from home. Out of sixteen innings in away Tests, India passed 300 just twice and both the team's opening batsmen failed to score a century in the format in the whole of 2011. Between February 2010 and November 2011, Gambhir played in 14 Tests. From 25 innings he scored 704 runs at an average of 29.33. In the same period, only two opening batsmen who had played at least 15 innings had a worse average: Phillip Hughes of Australia and Imrul Kayes of Bangladesh. However, while he was struggling in Tests, Gambhir enjoyed a rich run of form in ODIs, averaging 56.90 from 23 matches. Gambhir opened the batting in all four of India's Test defeats against Australia in 2011–12. He scored 181 runs at an average of 22.62.
For his performances in 2012, he was named in the World ODI XI by the ICC.
On 12 February 2012, Gambhir scored 92 off 111 balls in an ODI match against Australia at the Adelaide Oval, to help India win their first match against the hosts at that venue. It was also India's highest successful run chase in Australia. For his effort, Gambhir won the Man of the Match award. On 14 February 2012, against Sri Lanka, Gambhir yet again missed out on an ODI hundred when he was dismissed run out for a fine 91 off 106 balls. This knock from Gambhir was instrumental in securing a thrilling tie in that match. In August 2012,
the Indian selection committee handed him back vice-captaincy of the T20 squad for the World Cup.
Comeback
After a big absence from international cricket, on 8 October 2016, Gambhir was recalled for the Test-Match series against New Zealand, after showing good form in domestic cricket.
Retirement
Gambhir announced his retirement from all forms of cricket on 3 December 2018, ahead of his final match for the Delhi cricket team against the Andhra cricket team in the Ranji Trophy on 6 December 2018. Gambhir went on to score 112 in his final innings, his 43rd century in first-class cricket. Gautam Gambhir began his new innings as a parliamentarian as he took oath as the Lok Sabha MP on 17 June 2019.
Gautam Gambhir Foundation
The Gautam Gambhir Foundation is the philanthropic initiative of Gautam Gambhir. It was started in 2014 and is based out of Delhi. He set up community kitchens in 2017 through the Foundation in Patel Nagar, Delhi, in a bid to make sure no one slept hungry in the city. The key project of the Foundation is to reach out to as many children of paramilitary martyrs as possible and empower them by supporting their entire educational needs. Apart from this, the GGF works with adolescent girls from underprivileged homes in generating awareness on nutrition, health and hygiene, and an effort to make Delhi green by planting trees the city to fight air pollution in the city.
Politics
On 22 March 2019, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the presence of Union ministers Arun Jaitley and Ravi Shankar Prasad. He was the party's candidate from East Delhi in the 2019 Indian general election. After his opponent Atishi Marlena challenged him to a debate, Gambhir declined her challenge, saying he doesn't believe in "dharna and debates." Gautam won the elections by 695,109 votes against Atishi Marlena and Arvinder Singh Lovely.
Other work
Gambhir has started work at his constituency of East Delhi, installing CCTV cameras to tackle the issue of women's safety which has plagued Delhi in recent times. He is also the Brand Ambassador for Pinnacle Industries' Pinnacle Specialty Vehicles.
References
External links
Gautam Gambhir Foundation
Punjabi people
1981 births
Cricketers from Delhi
Living people
India One Day International cricketers
India Test cricketers
India Twenty20 International cricketers
North Zone cricketers
Delhi cricketers
Indian cricket captains
Cricketers at the 2011 Cricket World Cup
Recipients of the Arjuna Award
Delhi Capitals cricketers
Essex cricketers
India Red cricketers
India Blue cricketers
Kolkata Knight Riders cricketers
17th Lok Sabha members
National Democratic Alliance candidates in the 2019 Indian general election
Indian sportsperson-politicians
Recipients of the Padma Shri in sports | true | [
"Troy Warden Andrew (born December 12, 1979) is a former American football center who played one season for the Miami Dolphins in 2001.\n\nEarly life\nTroy Andrew was born in Tamuning, Guam on December 12, 1979. He went to high school at Klein (TX).\n\nCollege\nHe went to college at Duke.\n\nProfessional career\n\nMiami Dolphins\n\nAndrew was signed as a undrafted free agent by the Miami Dolphins on April 26, 2001. He played 8 games that season. He wore number 65 for the Dolphins. He was released on September 9, 2002. \n\nHouston Texans\n\nThe next day after being cut he was claimed off waivers by the Houston Texans. But he did not make the roster and was cut 4 days later. He did not play in any games for the Texans.\n\nMiami Dolphins (Second Stint)\n\nTroy was then signed to the Miami Dolphins practice squad three days after being cut by the Texans. He was on the practice squad all year and did not play in any games. In the offseason he played for the Barcelona Dragons. In 2002 he was cut before the season started.\n\nBarcelona Dragons\n\nDuring the offseason of 2002, he was the starting center the full season for the Barcelona Dragons. He played all ten games and started them.\n\nCleveland Browns\n\nOn November 26, 2003, he was signed to the Cleveland Browns practice squad. He did not play in any games for the Browns. On January 5, 2004, he was released.\n\nBerlin Thunder\n\nDuring the 2004 offseason, he was the starting center for the Berlin Thunder. He played in all the games as the Berlin Thunder won World Bowl XII against the Frankfurt Galaxy.\n\nSan Diego Chargers\n\nOn June 18, 2004, he was signed by the San Diego Chargers. However, he did not make the roster and was cut on August 31. In his career he played in 8 games, all in 2001. He was not signed and did not play for any other teams after he was released by the Chargers.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nReview A Chat With Football Player Troy Andrew\nTroy Andrew Stats\nTroy Andrew Stats, News and Video - C\n\nMiami Dolphins players\nAmerican football centers\n1977 births\nDuke Blue Devils football players\nLiving people",
"The 2011 Africa Cup was the eleventh edition of this tournament. The competition has been restructured into several tiers, based on the IRB rankings.\n\nThe top sixteen teams played in Division 1, which is divided into four groups of four teams. The remaining teams played in Division 2.\n\nGroup 1A\nGroup 1A will be held from 7–12 November in Kenya.\n\nThe teams competing in Group 1A:\n \n (withdrew)\n (withdrew)\n \n\n and relegated in division 1/B for 2012 Africa Cup\n\nGroup 1B\nGroup 1B was held from 12–18 June in Uganda.\nThe teams competing:\n (withdrew)\n \n \n \n\n Uganda and Zimbabwe promoted to pool A of 2012 Africa Cup\n\n Ivory Coast relegated too poll C of 2012 Africa Cup\n\nGroup 1C\nGroup 1C was held from 21–25 June in Cameroon.\nThe teams competing :\n \n \n \n \n\nSemi-Finals\n\nThird place play-off\n\nFinal\n\n Senegal promoted to div. 1/B of 2012 Africa Cup\n\nGroup 1D\nGroup 1D was held on 29 July in South Africa.\nThe teams competing :\n \n \n (withdrew and did not play any of its fixtures)\n (withdrew and did not play any of its fixtures)\n\nDivision 2 (North)\n\nDivision 2 (North) was held from 23–30 July in Mali.\n\nThe teams competing in Division 2 (North):\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\nQuarter Finals\n\nSemi-Finals - 5th place-play-off\n\nSemi-Finals\n\nSeventh place play-off\n\nFifth place play-off\n\nThird place play-off\n\nFinal\n\nDivision 2 (South)\n\nDivision 2 (South) was held from 9–16 October in Rwanda.\n\nThe teams competing in Division 2 (South):\n \n withdrew\n withdrew\n\nSee also\nAfrica Cup\n\n2011\n2011 rugby union tournaments for national teams\n2011 in African rugby union"
] |
[
"Steve Young",
"Montana's backup: 1987-1990"
] | C_52dfda507a2f476c98e838aa6c80d9e5_1 | Did Steve Young play any notable games while a backup? | 1 | Did Steve Young play any notable games while Montana's backup? | Steve Young | Young played behind Montana his first several years, but shone as a backup. Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41-0 victory. In their 1987 divisional playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings, he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27-10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a fairly good performance with 12/17 completions for 158 yards and a touchdown, with one interception, while also leading San Francisco in rushing with 72 yards and a touchdown on six carries. On October 30, 1988, Young ran for a 49-yard, game-winning touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings. He started the game out with a 73-yard touchdown pass to John Taylor, after Montana went down with an injury. The play earned the 49ers a 24-21 victory and a bit of revenge on the Vikings for their previous season's playoff loss. In 1989, he displayed his potential to become the team's starter in the future. While Montana won the NFL MVP award and led the team to victory in Super Bowl XXIV, Young still had a good season, completing 69% of his passes for 1,001 yards and eight touchdowns, with only three interceptions. On October 22, 1989, he posted a perfect passer rating of 158.3 when he completed 11 of 12 passes for 188 yards and three touchdown passes in a 37-20 victory over the New England Patriots. In his four seasons as a backup, Young had thrown 23 touchdown passes and only six interceptions. He rushed for a career-high 102 yards on just eight carries vs. the New Orleans Saints on December 23, 1990, making him only the second 49ers quarterback to rush for at least 100 yards in a single game. The 49ers lost the game 13-10. CANNOTANSWER | Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41-0 | Jon Steven Young (born October 11, 1961) is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 15 seasons, primarily with the San Francisco 49ers. He also played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Prior to his NFL career, he was a member of the Los Angeles Express in the United States Football League (USFL) for two seasons. Young played college football for Brigham Young University (BYU), setting school and NCAA records en route to being runner-up for the 1983 Heisman Trophy.
Young was named the AP's NFL Most Valuable Player in 1992 and 1994, and was the MVP of Super Bowl XXIX. During his 1994 MVP campaign, he set a new NFL record for passer rating at 112.8. He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Young was an extremely efficient passer – leading the league in passer rating a record six times, and completion percentage and yards per attempt five times. At the time of his retirement, he had the highest passer rating among NFL quarterbacks with at least 1,500 passing attempts (96.8). As of the end of the 2020 season, he is ranked tenth all-time in passer rating, and is ranked fourth highest amongst retired players, behind only Drew Brees, Tom Brady, and Tony Romo. His 43 career rushing touchdowns are second among quarterbacks, while his 4,239 rushing yards ranks fifth all time.
Early years
Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Young attended Greenwich High School in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he played quarterback on its Cardinals football team. He earned 1978 All-FCIAC West Division First Team honors in his junior year, his first year as a starter. In his senior year he rushed for 13 touchdowns and earned All-FCIAC West Division First Team honors, and was named to the CIAC All-State team. In the rush-first option offense run by Greenwich he completed only 41 percent of his throws for 1,220 yards, but ran the ball 267 times for 1,928 yards. On Thanksgiving Day in November 1979, Greenwich lost to Darien High School, known for its "Tidal Wave Defense", 17–0. During his senior year, he was co-captain of the football, basketball and baseball teams. In basketball, he averaged 15 points a game. In baseball, he hit .384 and played center field when he wasn't pitching. He was 5–1 and threw a 3–0 no-hitter against New Canaan High School.
College football
Young was heavily recruited by the University of North Carolina. Coach Dick Crum was enamored by Young's running ability, and wanted him to run his option offense. Young instead chose BYU. Initially, he struggled at throwing the ball, and BYU's coaching staff considered switching him to defensive back because of his athleticism. However, he worked hard to improve his passing skills and eventually succeeded record-setting Jim McMahon as BYU's starting QB. Young's senior season (1983) was spectacular. He passed for 3,902 yards and 33 touchdowns in the regular season, and his 71.3% completion percentage set an NCAA single-season record. He also added 544 yards rushing. With Young at quarterback, BYU set an NCAA record by averaging 584.2 yards of total offense per game, with 370.5 of those yards coming from Young's passing and rushing. The Cougars finished the year with an impressive 11–1 record; Young was named a unanimous All-American and received the Davey O'Brien National Quarterback Award, which recognizes the nation's best collegiate quarterback each year. He also finished second in voting for the Heisman Trophy, behind Nebraska running back Mike Rozier. Young capped his college career by scoring the game-winning touchdown on a pass from the halfback in BYU's 21–17 victory over Missouri in the 1983 Holiday Bowl.
Young finished his college career with 592 pass completions for 7,733 yards and 56 touchdowns, along with 1,048 yards and 18 touchdowns rushing. He was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame in 2001.
Professional football
USFL
Los Angeles Express
Young was selected by the Los Angeles Express in the first round (11th overall) of the 1984 USFL Draft. He signed a record ten-year, $40 million contract with the Express in He agreed to take his payment in the form of an annuity paid out over forty years to help the fledgling team.
It was taken for granted that Young would be the first pick in the 1984 NFL Draft, and that he would be selected by the Cincinnati Bengals, who were three years removed from the Super Bowl and had landed the No. 1 pick in a trade with the then-moribund Tampa Bay Buccaneers. However, the Bengals still had Ken Anderson as their quarterback and planned to have Young sit behind Anderson for the 1984 season before possibly taking over in 1985. Young found that prospect unappealing, which opened the door for the Express. Express general manager Don Klosterman told Young that if he signed with the Express, his head coach would be John Hadl, a former All-Pro quarterback who had shepherded John Elway through his first year in the NFL. Klosterman also told Young that Hall of Fame coach Sid Gillman, who had been hired as a consultant, would tutor him on how to be a pro quarterback. Young was convinced, and signed with the Express.
At the time, it was another huge signing by the fledgling league, which had already succeeded in signing both the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, running back Mike Rozier of Nebraska; and the previous winner, Georgia running back Herschel Walker. After missing the first six games of his rookie season while taking some college classes in order to graduate on time, Young started the final twelve. He had a respectable year, highlighted by becoming the first pro football player ever to pass for 300 yards and rush for 100 in a single game. Despite being surrounded with talent which included such future NFL players as Jojo Townsell, Mel Gray, and Kevin Nelson, and making the playoffs in Young's first season, the Express was never able to create a sustaining fan base in Los Angeles.
Late in the season, The New York Times published an investigation of owner J. William Oldenburg's finances that suggested Oldenburg was not as well off as he claimed. The FBI had been investigating Oldenburg since the middle of the season. A week after the Times article, Oldenburg stopped paying the Express' bills, forcing the league to draw on the team's emergency line of credit to keep it going through the playoffs. Houston Gamblers minority partner Jay Roulier stepped in to buy the team, only to be pushed out when it emerged that he too had misrepresented his net worth. The league took control of the team and cut expenditures to the bare minimum. The other teams made contributions to keep the Express going through the season – enough to meet payroll, but not much else.
Under the circumstances, the 1985 season rapidly became a fiasco. Before one game, the team bus driver refused to drive the Express to their final home game – which had been moved to Los Angeles Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley – unless he was paid up front in cash. Young contributed some money, as did the team trainer, and the driver took them to the game. In the season finale at Orlando, Young had to line up at tailback because a rash of injuries had left the Express without any healthy running backs. The owners had refused to allocate any money to allow the Express to replace injured players.
It was reported that Young had insured the contract and would still be paid until 2027. However, a 1985 Los Angeles Times article stated that he received a $1.4 million settlement on the annuity.
The league ceased operations in 1986 after losing most of its claims in an antitrust suit against the NFL, with its top talent absorbed by the NFL in a dispersal draft conducted in the aftermath.
NFL
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Young grew increasingly dissatisfied with the disarray surrounding the Express. Just a week before what proved to be the last USFL title game, Young gave the USFL an ultimatum – find a new owner for the Express, or allow him to buy out his contract and go to the NFL. Soon after the league decided to suspend the Express's operations for the 1986 season, Young bought out his Express contract and signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who had made him the first pick in a supplemental draft of USFL and CFL players a year earlier.
By this time, the Bucs were in the midst of what would be 12 consecutive 10-loss seasons. They posted identical 2–14 records in Young's two seasons with them, going 3–16 with him as a starter. Young threw for only 11 touchdowns with 21 interceptions while completing fewer than 55% of his passes.
San Francisco 49ers
The Buccaneers selected University of Miami quarterback Vinny Testaverde first overall in the 1987 NFL Draft because Young was deemed a bust. Young was traded to the San Francisco 49ers on April 24, 1987 to serve as a backup to Joe Montana. 49ers coach Bill Walsh was impressed by Young's natural abilities, and believed his lackluster numbers were primarily due to the lack of talent around him in Tampa Bay.
The Buccaneers received second and fourth round draft picks in the trade, which they used to draft Miami linebacker Winston Moss, and Arizona State wide receiver Bruce Hill, respectively.
Montana's backup: 1987–1990
Young played behind Montana for four years, but shone as a backup. Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41–0 victory. In their 1987 divisional playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings, he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27–10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a good performance, completing 12 of 17 pass attempts for 158 yards and a touchdown, with one interception, while also leading San Francisco in rushing with 72 yards and a touchdown on six carries. On October 30, 1988, Young ran for a 49-yard, game-winning touchdown against the Vikings. He started the game out with a 73-yard touchdown pass to John Taylor, after Montana went down with an injury. The play earned the 49ers a 24–21 victory and a bit of revenge on the Vikings for their previous season's playoff loss. The win turned out to be crucial, as without it the 49ers would have finished the season 9–7 and missed the playoffs, as two other teams in their division, the Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints, had 10–6 records. Instead, the 49ers won their division, earned the #2 playoff seed, and went on to win the Super Bowl.
In 1989, he displayed potential to become the team's starter in the future. While Montana won the NFL MVP award and led the team to victory in Super Bowl XXIV, Young still had a good season, completing 69% of his passes for 1,001 yards and eight touchdowns, with only three interceptions. On October 22, 1989, he posted a perfect passer rating of 158.3 when he completed 11 of 12 passes for 188 yards and three touchdown passes in a 37–20 victory over the New England Patriots.
He rushed for a career-high 102 yards on just eight carries against the New Orleans Saints on December 23, 1990, making him only the second 49ers quarterback to rush for at least 100 yards in a single game. The 49ers lost the game 13–10.
In his four seasons as a backup, Young threw 23 touchdown passes and only six interceptions.
1991 season
Following an injury to Montana's elbow in the 1990 NFC Championship Game, which forced him to miss the entire 1991 season, Young got his chance to lead the 49ers. He got off to a rough start. Midway through the season, the 49ers found themselves struggling with a 4–4 record. In the ninth game of the season, after throwing a franchise-record 97-yard touchdown pass to Taylor, Young suffered a knee injury and was replaced by backup quarterback Steve Bono. After a loss in that game and the next, Bono led the 49ers to five consecutive victories, playing so well that coach George Seifert decided to keep him in the starting lineup after Young had recovered. It wasn't until late in the 15th game of the season, after Bono went down with an injury of his own, that Young got to play again. Young then closed out the season by throwing for 338 yards and three touchdowns and also rushing for 63 yards and another touchdown in a 52–14 win over the Chicago Bears in a Monday Night Football game at Candlestick Park.
Young finished the season with an NFL best 101.8 passer rating. Despite missing five full games and most of a sixth, he still threw for 2,517 yards and 17 touchdowns with only 8 interceptions. But despite Young's strong season, the season for the team was widely regarded as a disappointment. The 49ers had slipped from a 14–2 record in the previous season to a 10–6 record in 1991. While 10 wins is usually enough to make the playoffs, this time it was not, and San Francisco ended up not playing in the postseason for the first time since 1982. It was thought by many that Young's days as the 49ers starter were numbered due to the impending return of Montana from the injury to his right elbow, and some observers said the 49ers should trade Young and keep Montana and Bono. However, the trade never happened.
1992 season: first MVP
By the start of the 1992 season, it appeared that Young's starting job was in serious peril. In addition to having to compete with Bono, Montana appeared to be close to recovering from his elbow tendon surgery. San Francisco came close to trading Young to the Los Angeles Raiders, but no deal was finalized and it turned out that Montana would not recover in time to start in the opening game. Montana would not return until the final game of the 1992 season, a Monday Night home game against the Detroit Lions. Montana played the entire second half of that final game and guided the 49ers to victory.
Young ended up as San Francisco's starting quarterback, but once again got off to a rough start. On the fifth play of the opening game at the Giants, he suffered a concussion and was replaced by Bono, who threw two touchdown passes while leading the 49ers to a 31–14 win. The following week, San Francisco lost 34–31 to the Buffalo Bills, despite a career-high 449 passing yards and three touchdowns from Young, in a game that for the first time in NFL history had zero punts from either team.
Young recovered and led the 49ers on a five-game winning streak, capped off by a 56–17 win over the Atlanta Falcons in which Young passed for 399 yards and three touchdowns. After missing most of the next game (a 24–14 loss to the Cardinals) with the flu, he led San Francisco to victory in all of their remaining games of the season, giving the team a 14–2 record. He went on to throw for 227 yards and 2 touchdowns, and rush for 73 yards, in a 20–13 divisional playoff win over the Washington Redskins. The 49ers lost the NFC title game, however, 30–20 against the eventual Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys. Young threw for 313 yards, completing 71.4% of his passes while passing for one touchdown and rushing for another. He also threw two interceptions, but the final one came with the outcome of the game already decided.
Young finished the season with 3,465 passing yards and 537 rushing yards, along with an NFL-best 25 touchdown passes and 107.0 passer rating, earning him the NFL Most Valuable Player Award and his first selection to the Pro Bowl. He was the first quarterback ever to record a triple-digit rating in consecutive seasons. Many credit Young's turnaround to the mentoring of the 49ers' new offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan, who worked with Young on combining his running skill with on-the-move passing decisions.
1993 season
Before the start of the 1993 season, team owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. announced that he wanted Montana to resume his role as starting quarterback for the 49ers. However, a rift in the locker room had developed, with players split on whom they wanted at quarterback. In the spring of 1993, at Montana's request, San Francisco traded Montana to the Kansas City Chiefs. Young was now the 49ers' undisputed starter, and would remain so for the rest of his career. But once again, he had a rough start to the season. Over the first four games of 1993, Young, who was hindered by a swollen thumb on his throwing hand, threw eight interceptions, more than he had thrown during the entire 1992 season. But after his thumb healed, Young went on an incredible streak over a span of seven games, throwing 16 touchdown passes with only 2 interceptions and a 122.2 passer rating. By the end of the year, Young set franchise records for most passing yards (4,023), and consecutive passes thrown without an interception (189), (later eclipsed by Alex Smith in 2012) while leading the NFL in touchdown passes (29) and passer rating (101.5). The team slipped to a 10–6 record, but advanced to the NFC championship game again by blowing out the New York Giants 44–3 in the divisional round. However, once again they were defeated by the Dallas Cowboys, this time 38–21.
1994 season: second MVP and Super Bowl run
After several key free agent signings including All-Pro cornerback Deion Sanders and NFL Draft selections, the 49ers looked to win their first Super Bowl since 1989. They started fast, beating the Los Angeles Raiders 44–14 on the strength of four touchdown passes from Young, one of four games during the regular season in which he had at least four. After a loss in a much-anticipated game to Joe Montana and the Kansas City Chiefs, the 49ers won their next two games before losing to the Philadelphia Eagles 40–8 at Candlestick Park, a game in which Young was eventually benched in the middle of an offensive series. Although head coach George Seifert later said he only pulled Young because he was getting manhandled by the Eagles' defense, Young had had enough of being scapegoated for 49er shortfalls and loudly (and visibly) lambasted Seifert over his decision while standing on the sideline during the game.
But the game was considered a turning point in the season; from there, Young led the team to 10 consecutive wins, by an average of 20 points, before losing the meaningless finale against the Vikings in which Young completed his first 12 of 13 attempts before going to the sidelines. They finished an NFL best 13–3, securing home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs. The 49ers had the number-one offense in the NFL, and were so dominant that Seifert often took Young out of games early if he felt that the 49ers had an insurmountable lead at the time.
After an easy 44–15 victory over the Chicago Bears in the divisional round of the playoffs, the 49ers jumped out to a 31–14 halftime lead over the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Championship Game, holding on to win 38–28. Young threw for two touchdowns, while adding 47 yards and another touchdown on the ground. As a result, he went to his first Super Bowl as a starting quarterback. The 49ers were heavy favorites to become the first team with five Super Bowl victories.
On the strength of a six-touchdown performance that surpassed the previous Super Bowl record of five, owned by the man Young replaced, Joe Montana, Steve Young was named the MVP of Super Bowl XXIX, as the 49ers defeated the San Diego Chargers, 49–26. Young also threw for 325 yards and rushed for 49 yards, making him the first player ever to finish a Super Bowl as the game's leader in both rushing and passing yards.
The victory capped off an incredible year for Young, who had one of the best seasons by a quarterback in NFL history. He threw for 3,969 yards, a then-franchise record 35 touchdown passes with only 10 interceptions, completed 70.3 percent of his passes – the highest completion percentage of the 1990s, third all-time, and at the time, the best completion percentage by any quarterback with more than 400 attempts (later eclipsed by Drew Brees in 2009). Additionally, Young broke Joe Montana's single-season mark with a then-record 112.8 passer rating, and also once again demonstrated his great scrambling ability, accumulating another 289 yards and 7 touchdowns on the ground. For his record-breaking season performances, Young was awarded his second AP NFL MVP award, becoming the 7th player in NFL history to win both league and Super Bowl MVP honors in the same season.
Later years and injuries
In the three years following Super Bowl XXIX, the 49ers would be eliminated each year by Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers, twice in San Francisco. In addition to the early playoff exits, Young suffered a series of injuries that forced him to miss several games from 1995 to 1997. Young entered the 1998 season at age 37 and some began to wonder if his skills would diminish because of his history of injuries and a general decline in his game due to age. However, he silenced all critics once again, putting up career numbers in passing yards (4,170) and passing touchdowns (36). The 49ers finally beat Favre and the Packers in an NFC wild card game that year, as Young threw the winning touchdown to wide receiver Terrell Owens with three seconds remaining to win the game 30–27. In reference to Dwight Clark's legendary catch against the Dallas Cowboys in the 1981 NFC championship game, Owens's grab was called "The Catch II". A week later, however, Garrison Hearst broke his ankle on the 49ers' first play from scrimmage. Without the threat of a running game, Young threw three interceptions (the last one a Hail Mary pass with under 30 seconds remaining in the game) and the 49ers were defeated by the Atlanta Falcons 20–18. Over that span of seasons from 1995 to 1998, Young led the NFL in passer rating twice (in 1996 and 1997), and led the NFL with 36 touchdown passes in 1998.
The 1999 season would turn out to be Young's last in the NFL. Young was plagued by concussions throughout his career. During a Week 3 Monday Night Football game against the Arizona Cardinals, Young was violently sacked by Cardinals cornerback Aeneas Williams on a blitz. Running back Lawrence Phillips was supposed to pick up Williams, but missed. Young was knocked out of the game with a concussion, and didn't return again for the rest of the season due to symptoms of post-concussion syndrome. The concussion he suffered against the Cardinals was reportedly his second in a season that was only three weeks old, and the seventh (at least) of his career. Following the season, the 49ers told him that he would be released if he did not retire. Although Young was offered a job as the starting quarterback of the Denver Broncos (where his former offensive coordinator, Mike Shanahan, was the head coach), he retired because of his repeated concussions. In a 2013 Frontline interview, Young said that, partially based upon their own experiences, he and many retired players are increasingly concerned about repeated concussions and subconcussive hits. He is particularly concerned about certain positions that take frequent hits, such as running backs and linemen.
Career statistics and records
USFL career
NFL career
Records and legacy
Although Young did not become the 49ers' starter until his 8th NFL season, and he played a full season only three times (all consecutively) during his 15-year career, Young had a significant impact on the NFL. A two-time league MVP, he completed 2,667 of 4,149 passes for 33,124 yards and 232 touchdowns, with 107 interceptions, and 43 rushing touchdowns. His 96.8 career passer rating is the sixth highest in NFL history and second highest among retired players, behind Tony Romo; his 4,239 rushing yards are the fourth most ever gained by a quarterback, behind Michael Vick, Cam Newton, and Randall Cunningham. He was the NFL's top rated passer in six different seasons and led the league in touchdown passes four times. In 20 postseason games, he threw 20 touchdown passes with only 13 interceptions, and scored 8 touchdowns on the ground. In his stint with the San Francisco 49ers, Young passed for 29,907 yards, 221 touchdowns, and 86 interceptions, with a passer rating of 101.4, highest in franchise history. He was also sacked 290 times, also most in franchise history.
NFL records
Tenth highest passer rating, career, including active players – 96.8
Fourth highest passer rating, career, retired players only – 96.8
Eighth highest career completion percentage, retired players – 64.3%
Most times led the league in passer rating, career – 6 (tied w/ Sammy Baugh)
Most consecutive times led the league in passer rating – 4 (1991–94)
One of seven QBs to lead the league in touchdown passes 4 times (tied with Johnny Unitas, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Len Dawson)
Most passes attempted, playoff game – 65 vs. Green Bay, 1995
Most TD passes, playoff game – 6 (tied w/Daryle Lamonica & Tom Brady)
Most TD passes in one Super Bowl – 6
Most rushing yards by a QB, postseason career – 594
Most rushing touchdowns by a QB, postseason career – 8
49ers records
Highest completion percentage (20+ Atts) (Game): vs Detroit (10/20/91), 90.0
Most average yards per attempt (20+ Atts) (Game): vs Detroit (12/19/93), 15.39
Most touchdown passes (season): 36 (1998)
Best completion percentage (season): 70.3 (1994)
Best passer rating (season): 112.8 (1994)
Most 300-yard passing games (season): 7 (1998)
Best passer rating (career): 101.4
Most average yards per attempt (career): 8.20
Most consecutive games with a touchdown pass: 18, at Det. (10/9/94) to vs. StL (11/26/95) note: (DNP in 5 games in 1995)
Best completion percentage (career): 65.8
Most rushing touchdowns by a quarterback (career): 43
In 1999, he was ranked No. 63 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. Young was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on February 5, 2005; he was the first left-handed quarterback to be so honored. He was enshrined August 7, 2005. His induction speech was given by his father, LeGrande "Grit" Young.
The San Francisco 49ers had his No. 8 jersey retired during a halftime ceremony against the New England Patriots on October 5, 2008. He was the 11th player in team history to receive this honor. He is also the only 49er in team history to wear No. 8.
Post-football
Business career
In 1994, Young received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from BYU's J. Reuben Clark Law School.
In 2000, Young spoke at the Republican National Convention.
In 2007, Young co-founded Huntsman Gay Global Capital (HGGC), with billionaire industrialist Jon M. Huntsman and former Bain Capital executive Robert C. Gay. After being involved in business ventures with the private equity firm, he has continued to serve as a managing director.
In 2011, Young was one of several notable BYU athletes and coaches who appeared in the school's "Real Cougar" advertising campaign, which featured the individuals telling an actual cougar about being a "real cougar". In one of the ads, Young poked fun at himself:
Young: I love BYU so much I even got my law degree here.
Cougar: (growls)
Young: Lawyers... I know.
Acting career
Young has both performed dramatic roles and appeared as himself in a limited acting career. He appeared in one episode of Frasier and one episode of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (cast as Lois' former high school football quarterback boyfriend, Joe Maloy). He also made a guest appearance as himself in the Dharma & Greg episode "Are You Ready for Some Football?" encouraging Dharma, the team's Number One Fan. In 1995, Young appeared as himself in the Season 6, Episode 12 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. He also made cameo appearances in the LDS comedy The Singles Ward (2002) and in a season 5 episode of BYUtv's Studio C (2014). Young also made a guest appearance as himself in season 8 of the NBC comedy series Wings in the episode "Just Call Me Angel".
Young was originally offered a part in the 1998 movie There's Something About Mary, but turned the role down. He was replaced by Brett Favre.
Philanthropy
Young serves as a National Advisor to ASCEND: A Humanitarian Alliance. This non-profit organization plans expeditions to African and South American countries to provide life skills mentoring with sustainable solutions in education, enterprise, health and simple technology.
In 1993, Young founded a charitable foundation known as the Forever Young Foundation, which serves children facing significant physical, emotional, and financial challenges by providing academic, athletic, and therapeutic opportunities otherwise unavailable to them.
Young also serves as the national spokesman for an organization founded by former Save Darfur Coalition executive director and founder, David Rubenstein. He began his affiliation with the organization in 2009, when he became the honorary league commissioner for their charitable dodgeball tournaments held on college campuses nationwide.
Personal life
Young is a great-great-great-nephew of Brigham Young, second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for whom BYU is named. His father, LeGrande "Grit" Young, played football at BYU in the late 1950s. He led the school in scoring in 1955 and in rushing and total offense in 1959. Steve Young's younger brothers, Mike and Tom, both played quarterback at BYU after Steve, but neither received much playing time.
Young has been married to Barbara Graham since 2000. They have two sons and two daughters. According to A Football Life: As his playing career ended before his eldest child was born, he wrote his autobiography QB: My Life Behind the Spiral initially as a private memoir for his children.
See also
Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame
List of NCAA major college football yearly passing leaders
List of NCAA major college football yearly total offense leaders
List of NFL quarterbacks who have posted a perfect passer rating
References
External links
1961 births
All-American college football players
American color commentators
American football quarterbacks
American male television actors
American philanthropists
Brigham Young University alumni
BYU Cougars football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Greenwich High School alumni
J. Reuben Clark Law School alumni
Latter Day Saints from California
Latter Day Saints from Connecticut
Latter Day Saints from Utah
Living people
Los Angeles Express players
National Conference Pro Bowl players
National Football League Most Valuable Player Award winners
National Football League Offensive Player of the Year Award winners
National Football League players with retired numbers
Players of American football from Connecticut
Players of American football from Salt Lake City
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
Richards–Young family
San Francisco 49ers players
Sportspeople from Greenwich, Connecticut
Super Bowl MVPs
Tampa Bay Buccaneers players
Utah Republicans | false | [
"The following is a list of sportscasters who have served as commentators for Monday Night Football broadcasts on various networks, along with each commentator's period of tenure on the show (beginning years of each season shown, as the NFL season ends in the calendar year after it begins). Game announcers used in #2 games usually come from ESPN and are included for both wild card playoff games (1995–2005 except 2002–2003 season) and secondary regular season games (1987, 1997, 2005–present).\n\nTelevision\n\nABC\n\nPlay-by-play announcers\n Keith Jackson (1970)\n Frank Gifford (1971–1985; also when Al Michaels was working postseason baseball 1986–1989)\n Al Michaels (1986–2005)\n Gary Bender (#2, 1987)\n Mike Patrick (#2, 1997 and 2005)\n\nColor commentators\n Howard Cosell (1970–1983)\n Don Meredith (1970–1973, 1977–1984)\n Fred Williamson (1974 preseason only)\n Alex Karras (1974–1976)\n Fran Tarkenton (1979–1982)\n O. J. Simpson (1983–1985)\n Joe Namath (1985)\n Frank Gifford (1986–1997)\n Lynn Swann (#2, 1986-1987)\n Dan Dierdorf (1987–1998)\n Joe Theismann (#2, 1997 and 2005)\n Boomer Esiason (1998–1999)\n Dan Fouts (2000–2001)\n Dennis Miller (2000–2001)\n John Madden (2002–2005)\n Paul Maguire (#2, 2005)\n\nSideline reporters\n Lynn Swann (1994–1997, Super Bowls)\n Ron Jaworski (#2, 1997)\n Lesley Visser (1998–1999 and during Wild Card playoffs and Super Bowl XXXIV)\n Eric Dickerson (2000–2001)\n Melissa Stark (2000–2002)\n Lisa Guerrero (2003)\n Michele Tafoya (2004–2005)\n Sam Ryan (2005)\n Suzy Kolber (2005; Super Bowl XL)\n\nStudio hosts\n Jim Lampley (halftime and Super Bowl XIX co-host)\n Al Michaels (Super Bowl XIX co-host)\n Keith Jackson (Super Bowl XXII host)\n Chris Berman (halftime host, 1996–2005 and during Wild Card playoffs and Super Bowls)\n Mike Tirico (Super Bowl)\n Brent Musburger (studio host, 1990–1995)\n Robin Roberts (Hurricane Katrina telethon co-host, 2005)\n\nStudio analysts\n Dick Vermeil (playoffs and Super Bowl, 1990–1995)\n Boomer Esiason (playoffs and Super Bowl XXIX)\n Joe Theismann (Super Bowl XIX)\n Peter King (1995)\n Frank Gifford (1998)\n Steve Young (playoffs and Super Bowl)\n Brian Billick (playoffs and Super Bowl XXXVII)\n Michael Strahan (playoffs and Super Bowl XXXVII)\n Tom Jackson (playoffs and Super Bowl XL)\n Michael Irvin (playoffs and Super Bowl XL)\n Chris Mortensen (playoffs and Super Bowl XL)\n Bill Belichick (Super Bowl XL)\n\nWild Card Playoffs (No. 2 game)\n\nPlay-by-play announcers\n Brent Musburger (1990–1995, 2002)\n Mike Patrick (1996–2001, 2003–2005)\n\nColor commentators\n Dick Vermeil (1990–1995)\n Joe Theismann (1996–2001, 2003–2005)\n Paul Maguire (1998–2001, 2003–2005)\n Gary Danielson (2002)\n\nSideline reporters\n Lesley Visser (1990-1997)\n Solomon Wilcots (1998–2000)\n Suzy Kolber (2001, 2003-2005)\n Jack Arute (2002)\n\nESPN\n\nPlay-by-play announcers\n Mike Tirico (2006–2015)\n Sean McDonough (2016–2017)\n Joe Tessitore (2018–2019)\n Steve Levy (2020-present)\n\nColor commentators\n Tony Kornheiser (2006–2008)\n Joe Theismann (2006)\n Ron Jaworski (2007–2011)\n Jon Gruden (2009–2017)\n Matt Hasselbeck (2018 Pro Bowl)\n Booger McFarland (2018–2019)\n Jason Witten (2018)\n Brian Griese (2020-present)\n Louis Riddick (2020-present)\n\nSideline reporters\n Michele Tafoya (2006–2010)\n Suzy Kolber (2006–2010, 2011 Week 2, 5, 6, 11, 16)\n Wendi Nix (fill-in, 2011 Week 1, 4, 12)\n Rachel Nichols (fill-in, 2011 Week 5, 8-10, 14)\n Sal Paolantonio (fill-in, 2011 Week 7, 13)\n Laura Rutledge (fill-in, 2020 Week 16)\n John Sutcliffe (fill-in, 2011 Week 15)\n Ed Werder (fill-in, 2011 Week 3)\n Lisa Salters (2012–present)\n\nRules analysts\n Gerald Austin (2012–2017)\n Jeff Triplette (2018)\n John Parry (2019–present)\n\nStudio hosts\n Chris Berman (2006-2016)\n Stuart Scott (2007-2014)\n Suzy Kolber (2014-present)\n\nStudio analysts\n Michael Irvin (2006)\n Tom Jackson (2006-2015)\n Steve Young (2006-present)\n Keyshawn Johnson (2007-2015)\n Bill Parcells (2007)\n Emmitt Smith (2007-2008)\n Cris Carter (2008-2015)\n Mike Ditka (2008-2015)\n Matt Millen (2009-2010)\n Trent Dilfer (2011-2016)\n Ray Lewis (2013-2015)\n Matt Hasselbeck (2016-2018)\n Charles Woodson (2016-2018)\n Randy Moss (2017-present)\n Louis Riddick (2019)\n Adam Schefter (2019-present)\n Booger McFarland (2020-present)\n\nKickoff Week doubleheader (No.2 teams; 2006-2020)\n\nPlay-by-play announcers\n Brad Nessler (2006, 2010–2011)\n Mike Greenberg (2007–2009)\n Chris Berman (2012–2016)\n Beth Mowins (2017–2018)\n Steve Levy (2019)\n Chris Fowler (2020)\n\nColor commentators\n Ron Jaworski (2006)\n Dick Vermeil (2006)\n Mike Ditka (2007–2008)\n Mike Golic (2007–2009)\n Steve Young (2009, 2016)\n Trent Dilfer (2010–2015)\n Rex Ryan (2017)\n Brian Griese (2018–2019)\n Louis Riddick (2019)\n Kirk Herbstreit (2020)\n\nSideline reporters\n Bonnie Bernstein (2006–2007)\n Suzy Kolber (2008-2010)\n Rachel Nichols (2011–2012)\n Sal Paolantonio (2013)\n Lindsay Czarniak (2014–2016)\n Sergio Dipp (2017)\n Laura Rutledge (2018)\n Dianna Russini (2019)\n Maria Taylor (2020)\n\nWeek 18 doubleheader (No.2 teams; 2022-present)\n\nPlay-by-play announcer\n Chris Fowler (2022-present)\n\nColor commentator\n Kirk Herbstreit (2022-present)\n\nSideline reporter\n Laura Rutledge (2022-present)\n\nESPN Deportes/ESPN Latin America\n Álvaro Martín (play-by-play, 2006–present)\n Raul Allegre (color commentator, 2006–present)\n Eduardo Varela (#2 play-by-play, 2006–present)\n Ciro Procuna (#3 play-by-play, 2006)\n Sergio Dipp (sideline reporter, 2013–present)\n\nRadio\n\nCBS Radio/Westwood One\n\n Marv Albert (play-by-play, 2002–2009)\n Bonnie Bernstein (sideline reporter, 2001–2005)\n Jack Buck (play-by-play, 1978–1984, 1987–1995)\n Randy Cross (backup color commentator, 2010)\n Howard David (play-by-play, 1996–2001)\n John Dockery (sideline reporter, 1999–2007)\n Rich Eisen (studio host, 2021–present)\n Boomer Esiason (color commentator, 2000–2017)\n Dan Fouts (backup color commentator, 2011–2013)\n Jim Gray (studio host, 2001–2020)\n Kevin Harlan (backup play-by-play, 2009; play-by-play, 2010–present)\n Matt Millen (color commentator, 1996–2000)\n Warren Moon (backup color commentator, 2009)\n Hank Stram (color commentator, 1978–1984, 1987–1995)\n Lesley Visser (color commentator, 2001)\n Kurt Warner (backup color commentator, 2014–2017, color commentator 2018–present)\n\nMutual Radio\n Lindsey Nelson (play-by-play, 1974–1977)\n Van Patrick (play-by-play, 1972–1973)\n\nNBC Radio\n\n Don Criqui (play-by-play, 1985–1986)\n Bob Trumpy (color commentator, 1985–1986)\n\nLists of National Football League announcers\nNational Football League on the radio\nABC Sports\nMonday Night Football",
"Thomas Gilligan (born 3 November 1978) is an Australian rules footballer who played for Adelaide Football Club in the Australian Football League.\n\nGilligan played as a young ruckman in 1997 for the Crows, being treated to a baptism of fire in his three games. He would remain a backup to lead ruckman Shaun Rehn. Gilligan did not play any AFL games in 1998 for the Crows and was delisted.\n\nGilligan played for St Mary's Football Club in the Geelong Football League, winning premierships in 2004 and 2008. He was named at 33 in the top 50 Geelong Football League players of all time.\n\nReferences\n\nAdelaide Football Club players\nPort Adelaide Magpies players\n1978 births\nLiving people\nDandenong Stingrays players\nFrankston Bombers players\nAustralian rules footballers from Victoria (Australia)"
] |
[
"Steve Young",
"Montana's backup: 1987-1990",
"Did Steve Young play any notable games while a backup?",
"Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41-0"
] | C_52dfda507a2f476c98e838aa6c80d9e5_1 | Did they win that game? | 2 | Did Montana win the game against the Chicago Bears in 1987? | Steve Young | Young played behind Montana his first several years, but shone as a backup. Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41-0 victory. In their 1987 divisional playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings, he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27-10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a fairly good performance with 12/17 completions for 158 yards and a touchdown, with one interception, while also leading San Francisco in rushing with 72 yards and a touchdown on six carries. On October 30, 1988, Young ran for a 49-yard, game-winning touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings. He started the game out with a 73-yard touchdown pass to John Taylor, after Montana went down with an injury. The play earned the 49ers a 24-21 victory and a bit of revenge on the Vikings for their previous season's playoff loss. In 1989, he displayed his potential to become the team's starter in the future. While Montana won the NFL MVP award and led the team to victory in Super Bowl XXIV, Young still had a good season, completing 69% of his passes for 1,001 yards and eight touchdowns, with only three interceptions. On October 22, 1989, he posted a perfect passer rating of 158.3 when he completed 11 of 12 passes for 188 yards and three touchdown passes in a 37-20 victory over the New England Patriots. In his four seasons as a backup, Young had thrown 23 touchdown passes and only six interceptions. He rushed for a career-high 102 yards on just eight carries vs. the New Orleans Saints on December 23, 1990, making him only the second 49ers quarterback to rush for at least 100 yards in a single game. The 49ers lost the game 13-10. CANNOTANSWER | 41-0 victory. | Jon Steven Young (born October 11, 1961) is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 15 seasons, primarily with the San Francisco 49ers. He also played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Prior to his NFL career, he was a member of the Los Angeles Express in the United States Football League (USFL) for two seasons. Young played college football for Brigham Young University (BYU), setting school and NCAA records en route to being runner-up for the 1983 Heisman Trophy.
Young was named the AP's NFL Most Valuable Player in 1992 and 1994, and was the MVP of Super Bowl XXIX. During his 1994 MVP campaign, he set a new NFL record for passer rating at 112.8. He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Young was an extremely efficient passer – leading the league in passer rating a record six times, and completion percentage and yards per attempt five times. At the time of his retirement, he had the highest passer rating among NFL quarterbacks with at least 1,500 passing attempts (96.8). As of the end of the 2020 season, he is ranked tenth all-time in passer rating, and is ranked fourth highest amongst retired players, behind only Drew Brees, Tom Brady, and Tony Romo. His 43 career rushing touchdowns are second among quarterbacks, while his 4,239 rushing yards ranks fifth all time.
Early years
Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Young attended Greenwich High School in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he played quarterback on its Cardinals football team. He earned 1978 All-FCIAC West Division First Team honors in his junior year, his first year as a starter. In his senior year he rushed for 13 touchdowns and earned All-FCIAC West Division First Team honors, and was named to the CIAC All-State team. In the rush-first option offense run by Greenwich he completed only 41 percent of his throws for 1,220 yards, but ran the ball 267 times for 1,928 yards. On Thanksgiving Day in November 1979, Greenwich lost to Darien High School, known for its "Tidal Wave Defense", 17–0. During his senior year, he was co-captain of the football, basketball and baseball teams. In basketball, he averaged 15 points a game. In baseball, he hit .384 and played center field when he wasn't pitching. He was 5–1 and threw a 3–0 no-hitter against New Canaan High School.
College football
Young was heavily recruited by the University of North Carolina. Coach Dick Crum was enamored by Young's running ability, and wanted him to run his option offense. Young instead chose BYU. Initially, he struggled at throwing the ball, and BYU's coaching staff considered switching him to defensive back because of his athleticism. However, he worked hard to improve his passing skills and eventually succeeded record-setting Jim McMahon as BYU's starting QB. Young's senior season (1983) was spectacular. He passed for 3,902 yards and 33 touchdowns in the regular season, and his 71.3% completion percentage set an NCAA single-season record. He also added 544 yards rushing. With Young at quarterback, BYU set an NCAA record by averaging 584.2 yards of total offense per game, with 370.5 of those yards coming from Young's passing and rushing. The Cougars finished the year with an impressive 11–1 record; Young was named a unanimous All-American and received the Davey O'Brien National Quarterback Award, which recognizes the nation's best collegiate quarterback each year. He also finished second in voting for the Heisman Trophy, behind Nebraska running back Mike Rozier. Young capped his college career by scoring the game-winning touchdown on a pass from the halfback in BYU's 21–17 victory over Missouri in the 1983 Holiday Bowl.
Young finished his college career with 592 pass completions for 7,733 yards and 56 touchdowns, along with 1,048 yards and 18 touchdowns rushing. He was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame in 2001.
Professional football
USFL
Los Angeles Express
Young was selected by the Los Angeles Express in the first round (11th overall) of the 1984 USFL Draft. He signed a record ten-year, $40 million contract with the Express in He agreed to take his payment in the form of an annuity paid out over forty years to help the fledgling team.
It was taken for granted that Young would be the first pick in the 1984 NFL Draft, and that he would be selected by the Cincinnati Bengals, who were three years removed from the Super Bowl and had landed the No. 1 pick in a trade with the then-moribund Tampa Bay Buccaneers. However, the Bengals still had Ken Anderson as their quarterback and planned to have Young sit behind Anderson for the 1984 season before possibly taking over in 1985. Young found that prospect unappealing, which opened the door for the Express. Express general manager Don Klosterman told Young that if he signed with the Express, his head coach would be John Hadl, a former All-Pro quarterback who had shepherded John Elway through his first year in the NFL. Klosterman also told Young that Hall of Fame coach Sid Gillman, who had been hired as a consultant, would tutor him on how to be a pro quarterback. Young was convinced, and signed with the Express.
At the time, it was another huge signing by the fledgling league, which had already succeeded in signing both the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, running back Mike Rozier of Nebraska; and the previous winner, Georgia running back Herschel Walker. After missing the first six games of his rookie season while taking some college classes in order to graduate on time, Young started the final twelve. He had a respectable year, highlighted by becoming the first pro football player ever to pass for 300 yards and rush for 100 in a single game. Despite being surrounded with talent which included such future NFL players as Jojo Townsell, Mel Gray, and Kevin Nelson, and making the playoffs in Young's first season, the Express was never able to create a sustaining fan base in Los Angeles.
Late in the season, The New York Times published an investigation of owner J. William Oldenburg's finances that suggested Oldenburg was not as well off as he claimed. The FBI had been investigating Oldenburg since the middle of the season. A week after the Times article, Oldenburg stopped paying the Express' bills, forcing the league to draw on the team's emergency line of credit to keep it going through the playoffs. Houston Gamblers minority partner Jay Roulier stepped in to buy the team, only to be pushed out when it emerged that he too had misrepresented his net worth. The league took control of the team and cut expenditures to the bare minimum. The other teams made contributions to keep the Express going through the season – enough to meet payroll, but not much else.
Under the circumstances, the 1985 season rapidly became a fiasco. Before one game, the team bus driver refused to drive the Express to their final home game – which had been moved to Los Angeles Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley – unless he was paid up front in cash. Young contributed some money, as did the team trainer, and the driver took them to the game. In the season finale at Orlando, Young had to line up at tailback because a rash of injuries had left the Express without any healthy running backs. The owners had refused to allocate any money to allow the Express to replace injured players.
It was reported that Young had insured the contract and would still be paid until 2027. However, a 1985 Los Angeles Times article stated that he received a $1.4 million settlement on the annuity.
The league ceased operations in 1986 after losing most of its claims in an antitrust suit against the NFL, with its top talent absorbed by the NFL in a dispersal draft conducted in the aftermath.
NFL
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Young grew increasingly dissatisfied with the disarray surrounding the Express. Just a week before what proved to be the last USFL title game, Young gave the USFL an ultimatum – find a new owner for the Express, or allow him to buy out his contract and go to the NFL. Soon after the league decided to suspend the Express's operations for the 1986 season, Young bought out his Express contract and signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who had made him the first pick in a supplemental draft of USFL and CFL players a year earlier.
By this time, the Bucs were in the midst of what would be 12 consecutive 10-loss seasons. They posted identical 2–14 records in Young's two seasons with them, going 3–16 with him as a starter. Young threw for only 11 touchdowns with 21 interceptions while completing fewer than 55% of his passes.
San Francisco 49ers
The Buccaneers selected University of Miami quarterback Vinny Testaverde first overall in the 1987 NFL Draft because Young was deemed a bust. Young was traded to the San Francisco 49ers on April 24, 1987 to serve as a backup to Joe Montana. 49ers coach Bill Walsh was impressed by Young's natural abilities, and believed his lackluster numbers were primarily due to the lack of talent around him in Tampa Bay.
The Buccaneers received second and fourth round draft picks in the trade, which they used to draft Miami linebacker Winston Moss, and Arizona State wide receiver Bruce Hill, respectively.
Montana's backup: 1987–1990
Young played behind Montana for four years, but shone as a backup. Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41–0 victory. In their 1987 divisional playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings, he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27–10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a good performance, completing 12 of 17 pass attempts for 158 yards and a touchdown, with one interception, while also leading San Francisco in rushing with 72 yards and a touchdown on six carries. On October 30, 1988, Young ran for a 49-yard, game-winning touchdown against the Vikings. He started the game out with a 73-yard touchdown pass to John Taylor, after Montana went down with an injury. The play earned the 49ers a 24–21 victory and a bit of revenge on the Vikings for their previous season's playoff loss. The win turned out to be crucial, as without it the 49ers would have finished the season 9–7 and missed the playoffs, as two other teams in their division, the Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints, had 10–6 records. Instead, the 49ers won their division, earned the #2 playoff seed, and went on to win the Super Bowl.
In 1989, he displayed potential to become the team's starter in the future. While Montana won the NFL MVP award and led the team to victory in Super Bowl XXIV, Young still had a good season, completing 69% of his passes for 1,001 yards and eight touchdowns, with only three interceptions. On October 22, 1989, he posted a perfect passer rating of 158.3 when he completed 11 of 12 passes for 188 yards and three touchdown passes in a 37–20 victory over the New England Patriots.
He rushed for a career-high 102 yards on just eight carries against the New Orleans Saints on December 23, 1990, making him only the second 49ers quarterback to rush for at least 100 yards in a single game. The 49ers lost the game 13–10.
In his four seasons as a backup, Young threw 23 touchdown passes and only six interceptions.
1991 season
Following an injury to Montana's elbow in the 1990 NFC Championship Game, which forced him to miss the entire 1991 season, Young got his chance to lead the 49ers. He got off to a rough start. Midway through the season, the 49ers found themselves struggling with a 4–4 record. In the ninth game of the season, after throwing a franchise-record 97-yard touchdown pass to Taylor, Young suffered a knee injury and was replaced by backup quarterback Steve Bono. After a loss in that game and the next, Bono led the 49ers to five consecutive victories, playing so well that coach George Seifert decided to keep him in the starting lineup after Young had recovered. It wasn't until late in the 15th game of the season, after Bono went down with an injury of his own, that Young got to play again. Young then closed out the season by throwing for 338 yards and three touchdowns and also rushing for 63 yards and another touchdown in a 52–14 win over the Chicago Bears in a Monday Night Football game at Candlestick Park.
Young finished the season with an NFL best 101.8 passer rating. Despite missing five full games and most of a sixth, he still threw for 2,517 yards and 17 touchdowns with only 8 interceptions. But despite Young's strong season, the season for the team was widely regarded as a disappointment. The 49ers had slipped from a 14–2 record in the previous season to a 10–6 record in 1991. While 10 wins is usually enough to make the playoffs, this time it was not, and San Francisco ended up not playing in the postseason for the first time since 1982. It was thought by many that Young's days as the 49ers starter were numbered due to the impending return of Montana from the injury to his right elbow, and some observers said the 49ers should trade Young and keep Montana and Bono. However, the trade never happened.
1992 season: first MVP
By the start of the 1992 season, it appeared that Young's starting job was in serious peril. In addition to having to compete with Bono, Montana appeared to be close to recovering from his elbow tendon surgery. San Francisco came close to trading Young to the Los Angeles Raiders, but no deal was finalized and it turned out that Montana would not recover in time to start in the opening game. Montana would not return until the final game of the 1992 season, a Monday Night home game against the Detroit Lions. Montana played the entire second half of that final game and guided the 49ers to victory.
Young ended up as San Francisco's starting quarterback, but once again got off to a rough start. On the fifth play of the opening game at the Giants, he suffered a concussion and was replaced by Bono, who threw two touchdown passes while leading the 49ers to a 31–14 win. The following week, San Francisco lost 34–31 to the Buffalo Bills, despite a career-high 449 passing yards and three touchdowns from Young, in a game that for the first time in NFL history had zero punts from either team.
Young recovered and led the 49ers on a five-game winning streak, capped off by a 56–17 win over the Atlanta Falcons in which Young passed for 399 yards and three touchdowns. After missing most of the next game (a 24–14 loss to the Cardinals) with the flu, he led San Francisco to victory in all of their remaining games of the season, giving the team a 14–2 record. He went on to throw for 227 yards and 2 touchdowns, and rush for 73 yards, in a 20–13 divisional playoff win over the Washington Redskins. The 49ers lost the NFC title game, however, 30–20 against the eventual Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys. Young threw for 313 yards, completing 71.4% of his passes while passing for one touchdown and rushing for another. He also threw two interceptions, but the final one came with the outcome of the game already decided.
Young finished the season with 3,465 passing yards and 537 rushing yards, along with an NFL-best 25 touchdown passes and 107.0 passer rating, earning him the NFL Most Valuable Player Award and his first selection to the Pro Bowl. He was the first quarterback ever to record a triple-digit rating in consecutive seasons. Many credit Young's turnaround to the mentoring of the 49ers' new offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan, who worked with Young on combining his running skill with on-the-move passing decisions.
1993 season
Before the start of the 1993 season, team owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. announced that he wanted Montana to resume his role as starting quarterback for the 49ers. However, a rift in the locker room had developed, with players split on whom they wanted at quarterback. In the spring of 1993, at Montana's request, San Francisco traded Montana to the Kansas City Chiefs. Young was now the 49ers' undisputed starter, and would remain so for the rest of his career. But once again, he had a rough start to the season. Over the first four games of 1993, Young, who was hindered by a swollen thumb on his throwing hand, threw eight interceptions, more than he had thrown during the entire 1992 season. But after his thumb healed, Young went on an incredible streak over a span of seven games, throwing 16 touchdown passes with only 2 interceptions and a 122.2 passer rating. By the end of the year, Young set franchise records for most passing yards (4,023), and consecutive passes thrown without an interception (189), (later eclipsed by Alex Smith in 2012) while leading the NFL in touchdown passes (29) and passer rating (101.5). The team slipped to a 10–6 record, but advanced to the NFC championship game again by blowing out the New York Giants 44–3 in the divisional round. However, once again they were defeated by the Dallas Cowboys, this time 38–21.
1994 season: second MVP and Super Bowl run
After several key free agent signings including All-Pro cornerback Deion Sanders and NFL Draft selections, the 49ers looked to win their first Super Bowl since 1989. They started fast, beating the Los Angeles Raiders 44–14 on the strength of four touchdown passes from Young, one of four games during the regular season in which he had at least four. After a loss in a much-anticipated game to Joe Montana and the Kansas City Chiefs, the 49ers won their next two games before losing to the Philadelphia Eagles 40–8 at Candlestick Park, a game in which Young was eventually benched in the middle of an offensive series. Although head coach George Seifert later said he only pulled Young because he was getting manhandled by the Eagles' defense, Young had had enough of being scapegoated for 49er shortfalls and loudly (and visibly) lambasted Seifert over his decision while standing on the sideline during the game.
But the game was considered a turning point in the season; from there, Young led the team to 10 consecutive wins, by an average of 20 points, before losing the meaningless finale against the Vikings in which Young completed his first 12 of 13 attempts before going to the sidelines. They finished an NFL best 13–3, securing home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs. The 49ers had the number-one offense in the NFL, and were so dominant that Seifert often took Young out of games early if he felt that the 49ers had an insurmountable lead at the time.
After an easy 44–15 victory over the Chicago Bears in the divisional round of the playoffs, the 49ers jumped out to a 31–14 halftime lead over the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Championship Game, holding on to win 38–28. Young threw for two touchdowns, while adding 47 yards and another touchdown on the ground. As a result, he went to his first Super Bowl as a starting quarterback. The 49ers were heavy favorites to become the first team with five Super Bowl victories.
On the strength of a six-touchdown performance that surpassed the previous Super Bowl record of five, owned by the man Young replaced, Joe Montana, Steve Young was named the MVP of Super Bowl XXIX, as the 49ers defeated the San Diego Chargers, 49–26. Young also threw for 325 yards and rushed for 49 yards, making him the first player ever to finish a Super Bowl as the game's leader in both rushing and passing yards.
The victory capped off an incredible year for Young, who had one of the best seasons by a quarterback in NFL history. He threw for 3,969 yards, a then-franchise record 35 touchdown passes with only 10 interceptions, completed 70.3 percent of his passes – the highest completion percentage of the 1990s, third all-time, and at the time, the best completion percentage by any quarterback with more than 400 attempts (later eclipsed by Drew Brees in 2009). Additionally, Young broke Joe Montana's single-season mark with a then-record 112.8 passer rating, and also once again demonstrated his great scrambling ability, accumulating another 289 yards and 7 touchdowns on the ground. For his record-breaking season performances, Young was awarded his second AP NFL MVP award, becoming the 7th player in NFL history to win both league and Super Bowl MVP honors in the same season.
Later years and injuries
In the three years following Super Bowl XXIX, the 49ers would be eliminated each year by Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers, twice in San Francisco. In addition to the early playoff exits, Young suffered a series of injuries that forced him to miss several games from 1995 to 1997. Young entered the 1998 season at age 37 and some began to wonder if his skills would diminish because of his history of injuries and a general decline in his game due to age. However, he silenced all critics once again, putting up career numbers in passing yards (4,170) and passing touchdowns (36). The 49ers finally beat Favre and the Packers in an NFC wild card game that year, as Young threw the winning touchdown to wide receiver Terrell Owens with three seconds remaining to win the game 30–27. In reference to Dwight Clark's legendary catch against the Dallas Cowboys in the 1981 NFC championship game, Owens's grab was called "The Catch II". A week later, however, Garrison Hearst broke his ankle on the 49ers' first play from scrimmage. Without the threat of a running game, Young threw three interceptions (the last one a Hail Mary pass with under 30 seconds remaining in the game) and the 49ers were defeated by the Atlanta Falcons 20–18. Over that span of seasons from 1995 to 1998, Young led the NFL in passer rating twice (in 1996 and 1997), and led the NFL with 36 touchdown passes in 1998.
The 1999 season would turn out to be Young's last in the NFL. Young was plagued by concussions throughout his career. During a Week 3 Monday Night Football game against the Arizona Cardinals, Young was violently sacked by Cardinals cornerback Aeneas Williams on a blitz. Running back Lawrence Phillips was supposed to pick up Williams, but missed. Young was knocked out of the game with a concussion, and didn't return again for the rest of the season due to symptoms of post-concussion syndrome. The concussion he suffered against the Cardinals was reportedly his second in a season that was only three weeks old, and the seventh (at least) of his career. Following the season, the 49ers told him that he would be released if he did not retire. Although Young was offered a job as the starting quarterback of the Denver Broncos (where his former offensive coordinator, Mike Shanahan, was the head coach), he retired because of his repeated concussions. In a 2013 Frontline interview, Young said that, partially based upon their own experiences, he and many retired players are increasingly concerned about repeated concussions and subconcussive hits. He is particularly concerned about certain positions that take frequent hits, such as running backs and linemen.
Career statistics and records
USFL career
NFL career
Records and legacy
Although Young did not become the 49ers' starter until his 8th NFL season, and he played a full season only three times (all consecutively) during his 15-year career, Young had a significant impact on the NFL. A two-time league MVP, he completed 2,667 of 4,149 passes for 33,124 yards and 232 touchdowns, with 107 interceptions, and 43 rushing touchdowns. His 96.8 career passer rating is the sixth highest in NFL history and second highest among retired players, behind Tony Romo; his 4,239 rushing yards are the fourth most ever gained by a quarterback, behind Michael Vick, Cam Newton, and Randall Cunningham. He was the NFL's top rated passer in six different seasons and led the league in touchdown passes four times. In 20 postseason games, he threw 20 touchdown passes with only 13 interceptions, and scored 8 touchdowns on the ground. In his stint with the San Francisco 49ers, Young passed for 29,907 yards, 221 touchdowns, and 86 interceptions, with a passer rating of 101.4, highest in franchise history. He was also sacked 290 times, also most in franchise history.
NFL records
Tenth highest passer rating, career, including active players – 96.8
Fourth highest passer rating, career, retired players only – 96.8
Eighth highest career completion percentage, retired players – 64.3%
Most times led the league in passer rating, career – 6 (tied w/ Sammy Baugh)
Most consecutive times led the league in passer rating – 4 (1991–94)
One of seven QBs to lead the league in touchdown passes 4 times (tied with Johnny Unitas, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Len Dawson)
Most passes attempted, playoff game – 65 vs. Green Bay, 1995
Most TD passes, playoff game – 6 (tied w/Daryle Lamonica & Tom Brady)
Most TD passes in one Super Bowl – 6
Most rushing yards by a QB, postseason career – 594
Most rushing touchdowns by a QB, postseason career – 8
49ers records
Highest completion percentage (20+ Atts) (Game): vs Detroit (10/20/91), 90.0
Most average yards per attempt (20+ Atts) (Game): vs Detroit (12/19/93), 15.39
Most touchdown passes (season): 36 (1998)
Best completion percentage (season): 70.3 (1994)
Best passer rating (season): 112.8 (1994)
Most 300-yard passing games (season): 7 (1998)
Best passer rating (career): 101.4
Most average yards per attempt (career): 8.20
Most consecutive games with a touchdown pass: 18, at Det. (10/9/94) to vs. StL (11/26/95) note: (DNP in 5 games in 1995)
Best completion percentage (career): 65.8
Most rushing touchdowns by a quarterback (career): 43
In 1999, he was ranked No. 63 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. Young was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on February 5, 2005; he was the first left-handed quarterback to be so honored. He was enshrined August 7, 2005. His induction speech was given by his father, LeGrande "Grit" Young.
The San Francisco 49ers had his No. 8 jersey retired during a halftime ceremony against the New England Patriots on October 5, 2008. He was the 11th player in team history to receive this honor. He is also the only 49er in team history to wear No. 8.
Post-football
Business career
In 1994, Young received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from BYU's J. Reuben Clark Law School.
In 2000, Young spoke at the Republican National Convention.
In 2007, Young co-founded Huntsman Gay Global Capital (HGGC), with billionaire industrialist Jon M. Huntsman and former Bain Capital executive Robert C. Gay. After being involved in business ventures with the private equity firm, he has continued to serve as a managing director.
In 2011, Young was one of several notable BYU athletes and coaches who appeared in the school's "Real Cougar" advertising campaign, which featured the individuals telling an actual cougar about being a "real cougar". In one of the ads, Young poked fun at himself:
Young: I love BYU so much I even got my law degree here.
Cougar: (growls)
Young: Lawyers... I know.
Acting career
Young has both performed dramatic roles and appeared as himself in a limited acting career. He appeared in one episode of Frasier and one episode of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (cast as Lois' former high school football quarterback boyfriend, Joe Maloy). He also made a guest appearance as himself in the Dharma & Greg episode "Are You Ready for Some Football?" encouraging Dharma, the team's Number One Fan. In 1995, Young appeared as himself in the Season 6, Episode 12 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. He also made cameo appearances in the LDS comedy The Singles Ward (2002) and in a season 5 episode of BYUtv's Studio C (2014). Young also made a guest appearance as himself in season 8 of the NBC comedy series Wings in the episode "Just Call Me Angel".
Young was originally offered a part in the 1998 movie There's Something About Mary, but turned the role down. He was replaced by Brett Favre.
Philanthropy
Young serves as a National Advisor to ASCEND: A Humanitarian Alliance. This non-profit organization plans expeditions to African and South American countries to provide life skills mentoring with sustainable solutions in education, enterprise, health and simple technology.
In 1993, Young founded a charitable foundation known as the Forever Young Foundation, which serves children facing significant physical, emotional, and financial challenges by providing academic, athletic, and therapeutic opportunities otherwise unavailable to them.
Young also serves as the national spokesman for an organization founded by former Save Darfur Coalition executive director and founder, David Rubenstein. He began his affiliation with the organization in 2009, when he became the honorary league commissioner for their charitable dodgeball tournaments held on college campuses nationwide.
Personal life
Young is a great-great-great-nephew of Brigham Young, second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for whom BYU is named. His father, LeGrande "Grit" Young, played football at BYU in the late 1950s. He led the school in scoring in 1955 and in rushing and total offense in 1959. Steve Young's younger brothers, Mike and Tom, both played quarterback at BYU after Steve, but neither received much playing time.
Young has been married to Barbara Graham since 2000. They have two sons and two daughters. According to A Football Life: As his playing career ended before his eldest child was born, he wrote his autobiography QB: My Life Behind the Spiral initially as a private memoir for his children.
See also
Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame
List of NCAA major college football yearly passing leaders
List of NCAA major college football yearly total offense leaders
List of NFL quarterbacks who have posted a perfect passer rating
References
External links
1961 births
All-American college football players
American color commentators
American football quarterbacks
American male television actors
American philanthropists
Brigham Young University alumni
BYU Cougars football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Greenwich High School alumni
J. Reuben Clark Law School alumni
Latter Day Saints from California
Latter Day Saints from Connecticut
Latter Day Saints from Utah
Living people
Los Angeles Express players
National Conference Pro Bowl players
National Football League Most Valuable Player Award winners
National Football League Offensive Player of the Year Award winners
National Football League players with retired numbers
Players of American football from Connecticut
Players of American football from Salt Lake City
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
Richards–Young family
San Francisco 49ers players
Sportspeople from Greenwich, Connecticut
Super Bowl MVPs
Tampa Bay Buccaneers players
Utah Republicans | false | [
"The 1949 Raisin Bowl (December) was an American college football bowl game played on December 31, 1949 at Ratcliffe Stadium in Fresno, California. The game pitted the San Jose State Spartans and the Texas Tech Red Raiders. This was the fifth and final Raisin Bowl played.\n\nBackground\nSan Jose State won eight games in the regular season, though they were invited to their second bowl game in four seasons. Texas Tech finished as champion of the Border Intercollegiate Athletic Association for the third straight year and fourth in seven years (with no champion awarded from 1943–45). This was their fifth bowl game in 11 years.\n\nGame summary\nTexas Tech - Hatch 1 yard run\nSan Jose State - Wilson 30 yard pass from Menges\nSan Jose State - Donaldson 11 yard run\nSan Jose State - Donaldson 5 yard run\nTexas Tech - Stuver 76 yard run\nIn a game that started and ended with fog, San Jose State pulled through with quick scoring to win their second ever bowl game.\n\nAftermath\nWith the win, San Jose State had won nine games for the fourth straight season. They did not win 9 games again until 1975. Incidentally, they did not reach a bowl game until the Pasadena Bowl in 1971 and a major bowl game until 1981. Texas Tech returned to a bowl game in 1952, which they won for their first ever win in school history.\n\nReferences\n\nRaisin Bowl\nRaisin Bowl\nSan Jose State Spartans football bowl games\nTexas Tech Red Raiders football bowl games\nDecember 1949 sports events\nRaisin Bowl",
"The 1999 Utah State Aggies football team represented Utah State University in the 1999 NCAA Division I-A football season as a member of the Big West Conference. The Aggies were once again led by head coach Dave Arslanian, who was in his second year with the program. The Aggies played their home games at Romney Stadium in Logan, Utah. Utah State finished with a 4–7 record, a one game improvement over 1998, but would dismiss Coach Arslanian at the end of the season.\n\nPrevious season\nAfter a conference championship and bowl game in 1997, Utah State finished the 1998 season with a disappointing record of 3–8. The team had lost several close games early in the season, and would need two wins in the last three weeks of the season to avoid its worst finish since 1984.\n\nSchedule\n\nSeason summary\nThe Aggies opened the season against the Georgia Bulldogs, a very strong team. They lost that opener 7–38 but bounced back after an easy win against Stephen F. Austin 51–17. The third game was against their rival, the Utah Utes. They did not beat the Utes, as they wouldn't win until 2012. They had a close win against BYU in the Old Wagon Wheel rivalry but lost 31–34, they would not win until 2010. After two losses in rivalries, they would win against Arkansas State and then fall into a 4 game slump. They got out of that slump against Nevada with a close win, 37–35. They finished off the season winning against North Texas 34–7. They ended the season with a record of 4–7, 3–3 in the Big West Conference.\n\nAwards and honors\nThe Aggies had eleven players named to either the first or second all-conference team in the Big West.\n\nReferences\n\nUtah State\nUtah State Aggies football seasons\nUtah State Aggies football"
] |
[
"Steve Young",
"Montana's backup: 1987-1990",
"Did Steve Young play any notable games while a backup?",
"Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41-0",
"Did they win that game?",
"41-0 victory."
] | C_52dfda507a2f476c98e838aa6c80d9e5_1 | Did he play any other notable games? | 3 | Did Steve Young play any other notable games other than the one against the Chicago Bears in 1987? | Steve Young | Young played behind Montana his first several years, but shone as a backup. Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41-0 victory. In their 1987 divisional playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings, he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27-10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a fairly good performance with 12/17 completions for 158 yards and a touchdown, with one interception, while also leading San Francisco in rushing with 72 yards and a touchdown on six carries. On October 30, 1988, Young ran for a 49-yard, game-winning touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings. He started the game out with a 73-yard touchdown pass to John Taylor, after Montana went down with an injury. The play earned the 49ers a 24-21 victory and a bit of revenge on the Vikings for their previous season's playoff loss. In 1989, he displayed his potential to become the team's starter in the future. While Montana won the NFL MVP award and led the team to victory in Super Bowl XXIV, Young still had a good season, completing 69% of his passes for 1,001 yards and eight touchdowns, with only three interceptions. On October 22, 1989, he posted a perfect passer rating of 158.3 when he completed 11 of 12 passes for 188 yards and three touchdown passes in a 37-20 victory over the New England Patriots. In his four seasons as a backup, Young had thrown 23 touchdown passes and only six interceptions. He rushed for a career-high 102 yards on just eight carries vs. the New Orleans Saints on December 23, 1990, making him only the second 49ers quarterback to rush for at least 100 yards in a single game. The 49ers lost the game 13-10. CANNOTANSWER | he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27-10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a fairly good performance | Jon Steven Young (born October 11, 1961) is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 15 seasons, primarily with the San Francisco 49ers. He also played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Prior to his NFL career, he was a member of the Los Angeles Express in the United States Football League (USFL) for two seasons. Young played college football for Brigham Young University (BYU), setting school and NCAA records en route to being runner-up for the 1983 Heisman Trophy.
Young was named the AP's NFL Most Valuable Player in 1992 and 1994, and was the MVP of Super Bowl XXIX. During his 1994 MVP campaign, he set a new NFL record for passer rating at 112.8. He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Young was an extremely efficient passer – leading the league in passer rating a record six times, and completion percentage and yards per attempt five times. At the time of his retirement, he had the highest passer rating among NFL quarterbacks with at least 1,500 passing attempts (96.8). As of the end of the 2020 season, he is ranked tenth all-time in passer rating, and is ranked fourth highest amongst retired players, behind only Drew Brees, Tom Brady, and Tony Romo. His 43 career rushing touchdowns are second among quarterbacks, while his 4,239 rushing yards ranks fifth all time.
Early years
Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Young attended Greenwich High School in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he played quarterback on its Cardinals football team. He earned 1978 All-FCIAC West Division First Team honors in his junior year, his first year as a starter. In his senior year he rushed for 13 touchdowns and earned All-FCIAC West Division First Team honors, and was named to the CIAC All-State team. In the rush-first option offense run by Greenwich he completed only 41 percent of his throws for 1,220 yards, but ran the ball 267 times for 1,928 yards. On Thanksgiving Day in November 1979, Greenwich lost to Darien High School, known for its "Tidal Wave Defense", 17–0. During his senior year, he was co-captain of the football, basketball and baseball teams. In basketball, he averaged 15 points a game. In baseball, he hit .384 and played center field when he wasn't pitching. He was 5–1 and threw a 3–0 no-hitter against New Canaan High School.
College football
Young was heavily recruited by the University of North Carolina. Coach Dick Crum was enamored by Young's running ability, and wanted him to run his option offense. Young instead chose BYU. Initially, he struggled at throwing the ball, and BYU's coaching staff considered switching him to defensive back because of his athleticism. However, he worked hard to improve his passing skills and eventually succeeded record-setting Jim McMahon as BYU's starting QB. Young's senior season (1983) was spectacular. He passed for 3,902 yards and 33 touchdowns in the regular season, and his 71.3% completion percentage set an NCAA single-season record. He also added 544 yards rushing. With Young at quarterback, BYU set an NCAA record by averaging 584.2 yards of total offense per game, with 370.5 of those yards coming from Young's passing and rushing. The Cougars finished the year with an impressive 11–1 record; Young was named a unanimous All-American and received the Davey O'Brien National Quarterback Award, which recognizes the nation's best collegiate quarterback each year. He also finished second in voting for the Heisman Trophy, behind Nebraska running back Mike Rozier. Young capped his college career by scoring the game-winning touchdown on a pass from the halfback in BYU's 21–17 victory over Missouri in the 1983 Holiday Bowl.
Young finished his college career with 592 pass completions for 7,733 yards and 56 touchdowns, along with 1,048 yards and 18 touchdowns rushing. He was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame in 2001.
Professional football
USFL
Los Angeles Express
Young was selected by the Los Angeles Express in the first round (11th overall) of the 1984 USFL Draft. He signed a record ten-year, $40 million contract with the Express in He agreed to take his payment in the form of an annuity paid out over forty years to help the fledgling team.
It was taken for granted that Young would be the first pick in the 1984 NFL Draft, and that he would be selected by the Cincinnati Bengals, who were three years removed from the Super Bowl and had landed the No. 1 pick in a trade with the then-moribund Tampa Bay Buccaneers. However, the Bengals still had Ken Anderson as their quarterback and planned to have Young sit behind Anderson for the 1984 season before possibly taking over in 1985. Young found that prospect unappealing, which opened the door for the Express. Express general manager Don Klosterman told Young that if he signed with the Express, his head coach would be John Hadl, a former All-Pro quarterback who had shepherded John Elway through his first year in the NFL. Klosterman also told Young that Hall of Fame coach Sid Gillman, who had been hired as a consultant, would tutor him on how to be a pro quarterback. Young was convinced, and signed with the Express.
At the time, it was another huge signing by the fledgling league, which had already succeeded in signing both the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, running back Mike Rozier of Nebraska; and the previous winner, Georgia running back Herschel Walker. After missing the first six games of his rookie season while taking some college classes in order to graduate on time, Young started the final twelve. He had a respectable year, highlighted by becoming the first pro football player ever to pass for 300 yards and rush for 100 in a single game. Despite being surrounded with talent which included such future NFL players as Jojo Townsell, Mel Gray, and Kevin Nelson, and making the playoffs in Young's first season, the Express was never able to create a sustaining fan base in Los Angeles.
Late in the season, The New York Times published an investigation of owner J. William Oldenburg's finances that suggested Oldenburg was not as well off as he claimed. The FBI had been investigating Oldenburg since the middle of the season. A week after the Times article, Oldenburg stopped paying the Express' bills, forcing the league to draw on the team's emergency line of credit to keep it going through the playoffs. Houston Gamblers minority partner Jay Roulier stepped in to buy the team, only to be pushed out when it emerged that he too had misrepresented his net worth. The league took control of the team and cut expenditures to the bare minimum. The other teams made contributions to keep the Express going through the season – enough to meet payroll, but not much else.
Under the circumstances, the 1985 season rapidly became a fiasco. Before one game, the team bus driver refused to drive the Express to their final home game – which had been moved to Los Angeles Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley – unless he was paid up front in cash. Young contributed some money, as did the team trainer, and the driver took them to the game. In the season finale at Orlando, Young had to line up at tailback because a rash of injuries had left the Express without any healthy running backs. The owners had refused to allocate any money to allow the Express to replace injured players.
It was reported that Young had insured the contract and would still be paid until 2027. However, a 1985 Los Angeles Times article stated that he received a $1.4 million settlement on the annuity.
The league ceased operations in 1986 after losing most of its claims in an antitrust suit against the NFL, with its top talent absorbed by the NFL in a dispersal draft conducted in the aftermath.
NFL
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Young grew increasingly dissatisfied with the disarray surrounding the Express. Just a week before what proved to be the last USFL title game, Young gave the USFL an ultimatum – find a new owner for the Express, or allow him to buy out his contract and go to the NFL. Soon after the league decided to suspend the Express's operations for the 1986 season, Young bought out his Express contract and signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who had made him the first pick in a supplemental draft of USFL and CFL players a year earlier.
By this time, the Bucs were in the midst of what would be 12 consecutive 10-loss seasons. They posted identical 2–14 records in Young's two seasons with them, going 3–16 with him as a starter. Young threw for only 11 touchdowns with 21 interceptions while completing fewer than 55% of his passes.
San Francisco 49ers
The Buccaneers selected University of Miami quarterback Vinny Testaverde first overall in the 1987 NFL Draft because Young was deemed a bust. Young was traded to the San Francisco 49ers on April 24, 1987 to serve as a backup to Joe Montana. 49ers coach Bill Walsh was impressed by Young's natural abilities, and believed his lackluster numbers were primarily due to the lack of talent around him in Tampa Bay.
The Buccaneers received second and fourth round draft picks in the trade, which they used to draft Miami linebacker Winston Moss, and Arizona State wide receiver Bruce Hill, respectively.
Montana's backup: 1987–1990
Young played behind Montana for four years, but shone as a backup. Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41–0 victory. In their 1987 divisional playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings, he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27–10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a good performance, completing 12 of 17 pass attempts for 158 yards and a touchdown, with one interception, while also leading San Francisco in rushing with 72 yards and a touchdown on six carries. On October 30, 1988, Young ran for a 49-yard, game-winning touchdown against the Vikings. He started the game out with a 73-yard touchdown pass to John Taylor, after Montana went down with an injury. The play earned the 49ers a 24–21 victory and a bit of revenge on the Vikings for their previous season's playoff loss. The win turned out to be crucial, as without it the 49ers would have finished the season 9–7 and missed the playoffs, as two other teams in their division, the Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints, had 10–6 records. Instead, the 49ers won their division, earned the #2 playoff seed, and went on to win the Super Bowl.
In 1989, he displayed potential to become the team's starter in the future. While Montana won the NFL MVP award and led the team to victory in Super Bowl XXIV, Young still had a good season, completing 69% of his passes for 1,001 yards and eight touchdowns, with only three interceptions. On October 22, 1989, he posted a perfect passer rating of 158.3 when he completed 11 of 12 passes for 188 yards and three touchdown passes in a 37–20 victory over the New England Patriots.
He rushed for a career-high 102 yards on just eight carries against the New Orleans Saints on December 23, 1990, making him only the second 49ers quarterback to rush for at least 100 yards in a single game. The 49ers lost the game 13–10.
In his four seasons as a backup, Young threw 23 touchdown passes and only six interceptions.
1991 season
Following an injury to Montana's elbow in the 1990 NFC Championship Game, which forced him to miss the entire 1991 season, Young got his chance to lead the 49ers. He got off to a rough start. Midway through the season, the 49ers found themselves struggling with a 4–4 record. In the ninth game of the season, after throwing a franchise-record 97-yard touchdown pass to Taylor, Young suffered a knee injury and was replaced by backup quarterback Steve Bono. After a loss in that game and the next, Bono led the 49ers to five consecutive victories, playing so well that coach George Seifert decided to keep him in the starting lineup after Young had recovered. It wasn't until late in the 15th game of the season, after Bono went down with an injury of his own, that Young got to play again. Young then closed out the season by throwing for 338 yards and three touchdowns and also rushing for 63 yards and another touchdown in a 52–14 win over the Chicago Bears in a Monday Night Football game at Candlestick Park.
Young finished the season with an NFL best 101.8 passer rating. Despite missing five full games and most of a sixth, he still threw for 2,517 yards and 17 touchdowns with only 8 interceptions. But despite Young's strong season, the season for the team was widely regarded as a disappointment. The 49ers had slipped from a 14–2 record in the previous season to a 10–6 record in 1991. While 10 wins is usually enough to make the playoffs, this time it was not, and San Francisco ended up not playing in the postseason for the first time since 1982. It was thought by many that Young's days as the 49ers starter were numbered due to the impending return of Montana from the injury to his right elbow, and some observers said the 49ers should trade Young and keep Montana and Bono. However, the trade never happened.
1992 season: first MVP
By the start of the 1992 season, it appeared that Young's starting job was in serious peril. In addition to having to compete with Bono, Montana appeared to be close to recovering from his elbow tendon surgery. San Francisco came close to trading Young to the Los Angeles Raiders, but no deal was finalized and it turned out that Montana would not recover in time to start in the opening game. Montana would not return until the final game of the 1992 season, a Monday Night home game against the Detroit Lions. Montana played the entire second half of that final game and guided the 49ers to victory.
Young ended up as San Francisco's starting quarterback, but once again got off to a rough start. On the fifth play of the opening game at the Giants, he suffered a concussion and was replaced by Bono, who threw two touchdown passes while leading the 49ers to a 31–14 win. The following week, San Francisco lost 34–31 to the Buffalo Bills, despite a career-high 449 passing yards and three touchdowns from Young, in a game that for the first time in NFL history had zero punts from either team.
Young recovered and led the 49ers on a five-game winning streak, capped off by a 56–17 win over the Atlanta Falcons in which Young passed for 399 yards and three touchdowns. After missing most of the next game (a 24–14 loss to the Cardinals) with the flu, he led San Francisco to victory in all of their remaining games of the season, giving the team a 14–2 record. He went on to throw for 227 yards and 2 touchdowns, and rush for 73 yards, in a 20–13 divisional playoff win over the Washington Redskins. The 49ers lost the NFC title game, however, 30–20 against the eventual Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys. Young threw for 313 yards, completing 71.4% of his passes while passing for one touchdown and rushing for another. He also threw two interceptions, but the final one came with the outcome of the game already decided.
Young finished the season with 3,465 passing yards and 537 rushing yards, along with an NFL-best 25 touchdown passes and 107.0 passer rating, earning him the NFL Most Valuable Player Award and his first selection to the Pro Bowl. He was the first quarterback ever to record a triple-digit rating in consecutive seasons. Many credit Young's turnaround to the mentoring of the 49ers' new offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan, who worked with Young on combining his running skill with on-the-move passing decisions.
1993 season
Before the start of the 1993 season, team owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. announced that he wanted Montana to resume his role as starting quarterback for the 49ers. However, a rift in the locker room had developed, with players split on whom they wanted at quarterback. In the spring of 1993, at Montana's request, San Francisco traded Montana to the Kansas City Chiefs. Young was now the 49ers' undisputed starter, and would remain so for the rest of his career. But once again, he had a rough start to the season. Over the first four games of 1993, Young, who was hindered by a swollen thumb on his throwing hand, threw eight interceptions, more than he had thrown during the entire 1992 season. But after his thumb healed, Young went on an incredible streak over a span of seven games, throwing 16 touchdown passes with only 2 interceptions and a 122.2 passer rating. By the end of the year, Young set franchise records for most passing yards (4,023), and consecutive passes thrown without an interception (189), (later eclipsed by Alex Smith in 2012) while leading the NFL in touchdown passes (29) and passer rating (101.5). The team slipped to a 10–6 record, but advanced to the NFC championship game again by blowing out the New York Giants 44–3 in the divisional round. However, once again they were defeated by the Dallas Cowboys, this time 38–21.
1994 season: second MVP and Super Bowl run
After several key free agent signings including All-Pro cornerback Deion Sanders and NFL Draft selections, the 49ers looked to win their first Super Bowl since 1989. They started fast, beating the Los Angeles Raiders 44–14 on the strength of four touchdown passes from Young, one of four games during the regular season in which he had at least four. After a loss in a much-anticipated game to Joe Montana and the Kansas City Chiefs, the 49ers won their next two games before losing to the Philadelphia Eagles 40–8 at Candlestick Park, a game in which Young was eventually benched in the middle of an offensive series. Although head coach George Seifert later said he only pulled Young because he was getting manhandled by the Eagles' defense, Young had had enough of being scapegoated for 49er shortfalls and loudly (and visibly) lambasted Seifert over his decision while standing on the sideline during the game.
But the game was considered a turning point in the season; from there, Young led the team to 10 consecutive wins, by an average of 20 points, before losing the meaningless finale against the Vikings in which Young completed his first 12 of 13 attempts before going to the sidelines. They finished an NFL best 13–3, securing home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs. The 49ers had the number-one offense in the NFL, and were so dominant that Seifert often took Young out of games early if he felt that the 49ers had an insurmountable lead at the time.
After an easy 44–15 victory over the Chicago Bears in the divisional round of the playoffs, the 49ers jumped out to a 31–14 halftime lead over the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Championship Game, holding on to win 38–28. Young threw for two touchdowns, while adding 47 yards and another touchdown on the ground. As a result, he went to his first Super Bowl as a starting quarterback. The 49ers were heavy favorites to become the first team with five Super Bowl victories.
On the strength of a six-touchdown performance that surpassed the previous Super Bowl record of five, owned by the man Young replaced, Joe Montana, Steve Young was named the MVP of Super Bowl XXIX, as the 49ers defeated the San Diego Chargers, 49–26. Young also threw for 325 yards and rushed for 49 yards, making him the first player ever to finish a Super Bowl as the game's leader in both rushing and passing yards.
The victory capped off an incredible year for Young, who had one of the best seasons by a quarterback in NFL history. He threw for 3,969 yards, a then-franchise record 35 touchdown passes with only 10 interceptions, completed 70.3 percent of his passes – the highest completion percentage of the 1990s, third all-time, and at the time, the best completion percentage by any quarterback with more than 400 attempts (later eclipsed by Drew Brees in 2009). Additionally, Young broke Joe Montana's single-season mark with a then-record 112.8 passer rating, and also once again demonstrated his great scrambling ability, accumulating another 289 yards and 7 touchdowns on the ground. For his record-breaking season performances, Young was awarded his second AP NFL MVP award, becoming the 7th player in NFL history to win both league and Super Bowl MVP honors in the same season.
Later years and injuries
In the three years following Super Bowl XXIX, the 49ers would be eliminated each year by Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers, twice in San Francisco. In addition to the early playoff exits, Young suffered a series of injuries that forced him to miss several games from 1995 to 1997. Young entered the 1998 season at age 37 and some began to wonder if his skills would diminish because of his history of injuries and a general decline in his game due to age. However, he silenced all critics once again, putting up career numbers in passing yards (4,170) and passing touchdowns (36). The 49ers finally beat Favre and the Packers in an NFC wild card game that year, as Young threw the winning touchdown to wide receiver Terrell Owens with three seconds remaining to win the game 30–27. In reference to Dwight Clark's legendary catch against the Dallas Cowboys in the 1981 NFC championship game, Owens's grab was called "The Catch II". A week later, however, Garrison Hearst broke his ankle on the 49ers' first play from scrimmage. Without the threat of a running game, Young threw three interceptions (the last one a Hail Mary pass with under 30 seconds remaining in the game) and the 49ers were defeated by the Atlanta Falcons 20–18. Over that span of seasons from 1995 to 1998, Young led the NFL in passer rating twice (in 1996 and 1997), and led the NFL with 36 touchdown passes in 1998.
The 1999 season would turn out to be Young's last in the NFL. Young was plagued by concussions throughout his career. During a Week 3 Monday Night Football game against the Arizona Cardinals, Young was violently sacked by Cardinals cornerback Aeneas Williams on a blitz. Running back Lawrence Phillips was supposed to pick up Williams, but missed. Young was knocked out of the game with a concussion, and didn't return again for the rest of the season due to symptoms of post-concussion syndrome. The concussion he suffered against the Cardinals was reportedly his second in a season that was only three weeks old, and the seventh (at least) of his career. Following the season, the 49ers told him that he would be released if he did not retire. Although Young was offered a job as the starting quarterback of the Denver Broncos (where his former offensive coordinator, Mike Shanahan, was the head coach), he retired because of his repeated concussions. In a 2013 Frontline interview, Young said that, partially based upon their own experiences, he and many retired players are increasingly concerned about repeated concussions and subconcussive hits. He is particularly concerned about certain positions that take frequent hits, such as running backs and linemen.
Career statistics and records
USFL career
NFL career
Records and legacy
Although Young did not become the 49ers' starter until his 8th NFL season, and he played a full season only three times (all consecutively) during his 15-year career, Young had a significant impact on the NFL. A two-time league MVP, he completed 2,667 of 4,149 passes for 33,124 yards and 232 touchdowns, with 107 interceptions, and 43 rushing touchdowns. His 96.8 career passer rating is the sixth highest in NFL history and second highest among retired players, behind Tony Romo; his 4,239 rushing yards are the fourth most ever gained by a quarterback, behind Michael Vick, Cam Newton, and Randall Cunningham. He was the NFL's top rated passer in six different seasons and led the league in touchdown passes four times. In 20 postseason games, he threw 20 touchdown passes with only 13 interceptions, and scored 8 touchdowns on the ground. In his stint with the San Francisco 49ers, Young passed for 29,907 yards, 221 touchdowns, and 86 interceptions, with a passer rating of 101.4, highest in franchise history. He was also sacked 290 times, also most in franchise history.
NFL records
Tenth highest passer rating, career, including active players – 96.8
Fourth highest passer rating, career, retired players only – 96.8
Eighth highest career completion percentage, retired players – 64.3%
Most times led the league in passer rating, career – 6 (tied w/ Sammy Baugh)
Most consecutive times led the league in passer rating – 4 (1991–94)
One of seven QBs to lead the league in touchdown passes 4 times (tied with Johnny Unitas, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Len Dawson)
Most passes attempted, playoff game – 65 vs. Green Bay, 1995
Most TD passes, playoff game – 6 (tied w/Daryle Lamonica & Tom Brady)
Most TD passes in one Super Bowl – 6
Most rushing yards by a QB, postseason career – 594
Most rushing touchdowns by a QB, postseason career – 8
49ers records
Highest completion percentage (20+ Atts) (Game): vs Detroit (10/20/91), 90.0
Most average yards per attempt (20+ Atts) (Game): vs Detroit (12/19/93), 15.39
Most touchdown passes (season): 36 (1998)
Best completion percentage (season): 70.3 (1994)
Best passer rating (season): 112.8 (1994)
Most 300-yard passing games (season): 7 (1998)
Best passer rating (career): 101.4
Most average yards per attempt (career): 8.20
Most consecutive games with a touchdown pass: 18, at Det. (10/9/94) to vs. StL (11/26/95) note: (DNP in 5 games in 1995)
Best completion percentage (career): 65.8
Most rushing touchdowns by a quarterback (career): 43
In 1999, he was ranked No. 63 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. Young was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on February 5, 2005; he was the first left-handed quarterback to be so honored. He was enshrined August 7, 2005. His induction speech was given by his father, LeGrande "Grit" Young.
The San Francisco 49ers had his No. 8 jersey retired during a halftime ceremony against the New England Patriots on October 5, 2008. He was the 11th player in team history to receive this honor. He is also the only 49er in team history to wear No. 8.
Post-football
Business career
In 1994, Young received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from BYU's J. Reuben Clark Law School.
In 2000, Young spoke at the Republican National Convention.
In 2007, Young co-founded Huntsman Gay Global Capital (HGGC), with billionaire industrialist Jon M. Huntsman and former Bain Capital executive Robert C. Gay. After being involved in business ventures with the private equity firm, he has continued to serve as a managing director.
In 2011, Young was one of several notable BYU athletes and coaches who appeared in the school's "Real Cougar" advertising campaign, which featured the individuals telling an actual cougar about being a "real cougar". In one of the ads, Young poked fun at himself:
Young: I love BYU so much I even got my law degree here.
Cougar: (growls)
Young: Lawyers... I know.
Acting career
Young has both performed dramatic roles and appeared as himself in a limited acting career. He appeared in one episode of Frasier and one episode of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (cast as Lois' former high school football quarterback boyfriend, Joe Maloy). He also made a guest appearance as himself in the Dharma & Greg episode "Are You Ready for Some Football?" encouraging Dharma, the team's Number One Fan. In 1995, Young appeared as himself in the Season 6, Episode 12 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. He also made cameo appearances in the LDS comedy The Singles Ward (2002) and in a season 5 episode of BYUtv's Studio C (2014). Young also made a guest appearance as himself in season 8 of the NBC comedy series Wings in the episode "Just Call Me Angel".
Young was originally offered a part in the 1998 movie There's Something About Mary, but turned the role down. He was replaced by Brett Favre.
Philanthropy
Young serves as a National Advisor to ASCEND: A Humanitarian Alliance. This non-profit organization plans expeditions to African and South American countries to provide life skills mentoring with sustainable solutions in education, enterprise, health and simple technology.
In 1993, Young founded a charitable foundation known as the Forever Young Foundation, which serves children facing significant physical, emotional, and financial challenges by providing academic, athletic, and therapeutic opportunities otherwise unavailable to them.
Young also serves as the national spokesman for an organization founded by former Save Darfur Coalition executive director and founder, David Rubenstein. He began his affiliation with the organization in 2009, when he became the honorary league commissioner for their charitable dodgeball tournaments held on college campuses nationwide.
Personal life
Young is a great-great-great-nephew of Brigham Young, second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for whom BYU is named. His father, LeGrande "Grit" Young, played football at BYU in the late 1950s. He led the school in scoring in 1955 and in rushing and total offense in 1959. Steve Young's younger brothers, Mike and Tom, both played quarterback at BYU after Steve, but neither received much playing time.
Young has been married to Barbara Graham since 2000. They have two sons and two daughters. According to A Football Life: As his playing career ended before his eldest child was born, he wrote his autobiography QB: My Life Behind the Spiral initially as a private memoir for his children.
See also
Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame
List of NCAA major college football yearly passing leaders
List of NCAA major college football yearly total offense leaders
List of NFL quarterbacks who have posted a perfect passer rating
References
External links
1961 births
All-American college football players
American color commentators
American football quarterbacks
American male television actors
American philanthropists
Brigham Young University alumni
BYU Cougars football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Greenwich High School alumni
J. Reuben Clark Law School alumni
Latter Day Saints from California
Latter Day Saints from Connecticut
Latter Day Saints from Utah
Living people
Los Angeles Express players
National Conference Pro Bowl players
National Football League Most Valuable Player Award winners
National Football League Offensive Player of the Year Award winners
National Football League players with retired numbers
Players of American football from Connecticut
Players of American football from Salt Lake City
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
Richards–Young family
San Francisco 49ers players
Sportspeople from Greenwich, Connecticut
Super Bowl MVPs
Tampa Bay Buccaneers players
Utah Republicans | false | [
"Troy Warden Andrew (born December 12, 1979) is a former American football center who played one season for the Miami Dolphins in 2001.\n\nEarly life\nTroy Andrew was born in Tamuning, Guam on December 12, 1979. He went to high school at Klein (TX).\n\nCollege\nHe went to college at Duke.\n\nProfessional career\n\nMiami Dolphins\n\nAndrew was signed as a undrafted free agent by the Miami Dolphins on April 26, 2001. He played 8 games that season. He wore number 65 for the Dolphins. He was released on September 9, 2002. \n\nHouston Texans\n\nThe next day after being cut he was claimed off waivers by the Houston Texans. But he did not make the roster and was cut 4 days later. He did not play in any games for the Texans.\n\nMiami Dolphins (Second Stint)\n\nTroy was then signed to the Miami Dolphins practice squad three days after being cut by the Texans. He was on the practice squad all year and did not play in any games. In the offseason he played for the Barcelona Dragons. In 2002 he was cut before the season started.\n\nBarcelona Dragons\n\nDuring the offseason of 2002, he was the starting center the full season for the Barcelona Dragons. He played all ten games and started them.\n\nCleveland Browns\n\nOn November 26, 2003, he was signed to the Cleveland Browns practice squad. He did not play in any games for the Browns. On January 5, 2004, he was released.\n\nBerlin Thunder\n\nDuring the 2004 offseason, he was the starting center for the Berlin Thunder. He played in all the games as the Berlin Thunder won World Bowl XII against the Frankfurt Galaxy.\n\nSan Diego Chargers\n\nOn June 18, 2004, he was signed by the San Diego Chargers. However, he did not make the roster and was cut on August 31. In his career he played in 8 games, all in 2001. He was not signed and did not play for any other teams after he was released by the Chargers.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nReview A Chat With Football Player Troy Andrew\nTroy Andrew Stats\nTroy Andrew Stats, News and Video - C\n\nMiami Dolphins players\nAmerican football centers\n1977 births\nDuke Blue Devils football players\nLiving people",
"The 1919–20 Michigan College of Mines Huskies men's ice hockey season was the inaugural season of play for the program.\n\nSeason\nAfter World War I college hockey began to expand west from its heartland in New England. Michigan College of Mines was one of two schools in the midwest to begin play in the 1919–20 season (the other being Notre Dame). Due to the lack of collegiate opponents, MCM didn't play any other colleges during their first season, nor did they play any home games as the school did not own or lease any of the local rinks.\n\nRoster\n\nStandings\n\nSchedule and Results\n\n|-\n!colspan=12 style=\";\" | Regular Season\n\nReferences\n\nMichigan Tech Huskies men's ice hockey seasons\nMichigan College of Mines Huskies \nMichigan College of Mines Huskies \n1920 in sports in Michigan"
] |
[
"Steve Young",
"Montana's backup: 1987-1990",
"Did Steve Young play any notable games while a backup?",
"Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41-0",
"Did they win that game?",
"41-0 victory.",
"Did he play any other notable games?",
"he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27-10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a fairly good performance"
] | C_52dfda507a2f476c98e838aa6c80d9e5_1 | Who were the 49ers playing in this game? | 4 | Who were the 49ers playing in the game with a score of 27-10? | Steve Young | Young played behind Montana his first several years, but shone as a backup. Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41-0 victory. In their 1987 divisional playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings, he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27-10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a fairly good performance with 12/17 completions for 158 yards and a touchdown, with one interception, while also leading San Francisco in rushing with 72 yards and a touchdown on six carries. On October 30, 1988, Young ran for a 49-yard, game-winning touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings. He started the game out with a 73-yard touchdown pass to John Taylor, after Montana went down with an injury. The play earned the 49ers a 24-21 victory and a bit of revenge on the Vikings for their previous season's playoff loss. In 1989, he displayed his potential to become the team's starter in the future. While Montana won the NFL MVP award and led the team to victory in Super Bowl XXIV, Young still had a good season, completing 69% of his passes for 1,001 yards and eight touchdowns, with only three interceptions. On October 22, 1989, he posted a perfect passer rating of 158.3 when he completed 11 of 12 passes for 188 yards and three touchdown passes in a 37-20 victory over the New England Patriots. In his four seasons as a backup, Young had thrown 23 touchdown passes and only six interceptions. He rushed for a career-high 102 yards on just eight carries vs. the New Orleans Saints on December 23, 1990, making him only the second 49ers quarterback to rush for at least 100 yards in a single game. The 49ers lost the game 13-10. CANNOTANSWER | Minnesota Vikings, | Jon Steven Young (born October 11, 1961) is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 15 seasons, primarily with the San Francisco 49ers. He also played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Prior to his NFL career, he was a member of the Los Angeles Express in the United States Football League (USFL) for two seasons. Young played college football for Brigham Young University (BYU), setting school and NCAA records en route to being runner-up for the 1983 Heisman Trophy.
Young was named the AP's NFL Most Valuable Player in 1992 and 1994, and was the MVP of Super Bowl XXIX. During his 1994 MVP campaign, he set a new NFL record for passer rating at 112.8. He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Young was an extremely efficient passer – leading the league in passer rating a record six times, and completion percentage and yards per attempt five times. At the time of his retirement, he had the highest passer rating among NFL quarterbacks with at least 1,500 passing attempts (96.8). As of the end of the 2020 season, he is ranked tenth all-time in passer rating, and is ranked fourth highest amongst retired players, behind only Drew Brees, Tom Brady, and Tony Romo. His 43 career rushing touchdowns are second among quarterbacks, while his 4,239 rushing yards ranks fifth all time.
Early years
Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Young attended Greenwich High School in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he played quarterback on its Cardinals football team. He earned 1978 All-FCIAC West Division First Team honors in his junior year, his first year as a starter. In his senior year he rushed for 13 touchdowns and earned All-FCIAC West Division First Team honors, and was named to the CIAC All-State team. In the rush-first option offense run by Greenwich he completed only 41 percent of his throws for 1,220 yards, but ran the ball 267 times for 1,928 yards. On Thanksgiving Day in November 1979, Greenwich lost to Darien High School, known for its "Tidal Wave Defense", 17–0. During his senior year, he was co-captain of the football, basketball and baseball teams. In basketball, he averaged 15 points a game. In baseball, he hit .384 and played center field when he wasn't pitching. He was 5–1 and threw a 3–0 no-hitter against New Canaan High School.
College football
Young was heavily recruited by the University of North Carolina. Coach Dick Crum was enamored by Young's running ability, and wanted him to run his option offense. Young instead chose BYU. Initially, he struggled at throwing the ball, and BYU's coaching staff considered switching him to defensive back because of his athleticism. However, he worked hard to improve his passing skills and eventually succeeded record-setting Jim McMahon as BYU's starting QB. Young's senior season (1983) was spectacular. He passed for 3,902 yards and 33 touchdowns in the regular season, and his 71.3% completion percentage set an NCAA single-season record. He also added 544 yards rushing. With Young at quarterback, BYU set an NCAA record by averaging 584.2 yards of total offense per game, with 370.5 of those yards coming from Young's passing and rushing. The Cougars finished the year with an impressive 11–1 record; Young was named a unanimous All-American and received the Davey O'Brien National Quarterback Award, which recognizes the nation's best collegiate quarterback each year. He also finished second in voting for the Heisman Trophy, behind Nebraska running back Mike Rozier. Young capped his college career by scoring the game-winning touchdown on a pass from the halfback in BYU's 21–17 victory over Missouri in the 1983 Holiday Bowl.
Young finished his college career with 592 pass completions for 7,733 yards and 56 touchdowns, along with 1,048 yards and 18 touchdowns rushing. He was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame in 2001.
Professional football
USFL
Los Angeles Express
Young was selected by the Los Angeles Express in the first round (11th overall) of the 1984 USFL Draft. He signed a record ten-year, $40 million contract with the Express in He agreed to take his payment in the form of an annuity paid out over forty years to help the fledgling team.
It was taken for granted that Young would be the first pick in the 1984 NFL Draft, and that he would be selected by the Cincinnati Bengals, who were three years removed from the Super Bowl and had landed the No. 1 pick in a trade with the then-moribund Tampa Bay Buccaneers. However, the Bengals still had Ken Anderson as their quarterback and planned to have Young sit behind Anderson for the 1984 season before possibly taking over in 1985. Young found that prospect unappealing, which opened the door for the Express. Express general manager Don Klosterman told Young that if he signed with the Express, his head coach would be John Hadl, a former All-Pro quarterback who had shepherded John Elway through his first year in the NFL. Klosterman also told Young that Hall of Fame coach Sid Gillman, who had been hired as a consultant, would tutor him on how to be a pro quarterback. Young was convinced, and signed with the Express.
At the time, it was another huge signing by the fledgling league, which had already succeeded in signing both the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, running back Mike Rozier of Nebraska; and the previous winner, Georgia running back Herschel Walker. After missing the first six games of his rookie season while taking some college classes in order to graduate on time, Young started the final twelve. He had a respectable year, highlighted by becoming the first pro football player ever to pass for 300 yards and rush for 100 in a single game. Despite being surrounded with talent which included such future NFL players as Jojo Townsell, Mel Gray, and Kevin Nelson, and making the playoffs in Young's first season, the Express was never able to create a sustaining fan base in Los Angeles.
Late in the season, The New York Times published an investigation of owner J. William Oldenburg's finances that suggested Oldenburg was not as well off as he claimed. The FBI had been investigating Oldenburg since the middle of the season. A week after the Times article, Oldenburg stopped paying the Express' bills, forcing the league to draw on the team's emergency line of credit to keep it going through the playoffs. Houston Gamblers minority partner Jay Roulier stepped in to buy the team, only to be pushed out when it emerged that he too had misrepresented his net worth. The league took control of the team and cut expenditures to the bare minimum. The other teams made contributions to keep the Express going through the season – enough to meet payroll, but not much else.
Under the circumstances, the 1985 season rapidly became a fiasco. Before one game, the team bus driver refused to drive the Express to their final home game – which had been moved to Los Angeles Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley – unless he was paid up front in cash. Young contributed some money, as did the team trainer, and the driver took them to the game. In the season finale at Orlando, Young had to line up at tailback because a rash of injuries had left the Express without any healthy running backs. The owners had refused to allocate any money to allow the Express to replace injured players.
It was reported that Young had insured the contract and would still be paid until 2027. However, a 1985 Los Angeles Times article stated that he received a $1.4 million settlement on the annuity.
The league ceased operations in 1986 after losing most of its claims in an antitrust suit against the NFL, with its top talent absorbed by the NFL in a dispersal draft conducted in the aftermath.
NFL
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Young grew increasingly dissatisfied with the disarray surrounding the Express. Just a week before what proved to be the last USFL title game, Young gave the USFL an ultimatum – find a new owner for the Express, or allow him to buy out his contract and go to the NFL. Soon after the league decided to suspend the Express's operations for the 1986 season, Young bought out his Express contract and signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who had made him the first pick in a supplemental draft of USFL and CFL players a year earlier.
By this time, the Bucs were in the midst of what would be 12 consecutive 10-loss seasons. They posted identical 2–14 records in Young's two seasons with them, going 3–16 with him as a starter. Young threw for only 11 touchdowns with 21 interceptions while completing fewer than 55% of his passes.
San Francisco 49ers
The Buccaneers selected University of Miami quarterback Vinny Testaverde first overall in the 1987 NFL Draft because Young was deemed a bust. Young was traded to the San Francisco 49ers on April 24, 1987 to serve as a backup to Joe Montana. 49ers coach Bill Walsh was impressed by Young's natural abilities, and believed his lackluster numbers were primarily due to the lack of talent around him in Tampa Bay.
The Buccaneers received second and fourth round draft picks in the trade, which they used to draft Miami linebacker Winston Moss, and Arizona State wide receiver Bruce Hill, respectively.
Montana's backup: 1987–1990
Young played behind Montana for four years, but shone as a backup. Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41–0 victory. In their 1987 divisional playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings, he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27–10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a good performance, completing 12 of 17 pass attempts for 158 yards and a touchdown, with one interception, while also leading San Francisco in rushing with 72 yards and a touchdown on six carries. On October 30, 1988, Young ran for a 49-yard, game-winning touchdown against the Vikings. He started the game out with a 73-yard touchdown pass to John Taylor, after Montana went down with an injury. The play earned the 49ers a 24–21 victory and a bit of revenge on the Vikings for their previous season's playoff loss. The win turned out to be crucial, as without it the 49ers would have finished the season 9–7 and missed the playoffs, as two other teams in their division, the Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints, had 10–6 records. Instead, the 49ers won their division, earned the #2 playoff seed, and went on to win the Super Bowl.
In 1989, he displayed potential to become the team's starter in the future. While Montana won the NFL MVP award and led the team to victory in Super Bowl XXIV, Young still had a good season, completing 69% of his passes for 1,001 yards and eight touchdowns, with only three interceptions. On October 22, 1989, he posted a perfect passer rating of 158.3 when he completed 11 of 12 passes for 188 yards and three touchdown passes in a 37–20 victory over the New England Patriots.
He rushed for a career-high 102 yards on just eight carries against the New Orleans Saints on December 23, 1990, making him only the second 49ers quarterback to rush for at least 100 yards in a single game. The 49ers lost the game 13–10.
In his four seasons as a backup, Young threw 23 touchdown passes and only six interceptions.
1991 season
Following an injury to Montana's elbow in the 1990 NFC Championship Game, which forced him to miss the entire 1991 season, Young got his chance to lead the 49ers. He got off to a rough start. Midway through the season, the 49ers found themselves struggling with a 4–4 record. In the ninth game of the season, after throwing a franchise-record 97-yard touchdown pass to Taylor, Young suffered a knee injury and was replaced by backup quarterback Steve Bono. After a loss in that game and the next, Bono led the 49ers to five consecutive victories, playing so well that coach George Seifert decided to keep him in the starting lineup after Young had recovered. It wasn't until late in the 15th game of the season, after Bono went down with an injury of his own, that Young got to play again. Young then closed out the season by throwing for 338 yards and three touchdowns and also rushing for 63 yards and another touchdown in a 52–14 win over the Chicago Bears in a Monday Night Football game at Candlestick Park.
Young finished the season with an NFL best 101.8 passer rating. Despite missing five full games and most of a sixth, he still threw for 2,517 yards and 17 touchdowns with only 8 interceptions. But despite Young's strong season, the season for the team was widely regarded as a disappointment. The 49ers had slipped from a 14–2 record in the previous season to a 10–6 record in 1991. While 10 wins is usually enough to make the playoffs, this time it was not, and San Francisco ended up not playing in the postseason for the first time since 1982. It was thought by many that Young's days as the 49ers starter were numbered due to the impending return of Montana from the injury to his right elbow, and some observers said the 49ers should trade Young and keep Montana and Bono. However, the trade never happened.
1992 season: first MVP
By the start of the 1992 season, it appeared that Young's starting job was in serious peril. In addition to having to compete with Bono, Montana appeared to be close to recovering from his elbow tendon surgery. San Francisco came close to trading Young to the Los Angeles Raiders, but no deal was finalized and it turned out that Montana would not recover in time to start in the opening game. Montana would not return until the final game of the 1992 season, a Monday Night home game against the Detroit Lions. Montana played the entire second half of that final game and guided the 49ers to victory.
Young ended up as San Francisco's starting quarterback, but once again got off to a rough start. On the fifth play of the opening game at the Giants, he suffered a concussion and was replaced by Bono, who threw two touchdown passes while leading the 49ers to a 31–14 win. The following week, San Francisco lost 34–31 to the Buffalo Bills, despite a career-high 449 passing yards and three touchdowns from Young, in a game that for the first time in NFL history had zero punts from either team.
Young recovered and led the 49ers on a five-game winning streak, capped off by a 56–17 win over the Atlanta Falcons in which Young passed for 399 yards and three touchdowns. After missing most of the next game (a 24–14 loss to the Cardinals) with the flu, he led San Francisco to victory in all of their remaining games of the season, giving the team a 14–2 record. He went on to throw for 227 yards and 2 touchdowns, and rush for 73 yards, in a 20–13 divisional playoff win over the Washington Redskins. The 49ers lost the NFC title game, however, 30–20 against the eventual Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys. Young threw for 313 yards, completing 71.4% of his passes while passing for one touchdown and rushing for another. He also threw two interceptions, but the final one came with the outcome of the game already decided.
Young finished the season with 3,465 passing yards and 537 rushing yards, along with an NFL-best 25 touchdown passes and 107.0 passer rating, earning him the NFL Most Valuable Player Award and his first selection to the Pro Bowl. He was the first quarterback ever to record a triple-digit rating in consecutive seasons. Many credit Young's turnaround to the mentoring of the 49ers' new offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan, who worked with Young on combining his running skill with on-the-move passing decisions.
1993 season
Before the start of the 1993 season, team owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. announced that he wanted Montana to resume his role as starting quarterback for the 49ers. However, a rift in the locker room had developed, with players split on whom they wanted at quarterback. In the spring of 1993, at Montana's request, San Francisco traded Montana to the Kansas City Chiefs. Young was now the 49ers' undisputed starter, and would remain so for the rest of his career. But once again, he had a rough start to the season. Over the first four games of 1993, Young, who was hindered by a swollen thumb on his throwing hand, threw eight interceptions, more than he had thrown during the entire 1992 season. But after his thumb healed, Young went on an incredible streak over a span of seven games, throwing 16 touchdown passes with only 2 interceptions and a 122.2 passer rating. By the end of the year, Young set franchise records for most passing yards (4,023), and consecutive passes thrown without an interception (189), (later eclipsed by Alex Smith in 2012) while leading the NFL in touchdown passes (29) and passer rating (101.5). The team slipped to a 10–6 record, but advanced to the NFC championship game again by blowing out the New York Giants 44–3 in the divisional round. However, once again they were defeated by the Dallas Cowboys, this time 38–21.
1994 season: second MVP and Super Bowl run
After several key free agent signings including All-Pro cornerback Deion Sanders and NFL Draft selections, the 49ers looked to win their first Super Bowl since 1989. They started fast, beating the Los Angeles Raiders 44–14 on the strength of four touchdown passes from Young, one of four games during the regular season in which he had at least four. After a loss in a much-anticipated game to Joe Montana and the Kansas City Chiefs, the 49ers won their next two games before losing to the Philadelphia Eagles 40–8 at Candlestick Park, a game in which Young was eventually benched in the middle of an offensive series. Although head coach George Seifert later said he only pulled Young because he was getting manhandled by the Eagles' defense, Young had had enough of being scapegoated for 49er shortfalls and loudly (and visibly) lambasted Seifert over his decision while standing on the sideline during the game.
But the game was considered a turning point in the season; from there, Young led the team to 10 consecutive wins, by an average of 20 points, before losing the meaningless finale against the Vikings in which Young completed his first 12 of 13 attempts before going to the sidelines. They finished an NFL best 13–3, securing home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs. The 49ers had the number-one offense in the NFL, and were so dominant that Seifert often took Young out of games early if he felt that the 49ers had an insurmountable lead at the time.
After an easy 44–15 victory over the Chicago Bears in the divisional round of the playoffs, the 49ers jumped out to a 31–14 halftime lead over the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Championship Game, holding on to win 38–28. Young threw for two touchdowns, while adding 47 yards and another touchdown on the ground. As a result, he went to his first Super Bowl as a starting quarterback. The 49ers were heavy favorites to become the first team with five Super Bowl victories.
On the strength of a six-touchdown performance that surpassed the previous Super Bowl record of five, owned by the man Young replaced, Joe Montana, Steve Young was named the MVP of Super Bowl XXIX, as the 49ers defeated the San Diego Chargers, 49–26. Young also threw for 325 yards and rushed for 49 yards, making him the first player ever to finish a Super Bowl as the game's leader in both rushing and passing yards.
The victory capped off an incredible year for Young, who had one of the best seasons by a quarterback in NFL history. He threw for 3,969 yards, a then-franchise record 35 touchdown passes with only 10 interceptions, completed 70.3 percent of his passes – the highest completion percentage of the 1990s, third all-time, and at the time, the best completion percentage by any quarterback with more than 400 attempts (later eclipsed by Drew Brees in 2009). Additionally, Young broke Joe Montana's single-season mark with a then-record 112.8 passer rating, and also once again demonstrated his great scrambling ability, accumulating another 289 yards and 7 touchdowns on the ground. For his record-breaking season performances, Young was awarded his second AP NFL MVP award, becoming the 7th player in NFL history to win both league and Super Bowl MVP honors in the same season.
Later years and injuries
In the three years following Super Bowl XXIX, the 49ers would be eliminated each year by Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers, twice in San Francisco. In addition to the early playoff exits, Young suffered a series of injuries that forced him to miss several games from 1995 to 1997. Young entered the 1998 season at age 37 and some began to wonder if his skills would diminish because of his history of injuries and a general decline in his game due to age. However, he silenced all critics once again, putting up career numbers in passing yards (4,170) and passing touchdowns (36). The 49ers finally beat Favre and the Packers in an NFC wild card game that year, as Young threw the winning touchdown to wide receiver Terrell Owens with three seconds remaining to win the game 30–27. In reference to Dwight Clark's legendary catch against the Dallas Cowboys in the 1981 NFC championship game, Owens's grab was called "The Catch II". A week later, however, Garrison Hearst broke his ankle on the 49ers' first play from scrimmage. Without the threat of a running game, Young threw three interceptions (the last one a Hail Mary pass with under 30 seconds remaining in the game) and the 49ers were defeated by the Atlanta Falcons 20–18. Over that span of seasons from 1995 to 1998, Young led the NFL in passer rating twice (in 1996 and 1997), and led the NFL with 36 touchdown passes in 1998.
The 1999 season would turn out to be Young's last in the NFL. Young was plagued by concussions throughout his career. During a Week 3 Monday Night Football game against the Arizona Cardinals, Young was violently sacked by Cardinals cornerback Aeneas Williams on a blitz. Running back Lawrence Phillips was supposed to pick up Williams, but missed. Young was knocked out of the game with a concussion, and didn't return again for the rest of the season due to symptoms of post-concussion syndrome. The concussion he suffered against the Cardinals was reportedly his second in a season that was only three weeks old, and the seventh (at least) of his career. Following the season, the 49ers told him that he would be released if he did not retire. Although Young was offered a job as the starting quarterback of the Denver Broncos (where his former offensive coordinator, Mike Shanahan, was the head coach), he retired because of his repeated concussions. In a 2013 Frontline interview, Young said that, partially based upon their own experiences, he and many retired players are increasingly concerned about repeated concussions and subconcussive hits. He is particularly concerned about certain positions that take frequent hits, such as running backs and linemen.
Career statistics and records
USFL career
NFL career
Records and legacy
Although Young did not become the 49ers' starter until his 8th NFL season, and he played a full season only three times (all consecutively) during his 15-year career, Young had a significant impact on the NFL. A two-time league MVP, he completed 2,667 of 4,149 passes for 33,124 yards and 232 touchdowns, with 107 interceptions, and 43 rushing touchdowns. His 96.8 career passer rating is the sixth highest in NFL history and second highest among retired players, behind Tony Romo; his 4,239 rushing yards are the fourth most ever gained by a quarterback, behind Michael Vick, Cam Newton, and Randall Cunningham. He was the NFL's top rated passer in six different seasons and led the league in touchdown passes four times. In 20 postseason games, he threw 20 touchdown passes with only 13 interceptions, and scored 8 touchdowns on the ground. In his stint with the San Francisco 49ers, Young passed for 29,907 yards, 221 touchdowns, and 86 interceptions, with a passer rating of 101.4, highest in franchise history. He was also sacked 290 times, also most in franchise history.
NFL records
Tenth highest passer rating, career, including active players – 96.8
Fourth highest passer rating, career, retired players only – 96.8
Eighth highest career completion percentage, retired players – 64.3%
Most times led the league in passer rating, career – 6 (tied w/ Sammy Baugh)
Most consecutive times led the league in passer rating – 4 (1991–94)
One of seven QBs to lead the league in touchdown passes 4 times (tied with Johnny Unitas, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Len Dawson)
Most passes attempted, playoff game – 65 vs. Green Bay, 1995
Most TD passes, playoff game – 6 (tied w/Daryle Lamonica & Tom Brady)
Most TD passes in one Super Bowl – 6
Most rushing yards by a QB, postseason career – 594
Most rushing touchdowns by a QB, postseason career – 8
49ers records
Highest completion percentage (20+ Atts) (Game): vs Detroit (10/20/91), 90.0
Most average yards per attempt (20+ Atts) (Game): vs Detroit (12/19/93), 15.39
Most touchdown passes (season): 36 (1998)
Best completion percentage (season): 70.3 (1994)
Best passer rating (season): 112.8 (1994)
Most 300-yard passing games (season): 7 (1998)
Best passer rating (career): 101.4
Most average yards per attempt (career): 8.20
Most consecutive games with a touchdown pass: 18, at Det. (10/9/94) to vs. StL (11/26/95) note: (DNP in 5 games in 1995)
Best completion percentage (career): 65.8
Most rushing touchdowns by a quarterback (career): 43
In 1999, he was ranked No. 63 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. Young was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on February 5, 2005; he was the first left-handed quarterback to be so honored. He was enshrined August 7, 2005. His induction speech was given by his father, LeGrande "Grit" Young.
The San Francisco 49ers had his No. 8 jersey retired during a halftime ceremony against the New England Patriots on October 5, 2008. He was the 11th player in team history to receive this honor. He is also the only 49er in team history to wear No. 8.
Post-football
Business career
In 1994, Young received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from BYU's J. Reuben Clark Law School.
In 2000, Young spoke at the Republican National Convention.
In 2007, Young co-founded Huntsman Gay Global Capital (HGGC), with billionaire industrialist Jon M. Huntsman and former Bain Capital executive Robert C. Gay. After being involved in business ventures with the private equity firm, he has continued to serve as a managing director.
In 2011, Young was one of several notable BYU athletes and coaches who appeared in the school's "Real Cougar" advertising campaign, which featured the individuals telling an actual cougar about being a "real cougar". In one of the ads, Young poked fun at himself:
Young: I love BYU so much I even got my law degree here.
Cougar: (growls)
Young: Lawyers... I know.
Acting career
Young has both performed dramatic roles and appeared as himself in a limited acting career. He appeared in one episode of Frasier and one episode of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (cast as Lois' former high school football quarterback boyfriend, Joe Maloy). He also made a guest appearance as himself in the Dharma & Greg episode "Are You Ready for Some Football?" encouraging Dharma, the team's Number One Fan. In 1995, Young appeared as himself in the Season 6, Episode 12 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. He also made cameo appearances in the LDS comedy The Singles Ward (2002) and in a season 5 episode of BYUtv's Studio C (2014). Young also made a guest appearance as himself in season 8 of the NBC comedy series Wings in the episode "Just Call Me Angel".
Young was originally offered a part in the 1998 movie There's Something About Mary, but turned the role down. He was replaced by Brett Favre.
Philanthropy
Young serves as a National Advisor to ASCEND: A Humanitarian Alliance. This non-profit organization plans expeditions to African and South American countries to provide life skills mentoring with sustainable solutions in education, enterprise, health and simple technology.
In 1993, Young founded a charitable foundation known as the Forever Young Foundation, which serves children facing significant physical, emotional, and financial challenges by providing academic, athletic, and therapeutic opportunities otherwise unavailable to them.
Young also serves as the national spokesman for an organization founded by former Save Darfur Coalition executive director and founder, David Rubenstein. He began his affiliation with the organization in 2009, when he became the honorary league commissioner for their charitable dodgeball tournaments held on college campuses nationwide.
Personal life
Young is a great-great-great-nephew of Brigham Young, second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for whom BYU is named. His father, LeGrande "Grit" Young, played football at BYU in the late 1950s. He led the school in scoring in 1955 and in rushing and total offense in 1959. Steve Young's younger brothers, Mike and Tom, both played quarterback at BYU after Steve, but neither received much playing time.
Young has been married to Barbara Graham since 2000. They have two sons and two daughters. According to A Football Life: As his playing career ended before his eldest child was born, he wrote his autobiography QB: My Life Behind the Spiral initially as a private memoir for his children.
See also
Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame
List of NCAA major college football yearly passing leaders
List of NCAA major college football yearly total offense leaders
List of NFL quarterbacks who have posted a perfect passer rating
References
External links
1961 births
All-American college football players
American color commentators
American football quarterbacks
American male television actors
American philanthropists
Brigham Young University alumni
BYU Cougars football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Greenwich High School alumni
J. Reuben Clark Law School alumni
Latter Day Saints from California
Latter Day Saints from Connecticut
Latter Day Saints from Utah
Living people
Los Angeles Express players
National Conference Pro Bowl players
National Football League Most Valuable Player Award winners
National Football League Offensive Player of the Year Award winners
National Football League players with retired numbers
Players of American football from Connecticut
Players of American football from Salt Lake City
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
Richards–Young family
San Francisco 49ers players
Sportspeople from Greenwich, Connecticut
Super Bowl MVPs
Tampa Bay Buccaneers players
Utah Republicans | true | [
"The 2005 San Francisco 49ers season was the 60th year for the team overall, and their 56th season in the NFL. They improved their two-win 2004 season by two games.\n\nFormer head coach Dennis Erickson had been fired just after the end of the 2004 season, and Mike Nolan (son of former Niners head coach Dick Nolan) took the helm.\n\nDespite having a better record than the 2–14 Texans and 3–13 Saints, statistics site Football Outsiders calculated that the 49ers were actually, play-for-play, not only the worst team in the NFL in 2005, but the worst team they have ever tracked. According to the site, the 49ers offense in 2005 is the third-worst they had ever tracked. The 49ers 3,587 total offensive yards were the fewest of any team in 2005, and their 239 points scored were third-worst in the NFL. Despite finishing with the worst record in 2004, the 49ers ended up playing the second-toughest schedule that season as they played eight games against playoff teams which includes games against the top seeds in both conferences, the Seattle Seahawks and the Indianapolis Colts, and games against the Chicago Bears and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, both teams that the 49ers played due to finishing last in the NFC West the previous year and won their divisions.\n\nSan Francisco's 1,898 team passing yards in 2005 were the lowest such total in the decade of the 2000s.\n\nOffseason\n\n2005 Draft\n\nThe 49ers had the first pick in the 2005 draft, and selected Utah quarterback Alex Smith. The 49ers were in need of a quarterback, and the two top prospects at the position were Smith and Cal quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers, the second quarterback drafted, famously dropped to the 24th pick on draft day, and went to the Green Bay Packers. Rodgers is a three-time league MVP, has been voted to the Pro Bowl 9 times throughout his career, and won Super Bowl XLV with the Packers in . Smith enjoyed a successful if unspectacular career with the 49ers, starting all 16 games for 2 full seasons and taking them to the NFC Championship game in 2011. He was traded to the Kansas City Chiefs in 2013, where he has earned most of his accolades, before being traded to Washington, where he won Comeback Player of the Year in 2020 following a horrific leg injury 2 years earlier.\n\nStaff\n\nRoster\n\nRegular season\n\nSummary\n\nWeek 1\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\nIn Mike Nolan's debut as head coach, the 49ers beat divisional rival St. Louis Rams. Quarterback Tim Rattay got the start, the 49ers were able to build a considerable lead in the 3rd quarter, however, their defense fell apart and allowed the Rams to score 16 straight points, including 13 in the 4th quarter. The Rams were poised to score again, but Michael Adams intercepted Marc Bulger with 52 seconds left to seal the victory and start the season with a win.\n\nWeek 2\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\nThe 49ers were handily beaten by the Philadelphia Eagles as Donovan McNabb threw five touchdown passes, four of which were in the first 19 minutes of the game. In Terrell Owens' first game against his former team he had 143 yards receiving and two touchdowns. Rookie quarterback Alex Smith made his regular season debut, playing the final possession and throwing one incomplete pass. The loss dropped the 49ers to 1–1.\n\nWeek 3\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\nThe rivalry between the 49ers and the Cowboys continued in traditional high-scoring fashion. The 49ers maintained the lead for the majority of the game; however, their defense fell apart in the final quarter as they allowed the Cowboys to score fifteen consecutive points while the offense failed to put a single point on the board. The loss dropped the 49ers to 1–2 to start the season.\n\nWeek 4\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\nA game played in Mexico City at Azteca Stadium garnered the largest crowd in regular season history, with 103,467 fans in attendance. The 49ers started off well, scoring two touchdowns in the first quarter, but failed to score again. The Cardinals then began to dominate, scoring 31 consecutive points, including six field goals by Neil Rackers. San Francisco's backup quarterback Alex Smith was given the green light in the fourth quarter and threw six completions, including the first completed pass of his career. The International game gave the Cardinals their first win of the 2005 season while the loss dropped the 49ers to 1–3.\n\nWeek 5\n\n \n \n \n \n \n\nIn Alex Smith's first NFL start, he threw four interceptions and was sacked five times. Aside from Kevan Barlow, the 49ers offense failed to get comfortable and only managed a single field goal. This was the second straight week in which the 49ers' offense failed to score a touchdown. The loss to the undefeated Colts dropped the 49ers to 1–4, heading into their bye week.\n\nWeek 7\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\nThe 49ers lost for the fifth straight time after opening the season with a win when they lost in a 52–17 rout to the Redskins. San Francisco could do nothing right, with Alex Smith getting sacked five times, losing a fumble, and throwing an interception. On the other side of the ball, the Redskins quarterback Mark Brunell tossed three touchdowns and Clinton Portis rushed for three more, rolling up 448 total yards. The 49ers, who had not scored in the fourth quarter yet this season, grabbed ten points in the period. The fifth straight loss dropped the 49ers to 1–5.\n\nWeek 8\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\nIn a game in which both starting quarterbacks were out due to injuries, field goals were the norm: the 49ers' Joe Nedney scoring five of the game's six. In a statistically unimpressive game, San Francisco toppled the Buccaneers, who, prior to the game, had the best record in the NFC. With the victory, the 49ers snapped a five-game losing streak to grab their second win of the season. Buccaneers receiver Joey Galloway caught his 500th reception of his career. The win brought the 49ers up to 2–5 on the season.\n\nWeek 9\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n\nFor the second straight game, the 49ers failed to score a touchdown, this time managing only two field goals in the loss. Even while the Giants' offense struggled at times, their defense shut the 49ers down, preventing the 49ers from capitalizing on Giants' mistakes, such as allowing the 49ers four first downs on penalties. In a rare error, the 49ers only had 10 players on the field for the first play of the game, a 28-yard catch by Jeremy Shockey. The loss dropped the 49ers to 2–6.\n\nWeek 10\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n\nAfter a scoreless first quarter, the 49ers took a three-point lead in the second quarter off a field goal by Joe Nedney. However, the game turned in the Bears' favor when Nathan Vasher ran back an attempted field goal 108 yards for a touchdown. The 49ers came within 5-point during the fourth quarter, but the high winds made it difficult to pass the ball. This, combined with a fumbled punt, doomed the 49ers to their seventh loss of the season, dropping them to 2–7.\n\nWeek 11\n\nIn a shootout, the 49ers nearly came back from a fifteen-point deficit by scoring two touchdowns in the fourth quarter. However, the 49ers failed to score on a two-point conversion with under 30 seconds in the game that would have tied it and likely sent it into overtime. In the course of the game, the 49ers scored their first touchdown at home in sixteen quarters and also snapped a streak of 47 possessions without a touchdown. The eighth loss in nine games dropped the 49ers to 2–8.\n\nWeek 12\n\nThe Titans snapped a five-game losing streak and the 49ers extended theirs to four as Titans kicker Rob Bironas kicked a career-high four field goals. The Titans managed to score two touchdowns in a span of only 80 seconds. The game was not as close as the final score suggested, as the Titans forced four turnovers and Steve McNair threw for 343 yards and three touchdowns. The 49ers lost their 9th game, dooming them to a losing season.\n\nWeek 13\n\nIn their fifth loss in as many games (the 49ers' second five-game losing streak), the 49ers fell to the division rival Cardinals. Although two interceptions from quarterback Kurt Warner kept the 49ers in the game, eventually the poor performance by the defense succumbed. The Cardinals took the lead for good with a 54-yard touchdown reception by Anquan Boldin in a third-and-twenty situation. Being swept by the Cardinals this season, the 49ers fell to 2–10 with the loss.\n\nWeek 14\n\nThe 49ers were dominated in their six straight loss as they fell to 2–11. Not only did Shaun Alexander rush for 108 yards, his ninth consecutive divisional game to rush for more than 100 yards, quarterback Matt Hasselbeck threw for four touchdowns. The 49ers' offense could not get going, managing only 113 total yards and fumbling three times. With the victory, the Seahawks completed the division perfectly, 6–0, and gained a two-game lead for home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.\n\nWeek 15\n\nIn a back-and-forth game, the Jaguars emerged victorious and clinched a playoff berth at 10–4. The 49ers offense failed to score a touchdown, as they only managed three field goals by Joe Nedney. The 49ers had opportunities to take the lead, but were unable to get any first downs in the fourth quarter and a fourth down, game-ending, desperation heave from Alex Smith fell harmlessly to the ground. The 49ers fell to 2–12 with their seventh straight loss.\n\nWeek 16\n\nThe 49ers broke their seven-game losing streak with a big performance from their running backs, Maurice Hicks and Frank Gore, who combined for 177 yards and 3 touchdowns. The Rams lead for most of the game, but the 49ers scored 17 unanswered points and the defense held the Rams scoreless in the second half. The game was only decided in the final minute when Ben Emanuel intercepted a pass at the San Francisco 19-yard line. With the victory, the 49ers moved up to 3–12.\n\nWeek 17\n\nThe final game of the season for the 49ers, in which the number one draft pick was on the line, was a thriller. The two teams scored back-and-forth with the lead never greater than 7 points. The game went into overtime tied at 17, and Joe Nedney kicked a 33-yard field goal for the win. This marked the only time the 49ers won two consecutive games this season. Moreover, the loss gave the Texans the first overall draft pick and moved the 49ers from second overall to sixth. The 49ers finished the season 4–12.\n\nStandings\n\nReferences\n\nSan Francisco 49ers seasons\nSan Francisco 49ers\nSan Francisco 49ers\nSan Francisco 49ers",
"The 2015 season was the San Francisco 49ers' 66th in the National Football League, the 70th overall, second playing their home games at Levi's Stadium, and the only season under head coach Jim Tomsula. They were attempting to make history as the first Super Bowl host team to play the Super Bowl on their own home field, but they failed to improve on their 8–8 record from 2014, and ended with a 5–11 record to miss the playoffs for the second season in a row. They also finished last in the NFC West for the first time in a decade, and marked the 31st consecutive year in which the Super Bowl did not include the team in whose region the game was being played – a feat that never has been achieved since themselves in 1984.\n\nOffseason\n\nCoaching changes\nWith their loss to the Seattle Seahawks in Week 15 of the 2014–15 season, the 49ers were mathematically eliminated from the postseason, exacerbating tensions between Head Coach Jim Harbaugh and general manager Trent Baalke. After the season ended, the 49ers and Harbaugh mutually agreed to end his contract. On January 14, 2015, Jim Tomsula was promoted to head coach after serving as defensive line coach with the team since 2007; it is his second time at the helm, as he previously served as the 49ers' interim head coach for one game, after Mike Singletary's firing in 2010.\n\nRoster changes\n\nFree Agency\n\nSignings\n\nDepartures\n\n2015 NFL Draft\n\nNotes\n The 49ers traded their first-round selection (No. 15 overall) to the San Diego Chargers in exchange for San Diego's first- and fourth-round selection (Nos. 17 and 117 overall, respectively) as well a fifth-round selection in 2016.\n The 49ers traded a conditional fourth-round selection to the Buffalo Bills in exchange for wide receiver Stevie Johnson; the selection could be upgraded to a third-rounder pending Johnson's statistics in .\n The 49ers acquired an additional fourth-round selection as part of a trade that sent their 2014 second- and seventh-round selections to the Denver Broncos.\n The 49ers traded a seventh-round selection to the Miami Dolphins in exchange for offensive tackle Jonathan Martin.\n The 49ers acquired an additional seventh-round selection in a trade that sent linebacker Cam Johnson to the Indianapolis Colts.\n The 49ers traded their fifth-round selection (No. 151 overall) to the Indianapolis Colts in exchange for Indianapolis's fifth- and seventh-round selection (Nos. 165 and 244 overall, respectively).\n The 49ers acquired a sixth-round selection in 2016 as part of a trade that sent their seventh-round selections (No. 246) to Dallas Cowboys.\n\nUndrafted free agents\n\nStaff\n\nFinal roster\n\nSchedule\n\nPreseason\n\nRegular season\n\nNote: Intra-division opponents are in bold text.\n\nGame summaries\n\nWeek 1: vs. Minnesota Vikings\n\nIn the 49ers' first game with new head coach Jim Tomsula, the 49ers defeated the Minnesota Vikings 20–3 on Monday Night Football. In his first career start, Carlos Hyde rushed 26 times for 168 yards and two touchdowns. Hyde's 168 rushing yards were the most by a 49ers player since 2012, when Colin Kaepernick rushed for 181 against the Packers. Colin Kaepernick went 17 for 26 with 165 yards passing. The 49ers defense was stout, holding the Vikings to just three points and sacking Vikings quarterback Teddy Bridgewater five times. Adrian Peterson, returning from suspension, rushed for only 31 yards on 10 carries. This game also marked the return of NaVorro Bowman, who missed all of the 2014 season with an injury. He had seven tackles and a sack in the season opener. In addition, the 49ers introduced black alternate uniforms.\n\nWeek 2: at Pittsburgh Steelers\n\nThe 49ers' first road game of the year ended in a disaster. The 49ers defense had no answer for Ben Roethlisberger, who went 21 for 27,369 yards and three touchdown passes as the Steelers won 43–18. The Steelers took a commanding 29-3 halftime lead. Despite only scoring 18 points, the 49ers offense opened up in the second half, with Kaepernick leading the 49ers into the Steelers red zone four times, but only able to score one touchdown (along with a field goal and two turnovers on downs). The highlight for the 49ers was Kaepernick hitting wide receiver Torrey Smith for a 75-yard touchdown pass in the fourth quarter. The Steelers defense had a field day on Kaepernick, sacking him 5 times and making him lose a fumble.\n\nWith the loss, the 49ers fell to 1-1.\n\nWeek 3: at Arizona Cardinals\n\n49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick became the first player since 1925 to throw two interceptions returned for touchdowns (pick sixes) to start a game. He had four interceptions in the game overall and the Cardinals thrashed the 49ers 47–7. This is the most points the Cardinals have ever scored against the 49ers. In the past two weeks, the 49ers were outscored 90–25.\n\nWith the loss, the 49ers dropped to 1–2.\n\nWeek 4: vs. Green Bay Packers\n\nDespite a good showing by the 49ers defense (holding the Packers to a season-low 17 points and sacking Aaron Rodgers 3 times), the 49ers offense struggled all game. It was another frustrating day for Colin Kaepernick, who consistently missed receivers and threw an interception. Throughout the game, he was sacked six times. In the last two weeks, Kaepernick had no touchdown passes and five interceptions with a quarterback rating of 12.7.\n\nWith yet another tough loss, the 49ers dropped to 1–3, and were outscored by a total of 110–48 in their first 4 games. By the end of week 4, the 49ers were last in the league in total points scored.\n\nWeek 5: at New York Giants\n\nIn one of the wildest games of the year, the 49ers lost a heartbreaker in the final minute. The 49ers offense, which struggled the previous two weeks and had just 6 points at halftime in this game, came alive and scored three-second half touchdowns, including Carlos Hyde's 2-yard go-ahead touchdown run with 1:45 left on the clock to give the 49ers a 27–23 lead. But Giants quarterback Eli Manning led the Giants down the field and threw a 12-yard touchdown to Larry Donnell with 0:17 left in the game. The 49ers defense was shredded for an astonishing 525 yards by the Giants offense. There were five lead changes in the game, three of them in the final 4:29 of the fourth quarter.\n\nWith the loss, the 49ers fell to 1–4.\n\nWeek 6: vs. Baltimore Ravens\n\nThe 49ers met the Ravens for the first time since Super Bowl XLVII, in which the Ravens won 34–31. In the second quarter, Colin Kaepernick threw a 76-yard pass to ex-Raven Torrey Smith to extend San Francisco's lead to 13–3. In the fourth quarter, Kaepernick threw another touchdown, this time to Quinton Patton, for 11 yards to lead the 49ers 25–13. This was Patton's first NFL touchdown. With the win, the 49ers avenged their Super Bowl loss and broke their 4-game losing streak, and they improved to 2–4.\n\nWeek 7: vs. Seattle Seahawks\n\nMuch like last year's Thanksgiving Day matchup, the 49ers were unable to stop the defending NFC Champion Seattle Seahawks. Colin Kaepernick struggled all game long and he was sacked six times, much like Week 4 against Green Bay, where the 49ers were also only held to a field goal. With the 20–3 loss, the 49ers dropped to 2–5.\n\nWeek 8: at St. Louis Rams\n\nWith the loss, San Francisco fell to 2–6.\n\nWeek 9: vs. Atlanta Falcons\n\nThis was Blaine Gabbert's first game as starting quarterback with the 49ers, replacing Colin Kaepernick. The 49ers were also without tight end Vernon Davis, who was traded to the Denver Broncos, after nine and a half seasons with the team.\n\nWith the win, the 49ers improved to 3–6.\n\nWeek 11: at Seattle Seahawks\n\nBlaine Gabbert made his second start and remained starter for the rest of the season with Colin Kaepernick undergoing season-ending surgery on his left non-throwing shoulder.\n\nAfter the loss, the 49ers fell to 3–7.\n\nWeek 12: vs. Arizona Cardinals\n\nWith the loss, the 49ers fell to 3-8 and were swept by the Cardinals for the first time since 2008.\n\nWeek 13: at Chicago Bears\nThe 49ers would trail 20–13 with less than a minute to go. Blaine Gabbert would run in a game-tying 44-yard touchdown to tie the game at 20. However, the Bears appeared to have the game won when they went down the field after a 74-yard kick return by Deonte Thompson. But when Robbie Gould came out to attempt a game-winning 36-yard field goal, the kick was wide left, resulting in overtime. In the overtime period, Gabbert would throw the game-winning 71-yard touchdown pass to Torrey Smith to win the game for San Francisco. This was San Francisco's first win in Chicago since the 1988 NFC Championship Game.\n\nWith the win, the 49ers went to 4–8.\n\nWeek 14: at Cleveland Browns\n\nWith the loss, the 49ers were eliminated from the playoffs and became the latest Super Bowl host team to fail to play the championship game on its own home field.\n\nWeek 15: vs. Cincinnati Bengals\n\nThe 49ers played an overall ugly game as they lost 24–14 to the powerful Cincinnati Bengals. Quarterback Blaine Gabbert threw 3 interceptions and receiver Anquan Boldin lost a fumble.\n\nWith the loss, the 49ers fell to 4-10.\n\nWeek 16: at Detroit Lions\n\nWith the loss, the 49ers fell to 4-11.\n\nWeek 17: vs. St. Louis Rams\n\nThis was the final game between the San Francisco 49ers and the St. Louis Rams before the Rams' relocation to Los Angeles. With the win, the 49ers ended their season 5-11.\n\nStandings\n\nDivision\n\nConference\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nSan Francisco\nSan Francisco 49ers seasons\nSan Francisco 49ers\n2015 in San Francisco"
] |
[
"Steve Young",
"Montana's backup: 1987-1990",
"Did Steve Young play any notable games while a backup?",
"Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41-0",
"Did they win that game?",
"41-0 victory.",
"Did he play any other notable games?",
"he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27-10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a fairly good performance",
"Who were the 49ers playing in this game?",
"Minnesota Vikings,"
] | C_52dfda507a2f476c98e838aa6c80d9e5_1 | When was this game being played? | 5 | When was the Minnesota Vikings game against Montana being played? | Steve Young | Young played behind Montana his first several years, but shone as a backup. Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41-0 victory. In their 1987 divisional playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings, he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27-10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a fairly good performance with 12/17 completions for 158 yards and a touchdown, with one interception, while also leading San Francisco in rushing with 72 yards and a touchdown on six carries. On October 30, 1988, Young ran for a 49-yard, game-winning touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings. He started the game out with a 73-yard touchdown pass to John Taylor, after Montana went down with an injury. The play earned the 49ers a 24-21 victory and a bit of revenge on the Vikings for their previous season's playoff loss. In 1989, he displayed his potential to become the team's starter in the future. While Montana won the NFL MVP award and led the team to victory in Super Bowl XXIV, Young still had a good season, completing 69% of his passes for 1,001 yards and eight touchdowns, with only three interceptions. On October 22, 1989, he posted a perfect passer rating of 158.3 when he completed 11 of 12 passes for 188 yards and three touchdown passes in a 37-20 victory over the New England Patriots. In his four seasons as a backup, Young had thrown 23 touchdown passes and only six interceptions. He rushed for a career-high 102 yards on just eight carries vs. the New Orleans Saints on December 23, 1990, making him only the second 49ers quarterback to rush for at least 100 yards in a single game. The 49ers lost the game 13-10. CANNOTANSWER | 1987 | Jon Steven Young (born October 11, 1961) is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 15 seasons, primarily with the San Francisco 49ers. He also played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Prior to his NFL career, he was a member of the Los Angeles Express in the United States Football League (USFL) for two seasons. Young played college football for Brigham Young University (BYU), setting school and NCAA records en route to being runner-up for the 1983 Heisman Trophy.
Young was named the AP's NFL Most Valuable Player in 1992 and 1994, and was the MVP of Super Bowl XXIX. During his 1994 MVP campaign, he set a new NFL record for passer rating at 112.8. He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Young was an extremely efficient passer – leading the league in passer rating a record six times, and completion percentage and yards per attempt five times. At the time of his retirement, he had the highest passer rating among NFL quarterbacks with at least 1,500 passing attempts (96.8). As of the end of the 2020 season, he is ranked tenth all-time in passer rating, and is ranked fourth highest amongst retired players, behind only Drew Brees, Tom Brady, and Tony Romo. His 43 career rushing touchdowns are second among quarterbacks, while his 4,239 rushing yards ranks fifth all time.
Early years
Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Young attended Greenwich High School in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he played quarterback on its Cardinals football team. He earned 1978 All-FCIAC West Division First Team honors in his junior year, his first year as a starter. In his senior year he rushed for 13 touchdowns and earned All-FCIAC West Division First Team honors, and was named to the CIAC All-State team. In the rush-first option offense run by Greenwich he completed only 41 percent of his throws for 1,220 yards, but ran the ball 267 times for 1,928 yards. On Thanksgiving Day in November 1979, Greenwich lost to Darien High School, known for its "Tidal Wave Defense", 17–0. During his senior year, he was co-captain of the football, basketball and baseball teams. In basketball, he averaged 15 points a game. In baseball, he hit .384 and played center field when he wasn't pitching. He was 5–1 and threw a 3–0 no-hitter against New Canaan High School.
College football
Young was heavily recruited by the University of North Carolina. Coach Dick Crum was enamored by Young's running ability, and wanted him to run his option offense. Young instead chose BYU. Initially, he struggled at throwing the ball, and BYU's coaching staff considered switching him to defensive back because of his athleticism. However, he worked hard to improve his passing skills and eventually succeeded record-setting Jim McMahon as BYU's starting QB. Young's senior season (1983) was spectacular. He passed for 3,902 yards and 33 touchdowns in the regular season, and his 71.3% completion percentage set an NCAA single-season record. He also added 544 yards rushing. With Young at quarterback, BYU set an NCAA record by averaging 584.2 yards of total offense per game, with 370.5 of those yards coming from Young's passing and rushing. The Cougars finished the year with an impressive 11–1 record; Young was named a unanimous All-American and received the Davey O'Brien National Quarterback Award, which recognizes the nation's best collegiate quarterback each year. He also finished second in voting for the Heisman Trophy, behind Nebraska running back Mike Rozier. Young capped his college career by scoring the game-winning touchdown on a pass from the halfback in BYU's 21–17 victory over Missouri in the 1983 Holiday Bowl.
Young finished his college career with 592 pass completions for 7,733 yards and 56 touchdowns, along with 1,048 yards and 18 touchdowns rushing. He was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame in 2001.
Professional football
USFL
Los Angeles Express
Young was selected by the Los Angeles Express in the first round (11th overall) of the 1984 USFL Draft. He signed a record ten-year, $40 million contract with the Express in He agreed to take his payment in the form of an annuity paid out over forty years to help the fledgling team.
It was taken for granted that Young would be the first pick in the 1984 NFL Draft, and that he would be selected by the Cincinnati Bengals, who were three years removed from the Super Bowl and had landed the No. 1 pick in a trade with the then-moribund Tampa Bay Buccaneers. However, the Bengals still had Ken Anderson as their quarterback and planned to have Young sit behind Anderson for the 1984 season before possibly taking over in 1985. Young found that prospect unappealing, which opened the door for the Express. Express general manager Don Klosterman told Young that if he signed with the Express, his head coach would be John Hadl, a former All-Pro quarterback who had shepherded John Elway through his first year in the NFL. Klosterman also told Young that Hall of Fame coach Sid Gillman, who had been hired as a consultant, would tutor him on how to be a pro quarterback. Young was convinced, and signed with the Express.
At the time, it was another huge signing by the fledgling league, which had already succeeded in signing both the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, running back Mike Rozier of Nebraska; and the previous winner, Georgia running back Herschel Walker. After missing the first six games of his rookie season while taking some college classes in order to graduate on time, Young started the final twelve. He had a respectable year, highlighted by becoming the first pro football player ever to pass for 300 yards and rush for 100 in a single game. Despite being surrounded with talent which included such future NFL players as Jojo Townsell, Mel Gray, and Kevin Nelson, and making the playoffs in Young's first season, the Express was never able to create a sustaining fan base in Los Angeles.
Late in the season, The New York Times published an investigation of owner J. William Oldenburg's finances that suggested Oldenburg was not as well off as he claimed. The FBI had been investigating Oldenburg since the middle of the season. A week after the Times article, Oldenburg stopped paying the Express' bills, forcing the league to draw on the team's emergency line of credit to keep it going through the playoffs. Houston Gamblers minority partner Jay Roulier stepped in to buy the team, only to be pushed out when it emerged that he too had misrepresented his net worth. The league took control of the team and cut expenditures to the bare minimum. The other teams made contributions to keep the Express going through the season – enough to meet payroll, but not much else.
Under the circumstances, the 1985 season rapidly became a fiasco. Before one game, the team bus driver refused to drive the Express to their final home game – which had been moved to Los Angeles Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley – unless he was paid up front in cash. Young contributed some money, as did the team trainer, and the driver took them to the game. In the season finale at Orlando, Young had to line up at tailback because a rash of injuries had left the Express without any healthy running backs. The owners had refused to allocate any money to allow the Express to replace injured players.
It was reported that Young had insured the contract and would still be paid until 2027. However, a 1985 Los Angeles Times article stated that he received a $1.4 million settlement on the annuity.
The league ceased operations in 1986 after losing most of its claims in an antitrust suit against the NFL, with its top talent absorbed by the NFL in a dispersal draft conducted in the aftermath.
NFL
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Young grew increasingly dissatisfied with the disarray surrounding the Express. Just a week before what proved to be the last USFL title game, Young gave the USFL an ultimatum – find a new owner for the Express, or allow him to buy out his contract and go to the NFL. Soon after the league decided to suspend the Express's operations for the 1986 season, Young bought out his Express contract and signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who had made him the first pick in a supplemental draft of USFL and CFL players a year earlier.
By this time, the Bucs were in the midst of what would be 12 consecutive 10-loss seasons. They posted identical 2–14 records in Young's two seasons with them, going 3–16 with him as a starter. Young threw for only 11 touchdowns with 21 interceptions while completing fewer than 55% of his passes.
San Francisco 49ers
The Buccaneers selected University of Miami quarterback Vinny Testaverde first overall in the 1987 NFL Draft because Young was deemed a bust. Young was traded to the San Francisco 49ers on April 24, 1987 to serve as a backup to Joe Montana. 49ers coach Bill Walsh was impressed by Young's natural abilities, and believed his lackluster numbers were primarily due to the lack of talent around him in Tampa Bay.
The Buccaneers received second and fourth round draft picks in the trade, which they used to draft Miami linebacker Winston Moss, and Arizona State wide receiver Bruce Hill, respectively.
Montana's backup: 1987–1990
Young played behind Montana for four years, but shone as a backup. Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41–0 victory. In their 1987 divisional playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings, he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27–10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a good performance, completing 12 of 17 pass attempts for 158 yards and a touchdown, with one interception, while also leading San Francisco in rushing with 72 yards and a touchdown on six carries. On October 30, 1988, Young ran for a 49-yard, game-winning touchdown against the Vikings. He started the game out with a 73-yard touchdown pass to John Taylor, after Montana went down with an injury. The play earned the 49ers a 24–21 victory and a bit of revenge on the Vikings for their previous season's playoff loss. The win turned out to be crucial, as without it the 49ers would have finished the season 9–7 and missed the playoffs, as two other teams in their division, the Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints, had 10–6 records. Instead, the 49ers won their division, earned the #2 playoff seed, and went on to win the Super Bowl.
In 1989, he displayed potential to become the team's starter in the future. While Montana won the NFL MVP award and led the team to victory in Super Bowl XXIV, Young still had a good season, completing 69% of his passes for 1,001 yards and eight touchdowns, with only three interceptions. On October 22, 1989, he posted a perfect passer rating of 158.3 when he completed 11 of 12 passes for 188 yards and three touchdown passes in a 37–20 victory over the New England Patriots.
He rushed for a career-high 102 yards on just eight carries against the New Orleans Saints on December 23, 1990, making him only the second 49ers quarterback to rush for at least 100 yards in a single game. The 49ers lost the game 13–10.
In his four seasons as a backup, Young threw 23 touchdown passes and only six interceptions.
1991 season
Following an injury to Montana's elbow in the 1990 NFC Championship Game, which forced him to miss the entire 1991 season, Young got his chance to lead the 49ers. He got off to a rough start. Midway through the season, the 49ers found themselves struggling with a 4–4 record. In the ninth game of the season, after throwing a franchise-record 97-yard touchdown pass to Taylor, Young suffered a knee injury and was replaced by backup quarterback Steve Bono. After a loss in that game and the next, Bono led the 49ers to five consecutive victories, playing so well that coach George Seifert decided to keep him in the starting lineup after Young had recovered. It wasn't until late in the 15th game of the season, after Bono went down with an injury of his own, that Young got to play again. Young then closed out the season by throwing for 338 yards and three touchdowns and also rushing for 63 yards and another touchdown in a 52–14 win over the Chicago Bears in a Monday Night Football game at Candlestick Park.
Young finished the season with an NFL best 101.8 passer rating. Despite missing five full games and most of a sixth, he still threw for 2,517 yards and 17 touchdowns with only 8 interceptions. But despite Young's strong season, the season for the team was widely regarded as a disappointment. The 49ers had slipped from a 14–2 record in the previous season to a 10–6 record in 1991. While 10 wins is usually enough to make the playoffs, this time it was not, and San Francisco ended up not playing in the postseason for the first time since 1982. It was thought by many that Young's days as the 49ers starter were numbered due to the impending return of Montana from the injury to his right elbow, and some observers said the 49ers should trade Young and keep Montana and Bono. However, the trade never happened.
1992 season: first MVP
By the start of the 1992 season, it appeared that Young's starting job was in serious peril. In addition to having to compete with Bono, Montana appeared to be close to recovering from his elbow tendon surgery. San Francisco came close to trading Young to the Los Angeles Raiders, but no deal was finalized and it turned out that Montana would not recover in time to start in the opening game. Montana would not return until the final game of the 1992 season, a Monday Night home game against the Detroit Lions. Montana played the entire second half of that final game and guided the 49ers to victory.
Young ended up as San Francisco's starting quarterback, but once again got off to a rough start. On the fifth play of the opening game at the Giants, he suffered a concussion and was replaced by Bono, who threw two touchdown passes while leading the 49ers to a 31–14 win. The following week, San Francisco lost 34–31 to the Buffalo Bills, despite a career-high 449 passing yards and three touchdowns from Young, in a game that for the first time in NFL history had zero punts from either team.
Young recovered and led the 49ers on a five-game winning streak, capped off by a 56–17 win over the Atlanta Falcons in which Young passed for 399 yards and three touchdowns. After missing most of the next game (a 24–14 loss to the Cardinals) with the flu, he led San Francisco to victory in all of their remaining games of the season, giving the team a 14–2 record. He went on to throw for 227 yards and 2 touchdowns, and rush for 73 yards, in a 20–13 divisional playoff win over the Washington Redskins. The 49ers lost the NFC title game, however, 30–20 against the eventual Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys. Young threw for 313 yards, completing 71.4% of his passes while passing for one touchdown and rushing for another. He also threw two interceptions, but the final one came with the outcome of the game already decided.
Young finished the season with 3,465 passing yards and 537 rushing yards, along with an NFL-best 25 touchdown passes and 107.0 passer rating, earning him the NFL Most Valuable Player Award and his first selection to the Pro Bowl. He was the first quarterback ever to record a triple-digit rating in consecutive seasons. Many credit Young's turnaround to the mentoring of the 49ers' new offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan, who worked with Young on combining his running skill with on-the-move passing decisions.
1993 season
Before the start of the 1993 season, team owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. announced that he wanted Montana to resume his role as starting quarterback for the 49ers. However, a rift in the locker room had developed, with players split on whom they wanted at quarterback. In the spring of 1993, at Montana's request, San Francisco traded Montana to the Kansas City Chiefs. Young was now the 49ers' undisputed starter, and would remain so for the rest of his career. But once again, he had a rough start to the season. Over the first four games of 1993, Young, who was hindered by a swollen thumb on his throwing hand, threw eight interceptions, more than he had thrown during the entire 1992 season. But after his thumb healed, Young went on an incredible streak over a span of seven games, throwing 16 touchdown passes with only 2 interceptions and a 122.2 passer rating. By the end of the year, Young set franchise records for most passing yards (4,023), and consecutive passes thrown without an interception (189), (later eclipsed by Alex Smith in 2012) while leading the NFL in touchdown passes (29) and passer rating (101.5). The team slipped to a 10–6 record, but advanced to the NFC championship game again by blowing out the New York Giants 44–3 in the divisional round. However, once again they were defeated by the Dallas Cowboys, this time 38–21.
1994 season: second MVP and Super Bowl run
After several key free agent signings including All-Pro cornerback Deion Sanders and NFL Draft selections, the 49ers looked to win their first Super Bowl since 1989. They started fast, beating the Los Angeles Raiders 44–14 on the strength of four touchdown passes from Young, one of four games during the regular season in which he had at least four. After a loss in a much-anticipated game to Joe Montana and the Kansas City Chiefs, the 49ers won their next two games before losing to the Philadelphia Eagles 40–8 at Candlestick Park, a game in which Young was eventually benched in the middle of an offensive series. Although head coach George Seifert later said he only pulled Young because he was getting manhandled by the Eagles' defense, Young had had enough of being scapegoated for 49er shortfalls and loudly (and visibly) lambasted Seifert over his decision while standing on the sideline during the game.
But the game was considered a turning point in the season; from there, Young led the team to 10 consecutive wins, by an average of 20 points, before losing the meaningless finale against the Vikings in which Young completed his first 12 of 13 attempts before going to the sidelines. They finished an NFL best 13–3, securing home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs. The 49ers had the number-one offense in the NFL, and were so dominant that Seifert often took Young out of games early if he felt that the 49ers had an insurmountable lead at the time.
After an easy 44–15 victory over the Chicago Bears in the divisional round of the playoffs, the 49ers jumped out to a 31–14 halftime lead over the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Championship Game, holding on to win 38–28. Young threw for two touchdowns, while adding 47 yards and another touchdown on the ground. As a result, he went to his first Super Bowl as a starting quarterback. The 49ers were heavy favorites to become the first team with five Super Bowl victories.
On the strength of a six-touchdown performance that surpassed the previous Super Bowl record of five, owned by the man Young replaced, Joe Montana, Steve Young was named the MVP of Super Bowl XXIX, as the 49ers defeated the San Diego Chargers, 49–26. Young also threw for 325 yards and rushed for 49 yards, making him the first player ever to finish a Super Bowl as the game's leader in both rushing and passing yards.
The victory capped off an incredible year for Young, who had one of the best seasons by a quarterback in NFL history. He threw for 3,969 yards, a then-franchise record 35 touchdown passes with only 10 interceptions, completed 70.3 percent of his passes – the highest completion percentage of the 1990s, third all-time, and at the time, the best completion percentage by any quarterback with more than 400 attempts (later eclipsed by Drew Brees in 2009). Additionally, Young broke Joe Montana's single-season mark with a then-record 112.8 passer rating, and also once again demonstrated his great scrambling ability, accumulating another 289 yards and 7 touchdowns on the ground. For his record-breaking season performances, Young was awarded his second AP NFL MVP award, becoming the 7th player in NFL history to win both league and Super Bowl MVP honors in the same season.
Later years and injuries
In the three years following Super Bowl XXIX, the 49ers would be eliminated each year by Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers, twice in San Francisco. In addition to the early playoff exits, Young suffered a series of injuries that forced him to miss several games from 1995 to 1997. Young entered the 1998 season at age 37 and some began to wonder if his skills would diminish because of his history of injuries and a general decline in his game due to age. However, he silenced all critics once again, putting up career numbers in passing yards (4,170) and passing touchdowns (36). The 49ers finally beat Favre and the Packers in an NFC wild card game that year, as Young threw the winning touchdown to wide receiver Terrell Owens with three seconds remaining to win the game 30–27. In reference to Dwight Clark's legendary catch against the Dallas Cowboys in the 1981 NFC championship game, Owens's grab was called "The Catch II". A week later, however, Garrison Hearst broke his ankle on the 49ers' first play from scrimmage. Without the threat of a running game, Young threw three interceptions (the last one a Hail Mary pass with under 30 seconds remaining in the game) and the 49ers were defeated by the Atlanta Falcons 20–18. Over that span of seasons from 1995 to 1998, Young led the NFL in passer rating twice (in 1996 and 1997), and led the NFL with 36 touchdown passes in 1998.
The 1999 season would turn out to be Young's last in the NFL. Young was plagued by concussions throughout his career. During a Week 3 Monday Night Football game against the Arizona Cardinals, Young was violently sacked by Cardinals cornerback Aeneas Williams on a blitz. Running back Lawrence Phillips was supposed to pick up Williams, but missed. Young was knocked out of the game with a concussion, and didn't return again for the rest of the season due to symptoms of post-concussion syndrome. The concussion he suffered against the Cardinals was reportedly his second in a season that was only three weeks old, and the seventh (at least) of his career. Following the season, the 49ers told him that he would be released if he did not retire. Although Young was offered a job as the starting quarterback of the Denver Broncos (where his former offensive coordinator, Mike Shanahan, was the head coach), he retired because of his repeated concussions. In a 2013 Frontline interview, Young said that, partially based upon their own experiences, he and many retired players are increasingly concerned about repeated concussions and subconcussive hits. He is particularly concerned about certain positions that take frequent hits, such as running backs and linemen.
Career statistics and records
USFL career
NFL career
Records and legacy
Although Young did not become the 49ers' starter until his 8th NFL season, and he played a full season only three times (all consecutively) during his 15-year career, Young had a significant impact on the NFL. A two-time league MVP, he completed 2,667 of 4,149 passes for 33,124 yards and 232 touchdowns, with 107 interceptions, and 43 rushing touchdowns. His 96.8 career passer rating is the sixth highest in NFL history and second highest among retired players, behind Tony Romo; his 4,239 rushing yards are the fourth most ever gained by a quarterback, behind Michael Vick, Cam Newton, and Randall Cunningham. He was the NFL's top rated passer in six different seasons and led the league in touchdown passes four times. In 20 postseason games, he threw 20 touchdown passes with only 13 interceptions, and scored 8 touchdowns on the ground. In his stint with the San Francisco 49ers, Young passed for 29,907 yards, 221 touchdowns, and 86 interceptions, with a passer rating of 101.4, highest in franchise history. He was also sacked 290 times, also most in franchise history.
NFL records
Tenth highest passer rating, career, including active players – 96.8
Fourth highest passer rating, career, retired players only – 96.8
Eighth highest career completion percentage, retired players – 64.3%
Most times led the league in passer rating, career – 6 (tied w/ Sammy Baugh)
Most consecutive times led the league in passer rating – 4 (1991–94)
One of seven QBs to lead the league in touchdown passes 4 times (tied with Johnny Unitas, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Len Dawson)
Most passes attempted, playoff game – 65 vs. Green Bay, 1995
Most TD passes, playoff game – 6 (tied w/Daryle Lamonica & Tom Brady)
Most TD passes in one Super Bowl – 6
Most rushing yards by a QB, postseason career – 594
Most rushing touchdowns by a QB, postseason career – 8
49ers records
Highest completion percentage (20+ Atts) (Game): vs Detroit (10/20/91), 90.0
Most average yards per attempt (20+ Atts) (Game): vs Detroit (12/19/93), 15.39
Most touchdown passes (season): 36 (1998)
Best completion percentage (season): 70.3 (1994)
Best passer rating (season): 112.8 (1994)
Most 300-yard passing games (season): 7 (1998)
Best passer rating (career): 101.4
Most average yards per attempt (career): 8.20
Most consecutive games with a touchdown pass: 18, at Det. (10/9/94) to vs. StL (11/26/95) note: (DNP in 5 games in 1995)
Best completion percentage (career): 65.8
Most rushing touchdowns by a quarterback (career): 43
In 1999, he was ranked No. 63 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. Young was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on February 5, 2005; he was the first left-handed quarterback to be so honored. He was enshrined August 7, 2005. His induction speech was given by his father, LeGrande "Grit" Young.
The San Francisco 49ers had his No. 8 jersey retired during a halftime ceremony against the New England Patriots on October 5, 2008. He was the 11th player in team history to receive this honor. He is also the only 49er in team history to wear No. 8.
Post-football
Business career
In 1994, Young received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from BYU's J. Reuben Clark Law School.
In 2000, Young spoke at the Republican National Convention.
In 2007, Young co-founded Huntsman Gay Global Capital (HGGC), with billionaire industrialist Jon M. Huntsman and former Bain Capital executive Robert C. Gay. After being involved in business ventures with the private equity firm, he has continued to serve as a managing director.
In 2011, Young was one of several notable BYU athletes and coaches who appeared in the school's "Real Cougar" advertising campaign, which featured the individuals telling an actual cougar about being a "real cougar". In one of the ads, Young poked fun at himself:
Young: I love BYU so much I even got my law degree here.
Cougar: (growls)
Young: Lawyers... I know.
Acting career
Young has both performed dramatic roles and appeared as himself in a limited acting career. He appeared in one episode of Frasier and one episode of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (cast as Lois' former high school football quarterback boyfriend, Joe Maloy). He also made a guest appearance as himself in the Dharma & Greg episode "Are You Ready for Some Football?" encouraging Dharma, the team's Number One Fan. In 1995, Young appeared as himself in the Season 6, Episode 12 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. He also made cameo appearances in the LDS comedy The Singles Ward (2002) and in a season 5 episode of BYUtv's Studio C (2014). Young also made a guest appearance as himself in season 8 of the NBC comedy series Wings in the episode "Just Call Me Angel".
Young was originally offered a part in the 1998 movie There's Something About Mary, but turned the role down. He was replaced by Brett Favre.
Philanthropy
Young serves as a National Advisor to ASCEND: A Humanitarian Alliance. This non-profit organization plans expeditions to African and South American countries to provide life skills mentoring with sustainable solutions in education, enterprise, health and simple technology.
In 1993, Young founded a charitable foundation known as the Forever Young Foundation, which serves children facing significant physical, emotional, and financial challenges by providing academic, athletic, and therapeutic opportunities otherwise unavailable to them.
Young also serves as the national spokesman for an organization founded by former Save Darfur Coalition executive director and founder, David Rubenstein. He began his affiliation with the organization in 2009, when he became the honorary league commissioner for their charitable dodgeball tournaments held on college campuses nationwide.
Personal life
Young is a great-great-great-nephew of Brigham Young, second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for whom BYU is named. His father, LeGrande "Grit" Young, played football at BYU in the late 1950s. He led the school in scoring in 1955 and in rushing and total offense in 1959. Steve Young's younger brothers, Mike and Tom, both played quarterback at BYU after Steve, but neither received much playing time.
Young has been married to Barbara Graham since 2000. They have two sons and two daughters. According to A Football Life: As his playing career ended before his eldest child was born, he wrote his autobiography QB: My Life Behind the Spiral initially as a private memoir for his children.
See also
Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame
List of NCAA major college football yearly passing leaders
List of NCAA major college football yearly total offense leaders
List of NFL quarterbacks who have posted a perfect passer rating
References
External links
1961 births
All-American college football players
American color commentators
American football quarterbacks
American male television actors
American philanthropists
Brigham Young University alumni
BYU Cougars football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Greenwich High School alumni
J. Reuben Clark Law School alumni
Latter Day Saints from California
Latter Day Saints from Connecticut
Latter Day Saints from Utah
Living people
Los Angeles Express players
National Conference Pro Bowl players
National Football League Most Valuable Player Award winners
National Football League Offensive Player of the Year Award winners
National Football League players with retired numbers
Players of American football from Connecticut
Players of American football from Salt Lake City
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
Richards–Young family
San Francisco 49ers players
Sportspeople from Greenwich, Connecticut
Super Bowl MVPs
Tampa Bay Buccaneers players
Utah Republicans | true | [
"The 2010 Champs Sports Bowl was a college football bowl game that was played on December 28, 2010. The game matched up the West Virginia Mountaineers from the Big East Conference versus the NC State Wolfpack from the Atlantic Coast Conference. The game was scheduled for a 6:30 p.m. ET kickoff at Florida Citrus Bowl Stadium in Orlando, Florida.\n\nBackground\nWest Virginia entered the game with a 9-3 record along with being co-champions of the Big East Conference. The Mountaineers were hurt in their quest for the Big East's BCS bid with October losses to UConn and Syracuse. WVU's strength was in their defense, which ranked 2nd nationally in points allowed and 3rd in yards allowed. The Mountaineers have appeared in eight straight bowl games and were defeated in last year's Gator Bowl by Florida State 33-21. West Virginia has played in the bowl on two previous occasions, in 1995 and 1997, when it was known as the Carquest Bowl and was played in Miami.\n\nNC State entered the bowl with an overall record of 8-4. The Wolfpack attempted to win a bowl game for the first time in coach Tom O’Brien’s four seasons in Raleigh. NC State played in the Papajohns.com Bowl in his second season but lost to Rutgers, 29-23. The strength of the Wolfpack was in their passing game, ranked number 19 in the country. NC State has appeared in the bowl three previous times, first in 1998 when the game was known as the MicornPC Bowl and was played in Miami, Florida, and then in 2001 and 2003 when it was played in Orlando but was called the Tangerine Bowl.\n\nThe two schools have played each other nine times previously, with WVU holding a 5-4 advantage, though they have not played since 1979. This was the third time that they have played in a bowl game, having played in the 1972 and 1975 Peach Bowls. The bowl series between NC State and West Virginia is split, 1-1: the Wolfpack won the 1972 contest 49-13, and the Mountaineers won 13-10 in 1975.\n\nGame Summary\n\nScoring\n\nStatistics\n\nReferences\n\nChamps Sports Bowl\nCheez-It Bowl\nWest Virginia Mountaineers football bowl games\nNC State Wolfpack football bowl games\nAmerican football in Orlando, Florida\nChamps Sports Bowl\n2010s in Orlando, Florida",
"Velódromo Paulistano, commonly known as just Velódromo, was a cycling and football stadium located in São Paulo, Brazil. It was the home stadium of Americano, Paulistano and Scottish Wanderers. It was owned by Veloce Club Olimpic Paulista and it had a maximum capacity of 10,000 people. After being reformed as a football stadium, it was operated by Club Athletico Paulistano.\n\nHistory\nThe stadium was inaugurated in 1892, as a cycling stadium. It was opened as a football stadium on October 18, 1901, when a São Paulo State combined team and a Rio de Janeiro State drew 1–1. The first football game between clubs was played on May 8, 1902, when São Paulo Athletic beat Paulistano 4–0. Charles Miller scored that game's first goal. The last game played at the Velódromo was a game between a São Paulo State combined team and a Rio de Janeiro State combined team. São Paulo State won the game 8–0. Velódromo Paulistano was demolished in 1916.\n\nReferences\n\nDefunct football venues in Brazil\nSports venues demolished in 1916"
] |
[
"Steve Young",
"Montana's backup: 1987-1990",
"Did Steve Young play any notable games while a backup?",
"Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41-0",
"Did they win that game?",
"41-0 victory.",
"Did he play any other notable games?",
"he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27-10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a fairly good performance",
"Who were the 49ers playing in this game?",
"Minnesota Vikings,",
"When was this game being played?",
"1987"
] | C_52dfda507a2f476c98e838aa6c80d9e5_1 | Was this game played at the 49ers' stadium or the Vikings' stadium? | 6 | Was the 1987 game against the Minnesota Vikings played at the 49ers' stadium or the Vikings' stadium? | Steve Young | Young played behind Montana his first several years, but shone as a backup. Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41-0 victory. In their 1987 divisional playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings, he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27-10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a fairly good performance with 12/17 completions for 158 yards and a touchdown, with one interception, while also leading San Francisco in rushing with 72 yards and a touchdown on six carries. On October 30, 1988, Young ran for a 49-yard, game-winning touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings. He started the game out with a 73-yard touchdown pass to John Taylor, after Montana went down with an injury. The play earned the 49ers a 24-21 victory and a bit of revenge on the Vikings for their previous season's playoff loss. In 1989, he displayed his potential to become the team's starter in the future. While Montana won the NFL MVP award and led the team to victory in Super Bowl XXIV, Young still had a good season, completing 69% of his passes for 1,001 yards and eight touchdowns, with only three interceptions. On October 22, 1989, he posted a perfect passer rating of 158.3 when he completed 11 of 12 passes for 188 yards and three touchdown passes in a 37-20 victory over the New England Patriots. In his four seasons as a backup, Young had thrown 23 touchdown passes and only six interceptions. He rushed for a career-high 102 yards on just eight carries vs. the New Orleans Saints on December 23, 1990, making him only the second 49ers quarterback to rush for at least 100 yards in a single game. The 49ers lost the game 13-10. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Jon Steven Young (born October 11, 1961) is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 15 seasons, primarily with the San Francisco 49ers. He also played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Prior to his NFL career, he was a member of the Los Angeles Express in the United States Football League (USFL) for two seasons. Young played college football for Brigham Young University (BYU), setting school and NCAA records en route to being runner-up for the 1983 Heisman Trophy.
Young was named the AP's NFL Most Valuable Player in 1992 and 1994, and was the MVP of Super Bowl XXIX. During his 1994 MVP campaign, he set a new NFL record for passer rating at 112.8. He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Young was an extremely efficient passer – leading the league in passer rating a record six times, and completion percentage and yards per attempt five times. At the time of his retirement, he had the highest passer rating among NFL quarterbacks with at least 1,500 passing attempts (96.8). As of the end of the 2020 season, he is ranked tenth all-time in passer rating, and is ranked fourth highest amongst retired players, behind only Drew Brees, Tom Brady, and Tony Romo. His 43 career rushing touchdowns are second among quarterbacks, while his 4,239 rushing yards ranks fifth all time.
Early years
Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Young attended Greenwich High School in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he played quarterback on its Cardinals football team. He earned 1978 All-FCIAC West Division First Team honors in his junior year, his first year as a starter. In his senior year he rushed for 13 touchdowns and earned All-FCIAC West Division First Team honors, and was named to the CIAC All-State team. In the rush-first option offense run by Greenwich he completed only 41 percent of his throws for 1,220 yards, but ran the ball 267 times for 1,928 yards. On Thanksgiving Day in November 1979, Greenwich lost to Darien High School, known for its "Tidal Wave Defense", 17–0. During his senior year, he was co-captain of the football, basketball and baseball teams. In basketball, he averaged 15 points a game. In baseball, he hit .384 and played center field when he wasn't pitching. He was 5–1 and threw a 3–0 no-hitter against New Canaan High School.
College football
Young was heavily recruited by the University of North Carolina. Coach Dick Crum was enamored by Young's running ability, and wanted him to run his option offense. Young instead chose BYU. Initially, he struggled at throwing the ball, and BYU's coaching staff considered switching him to defensive back because of his athleticism. However, he worked hard to improve his passing skills and eventually succeeded record-setting Jim McMahon as BYU's starting QB. Young's senior season (1983) was spectacular. He passed for 3,902 yards and 33 touchdowns in the regular season, and his 71.3% completion percentage set an NCAA single-season record. He also added 544 yards rushing. With Young at quarterback, BYU set an NCAA record by averaging 584.2 yards of total offense per game, with 370.5 of those yards coming from Young's passing and rushing. The Cougars finished the year with an impressive 11–1 record; Young was named a unanimous All-American and received the Davey O'Brien National Quarterback Award, which recognizes the nation's best collegiate quarterback each year. He also finished second in voting for the Heisman Trophy, behind Nebraska running back Mike Rozier. Young capped his college career by scoring the game-winning touchdown on a pass from the halfback in BYU's 21–17 victory over Missouri in the 1983 Holiday Bowl.
Young finished his college career with 592 pass completions for 7,733 yards and 56 touchdowns, along with 1,048 yards and 18 touchdowns rushing. He was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame in 2001.
Professional football
USFL
Los Angeles Express
Young was selected by the Los Angeles Express in the first round (11th overall) of the 1984 USFL Draft. He signed a record ten-year, $40 million contract with the Express in He agreed to take his payment in the form of an annuity paid out over forty years to help the fledgling team.
It was taken for granted that Young would be the first pick in the 1984 NFL Draft, and that he would be selected by the Cincinnati Bengals, who were three years removed from the Super Bowl and had landed the No. 1 pick in a trade with the then-moribund Tampa Bay Buccaneers. However, the Bengals still had Ken Anderson as their quarterback and planned to have Young sit behind Anderson for the 1984 season before possibly taking over in 1985. Young found that prospect unappealing, which opened the door for the Express. Express general manager Don Klosterman told Young that if he signed with the Express, his head coach would be John Hadl, a former All-Pro quarterback who had shepherded John Elway through his first year in the NFL. Klosterman also told Young that Hall of Fame coach Sid Gillman, who had been hired as a consultant, would tutor him on how to be a pro quarterback. Young was convinced, and signed with the Express.
At the time, it was another huge signing by the fledgling league, which had already succeeded in signing both the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, running back Mike Rozier of Nebraska; and the previous winner, Georgia running back Herschel Walker. After missing the first six games of his rookie season while taking some college classes in order to graduate on time, Young started the final twelve. He had a respectable year, highlighted by becoming the first pro football player ever to pass for 300 yards and rush for 100 in a single game. Despite being surrounded with talent which included such future NFL players as Jojo Townsell, Mel Gray, and Kevin Nelson, and making the playoffs in Young's first season, the Express was never able to create a sustaining fan base in Los Angeles.
Late in the season, The New York Times published an investigation of owner J. William Oldenburg's finances that suggested Oldenburg was not as well off as he claimed. The FBI had been investigating Oldenburg since the middle of the season. A week after the Times article, Oldenburg stopped paying the Express' bills, forcing the league to draw on the team's emergency line of credit to keep it going through the playoffs. Houston Gamblers minority partner Jay Roulier stepped in to buy the team, only to be pushed out when it emerged that he too had misrepresented his net worth. The league took control of the team and cut expenditures to the bare minimum. The other teams made contributions to keep the Express going through the season – enough to meet payroll, but not much else.
Under the circumstances, the 1985 season rapidly became a fiasco. Before one game, the team bus driver refused to drive the Express to their final home game – which had been moved to Los Angeles Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley – unless he was paid up front in cash. Young contributed some money, as did the team trainer, and the driver took them to the game. In the season finale at Orlando, Young had to line up at tailback because a rash of injuries had left the Express without any healthy running backs. The owners had refused to allocate any money to allow the Express to replace injured players.
It was reported that Young had insured the contract and would still be paid until 2027. However, a 1985 Los Angeles Times article stated that he received a $1.4 million settlement on the annuity.
The league ceased operations in 1986 after losing most of its claims in an antitrust suit against the NFL, with its top talent absorbed by the NFL in a dispersal draft conducted in the aftermath.
NFL
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Young grew increasingly dissatisfied with the disarray surrounding the Express. Just a week before what proved to be the last USFL title game, Young gave the USFL an ultimatum – find a new owner for the Express, or allow him to buy out his contract and go to the NFL. Soon after the league decided to suspend the Express's operations for the 1986 season, Young bought out his Express contract and signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who had made him the first pick in a supplemental draft of USFL and CFL players a year earlier.
By this time, the Bucs were in the midst of what would be 12 consecutive 10-loss seasons. They posted identical 2–14 records in Young's two seasons with them, going 3–16 with him as a starter. Young threw for only 11 touchdowns with 21 interceptions while completing fewer than 55% of his passes.
San Francisco 49ers
The Buccaneers selected University of Miami quarterback Vinny Testaverde first overall in the 1987 NFL Draft because Young was deemed a bust. Young was traded to the San Francisco 49ers on April 24, 1987 to serve as a backup to Joe Montana. 49ers coach Bill Walsh was impressed by Young's natural abilities, and believed his lackluster numbers were primarily due to the lack of talent around him in Tampa Bay.
The Buccaneers received second and fourth round draft picks in the trade, which they used to draft Miami linebacker Winston Moss, and Arizona State wide receiver Bruce Hill, respectively.
Montana's backup: 1987–1990
Young played behind Montana for four years, but shone as a backup. Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41–0 victory. In their 1987 divisional playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings, he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27–10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a good performance, completing 12 of 17 pass attempts for 158 yards and a touchdown, with one interception, while also leading San Francisco in rushing with 72 yards and a touchdown on six carries. On October 30, 1988, Young ran for a 49-yard, game-winning touchdown against the Vikings. He started the game out with a 73-yard touchdown pass to John Taylor, after Montana went down with an injury. The play earned the 49ers a 24–21 victory and a bit of revenge on the Vikings for their previous season's playoff loss. The win turned out to be crucial, as without it the 49ers would have finished the season 9–7 and missed the playoffs, as two other teams in their division, the Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints, had 10–6 records. Instead, the 49ers won their division, earned the #2 playoff seed, and went on to win the Super Bowl.
In 1989, he displayed potential to become the team's starter in the future. While Montana won the NFL MVP award and led the team to victory in Super Bowl XXIV, Young still had a good season, completing 69% of his passes for 1,001 yards and eight touchdowns, with only three interceptions. On October 22, 1989, he posted a perfect passer rating of 158.3 when he completed 11 of 12 passes for 188 yards and three touchdown passes in a 37–20 victory over the New England Patriots.
He rushed for a career-high 102 yards on just eight carries against the New Orleans Saints on December 23, 1990, making him only the second 49ers quarterback to rush for at least 100 yards in a single game. The 49ers lost the game 13–10.
In his four seasons as a backup, Young threw 23 touchdown passes and only six interceptions.
1991 season
Following an injury to Montana's elbow in the 1990 NFC Championship Game, which forced him to miss the entire 1991 season, Young got his chance to lead the 49ers. He got off to a rough start. Midway through the season, the 49ers found themselves struggling with a 4–4 record. In the ninth game of the season, after throwing a franchise-record 97-yard touchdown pass to Taylor, Young suffered a knee injury and was replaced by backup quarterback Steve Bono. After a loss in that game and the next, Bono led the 49ers to five consecutive victories, playing so well that coach George Seifert decided to keep him in the starting lineup after Young had recovered. It wasn't until late in the 15th game of the season, after Bono went down with an injury of his own, that Young got to play again. Young then closed out the season by throwing for 338 yards and three touchdowns and also rushing for 63 yards and another touchdown in a 52–14 win over the Chicago Bears in a Monday Night Football game at Candlestick Park.
Young finished the season with an NFL best 101.8 passer rating. Despite missing five full games and most of a sixth, he still threw for 2,517 yards and 17 touchdowns with only 8 interceptions. But despite Young's strong season, the season for the team was widely regarded as a disappointment. The 49ers had slipped from a 14–2 record in the previous season to a 10–6 record in 1991. While 10 wins is usually enough to make the playoffs, this time it was not, and San Francisco ended up not playing in the postseason for the first time since 1982. It was thought by many that Young's days as the 49ers starter were numbered due to the impending return of Montana from the injury to his right elbow, and some observers said the 49ers should trade Young and keep Montana and Bono. However, the trade never happened.
1992 season: first MVP
By the start of the 1992 season, it appeared that Young's starting job was in serious peril. In addition to having to compete with Bono, Montana appeared to be close to recovering from his elbow tendon surgery. San Francisco came close to trading Young to the Los Angeles Raiders, but no deal was finalized and it turned out that Montana would not recover in time to start in the opening game. Montana would not return until the final game of the 1992 season, a Monday Night home game against the Detroit Lions. Montana played the entire second half of that final game and guided the 49ers to victory.
Young ended up as San Francisco's starting quarterback, but once again got off to a rough start. On the fifth play of the opening game at the Giants, he suffered a concussion and was replaced by Bono, who threw two touchdown passes while leading the 49ers to a 31–14 win. The following week, San Francisco lost 34–31 to the Buffalo Bills, despite a career-high 449 passing yards and three touchdowns from Young, in a game that for the first time in NFL history had zero punts from either team.
Young recovered and led the 49ers on a five-game winning streak, capped off by a 56–17 win over the Atlanta Falcons in which Young passed for 399 yards and three touchdowns. After missing most of the next game (a 24–14 loss to the Cardinals) with the flu, he led San Francisco to victory in all of their remaining games of the season, giving the team a 14–2 record. He went on to throw for 227 yards and 2 touchdowns, and rush for 73 yards, in a 20–13 divisional playoff win over the Washington Redskins. The 49ers lost the NFC title game, however, 30–20 against the eventual Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys. Young threw for 313 yards, completing 71.4% of his passes while passing for one touchdown and rushing for another. He also threw two interceptions, but the final one came with the outcome of the game already decided.
Young finished the season with 3,465 passing yards and 537 rushing yards, along with an NFL-best 25 touchdown passes and 107.0 passer rating, earning him the NFL Most Valuable Player Award and his first selection to the Pro Bowl. He was the first quarterback ever to record a triple-digit rating in consecutive seasons. Many credit Young's turnaround to the mentoring of the 49ers' new offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan, who worked with Young on combining his running skill with on-the-move passing decisions.
1993 season
Before the start of the 1993 season, team owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. announced that he wanted Montana to resume his role as starting quarterback for the 49ers. However, a rift in the locker room had developed, with players split on whom they wanted at quarterback. In the spring of 1993, at Montana's request, San Francisco traded Montana to the Kansas City Chiefs. Young was now the 49ers' undisputed starter, and would remain so for the rest of his career. But once again, he had a rough start to the season. Over the first four games of 1993, Young, who was hindered by a swollen thumb on his throwing hand, threw eight interceptions, more than he had thrown during the entire 1992 season. But after his thumb healed, Young went on an incredible streak over a span of seven games, throwing 16 touchdown passes with only 2 interceptions and a 122.2 passer rating. By the end of the year, Young set franchise records for most passing yards (4,023), and consecutive passes thrown without an interception (189), (later eclipsed by Alex Smith in 2012) while leading the NFL in touchdown passes (29) and passer rating (101.5). The team slipped to a 10–6 record, but advanced to the NFC championship game again by blowing out the New York Giants 44–3 in the divisional round. However, once again they were defeated by the Dallas Cowboys, this time 38–21.
1994 season: second MVP and Super Bowl run
After several key free agent signings including All-Pro cornerback Deion Sanders and NFL Draft selections, the 49ers looked to win their first Super Bowl since 1989. They started fast, beating the Los Angeles Raiders 44–14 on the strength of four touchdown passes from Young, one of four games during the regular season in which he had at least four. After a loss in a much-anticipated game to Joe Montana and the Kansas City Chiefs, the 49ers won their next two games before losing to the Philadelphia Eagles 40–8 at Candlestick Park, a game in which Young was eventually benched in the middle of an offensive series. Although head coach George Seifert later said he only pulled Young because he was getting manhandled by the Eagles' defense, Young had had enough of being scapegoated for 49er shortfalls and loudly (and visibly) lambasted Seifert over his decision while standing on the sideline during the game.
But the game was considered a turning point in the season; from there, Young led the team to 10 consecutive wins, by an average of 20 points, before losing the meaningless finale against the Vikings in which Young completed his first 12 of 13 attempts before going to the sidelines. They finished an NFL best 13–3, securing home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs. The 49ers had the number-one offense in the NFL, and were so dominant that Seifert often took Young out of games early if he felt that the 49ers had an insurmountable lead at the time.
After an easy 44–15 victory over the Chicago Bears in the divisional round of the playoffs, the 49ers jumped out to a 31–14 halftime lead over the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Championship Game, holding on to win 38–28. Young threw for two touchdowns, while adding 47 yards and another touchdown on the ground. As a result, he went to his first Super Bowl as a starting quarterback. The 49ers were heavy favorites to become the first team with five Super Bowl victories.
On the strength of a six-touchdown performance that surpassed the previous Super Bowl record of five, owned by the man Young replaced, Joe Montana, Steve Young was named the MVP of Super Bowl XXIX, as the 49ers defeated the San Diego Chargers, 49–26. Young also threw for 325 yards and rushed for 49 yards, making him the first player ever to finish a Super Bowl as the game's leader in both rushing and passing yards.
The victory capped off an incredible year for Young, who had one of the best seasons by a quarterback in NFL history. He threw for 3,969 yards, a then-franchise record 35 touchdown passes with only 10 interceptions, completed 70.3 percent of his passes – the highest completion percentage of the 1990s, third all-time, and at the time, the best completion percentage by any quarterback with more than 400 attempts (later eclipsed by Drew Brees in 2009). Additionally, Young broke Joe Montana's single-season mark with a then-record 112.8 passer rating, and also once again demonstrated his great scrambling ability, accumulating another 289 yards and 7 touchdowns on the ground. For his record-breaking season performances, Young was awarded his second AP NFL MVP award, becoming the 7th player in NFL history to win both league and Super Bowl MVP honors in the same season.
Later years and injuries
In the three years following Super Bowl XXIX, the 49ers would be eliminated each year by Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers, twice in San Francisco. In addition to the early playoff exits, Young suffered a series of injuries that forced him to miss several games from 1995 to 1997. Young entered the 1998 season at age 37 and some began to wonder if his skills would diminish because of his history of injuries and a general decline in his game due to age. However, he silenced all critics once again, putting up career numbers in passing yards (4,170) and passing touchdowns (36). The 49ers finally beat Favre and the Packers in an NFC wild card game that year, as Young threw the winning touchdown to wide receiver Terrell Owens with three seconds remaining to win the game 30–27. In reference to Dwight Clark's legendary catch against the Dallas Cowboys in the 1981 NFC championship game, Owens's grab was called "The Catch II". A week later, however, Garrison Hearst broke his ankle on the 49ers' first play from scrimmage. Without the threat of a running game, Young threw three interceptions (the last one a Hail Mary pass with under 30 seconds remaining in the game) and the 49ers were defeated by the Atlanta Falcons 20–18. Over that span of seasons from 1995 to 1998, Young led the NFL in passer rating twice (in 1996 and 1997), and led the NFL with 36 touchdown passes in 1998.
The 1999 season would turn out to be Young's last in the NFL. Young was plagued by concussions throughout his career. During a Week 3 Monday Night Football game against the Arizona Cardinals, Young was violently sacked by Cardinals cornerback Aeneas Williams on a blitz. Running back Lawrence Phillips was supposed to pick up Williams, but missed. Young was knocked out of the game with a concussion, and didn't return again for the rest of the season due to symptoms of post-concussion syndrome. The concussion he suffered against the Cardinals was reportedly his second in a season that was only three weeks old, and the seventh (at least) of his career. Following the season, the 49ers told him that he would be released if he did not retire. Although Young was offered a job as the starting quarterback of the Denver Broncos (where his former offensive coordinator, Mike Shanahan, was the head coach), he retired because of his repeated concussions. In a 2013 Frontline interview, Young said that, partially based upon their own experiences, he and many retired players are increasingly concerned about repeated concussions and subconcussive hits. He is particularly concerned about certain positions that take frequent hits, such as running backs and linemen.
Career statistics and records
USFL career
NFL career
Records and legacy
Although Young did not become the 49ers' starter until his 8th NFL season, and he played a full season only three times (all consecutively) during his 15-year career, Young had a significant impact on the NFL. A two-time league MVP, he completed 2,667 of 4,149 passes for 33,124 yards and 232 touchdowns, with 107 interceptions, and 43 rushing touchdowns. His 96.8 career passer rating is the sixth highest in NFL history and second highest among retired players, behind Tony Romo; his 4,239 rushing yards are the fourth most ever gained by a quarterback, behind Michael Vick, Cam Newton, and Randall Cunningham. He was the NFL's top rated passer in six different seasons and led the league in touchdown passes four times. In 20 postseason games, he threw 20 touchdown passes with only 13 interceptions, and scored 8 touchdowns on the ground. In his stint with the San Francisco 49ers, Young passed for 29,907 yards, 221 touchdowns, and 86 interceptions, with a passer rating of 101.4, highest in franchise history. He was also sacked 290 times, also most in franchise history.
NFL records
Tenth highest passer rating, career, including active players – 96.8
Fourth highest passer rating, career, retired players only – 96.8
Eighth highest career completion percentage, retired players – 64.3%
Most times led the league in passer rating, career – 6 (tied w/ Sammy Baugh)
Most consecutive times led the league in passer rating – 4 (1991–94)
One of seven QBs to lead the league in touchdown passes 4 times (tied with Johnny Unitas, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Len Dawson)
Most passes attempted, playoff game – 65 vs. Green Bay, 1995
Most TD passes, playoff game – 6 (tied w/Daryle Lamonica & Tom Brady)
Most TD passes in one Super Bowl – 6
Most rushing yards by a QB, postseason career – 594
Most rushing touchdowns by a QB, postseason career – 8
49ers records
Highest completion percentage (20+ Atts) (Game): vs Detroit (10/20/91), 90.0
Most average yards per attempt (20+ Atts) (Game): vs Detroit (12/19/93), 15.39
Most touchdown passes (season): 36 (1998)
Best completion percentage (season): 70.3 (1994)
Best passer rating (season): 112.8 (1994)
Most 300-yard passing games (season): 7 (1998)
Best passer rating (career): 101.4
Most average yards per attempt (career): 8.20
Most consecutive games with a touchdown pass: 18, at Det. (10/9/94) to vs. StL (11/26/95) note: (DNP in 5 games in 1995)
Best completion percentage (career): 65.8
Most rushing touchdowns by a quarterback (career): 43
In 1999, he was ranked No. 63 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. Young was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on February 5, 2005; he was the first left-handed quarterback to be so honored. He was enshrined August 7, 2005. His induction speech was given by his father, LeGrande "Grit" Young.
The San Francisco 49ers had his No. 8 jersey retired during a halftime ceremony against the New England Patriots on October 5, 2008. He was the 11th player in team history to receive this honor. He is also the only 49er in team history to wear No. 8.
Post-football
Business career
In 1994, Young received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from BYU's J. Reuben Clark Law School.
In 2000, Young spoke at the Republican National Convention.
In 2007, Young co-founded Huntsman Gay Global Capital (HGGC), with billionaire industrialist Jon M. Huntsman and former Bain Capital executive Robert C. Gay. After being involved in business ventures with the private equity firm, he has continued to serve as a managing director.
In 2011, Young was one of several notable BYU athletes and coaches who appeared in the school's "Real Cougar" advertising campaign, which featured the individuals telling an actual cougar about being a "real cougar". In one of the ads, Young poked fun at himself:
Young: I love BYU so much I even got my law degree here.
Cougar: (growls)
Young: Lawyers... I know.
Acting career
Young has both performed dramatic roles and appeared as himself in a limited acting career. He appeared in one episode of Frasier and one episode of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (cast as Lois' former high school football quarterback boyfriend, Joe Maloy). He also made a guest appearance as himself in the Dharma & Greg episode "Are You Ready for Some Football?" encouraging Dharma, the team's Number One Fan. In 1995, Young appeared as himself in the Season 6, Episode 12 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. He also made cameo appearances in the LDS comedy The Singles Ward (2002) and in a season 5 episode of BYUtv's Studio C (2014). Young also made a guest appearance as himself in season 8 of the NBC comedy series Wings in the episode "Just Call Me Angel".
Young was originally offered a part in the 1998 movie There's Something About Mary, but turned the role down. He was replaced by Brett Favre.
Philanthropy
Young serves as a National Advisor to ASCEND: A Humanitarian Alliance. This non-profit organization plans expeditions to African and South American countries to provide life skills mentoring with sustainable solutions in education, enterprise, health and simple technology.
In 1993, Young founded a charitable foundation known as the Forever Young Foundation, which serves children facing significant physical, emotional, and financial challenges by providing academic, athletic, and therapeutic opportunities otherwise unavailable to them.
Young also serves as the national spokesman for an organization founded by former Save Darfur Coalition executive director and founder, David Rubenstein. He began his affiliation with the organization in 2009, when he became the honorary league commissioner for their charitable dodgeball tournaments held on college campuses nationwide.
Personal life
Young is a great-great-great-nephew of Brigham Young, second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for whom BYU is named. His father, LeGrande "Grit" Young, played football at BYU in the late 1950s. He led the school in scoring in 1955 and in rushing and total offense in 1959. Steve Young's younger brothers, Mike and Tom, both played quarterback at BYU after Steve, but neither received much playing time.
Young has been married to Barbara Graham since 2000. They have two sons and two daughters. According to A Football Life: As his playing career ended before his eldest child was born, he wrote his autobiography QB: My Life Behind the Spiral initially as a private memoir for his children.
See also
Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame
List of NCAA major college football yearly passing leaders
List of NCAA major college football yearly total offense leaders
List of NFL quarterbacks who have posted a perfect passer rating
References
External links
1961 births
All-American college football players
American color commentators
American football quarterbacks
American male television actors
American philanthropists
Brigham Young University alumni
BYU Cougars football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Greenwich High School alumni
J. Reuben Clark Law School alumni
Latter Day Saints from California
Latter Day Saints from Connecticut
Latter Day Saints from Utah
Living people
Los Angeles Express players
National Conference Pro Bowl players
National Football League Most Valuable Player Award winners
National Football League Offensive Player of the Year Award winners
National Football League players with retired numbers
Players of American football from Connecticut
Players of American football from Salt Lake City
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
Richards–Young family
San Francisco 49ers players
Sportspeople from Greenwich, Connecticut
Super Bowl MVPs
Tampa Bay Buccaneers players
Utah Republicans | false | [
"The 2015 season was the Minnesota Vikings' 55th season in the National Football League and their second under head coach Mike Zimmer. It marked the last season in which the Vikings played their home games at the University of Minnesota's on-campus TCF Bank Stadium, before moving into U.S. Bank Stadium, which opened in July 2016, located on the site of the now-demolished Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. The Vikings improved on their 7–9 record from 2014 and clinched a playoff berth for the first time since 2012. They also won their first NFC North title since 2009 with a Week 17 victory at the Packers. As a result, they hosted the Seattle Seahawks in the wild card round of the 2015–16 NFL playoffs, but lost 10–9 after kicker Blair Walsh missed a potential game-winning 27-yard field goal in the final seconds.\n\nOffseason\n\nDraft\n\nRoster changes\n\nPreseason\n\nSchedule\nOn February 11, 2015, the National Football League announced that the Vikings would play the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game. The game was played at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton, Ohio, on Sunday, August 9. The remainder of the Vikings' preliminary preseason schedule was announced on April 9. The Vikings first hosted the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Oakland Raiders before road games against the Dallas Cowboys and the Tennessee Titans, making this the third consecutive year in which the Vikings face the Titans in the preseason.\n\nGame summaries\n\nHall of Fame Game: vs. Pittsburgh Steelers\n\nWeek 1: vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers\n\nWeek 2: vs. Oakland Raiders\n\nWeek 3: at Dallas Cowboys\n\nWeek 4: at Tennessee Titans\n\nRegular season\n\nSchedule\nThe Vikings' 2015 schedule was announced on April 21.\n\nNote: Intra-division opponents are in bold text.\n\nGame summaries\n\nWeek 1: at San Francisco 49ers\n\nThe Vikings opened their 2015 season on the road against the San Francisco 49ers. Despite allowing San Francisco to start with the ball, the Vikings made a positive start, as Andrew Sendejo blocked a 28-yard field goal attempt from Phil Dawson, which Marcus Sherels returned 44 yards to the San Francisco 26-yard line. Minnesota QB Teddy Bridgewater was unable to complete a single pass on the next drive, forcing Blair Walsh to attempt a 44-yard field goal; however, he pushed it wide right. After forcing the 49ers to punt on the next series, the Vikings were themselves forced to punt immediately afterwards, only for the 49ers' rookie former rugby league star Jarryd Hayne to muff the catch, allowing the Vikings to recover the ball. The next drive saw the Vikings attempt to convert on 4th-and-3, but Bridgewater's completed pass to tight end Kyle Rudolph fell a yard short of a fresh set of downs.\n\nBoth sides exchanged punts at the start of the second quarter, with the 49ers eventually returning one 85 yards for a touchdown, only for it to be called back for an illegal block by a San Francisco player. However, the ensuing possession ended with a 49ers touchdown, as they drove 93 yards in just under 5 minutes, before Carlos Hyde finished the series with a 10-yard touchdown run; after finding nowhere to go on his initial run to the right, he beat a Minnesota defender with a spin move and ran back to the left side of the field, where quarterback Colin Kaepernick led him into the end zone. With the Vikings unable to score in the remaining 47 seconds, the first half ended 7–0 to San Francisco.\n\nMinnesota started the third quarter with the ball, but they were unable to make it out of their half before being forced to punt. The 49ers then extended their lead on the ensuing possession, driving 73 yards to the Minnesota 11-yard line to set up a 30-yard field goal attempt for Dawson. The Vikings finally got on the scoreboard early in the fourth quarter, as Walsh finished off a 66-yard drive with a 37-yard field goal, but the 49ers pulled further ahead with a second touchdown for Hyde on a 17-yard run. Bridgewater attempted to spark the Vikings back into the game, but a deep pass intended for Rudolph was intercepted by Tramaine Brock, setting up a 25-yard field goal for Dawson. The next drive saw the Vikings go for it again on 4th-and-8, but Bridgewater was sacked for a loss of 14 yards, allowing the 49ers to kneel out the game.\n\nWeek 2: vs. Detroit Lions\n\nWeek 3: vs. San Diego Chargers\n\nWeek 4: at Denver Broncos\n\nWeek 6: vs. Kansas City Chiefs\n\nWeek 7: at Detroit Lions\n\nWeek 8: at Chicago Bears\n\nWeek 9: vs. St. Louis Rams\n\nWeek 10: at Oakland Raiders\n\nWeek 11: vs. Green Bay Packers\n\nWeek 12: at Atlanta Falcons\n\nWeek 13: vs. Seattle Seahawks\n\nWeek 14: at Arizona Cardinals\n\nWeek 15: vs. Chicago Bears\n\nTeddy Bridgewater's best game of his career, going 17/20, 231 yards, and 4 touchdowns, along with a rushing touchdown on the ground. Before this game, Bridgewater had only 9 passing touchdowns, and afterwards, he had 13. Jay Cutler and the Chicago Bears were stopped to 17 points, while Cutler also having a good game with 26/37 for 231 and 2 touchdowns.\n\nWeek 16: vs. New York Giants\n\nWeek 17: at Green Bay Packers\n\nStandings\n\nDivision\n\nConference\n\nPostseason\n\nSchedule\n\nGame summaries\n\nNFC Wild Card Playoffs: vs. #6 Seattle Seahawks\n\nThe Vikings' only points in this game came from the foot of kicker Blair Walsh, whose three field goals put them 9–0 up by the end of the third quarter; however, Seattle outscored them 10–0 in the final period, with a touchdown catch from Doug Baldwin being followed by a 46-yard Steven Hauschka field goal in the first seven minutes of the quarter. The Vikings had a chance to win it with 20 seconds remaining, but Walsh missed a 27-yard field goal, reminding Vikings fans of Gary Anderson's missed field goal in the 1998 NFC Championship Game.\n\nPro Bowl\nRunning back Adrian Peterson was the only Minnesota Viking selected for the 2016 Pro Bowl. It was Peterson's seventh Pro Bowl selection, tying him for the fourth-most in Vikings franchise history with offensive tackle Ron Yary. After Houston Texans DE J. J. Watt suffered an injury in the wildcard round game against the Kansas City Chiefs, Vikings defensive end Everson Griffen was called up to replace him, his first career Pro Bowl selection. Griffen was followed by a fellow first-time Pro Bowler, safety Harrison Smith, on January 25, after Earl Thomas of the Seattle Seahawks was ruled out of the game due to injury. The next day, quarterback Teddy Bridgewater and linebacker Anthony Barr were added to the Pro Bowl roster as replacements for injured Arizona Cardinals quarterback Carson Palmer and New England Patriots linebacker Jamie Collins respectively.\n\nRoster\n\nStaff\n\nStatistics\n\nTeam leaders\n\nSource: Minnesota Vikings' official website\n\nLeague rankings\n\nSource: NFL.com.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nMinnesota\nMinnesota Vikings seasons\nMinnesota Vikings\nNFC North championship seasons",
"The Cowboys–Vikings rivalry is a rivalry between the Dallas Cowboys and Minnesota Vikings. It was considered one of the best NFL rivalries in the 1970s although it has calmed a bit in recent years. Games between the two are still consequential for the NFC playoff race and three of the last four games have been on primetime. The last six games have been one score games and the Cowboys have come from behind for victories in four of the last five games.\n\nThe overall series is led by Dallas 18-15. The Cowboys and Vikings have played 7 times in the playoffs making this one of the most played playoff series in league history (the most played Vikings playoff opponent and the third most played opponent for the Cowboys after the Rams and Packers). The Cowboys lead the playoff series 4-3. Some of the more notable moments include the 1975 Hail Mary against the Vikings, the Herschel Walker trade, Randy Moss leading the Vikings to victory against the Cowboys in 1998, and Brett Favre defeating the Cowboys in the 2009 playoffs.\n\nMemorable Moments\n In 1975, the Dallas Cowboys traveled to the Twin Cities for a Divisional Playoff game. The Vikings looked to have the game wrapped-up with a late lead 14-10. However, Roger Staubach threw a 50-yard touchdown pass to Drew Pearson in what became known as the Hail Mary game.\n In 1989, the Minnesota Vikings and Dallas Cowboys were part of the largest player trade in NFL history, called the Herschel Walker trade. The Vikings received Herschel Walker and three picks from the Cowboys in exchange for eight picks given to the Cowboys. The Vikings felt it was the last piece needed to make a Super Bowl run. Instead, the trade catapulted the Cowboys to three Super Bowl wins in the 1990s; the Vikings won none with Walker. It is thus considered one of the worst trades in NFL history.\n In 1998, the Minnesota Vikings played the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving. Randy Moss famously had three touchdowns in a 46-36 thriller. \n In the 1999 playoffs, the Cowboys traveled to the Metrodome for a key wild-card playoff game. The Vikings would win 27-10. .\n In 2010, Dallas traveled to the Metrodome for the NFC Divisional playoff game with the Minnesota Vikings. The Vikings defeated the Cowboys 34-3. Late in the game, Cowboys player Keith Brooking was seen arguing with Vikings coaches because he believed the Vikings were running up the score. Cowboys head-coach Wade Phillips also believed Minnesota's late game aggression was uncalled for. The Vikings went on to lose the NFC Championship game 31-28 to the New Orleans Saints. \n In 2016, the Cowboys traveled to US Bank Stadium for their first game in the new stadium on Thursday Night Football. The Cowboys went into the game with a 10-1 record while the Vikings had fallen from an early 5-0 start. The Cowboys held on for a 17-15 victory as a late two-point conversion from Sam Bradford failed. The Cowboys went on to finish 13-3 with the number one overall seed in the playoffs.\n In 2019, the Vikings traveled to AT&T Stadium for a primetime Sunday Night Football game. The Vikings jumped out to a 14-0 lead on two Kirk Cousins touchdowns before the Cowboys fought back to take a 21-20 lead. The Vikings would win 28-24 with the Cowboys twice threatening the end-zone late in the game. Cowboys head-coach Jason Garrett was heavily criticized for late game play-calling. The Vikings went on to finish 10-6 with a playoff appearance while the Cowboys missed the playoffs at 8-8 with Jason Garrett being let go. This was considered one the best games of the 2019 season.\n\nGame results\n\n|-\n| rowspan=2|\n| style=\"| Cowboys 21–7 \n| Cotton Bowl\n| Cowboys 1–0\n| rowspan=2|Vikings' inaugural season.\n|-\n| style=\"| Cowboys 28–0 \n| Metropolitan Stadium\n| Cowboys 2–0\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Cowboys 28–17 \n| Cotton Bowl\n| Cowboys 3–0\n| \n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Cowboys 20–7 \n| Cotton Bowl\n| Cowboys 4–0\n| Final meeting at Cotton Bowl.\n|-\n\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Vikings 54–13\n| Metropolitan Stadium\n| Cowboys 4–1\n| First start in the series for Roger Staubach.\n|-\n! 1971 playoffs\n! style=\"| Cowboys 20–12\n! Metropolitan Stadium\n! Cowboys 5–1\n! NFC Divisional Round. Cowboys win Super Bowl VI.\n|-\n! 1973 playoffs\n! style=\"| Vikings 27–10\n! Texas Stadium\n! Cowboys 5–2\n! NFC Championship Game. First meeting at Texas Stadium. Vikings lose Super Bowl VIII.\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Vikings 23–21\n| Texas Stadium\n| Cowboys 5–3\n| Vikings lose Super Bowl IX.\n|-\n! 1975 playoffs\n! style=\"| Cowboys 17–14\n! Metropolitan Stadium\n! Cowboys 6–3\n! NFC Divisional Round (Hail Mary Game). Cowboys lose Super Bowl X.\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Cowboys 16–10(OT)\n| Metropolitan Stadium\n| Cowboys 7–3\n|\n|-\n! 1977 playoffs\n! style=\"| Cowboys 23–6\n! Texas Stadium\n! Cowboys 8–3\n! NFC Championship Game. Cowboys win Super Bowl XII.\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Vikings 21–10\n| Texas Stadium\n| Cowboys 8–4\n| Cowboys lose Super Bowl XIII.\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Cowboys 36–20\n| Metropolitan Stadium\n| Cowboys 9–4\n| Final meeting at Metropolitan Stadium. Final start in the series for Roger Staubach.\n|-\n\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Vikings 31–27\n| Metrodome\n| Cowboys 9–5\n| First meeting at Metrodome.\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Cowboys 37–24\n| Metrodome\n| Cowboys 10–5\n| \n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Vikings 44–38(OT)\n| Texas Stadium\n| Cowboys 10–6\n|\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Vikings 43–3\n| Texas Stadium\n| Cowboys 10–7\n| \n|-\n\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Cowboys 37–20\n| Metrodome\n| Cowboys 11–7\n| First start in series for Troy Aikman. Cowboys win Super Bowl XXVIII.\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Cowboys 23–17(OT) \n| Metrodome\n| Cowboys 12–7\n| Cowboys win Super Bowl XXX.\n|-\n! 1996 playoffs\n! style=\"| Cowboys 40–15\n! Texas Stadium\n! Cowboys 13–7\n! NFC Wild Card Round.\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Vikings 46–36 \n| Texas Stadium\n| Cowboys 13–8\n| Thanksgiving\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Vikings 27–17 \n| Metrodome\n| Cowboys 13–9\n|\n|-\n! 1999 playoffs\n! style=\"| Vikings 27–10 \n! Metrodome\n! Cowboys 13–10\n! NFC Wild Card Round.\n|-\n\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Vikings 27–15 \n| Texas Stadium\n| Cowboys 13–11\n| Last start in the series for Troy Aikman. Thanksgiving.\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Vikings 35–17 \n| Metrodome\n| Cowboys 13–12\n| \n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Cowboys 24–14 \n| Texas Stadium\n| Cowboys 14–12\n| Final meeting at Texas Stadium.\n|-\n! 2009 playoffs\n! style=\"| Vikings 34–3 \n! Metrodome\n! Cowboys 14–13\n! NFC Divisional Round. Last postseason meeting to date.\n|-\n\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Vikings 24–21\n| Metrodome\n| Tie 14–14\n| Final meeting at Metrodome.\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Cowboys 27–23\n| AT&T Stadium\n| Cowboys 15–14\n| First meeting at AT&T Stadium.\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Cowboys 17–15\n| US Bank Stadium\n| Cowboys 16–14\n| First meeting at US Bank Stadium. Thursday Night Football.\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Vikings 28–24\n| AT&T Stadium\n| Cowboys 16–15\n| Sunday Night Football.\n|-\n\n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Cowboys 31–28\n| US Bank Stadium\n| Cowboys 17–15\n| \n|-\n| \n| style=\"| Cowboys 20–16\n| US Bank Stadium\n| Cowboys 18–15\n| Sunday Night Football.\n|-\n| \n| TBD\n| US Bank Stadium\n| \n| TBD 2022 date\n|-\n\n|-\n| Regular season\n| style=\"|\n| style=\"|\n| style=\"|\n| \n|-\n| Postseason\n| style=\"|\n| style=\"|\n| Tie 2–2\n| NFC Wild Card Round: 1996, 1999. NFC Divisional Round: 1971, 1975, 2009. NFC Championship Game: 1973, 1977.\n|-\n| Regular and postseason \n| style=\"|\n| style=\"|\n| style=\"|\n| \n|-\n\nSee Also\n Hail Mary Pass\n Herschel Walker trade\n\nReferences\n\nNational Football League rivalries\nDallas Cowboys\nMinnesota Vikings"
] |
[
"Steve Young",
"Montana's backup: 1987-1990",
"Did Steve Young play any notable games while a backup?",
"Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41-0",
"Did they win that game?",
"41-0 victory.",
"Did he play any other notable games?",
"he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27-10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a fairly good performance",
"Who were the 49ers playing in this game?",
"Minnesota Vikings,",
"When was this game being played?",
"1987",
"Was this game played at the 49ers' stadium or the Vikings' stadium?",
"I don't know."
] | C_52dfda507a2f476c98e838aa6c80d9e5_1 | Did the 49ers play well during the 1987 to 1990 period? | 7 | Did the 49ers play well during the 1987 to 1990 period? | Steve Young | Young played behind Montana his first several years, but shone as a backup. Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41-0 victory. In their 1987 divisional playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings, he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27-10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a fairly good performance with 12/17 completions for 158 yards and a touchdown, with one interception, while also leading San Francisco in rushing with 72 yards and a touchdown on six carries. On October 30, 1988, Young ran for a 49-yard, game-winning touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings. He started the game out with a 73-yard touchdown pass to John Taylor, after Montana went down with an injury. The play earned the 49ers a 24-21 victory and a bit of revenge on the Vikings for their previous season's playoff loss. In 1989, he displayed his potential to become the team's starter in the future. While Montana won the NFL MVP award and led the team to victory in Super Bowl XXIV, Young still had a good season, completing 69% of his passes for 1,001 yards and eight touchdowns, with only three interceptions. On October 22, 1989, he posted a perfect passer rating of 158.3 when he completed 11 of 12 passes for 188 yards and three touchdown passes in a 37-20 victory over the New England Patriots. In his four seasons as a backup, Young had thrown 23 touchdown passes and only six interceptions. He rushed for a career-high 102 yards on just eight carries vs. the New Orleans Saints on December 23, 1990, making him only the second 49ers quarterback to rush for at least 100 yards in a single game. The 49ers lost the game 13-10. CANNOTANSWER | The play earned the 49ers a 24-21 victory and a bit of revenge on the Vikings for their previous season's playoff loss. | Jon Steven Young (born October 11, 1961) is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 15 seasons, primarily with the San Francisco 49ers. He also played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Prior to his NFL career, he was a member of the Los Angeles Express in the United States Football League (USFL) for two seasons. Young played college football for Brigham Young University (BYU), setting school and NCAA records en route to being runner-up for the 1983 Heisman Trophy.
Young was named the AP's NFL Most Valuable Player in 1992 and 1994, and was the MVP of Super Bowl XXIX. During his 1994 MVP campaign, he set a new NFL record for passer rating at 112.8. He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Young was an extremely efficient passer – leading the league in passer rating a record six times, and completion percentage and yards per attempt five times. At the time of his retirement, he had the highest passer rating among NFL quarterbacks with at least 1,500 passing attempts (96.8). As of the end of the 2020 season, he is ranked tenth all-time in passer rating, and is ranked fourth highest amongst retired players, behind only Drew Brees, Tom Brady, and Tony Romo. His 43 career rushing touchdowns are second among quarterbacks, while his 4,239 rushing yards ranks fifth all time.
Early years
Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Young attended Greenwich High School in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he played quarterback on its Cardinals football team. He earned 1978 All-FCIAC West Division First Team honors in his junior year, his first year as a starter. In his senior year he rushed for 13 touchdowns and earned All-FCIAC West Division First Team honors, and was named to the CIAC All-State team. In the rush-first option offense run by Greenwich he completed only 41 percent of his throws for 1,220 yards, but ran the ball 267 times for 1,928 yards. On Thanksgiving Day in November 1979, Greenwich lost to Darien High School, known for its "Tidal Wave Defense", 17–0. During his senior year, he was co-captain of the football, basketball and baseball teams. In basketball, he averaged 15 points a game. In baseball, he hit .384 and played center field when he wasn't pitching. He was 5–1 and threw a 3–0 no-hitter against New Canaan High School.
College football
Young was heavily recruited by the University of North Carolina. Coach Dick Crum was enamored by Young's running ability, and wanted him to run his option offense. Young instead chose BYU. Initially, he struggled at throwing the ball, and BYU's coaching staff considered switching him to defensive back because of his athleticism. However, he worked hard to improve his passing skills and eventually succeeded record-setting Jim McMahon as BYU's starting QB. Young's senior season (1983) was spectacular. He passed for 3,902 yards and 33 touchdowns in the regular season, and his 71.3% completion percentage set an NCAA single-season record. He also added 544 yards rushing. With Young at quarterback, BYU set an NCAA record by averaging 584.2 yards of total offense per game, with 370.5 of those yards coming from Young's passing and rushing. The Cougars finished the year with an impressive 11–1 record; Young was named a unanimous All-American and received the Davey O'Brien National Quarterback Award, which recognizes the nation's best collegiate quarterback each year. He also finished second in voting for the Heisman Trophy, behind Nebraska running back Mike Rozier. Young capped his college career by scoring the game-winning touchdown on a pass from the halfback in BYU's 21–17 victory over Missouri in the 1983 Holiday Bowl.
Young finished his college career with 592 pass completions for 7,733 yards and 56 touchdowns, along with 1,048 yards and 18 touchdowns rushing. He was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame in 2001.
Professional football
USFL
Los Angeles Express
Young was selected by the Los Angeles Express in the first round (11th overall) of the 1984 USFL Draft. He signed a record ten-year, $40 million contract with the Express in He agreed to take his payment in the form of an annuity paid out over forty years to help the fledgling team.
It was taken for granted that Young would be the first pick in the 1984 NFL Draft, and that he would be selected by the Cincinnati Bengals, who were three years removed from the Super Bowl and had landed the No. 1 pick in a trade with the then-moribund Tampa Bay Buccaneers. However, the Bengals still had Ken Anderson as their quarterback and planned to have Young sit behind Anderson for the 1984 season before possibly taking over in 1985. Young found that prospect unappealing, which opened the door for the Express. Express general manager Don Klosterman told Young that if he signed with the Express, his head coach would be John Hadl, a former All-Pro quarterback who had shepherded John Elway through his first year in the NFL. Klosterman also told Young that Hall of Fame coach Sid Gillman, who had been hired as a consultant, would tutor him on how to be a pro quarterback. Young was convinced, and signed with the Express.
At the time, it was another huge signing by the fledgling league, which had already succeeded in signing both the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, running back Mike Rozier of Nebraska; and the previous winner, Georgia running back Herschel Walker. After missing the first six games of his rookie season while taking some college classes in order to graduate on time, Young started the final twelve. He had a respectable year, highlighted by becoming the first pro football player ever to pass for 300 yards and rush for 100 in a single game. Despite being surrounded with talent which included such future NFL players as Jojo Townsell, Mel Gray, and Kevin Nelson, and making the playoffs in Young's first season, the Express was never able to create a sustaining fan base in Los Angeles.
Late in the season, The New York Times published an investigation of owner J. William Oldenburg's finances that suggested Oldenburg was not as well off as he claimed. The FBI had been investigating Oldenburg since the middle of the season. A week after the Times article, Oldenburg stopped paying the Express' bills, forcing the league to draw on the team's emergency line of credit to keep it going through the playoffs. Houston Gamblers minority partner Jay Roulier stepped in to buy the team, only to be pushed out when it emerged that he too had misrepresented his net worth. The league took control of the team and cut expenditures to the bare minimum. The other teams made contributions to keep the Express going through the season – enough to meet payroll, but not much else.
Under the circumstances, the 1985 season rapidly became a fiasco. Before one game, the team bus driver refused to drive the Express to their final home game – which had been moved to Los Angeles Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley – unless he was paid up front in cash. Young contributed some money, as did the team trainer, and the driver took them to the game. In the season finale at Orlando, Young had to line up at tailback because a rash of injuries had left the Express without any healthy running backs. The owners had refused to allocate any money to allow the Express to replace injured players.
It was reported that Young had insured the contract and would still be paid until 2027. However, a 1985 Los Angeles Times article stated that he received a $1.4 million settlement on the annuity.
The league ceased operations in 1986 after losing most of its claims in an antitrust suit against the NFL, with its top talent absorbed by the NFL in a dispersal draft conducted in the aftermath.
NFL
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Young grew increasingly dissatisfied with the disarray surrounding the Express. Just a week before what proved to be the last USFL title game, Young gave the USFL an ultimatum – find a new owner for the Express, or allow him to buy out his contract and go to the NFL. Soon after the league decided to suspend the Express's operations for the 1986 season, Young bought out his Express contract and signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who had made him the first pick in a supplemental draft of USFL and CFL players a year earlier.
By this time, the Bucs were in the midst of what would be 12 consecutive 10-loss seasons. They posted identical 2–14 records in Young's two seasons with them, going 3–16 with him as a starter. Young threw for only 11 touchdowns with 21 interceptions while completing fewer than 55% of his passes.
San Francisco 49ers
The Buccaneers selected University of Miami quarterback Vinny Testaverde first overall in the 1987 NFL Draft because Young was deemed a bust. Young was traded to the San Francisco 49ers on April 24, 1987 to serve as a backup to Joe Montana. 49ers coach Bill Walsh was impressed by Young's natural abilities, and believed his lackluster numbers were primarily due to the lack of talent around him in Tampa Bay.
The Buccaneers received second and fourth round draft picks in the trade, which they used to draft Miami linebacker Winston Moss, and Arizona State wide receiver Bruce Hill, respectively.
Montana's backup: 1987–1990
Young played behind Montana for four years, but shone as a backup. Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41–0 victory. In their 1987 divisional playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings, he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27–10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a good performance, completing 12 of 17 pass attempts for 158 yards and a touchdown, with one interception, while also leading San Francisco in rushing with 72 yards and a touchdown on six carries. On October 30, 1988, Young ran for a 49-yard, game-winning touchdown against the Vikings. He started the game out with a 73-yard touchdown pass to John Taylor, after Montana went down with an injury. The play earned the 49ers a 24–21 victory and a bit of revenge on the Vikings for their previous season's playoff loss. The win turned out to be crucial, as without it the 49ers would have finished the season 9–7 and missed the playoffs, as two other teams in their division, the Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints, had 10–6 records. Instead, the 49ers won their division, earned the #2 playoff seed, and went on to win the Super Bowl.
In 1989, he displayed potential to become the team's starter in the future. While Montana won the NFL MVP award and led the team to victory in Super Bowl XXIV, Young still had a good season, completing 69% of his passes for 1,001 yards and eight touchdowns, with only three interceptions. On October 22, 1989, he posted a perfect passer rating of 158.3 when he completed 11 of 12 passes for 188 yards and three touchdown passes in a 37–20 victory over the New England Patriots.
He rushed for a career-high 102 yards on just eight carries against the New Orleans Saints on December 23, 1990, making him only the second 49ers quarterback to rush for at least 100 yards in a single game. The 49ers lost the game 13–10.
In his four seasons as a backup, Young threw 23 touchdown passes and only six interceptions.
1991 season
Following an injury to Montana's elbow in the 1990 NFC Championship Game, which forced him to miss the entire 1991 season, Young got his chance to lead the 49ers. He got off to a rough start. Midway through the season, the 49ers found themselves struggling with a 4–4 record. In the ninth game of the season, after throwing a franchise-record 97-yard touchdown pass to Taylor, Young suffered a knee injury and was replaced by backup quarterback Steve Bono. After a loss in that game and the next, Bono led the 49ers to five consecutive victories, playing so well that coach George Seifert decided to keep him in the starting lineup after Young had recovered. It wasn't until late in the 15th game of the season, after Bono went down with an injury of his own, that Young got to play again. Young then closed out the season by throwing for 338 yards and three touchdowns and also rushing for 63 yards and another touchdown in a 52–14 win over the Chicago Bears in a Monday Night Football game at Candlestick Park.
Young finished the season with an NFL best 101.8 passer rating. Despite missing five full games and most of a sixth, he still threw for 2,517 yards and 17 touchdowns with only 8 interceptions. But despite Young's strong season, the season for the team was widely regarded as a disappointment. The 49ers had slipped from a 14–2 record in the previous season to a 10–6 record in 1991. While 10 wins is usually enough to make the playoffs, this time it was not, and San Francisco ended up not playing in the postseason for the first time since 1982. It was thought by many that Young's days as the 49ers starter were numbered due to the impending return of Montana from the injury to his right elbow, and some observers said the 49ers should trade Young and keep Montana and Bono. However, the trade never happened.
1992 season: first MVP
By the start of the 1992 season, it appeared that Young's starting job was in serious peril. In addition to having to compete with Bono, Montana appeared to be close to recovering from his elbow tendon surgery. San Francisco came close to trading Young to the Los Angeles Raiders, but no deal was finalized and it turned out that Montana would not recover in time to start in the opening game. Montana would not return until the final game of the 1992 season, a Monday Night home game against the Detroit Lions. Montana played the entire second half of that final game and guided the 49ers to victory.
Young ended up as San Francisco's starting quarterback, but once again got off to a rough start. On the fifth play of the opening game at the Giants, he suffered a concussion and was replaced by Bono, who threw two touchdown passes while leading the 49ers to a 31–14 win. The following week, San Francisco lost 34–31 to the Buffalo Bills, despite a career-high 449 passing yards and three touchdowns from Young, in a game that for the first time in NFL history had zero punts from either team.
Young recovered and led the 49ers on a five-game winning streak, capped off by a 56–17 win over the Atlanta Falcons in which Young passed for 399 yards and three touchdowns. After missing most of the next game (a 24–14 loss to the Cardinals) with the flu, he led San Francisco to victory in all of their remaining games of the season, giving the team a 14–2 record. He went on to throw for 227 yards and 2 touchdowns, and rush for 73 yards, in a 20–13 divisional playoff win over the Washington Redskins. The 49ers lost the NFC title game, however, 30–20 against the eventual Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys. Young threw for 313 yards, completing 71.4% of his passes while passing for one touchdown and rushing for another. He also threw two interceptions, but the final one came with the outcome of the game already decided.
Young finished the season with 3,465 passing yards and 537 rushing yards, along with an NFL-best 25 touchdown passes and 107.0 passer rating, earning him the NFL Most Valuable Player Award and his first selection to the Pro Bowl. He was the first quarterback ever to record a triple-digit rating in consecutive seasons. Many credit Young's turnaround to the mentoring of the 49ers' new offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan, who worked with Young on combining his running skill with on-the-move passing decisions.
1993 season
Before the start of the 1993 season, team owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. announced that he wanted Montana to resume his role as starting quarterback for the 49ers. However, a rift in the locker room had developed, with players split on whom they wanted at quarterback. In the spring of 1993, at Montana's request, San Francisco traded Montana to the Kansas City Chiefs. Young was now the 49ers' undisputed starter, and would remain so for the rest of his career. But once again, he had a rough start to the season. Over the first four games of 1993, Young, who was hindered by a swollen thumb on his throwing hand, threw eight interceptions, more than he had thrown during the entire 1992 season. But after his thumb healed, Young went on an incredible streak over a span of seven games, throwing 16 touchdown passes with only 2 interceptions and a 122.2 passer rating. By the end of the year, Young set franchise records for most passing yards (4,023), and consecutive passes thrown without an interception (189), (later eclipsed by Alex Smith in 2012) while leading the NFL in touchdown passes (29) and passer rating (101.5). The team slipped to a 10–6 record, but advanced to the NFC championship game again by blowing out the New York Giants 44–3 in the divisional round. However, once again they were defeated by the Dallas Cowboys, this time 38–21.
1994 season: second MVP and Super Bowl run
After several key free agent signings including All-Pro cornerback Deion Sanders and NFL Draft selections, the 49ers looked to win their first Super Bowl since 1989. They started fast, beating the Los Angeles Raiders 44–14 on the strength of four touchdown passes from Young, one of four games during the regular season in which he had at least four. After a loss in a much-anticipated game to Joe Montana and the Kansas City Chiefs, the 49ers won their next two games before losing to the Philadelphia Eagles 40–8 at Candlestick Park, a game in which Young was eventually benched in the middle of an offensive series. Although head coach George Seifert later said he only pulled Young because he was getting manhandled by the Eagles' defense, Young had had enough of being scapegoated for 49er shortfalls and loudly (and visibly) lambasted Seifert over his decision while standing on the sideline during the game.
But the game was considered a turning point in the season; from there, Young led the team to 10 consecutive wins, by an average of 20 points, before losing the meaningless finale against the Vikings in which Young completed his first 12 of 13 attempts before going to the sidelines. They finished an NFL best 13–3, securing home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs. The 49ers had the number-one offense in the NFL, and were so dominant that Seifert often took Young out of games early if he felt that the 49ers had an insurmountable lead at the time.
After an easy 44–15 victory over the Chicago Bears in the divisional round of the playoffs, the 49ers jumped out to a 31–14 halftime lead over the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Championship Game, holding on to win 38–28. Young threw for two touchdowns, while adding 47 yards and another touchdown on the ground. As a result, he went to his first Super Bowl as a starting quarterback. The 49ers were heavy favorites to become the first team with five Super Bowl victories.
On the strength of a six-touchdown performance that surpassed the previous Super Bowl record of five, owned by the man Young replaced, Joe Montana, Steve Young was named the MVP of Super Bowl XXIX, as the 49ers defeated the San Diego Chargers, 49–26. Young also threw for 325 yards and rushed for 49 yards, making him the first player ever to finish a Super Bowl as the game's leader in both rushing and passing yards.
The victory capped off an incredible year for Young, who had one of the best seasons by a quarterback in NFL history. He threw for 3,969 yards, a then-franchise record 35 touchdown passes with only 10 interceptions, completed 70.3 percent of his passes – the highest completion percentage of the 1990s, third all-time, and at the time, the best completion percentage by any quarterback with more than 400 attempts (later eclipsed by Drew Brees in 2009). Additionally, Young broke Joe Montana's single-season mark with a then-record 112.8 passer rating, and also once again demonstrated his great scrambling ability, accumulating another 289 yards and 7 touchdowns on the ground. For his record-breaking season performances, Young was awarded his second AP NFL MVP award, becoming the 7th player in NFL history to win both league and Super Bowl MVP honors in the same season.
Later years and injuries
In the three years following Super Bowl XXIX, the 49ers would be eliminated each year by Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers, twice in San Francisco. In addition to the early playoff exits, Young suffered a series of injuries that forced him to miss several games from 1995 to 1997. Young entered the 1998 season at age 37 and some began to wonder if his skills would diminish because of his history of injuries and a general decline in his game due to age. However, he silenced all critics once again, putting up career numbers in passing yards (4,170) and passing touchdowns (36). The 49ers finally beat Favre and the Packers in an NFC wild card game that year, as Young threw the winning touchdown to wide receiver Terrell Owens with three seconds remaining to win the game 30–27. In reference to Dwight Clark's legendary catch against the Dallas Cowboys in the 1981 NFC championship game, Owens's grab was called "The Catch II". A week later, however, Garrison Hearst broke his ankle on the 49ers' first play from scrimmage. Without the threat of a running game, Young threw three interceptions (the last one a Hail Mary pass with under 30 seconds remaining in the game) and the 49ers were defeated by the Atlanta Falcons 20–18. Over that span of seasons from 1995 to 1998, Young led the NFL in passer rating twice (in 1996 and 1997), and led the NFL with 36 touchdown passes in 1998.
The 1999 season would turn out to be Young's last in the NFL. Young was plagued by concussions throughout his career. During a Week 3 Monday Night Football game against the Arizona Cardinals, Young was violently sacked by Cardinals cornerback Aeneas Williams on a blitz. Running back Lawrence Phillips was supposed to pick up Williams, but missed. Young was knocked out of the game with a concussion, and didn't return again for the rest of the season due to symptoms of post-concussion syndrome. The concussion he suffered against the Cardinals was reportedly his second in a season that was only three weeks old, and the seventh (at least) of his career. Following the season, the 49ers told him that he would be released if he did not retire. Although Young was offered a job as the starting quarterback of the Denver Broncos (where his former offensive coordinator, Mike Shanahan, was the head coach), he retired because of his repeated concussions. In a 2013 Frontline interview, Young said that, partially based upon their own experiences, he and many retired players are increasingly concerned about repeated concussions and subconcussive hits. He is particularly concerned about certain positions that take frequent hits, such as running backs and linemen.
Career statistics and records
USFL career
NFL career
Records and legacy
Although Young did not become the 49ers' starter until his 8th NFL season, and he played a full season only three times (all consecutively) during his 15-year career, Young had a significant impact on the NFL. A two-time league MVP, he completed 2,667 of 4,149 passes for 33,124 yards and 232 touchdowns, with 107 interceptions, and 43 rushing touchdowns. His 96.8 career passer rating is the sixth highest in NFL history and second highest among retired players, behind Tony Romo; his 4,239 rushing yards are the fourth most ever gained by a quarterback, behind Michael Vick, Cam Newton, and Randall Cunningham. He was the NFL's top rated passer in six different seasons and led the league in touchdown passes four times. In 20 postseason games, he threw 20 touchdown passes with only 13 interceptions, and scored 8 touchdowns on the ground. In his stint with the San Francisco 49ers, Young passed for 29,907 yards, 221 touchdowns, and 86 interceptions, with a passer rating of 101.4, highest in franchise history. He was also sacked 290 times, also most in franchise history.
NFL records
Tenth highest passer rating, career, including active players – 96.8
Fourth highest passer rating, career, retired players only – 96.8
Eighth highest career completion percentage, retired players – 64.3%
Most times led the league in passer rating, career – 6 (tied w/ Sammy Baugh)
Most consecutive times led the league in passer rating – 4 (1991–94)
One of seven QBs to lead the league in touchdown passes 4 times (tied with Johnny Unitas, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Len Dawson)
Most passes attempted, playoff game – 65 vs. Green Bay, 1995
Most TD passes, playoff game – 6 (tied w/Daryle Lamonica & Tom Brady)
Most TD passes in one Super Bowl – 6
Most rushing yards by a QB, postseason career – 594
Most rushing touchdowns by a QB, postseason career – 8
49ers records
Highest completion percentage (20+ Atts) (Game): vs Detroit (10/20/91), 90.0
Most average yards per attempt (20+ Atts) (Game): vs Detroit (12/19/93), 15.39
Most touchdown passes (season): 36 (1998)
Best completion percentage (season): 70.3 (1994)
Best passer rating (season): 112.8 (1994)
Most 300-yard passing games (season): 7 (1998)
Best passer rating (career): 101.4
Most average yards per attempt (career): 8.20
Most consecutive games with a touchdown pass: 18, at Det. (10/9/94) to vs. StL (11/26/95) note: (DNP in 5 games in 1995)
Best completion percentage (career): 65.8
Most rushing touchdowns by a quarterback (career): 43
In 1999, he was ranked No. 63 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. Young was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on February 5, 2005; he was the first left-handed quarterback to be so honored. He was enshrined August 7, 2005. His induction speech was given by his father, LeGrande "Grit" Young.
The San Francisco 49ers had his No. 8 jersey retired during a halftime ceremony against the New England Patriots on October 5, 2008. He was the 11th player in team history to receive this honor. He is also the only 49er in team history to wear No. 8.
Post-football
Business career
In 1994, Young received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from BYU's J. Reuben Clark Law School.
In 2000, Young spoke at the Republican National Convention.
In 2007, Young co-founded Huntsman Gay Global Capital (HGGC), with billionaire industrialist Jon M. Huntsman and former Bain Capital executive Robert C. Gay. After being involved in business ventures with the private equity firm, he has continued to serve as a managing director.
In 2011, Young was one of several notable BYU athletes and coaches who appeared in the school's "Real Cougar" advertising campaign, which featured the individuals telling an actual cougar about being a "real cougar". In one of the ads, Young poked fun at himself:
Young: I love BYU so much I even got my law degree here.
Cougar: (growls)
Young: Lawyers... I know.
Acting career
Young has both performed dramatic roles and appeared as himself in a limited acting career. He appeared in one episode of Frasier and one episode of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (cast as Lois' former high school football quarterback boyfriend, Joe Maloy). He also made a guest appearance as himself in the Dharma & Greg episode "Are You Ready for Some Football?" encouraging Dharma, the team's Number One Fan. In 1995, Young appeared as himself in the Season 6, Episode 12 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. He also made cameo appearances in the LDS comedy The Singles Ward (2002) and in a season 5 episode of BYUtv's Studio C (2014). Young also made a guest appearance as himself in season 8 of the NBC comedy series Wings in the episode "Just Call Me Angel".
Young was originally offered a part in the 1998 movie There's Something About Mary, but turned the role down. He was replaced by Brett Favre.
Philanthropy
Young serves as a National Advisor to ASCEND: A Humanitarian Alliance. This non-profit organization plans expeditions to African and South American countries to provide life skills mentoring with sustainable solutions in education, enterprise, health and simple technology.
In 1993, Young founded a charitable foundation known as the Forever Young Foundation, which serves children facing significant physical, emotional, and financial challenges by providing academic, athletic, and therapeutic opportunities otherwise unavailable to them.
Young also serves as the national spokesman for an organization founded by former Save Darfur Coalition executive director and founder, David Rubenstein. He began his affiliation with the organization in 2009, when he became the honorary league commissioner for their charitable dodgeball tournaments held on college campuses nationwide.
Personal life
Young is a great-great-great-nephew of Brigham Young, second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for whom BYU is named. His father, LeGrande "Grit" Young, played football at BYU in the late 1950s. He led the school in scoring in 1955 and in rushing and total offense in 1959. Steve Young's younger brothers, Mike and Tom, both played quarterback at BYU after Steve, but neither received much playing time.
Young has been married to Barbara Graham since 2000. They have two sons and two daughters. According to A Football Life: As his playing career ended before his eldest child was born, he wrote his autobiography QB: My Life Behind the Spiral initially as a private memoir for his children.
See also
Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame
List of NCAA major college football yearly passing leaders
List of NCAA major college football yearly total offense leaders
List of NFL quarterbacks who have posted a perfect passer rating
References
External links
1961 births
All-American college football players
American color commentators
American football quarterbacks
American male television actors
American philanthropists
Brigham Young University alumni
BYU Cougars football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Greenwich High School alumni
J. Reuben Clark Law School alumni
Latter Day Saints from California
Latter Day Saints from Connecticut
Latter Day Saints from Utah
Living people
Los Angeles Express players
National Conference Pro Bowl players
National Football League Most Valuable Player Award winners
National Football League Offensive Player of the Year Award winners
National Football League players with retired numbers
Players of American football from Connecticut
Players of American football from Salt Lake City
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
Richards–Young family
San Francisco 49ers players
Sportspeople from Greenwich, Connecticut
Super Bowl MVPs
Tampa Bay Buccaneers players
Utah Republicans | false | [
"The 49ers' flagship radio stations are Cumulus Media's KSAN 107.7 FM (\"The Bone\") in San Jose, while KNBR/FM 680 AM/104.5 FM, and KTCT 1050 AM serve as the San Francisco/Oakland flagships. KSAN airs all 49ers games on FM. On AM, they are simulcast on KTCT in August, September, and October and on KNBR from October to the end of the season. Joe Starkey, best known as the voice of the University of California and The Play, was previously the color commentator on the broadcasts next to legendary announcer Lon Simmons in 1987 and 1988 and took over as lead commentator in 1989. Lon Simmons and Gordy Soltau did the broadcasts on KSFO in the 1949s and 1960s. For a brief period in the late 1970s and early 1980s Don Klein, \"the voice of Stanford\", did the 49ers' games. Starkey first teamed with former Detroit Lions' and KPIX Sports Director, Wayne Walker and then former 49ers' linebacker Gary Plummer formed the broadcast team from 1998 to 2008, with Starkey retiring after the 2008 season. Ted Robinson replaced Starkey and teamed up with Plummer for the 2009 and 2010 seasons. Plummer was relieved of his color commentating duties for the 2011 season and replaced by former teammate Eric Davis. Tim Ryan replaced Davis in 2014. Greg Papa replaced Robinson on play-by-play in 2019.\n\nPre-season games not shown on national television are shown on ABC owned-and-operated station KGO-TV (channel 7), along with Monday Night Football telecasts. When playing in the regular season, those games can be televised on Fox owned-and-operated station KTVU (channel 2). KPIX-TV (channel 5, the CBS owned-and-operated station) airs any games against an AFC opponent at home or flexed to CBS. NBC owned-and-operated station KNTV (channel 11) airs Sunday Night Football broadcasts.\n\nRadio announcers\nSource: San Francisco 49ers Football on the Radio (1946–2008) – Bay Area Radio Museum & Hall of Fame.\n\nRadio network\nSource:\n\nCalifornia\n\nHawaii\n\nNevada\n\nOregon\n\nReference\n\nSan Francisco 49ers\n \nBroadcasters\nSan Francisco 49ers",
"The 2015–16 Charlotte 49ers men's basketball team represented the University of North Carolina at Charlotte during the 2015–16 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The 49ers, led by first year head coach Mark Price, played their home games at the Dale F. Halton Arena and were members Conference USA. They finished the season 14–19, 9–9 in C-USA play to finish in seventh place. They defeated Rice in the second round of the C-USA Tournament to advance to the quarterfinals where they lost to Middle Tennessee.\n\nPrevious season\nThe 49ers finished the 2014–15 season 14–18, 7–11 in C-USA play to finish in a tie for eleventh place. They lost in the first round of the C-USA Tournament to Middle Tennessee.\n\nDepartures\n\nIncoming transfers\n\nClass of 2015 recruits\n\n0\n\nRoster\n\nSchedule\n\n|-\n!colspan=12 style=| Exhibition\n\n|-\n!colspan=12 style=| Regular season\n\n|-\n!colspan=12 style=| Conference USA Tournament\n\nReferences\n\nCharlotte\nCharlotte 49ers men's basketball seasons\nCharlotte 49ers men's basketball\nCharlotte 49ers men's basketball"
] |
[
"Steve Young",
"Montana's backup: 1987-1990",
"Did Steve Young play any notable games while a backup?",
"Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41-0",
"Did they win that game?",
"41-0 victory.",
"Did he play any other notable games?",
"he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27-10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a fairly good performance",
"Who were the 49ers playing in this game?",
"Minnesota Vikings,",
"When was this game being played?",
"1987",
"Was this game played at the 49ers' stadium or the Vikings' stadium?",
"I don't know.",
"Did the 49ers play well during the 1987 to 1990 period?",
"The play earned the 49ers a 24-21 victory and a bit of revenge on the Vikings for their previous season's playoff loss."
] | C_52dfda507a2f476c98e838aa6c80d9e5_1 | Did they ever get to the Super Bowl while Steve Young was there? | 8 | Did Minnesota Vikings ever get to the Super Bowl while Steve Young was there? | Steve Young | Young played behind Montana his first several years, but shone as a backup. Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41-0 victory. In their 1987 divisional playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings, he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27-10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a fairly good performance with 12/17 completions for 158 yards and a touchdown, with one interception, while also leading San Francisco in rushing with 72 yards and a touchdown on six carries. On October 30, 1988, Young ran for a 49-yard, game-winning touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings. He started the game out with a 73-yard touchdown pass to John Taylor, after Montana went down with an injury. The play earned the 49ers a 24-21 victory and a bit of revenge on the Vikings for their previous season's playoff loss. In 1989, he displayed his potential to become the team's starter in the future. While Montana won the NFL MVP award and led the team to victory in Super Bowl XXIV, Young still had a good season, completing 69% of his passes for 1,001 yards and eight touchdowns, with only three interceptions. On October 22, 1989, he posted a perfect passer rating of 158.3 when he completed 11 of 12 passes for 188 yards and three touchdown passes in a 37-20 victory over the New England Patriots. In his four seasons as a backup, Young had thrown 23 touchdown passes and only six interceptions. He rushed for a career-high 102 yards on just eight carries vs. the New Orleans Saints on December 23, 1990, making him only the second 49ers quarterback to rush for at least 100 yards in a single game. The 49ers lost the game 13-10. CANNOTANSWER | While Montana won the NFL MVP award and led the team to victory in Super Bowl XXIV, Young still had a good season, | Jon Steven Young (born October 11, 1961) is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 15 seasons, primarily with the San Francisco 49ers. He also played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Prior to his NFL career, he was a member of the Los Angeles Express in the United States Football League (USFL) for two seasons. Young played college football for Brigham Young University (BYU), setting school and NCAA records en route to being runner-up for the 1983 Heisman Trophy.
Young was named the AP's NFL Most Valuable Player in 1992 and 1994, and was the MVP of Super Bowl XXIX. During his 1994 MVP campaign, he set a new NFL record for passer rating at 112.8. He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Young was an extremely efficient passer – leading the league in passer rating a record six times, and completion percentage and yards per attempt five times. At the time of his retirement, he had the highest passer rating among NFL quarterbacks with at least 1,500 passing attempts (96.8). As of the end of the 2020 season, he is ranked tenth all-time in passer rating, and is ranked fourth highest amongst retired players, behind only Drew Brees, Tom Brady, and Tony Romo. His 43 career rushing touchdowns are second among quarterbacks, while his 4,239 rushing yards ranks fifth all time.
Early years
Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Young attended Greenwich High School in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he played quarterback on its Cardinals football team. He earned 1978 All-FCIAC West Division First Team honors in his junior year, his first year as a starter. In his senior year he rushed for 13 touchdowns and earned All-FCIAC West Division First Team honors, and was named to the CIAC All-State team. In the rush-first option offense run by Greenwich he completed only 41 percent of his throws for 1,220 yards, but ran the ball 267 times for 1,928 yards. On Thanksgiving Day in November 1979, Greenwich lost to Darien High School, known for its "Tidal Wave Defense", 17–0. During his senior year, he was co-captain of the football, basketball and baseball teams. In basketball, he averaged 15 points a game. In baseball, he hit .384 and played center field when he wasn't pitching. He was 5–1 and threw a 3–0 no-hitter against New Canaan High School.
College football
Young was heavily recruited by the University of North Carolina. Coach Dick Crum was enamored by Young's running ability, and wanted him to run his option offense. Young instead chose BYU. Initially, he struggled at throwing the ball, and BYU's coaching staff considered switching him to defensive back because of his athleticism. However, he worked hard to improve his passing skills and eventually succeeded record-setting Jim McMahon as BYU's starting QB. Young's senior season (1983) was spectacular. He passed for 3,902 yards and 33 touchdowns in the regular season, and his 71.3% completion percentage set an NCAA single-season record. He also added 544 yards rushing. With Young at quarterback, BYU set an NCAA record by averaging 584.2 yards of total offense per game, with 370.5 of those yards coming from Young's passing and rushing. The Cougars finished the year with an impressive 11–1 record; Young was named a unanimous All-American and received the Davey O'Brien National Quarterback Award, which recognizes the nation's best collegiate quarterback each year. He also finished second in voting for the Heisman Trophy, behind Nebraska running back Mike Rozier. Young capped his college career by scoring the game-winning touchdown on a pass from the halfback in BYU's 21–17 victory over Missouri in the 1983 Holiday Bowl.
Young finished his college career with 592 pass completions for 7,733 yards and 56 touchdowns, along with 1,048 yards and 18 touchdowns rushing. He was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame in 2001.
Professional football
USFL
Los Angeles Express
Young was selected by the Los Angeles Express in the first round (11th overall) of the 1984 USFL Draft. He signed a record ten-year, $40 million contract with the Express in He agreed to take his payment in the form of an annuity paid out over forty years to help the fledgling team.
It was taken for granted that Young would be the first pick in the 1984 NFL Draft, and that he would be selected by the Cincinnati Bengals, who were three years removed from the Super Bowl and had landed the No. 1 pick in a trade with the then-moribund Tampa Bay Buccaneers. However, the Bengals still had Ken Anderson as their quarterback and planned to have Young sit behind Anderson for the 1984 season before possibly taking over in 1985. Young found that prospect unappealing, which opened the door for the Express. Express general manager Don Klosterman told Young that if he signed with the Express, his head coach would be John Hadl, a former All-Pro quarterback who had shepherded John Elway through his first year in the NFL. Klosterman also told Young that Hall of Fame coach Sid Gillman, who had been hired as a consultant, would tutor him on how to be a pro quarterback. Young was convinced, and signed with the Express.
At the time, it was another huge signing by the fledgling league, which had already succeeded in signing both the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, running back Mike Rozier of Nebraska; and the previous winner, Georgia running back Herschel Walker. After missing the first six games of his rookie season while taking some college classes in order to graduate on time, Young started the final twelve. He had a respectable year, highlighted by becoming the first pro football player ever to pass for 300 yards and rush for 100 in a single game. Despite being surrounded with talent which included such future NFL players as Jojo Townsell, Mel Gray, and Kevin Nelson, and making the playoffs in Young's first season, the Express was never able to create a sustaining fan base in Los Angeles.
Late in the season, The New York Times published an investigation of owner J. William Oldenburg's finances that suggested Oldenburg was not as well off as he claimed. The FBI had been investigating Oldenburg since the middle of the season. A week after the Times article, Oldenburg stopped paying the Express' bills, forcing the league to draw on the team's emergency line of credit to keep it going through the playoffs. Houston Gamblers minority partner Jay Roulier stepped in to buy the team, only to be pushed out when it emerged that he too had misrepresented his net worth. The league took control of the team and cut expenditures to the bare minimum. The other teams made contributions to keep the Express going through the season – enough to meet payroll, but not much else.
Under the circumstances, the 1985 season rapidly became a fiasco. Before one game, the team bus driver refused to drive the Express to their final home game – which had been moved to Los Angeles Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley – unless he was paid up front in cash. Young contributed some money, as did the team trainer, and the driver took them to the game. In the season finale at Orlando, Young had to line up at tailback because a rash of injuries had left the Express without any healthy running backs. The owners had refused to allocate any money to allow the Express to replace injured players.
It was reported that Young had insured the contract and would still be paid until 2027. However, a 1985 Los Angeles Times article stated that he received a $1.4 million settlement on the annuity.
The league ceased operations in 1986 after losing most of its claims in an antitrust suit against the NFL, with its top talent absorbed by the NFL in a dispersal draft conducted in the aftermath.
NFL
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Young grew increasingly dissatisfied with the disarray surrounding the Express. Just a week before what proved to be the last USFL title game, Young gave the USFL an ultimatum – find a new owner for the Express, or allow him to buy out his contract and go to the NFL. Soon after the league decided to suspend the Express's operations for the 1986 season, Young bought out his Express contract and signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who had made him the first pick in a supplemental draft of USFL and CFL players a year earlier.
By this time, the Bucs were in the midst of what would be 12 consecutive 10-loss seasons. They posted identical 2–14 records in Young's two seasons with them, going 3–16 with him as a starter. Young threw for only 11 touchdowns with 21 interceptions while completing fewer than 55% of his passes.
San Francisco 49ers
The Buccaneers selected University of Miami quarterback Vinny Testaverde first overall in the 1987 NFL Draft because Young was deemed a bust. Young was traded to the San Francisco 49ers on April 24, 1987 to serve as a backup to Joe Montana. 49ers coach Bill Walsh was impressed by Young's natural abilities, and believed his lackluster numbers were primarily due to the lack of talent around him in Tampa Bay.
The Buccaneers received second and fourth round draft picks in the trade, which they used to draft Miami linebacker Winston Moss, and Arizona State wide receiver Bruce Hill, respectively.
Montana's backup: 1987–1990
Young played behind Montana for four years, but shone as a backup. Substituting for an injured Montana, early in the first quarter of a 1987 game against the Chicago Bears, he threw four touchdown passes in a 41–0 victory. In their 1987 divisional playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings, he replaced Montana in the second half after the team fell behind 27–10. The 49ers still lost the game, but Young had a good performance, completing 12 of 17 pass attempts for 158 yards and a touchdown, with one interception, while also leading San Francisco in rushing with 72 yards and a touchdown on six carries. On October 30, 1988, Young ran for a 49-yard, game-winning touchdown against the Vikings. He started the game out with a 73-yard touchdown pass to John Taylor, after Montana went down with an injury. The play earned the 49ers a 24–21 victory and a bit of revenge on the Vikings for their previous season's playoff loss. The win turned out to be crucial, as without it the 49ers would have finished the season 9–7 and missed the playoffs, as two other teams in their division, the Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints, had 10–6 records. Instead, the 49ers won their division, earned the #2 playoff seed, and went on to win the Super Bowl.
In 1989, he displayed potential to become the team's starter in the future. While Montana won the NFL MVP award and led the team to victory in Super Bowl XXIV, Young still had a good season, completing 69% of his passes for 1,001 yards and eight touchdowns, with only three interceptions. On October 22, 1989, he posted a perfect passer rating of 158.3 when he completed 11 of 12 passes for 188 yards and three touchdown passes in a 37–20 victory over the New England Patriots.
He rushed for a career-high 102 yards on just eight carries against the New Orleans Saints on December 23, 1990, making him only the second 49ers quarterback to rush for at least 100 yards in a single game. The 49ers lost the game 13–10.
In his four seasons as a backup, Young threw 23 touchdown passes and only six interceptions.
1991 season
Following an injury to Montana's elbow in the 1990 NFC Championship Game, which forced him to miss the entire 1991 season, Young got his chance to lead the 49ers. He got off to a rough start. Midway through the season, the 49ers found themselves struggling with a 4–4 record. In the ninth game of the season, after throwing a franchise-record 97-yard touchdown pass to Taylor, Young suffered a knee injury and was replaced by backup quarterback Steve Bono. After a loss in that game and the next, Bono led the 49ers to five consecutive victories, playing so well that coach George Seifert decided to keep him in the starting lineup after Young had recovered. It wasn't until late in the 15th game of the season, after Bono went down with an injury of his own, that Young got to play again. Young then closed out the season by throwing for 338 yards and three touchdowns and also rushing for 63 yards and another touchdown in a 52–14 win over the Chicago Bears in a Monday Night Football game at Candlestick Park.
Young finished the season with an NFL best 101.8 passer rating. Despite missing five full games and most of a sixth, he still threw for 2,517 yards and 17 touchdowns with only 8 interceptions. But despite Young's strong season, the season for the team was widely regarded as a disappointment. The 49ers had slipped from a 14–2 record in the previous season to a 10–6 record in 1991. While 10 wins is usually enough to make the playoffs, this time it was not, and San Francisco ended up not playing in the postseason for the first time since 1982. It was thought by many that Young's days as the 49ers starter were numbered due to the impending return of Montana from the injury to his right elbow, and some observers said the 49ers should trade Young and keep Montana and Bono. However, the trade never happened.
1992 season: first MVP
By the start of the 1992 season, it appeared that Young's starting job was in serious peril. In addition to having to compete with Bono, Montana appeared to be close to recovering from his elbow tendon surgery. San Francisco came close to trading Young to the Los Angeles Raiders, but no deal was finalized and it turned out that Montana would not recover in time to start in the opening game. Montana would not return until the final game of the 1992 season, a Monday Night home game against the Detroit Lions. Montana played the entire second half of that final game and guided the 49ers to victory.
Young ended up as San Francisco's starting quarterback, but once again got off to a rough start. On the fifth play of the opening game at the Giants, he suffered a concussion and was replaced by Bono, who threw two touchdown passes while leading the 49ers to a 31–14 win. The following week, San Francisco lost 34–31 to the Buffalo Bills, despite a career-high 449 passing yards and three touchdowns from Young, in a game that for the first time in NFL history had zero punts from either team.
Young recovered and led the 49ers on a five-game winning streak, capped off by a 56–17 win over the Atlanta Falcons in which Young passed for 399 yards and three touchdowns. After missing most of the next game (a 24–14 loss to the Cardinals) with the flu, he led San Francisco to victory in all of their remaining games of the season, giving the team a 14–2 record. He went on to throw for 227 yards and 2 touchdowns, and rush for 73 yards, in a 20–13 divisional playoff win over the Washington Redskins. The 49ers lost the NFC title game, however, 30–20 against the eventual Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys. Young threw for 313 yards, completing 71.4% of his passes while passing for one touchdown and rushing for another. He also threw two interceptions, but the final one came with the outcome of the game already decided.
Young finished the season with 3,465 passing yards and 537 rushing yards, along with an NFL-best 25 touchdown passes and 107.0 passer rating, earning him the NFL Most Valuable Player Award and his first selection to the Pro Bowl. He was the first quarterback ever to record a triple-digit rating in consecutive seasons. Many credit Young's turnaround to the mentoring of the 49ers' new offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan, who worked with Young on combining his running skill with on-the-move passing decisions.
1993 season
Before the start of the 1993 season, team owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. announced that he wanted Montana to resume his role as starting quarterback for the 49ers. However, a rift in the locker room had developed, with players split on whom they wanted at quarterback. In the spring of 1993, at Montana's request, San Francisco traded Montana to the Kansas City Chiefs. Young was now the 49ers' undisputed starter, and would remain so for the rest of his career. But once again, he had a rough start to the season. Over the first four games of 1993, Young, who was hindered by a swollen thumb on his throwing hand, threw eight interceptions, more than he had thrown during the entire 1992 season. But after his thumb healed, Young went on an incredible streak over a span of seven games, throwing 16 touchdown passes with only 2 interceptions and a 122.2 passer rating. By the end of the year, Young set franchise records for most passing yards (4,023), and consecutive passes thrown without an interception (189), (later eclipsed by Alex Smith in 2012) while leading the NFL in touchdown passes (29) and passer rating (101.5). The team slipped to a 10–6 record, but advanced to the NFC championship game again by blowing out the New York Giants 44–3 in the divisional round. However, once again they were defeated by the Dallas Cowboys, this time 38–21.
1994 season: second MVP and Super Bowl run
After several key free agent signings including All-Pro cornerback Deion Sanders and NFL Draft selections, the 49ers looked to win their first Super Bowl since 1989. They started fast, beating the Los Angeles Raiders 44–14 on the strength of four touchdown passes from Young, one of four games during the regular season in which he had at least four. After a loss in a much-anticipated game to Joe Montana and the Kansas City Chiefs, the 49ers won their next two games before losing to the Philadelphia Eagles 40–8 at Candlestick Park, a game in which Young was eventually benched in the middle of an offensive series. Although head coach George Seifert later said he only pulled Young because he was getting manhandled by the Eagles' defense, Young had had enough of being scapegoated for 49er shortfalls and loudly (and visibly) lambasted Seifert over his decision while standing on the sideline during the game.
But the game was considered a turning point in the season; from there, Young led the team to 10 consecutive wins, by an average of 20 points, before losing the meaningless finale against the Vikings in which Young completed his first 12 of 13 attempts before going to the sidelines. They finished an NFL best 13–3, securing home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs. The 49ers had the number-one offense in the NFL, and were so dominant that Seifert often took Young out of games early if he felt that the 49ers had an insurmountable lead at the time.
After an easy 44–15 victory over the Chicago Bears in the divisional round of the playoffs, the 49ers jumped out to a 31–14 halftime lead over the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Championship Game, holding on to win 38–28. Young threw for two touchdowns, while adding 47 yards and another touchdown on the ground. As a result, he went to his first Super Bowl as a starting quarterback. The 49ers were heavy favorites to become the first team with five Super Bowl victories.
On the strength of a six-touchdown performance that surpassed the previous Super Bowl record of five, owned by the man Young replaced, Joe Montana, Steve Young was named the MVP of Super Bowl XXIX, as the 49ers defeated the San Diego Chargers, 49–26. Young also threw for 325 yards and rushed for 49 yards, making him the first player ever to finish a Super Bowl as the game's leader in both rushing and passing yards.
The victory capped off an incredible year for Young, who had one of the best seasons by a quarterback in NFL history. He threw for 3,969 yards, a then-franchise record 35 touchdown passes with only 10 interceptions, completed 70.3 percent of his passes – the highest completion percentage of the 1990s, third all-time, and at the time, the best completion percentage by any quarterback with more than 400 attempts (later eclipsed by Drew Brees in 2009). Additionally, Young broke Joe Montana's single-season mark with a then-record 112.8 passer rating, and also once again demonstrated his great scrambling ability, accumulating another 289 yards and 7 touchdowns on the ground. For his record-breaking season performances, Young was awarded his second AP NFL MVP award, becoming the 7th player in NFL history to win both league and Super Bowl MVP honors in the same season.
Later years and injuries
In the three years following Super Bowl XXIX, the 49ers would be eliminated each year by Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers, twice in San Francisco. In addition to the early playoff exits, Young suffered a series of injuries that forced him to miss several games from 1995 to 1997. Young entered the 1998 season at age 37 and some began to wonder if his skills would diminish because of his history of injuries and a general decline in his game due to age. However, he silenced all critics once again, putting up career numbers in passing yards (4,170) and passing touchdowns (36). The 49ers finally beat Favre and the Packers in an NFC wild card game that year, as Young threw the winning touchdown to wide receiver Terrell Owens with three seconds remaining to win the game 30–27. In reference to Dwight Clark's legendary catch against the Dallas Cowboys in the 1981 NFC championship game, Owens's grab was called "The Catch II". A week later, however, Garrison Hearst broke his ankle on the 49ers' first play from scrimmage. Without the threat of a running game, Young threw three interceptions (the last one a Hail Mary pass with under 30 seconds remaining in the game) and the 49ers were defeated by the Atlanta Falcons 20–18. Over that span of seasons from 1995 to 1998, Young led the NFL in passer rating twice (in 1996 and 1997), and led the NFL with 36 touchdown passes in 1998.
The 1999 season would turn out to be Young's last in the NFL. Young was plagued by concussions throughout his career. During a Week 3 Monday Night Football game against the Arizona Cardinals, Young was violently sacked by Cardinals cornerback Aeneas Williams on a blitz. Running back Lawrence Phillips was supposed to pick up Williams, but missed. Young was knocked out of the game with a concussion, and didn't return again for the rest of the season due to symptoms of post-concussion syndrome. The concussion he suffered against the Cardinals was reportedly his second in a season that was only three weeks old, and the seventh (at least) of his career. Following the season, the 49ers told him that he would be released if he did not retire. Although Young was offered a job as the starting quarterback of the Denver Broncos (where his former offensive coordinator, Mike Shanahan, was the head coach), he retired because of his repeated concussions. In a 2013 Frontline interview, Young said that, partially based upon their own experiences, he and many retired players are increasingly concerned about repeated concussions and subconcussive hits. He is particularly concerned about certain positions that take frequent hits, such as running backs and linemen.
Career statistics and records
USFL career
NFL career
Records and legacy
Although Young did not become the 49ers' starter until his 8th NFL season, and he played a full season only three times (all consecutively) during his 15-year career, Young had a significant impact on the NFL. A two-time league MVP, he completed 2,667 of 4,149 passes for 33,124 yards and 232 touchdowns, with 107 interceptions, and 43 rushing touchdowns. His 96.8 career passer rating is the sixth highest in NFL history and second highest among retired players, behind Tony Romo; his 4,239 rushing yards are the fourth most ever gained by a quarterback, behind Michael Vick, Cam Newton, and Randall Cunningham. He was the NFL's top rated passer in six different seasons and led the league in touchdown passes four times. In 20 postseason games, he threw 20 touchdown passes with only 13 interceptions, and scored 8 touchdowns on the ground. In his stint with the San Francisco 49ers, Young passed for 29,907 yards, 221 touchdowns, and 86 interceptions, with a passer rating of 101.4, highest in franchise history. He was also sacked 290 times, also most in franchise history.
NFL records
Tenth highest passer rating, career, including active players – 96.8
Fourth highest passer rating, career, retired players only – 96.8
Eighth highest career completion percentage, retired players – 64.3%
Most times led the league in passer rating, career – 6 (tied w/ Sammy Baugh)
Most consecutive times led the league in passer rating – 4 (1991–94)
One of seven QBs to lead the league in touchdown passes 4 times (tied with Johnny Unitas, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Len Dawson)
Most passes attempted, playoff game – 65 vs. Green Bay, 1995
Most TD passes, playoff game – 6 (tied w/Daryle Lamonica & Tom Brady)
Most TD passes in one Super Bowl – 6
Most rushing yards by a QB, postseason career – 594
Most rushing touchdowns by a QB, postseason career – 8
49ers records
Highest completion percentage (20+ Atts) (Game): vs Detroit (10/20/91), 90.0
Most average yards per attempt (20+ Atts) (Game): vs Detroit (12/19/93), 15.39
Most touchdown passes (season): 36 (1998)
Best completion percentage (season): 70.3 (1994)
Best passer rating (season): 112.8 (1994)
Most 300-yard passing games (season): 7 (1998)
Best passer rating (career): 101.4
Most average yards per attempt (career): 8.20
Most consecutive games with a touchdown pass: 18, at Det. (10/9/94) to vs. StL (11/26/95) note: (DNP in 5 games in 1995)
Best completion percentage (career): 65.8
Most rushing touchdowns by a quarterback (career): 43
In 1999, he was ranked No. 63 on The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. Young was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on February 5, 2005; he was the first left-handed quarterback to be so honored. He was enshrined August 7, 2005. His induction speech was given by his father, LeGrande "Grit" Young.
The San Francisco 49ers had his No. 8 jersey retired during a halftime ceremony against the New England Patriots on October 5, 2008. He was the 11th player in team history to receive this honor. He is also the only 49er in team history to wear No. 8.
Post-football
Business career
In 1994, Young received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from BYU's J. Reuben Clark Law School.
In 2000, Young spoke at the Republican National Convention.
In 2007, Young co-founded Huntsman Gay Global Capital (HGGC), with billionaire industrialist Jon M. Huntsman and former Bain Capital executive Robert C. Gay. After being involved in business ventures with the private equity firm, he has continued to serve as a managing director.
In 2011, Young was one of several notable BYU athletes and coaches who appeared in the school's "Real Cougar" advertising campaign, which featured the individuals telling an actual cougar about being a "real cougar". In one of the ads, Young poked fun at himself:
Young: I love BYU so much I even got my law degree here.
Cougar: (growls)
Young: Lawyers... I know.
Acting career
Young has both performed dramatic roles and appeared as himself in a limited acting career. He appeared in one episode of Frasier and one episode of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (cast as Lois' former high school football quarterback boyfriend, Joe Maloy). He also made a guest appearance as himself in the Dharma & Greg episode "Are You Ready for Some Football?" encouraging Dharma, the team's Number One Fan. In 1995, Young appeared as himself in the Season 6, Episode 12 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. He also made cameo appearances in the LDS comedy The Singles Ward (2002) and in a season 5 episode of BYUtv's Studio C (2014). Young also made a guest appearance as himself in season 8 of the NBC comedy series Wings in the episode "Just Call Me Angel".
Young was originally offered a part in the 1998 movie There's Something About Mary, but turned the role down. He was replaced by Brett Favre.
Philanthropy
Young serves as a National Advisor to ASCEND: A Humanitarian Alliance. This non-profit organization plans expeditions to African and South American countries to provide life skills mentoring with sustainable solutions in education, enterprise, health and simple technology.
In 1993, Young founded a charitable foundation known as the Forever Young Foundation, which serves children facing significant physical, emotional, and financial challenges by providing academic, athletic, and therapeutic opportunities otherwise unavailable to them.
Young also serves as the national spokesman for an organization founded by former Save Darfur Coalition executive director and founder, David Rubenstein. He began his affiliation with the organization in 2009, when he became the honorary league commissioner for their charitable dodgeball tournaments held on college campuses nationwide.
Personal life
Young is a great-great-great-nephew of Brigham Young, second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for whom BYU is named. His father, LeGrande "Grit" Young, played football at BYU in the late 1950s. He led the school in scoring in 1955 and in rushing and total offense in 1959. Steve Young's younger brothers, Mike and Tom, both played quarterback at BYU after Steve, but neither received much playing time.
Young has been married to Barbara Graham since 2000. They have two sons and two daughters. According to A Football Life: As his playing career ended before his eldest child was born, he wrote his autobiography QB: My Life Behind the Spiral initially as a private memoir for his children.
See also
Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame
List of NCAA major college football yearly passing leaders
List of NCAA major college football yearly total offense leaders
List of NFL quarterbacks who have posted a perfect passer rating
References
External links
1961 births
All-American college football players
American color commentators
American football quarterbacks
American male television actors
American philanthropists
Brigham Young University alumni
BYU Cougars football players
College Football Hall of Fame inductees
Greenwich High School alumni
J. Reuben Clark Law School alumni
Latter Day Saints from California
Latter Day Saints from Connecticut
Latter Day Saints from Utah
Living people
Los Angeles Express players
National Conference Pro Bowl players
National Football League Most Valuable Player Award winners
National Football League Offensive Player of the Year Award winners
National Football League players with retired numbers
Players of American football from Connecticut
Players of American football from Salt Lake City
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
Richards–Young family
San Francisco 49ers players
Sportspeople from Greenwich, Connecticut
Super Bowl MVPs
Tampa Bay Buccaneers players
Utah Republicans | true | [
"The 1994 season was the San Francisco 49ers' 45th in the National Football League, the 49th overall and their sixth under head coach George Seifert. This season was highlighted by a victory in Super Bowl XXIX. The championship made San Francisco the first team to win five Super Bowls. After losing to the Dallas Cowboys in the previous two conference championship games, the 49ers made significant acquisitions in the 1994 free agent market. This included the signing of two-sport star Deion Sanders and Cowboys linebacker Ken Norton, Jr.. Sanders had a major impact on the team's success, winning the NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award and recording six interceptions. The 49ers won their division, the NFC West, for the eighth time in nine seasons.\n\nQuarterback Steve Young had his best NFL season and won his second MVP award. Young set what was, at the time, the NFL record for highest passer rating in a season – 112.8. Cold Hard Football Facts states that Young's 1994 season is the second greatest passing season in NFL history, behind only Joe Montana's 1989 season.\n\nFor the third consecutive season, the 49ers met the Cowboys in the NFC Championship Game. From the mid-1980s until the latter 1990s, the AFC was widely regarded as the NFL's weaker conference. At the time of this conference championship game, AFC teams had lost the previous 10 Super Bowls in a row, starting with Super Bowl XIX after the 1984 season. All but two of those losses were by at least 10 points; five of them were by more than 20 points. As a result, the NFC Championship meeting between the Niners and Cowboys was dubbed by many as \"the real Super Bowl.\" The contest was one of the highest rated non-Super Bowl games in NFL history.\n\nThe 49ers beat the Cowboys and would go on to defeat the San Diego Chargers in Super Bowl XXIX. Young was named the game's MVP after throwing a record six touchdown passes.\n\nOffseason\n\nNFL Draft\n\nTraining Camp\nThe 1994 San Francisco 49ers season held training camp at Sierra College in Rocklin, California.\n\nPersonnel\n\nStaff\n\nRoster\n\nPre season\n\nSchedule\n\nGame officials\n\nRegular season\nIn 1994, after the retirements and departures of several stalwarts from the late 1980s and early 1990s teams, the 49ers spent large amounts of money on the addition of several star free agent veterans. The revamp focused mainly on defense, where six new starters including Ken Norton, Jr., Gary Plummer, Rickey Jackson, and Deion Sanders were implemented, all with the ultimate goal in mind of dethroning the Dallas Cowboys. Said safety Merton Hanks, \"Those players came in on one and two-year deals and they understood, 'if we do not get it done this year this organization is going to blow itself up.'\" Additionally, several rookie players made key contributions to the team, some becoming season-long starters. This included defensive tackle Bryant Young, fullback William Floyd, and linebacker Lee Woodall. The 49ers started slowly early in the season. They defeated the Raiders in a game where Jerry Rice broke the NFL record for career touchdowns, but followed with a 24–17 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, led by former 49ers quarterback Joe Montana.\n\nDespite victories over the Rams and Saints, the 49ers offensive line was struggling, having lost four starters to injury, and in Week 5 the Niners were crushed 40–8 by the Eagles. Following the Eagles game, a poll conducted on local sports radio station KNBR showed that an overwhelming majority of 49er fans wanted head coach George Seifert fired.\n\nThe game against the Eagles was a turning point for the 49ers despite being a lopsided loss. Steve Young was benched for Elvis Grbac abruptly during a series in the 3rd quarter. Soon after, Young was livid on the sidelines, shouting profanities at head coach George Seifert. Young later admitted \"I was looking for a fistfight,\" and would later say that this incident caused his teammates to respond better to his leadership, as they saw how much he cared about winning (\"It galvanized the guys behind Steve,\" said Brent Jones).\n\nThe following week in Detroit, the 49ers trailed the Lions 7–0. After throwing a pass, Young was hit, picked up, and driven into the ground by three Lions defenders. After the hit, Young was screaming with his face dark red in color. He crawled most of the way off of the field before refusing help from the trainers as he limped the remaining way off the field. He miraculously returned to the field two plays later (NFL rules state that after trainers attend to an injured player, that player must leave the field for at least one play – Elvis Grbac came in for that one play and threw an incompletion) to lead the 49ers to a 27–21 victory.\n\nThe team rallied around Young to win 10 straight games, including a 21–14 victory over the two-time defending Super Bowl champion Cowboys. During that span, the 49ers' average margin of victory was nearly 20 points per game; they broke 35 points scored seven times, four times breaking 40 points scored.\n\nThrowback uniforms \nDuring the 1994 season, many NFL teams wore \"throwback uniforms\" for occasional games (after week 2 of the season) to celebrate the NFL's 75th anniversary (a corresponding diamond 75th Anniversary patch was also worn by all teams). The 49ers chose to wear a version of their 1955 uniforms as throwbacks. This design featured sans-serif block numerals that were outlined and shadowed in black. White pants with thinner red-black-red striping were also worn, along with the old striped red socks (the team later reverted to their regular solid red socks after receiving permission from the NFL to wear the uniforms starting from Week 10 until Super Bowl XXIX). The team's regular 1989–95 gold helmet was worn with this uniform, as there was no logo on the 1955 helmet.\n\nThe team first donned the 1955 throwback uniforms during a week 3 match against the Los Angeles Rams and the following week at home versus the Saints. Both games ended in victory (coincidentally, these were also the first two games Deion Sanders played with the 49ers after signing as a free-agent after week 2). The team then suffered an embarrassing 40–8 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles at home wearing their regular red uniforms with gold pants. (Football statistics site Football Outsiders calculates this 49ers loss to be the second-most lopsided football game they'd tracked from 1994 to 2008.)\n\nFor the subsequent three games until their bye week, the team again was scheduled to play games wearing the throwback uniforms with white pants and blockshadow numerals, and all three games resulted in wins. During the following weeks the 49ers embarked on a 10-game winning streak. The team, prompted both by the superstition of coach George Seifert, and the preference of players, petitioned the NFL to wear the throwback uniforms for the rest of the season. The league granted the request and the switch to solid red socks after the bye week marked this occurrence. In all, the team went 15–1 (including the playoffs) wearing the 1955/1994 throwback uniforms. The only loss occurred during the regular season finale at Minnesota, with the team wearing white jerseys and resting most of their starters for the playoffs. Meanwhile, the 49ers went undefeated wearing the red jerseys of the throwback uniform. After winning Super Bowl XXIX however, the team was compelled to revert to wearing its regular 1964-style uniforms (1991 revised design) for the following 1995 season. One year later, the throwback design strongly influenced the 49ers to redesign their uniform set. In 1996, the team revealed a new helmet and uniform design featuring a darker red, shadowed numbers, black accents, and white pants. In 1998, the team changed the pants to a gold color and wore these uniforms through the 2008 season. The 49ers brought back the 1994 white throwback uniform design as an alternate set for the 2018 season. The 1994 red throwback jerseys were brought back by the team as an alternate uniform for the 2021 season, the 49ers franchise's 75th anniversary.\n\nSchedule\n\nGame summaries\n\nWeek 1 vs. Los Angeles Raiders\n\nThe Niners led wire to wire as Steve Young opened with two touchdowns. Jerry Rice’s 69-yard score set an NFL record for career touchdowns.\n\nWeek 2 at Kansas City Chiefs\n\nThis was the much-hyped match between Steve Young and Joe Montana, Young's predecessor as the 49ers' quarterback. Montana threw two touchdowns and a two-point conversion. Young clawed the Niners to a 14–7 lead but was then sacked for a safety; the Niners also fumbled twice while Young threw two picks. San Francisco sports bars airing the game saw viewers overwhelmingly cheer for Montana's Chiefs over Young and the Niners.\n\nWeek 3 at Los Angeles Rams\n\nThis became the final game between the 49ers and Rams in Los Angeles until 2016.\n\nWeek 4 vs. New Orleans Saints\n\nWeek 5 vs. Philadelphia Eagles\n\nSteve Young was benched after going 11 of 23 with two interceptions and getting sacked for a safety by William Fuller; Elvis Grbac completed four of eight passes and was sacked twice. The Eagles outgained the Niners in yardage 437 to 189. This was the second worst loss by an eventual Super Bowl champion in NFL history.\n\nWeek 6 at Detroit Lions\n\nThe Lions jumped to a 14–0 lead on a Brett Perriman touchdown catch and a nine-yard score from Barry Sanders. Young was knocked out for one play with a pinched nerve in his leg; he came back in despite heavy pain and rallied the Niners to 27 unanswered points.\n\nWeek 7 at Atlanta Falcons\n\nEx-Falcon Deion Sanders returned to the Georgia Dome and ran back a 93-yard interception for a touchdown. Steve Young threw four touchdowns while Jeff George threw four interceptions; it was the second six-turnover game for the Falcons that season.\n\nWeek 8 vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers\n\nFacing the team with which he entered the NFL, Steve Young completed twenty passes for 255 yards and one score. Ricky Watters and William Floyd rushed for a combined three more touchdowns. In contrast Trent Dilfer completed just seven passes and was benched.\n\nWeek 9: Bye \n\nThe 1994 San Francisco 49ers season had a bye week, as did all of the NFC West. The team was granted permission from the NFL to wear throwback uniforms for the remainder of the season.\n\nWeek 10 at Washington Redskins\n\nWeek 11 vs. Dallas Cowboys\n\nThe 49ers posted their first win over the Cowboys since 1990. The game was tied 7–7 until the Niners scored in the final three minutes of the third quarter on a 57-yard Jerry Rice touchdown catch. Following an exchange of four consecutive punts, Troy Aikman was intercepted by Merton Hanks; the ensuing Niners drive took fifteen plays and ended on a Brent Jones touchdown catch just before the two-minute warning. A very late Cowboys touchdown was followed by an unsuccessful onside kick and Niners win.\n\nWeek 12 vs. Los Angeles Rams\n\nIn their last home meeting with the Rams as a Los Angeles team until 2016, the Niners blew a 21–6 lead and trailed 27–24; Jerry Rice fumbled with 6:05 to go but the Rams had to punt. Steve Young threw on seven of the next ten plays and connected with Rice for the go-ahead score with 1:56 to go; the Rams failed on 4th and 20 and the Niners were winners.\n\nWeek 13 at New Orleans Saints\n\nWeek 14 vs. Atlanta Falcons\n\nWeek 15 at San Diego Chargers\n\nIn the preview to Super Bowl XXIX, Steve Young threw two touchdown passes and Deion Sanders recorded a pick six as the 49ers never trailed.\n\nWeek 16 vs. Denver Broncos\n\nWeek 17 at Minnesota Vikings\n\nHaving secured the first playoff seed, the Niners started Steve Young and he completed all but one of thirteen passes before giving way to Elvis Grbac. Ricky Watters fumbled on San Francisco's second drive and the Vikings scored. Needing the game for the NFC Central division title, the Vikings won 21–14.\n\nGame officials\n\nStandings\n\nPlayoffs\n\nNotes:\n\n All times in Pacific Time Zone.\n\nNFC Divisional Playoff\n\nAfter a Brent Jones fumble on their first drive of the game, in which the Bears converted with a field goal by Kevin Butler, the 49ers went on to score 37 unanswered points to rout the Bears 44–15, including scoring 23 in the second quarter (Jones caught an eight-yard score in the second). The Bears would not score until the fourth quarter when the game was already out of reach. An endzone brawl erupted late in the second quarter following Steve Young's six-yard rushing score. Shaun Gayle of the Bears pushed Young to the dirt after the score; when Young threw the ball in the ground and in Gayle's face, a fight erupted.\n\nNFC Championship Game\n\nLooking to make a statement after being knocked out of the playoffs the previous two years by the Cowboys, the 49ers pounced on turnovers by the Cowboys on their first three possessions to start the game; San Francisco thus broke out to a 21–0 lead midway through the first quarter. It started with an interception by Eric Davis that was returned 44 yards for a touchdown on just the third play of the game; it was followed by a Michael Irvin fumble that set up a 29-yard screen pass by Steve Young to Ricky Watters for a touchdown, and then a fumble on the ensuing kickoff in which the 49ers converted with a one-yard touchdown run by William Floyd. The 49ers went into halftime up 31–14 after a 28-yard pass by Young to Jerry Rice. The Cowboys fought back in the 2nd half, but fell short and the 49ers won 38–28, advancing to their 5th Super Bowl. The Cowboys turned the ball over 5 times, which ended up being a major factor in the game. The 49ers also handed Troy Aikman his first ever loss as a starting quarterback in the post season. Young's victory came ironically with almost the same passer rating (84.7) he'd had in his 1992 championship loss to Dallas (84.6).\n\nSuper Bowl XXIX\n\nSteve Young set a Super Bowl record by throwing six touchdown passes in a game. The record had previously been held by his predecessor Joe Montana, who threw for a then-record five touchdowns in Super Bowl XXIV (ironically against one of San Diego's AFC West rivals).\n\n(*)The Chargers became the first team to have a successful two-point conversion in the Super Bowl. This was the first season in which the NFL allowed 2-point conversions (a rule in place in the American Football League in San Diego's first ten seasons), and the Chargers actually had two in the game.\n\nGame officials\n\nMedia\n\nPre season Local TV\n\nLocal Radio\n\n1995 AFC-NFC Pro Bowl\n\n Merton Hanks, FS, NFC Pro Bowlers\n Brent Jones, TE, NFC Pro Bowlers\n Tim McDonald, SS, NFC Pro Bowlers\n Bart Oates, C, NFC Pro Bowlers\n Jerry Rice, WR, NFC Pro Bowlers\n Deion Sanders, CB, NFC Pro Bowlers\n Jesse Sapolu, G, NFC Pro Bowlers\n Dana Stubblefield, DT, NFC Pro Bowlers\n Ricky Watters, RB, NFC Pro Bowlers\n Steve Young, QB, NFC Pro Bowlers\n\nAwards and honors\n Led NFL with 66 Touchdowns\n Led NFL with 505 points scored\n Jerry Rice, NFL leader, Receiving Yards (1,499)\n Jerry Rice, NFC Pro Bowl\n Deion Sanders, National Football League Defensive Player of the Year Award\n Deion Sanders, Newspaper Enterprise Association Defensive Player of the Year Award\n Deion Sanders, NFC Pro Bowl\n Bryant Young, Defensive End, UPI NFL-NFC Rookie of the Year\n Steve Young, led NFL, 35 Touchdown Passes\n Steve Young, NFL Passing Leader, 112.8 Passer Rating\n Steve Young, NFC Pro Bowl\n Steve Young, All-Pro selection\n Steve Young, Super Bowl XXIX MVP\n Steve Young, NFL MVP \n Steve Young, PFWA NFL MVP\n Steve Young, NEA NFL MVP\n Steve Young, UPI NFC Player of the Year\n Steve Young, Bert Bell Award\n\nMilestones\n Jerry Rice, 100 reception season (Rice finished the season with 112 receptions)\n Jerry Rice, 1,000-yard receiving season\n Jerry Rice surpasses Jim Brown's all time touchdown record of 126 in week one, scoring three touchdowns against the Los Angeles Raiders on Monday Night Football.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n 49ers on Pro Football Reference\n\nSan Francisco 49ers seasons\nSan Francisco 49ers\nNFC West championship seasons\nNational Football Conference championship seasons\nSuper Bowl champion seasons\nSan\n1994 in San Francisco",
"Super Bowl XXIX was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion San Diego Chargers and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion San Francisco 49ers to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for the 1994 season. The 49ers defeated the Chargers by the score of 49–26, becoming the first team to win five Super Bowl championships. The game was played on January 29, 1995 at Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami, Florida.\n\nThis game is regarded as 49ers quarterback Steve Young's final leap out of the shadow of his predecessor, Joe Montana, who had won four Super Bowls with the 49ers (in 1981, 1984, 1988, and 1989), two with Young as the backup quarterback. With Young at the helm, and a defense consisting of several veteran free agents who joined the team during the previous offseason, San Francisco finished the regular season with a league-best 13–3 record, and led the league in total points scored (505). The Chargers, on the other hand, were regarded as a \"Cinderella\" team, and advanced to their first Super Bowl after posting an 11–5 regular-season record and overcoming halftime deficits in both of their playoff wins.\n\nThis was the first Super Bowl in which both teams scored in all four quarters. The combined aggregate score of 75 points and the ten total touchdowns both remain Super Bowl records. Still, the 49ers controlled most of the game, with Young completing touchdown passes in each of the 49ers' first two drives. The Chargers were able to cut the deficit late in the first quarter, 14–7, on a 13-play, 78-yard drive, but could not slow down San Francisco afterwards. Young was named the Super Bowl MVP, throwing a Super Bowl-record six touchdown passes, and completing 24 out of 36 passes for 325 yards.\n\nDespite the predicted blowout (18½ points is the second largest margin a team has been favored by in a Super Bowl), the fact that San Diego did not have as much national appeal nor a relatively large core fan base, and two teams from California playing, which could have significantly diminished interest along the East Coast, the telecast of the game on ABC still had a Nielsen rating of 41.3.\n\nBackground\nNFL owners voted to award Super Bowl XXIX to Miami, Florida during a meeting on May 23, 1991. This was the seventh time that Miami hosted the game.\n\nSan Diego Chargers\n\nThe Chargers were the biggest surprise of the 1994 season, with very few expecting them to even reach the playoffs, let alone the Super Bowl.\n\nSan Diego suffered losing seasons in the 1980s until former Washington Redskins general manager Bobby Beathard joined the team in 1990. Beathard decided to rebuild the Chargers using the same model that he used to build the Redskins into Super Bowl contenders during the 1980s – a powerful running game built around big linemen, a passing game that helped sustain extremely long drives, and a bending but steady defense. After former Georgia Tech head coach Bobby Ross was hired by the Chargers in 1992, the team won the AFC West with an 11–5 regular season record and won an opening round playoff game against Kansas City. But in 1993, they slumped back to 8–8 and did not reach the postseason.\n\nBefore the start of the 1994 season, San Diego was not expected to do well because they had so many newcomers via the draft and free agency; the Chargers ended up with 22 new players on their roster, and 10 of them became starters. However, they ended up winning their first six regular season games en route to an 11–5 record, the AFC West championship, and the #2 AFC playoff seed. The Chargers went into the final game of the season against the Pittsburgh Steelers needing a win to get the #2 seed (a loss would have given that spot to the Miami Dolphins), which came with a first-round bye and a home game in the divisional round of the playoffs. Backup quarterback Gale Gilbert, subbing for injured starter Stan Humphries, led the Chargers to a come-from-behind 37–34 win, with John Carney kicking a game-winning field goal in the game's final seconds.\n\nThe Chargers' offense was led by quarterback Stan Humphries, who was the Redskins' backup to Mark Rypien during the 1991 season, when they won Super Bowl XXVI. During the 1994 season for San Diego, Humphries completed 264 out of 453 attempts for 3,209 yards and 17 touchdowns, with 12 interceptions. Wide receiver Mark Seay was the team's leading receiver with 58 receptions for 645 yards and 6 touchdowns. Wide receiver Tony Martin had 50 catches for 885 yards and 7 touchdowns, wide receiver Shawn Jefferson recorded 43 catches for 627 yards and 3 touchdowns, and tight end Alfred Pupunu had 21 receptions for 214 yards and 2 touchdowns.\n\nRunning back Natrone Means led the team in rushing with 1,350 yards and 12 touchdowns. He also recorded 39 receptions for 235 yards, and was named to the Pro Bowl. Third-down back Ronnie Harmon was also a big contributor, catching 58 passes for 615 yards and a touchdown. Meanwhile, the Chargers' special teams was also a major threat with Andre Coleman, who returned 49 kickoffs for 1,293 yards (26.4 average yards per return) and 2 touchdowns.\n\nThe Chargers had an excellent defensive line, anchored by Pro Bowl defensive end Leslie O'Neal, who led the team with 12.5 sacks and forced four fumbles, defensive tackle Chris Mims, who recorded 11 sacks, and Shawn Lee, who added 6.5 sacks and a fumble recovery. Their linebacking corps was led by Junior Seau, who was a Pro Bowl selection for the fourth consecutive year, recording 123 tackles, 5.5 sacks, and 3 fumble recoveries. Defensive back Stanley Richard was a major weapon in the secondary, recording 4 interceptions, 224 return yards, and 2 touchdowns. Defensive back Darrien Gordon was also a major asset to the team, recording 4 interceptions and 32 return yards, while also adding another 475 yards and 2 touchdowns returning punts. Safety Rodney Harrison was a rookie on the team.\n\nChargers backup quarterback Gale Gilbert became the first player to be a member of five consecutive Super Bowl teams. He had been a third-string quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, who had won AFC Championships in the four previous seasons (1990–1993).\n\nSan Francisco 49ers\n\nFrom the 1988 to the 1993 seasons, the 49ers played in five out of six NFC Championship Games, winning Super Bowls XXIII and XXIV. But after head coach George Seifert's team lost two consecutive NFC Championship games to the Dallas Cowboys in 1992 and 1993, San Francisco brought in several veteran free agents to strengthen their defense. Among the players signed were defensive linemen Richard Dent (the MVP of Super Bowl XX), Charles Mann, Rhett Hall, and Rickey Jackson; linebackers Ken Norton Jr. and Gary Plummer; and cornerback Deion Sanders.\n\nThe free agents enabled the 49ers to jump from the 18th-ranked defense in the league to the 8th, and to jump from the league's 16th-best defense against the run to the 2nd. Pro Bowl defensive lineman Dana Stubblefield led the team with 8.5 sacks. Rookie defensive tackle Bryant Young was also a big threat to opposing quarterbacks and rushers, recording 42 tackles, 6 sacks, and a fumble recovery. Behind them, Norton played very effectively at the middle linebacker position, leading the team with 77 tackles and recording an interception. Pro Bowl safety Merton Hanks led the team with 7 interceptions for 93 return yards, while Sanders had 6 interceptions for 303 return yards and 3 touchdowns, earning him the NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award. His 303 return yards was the third-highest total in NFL history, while his touchdown returns of 74, 93, and 90 yards made him the first player ever to have two 90-yard interception returns in one season. Pro Bowl safety Tim McDonald was also a big contributor, recording 2 interceptions for 79 yards and a touchdown.\n\nThe 49ers' offense was led by quarterback Steve Young, who replaced future Hall of Famer Joe Montana as the starter in 1991 and 1992 due to injuries. After Young led the league in passing in both seasons, Montana was traded to the Kansas City Chiefs, leaving Young as the undisputed starter in 1993. But even with his impressive passing statistics, Young was criticized as \"not being able to win the big games\" as Montana had done in leading the 49ers to Super Bowl victories in XVI, XIX, XXIII, and XXIV. It also didn't help that the team had lost to Montana's Chiefs 24–17 during the regular season.\n\nStill, Young again led the league in passing during the 1994 regular season with a passer rating of 112.8, breaking Montana's record for the highest regular season rating in NFL history. Young recorded 324 out of 461 completions for 3,969 yards, 35 touchdowns, and just 10 interceptions. He also had 58 rushes for 293 yards and 7 touchdowns, and earned the NFL Most Valuable Player Award.\n\nWith Young at the helm, the 49ers led the league in total points scored (505) and helped them earn a league best 13–3 regular season record. Pro Bowl running back Ricky Watters was the team's leading rusher with 877 yards and 6 touchdowns, while also recording 66 receptions for 719 yards and 5 touchdowns. Rookie fullback William Floyd was the team's second-leading rusher with 305 yards and 6 touchdowns, while also having 19 receptions for 145 yards. The team's leading receiver was Pro Bowl wide receiver Jerry Rice, who had 112 catches for 1,499 yards and 13 touchdowns, while also gaining 93 yards and two more touchdowns rushing the ball. Receiver John Taylor was also a reliable target, catching 41 passes for 531 yards and 5 touchdowns. Pro Bowl tight end Brent Jones added 49 receptions for 670 yards and 9 touchdowns. The offensive line was led by Pro Bowl center Bart Oates, another offseason free agent pickup, and Pro Bowl guard Jesse Sapolu.\n\nRunning back Dexter Carter had a standout season as a returner on special teams, gaining a combined total of 1,426 yards and a touchdown returning both punts and kickoffs.\n\nPlayoffs\n\nChargers\nIn the AFC Divisional Playoffs, the Chargers managed to overcome a 21–6 halftime deficit to defeat the Miami Dolphins, 22–21. In the first half, San Diego was limited to only two John Carney field goals, while Miami quarterback Dan Marino threw for over 180 yards and 3 touchdowns. However, the Chargers dominated the Dolphins in the second half, limiting their offense to just 16 plays. In the third quarter, after the Chargers were stopped on fourth and goal at the 1-yard line, Chargers defensive lineman Reuben Davis tackled Dolphins running back Bernie Parmalee in the end zone for a safety. San Diego then took the ensuing free kick and marched 54 yards to score on Means's 24-yard touchdown run. Then with time running out, Humphries threw an 8-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Mark Seay, giving his team a one-point lead. The Dolphins, aided by a pass interference call, responded with a drive to the Chargers' 31-yard line, but kicker Pete Stoyanovich's potential game-winning 48-yard field goal attempt sailed far to the right of the goal posts and sealed San Diego's stirring win.\n\nSan Diego then faced the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Championship Game. Once again, the Chargers fell behind early as the Steelers built up a 13–3 halftime lead, but Humphries fooled the Steelers secondary with a 43-yard play-action touchdown pass to a wide open tight end Alfred Pupunu. The Chargers then took a 17–13 lead when Martin beat the Steelers secondary (particularly a badly overmatched Tim McKyer) down the right sideline for a 43-yard touchdown reception. On their final drive, the Steelers advanced to the San Diego 3-yard line, but Chargers linebacker Dennis Gibson sealed the victory on fourth down by deflecting quarterback Neil O'Donnell's pass intended for running back Barry Foster to turn the ball back over to San Diego. Just like the 49ers in the NFC title game, the Chargers advanced to the Super Bowl despite the fact that their opponent had outgained them in many key statistical categories such as total plays (80–47), total offensive yards (415–226), and time of possession (37:13–22:47).\n\n49ers\nThe 49ers first defeated the Chicago Bears, 44–15, in the NFC Divisional Playoffs. Although Chicago scored first with a field goal, San Francisco scored 37 unanswered points to put the game out of reach by the end of the third quarter. Floyd scored three rushing touchdowns, while Young rushed for a touchdown and threw for another.\n\nSan Francisco then defeated their nemesis, the Dallas Cowboys, 38–28, in the NFC Championship Game. Expected to be a close game, the 49ers converted 3 Dallas turnovers into 21 points in the first quarter. On the third play of the game, cornerback Eric Davis returned an interception from Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman for a touchdown. Wide receiver Michael Irvin lost a fumble on Dallas' next drive, setting up Young's 29-yard touchdown pass to Watters. Then Cowboys returner Kevin Williams lost a fumble on the ensuing kickoff, and it was recovered by kicker Doug Brien at Dallas' 35-yard line. Several plays later, Floyd scored on a 1-yard touchdown run to give San Francisco a 21–0 lead less than 8 minutes into the game. With the score 24–14 in the closing minutes of the first half, Aikman threw 3 straight incompletions, and a short punt by the Cowboys set up Young's 28-yard touchdown completion to Rice with 8 seconds remaining in the first half. The Cowboys eventually cut their deficit to 38–28 with a touchdown run by Emmitt Smith and Aikman's 10-yard touchdown pass to Irvin in the final period, but they were unable to score again. Although the Cowboys outgained the 49ers in total offensive yards (451–294), Aikman broke an NFC Championship Game record with 380 yards passing, and Irvin also broke an NFC Championship Game record with 192 receiving yards, Dallas was ultimately unable to overcome their first-quarter turnovers.\n\nSuper Bowl pregame news\nEntering Super Bowl XXIX, most sports writers and fans thought the Chargers had absolutely no chance of defeating the 49ers. San Francisco was on track, winning 12 of its last 13 games (with their only loss in that span coming against the Minnesota Vikings in a meaningless regular season finale at Minnesota), including their playoff victories. Many people also thought that the NFC Championship Game between the 49ers and the Cowboys was \"the real Super Bowl\", because those two teams were commonly viewed as vastly superior to any AFC team. Furthermore, San Francisco defeated San Diego, 38–15, during the regular season. As a result, the 49ers entered the game favored to win by points, surpassed only by the 19½ points spread by Baltimore Colts that were favored over the New York Jets in Super Bowl III more than two decades prior.\n\nMany also speculated that Super Bowl XXIX would be the least watched game in Super Bowl history. In addition, the Chargers did not have as large of a core fan base when compared to the Chiefs, the Dolphins, or the Steelers. (This prediction ultimately turned out to be false. Although Super Bowl XXIX was viewed by 125.2 million people and had a Nielsen rating of 41.3, Super Bowl XXVI three years earlier was seen by 119.7 million viewers and recorded a 40.3 rating.)\n\nThis was the seventh Super Bowl to be played in Miami, at the time tying both New Orleans, Louisiana and the Greater Los Angeles area for hosting the Super Bowl the most times. It remains the only Super Bowl played between teams that play their home games in the same state (although Super Bowl XXV was played between the New York Giants and the Buffalo Bills, two teams representing areas of New York, the Giants play their home games in New Jersey).\n\nBroadcasting\nThe game was broadcast in the United States by ABC, with play-by-play announcer Al Michaels and color commentators Frank Gifford and Dan Dierdorf. Lynn Swann (Chargers sideline) and Lesley Visser (49ers sideline) served as sideline reporters. During that Super Bowl, Visser became the first woman assigned to a Super Bowl sideline. Visser had previously become the first woman sportscaster to cover the Vince Lombardi Trophy presentation ceremony, when she covered Super Bowl XXVI for CBS. Brent Musburger hosted all the Super Bowl XXIX pregame (2 hours), halftime, and postgame events with the help of then-ABC Sports analyst Dick Vermeil, Musburger's regular color commentator on ABC's college football telecasts, and then-New York Jets quarterback Boomer Esiason. This would be the final Super Bowl hosted by Musburger, as all subsequent Super Bowls on ABC were hosted by ESPN's Chris Berman following the Disney purchase of ABC (which included ESPN), and the subsequent integration of ESPN and ABC Sports (now ESPN on ABC). Also, the trophy presentation for this game was the last to be held in the winning team's locker room, as all subsequent Vince Lombardi Trophy presentations would be held on the field.\n\nThis was the last Super Bowl broadcast by the Monday Night Football broadcast team of Michaels, Gifford and Dierdorf. This was the broadcast team for Monday Night Football from 1987 to 1997. They also worked ABC's coverage of Super Bowls XXII and XXV. This would also be the last Super Bowl aired on ABC until the 1999 season (when Al Michaels called the game with Boomer Esiason).\n\nOn the Tuesday prior to the Super Bowl, the ABC sitcom Full House aired an episode called \"Super Bowl Fun Day\" involving two main characters actually at the game. (Full House was set in San Francisco, and this was the only time during the show's run that the 49ers advanced to a Super Bowl aired on ABC.) A week earlier, the Seinfeld episode \"The Label Maker\" involved Jerry trying to give away his tickets to the game. He eventually decided to go, but unfortunately was stuck sitting next to Newman. Two days after the Super Bowl, the game was the main plot feature of an episode of the ABC sitcom Home Improvement, \"Super Bowl Fever\", in which Jill was sick with the flu while Tim and his buddies tried to watch the game.\n\nThirty-second television advertisements for Super Bowl XXIX averaged $1.15 million in costs, the first time that Super Bowl ads exceeded the $1 million mark.\n\nThis Super Bowl aired in over 150 countries worldwide. It was simulcast in Canada on CTV and TVA (in French), in Mexico on Televisa's Canal 5, in Germany on Tele 5, in Australia on the ABC, in the Philippines on the GMA Network and later aired in the United Kingdom on Channel 4.\n\nFollowing the game ABC premiered the television drama Extreme starring James Brolin; this was the last series to premiere following the Super Bowl until Family Guy premiered following Super Bowl XXXIII and is one of only four in the last 14 years to premiere following a Super Bowl (joining Family Guy, its spinoff American Dad!, and Undercover Boss which premiered following Super Bowl XLIV), since the networks have preferred to have new episodes of established shows to catch as much of the post-game audience as possible.\n\nThis Super Bowl would later be featured on NFL's Greatest Games under the title Exercise in Excellence. The Super Bowl highlight film on which the episode was based was the only Super Bowl highlight film to be narrated by Harry Kalas.\n\nEntertainment\n\nPregame ceremonies\nThe pregame show held before the game featured country music singer Hank Williams Jr., who performed his theme song for Monday Night Football, which was based on his single \"All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight\".\n\nActress and singer Kathie Lee Gifford (Frank Gifford's wife) later sang the national anthem. She was accompanied by then-Miss America Heather Whitestone who signed the anthem for the hearing impaired.\n\nTo honor the NFL's 75th season, four former players all Hall of Fame members, who were named to the league's 75th Anniversary All-Time Team joined the coin toss ceremony: Otto Graham, Joe Greene, Ray Nitschke, and Gale Sayers.\n\nA special 75th anniversary logo was painted at midfield. Each player also wore a patch on his jersey with the same logo; the 75th anniversary patch was worn by all players league-wide during the 1994 season. During the regular season, teams also wore \"throwback\" jerseys for selected games. The 49ers wore their throwbacks (which paid tribute to the 1957 Niners) for most of the season, this game included.\n\nHalftime show\nThe halftime show was titled \"Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye\" and was produced by Disney to promote their Indiana Jones Adventure attraction at Disneyland that opened later that year. The show featured actors playing Indiana Jones and his girlfriend Marion Ravenwood who were raiding the Vince Lombardi Trophy from the Temple of the Forbidden Eye. The show also had performances by singers Tony Bennett and Patti LaBelle, jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, and the Miami Sound Machine. The show ended with everybody singing \"Can You Feel The Love Tonight\", the song featured in Disney's (which later acquired ABC) 1994 film The Lion King. The dancers on the field were members of the Coral Gables Senior High marching band.\n\nThis halftime show also had a connection with past ABC programming: the first two Indiana Jones films had their broadcast premieres on ABC, and the network aired a TV series, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, from 1992 to 1993 (actually serving as the lead-in to Monday Night Football at one point).\n\nRadio\nThe game was broadcast on nationwide radio by CBS with play-by-play announcer Jack Buck and color commentator Hank Stram. Jim Hunter hosted all of the events. Locally, Super Bowl XXIX was broadcast by XTRA-AM in San Diego with Lee \"Hacksaw\" Hamilton and Jim Laslavic and by KGO-AM in San Francisco with Joe Starkey and Wayne Walker.\n\nGame summary\n\nFirst quarter\nOn the opening kickoff, a 15-yard face-mask penalty on Chargers linebacker Doug Miller gave San Francisco the ball at their own 41-yard line. Then on the third play of the drive, 49ers quarterback Steve Young threw a 44-yard touchdown pass to Jerry Rice. The 49ers became the second team to take the opening kickoff and score a touchdown on that first drive (the first being the Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl VIII), and also set a new Super Bowl record for the fastest touchdown (later broken by the Chicago Bears' Devin Hester in Super Bowl XLI). After forcing the Chargers to punt, the 49ers advanced 79 yards in four plays, with Young rushing for 21 yards and then throwing a 51-yard touchdown pass to running back Ricky Watters to give San Francisco a 14–0 lead less than 5 minutes into the 1st quarter, and set a Super Bowl record for the fastest second touchdown scored by a team.\n\nThe Chargers responded on their ensuing possession, marching 78 yards in 13 plays and taking more than 7 minutes off the clock. Running back Natrone Means finished the drive with a 1-yard touchdown run to cut San Diego's deficit to 14–7. However, the 49ers quickly countered after the ensuing kickoff, driving 70 yards in 10 plays. Rice started off the drive with a 19-yard reception and 10-yard run on a reverse play, while Young added a 12-yard completion to John Taylor and a 15-yard scramble.\n\nSecond quarter\nYoung eventually finished the drive with his third touchdown pass, this one from five yards out to fullback William Floyd five plays into the 2nd quarter.\n\nLater in the quarter, Chargers punter Bryan Wagner's 40-yard punt from his own 9-yard line gave the 49ers the ball at the San Diego 49. San Francisco then marched on a 9-play drive to score on Young's fourth touchdown pass, an 8-yard toss to Watters with 4:44 left in the half, making the score 28–7. The Chargers then took the ensuing kickoff and drove 62 yards from their own 25-yard line to the San Francisco 13, featuring a 33-yard gain on a screen pass from Stan Humphries to Eric Bieniemy, San Diego's longest play of the game. But after three incomplete passes, one of which was a perfectly thrown Humphries pass that Mark Seay dropped in the end zone, they were forced to settle for kicker John Carney's 31-yard field goal, cutting their deficit to 28–10.\n\nA 33-yard completion from Young to tight end Brent Jones helped the 49ers reach the San Diego 29-yard line on their next possession, but Young's third-down pass to Jones was overthrown, and rookie kicker Doug Brien missed a 47-yard field goal attempt. The Chargers then drove to their own 46-yard line, but 49ers defensive back Eric Davis intercepted Humphries' third-down pass in the end zone with 10 seconds left in the half, and the score remained 28–10 at halftime. The Chargers' 18-point halftime deficit ended up being the closest scoring margin they would reach for the rest of the game.\n\nThird quarter\nLeading 28–10 in the 3rd quarter, the 49ers added 14 more points. The Chargers were forced to punt after three plays on the opening drive of the second half, and Dexter Carter returned the ball 11 yards to his own 38-yard line. Young subsequently completed three consecutive passes for 53 yards on a 7-play, 62-yard drive that ended with Watters' third touchdown on a 9-yard run. After a 33-yard kickoff return by Andre Coleman, the Chargers advanced to the San Francisco 33-yard line, but they turned the ball over on downs when Humphries' fourth-down pass was broken up by Davis. After the turnover, Young led his team on a 10-play, 67-yard drive, aided by a 22-yard pass interference penalty against Darrien Gordon on third and 14, to score on his fifth touchdown pass, a 15-yard completion to Rice. The Chargers' only highlight of the 3rd quarter was when Coleman returned the ensuing kickoff 98 yards for a touchdown. Then, wide receiver Mark Seay caught a pass for a successful two-point conversion (the first in Super Bowl history; the rule had been adopted by the NFL at the start of the season), but it only cut the deficit to 42–18.\n\nThe 49ers were forced to punt on their next drive, but San Diego ended up turning the ball over on downs when Means was tackled for a 4-yard loss on a fourth down and 1 from their own 37-yard line.\n\nFourth quarter\nSix plays later, Young threw his record-setting sixth touchdown pass to Rice with 13:49 remaining in the game to make the score 49–18. The Chargers responded with a 13-play, 59-yard drive to get to the San Francisco 7-yard line, but 49ers defensive back Deion Sanders intercepted backup quarterback Gale Gilbert's fourth-down pass in the end zone. After two San Francisco punts and another interception (defensive back Toi Cook picked off a pass from Humphries on the 49ers 28), the Chargers scored the final points of the game with a 30-yard touchdown pass from Humphries to wide receiver Tony Martin and another two-point conversion to make the score 49–26. San Francisco recovered the ensuing onside kick and ran time off the clock before punting to the San Diego 7. San Diego drove to the San Francisco 35 before time ran out, and the game ended in a 49ers victory.\n\nAt the end of the game, Young showed his jubilation at finally being able to win \"the big one\" while accepting the MVP trophy. \"There were times when this was hard! But this is the greatest feeling in the world! No one — no one! — can ever take this away from us! No one, ever! It's ours!\" Young and his teammates were equally enthusiastic in the locker room afterwards. \"We're part of history,\" said guard Jesse Sapolu. \"This is probably the best offense people will see in their lifetimes.\" \"Is this great or what?\" Young added. \"I mean, I haven't thrown six touchdown passes in a game in my life. Then I throw six in the Super Bowl! Unbelievable.\"\n\nRice caught 10 passes for 149 yards and 3 touchdowns, tying his own record for most touchdown receptions in a Super Bowl, and becoming the first player ever to do it twice. He also recorded 10 rushing yards. Watters rushed for 47 yards and a touchdown, while also catching 3 passes for 61 yards and two touchdowns. Means, who rushed for 1,350 yards in the regular season, was held to just 33 yards in the game. Humphries finished 24 out of 49 for 275 yards and one touchdown, with two interceptions. Seay was the Chargers' top receiver with 7 receptions for 75 yards, while Ronnie Harmon added 8 catches for 68 yards. Defensive end Raylee Johnson had two sacks. Coleman's 8 kickoff returns for 244 yards and a touchdown set the following Super Bowl records: most kickoff returns in a Super Bowl, most kickoff return yards in a Super Bowl, and most combined net yards gained in a Super Bowl.\n\nThis was the first Super Bowl to have two players each score three touchdowns. Rice matched his Super Bowl XXIV performance with his three touchdown catches. Watters also had three touchdowns, matching Roger Craig's three touchdowns (two receiving and one rushing) in Super Bowl XIX. Watters also became the second running back to catch two touchdown passes in a game, matching Craig.\n\nKen Norton Jr. became the first player to win three straight Super Bowls, although as a member of two teams. Norton was a member of the Cowboys teams who won Super Bowls XXVII and XXVIII. Deion Sanders became the first player to play in both a Super Bowl and a World Series, playing in the 1992 World Series with the Atlanta Braves.\n\nChargers quarterback Gale Gilbert became the first player to be a member of five straight Super Bowl teams. Gilbert was a member of the Bills who played in four straight Super Bowls (XXV–XXVIII). Gilbert was on the losing team in all five Super Bowl games.\n\nThe 49ers' spectacular performance led to their offensive coordinator, Mike Shanahan, and defensive coordinator, Ray Rhodes, earning head coaching positions in 1995 for the Denver Broncos and the Philadelphia Eagles, respectively. Bobby Ross became the second coach, after Jimmy Johnson in Super Bowl XXVII, to lead a team to a college football national championship (Georgia Tech in 1990) and a Super Bowl. One year later, Barry Switzer would join Johnson as the only head coaches to win championships in both NCAA Division I-A (now FBS) college football and the NFL.\n\nBox score\n\nFinal statistics\nSources: NFL.com Super Bowl XXIX, Super Bowl XXIX Play Finder SF, Super Bowl XXIX Play Finder SD, USA Today Super Bowl XXIX Play by Play\n\nStatistical comparison\n\nIndividual statistics\n\n1Completions/attempts\n2Carries\n3Longest gain\n4Receptions\n5Times targeted\n\nRecords Set\nThe following records were set in Super Bowl XXIX, according to the official NFL.com boxscore and the Pro-Football-Reference.com game summary. Some records have to meet NFL minimum number of attempts to be recognized. The minimums are shown (in parenthesis).\n\n † This category includes rushing, receiving, interception returns, punt returns, kickoff returns, and fumble returns.\n\nTurnovers are defined as the number of times losing the ball on interceptions and fumbles.\n\nStarting lineups\nSource:\n\nOfficials\n Referee: Jerry Markbreit #9 fourth Super Bowl (XVII, XXI, XXVI)\n Umpire: Ron Botchan #110 third Super Bowl (XX, XXVII)\n Head Linesman: Ron Phares #10 second Super Bowl (XVII)\n Line Judge: Ron Baynes #56 first Super Bowl\n Back Judge: Tim Millis #80 first Super Bowl\n Side Judge: Tom Fincken #47 first Super Bowl\n Field Judge: Jack Vaughan #93 third Super Bowl (XX, XXV)\n Alternate Referee: Gerald Austin #34 (side judge for XXIV; later referee for XXXI and XXXV)\n Alternate Umpire: Rex Stuart #103\n\nJerry Markbreit became the first official to serve as referee in four Super Bowls, a record that still stands.\n\nAftermath\nAs of the 2020 season, this is the only Super Bowl played between teams based in the same state.\n\nAs for the Chargers, the implications of their defeat were worse in hindsight. This remains the only Super Bowl the Chargers have ever played in. Including the pre AFL-NFL merger, it is the 3rd championship game that the Chargers have lost. The AFL Championship in 1963 remains to this day as the only major sports championship the city of San Diego has won (and also the longest championship drought for any city that has at least two major sports franchises), so even though they were heavy underdogs, the loss still had a great significance. The Chargers would also not win another playoff game since then until the 2007 season, when they reached the AFC Championship, but lost to the then 18-0 New England Patriots, 21–12. Super Bowl XXIX would be their only appearance while playing in San Diego, before they moved to Los Angeles following the 2016 season.\n\nNotable deaths from 1994 Chargers team\nIn addition, eight players from the 1994 Chargers Super Bowl team have died prior to reaching age 45. They include:\n\n David Griggs: died in a traffic collision in 1995 at age 28\n Rodney Culver: died in the crash of ValuJet Flight 592 in 1996 at age 26\n Doug Miller: killed by lightning strikes in 1998 at age 28\n Chris Mims: died of heart attack in 2008 at age 38\n Curtis Whitley: died from a drug overdose in 2008 at age 39\n Lewis Bush: died from cardiac arrest in 2011 at age 42\n Shawn Lee: died in 2011 from cardiac arrest at age 44\n Junior Seau: committed suicide with a firearm in 2012 at age 43\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nSuper Bowl 029\nSan Francisco 49ers postseason\nSan Diego Chargers postseason\n1994 National Football League season\n1995 in American football\n1995 in sports in Florida\n1990s in Miami\n1995 in American television\n1995 in American sports\nJanuary 1995 sports events in the United States\nSports competitions in Miami"
] |
[
"Foo Fighters",
"The Colour and the Shape (1996-1997)"
] | C_44cfa9f1a9614dc1970959a59917acbd_1 | What is the colour and the shape | 1 | What is "The colour and the shape" | Foo Fighters | After touring through the spring of 1996, Foo Fighters entered Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, Washington, with producer Gil Norton to record its second album. While Grohl once again wrote all the songs, the rest of the band collaborated on the arrangements. With the sessions nearly complete, Grohl took the rough mixes with him to Los Angeles, intending to finish up his vocal and guitar parts. While there, Grohl realized that he was not happy with how the mixes were turning out, and changed William Goldsmith's "drum tracks with his own for all but two songs." During the L.A. sessions, Grohl had played drums on the songs. Unhappy with Goldsmith's drumming, Grohl removed it from the recordings and re-recorded the drum tracks. As Goldsmith was about to come down to L.A. to find out why he wasn't being called upon to re-record his parts, he called Mendel from Seattle inquiring if he should make the trip. Grohl then called Goldsmith saying, "Dude, don't come down here, I'm recording some of the drum tracks". Shocked by this, Goldsmith met up with Mendel in Seattle and repeated Grohl's claim to be re-recording "some" of the tracks. Mendel asked, "Is that what he told you?"; Goldsmith affirmed it, and Mendel stated, "No, man, he did them all". Grohl explained that he'd wanted the drums to sound a certain way on the album. He wanted Goldsmith to play for the tour even though it would not be his drumming but Grohl's on the album. Feeling betrayed, Goldsmith left the band. In need of a replacement for Goldsmith, Grohl contacted Alanis Morissette's touring drummer Taylor Hawkins to see if he could recommend anybody. Grohl was surprised when Hawkins volunteered his own services as drummer. Hawkins made his debut with the group in time for the release of its second album, The Colour and the Shape, in May 1997. The album included the singles "Monkey Wrench", "Everlong", "My Hero", and "Walking After You" Pat Smear announced to the rest of the group that he wanted to leave the band claiming exhaustion and burnout but agreed to stay with the band until a replacement could be found for him. Four months later in September 1997 at the MTV Video Music Awards, Smear simultaneously announced to the public his departure from the band and introduced his replacement, Grohl's former Scream bandmate Franz Stahl. Stahl toured with the band for the next few months, and appeared on two tracks that the band recorded for movie soundtracks, a re-recording of "Walking After You" for The X-Files and "A320" for Godzilla. A B-side from the "My Hero" single, "Dear Lover", appeared in the horror film Scream 2. The tour for The Colour and the Shape album included a main stage performance at the 1998 Glastonbury Festival and culminated with a performance at the 1998 Reading Festival, both in England. CANNOTANSWER | second album. | Foo Fighters are an American rock band formed in 1994 in Seattle, Washington. The band was founded by former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a one-man project following the dissolution of Nirvana after the suicide of Kurt Cobain. The group took its name from foo fighter, a nickname coined by Allied aircraft pilots for UFOs and other aerial phenomena. Over the course of their career, Foo Fighters have won 12 Grammy Awards, including Best Rock Album four times. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021, their first year of eligibility.
Prior to the release of Foo Fighters' 1995 debut album Foo Fighters, which featured Grohl as the only official member, Grohl recruited bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith, both formerly of Sunny Day Real Estate, as well as Nirvana touring guitarist Pat Smear. The band began with performances in Portland, Oregon. Goldsmith quit during the recording of their second album The Colour and the Shape (1997); most of the drum parts were re-recorded by Grohl. Smear departed soon afterward but appeared as a guest with the band frequently from 2005; he rejoined in 2010.
Smear and Goldsmith were replaced by Franz Stahl and Taylor Hawkins; Stahl was fired before the recording of the group's third album, There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1999). The band briefly continued as a trio until Chris Shiflett joined on guitar after the completion of There Is Nothing Left to Lose. Foo Fighters released their fourth album, One by One, in 2002. It was followed with the two-disc In Your Honor (2005), which was split between acoustic songs and heavier material. Foo Fighters released their sixth album, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, in 2007.
For Foo Fighters' seventh studio album, Wasting Light (2011), produced by Butch Vig, Smear returned as a full member. Sonic Highways (2014) was released as the soundtrack to the television miniseries directed by Grohl. Concrete and Gold (2017) was the second Foo Fighters album to reach number one in the United States and their first studio album to feature longtime session and touring keyboardist Rami Jaffee as a full member. In 2021, the band released their tenth album, Medicine at Midnight.
History
Background and first demos (1990–1994)
In 1990, Dave Grohl joined the grunge band Nirvana as drummer. During tours, he took a guitar with him and wrote songs, but was too intimidated to share them with the band; he was "in awe" of the songs written by frontman Kurt Cobain. Grohl occasionally booked studio time to record demos and covers, issuing an album of demos, Pocketwatch, under the pseudonym Late! in 1992.
Nirvana disbanded after the death of Cobain in 1994. Grohl received offers to work with various artists; press rumors indicated he might join Pearl Jam, and he almost accepted a position as drummer in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Grohl later said: "I was supposed to just join another band and be a drummer the rest of my life. I thought that I would rather do what no one expected me to do." Grohl instead entered Robert Lang Studios in October 1994 to record 15 of his own songs. With the exception of a guitar part on "X-Static", played by Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs, Grohl played every instrument and sang every vocal. He completed an album's worth of material in five days and handed out cassette copies of the sessions to his friends for feedback.
Grohl hoped to stay anonymous and release the recordings in a limited run under the name Foo Fighters, taken from foo fighter, a World War II term for unidentified flying objects. He hoped the name would lead listeners to assume the music was made by several people. He said later: "Had I actually considered this to be a career, I probably would have called it something else, because it's the stupidest fucking band name in the world." The demo tape circulated in the industry, creating interest among record labels.
Formation and debut album (1994–1995)
Grohl formed a band to support the album. He spoke to Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic about joining the group, but they decided against it; Grohl said it would have felt "really natural" for them to work together, but would have been "weird" for the others and place more pressure on Grohl. Instead, Grohl recruited bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith, both of the recently disbanded Seattle group Sunny Day Real Estate. Nirvana touring guitarist Pat Smear joined as second guitarist. Grohl licensed the album to Capitol Records, releasing it on his new label, Roswell Records.
Foo Fighters made their live public debut on February 23, 1995, at the Jambalaya Club in Arcata, California, followed by performances at Satyricon in Portland on March 3 and the Velvet Elvis in Seattle on March 4. The show on March 3 had been part of a benefit gig for the investigation of the rape and murder of Gits singer Mia Zapata. Grohl refused to do interviews or tour large venues to promote the album. Foo Fighters undertook their first major tour in the spring of 1995, opening for Mike Watt. The band's first single, "This Is a Call", was released in June 1995, and its debut album Foo Fighters was released the next month. "I'll Stick Around," "For All the Cows," and "Big Me" were released as subsequent singles. The band spent the following months on tour, including their first appearance at the Reading Festival in England in August.
The Colour and the Shape (1996–1997)
After touring through the spring of 1996, Foo Fighters entered Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, Washington, with producer Gil Norton to record its second album. While Grohl once again wrote all the songs, the rest of the band collaborated on the arrangements. With the sessions nearly complete, Grohl took the rough mixes to Los Angeles, intending to finish his vocal and guitar parts. While there, Grohl realized that he was not happy with the drumming and replaced most of Goldsmith's drum tracks with his own. Though Grohl hoped that Goldsmith would still play on the tour, Goldsmith felt betrayed and left the band.
In need of a replacement for Goldsmith, Grohl contacted Alanis Morissette's touring drummer Taylor Hawkins for a recommendation. Grohl was surprised when Hawkins volunteered himself. Hawkins made his debut with the group in time for the release of its second album, The Colour and the Shape, in May 1997. The album included the singles "Monkey Wrench", "Everlong", "My Hero", and "Walking After You".
Smear left Foo Fighters in 1997, citing exhaustion and burnout, and was replaced by Grohl's former Scream bandmate Franz Stahl. Stahl toured with Foo Fighters for the next few months and appeared on two tracks recorded for movie soundtracks, a re-recording of "Walking After You" for The X-Files and A320 for Godzilla. A B-side from the "My Hero" single, "Dear Lover," appeared in the horror film Scream 2. The tour for The Colour and the Shape album in 1998 included performances at Glastonbury Festival (on the main stage) and the Reading Festival.
There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1998–2001)
In 1998, Foo Fighters traveled to Grohl's home state of Virginia to write their third album. However, Grohl and Stahl were unable to co-operate as songwriters; Grohl told Kerrang! in 1999, "in those few weeks it just seemed like the three of us were moving in one direction and Franz wasn't." Grohl was distraught over the decision to fire Stahl as the two had been friends since childhood. Shortly after that, Mendel called Grohl to say he was quitting to reunite with Sunny Day Real Estate, only to reverse his decision the next day. The remaining trio of Grohl, Mendel, and Hawkins spent several months recording the band's third album, There Is Nothing Left to Lose, in Grohl's home studio. The album spawned several singles, including "Learn to Fly", the band's first to reach the US Billboard Hot 100. Other singles included "Stacked Actors," "Generator," "Next Year," and "Breakout."
Before the release of the album, Capitol Records president Gary Gersh was forced out of the label. Given Grohl's history with Gersh, Foo Fighters' contract had included a "key man clause" that allowed them to leave the label upon Gersh's departure. They left Capitol and signed with RCA, who later acquired the rights to the band's Capitol albums.
After recording There Is Nothing Left to Lose was completed, the band auditioned a number of potential guitarists and settled on Chris Shiflett, who performed with Me First and the Gimme Gimmes and California punk band No Use for a Name. Shiflett initially joined as a touring guitarist but achieved full-time status prior to the recording of the group's fourth album.
In January 2000, Nate Mendel led a benefit concert in Hollywood for AIDS denialist group Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives with a speech by founder Christine Maggiore and free copies of her self-published book, What If Everything You Thought You Knew About AIDS Was Wrong? Additionally, the band's official website featured a section devoted to Alive & Well. Sandra Thurman, then director of the Office of National AIDS Policy stated this was "extraordinarily irresponsible behavior" because "there is no doubt about the link between HIV and AIDS in the respected scientific community." Links and references to Alive & Well were removed from the band's website by March 2003.
Around 2001, Foo Fighters established a relationship with rock band Queen as the band (particularly Grohl and Hawkins) were fans. In March of that year, Grohl and Hawkins inducted them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and joined them to perform the 1976 classic, Tie Your Mother Down, with Hawkins playing drums alongside Roger Taylor. Guitarist Brian May added a guitar track to Foo Fighters' second cover of Pink Floyd's "Have a Cigar," which appeared on the soundtrack to the movie Mission: Impossible 2. In 2002, guitarist May contributed guitar work to Tired of You and an outtake called Knucklehead. The bands have performed together on several occasions since, including VH1 Rock Honors and Foo Fighters' headlining concert in Hyde Park.
One by One (2001–2004)
Near the end of 2001, the band reconvened to record its fourth album. After spending four months in a Los Angeles studio, the album "just didn't sound right" and the band had no confidence it would sell very well. With the album not reaching their expectations amid much infighting, Grohl spent some time helping Queens of the Stone Age complete their 2002 album Songs for the Deaf. Once that album was finished and touring had started for both Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age, the band was on the verge of breaking up entirely. Grohl reunited with Hawkins, Shiflett, and Mendel to play the Coachella Festival, alternating days with Queens of the Stone Age. Hawkins and Grohl talked about resuming work on One by One and after a very satisfying performance the following day, they agreed to stay together. The group re-recorded nearly all of the album (save Tired of You) in a ten-day stretch at Grohl's home studio in Alexandria, Virginia, the following month. The original version of One by One, referred to by the band as Million Dollar Demos, has never been released in its entirety although seven tracks were leaked online in 2012 and 2015.
The album was released in October 2002 under the title One by One. Singles from the album included "All My Life," "Times Like These," "Low," and "Have It All." The tour for the album included a headline performance at the 2002 Reading and Leeds Festivals.
For most of its history, the band chose to stay away from the political realm. However, in 2004, upon learning that George W. Bush's presidential campaign was using "Times Like These" at rallies, Grohl decided to lend his public support to John Kerry's campaign, saying, "There's no way of stopping the president playing your songs, so I went out and played it for John Kerry's people instead, where I thought the message would kinda make more sense." Grohl attended several Kerry rallies and occasionally performed solo acoustic sets. The entire band joined Grohl for a performance in Arizona coinciding with one of the presidential debates.
In Your Honor (2005–2006)
Having spent a year and a half touring behind One by One, Grohl did not want to rush into recording another Foo Fighters record. Initially Grohl intended to write acoustic material by himself but eventually the project involved the entire band. To record its fifth album, the band shifted to Los Angeles and built a recording studio, dubbed Studio 606 West. Grohl insisted that the album be divided into two discs–one full of rock songs, the other featuring acoustic tracks. In Your Honor was released in June 2005. The album's singles included Best of You, DOA, Resolve, and No Way Back/Cold Day in the Sun.
During September and October 2005, the band toured with Weezer on what was billed as the Foozer Tour. Foo Fighters played a headline performance at the 2005 Reading and Leeds Festivals. On June 17, 2006, Foo Fighters performed their largest non-festival headlining concert to date at London's Hyde Park. Motörhead's Lemmy joined the band on stage to sing Shake Your Blood from Dave Grohl's Probot album. As a surprise performance, Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen appeared to play part of We Will Rock You as a lead in to Tie Your Mother Down.
In further support of In Your Honor, the band organized a short acoustic tour for the summer of 2006. Members who had performed with them in late 2005 appeared, such as Pat Smear, Petra Haden on violin and backing vocals, Drew Hester on percussion, and Rami Jaffee of The Wallflowers on keyboard and piano. While much of the setlist focused on In Your Honors acoustic half, the band also used the opportunity to play lesser-known songs, such as Ain't It The Life, Floaty, and See You. The band also performed Marigold, a Pocketwatch-era song that was best known as a Nirvana B side.
In November 2006, the band released their first ever live CD, Skin and Bones, featuring fifteen performances captured over a three-night stint in Los Angeles.
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace and Greatest Hits (2007–2009)
For the follow-up to In Your Honor, the band recruited The Colour and the Shape producer Gil Norton. Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace was released on September 25, 2007. The album's first single, The Pretender, was issued to radio in early August. In mid-to-late 2007 The Pretender topped Billboard's Modern Rock chart for a record 19 weeks. The second single, Long Road to Ruin, was released in December 2007, supported by a music video directed by longtime collaborator Jesse Peretz (formerly of the Lemonheads). Other singles included Let It Die and Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running).
In October 2007, Foo Fighters started their world tour in support of the album. The band performed shows throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia, including headlining the Virgin Mobile Festival in Baltimore on August 9. At the European MTV Music Awards in 2007, Pat Smear confirmed his return to the band.
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace was nominated for five Grammy Awards in 2008. Foo Fighters went home with Best Rock Album and Best Hard Rock Performance (for The Pretender). The album was also nominated for Album of the Year, while The Pretender was also nominated for Record of the Year and Best Rock Song.
On June 7, 2008, the band played Wembley Stadium, London, and was joined by Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin to play Rock and Roll (with Grohl on drums and Hawkins on vocals) and Ramble On (sung by Grohl, drums by Hawkins). As Page and Jones left the stage before a final encore of Best Of You, an ecstatic Grohl shouted "Welcome to the greatest fucking day of my whole entire life!". Throughout the tour for Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, Foo Fighters had been writing and practicing new songs at sound checks. After Foo Fighters had completed this tour in September 2008, they recorded 13 new songs in studio 606, shortly after announcing a hiatus from touring (which would last until January 2011). These sessions likely lasted from late 2008 – early 2009. While the members of Foo Fighters had initially planned for their new album (composed of songs from this recording session) to have come out in 2009 with almost no touring support, they ultimately decided to shelve most of the songs from these sessions. Three of these songs were later released — Wheels and Word Forward (on their 2009 compilation album, Greatest Hits); and a newly recorded version of Rope (which ended up making the final cut of Wasting Light).
In order to promote their greatest hits album, Foo Fighters performed an online show at studio 606 in October 2009 during which the band took fan requests.
Wasting Light (2010–2012)
In August 2010, the band began recording their seventh studio album with producer Butch Vig, who had previously produced the two new tracks for the band's Greatest Hits album. The album was recorded in Dave Grohl's garage using only analog equipment. The album won five Grammys and was nominated for six. The recording was analog to tape and used no computers, not even to mix or master. Vig said in an interview with MTV that the album was entirely analog until post-mastering. Pat Smear was present in many photos posted by Grohl on Twitter and a press release in December confirmed Smear played on every track on the album and was considered a core member of the band once again.
The first single from Wasting Light, Rope, was released to radio in February 2011. On April 16, 2011, Foo Fighters released an album of covers, Medium Rare, as a limited-edition vinyl for Record Store Day. The promotion for the album has been highly praised for its originality. Wasting Light debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, becoming the band's first album to do so. Other singles for the album included Walk, Arlandria, These Days, and Bridge Burning.
Alongside Wasting Lights release, Foo Fighters released a rockumentary, directed by Academy Award-winner James Moll. The film, titled Back and Forth, chronicles the band's career. Then current and past members, and producer Butch Vig, tell the story of the band through interviews. After debuting on March 15, 2011, at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, it was released on DVD three months later.
On May 21, 2011, Foo Fighters headlined the middle day of the Hangout Music Festival in Gulf Shores, Alabama. On June 4, 2011, they played a surprise set at the 2011 KROQ Weenie Roast. They also headlined two sold-out shows at the Milton Keynes National Bowl on July 2 and 3, joined on stage by artists such as Alice Cooper, Seasick Steve, and John Paul Jones. They headlined the final night at the 20th anniversary of Lollapalooza in Chicago's Grant Park on August 7, 2011, performing part of their set in a driving rainstorm.
In September 2011 before a show in Kansas City, the band performed a parody song in front of a protest by the Westboro Baptist Church. It mocked the church's opposition to homosexuality and was performed in the same faux-trucker garb that was seen in the band's Hot Buns promotional video.
It was announced on September 28, 2011, that Foo Fighters would be performing during the closing ceremony of Blizzard Entertainment's annual video game convention, BlizzCon.
On August 27, 2012, Foo Fighters ended their European tour with a headline performance at Reading and Leeds Festival. On September 5, the band performed a show at the Fillmore in Charlotte, North Carolina, as a benefit for Rock the Vote. The show, which occurred at the same time as the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, was announced only two weeks prior. Tickets to the 2000-person capacity venue sold out in under 60 seconds, setting a record for the site. The band set another personal record during the show itself, being the longest that the band had played to date at just under 3.5 hours with a setlist of 36 songs. On September 21, the band headlined the Music Midtown Festival in Atlanta, Georgia. The following evening, they headlined the DeLuna Festival in Pensacola Beach, Florida. On September 29, the band performed at the Global Citizens' Festival before embarking on a break.
Sonic Highways (2013–2015)
Despite initially announcing a break after supporting Wasting Light, Grohl stated in January 2013 that the band had started writing material for an eighth studio album. On February 20, 2013, at the Brit Awards, Grohl said he was resuming work on the album the following day.
On September 6, 2013, Shiflett posted a photo to his Instagram account that indicated 13 songs were being recorded and later described it as "pretty fucking fun". Rami Jaffee has recorded parts for three songs, one of which was In the Way. Butch Vig, who worked with the band on Wasting Light, confirmed via Twitter in late August 2013 that he was producing the album. The band confirmed that it would end its hiatus by playing two shows in Mexico City on December 11 and 13. On October 31, a video appeared on the official Foo Fighters YouTube channel showing a motorcyclist, later revealed to be Erik Estrada, delivering each of the band members an invitation to play in Mexico.
On January 16, 2014, a picture was posted to Foo Fighters' Facebook page with several master tapes labeled LP 8. On May 15, it was announced that the album would be released in November and that the Foo Fighters would commemorate the album and their 20th anniversary with an HBO TV series directed by Grohl titled Sonic Highways. Eight songs were written and recorded in eight studios in eight different American cities with video capturing the history and feel of each town. On July 30, Butch Vig revealed that the Foo Fighters had finished recording and mixing the album and that it was slated to be released a month after the premiere of the TV show.
In June 2014, the band agreed to play a show in Richmond, Virginia, that was entirely crowd-funded by fans on the website Tilt.com. The show took place on September 17 before 1,500 fans. The band played 23 songs over the course of two and a half hours. Foo Fighters announced their tour would include performances in Cape Town on December 10 and Johannesburg on December 13. The band played three performances under the alias The Holy Shits in September 2014; the first at the Concorde 2 club in Brighton, England, where Grohl invited lead singer Jay Apperley of the tribute band UK Foo Fighters on stage to sing, followed by the House of Vans and the Islington Assembly Hall. On September 14, 2014, the band performed at the closing ceremony of the Invictus Games, their first official show in England since closing Reading Festival in 2012. They closed out the 2014 VooDoo Music and Arts Festival in New Orleans on November 2, 2014, in a two and a half hour performance that included an appearance from New Orleans native Trombone Shorty, who played This is a Call with the band.
On August 8, the band released a short clip of their latest work, titled 8. On August 11, the band announced that the new album would be titled Sonic Highways and released on November 10, 2014. An international tour, dubbed the Sonic Highways World Tour, followed with performances in South Africa in December and South America in January 2015. It continued to Australia and New Zealand in February and March.
On May 20, 2015, the Foo Fighters were the final musical act to perform on Late Show with David Letterman, continuing their long association with the host as he wrapped up his 33-year career in late night television. The show ended with a montage of Letterman highlights while the Foo Fighters played "Everlong", which Letterman said had significant meaning for him after his open-heart surgery in 2000. The band postponed their international tour to make the appearance; the tour resumed on May 24, with a performance at Radio 1's Big Weekend in Norwich, England.
On June 12, Grohl fell from the stage in Gothenburg, Sweden, during the group's second song, breaking his leg. The band continued playing while Grohl received medical attention, who then returned to the stage to finish the last two hours of the band's set from a chair while a medic tended to his leg. After the concert, Grohl was flown to London for surgery, requiring six metal pins to stabilize the fracture. As a result of the injury, the band canceled its remaining European tour dates.
In July, one thousand Italian fans held the Rockin' 1000 gathering in Cesena, Italy, performing Learn to Fly and asking Foo Fighters to come play in the town. The performance video went viral and impressed Grohl, resulting in the band appearing in Cesena on November 3.
Saint Cecilia EP and Concrete and Gold (2015–2019)
The Foo Fighters planned to follow their international tour with a North American tour to promote Sonic Highways, beginning with a special Fourth of July event in Washington, D.C., that would commemorate the band's 20th anniversary. The all-day event was to be held at Washington's RFK Stadium featuring performances by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Heart, LL Cool J, Gary Clark Jr., and Buddy Guy. Dave Grohl's injury initially led to speculation that the band would drop out of the event but they later confirmed they would perform; however, the injury did prevent them from headlining the 2015 Glastonbury Festival. The band performed for 48,000 people with Grohl in a custom-built moving throne which he claimed to have designed himself while on painkillers.
Beginning with the show on July 4, the Foo Fighters re-branded the North American tour as the Broken Leg Tour. The band continued to use the name at later North American performances. Prior to their August 21 concert at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri, the band rickrolled protesting members of the Westboro Baptist Church, as they had also done in 2011.
On November 23, 2015, a surprise release following a month-long countdown clock on the Foo Fighters' website revealed the free EP Saint Cecilia, including a single of the same name. Alongside its release, Grohl announced that the band would be going on an indefinite hiatus. In response to growing rumors of the band breaking up, the band released a mockumentary video in March 2016 portraying Grohl leaving the band to pursue an electronic music career and Nick Lachey (formerly of 98 Degrees) becoming the group's new singer, ending with: "For the millionth time, we're not breaking up. And nobody's going fucking solo!" In May 2016, Shiflett stated that the band still had no particular plans for reforming but assured that it would happen eventually.
Grohl announced that the band would spend much of 2017 recording their ninth studio album. On June 1, 2017, their new single "Run" was released. Run topped the US Billboard Mainstream Rock Songs chart the following month. The band confirmed touring keyboardist Rami Jaffee was officially the sixth member of the group. On June 20, 2017, the band announced that their new album, Concrete and Gold, would be released in September. On August 23, 2017, The Sky Is a Neighborhood was released as the second single and topped the Mainstream Rock chart. The Line was released in promotion of the album and later as the third single in 2018. Concrete and Gold was officially released on September 15, 2017, produced by Greg Kurstin. The album is noted as deriving influence from Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and The Beatles. Concrete and Gold also features Justin Timberlake on vocals for Make It Right, Shawn Stockman of Boyz II Men on backing vocals for the song Concrete and Gold, and Paul McCartney on the drums for Sunday Rain. The band began touring in June 2017, including headlining the Glastonbury Festival 2017. The tour in support of Concrete and Gold was extended to October 2018.
Medicine at Midnight and induction into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2019–present)
In October 2019, the band announced that they were recording their tenth studio album based on demos by Grohl. In November 2019, the band began releasing a series of EPs under the umbrella name of the Foo Files, largely consisting of previously released B sides and live performances. By February 2020, Grohl announced that the new album was complete but by May, it was delayed indefinitely because of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying, "We've kind of shelved it for now to figure out exactly when it's going to happen."
Starting in November 2020, promotion for the album ramped up. Its title, Medicine at Midnight, and release date, February 5, 2021, were announced. The band released three singles ahead of the album: "Shame Shame", "No Son of Mine", and "Waiting on a War". In January, the band performed at the US Presidential Inauguration of Joe Biden.
On February 10, 2021, Foo Fighters were announced as one of the 2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees in their first year of eligibility as their debut album had been released 25 years prior. On May 12, 2021, Foo Fighters were announced as one of 6 performer inductees.
For Record Store Day on July 17, 2021, the Foo Fighters released an album of disco covers, Hail Satin, under the name Dee Gees. The album contains four Bee Gees covers, a cover of Andy Gibb's "Shadow Dancing", plus five live versions of Medicine at Midnight tracks.
On December 2, 2021, a video was uploaded to the band's YouTube, which announced Studio 666, a rock and roll comedy horror film starring the members of the band. The trailer was released on January 11, 2022, and has a release date of February 25.
Musical style and legacy
Foo Fighters have been described as grunge, alternative rock, post-grunge, and hard rock. They were initially compared to Grohl's previous group, Nirvana. Grohl acknowledged that Kurt Cobain was an influence on his songwriting: "Through Kurt, I saw the beauty of minimalism and the importance of music that's stripped down." Foo Fighters also used the technique of shifting between quiet verses and loud choruses, which Grohl said was influenced by the members of Nirvana "liking The Knack, Bay City Rollers, Beatles, and ABBA as much as we liked Flipper and Black Flag, I suppose."
Writing and recording songs for their first album by himself, Grohl intended for the guitar riffs to be as rhythmic as possible. He approached the guitar in a similar manner to his drumming, assigning various drum parts to strings on the instrument. This allowed him to piece together songs easily; he said, "I could hear the song in my head before it was finished." Once Grohl assembled a full band, the members assisted in song arrangements. Pitchfork described Grohl and the band as "his generation's answer to Tom Petty—a consistent hit machine pumping out working-class rock."
The band members meld melodic and heavy elements. Grohl noted in 1997, "We all love music, whether it's the Beatles or Queen or punk rock. I think the lure of punk rock was the energy and immediacy; the need to thrash stuff around. But at the same time, we're all suckers for a beautiful melody, you know? So it is just natural." Grohl said in 2005, "I love being in a rock band, but I don't know if I necessarily wanna be in an alternative rock band from the 1990s for the rest of my life." Grohl noted that the band's acoustic tour was an attempt to broaden the group's sound.
Band membersCurrent members Dave Grohl – lead vocals, guitar (1994–present)
Pat Smear – guitar (1995–1997, 2010–present; session/touring member 2005–2010), backing vocals (1995–1997)
Chris Shiflett – guitar, backing vocals (1999–present)
Nate Mendel – bass (1995–present)
Taylor Hawkins – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1997–present)
Rami Jaffee – keyboard, piano (2017–present; session/touring member 2005–2017)Former members Franz Stahl – guitar, backing vocals (1997–1999)
William Goldsmith – drums, percussion (1995–1997)
Timeline
DiscographyStudio albums'''
Foo Fighters (1995)
The Colour and the Shape (1997)
There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1999)
One by One (2002)
In Your Honor (2005)
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (2007)
Wasting Light (2011)
Sonic Highways (2014)
Concrete and Gold (2017)
Medicine at Midnight (2021)
Awards and nominations
Foo Fighters first received a Grammy Award for their music video for Learn to Fly in 2000, and they have won ten others. These include four Grammys in the Best Rock Album category for There Is Nothing Left to Lose, One by One, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace and Wasting Light, and three awards for Best Hard Rock Performance for the songs All My Life, The Pretender and White Limo. The band also received three Kerrang! Awards. At the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, the band won Best Rock Video for Walk. They won the Radio Contraband Major Label Artist of the Year in 2011 and 2014. The band won Song of the Year for Something From Nothing and Album of the Year for Sonic Highways both in 2014.
On February 12, 2012, the band performed at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards playing Walk along with the remix version of Rope, featuring deadmau5. The band was nominated for six Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Best Rock Performance, Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance, Best Rock Song, Best Rock Album and Best Long Form Music Video (for Back and Forth''). They won five of the six, losing only to Adele in the Album of the Year category.
In 2021, Foo Fighters were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in their first year of eligibility.
In 2021, the band was announced as recipients of the first-ever global icon award at the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards.
References
External links
Alternative rock groups from Washington (state)
American post-grunge musical groups
Grunge musical groups
Brit Award winners
Grammy Award winners
Hard rock musical groups from Washington (state)
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1994
Musical groups from Seattle
NME Awards winners
Nirvana (band)
RCA Records artists
Articles which contain graphical timelines
Late Show with David Letterman
1994 establishments in Washington (state) | true | [
"Neptosternus ceylonicus is a species of beetle. Its holotype was found in Sri Lanka. The specimens were captured in running water or when flying towards light in the evening.\n\nDescription\nThis species resembles other smaller or medium-sized species of Neptosternus. It may be recognized by the size, fairly widely oval shape of its body, the colour-patterns of pronotum and elytra, and the shape of the penis in the males. Its length is between , while its breadth is between . It shape is elongate and oval, moderately convex dorsally; and its upper surface shining. Its head and antennae are yellowish in colour, with fine and remote punctation on the head. It also has a reticulate surface. The pronotum is yellowish with a narrow transverse slightly darker band in the middle, and an anterior submarginal row of punctures that are irregular.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nITIS entry\n\nDytiscidae\nBeetles described in 1990",
"Tsuga sieboldii, also called the southern Japanese hemlock, or in Japanese, simply tsuga (栂), is a conifer native to the Japanese islands of Honshū, Kyūshū, Shikoku and Yakushima. In Europe and North America the tree is sometimes used as an ornamental and has been in cultivation since 1861.\n\nDescription\nThe tree is often multiple-stemmed from the base and the dense crown is broadly conical and pointed. The bark is a dark pink-grey in colour. It is smooth with horizontal folds when the tree is young, but later cracks into squares and become flaky. The glabrous shoots are a pale shining buff, but they may vary to white or pale brown. The base of the petiole is red-brown. The leaves are densely set in irregular flat rows. They are broad and stubby in comparison to other species of the genus Tsuga, and they vary in length from 0.7 cm to 2 cm long by about 0.2 cm wide. They are blunt with notched tips and shiny dark green above. The underside of the leaves has two broad, dull white stomatal bands. The buds are narrow based and ovoid, dark orange in colour. Their scales are convex.\n\nThe staminate (i.e. male) flowers are terminal on weak shoots. They are very small at only 2 mm, globular in shape and cherry-red in colour. The pistillate flowers are slightly larger at 5 mm, purple in colour and nodding ovoid in shape. The deep dark brown cones are pendulous and ovoid-conic in shape. The tips are blunt and they measure about 2.3 cm long by 1.3 cm wide. Their scales are flat topped.\n\nReferences\n\nsieboldii\nTrees of Japan\nEndemic flora of Japan"
] |
[
"Foo Fighters",
"The Colour and the Shape (1996-1997)",
"What is the colour and the shape",
"second album."
] | C_44cfa9f1a9614dc1970959a59917acbd_1 | What singles did the album have? | 2 | What singles did the album "The colour and the shape" have? | Foo Fighters | After touring through the spring of 1996, Foo Fighters entered Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, Washington, with producer Gil Norton to record its second album. While Grohl once again wrote all the songs, the rest of the band collaborated on the arrangements. With the sessions nearly complete, Grohl took the rough mixes with him to Los Angeles, intending to finish up his vocal and guitar parts. While there, Grohl realized that he was not happy with how the mixes were turning out, and changed William Goldsmith's "drum tracks with his own for all but two songs." During the L.A. sessions, Grohl had played drums on the songs. Unhappy with Goldsmith's drumming, Grohl removed it from the recordings and re-recorded the drum tracks. As Goldsmith was about to come down to L.A. to find out why he wasn't being called upon to re-record his parts, he called Mendel from Seattle inquiring if he should make the trip. Grohl then called Goldsmith saying, "Dude, don't come down here, I'm recording some of the drum tracks". Shocked by this, Goldsmith met up with Mendel in Seattle and repeated Grohl's claim to be re-recording "some" of the tracks. Mendel asked, "Is that what he told you?"; Goldsmith affirmed it, and Mendel stated, "No, man, he did them all". Grohl explained that he'd wanted the drums to sound a certain way on the album. He wanted Goldsmith to play for the tour even though it would not be his drumming but Grohl's on the album. Feeling betrayed, Goldsmith left the band. In need of a replacement for Goldsmith, Grohl contacted Alanis Morissette's touring drummer Taylor Hawkins to see if he could recommend anybody. Grohl was surprised when Hawkins volunteered his own services as drummer. Hawkins made his debut with the group in time for the release of its second album, The Colour and the Shape, in May 1997. The album included the singles "Monkey Wrench", "Everlong", "My Hero", and "Walking After You" Pat Smear announced to the rest of the group that he wanted to leave the band claiming exhaustion and burnout but agreed to stay with the band until a replacement could be found for him. Four months later in September 1997 at the MTV Video Music Awards, Smear simultaneously announced to the public his departure from the band and introduced his replacement, Grohl's former Scream bandmate Franz Stahl. Stahl toured with the band for the next few months, and appeared on two tracks that the band recorded for movie soundtracks, a re-recording of "Walking After You" for The X-Files and "A320" for Godzilla. A B-side from the "My Hero" single, "Dear Lover", appeared in the horror film Scream 2. The tour for The Colour and the Shape album included a main stage performance at the 1998 Glastonbury Festival and culminated with a performance at the 1998 Reading Festival, both in England. CANNOTANSWER | The album included the singles "Monkey Wrench", "Everlong", "My Hero", and "Walking After You" | Foo Fighters are an American rock band formed in 1994 in Seattle, Washington. The band was founded by former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a one-man project following the dissolution of Nirvana after the suicide of Kurt Cobain. The group took its name from foo fighter, a nickname coined by Allied aircraft pilots for UFOs and other aerial phenomena. Over the course of their career, Foo Fighters have won 12 Grammy Awards, including Best Rock Album four times. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021, their first year of eligibility.
Prior to the release of Foo Fighters' 1995 debut album Foo Fighters, which featured Grohl as the only official member, Grohl recruited bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith, both formerly of Sunny Day Real Estate, as well as Nirvana touring guitarist Pat Smear. The band began with performances in Portland, Oregon. Goldsmith quit during the recording of their second album The Colour and the Shape (1997); most of the drum parts were re-recorded by Grohl. Smear departed soon afterward but appeared as a guest with the band frequently from 2005; he rejoined in 2010.
Smear and Goldsmith were replaced by Franz Stahl and Taylor Hawkins; Stahl was fired before the recording of the group's third album, There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1999). The band briefly continued as a trio until Chris Shiflett joined on guitar after the completion of There Is Nothing Left to Lose. Foo Fighters released their fourth album, One by One, in 2002. It was followed with the two-disc In Your Honor (2005), which was split between acoustic songs and heavier material. Foo Fighters released their sixth album, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, in 2007.
For Foo Fighters' seventh studio album, Wasting Light (2011), produced by Butch Vig, Smear returned as a full member. Sonic Highways (2014) was released as the soundtrack to the television miniseries directed by Grohl. Concrete and Gold (2017) was the second Foo Fighters album to reach number one in the United States and their first studio album to feature longtime session and touring keyboardist Rami Jaffee as a full member. In 2021, the band released their tenth album, Medicine at Midnight.
History
Background and first demos (1990–1994)
In 1990, Dave Grohl joined the grunge band Nirvana as drummer. During tours, he took a guitar with him and wrote songs, but was too intimidated to share them with the band; he was "in awe" of the songs written by frontman Kurt Cobain. Grohl occasionally booked studio time to record demos and covers, issuing an album of demos, Pocketwatch, under the pseudonym Late! in 1992.
Nirvana disbanded after the death of Cobain in 1994. Grohl received offers to work with various artists; press rumors indicated he might join Pearl Jam, and he almost accepted a position as drummer in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Grohl later said: "I was supposed to just join another band and be a drummer the rest of my life. I thought that I would rather do what no one expected me to do." Grohl instead entered Robert Lang Studios in October 1994 to record 15 of his own songs. With the exception of a guitar part on "X-Static", played by Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs, Grohl played every instrument and sang every vocal. He completed an album's worth of material in five days and handed out cassette copies of the sessions to his friends for feedback.
Grohl hoped to stay anonymous and release the recordings in a limited run under the name Foo Fighters, taken from foo fighter, a World War II term for unidentified flying objects. He hoped the name would lead listeners to assume the music was made by several people. He said later: "Had I actually considered this to be a career, I probably would have called it something else, because it's the stupidest fucking band name in the world." The demo tape circulated in the industry, creating interest among record labels.
Formation and debut album (1994–1995)
Grohl formed a band to support the album. He spoke to Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic about joining the group, but they decided against it; Grohl said it would have felt "really natural" for them to work together, but would have been "weird" for the others and place more pressure on Grohl. Instead, Grohl recruited bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith, both of the recently disbanded Seattle group Sunny Day Real Estate. Nirvana touring guitarist Pat Smear joined as second guitarist. Grohl licensed the album to Capitol Records, releasing it on his new label, Roswell Records.
Foo Fighters made their live public debut on February 23, 1995, at the Jambalaya Club in Arcata, California, followed by performances at Satyricon in Portland on March 3 and the Velvet Elvis in Seattle on March 4. The show on March 3 had been part of a benefit gig for the investigation of the rape and murder of Gits singer Mia Zapata. Grohl refused to do interviews or tour large venues to promote the album. Foo Fighters undertook their first major tour in the spring of 1995, opening for Mike Watt. The band's first single, "This Is a Call", was released in June 1995, and its debut album Foo Fighters was released the next month. "I'll Stick Around," "For All the Cows," and "Big Me" were released as subsequent singles. The band spent the following months on tour, including their first appearance at the Reading Festival in England in August.
The Colour and the Shape (1996–1997)
After touring through the spring of 1996, Foo Fighters entered Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, Washington, with producer Gil Norton to record its second album. While Grohl once again wrote all the songs, the rest of the band collaborated on the arrangements. With the sessions nearly complete, Grohl took the rough mixes to Los Angeles, intending to finish his vocal and guitar parts. While there, Grohl realized that he was not happy with the drumming and replaced most of Goldsmith's drum tracks with his own. Though Grohl hoped that Goldsmith would still play on the tour, Goldsmith felt betrayed and left the band.
In need of a replacement for Goldsmith, Grohl contacted Alanis Morissette's touring drummer Taylor Hawkins for a recommendation. Grohl was surprised when Hawkins volunteered himself. Hawkins made his debut with the group in time for the release of its second album, The Colour and the Shape, in May 1997. The album included the singles "Monkey Wrench", "Everlong", "My Hero", and "Walking After You".
Smear left Foo Fighters in 1997, citing exhaustion and burnout, and was replaced by Grohl's former Scream bandmate Franz Stahl. Stahl toured with Foo Fighters for the next few months and appeared on two tracks recorded for movie soundtracks, a re-recording of "Walking After You" for The X-Files and A320 for Godzilla. A B-side from the "My Hero" single, "Dear Lover," appeared in the horror film Scream 2. The tour for The Colour and the Shape album in 1998 included performances at Glastonbury Festival (on the main stage) and the Reading Festival.
There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1998–2001)
In 1998, Foo Fighters traveled to Grohl's home state of Virginia to write their third album. However, Grohl and Stahl were unable to co-operate as songwriters; Grohl told Kerrang! in 1999, "in those few weeks it just seemed like the three of us were moving in one direction and Franz wasn't." Grohl was distraught over the decision to fire Stahl as the two had been friends since childhood. Shortly after that, Mendel called Grohl to say he was quitting to reunite with Sunny Day Real Estate, only to reverse his decision the next day. The remaining trio of Grohl, Mendel, and Hawkins spent several months recording the band's third album, There Is Nothing Left to Lose, in Grohl's home studio. The album spawned several singles, including "Learn to Fly", the band's first to reach the US Billboard Hot 100. Other singles included "Stacked Actors," "Generator," "Next Year," and "Breakout."
Before the release of the album, Capitol Records president Gary Gersh was forced out of the label. Given Grohl's history with Gersh, Foo Fighters' contract had included a "key man clause" that allowed them to leave the label upon Gersh's departure. They left Capitol and signed with RCA, who later acquired the rights to the band's Capitol albums.
After recording There Is Nothing Left to Lose was completed, the band auditioned a number of potential guitarists and settled on Chris Shiflett, who performed with Me First and the Gimme Gimmes and California punk band No Use for a Name. Shiflett initially joined as a touring guitarist but achieved full-time status prior to the recording of the group's fourth album.
In January 2000, Nate Mendel led a benefit concert in Hollywood for AIDS denialist group Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives with a speech by founder Christine Maggiore and free copies of her self-published book, What If Everything You Thought You Knew About AIDS Was Wrong? Additionally, the band's official website featured a section devoted to Alive & Well. Sandra Thurman, then director of the Office of National AIDS Policy stated this was "extraordinarily irresponsible behavior" because "there is no doubt about the link between HIV and AIDS in the respected scientific community." Links and references to Alive & Well were removed from the band's website by March 2003.
Around 2001, Foo Fighters established a relationship with rock band Queen as the band (particularly Grohl and Hawkins) were fans. In March of that year, Grohl and Hawkins inducted them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and joined them to perform the 1976 classic, Tie Your Mother Down, with Hawkins playing drums alongside Roger Taylor. Guitarist Brian May added a guitar track to Foo Fighters' second cover of Pink Floyd's "Have a Cigar," which appeared on the soundtrack to the movie Mission: Impossible 2. In 2002, guitarist May contributed guitar work to Tired of You and an outtake called Knucklehead. The bands have performed together on several occasions since, including VH1 Rock Honors and Foo Fighters' headlining concert in Hyde Park.
One by One (2001–2004)
Near the end of 2001, the band reconvened to record its fourth album. After spending four months in a Los Angeles studio, the album "just didn't sound right" and the band had no confidence it would sell very well. With the album not reaching their expectations amid much infighting, Grohl spent some time helping Queens of the Stone Age complete their 2002 album Songs for the Deaf. Once that album was finished and touring had started for both Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age, the band was on the verge of breaking up entirely. Grohl reunited with Hawkins, Shiflett, and Mendel to play the Coachella Festival, alternating days with Queens of the Stone Age. Hawkins and Grohl talked about resuming work on One by One and after a very satisfying performance the following day, they agreed to stay together. The group re-recorded nearly all of the album (save Tired of You) in a ten-day stretch at Grohl's home studio in Alexandria, Virginia, the following month. The original version of One by One, referred to by the band as Million Dollar Demos, has never been released in its entirety although seven tracks were leaked online in 2012 and 2015.
The album was released in October 2002 under the title One by One. Singles from the album included "All My Life," "Times Like These," "Low," and "Have It All." The tour for the album included a headline performance at the 2002 Reading and Leeds Festivals.
For most of its history, the band chose to stay away from the political realm. However, in 2004, upon learning that George W. Bush's presidential campaign was using "Times Like These" at rallies, Grohl decided to lend his public support to John Kerry's campaign, saying, "There's no way of stopping the president playing your songs, so I went out and played it for John Kerry's people instead, where I thought the message would kinda make more sense." Grohl attended several Kerry rallies and occasionally performed solo acoustic sets. The entire band joined Grohl for a performance in Arizona coinciding with one of the presidential debates.
In Your Honor (2005–2006)
Having spent a year and a half touring behind One by One, Grohl did not want to rush into recording another Foo Fighters record. Initially Grohl intended to write acoustic material by himself but eventually the project involved the entire band. To record its fifth album, the band shifted to Los Angeles and built a recording studio, dubbed Studio 606 West. Grohl insisted that the album be divided into two discs–one full of rock songs, the other featuring acoustic tracks. In Your Honor was released in June 2005. The album's singles included Best of You, DOA, Resolve, and No Way Back/Cold Day in the Sun.
During September and October 2005, the band toured with Weezer on what was billed as the Foozer Tour. Foo Fighters played a headline performance at the 2005 Reading and Leeds Festivals. On June 17, 2006, Foo Fighters performed their largest non-festival headlining concert to date at London's Hyde Park. Motörhead's Lemmy joined the band on stage to sing Shake Your Blood from Dave Grohl's Probot album. As a surprise performance, Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen appeared to play part of We Will Rock You as a lead in to Tie Your Mother Down.
In further support of In Your Honor, the band organized a short acoustic tour for the summer of 2006. Members who had performed with them in late 2005 appeared, such as Pat Smear, Petra Haden on violin and backing vocals, Drew Hester on percussion, and Rami Jaffee of The Wallflowers on keyboard and piano. While much of the setlist focused on In Your Honors acoustic half, the band also used the opportunity to play lesser-known songs, such as Ain't It The Life, Floaty, and See You. The band also performed Marigold, a Pocketwatch-era song that was best known as a Nirvana B side.
In November 2006, the band released their first ever live CD, Skin and Bones, featuring fifteen performances captured over a three-night stint in Los Angeles.
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace and Greatest Hits (2007–2009)
For the follow-up to In Your Honor, the band recruited The Colour and the Shape producer Gil Norton. Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace was released on September 25, 2007. The album's first single, The Pretender, was issued to radio in early August. In mid-to-late 2007 The Pretender topped Billboard's Modern Rock chart for a record 19 weeks. The second single, Long Road to Ruin, was released in December 2007, supported by a music video directed by longtime collaborator Jesse Peretz (formerly of the Lemonheads). Other singles included Let It Die and Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running).
In October 2007, Foo Fighters started their world tour in support of the album. The band performed shows throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia, including headlining the Virgin Mobile Festival in Baltimore on August 9. At the European MTV Music Awards in 2007, Pat Smear confirmed his return to the band.
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace was nominated for five Grammy Awards in 2008. Foo Fighters went home with Best Rock Album and Best Hard Rock Performance (for The Pretender). The album was also nominated for Album of the Year, while The Pretender was also nominated for Record of the Year and Best Rock Song.
On June 7, 2008, the band played Wembley Stadium, London, and was joined by Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin to play Rock and Roll (with Grohl on drums and Hawkins on vocals) and Ramble On (sung by Grohl, drums by Hawkins). As Page and Jones left the stage before a final encore of Best Of You, an ecstatic Grohl shouted "Welcome to the greatest fucking day of my whole entire life!". Throughout the tour for Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, Foo Fighters had been writing and practicing new songs at sound checks. After Foo Fighters had completed this tour in September 2008, they recorded 13 new songs in studio 606, shortly after announcing a hiatus from touring (which would last until January 2011). These sessions likely lasted from late 2008 – early 2009. While the members of Foo Fighters had initially planned for their new album (composed of songs from this recording session) to have come out in 2009 with almost no touring support, they ultimately decided to shelve most of the songs from these sessions. Three of these songs were later released — Wheels and Word Forward (on their 2009 compilation album, Greatest Hits); and a newly recorded version of Rope (which ended up making the final cut of Wasting Light).
In order to promote their greatest hits album, Foo Fighters performed an online show at studio 606 in October 2009 during which the band took fan requests.
Wasting Light (2010–2012)
In August 2010, the band began recording their seventh studio album with producer Butch Vig, who had previously produced the two new tracks for the band's Greatest Hits album. The album was recorded in Dave Grohl's garage using only analog equipment. The album won five Grammys and was nominated for six. The recording was analog to tape and used no computers, not even to mix or master. Vig said in an interview with MTV that the album was entirely analog until post-mastering. Pat Smear was present in many photos posted by Grohl on Twitter and a press release in December confirmed Smear played on every track on the album and was considered a core member of the band once again.
The first single from Wasting Light, Rope, was released to radio in February 2011. On April 16, 2011, Foo Fighters released an album of covers, Medium Rare, as a limited-edition vinyl for Record Store Day. The promotion for the album has been highly praised for its originality. Wasting Light debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, becoming the band's first album to do so. Other singles for the album included Walk, Arlandria, These Days, and Bridge Burning.
Alongside Wasting Lights release, Foo Fighters released a rockumentary, directed by Academy Award-winner James Moll. The film, titled Back and Forth, chronicles the band's career. Then current and past members, and producer Butch Vig, tell the story of the band through interviews. After debuting on March 15, 2011, at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, it was released on DVD three months later.
On May 21, 2011, Foo Fighters headlined the middle day of the Hangout Music Festival in Gulf Shores, Alabama. On June 4, 2011, they played a surprise set at the 2011 KROQ Weenie Roast. They also headlined two sold-out shows at the Milton Keynes National Bowl on July 2 and 3, joined on stage by artists such as Alice Cooper, Seasick Steve, and John Paul Jones. They headlined the final night at the 20th anniversary of Lollapalooza in Chicago's Grant Park on August 7, 2011, performing part of their set in a driving rainstorm.
In September 2011 before a show in Kansas City, the band performed a parody song in front of a protest by the Westboro Baptist Church. It mocked the church's opposition to homosexuality and was performed in the same faux-trucker garb that was seen in the band's Hot Buns promotional video.
It was announced on September 28, 2011, that Foo Fighters would be performing during the closing ceremony of Blizzard Entertainment's annual video game convention, BlizzCon.
On August 27, 2012, Foo Fighters ended their European tour with a headline performance at Reading and Leeds Festival. On September 5, the band performed a show at the Fillmore in Charlotte, North Carolina, as a benefit for Rock the Vote. The show, which occurred at the same time as the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, was announced only two weeks prior. Tickets to the 2000-person capacity venue sold out in under 60 seconds, setting a record for the site. The band set another personal record during the show itself, being the longest that the band had played to date at just under 3.5 hours with a setlist of 36 songs. On September 21, the band headlined the Music Midtown Festival in Atlanta, Georgia. The following evening, they headlined the DeLuna Festival in Pensacola Beach, Florida. On September 29, the band performed at the Global Citizens' Festival before embarking on a break.
Sonic Highways (2013–2015)
Despite initially announcing a break after supporting Wasting Light, Grohl stated in January 2013 that the band had started writing material for an eighth studio album. On February 20, 2013, at the Brit Awards, Grohl said he was resuming work on the album the following day.
On September 6, 2013, Shiflett posted a photo to his Instagram account that indicated 13 songs were being recorded and later described it as "pretty fucking fun". Rami Jaffee has recorded parts for three songs, one of which was In the Way. Butch Vig, who worked with the band on Wasting Light, confirmed via Twitter in late August 2013 that he was producing the album. The band confirmed that it would end its hiatus by playing two shows in Mexico City on December 11 and 13. On October 31, a video appeared on the official Foo Fighters YouTube channel showing a motorcyclist, later revealed to be Erik Estrada, delivering each of the band members an invitation to play in Mexico.
On January 16, 2014, a picture was posted to Foo Fighters' Facebook page with several master tapes labeled LP 8. On May 15, it was announced that the album would be released in November and that the Foo Fighters would commemorate the album and their 20th anniversary with an HBO TV series directed by Grohl titled Sonic Highways. Eight songs were written and recorded in eight studios in eight different American cities with video capturing the history and feel of each town. On July 30, Butch Vig revealed that the Foo Fighters had finished recording and mixing the album and that it was slated to be released a month after the premiere of the TV show.
In June 2014, the band agreed to play a show in Richmond, Virginia, that was entirely crowd-funded by fans on the website Tilt.com. The show took place on September 17 before 1,500 fans. The band played 23 songs over the course of two and a half hours. Foo Fighters announced their tour would include performances in Cape Town on December 10 and Johannesburg on December 13. The band played three performances under the alias The Holy Shits in September 2014; the first at the Concorde 2 club in Brighton, England, where Grohl invited lead singer Jay Apperley of the tribute band UK Foo Fighters on stage to sing, followed by the House of Vans and the Islington Assembly Hall. On September 14, 2014, the band performed at the closing ceremony of the Invictus Games, their first official show in England since closing Reading Festival in 2012. They closed out the 2014 VooDoo Music and Arts Festival in New Orleans on November 2, 2014, in a two and a half hour performance that included an appearance from New Orleans native Trombone Shorty, who played This is a Call with the band.
On August 8, the band released a short clip of their latest work, titled 8. On August 11, the band announced that the new album would be titled Sonic Highways and released on November 10, 2014. An international tour, dubbed the Sonic Highways World Tour, followed with performances in South Africa in December and South America in January 2015. It continued to Australia and New Zealand in February and March.
On May 20, 2015, the Foo Fighters were the final musical act to perform on Late Show with David Letterman, continuing their long association with the host as he wrapped up his 33-year career in late night television. The show ended with a montage of Letterman highlights while the Foo Fighters played "Everlong", which Letterman said had significant meaning for him after his open-heart surgery in 2000. The band postponed their international tour to make the appearance; the tour resumed on May 24, with a performance at Radio 1's Big Weekend in Norwich, England.
On June 12, Grohl fell from the stage in Gothenburg, Sweden, during the group's second song, breaking his leg. The band continued playing while Grohl received medical attention, who then returned to the stage to finish the last two hours of the band's set from a chair while a medic tended to his leg. After the concert, Grohl was flown to London for surgery, requiring six metal pins to stabilize the fracture. As a result of the injury, the band canceled its remaining European tour dates.
In July, one thousand Italian fans held the Rockin' 1000 gathering in Cesena, Italy, performing Learn to Fly and asking Foo Fighters to come play in the town. The performance video went viral and impressed Grohl, resulting in the band appearing in Cesena on November 3.
Saint Cecilia EP and Concrete and Gold (2015–2019)
The Foo Fighters planned to follow their international tour with a North American tour to promote Sonic Highways, beginning with a special Fourth of July event in Washington, D.C., that would commemorate the band's 20th anniversary. The all-day event was to be held at Washington's RFK Stadium featuring performances by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Heart, LL Cool J, Gary Clark Jr., and Buddy Guy. Dave Grohl's injury initially led to speculation that the band would drop out of the event but they later confirmed they would perform; however, the injury did prevent them from headlining the 2015 Glastonbury Festival. The band performed for 48,000 people with Grohl in a custom-built moving throne which he claimed to have designed himself while on painkillers.
Beginning with the show on July 4, the Foo Fighters re-branded the North American tour as the Broken Leg Tour. The band continued to use the name at later North American performances. Prior to their August 21 concert at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri, the band rickrolled protesting members of the Westboro Baptist Church, as they had also done in 2011.
On November 23, 2015, a surprise release following a month-long countdown clock on the Foo Fighters' website revealed the free EP Saint Cecilia, including a single of the same name. Alongside its release, Grohl announced that the band would be going on an indefinite hiatus. In response to growing rumors of the band breaking up, the band released a mockumentary video in March 2016 portraying Grohl leaving the band to pursue an electronic music career and Nick Lachey (formerly of 98 Degrees) becoming the group's new singer, ending with: "For the millionth time, we're not breaking up. And nobody's going fucking solo!" In May 2016, Shiflett stated that the band still had no particular plans for reforming but assured that it would happen eventually.
Grohl announced that the band would spend much of 2017 recording their ninth studio album. On June 1, 2017, their new single "Run" was released. Run topped the US Billboard Mainstream Rock Songs chart the following month. The band confirmed touring keyboardist Rami Jaffee was officially the sixth member of the group. On June 20, 2017, the band announced that their new album, Concrete and Gold, would be released in September. On August 23, 2017, The Sky Is a Neighborhood was released as the second single and topped the Mainstream Rock chart. The Line was released in promotion of the album and later as the third single in 2018. Concrete and Gold was officially released on September 15, 2017, produced by Greg Kurstin. The album is noted as deriving influence from Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and The Beatles. Concrete and Gold also features Justin Timberlake on vocals for Make It Right, Shawn Stockman of Boyz II Men on backing vocals for the song Concrete and Gold, and Paul McCartney on the drums for Sunday Rain. The band began touring in June 2017, including headlining the Glastonbury Festival 2017. The tour in support of Concrete and Gold was extended to October 2018.
Medicine at Midnight and induction into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2019–present)
In October 2019, the band announced that they were recording their tenth studio album based on demos by Grohl. In November 2019, the band began releasing a series of EPs under the umbrella name of the Foo Files, largely consisting of previously released B sides and live performances. By February 2020, Grohl announced that the new album was complete but by May, it was delayed indefinitely because of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying, "We've kind of shelved it for now to figure out exactly when it's going to happen."
Starting in November 2020, promotion for the album ramped up. Its title, Medicine at Midnight, and release date, February 5, 2021, were announced. The band released three singles ahead of the album: "Shame Shame", "No Son of Mine", and "Waiting on a War". In January, the band performed at the US Presidential Inauguration of Joe Biden.
On February 10, 2021, Foo Fighters were announced as one of the 2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees in their first year of eligibility as their debut album had been released 25 years prior. On May 12, 2021, Foo Fighters were announced as one of 6 performer inductees.
For Record Store Day on July 17, 2021, the Foo Fighters released an album of disco covers, Hail Satin, under the name Dee Gees. The album contains four Bee Gees covers, a cover of Andy Gibb's "Shadow Dancing", plus five live versions of Medicine at Midnight tracks.
On December 2, 2021, a video was uploaded to the band's YouTube, which announced Studio 666, a rock and roll comedy horror film starring the members of the band. The trailer was released on January 11, 2022, and has a release date of February 25.
Musical style and legacy
Foo Fighters have been described as grunge, alternative rock, post-grunge, and hard rock. They were initially compared to Grohl's previous group, Nirvana. Grohl acknowledged that Kurt Cobain was an influence on his songwriting: "Through Kurt, I saw the beauty of minimalism and the importance of music that's stripped down." Foo Fighters also used the technique of shifting between quiet verses and loud choruses, which Grohl said was influenced by the members of Nirvana "liking The Knack, Bay City Rollers, Beatles, and ABBA as much as we liked Flipper and Black Flag, I suppose."
Writing and recording songs for their first album by himself, Grohl intended for the guitar riffs to be as rhythmic as possible. He approached the guitar in a similar manner to his drumming, assigning various drum parts to strings on the instrument. This allowed him to piece together songs easily; he said, "I could hear the song in my head before it was finished." Once Grohl assembled a full band, the members assisted in song arrangements. Pitchfork described Grohl and the band as "his generation's answer to Tom Petty—a consistent hit machine pumping out working-class rock."
The band members meld melodic and heavy elements. Grohl noted in 1997, "We all love music, whether it's the Beatles or Queen or punk rock. I think the lure of punk rock was the energy and immediacy; the need to thrash stuff around. But at the same time, we're all suckers for a beautiful melody, you know? So it is just natural." Grohl said in 2005, "I love being in a rock band, but I don't know if I necessarily wanna be in an alternative rock band from the 1990s for the rest of my life." Grohl noted that the band's acoustic tour was an attempt to broaden the group's sound.
Band membersCurrent members Dave Grohl – lead vocals, guitar (1994–present)
Pat Smear – guitar (1995–1997, 2010–present; session/touring member 2005–2010), backing vocals (1995–1997)
Chris Shiflett – guitar, backing vocals (1999–present)
Nate Mendel – bass (1995–present)
Taylor Hawkins – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1997–present)
Rami Jaffee – keyboard, piano (2017–present; session/touring member 2005–2017)Former members Franz Stahl – guitar, backing vocals (1997–1999)
William Goldsmith – drums, percussion (1995–1997)
Timeline
DiscographyStudio albums'''
Foo Fighters (1995)
The Colour and the Shape (1997)
There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1999)
One by One (2002)
In Your Honor (2005)
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (2007)
Wasting Light (2011)
Sonic Highways (2014)
Concrete and Gold (2017)
Medicine at Midnight (2021)
Awards and nominations
Foo Fighters first received a Grammy Award for their music video for Learn to Fly in 2000, and they have won ten others. These include four Grammys in the Best Rock Album category for There Is Nothing Left to Lose, One by One, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace and Wasting Light, and three awards for Best Hard Rock Performance for the songs All My Life, The Pretender and White Limo. The band also received three Kerrang! Awards. At the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, the band won Best Rock Video for Walk. They won the Radio Contraband Major Label Artist of the Year in 2011 and 2014. The band won Song of the Year for Something From Nothing and Album of the Year for Sonic Highways both in 2014.
On February 12, 2012, the band performed at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards playing Walk along with the remix version of Rope, featuring deadmau5. The band was nominated for six Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Best Rock Performance, Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance, Best Rock Song, Best Rock Album and Best Long Form Music Video (for Back and Forth''). They won five of the six, losing only to Adele in the Album of the Year category.
In 2021, Foo Fighters were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in their first year of eligibility.
In 2021, the band was announced as recipients of the first-ever global icon award at the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards.
References
External links
Alternative rock groups from Washington (state)
American post-grunge musical groups
Grunge musical groups
Brit Award winners
Grammy Award winners
Hard rock musical groups from Washington (state)
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1994
Musical groups from Seattle
NME Awards winners
Nirvana (band)
RCA Records artists
Articles which contain graphical timelines
Late Show with David Letterman
1994 establishments in Washington (state) | true | [
"What You Need is the tenth studio album by American contemporary R&B singer Stacy Lattisaw, released October 17, 1989 via Motown Records. It did not chart on the Billboard 200, but it peaked at #16 on the Billboard R&B chart. It was also Lattisaw's final album before she retired from the music industry.\n\nFour singles were released from the album: \"What You Need\", \"Where Do We Go from Here\", \"Dance for You\" and \"I Don't Have the Heart\". \"Where Do We Go from Here\" was the most successful single from the album, peaking at #1 on the Billboard R&B singles chart in 1990.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\n1989 albums\nStacy Lattisaw albums\nAlbums produced by Timmy Regisford\nMotown albums",
"\"Loving You\" is a song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and performed by Elvis Presley featuring The Jordanaires. It reached No. 15 on the U.S. country chart, #20 on the U.S. pop chart, and #24 on the UK Singles Chart in 1957. It was featured on his 1957 album Loving You. It was featured in Presley's 1957 movie Loving You.\n\nThe single's A-side, \"(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear\" reached No. 1 on the U.S. pop, country, and R&B charts and #3 on the UK Singles Chart in 1957.\n\nOther versions\nDuane Eddy released a version of the song on his 1958 album Have 'Twangy' Guitar Will Travel.\nChubby Checker and Dee Dee Sharp released a version of the song on their 1962 album Down to Earth.\nThe Righteous Brothers released a version of the song on their 1965 album Back to Back.\nBilly Fury released a version of the song as a single in 1967, but it did not chart.\nFrançoise Hardy released a version of the song as the B-side to her 1968 single \"Will You Love Me Tomorrow\".\nNat Stuckey released a version of the song as a single in 1968, but it did not chart.\nAnita Harris released a version of the song as a single in 1969, but it did not chart.\nThe Dave Clark Five released a version of the song as a single as part of a medley in 1971, but it did not chart.\nDonna Fargo featuring The Jordanaires released a version of the song on her 1977 album Shame on Me.\nPaul McCartney released a version of the song on his 1992 album What a Mean Fiddler.\nThe Platters released a version of the song on their 1998 album Selection of the Platters.\n\nReferences\n\n1957 songs\n1957 singles\n1967 singles\n1968 singles\n1969 singles\n1971 singles\nSongs written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller\nElvis Presley songs\nDuane Eddy songs\nChubby Checker songs\nDee Dee Sharp songs\nThe Righteous Brothers songs\nBilly Fury songs\nFrançoise Hardy songs\nNat Stuckey songs\nThe Dave Clark Five songs\nDonna Fargo songs\nPaul McCartney songs\nThe Platters songs\nRCA Records singles\nRCA Victor singles\nCBS Records singles"
] |
[
"Foo Fighters",
"The Colour and the Shape (1996-1997)",
"What is the colour and the shape",
"second album.",
"What singles did the album have?",
"The album included the singles \"Monkey Wrench\", \"Everlong\", \"My Hero\", and \"Walking After You\""
] | C_44cfa9f1a9614dc1970959a59917acbd_1 | Did they go on tour? | 3 | Did The Colour and the Shape album go on tour? | Foo Fighters | After touring through the spring of 1996, Foo Fighters entered Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, Washington, with producer Gil Norton to record its second album. While Grohl once again wrote all the songs, the rest of the band collaborated on the arrangements. With the sessions nearly complete, Grohl took the rough mixes with him to Los Angeles, intending to finish up his vocal and guitar parts. While there, Grohl realized that he was not happy with how the mixes were turning out, and changed William Goldsmith's "drum tracks with his own for all but two songs." During the L.A. sessions, Grohl had played drums on the songs. Unhappy with Goldsmith's drumming, Grohl removed it from the recordings and re-recorded the drum tracks. As Goldsmith was about to come down to L.A. to find out why he wasn't being called upon to re-record his parts, he called Mendel from Seattle inquiring if he should make the trip. Grohl then called Goldsmith saying, "Dude, don't come down here, I'm recording some of the drum tracks". Shocked by this, Goldsmith met up with Mendel in Seattle and repeated Grohl's claim to be re-recording "some" of the tracks. Mendel asked, "Is that what he told you?"; Goldsmith affirmed it, and Mendel stated, "No, man, he did them all". Grohl explained that he'd wanted the drums to sound a certain way on the album. He wanted Goldsmith to play for the tour even though it would not be his drumming but Grohl's on the album. Feeling betrayed, Goldsmith left the band. In need of a replacement for Goldsmith, Grohl contacted Alanis Morissette's touring drummer Taylor Hawkins to see if he could recommend anybody. Grohl was surprised when Hawkins volunteered his own services as drummer. Hawkins made his debut with the group in time for the release of its second album, The Colour and the Shape, in May 1997. The album included the singles "Monkey Wrench", "Everlong", "My Hero", and "Walking After You" Pat Smear announced to the rest of the group that he wanted to leave the band claiming exhaustion and burnout but agreed to stay with the band until a replacement could be found for him. Four months later in September 1997 at the MTV Video Music Awards, Smear simultaneously announced to the public his departure from the band and introduced his replacement, Grohl's former Scream bandmate Franz Stahl. Stahl toured with the band for the next few months, and appeared on two tracks that the band recorded for movie soundtracks, a re-recording of "Walking After You" for The X-Files and "A320" for Godzilla. A B-side from the "My Hero" single, "Dear Lover", appeared in the horror film Scream 2. The tour for The Colour and the Shape album included a main stage performance at the 1998 Glastonbury Festival and culminated with a performance at the 1998 Reading Festival, both in England. CANNOTANSWER | The Colour and the Shape album included a main stage performance at the 1998 Glastonbury Festival | Foo Fighters are an American rock band formed in 1994 in Seattle, Washington. The band was founded by former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a one-man project following the dissolution of Nirvana after the suicide of Kurt Cobain. The group took its name from foo fighter, a nickname coined by Allied aircraft pilots for UFOs and other aerial phenomena. Over the course of their career, Foo Fighters have won 12 Grammy Awards, including Best Rock Album four times. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021, their first year of eligibility.
Prior to the release of Foo Fighters' 1995 debut album Foo Fighters, which featured Grohl as the only official member, Grohl recruited bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith, both formerly of Sunny Day Real Estate, as well as Nirvana touring guitarist Pat Smear. The band began with performances in Portland, Oregon. Goldsmith quit during the recording of their second album The Colour and the Shape (1997); most of the drum parts were re-recorded by Grohl. Smear departed soon afterward but appeared as a guest with the band frequently from 2005; he rejoined in 2010.
Smear and Goldsmith were replaced by Franz Stahl and Taylor Hawkins; Stahl was fired before the recording of the group's third album, There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1999). The band briefly continued as a trio until Chris Shiflett joined on guitar after the completion of There Is Nothing Left to Lose. Foo Fighters released their fourth album, One by One, in 2002. It was followed with the two-disc In Your Honor (2005), which was split between acoustic songs and heavier material. Foo Fighters released their sixth album, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, in 2007.
For Foo Fighters' seventh studio album, Wasting Light (2011), produced by Butch Vig, Smear returned as a full member. Sonic Highways (2014) was released as the soundtrack to the television miniseries directed by Grohl. Concrete and Gold (2017) was the second Foo Fighters album to reach number one in the United States and their first studio album to feature longtime session and touring keyboardist Rami Jaffee as a full member. In 2021, the band released their tenth album, Medicine at Midnight.
History
Background and first demos (1990–1994)
In 1990, Dave Grohl joined the grunge band Nirvana as drummer. During tours, he took a guitar with him and wrote songs, but was too intimidated to share them with the band; he was "in awe" of the songs written by frontman Kurt Cobain. Grohl occasionally booked studio time to record demos and covers, issuing an album of demos, Pocketwatch, under the pseudonym Late! in 1992.
Nirvana disbanded after the death of Cobain in 1994. Grohl received offers to work with various artists; press rumors indicated he might join Pearl Jam, and he almost accepted a position as drummer in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Grohl later said: "I was supposed to just join another band and be a drummer the rest of my life. I thought that I would rather do what no one expected me to do." Grohl instead entered Robert Lang Studios in October 1994 to record 15 of his own songs. With the exception of a guitar part on "X-Static", played by Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs, Grohl played every instrument and sang every vocal. He completed an album's worth of material in five days and handed out cassette copies of the sessions to his friends for feedback.
Grohl hoped to stay anonymous and release the recordings in a limited run under the name Foo Fighters, taken from foo fighter, a World War II term for unidentified flying objects. He hoped the name would lead listeners to assume the music was made by several people. He said later: "Had I actually considered this to be a career, I probably would have called it something else, because it's the stupidest fucking band name in the world." The demo tape circulated in the industry, creating interest among record labels.
Formation and debut album (1994–1995)
Grohl formed a band to support the album. He spoke to Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic about joining the group, but they decided against it; Grohl said it would have felt "really natural" for them to work together, but would have been "weird" for the others and place more pressure on Grohl. Instead, Grohl recruited bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith, both of the recently disbanded Seattle group Sunny Day Real Estate. Nirvana touring guitarist Pat Smear joined as second guitarist. Grohl licensed the album to Capitol Records, releasing it on his new label, Roswell Records.
Foo Fighters made their live public debut on February 23, 1995, at the Jambalaya Club in Arcata, California, followed by performances at Satyricon in Portland on March 3 and the Velvet Elvis in Seattle on March 4. The show on March 3 had been part of a benefit gig for the investigation of the rape and murder of Gits singer Mia Zapata. Grohl refused to do interviews or tour large venues to promote the album. Foo Fighters undertook their first major tour in the spring of 1995, opening for Mike Watt. The band's first single, "This Is a Call", was released in June 1995, and its debut album Foo Fighters was released the next month. "I'll Stick Around," "For All the Cows," and "Big Me" were released as subsequent singles. The band spent the following months on tour, including their first appearance at the Reading Festival in England in August.
The Colour and the Shape (1996–1997)
After touring through the spring of 1996, Foo Fighters entered Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, Washington, with producer Gil Norton to record its second album. While Grohl once again wrote all the songs, the rest of the band collaborated on the arrangements. With the sessions nearly complete, Grohl took the rough mixes to Los Angeles, intending to finish his vocal and guitar parts. While there, Grohl realized that he was not happy with the drumming and replaced most of Goldsmith's drum tracks with his own. Though Grohl hoped that Goldsmith would still play on the tour, Goldsmith felt betrayed and left the band.
In need of a replacement for Goldsmith, Grohl contacted Alanis Morissette's touring drummer Taylor Hawkins for a recommendation. Grohl was surprised when Hawkins volunteered himself. Hawkins made his debut with the group in time for the release of its second album, The Colour and the Shape, in May 1997. The album included the singles "Monkey Wrench", "Everlong", "My Hero", and "Walking After You".
Smear left Foo Fighters in 1997, citing exhaustion and burnout, and was replaced by Grohl's former Scream bandmate Franz Stahl. Stahl toured with Foo Fighters for the next few months and appeared on two tracks recorded for movie soundtracks, a re-recording of "Walking After You" for The X-Files and A320 for Godzilla. A B-side from the "My Hero" single, "Dear Lover," appeared in the horror film Scream 2. The tour for The Colour and the Shape album in 1998 included performances at Glastonbury Festival (on the main stage) and the Reading Festival.
There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1998–2001)
In 1998, Foo Fighters traveled to Grohl's home state of Virginia to write their third album. However, Grohl and Stahl were unable to co-operate as songwriters; Grohl told Kerrang! in 1999, "in those few weeks it just seemed like the three of us were moving in one direction and Franz wasn't." Grohl was distraught over the decision to fire Stahl as the two had been friends since childhood. Shortly after that, Mendel called Grohl to say he was quitting to reunite with Sunny Day Real Estate, only to reverse his decision the next day. The remaining trio of Grohl, Mendel, and Hawkins spent several months recording the band's third album, There Is Nothing Left to Lose, in Grohl's home studio. The album spawned several singles, including "Learn to Fly", the band's first to reach the US Billboard Hot 100. Other singles included "Stacked Actors," "Generator," "Next Year," and "Breakout."
Before the release of the album, Capitol Records president Gary Gersh was forced out of the label. Given Grohl's history with Gersh, Foo Fighters' contract had included a "key man clause" that allowed them to leave the label upon Gersh's departure. They left Capitol and signed with RCA, who later acquired the rights to the band's Capitol albums.
After recording There Is Nothing Left to Lose was completed, the band auditioned a number of potential guitarists and settled on Chris Shiflett, who performed with Me First and the Gimme Gimmes and California punk band No Use for a Name. Shiflett initially joined as a touring guitarist but achieved full-time status prior to the recording of the group's fourth album.
In January 2000, Nate Mendel led a benefit concert in Hollywood for AIDS denialist group Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives with a speech by founder Christine Maggiore and free copies of her self-published book, What If Everything You Thought You Knew About AIDS Was Wrong? Additionally, the band's official website featured a section devoted to Alive & Well. Sandra Thurman, then director of the Office of National AIDS Policy stated this was "extraordinarily irresponsible behavior" because "there is no doubt about the link between HIV and AIDS in the respected scientific community." Links and references to Alive & Well were removed from the band's website by March 2003.
Around 2001, Foo Fighters established a relationship with rock band Queen as the band (particularly Grohl and Hawkins) were fans. In March of that year, Grohl and Hawkins inducted them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and joined them to perform the 1976 classic, Tie Your Mother Down, with Hawkins playing drums alongside Roger Taylor. Guitarist Brian May added a guitar track to Foo Fighters' second cover of Pink Floyd's "Have a Cigar," which appeared on the soundtrack to the movie Mission: Impossible 2. In 2002, guitarist May contributed guitar work to Tired of You and an outtake called Knucklehead. The bands have performed together on several occasions since, including VH1 Rock Honors and Foo Fighters' headlining concert in Hyde Park.
One by One (2001–2004)
Near the end of 2001, the band reconvened to record its fourth album. After spending four months in a Los Angeles studio, the album "just didn't sound right" and the band had no confidence it would sell very well. With the album not reaching their expectations amid much infighting, Grohl spent some time helping Queens of the Stone Age complete their 2002 album Songs for the Deaf. Once that album was finished and touring had started for both Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age, the band was on the verge of breaking up entirely. Grohl reunited with Hawkins, Shiflett, and Mendel to play the Coachella Festival, alternating days with Queens of the Stone Age. Hawkins and Grohl talked about resuming work on One by One and after a very satisfying performance the following day, they agreed to stay together. The group re-recorded nearly all of the album (save Tired of You) in a ten-day stretch at Grohl's home studio in Alexandria, Virginia, the following month. The original version of One by One, referred to by the band as Million Dollar Demos, has never been released in its entirety although seven tracks were leaked online in 2012 and 2015.
The album was released in October 2002 under the title One by One. Singles from the album included "All My Life," "Times Like These," "Low," and "Have It All." The tour for the album included a headline performance at the 2002 Reading and Leeds Festivals.
For most of its history, the band chose to stay away from the political realm. However, in 2004, upon learning that George W. Bush's presidential campaign was using "Times Like These" at rallies, Grohl decided to lend his public support to John Kerry's campaign, saying, "There's no way of stopping the president playing your songs, so I went out and played it for John Kerry's people instead, where I thought the message would kinda make more sense." Grohl attended several Kerry rallies and occasionally performed solo acoustic sets. The entire band joined Grohl for a performance in Arizona coinciding with one of the presidential debates.
In Your Honor (2005–2006)
Having spent a year and a half touring behind One by One, Grohl did not want to rush into recording another Foo Fighters record. Initially Grohl intended to write acoustic material by himself but eventually the project involved the entire band. To record its fifth album, the band shifted to Los Angeles and built a recording studio, dubbed Studio 606 West. Grohl insisted that the album be divided into two discs–one full of rock songs, the other featuring acoustic tracks. In Your Honor was released in June 2005. The album's singles included Best of You, DOA, Resolve, and No Way Back/Cold Day in the Sun.
During September and October 2005, the band toured with Weezer on what was billed as the Foozer Tour. Foo Fighters played a headline performance at the 2005 Reading and Leeds Festivals. On June 17, 2006, Foo Fighters performed their largest non-festival headlining concert to date at London's Hyde Park. Motörhead's Lemmy joined the band on stage to sing Shake Your Blood from Dave Grohl's Probot album. As a surprise performance, Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen appeared to play part of We Will Rock You as a lead in to Tie Your Mother Down.
In further support of In Your Honor, the band organized a short acoustic tour for the summer of 2006. Members who had performed with them in late 2005 appeared, such as Pat Smear, Petra Haden on violin and backing vocals, Drew Hester on percussion, and Rami Jaffee of The Wallflowers on keyboard and piano. While much of the setlist focused on In Your Honors acoustic half, the band also used the opportunity to play lesser-known songs, such as Ain't It The Life, Floaty, and See You. The band also performed Marigold, a Pocketwatch-era song that was best known as a Nirvana B side.
In November 2006, the band released their first ever live CD, Skin and Bones, featuring fifteen performances captured over a three-night stint in Los Angeles.
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace and Greatest Hits (2007–2009)
For the follow-up to In Your Honor, the band recruited The Colour and the Shape producer Gil Norton. Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace was released on September 25, 2007. The album's first single, The Pretender, was issued to radio in early August. In mid-to-late 2007 The Pretender topped Billboard's Modern Rock chart for a record 19 weeks. The second single, Long Road to Ruin, was released in December 2007, supported by a music video directed by longtime collaborator Jesse Peretz (formerly of the Lemonheads). Other singles included Let It Die and Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running).
In October 2007, Foo Fighters started their world tour in support of the album. The band performed shows throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia, including headlining the Virgin Mobile Festival in Baltimore on August 9. At the European MTV Music Awards in 2007, Pat Smear confirmed his return to the band.
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace was nominated for five Grammy Awards in 2008. Foo Fighters went home with Best Rock Album and Best Hard Rock Performance (for The Pretender). The album was also nominated for Album of the Year, while The Pretender was also nominated for Record of the Year and Best Rock Song.
On June 7, 2008, the band played Wembley Stadium, London, and was joined by Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin to play Rock and Roll (with Grohl on drums and Hawkins on vocals) and Ramble On (sung by Grohl, drums by Hawkins). As Page and Jones left the stage before a final encore of Best Of You, an ecstatic Grohl shouted "Welcome to the greatest fucking day of my whole entire life!". Throughout the tour for Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, Foo Fighters had been writing and practicing new songs at sound checks. After Foo Fighters had completed this tour in September 2008, they recorded 13 new songs in studio 606, shortly after announcing a hiatus from touring (which would last until January 2011). These sessions likely lasted from late 2008 – early 2009. While the members of Foo Fighters had initially planned for their new album (composed of songs from this recording session) to have come out in 2009 with almost no touring support, they ultimately decided to shelve most of the songs from these sessions. Three of these songs were later released — Wheels and Word Forward (on their 2009 compilation album, Greatest Hits); and a newly recorded version of Rope (which ended up making the final cut of Wasting Light).
In order to promote their greatest hits album, Foo Fighters performed an online show at studio 606 in October 2009 during which the band took fan requests.
Wasting Light (2010–2012)
In August 2010, the band began recording their seventh studio album with producer Butch Vig, who had previously produced the two new tracks for the band's Greatest Hits album. The album was recorded in Dave Grohl's garage using only analog equipment. The album won five Grammys and was nominated for six. The recording was analog to tape and used no computers, not even to mix or master. Vig said in an interview with MTV that the album was entirely analog until post-mastering. Pat Smear was present in many photos posted by Grohl on Twitter and a press release in December confirmed Smear played on every track on the album and was considered a core member of the band once again.
The first single from Wasting Light, Rope, was released to radio in February 2011. On April 16, 2011, Foo Fighters released an album of covers, Medium Rare, as a limited-edition vinyl for Record Store Day. The promotion for the album has been highly praised for its originality. Wasting Light debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, becoming the band's first album to do so. Other singles for the album included Walk, Arlandria, These Days, and Bridge Burning.
Alongside Wasting Lights release, Foo Fighters released a rockumentary, directed by Academy Award-winner James Moll. The film, titled Back and Forth, chronicles the band's career. Then current and past members, and producer Butch Vig, tell the story of the band through interviews. After debuting on March 15, 2011, at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, it was released on DVD three months later.
On May 21, 2011, Foo Fighters headlined the middle day of the Hangout Music Festival in Gulf Shores, Alabama. On June 4, 2011, they played a surprise set at the 2011 KROQ Weenie Roast. They also headlined two sold-out shows at the Milton Keynes National Bowl on July 2 and 3, joined on stage by artists such as Alice Cooper, Seasick Steve, and John Paul Jones. They headlined the final night at the 20th anniversary of Lollapalooza in Chicago's Grant Park on August 7, 2011, performing part of their set in a driving rainstorm.
In September 2011 before a show in Kansas City, the band performed a parody song in front of a protest by the Westboro Baptist Church. It mocked the church's opposition to homosexuality and was performed in the same faux-trucker garb that was seen in the band's Hot Buns promotional video.
It was announced on September 28, 2011, that Foo Fighters would be performing during the closing ceremony of Blizzard Entertainment's annual video game convention, BlizzCon.
On August 27, 2012, Foo Fighters ended their European tour with a headline performance at Reading and Leeds Festival. On September 5, the band performed a show at the Fillmore in Charlotte, North Carolina, as a benefit for Rock the Vote. The show, which occurred at the same time as the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, was announced only two weeks prior. Tickets to the 2000-person capacity venue sold out in under 60 seconds, setting a record for the site. The band set another personal record during the show itself, being the longest that the band had played to date at just under 3.5 hours with a setlist of 36 songs. On September 21, the band headlined the Music Midtown Festival in Atlanta, Georgia. The following evening, they headlined the DeLuna Festival in Pensacola Beach, Florida. On September 29, the band performed at the Global Citizens' Festival before embarking on a break.
Sonic Highways (2013–2015)
Despite initially announcing a break after supporting Wasting Light, Grohl stated in January 2013 that the band had started writing material for an eighth studio album. On February 20, 2013, at the Brit Awards, Grohl said he was resuming work on the album the following day.
On September 6, 2013, Shiflett posted a photo to his Instagram account that indicated 13 songs were being recorded and later described it as "pretty fucking fun". Rami Jaffee has recorded parts for three songs, one of which was In the Way. Butch Vig, who worked with the band on Wasting Light, confirmed via Twitter in late August 2013 that he was producing the album. The band confirmed that it would end its hiatus by playing two shows in Mexico City on December 11 and 13. On October 31, a video appeared on the official Foo Fighters YouTube channel showing a motorcyclist, later revealed to be Erik Estrada, delivering each of the band members an invitation to play in Mexico.
On January 16, 2014, a picture was posted to Foo Fighters' Facebook page with several master tapes labeled LP 8. On May 15, it was announced that the album would be released in November and that the Foo Fighters would commemorate the album and their 20th anniversary with an HBO TV series directed by Grohl titled Sonic Highways. Eight songs were written and recorded in eight studios in eight different American cities with video capturing the history and feel of each town. On July 30, Butch Vig revealed that the Foo Fighters had finished recording and mixing the album and that it was slated to be released a month after the premiere of the TV show.
In June 2014, the band agreed to play a show in Richmond, Virginia, that was entirely crowd-funded by fans on the website Tilt.com. The show took place on September 17 before 1,500 fans. The band played 23 songs over the course of two and a half hours. Foo Fighters announced their tour would include performances in Cape Town on December 10 and Johannesburg on December 13. The band played three performances under the alias The Holy Shits in September 2014; the first at the Concorde 2 club in Brighton, England, where Grohl invited lead singer Jay Apperley of the tribute band UK Foo Fighters on stage to sing, followed by the House of Vans and the Islington Assembly Hall. On September 14, 2014, the band performed at the closing ceremony of the Invictus Games, their first official show in England since closing Reading Festival in 2012. They closed out the 2014 VooDoo Music and Arts Festival in New Orleans on November 2, 2014, in a two and a half hour performance that included an appearance from New Orleans native Trombone Shorty, who played This is a Call with the band.
On August 8, the band released a short clip of their latest work, titled 8. On August 11, the band announced that the new album would be titled Sonic Highways and released on November 10, 2014. An international tour, dubbed the Sonic Highways World Tour, followed with performances in South Africa in December and South America in January 2015. It continued to Australia and New Zealand in February and March.
On May 20, 2015, the Foo Fighters were the final musical act to perform on Late Show with David Letterman, continuing their long association with the host as he wrapped up his 33-year career in late night television. The show ended with a montage of Letterman highlights while the Foo Fighters played "Everlong", which Letterman said had significant meaning for him after his open-heart surgery in 2000. The band postponed their international tour to make the appearance; the tour resumed on May 24, with a performance at Radio 1's Big Weekend in Norwich, England.
On June 12, Grohl fell from the stage in Gothenburg, Sweden, during the group's second song, breaking his leg. The band continued playing while Grohl received medical attention, who then returned to the stage to finish the last two hours of the band's set from a chair while a medic tended to his leg. After the concert, Grohl was flown to London for surgery, requiring six metal pins to stabilize the fracture. As a result of the injury, the band canceled its remaining European tour dates.
In July, one thousand Italian fans held the Rockin' 1000 gathering in Cesena, Italy, performing Learn to Fly and asking Foo Fighters to come play in the town. The performance video went viral and impressed Grohl, resulting in the band appearing in Cesena on November 3.
Saint Cecilia EP and Concrete and Gold (2015–2019)
The Foo Fighters planned to follow their international tour with a North American tour to promote Sonic Highways, beginning with a special Fourth of July event in Washington, D.C., that would commemorate the band's 20th anniversary. The all-day event was to be held at Washington's RFK Stadium featuring performances by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Heart, LL Cool J, Gary Clark Jr., and Buddy Guy. Dave Grohl's injury initially led to speculation that the band would drop out of the event but they later confirmed they would perform; however, the injury did prevent them from headlining the 2015 Glastonbury Festival. The band performed for 48,000 people with Grohl in a custom-built moving throne which he claimed to have designed himself while on painkillers.
Beginning with the show on July 4, the Foo Fighters re-branded the North American tour as the Broken Leg Tour. The band continued to use the name at later North American performances. Prior to their August 21 concert at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri, the band rickrolled protesting members of the Westboro Baptist Church, as they had also done in 2011.
On November 23, 2015, a surprise release following a month-long countdown clock on the Foo Fighters' website revealed the free EP Saint Cecilia, including a single of the same name. Alongside its release, Grohl announced that the band would be going on an indefinite hiatus. In response to growing rumors of the band breaking up, the band released a mockumentary video in March 2016 portraying Grohl leaving the band to pursue an electronic music career and Nick Lachey (formerly of 98 Degrees) becoming the group's new singer, ending with: "For the millionth time, we're not breaking up. And nobody's going fucking solo!" In May 2016, Shiflett stated that the band still had no particular plans for reforming but assured that it would happen eventually.
Grohl announced that the band would spend much of 2017 recording their ninth studio album. On June 1, 2017, their new single "Run" was released. Run topped the US Billboard Mainstream Rock Songs chart the following month. The band confirmed touring keyboardist Rami Jaffee was officially the sixth member of the group. On June 20, 2017, the band announced that their new album, Concrete and Gold, would be released in September. On August 23, 2017, The Sky Is a Neighborhood was released as the second single and topped the Mainstream Rock chart. The Line was released in promotion of the album and later as the third single in 2018. Concrete and Gold was officially released on September 15, 2017, produced by Greg Kurstin. The album is noted as deriving influence from Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and The Beatles. Concrete and Gold also features Justin Timberlake on vocals for Make It Right, Shawn Stockman of Boyz II Men on backing vocals for the song Concrete and Gold, and Paul McCartney on the drums for Sunday Rain. The band began touring in June 2017, including headlining the Glastonbury Festival 2017. The tour in support of Concrete and Gold was extended to October 2018.
Medicine at Midnight and induction into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2019–present)
In October 2019, the band announced that they were recording their tenth studio album based on demos by Grohl. In November 2019, the band began releasing a series of EPs under the umbrella name of the Foo Files, largely consisting of previously released B sides and live performances. By February 2020, Grohl announced that the new album was complete but by May, it was delayed indefinitely because of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying, "We've kind of shelved it for now to figure out exactly when it's going to happen."
Starting in November 2020, promotion for the album ramped up. Its title, Medicine at Midnight, and release date, February 5, 2021, were announced. The band released three singles ahead of the album: "Shame Shame", "No Son of Mine", and "Waiting on a War". In January, the band performed at the US Presidential Inauguration of Joe Biden.
On February 10, 2021, Foo Fighters were announced as one of the 2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees in their first year of eligibility as their debut album had been released 25 years prior. On May 12, 2021, Foo Fighters were announced as one of 6 performer inductees.
For Record Store Day on July 17, 2021, the Foo Fighters released an album of disco covers, Hail Satin, under the name Dee Gees. The album contains four Bee Gees covers, a cover of Andy Gibb's "Shadow Dancing", plus five live versions of Medicine at Midnight tracks.
On December 2, 2021, a video was uploaded to the band's YouTube, which announced Studio 666, a rock and roll comedy horror film starring the members of the band. The trailer was released on January 11, 2022, and has a release date of February 25.
Musical style and legacy
Foo Fighters have been described as grunge, alternative rock, post-grunge, and hard rock. They were initially compared to Grohl's previous group, Nirvana. Grohl acknowledged that Kurt Cobain was an influence on his songwriting: "Through Kurt, I saw the beauty of minimalism and the importance of music that's stripped down." Foo Fighters also used the technique of shifting between quiet verses and loud choruses, which Grohl said was influenced by the members of Nirvana "liking The Knack, Bay City Rollers, Beatles, and ABBA as much as we liked Flipper and Black Flag, I suppose."
Writing and recording songs for their first album by himself, Grohl intended for the guitar riffs to be as rhythmic as possible. He approached the guitar in a similar manner to his drumming, assigning various drum parts to strings on the instrument. This allowed him to piece together songs easily; he said, "I could hear the song in my head before it was finished." Once Grohl assembled a full band, the members assisted in song arrangements. Pitchfork described Grohl and the band as "his generation's answer to Tom Petty—a consistent hit machine pumping out working-class rock."
The band members meld melodic and heavy elements. Grohl noted in 1997, "We all love music, whether it's the Beatles or Queen or punk rock. I think the lure of punk rock was the energy and immediacy; the need to thrash stuff around. But at the same time, we're all suckers for a beautiful melody, you know? So it is just natural." Grohl said in 2005, "I love being in a rock band, but I don't know if I necessarily wanna be in an alternative rock band from the 1990s for the rest of my life." Grohl noted that the band's acoustic tour was an attempt to broaden the group's sound.
Band membersCurrent members Dave Grohl – lead vocals, guitar (1994–present)
Pat Smear – guitar (1995–1997, 2010–present; session/touring member 2005–2010), backing vocals (1995–1997)
Chris Shiflett – guitar, backing vocals (1999–present)
Nate Mendel – bass (1995–present)
Taylor Hawkins – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1997–present)
Rami Jaffee – keyboard, piano (2017–present; session/touring member 2005–2017)Former members Franz Stahl – guitar, backing vocals (1997–1999)
William Goldsmith – drums, percussion (1995–1997)
Timeline
DiscographyStudio albums'''
Foo Fighters (1995)
The Colour and the Shape (1997)
There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1999)
One by One (2002)
In Your Honor (2005)
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (2007)
Wasting Light (2011)
Sonic Highways (2014)
Concrete and Gold (2017)
Medicine at Midnight (2021)
Awards and nominations
Foo Fighters first received a Grammy Award for their music video for Learn to Fly in 2000, and they have won ten others. These include four Grammys in the Best Rock Album category for There Is Nothing Left to Lose, One by One, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace and Wasting Light, and three awards for Best Hard Rock Performance for the songs All My Life, The Pretender and White Limo. The band also received three Kerrang! Awards. At the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, the band won Best Rock Video for Walk. They won the Radio Contraband Major Label Artist of the Year in 2011 and 2014. The band won Song of the Year for Something From Nothing and Album of the Year for Sonic Highways both in 2014.
On February 12, 2012, the band performed at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards playing Walk along with the remix version of Rope, featuring deadmau5. The band was nominated for six Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Best Rock Performance, Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance, Best Rock Song, Best Rock Album and Best Long Form Music Video (for Back and Forth''). They won five of the six, losing only to Adele in the Album of the Year category.
In 2021, Foo Fighters were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in their first year of eligibility.
In 2021, the band was announced as recipients of the first-ever global icon award at the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards.
References
External links
Alternative rock groups from Washington (state)
American post-grunge musical groups
Grunge musical groups
Brit Award winners
Grammy Award winners
Hard rock musical groups from Washington (state)
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1994
Musical groups from Seattle
NME Awards winners
Nirvana (band)
RCA Records artists
Articles which contain graphical timelines
Late Show with David Letterman
1994 establishments in Washington (state) | false | [
"Andrew Butterfield (born 7 January 1972) is an English professional golfer who plays on the Challenge Tour.\n\nCareer\nButterfield was born in London, England. He turned professional in 1993 and joined the Challenge Tour in 1996. He played on the Challenge Tour until qualifying for the European Tour through Q-School in 1999. Butterfield did not perform well enough on tour in 2000 to retain his card and had to go back to the Challenge Tour in 2001. He got his European Tour card back through Q-School again in 2001 and played on the European Tour in 2002 but did not find any success on tour. He returned to the Challenge Tour and played there until 2005 when he finished 4th on the Challenge Tour's Order of Merit which earned him his European Tour card for 2006. He did not play well enough in 2006 to retain his tour card but was able to get temporary status on tour for 2007 by finishing 129th on the Order of Merit. He played on the European Tour and the Challenge Tour in 2007 and has played only on the Challenge Tour since 2008. He picked up his first win on the Challenge Tour in Sweden at The Princess in June 2009. He also won an event on the PGA EuroPro Tour in 2004.\n\nProfessional wins (2)\n\nChallenge Tour wins (1)\n\nChallenge Tour playoff record (0–1)\n\nPGA EuroPro Tour wins (1)\n2004 Matchroom Golf Management International at Owston Hall\n\nPlayoff record\nEuropean Tour playoff record (0–1)\n\nResults in major championships\n\nNote: Butterfield only played in The Open Championship.\nCUT = missed the half-way cut\n\nSee also\n2005 Challenge Tour graduates\n2009 Challenge Tour graduates\n\nExternal links\n\nEnglish male golfers\nEuropean Tour golfers\nSportspeople from London\nPeople from the London Borough of Bromley\n1972 births\nLiving people",
"The Bob Dylan England Tour 1965 was a concert tour by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan during late April and early May 1965. The tour was widely documented by filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker, who used the footage of the tour in his documentary Dont Look Back.\n\nTour dates\n\nSet lists \nAs Dylan was still playing exclusively folk music live, much of the material performed during this tour was written pre-1965. Each show was divided into two halves, with seven songs performed during the first, and eight during the second. The set consisted of two songs from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, three from The Times They Are a-Changin', three from Another Side of Bob Dylan, a comic-relief concert staple; \"If You Gotta Go, Go Now\", issued as a single in Europe, and six songs off his then-recent album, Bringing It All Back Home, including the second side in its entirety.\n\n First half\n\"The Times They Are a-Changin'\"\n\"To Ramona\"\n\"Gates of Eden\"\n\"If You Gotta Go, Go Now (or Else You Got to Stay All Night)\"\n\"It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)\"\n\"Love Minus Zero/No Limit\"\n\"Mr. Tambourine Man\"\n\nSecond Half\n\"Talkin' World War III Blues\"\n\"Don't Think Twice, It's All Right\"\n\"With God on Our Side\"\n\"She Belongs to Me\"\n\"It Ain't Me Babe\"\n\"The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll\"\n\"All I Really Want to Do\"\n\"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue\"\n\nSet list per Olof Bjorner.\n\nAftermath \nJoan Baez accompanied him on the tour, but she was never invited to play with him in concert. In fact, they did not tour together again until 1975. After this tour, Dylan was hailed as a hero of folk music, but two months later, at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, he would alienate his fans and go electric. Dylan was the only artist apart from the Beatles to sell out the De Montfort Hall in the 1960s. Even the Rolling Stones did not sell out this venue.\n\nReferences \n\nHoward Sounes: Down the Highway. The Life of Bob Dylan.. 2001.\n\nExternal links \n Bjorner's Still on the Road 1965: Tour dates & set lists\n\nBob Dylan concert tours\n1965 concert tours\nConcert tours of the United Kingdom\n1965 in England"
] |
[
"Foo Fighters",
"The Colour and the Shape (1996-1997)",
"What is the colour and the shape",
"second album.",
"What singles did the album have?",
"The album included the singles \"Monkey Wrench\", \"Everlong\", \"My Hero\", and \"Walking After You\"",
"Did they go on tour?",
"The Colour and the Shape album included a main stage performance at the 1998 Glastonbury Festival"
] | C_44cfa9f1a9614dc1970959a59917acbd_1 | What are some interesting aspects about this article? | 4 | What are some interesting aspects about this article besides the album"The Colour and the Shape"? | Foo Fighters | After touring through the spring of 1996, Foo Fighters entered Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, Washington, with producer Gil Norton to record its second album. While Grohl once again wrote all the songs, the rest of the band collaborated on the arrangements. With the sessions nearly complete, Grohl took the rough mixes with him to Los Angeles, intending to finish up his vocal and guitar parts. While there, Grohl realized that he was not happy with how the mixes were turning out, and changed William Goldsmith's "drum tracks with his own for all but two songs." During the L.A. sessions, Grohl had played drums on the songs. Unhappy with Goldsmith's drumming, Grohl removed it from the recordings and re-recorded the drum tracks. As Goldsmith was about to come down to L.A. to find out why he wasn't being called upon to re-record his parts, he called Mendel from Seattle inquiring if he should make the trip. Grohl then called Goldsmith saying, "Dude, don't come down here, I'm recording some of the drum tracks". Shocked by this, Goldsmith met up with Mendel in Seattle and repeated Grohl's claim to be re-recording "some" of the tracks. Mendel asked, "Is that what he told you?"; Goldsmith affirmed it, and Mendel stated, "No, man, he did them all". Grohl explained that he'd wanted the drums to sound a certain way on the album. He wanted Goldsmith to play for the tour even though it would not be his drumming but Grohl's on the album. Feeling betrayed, Goldsmith left the band. In need of a replacement for Goldsmith, Grohl contacted Alanis Morissette's touring drummer Taylor Hawkins to see if he could recommend anybody. Grohl was surprised when Hawkins volunteered his own services as drummer. Hawkins made his debut with the group in time for the release of its second album, The Colour and the Shape, in May 1997. The album included the singles "Monkey Wrench", "Everlong", "My Hero", and "Walking After You" Pat Smear announced to the rest of the group that he wanted to leave the band claiming exhaustion and burnout but agreed to stay with the band until a replacement could be found for him. Four months later in September 1997 at the MTV Video Music Awards, Smear simultaneously announced to the public his departure from the band and introduced his replacement, Grohl's former Scream bandmate Franz Stahl. Stahl toured with the band for the next few months, and appeared on two tracks that the band recorded for movie soundtracks, a re-recording of "Walking After You" for The X-Files and "A320" for Godzilla. A B-side from the "My Hero" single, "Dear Lover", appeared in the horror film Scream 2. The tour for The Colour and the Shape album included a main stage performance at the 1998 Glastonbury Festival and culminated with a performance at the 1998 Reading Festival, both in England. CANNOTANSWER | Dear Lover", appeared in the horror film Scream 2. | Foo Fighters are an American rock band formed in 1994 in Seattle, Washington. The band was founded by former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a one-man project following the dissolution of Nirvana after the suicide of Kurt Cobain. The group took its name from foo fighter, a nickname coined by Allied aircraft pilots for UFOs and other aerial phenomena. Over the course of their career, Foo Fighters have won 12 Grammy Awards, including Best Rock Album four times. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021, their first year of eligibility.
Prior to the release of Foo Fighters' 1995 debut album Foo Fighters, which featured Grohl as the only official member, Grohl recruited bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith, both formerly of Sunny Day Real Estate, as well as Nirvana touring guitarist Pat Smear. The band began with performances in Portland, Oregon. Goldsmith quit during the recording of their second album The Colour and the Shape (1997); most of the drum parts were re-recorded by Grohl. Smear departed soon afterward but appeared as a guest with the band frequently from 2005; he rejoined in 2010.
Smear and Goldsmith were replaced by Franz Stahl and Taylor Hawkins; Stahl was fired before the recording of the group's third album, There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1999). The band briefly continued as a trio until Chris Shiflett joined on guitar after the completion of There Is Nothing Left to Lose. Foo Fighters released their fourth album, One by One, in 2002. It was followed with the two-disc In Your Honor (2005), which was split between acoustic songs and heavier material. Foo Fighters released their sixth album, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, in 2007.
For Foo Fighters' seventh studio album, Wasting Light (2011), produced by Butch Vig, Smear returned as a full member. Sonic Highways (2014) was released as the soundtrack to the television miniseries directed by Grohl. Concrete and Gold (2017) was the second Foo Fighters album to reach number one in the United States and their first studio album to feature longtime session and touring keyboardist Rami Jaffee as a full member. In 2021, the band released their tenth album, Medicine at Midnight.
History
Background and first demos (1990–1994)
In 1990, Dave Grohl joined the grunge band Nirvana as drummer. During tours, he took a guitar with him and wrote songs, but was too intimidated to share them with the band; he was "in awe" of the songs written by frontman Kurt Cobain. Grohl occasionally booked studio time to record demos and covers, issuing an album of demos, Pocketwatch, under the pseudonym Late! in 1992.
Nirvana disbanded after the death of Cobain in 1994. Grohl received offers to work with various artists; press rumors indicated he might join Pearl Jam, and he almost accepted a position as drummer in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Grohl later said: "I was supposed to just join another band and be a drummer the rest of my life. I thought that I would rather do what no one expected me to do." Grohl instead entered Robert Lang Studios in October 1994 to record 15 of his own songs. With the exception of a guitar part on "X-Static", played by Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs, Grohl played every instrument and sang every vocal. He completed an album's worth of material in five days and handed out cassette copies of the sessions to his friends for feedback.
Grohl hoped to stay anonymous and release the recordings in a limited run under the name Foo Fighters, taken from foo fighter, a World War II term for unidentified flying objects. He hoped the name would lead listeners to assume the music was made by several people. He said later: "Had I actually considered this to be a career, I probably would have called it something else, because it's the stupidest fucking band name in the world." The demo tape circulated in the industry, creating interest among record labels.
Formation and debut album (1994–1995)
Grohl formed a band to support the album. He spoke to Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic about joining the group, but they decided against it; Grohl said it would have felt "really natural" for them to work together, but would have been "weird" for the others and place more pressure on Grohl. Instead, Grohl recruited bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith, both of the recently disbanded Seattle group Sunny Day Real Estate. Nirvana touring guitarist Pat Smear joined as second guitarist. Grohl licensed the album to Capitol Records, releasing it on his new label, Roswell Records.
Foo Fighters made their live public debut on February 23, 1995, at the Jambalaya Club in Arcata, California, followed by performances at Satyricon in Portland on March 3 and the Velvet Elvis in Seattle on March 4. The show on March 3 had been part of a benefit gig for the investigation of the rape and murder of Gits singer Mia Zapata. Grohl refused to do interviews or tour large venues to promote the album. Foo Fighters undertook their first major tour in the spring of 1995, opening for Mike Watt. The band's first single, "This Is a Call", was released in June 1995, and its debut album Foo Fighters was released the next month. "I'll Stick Around," "For All the Cows," and "Big Me" were released as subsequent singles. The band spent the following months on tour, including their first appearance at the Reading Festival in England in August.
The Colour and the Shape (1996–1997)
After touring through the spring of 1996, Foo Fighters entered Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, Washington, with producer Gil Norton to record its second album. While Grohl once again wrote all the songs, the rest of the band collaborated on the arrangements. With the sessions nearly complete, Grohl took the rough mixes to Los Angeles, intending to finish his vocal and guitar parts. While there, Grohl realized that he was not happy with the drumming and replaced most of Goldsmith's drum tracks with his own. Though Grohl hoped that Goldsmith would still play on the tour, Goldsmith felt betrayed and left the band.
In need of a replacement for Goldsmith, Grohl contacted Alanis Morissette's touring drummer Taylor Hawkins for a recommendation. Grohl was surprised when Hawkins volunteered himself. Hawkins made his debut with the group in time for the release of its second album, The Colour and the Shape, in May 1997. The album included the singles "Monkey Wrench", "Everlong", "My Hero", and "Walking After You".
Smear left Foo Fighters in 1997, citing exhaustion and burnout, and was replaced by Grohl's former Scream bandmate Franz Stahl. Stahl toured with Foo Fighters for the next few months and appeared on two tracks recorded for movie soundtracks, a re-recording of "Walking After You" for The X-Files and A320 for Godzilla. A B-side from the "My Hero" single, "Dear Lover," appeared in the horror film Scream 2. The tour for The Colour and the Shape album in 1998 included performances at Glastonbury Festival (on the main stage) and the Reading Festival.
There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1998–2001)
In 1998, Foo Fighters traveled to Grohl's home state of Virginia to write their third album. However, Grohl and Stahl were unable to co-operate as songwriters; Grohl told Kerrang! in 1999, "in those few weeks it just seemed like the three of us were moving in one direction and Franz wasn't." Grohl was distraught over the decision to fire Stahl as the two had been friends since childhood. Shortly after that, Mendel called Grohl to say he was quitting to reunite with Sunny Day Real Estate, only to reverse his decision the next day. The remaining trio of Grohl, Mendel, and Hawkins spent several months recording the band's third album, There Is Nothing Left to Lose, in Grohl's home studio. The album spawned several singles, including "Learn to Fly", the band's first to reach the US Billboard Hot 100. Other singles included "Stacked Actors," "Generator," "Next Year," and "Breakout."
Before the release of the album, Capitol Records president Gary Gersh was forced out of the label. Given Grohl's history with Gersh, Foo Fighters' contract had included a "key man clause" that allowed them to leave the label upon Gersh's departure. They left Capitol and signed with RCA, who later acquired the rights to the band's Capitol albums.
After recording There Is Nothing Left to Lose was completed, the band auditioned a number of potential guitarists and settled on Chris Shiflett, who performed with Me First and the Gimme Gimmes and California punk band No Use for a Name. Shiflett initially joined as a touring guitarist but achieved full-time status prior to the recording of the group's fourth album.
In January 2000, Nate Mendel led a benefit concert in Hollywood for AIDS denialist group Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives with a speech by founder Christine Maggiore and free copies of her self-published book, What If Everything You Thought You Knew About AIDS Was Wrong? Additionally, the band's official website featured a section devoted to Alive & Well. Sandra Thurman, then director of the Office of National AIDS Policy stated this was "extraordinarily irresponsible behavior" because "there is no doubt about the link between HIV and AIDS in the respected scientific community." Links and references to Alive & Well were removed from the band's website by March 2003.
Around 2001, Foo Fighters established a relationship with rock band Queen as the band (particularly Grohl and Hawkins) were fans. In March of that year, Grohl and Hawkins inducted them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and joined them to perform the 1976 classic, Tie Your Mother Down, with Hawkins playing drums alongside Roger Taylor. Guitarist Brian May added a guitar track to Foo Fighters' second cover of Pink Floyd's "Have a Cigar," which appeared on the soundtrack to the movie Mission: Impossible 2. In 2002, guitarist May contributed guitar work to Tired of You and an outtake called Knucklehead. The bands have performed together on several occasions since, including VH1 Rock Honors and Foo Fighters' headlining concert in Hyde Park.
One by One (2001–2004)
Near the end of 2001, the band reconvened to record its fourth album. After spending four months in a Los Angeles studio, the album "just didn't sound right" and the band had no confidence it would sell very well. With the album not reaching their expectations amid much infighting, Grohl spent some time helping Queens of the Stone Age complete their 2002 album Songs for the Deaf. Once that album was finished and touring had started for both Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age, the band was on the verge of breaking up entirely. Grohl reunited with Hawkins, Shiflett, and Mendel to play the Coachella Festival, alternating days with Queens of the Stone Age. Hawkins and Grohl talked about resuming work on One by One and after a very satisfying performance the following day, they agreed to stay together. The group re-recorded nearly all of the album (save Tired of You) in a ten-day stretch at Grohl's home studio in Alexandria, Virginia, the following month. The original version of One by One, referred to by the band as Million Dollar Demos, has never been released in its entirety although seven tracks were leaked online in 2012 and 2015.
The album was released in October 2002 under the title One by One. Singles from the album included "All My Life," "Times Like These," "Low," and "Have It All." The tour for the album included a headline performance at the 2002 Reading and Leeds Festivals.
For most of its history, the band chose to stay away from the political realm. However, in 2004, upon learning that George W. Bush's presidential campaign was using "Times Like These" at rallies, Grohl decided to lend his public support to John Kerry's campaign, saying, "There's no way of stopping the president playing your songs, so I went out and played it for John Kerry's people instead, where I thought the message would kinda make more sense." Grohl attended several Kerry rallies and occasionally performed solo acoustic sets. The entire band joined Grohl for a performance in Arizona coinciding with one of the presidential debates.
In Your Honor (2005–2006)
Having spent a year and a half touring behind One by One, Grohl did not want to rush into recording another Foo Fighters record. Initially Grohl intended to write acoustic material by himself but eventually the project involved the entire band. To record its fifth album, the band shifted to Los Angeles and built a recording studio, dubbed Studio 606 West. Grohl insisted that the album be divided into two discs–one full of rock songs, the other featuring acoustic tracks. In Your Honor was released in June 2005. The album's singles included Best of You, DOA, Resolve, and No Way Back/Cold Day in the Sun.
During September and October 2005, the band toured with Weezer on what was billed as the Foozer Tour. Foo Fighters played a headline performance at the 2005 Reading and Leeds Festivals. On June 17, 2006, Foo Fighters performed their largest non-festival headlining concert to date at London's Hyde Park. Motörhead's Lemmy joined the band on stage to sing Shake Your Blood from Dave Grohl's Probot album. As a surprise performance, Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen appeared to play part of We Will Rock You as a lead in to Tie Your Mother Down.
In further support of In Your Honor, the band organized a short acoustic tour for the summer of 2006. Members who had performed with them in late 2005 appeared, such as Pat Smear, Petra Haden on violin and backing vocals, Drew Hester on percussion, and Rami Jaffee of The Wallflowers on keyboard and piano. While much of the setlist focused on In Your Honors acoustic half, the band also used the opportunity to play lesser-known songs, such as Ain't It The Life, Floaty, and See You. The band also performed Marigold, a Pocketwatch-era song that was best known as a Nirvana B side.
In November 2006, the band released their first ever live CD, Skin and Bones, featuring fifteen performances captured over a three-night stint in Los Angeles.
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace and Greatest Hits (2007–2009)
For the follow-up to In Your Honor, the band recruited The Colour and the Shape producer Gil Norton. Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace was released on September 25, 2007. The album's first single, The Pretender, was issued to radio in early August. In mid-to-late 2007 The Pretender topped Billboard's Modern Rock chart for a record 19 weeks. The second single, Long Road to Ruin, was released in December 2007, supported by a music video directed by longtime collaborator Jesse Peretz (formerly of the Lemonheads). Other singles included Let It Die and Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running).
In October 2007, Foo Fighters started their world tour in support of the album. The band performed shows throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia, including headlining the Virgin Mobile Festival in Baltimore on August 9. At the European MTV Music Awards in 2007, Pat Smear confirmed his return to the band.
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace was nominated for five Grammy Awards in 2008. Foo Fighters went home with Best Rock Album and Best Hard Rock Performance (for The Pretender). The album was also nominated for Album of the Year, while The Pretender was also nominated for Record of the Year and Best Rock Song.
On June 7, 2008, the band played Wembley Stadium, London, and was joined by Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin to play Rock and Roll (with Grohl on drums and Hawkins on vocals) and Ramble On (sung by Grohl, drums by Hawkins). As Page and Jones left the stage before a final encore of Best Of You, an ecstatic Grohl shouted "Welcome to the greatest fucking day of my whole entire life!". Throughout the tour for Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, Foo Fighters had been writing and practicing new songs at sound checks. After Foo Fighters had completed this tour in September 2008, they recorded 13 new songs in studio 606, shortly after announcing a hiatus from touring (which would last until January 2011). These sessions likely lasted from late 2008 – early 2009. While the members of Foo Fighters had initially planned for their new album (composed of songs from this recording session) to have come out in 2009 with almost no touring support, they ultimately decided to shelve most of the songs from these sessions. Three of these songs were later released — Wheels and Word Forward (on their 2009 compilation album, Greatest Hits); and a newly recorded version of Rope (which ended up making the final cut of Wasting Light).
In order to promote their greatest hits album, Foo Fighters performed an online show at studio 606 in October 2009 during which the band took fan requests.
Wasting Light (2010–2012)
In August 2010, the band began recording their seventh studio album with producer Butch Vig, who had previously produced the two new tracks for the band's Greatest Hits album. The album was recorded in Dave Grohl's garage using only analog equipment. The album won five Grammys and was nominated for six. The recording was analog to tape and used no computers, not even to mix or master. Vig said in an interview with MTV that the album was entirely analog until post-mastering. Pat Smear was present in many photos posted by Grohl on Twitter and a press release in December confirmed Smear played on every track on the album and was considered a core member of the band once again.
The first single from Wasting Light, Rope, was released to radio in February 2011. On April 16, 2011, Foo Fighters released an album of covers, Medium Rare, as a limited-edition vinyl for Record Store Day. The promotion for the album has been highly praised for its originality. Wasting Light debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, becoming the band's first album to do so. Other singles for the album included Walk, Arlandria, These Days, and Bridge Burning.
Alongside Wasting Lights release, Foo Fighters released a rockumentary, directed by Academy Award-winner James Moll. The film, titled Back and Forth, chronicles the band's career. Then current and past members, and producer Butch Vig, tell the story of the band through interviews. After debuting on March 15, 2011, at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, it was released on DVD three months later.
On May 21, 2011, Foo Fighters headlined the middle day of the Hangout Music Festival in Gulf Shores, Alabama. On June 4, 2011, they played a surprise set at the 2011 KROQ Weenie Roast. They also headlined two sold-out shows at the Milton Keynes National Bowl on July 2 and 3, joined on stage by artists such as Alice Cooper, Seasick Steve, and John Paul Jones. They headlined the final night at the 20th anniversary of Lollapalooza in Chicago's Grant Park on August 7, 2011, performing part of their set in a driving rainstorm.
In September 2011 before a show in Kansas City, the band performed a parody song in front of a protest by the Westboro Baptist Church. It mocked the church's opposition to homosexuality and was performed in the same faux-trucker garb that was seen in the band's Hot Buns promotional video.
It was announced on September 28, 2011, that Foo Fighters would be performing during the closing ceremony of Blizzard Entertainment's annual video game convention, BlizzCon.
On August 27, 2012, Foo Fighters ended their European tour with a headline performance at Reading and Leeds Festival. On September 5, the band performed a show at the Fillmore in Charlotte, North Carolina, as a benefit for Rock the Vote. The show, which occurred at the same time as the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, was announced only two weeks prior. Tickets to the 2000-person capacity venue sold out in under 60 seconds, setting a record for the site. The band set another personal record during the show itself, being the longest that the band had played to date at just under 3.5 hours with a setlist of 36 songs. On September 21, the band headlined the Music Midtown Festival in Atlanta, Georgia. The following evening, they headlined the DeLuna Festival in Pensacola Beach, Florida. On September 29, the band performed at the Global Citizens' Festival before embarking on a break.
Sonic Highways (2013–2015)
Despite initially announcing a break after supporting Wasting Light, Grohl stated in January 2013 that the band had started writing material for an eighth studio album. On February 20, 2013, at the Brit Awards, Grohl said he was resuming work on the album the following day.
On September 6, 2013, Shiflett posted a photo to his Instagram account that indicated 13 songs were being recorded and later described it as "pretty fucking fun". Rami Jaffee has recorded parts for three songs, one of which was In the Way. Butch Vig, who worked with the band on Wasting Light, confirmed via Twitter in late August 2013 that he was producing the album. The band confirmed that it would end its hiatus by playing two shows in Mexico City on December 11 and 13. On October 31, a video appeared on the official Foo Fighters YouTube channel showing a motorcyclist, later revealed to be Erik Estrada, delivering each of the band members an invitation to play in Mexico.
On January 16, 2014, a picture was posted to Foo Fighters' Facebook page with several master tapes labeled LP 8. On May 15, it was announced that the album would be released in November and that the Foo Fighters would commemorate the album and their 20th anniversary with an HBO TV series directed by Grohl titled Sonic Highways. Eight songs were written and recorded in eight studios in eight different American cities with video capturing the history and feel of each town. On July 30, Butch Vig revealed that the Foo Fighters had finished recording and mixing the album and that it was slated to be released a month after the premiere of the TV show.
In June 2014, the band agreed to play a show in Richmond, Virginia, that was entirely crowd-funded by fans on the website Tilt.com. The show took place on September 17 before 1,500 fans. The band played 23 songs over the course of two and a half hours. Foo Fighters announced their tour would include performances in Cape Town on December 10 and Johannesburg on December 13. The band played three performances under the alias The Holy Shits in September 2014; the first at the Concorde 2 club in Brighton, England, where Grohl invited lead singer Jay Apperley of the tribute band UK Foo Fighters on stage to sing, followed by the House of Vans and the Islington Assembly Hall. On September 14, 2014, the band performed at the closing ceremony of the Invictus Games, their first official show in England since closing Reading Festival in 2012. They closed out the 2014 VooDoo Music and Arts Festival in New Orleans on November 2, 2014, in a two and a half hour performance that included an appearance from New Orleans native Trombone Shorty, who played This is a Call with the band.
On August 8, the band released a short clip of their latest work, titled 8. On August 11, the band announced that the new album would be titled Sonic Highways and released on November 10, 2014. An international tour, dubbed the Sonic Highways World Tour, followed with performances in South Africa in December and South America in January 2015. It continued to Australia and New Zealand in February and March.
On May 20, 2015, the Foo Fighters were the final musical act to perform on Late Show with David Letterman, continuing their long association with the host as he wrapped up his 33-year career in late night television. The show ended with a montage of Letterman highlights while the Foo Fighters played "Everlong", which Letterman said had significant meaning for him after his open-heart surgery in 2000. The band postponed their international tour to make the appearance; the tour resumed on May 24, with a performance at Radio 1's Big Weekend in Norwich, England.
On June 12, Grohl fell from the stage in Gothenburg, Sweden, during the group's second song, breaking his leg. The band continued playing while Grohl received medical attention, who then returned to the stage to finish the last two hours of the band's set from a chair while a medic tended to his leg. After the concert, Grohl was flown to London for surgery, requiring six metal pins to stabilize the fracture. As a result of the injury, the band canceled its remaining European tour dates.
In July, one thousand Italian fans held the Rockin' 1000 gathering in Cesena, Italy, performing Learn to Fly and asking Foo Fighters to come play in the town. The performance video went viral and impressed Grohl, resulting in the band appearing in Cesena on November 3.
Saint Cecilia EP and Concrete and Gold (2015–2019)
The Foo Fighters planned to follow their international tour with a North American tour to promote Sonic Highways, beginning with a special Fourth of July event in Washington, D.C., that would commemorate the band's 20th anniversary. The all-day event was to be held at Washington's RFK Stadium featuring performances by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Heart, LL Cool J, Gary Clark Jr., and Buddy Guy. Dave Grohl's injury initially led to speculation that the band would drop out of the event but they later confirmed they would perform; however, the injury did prevent them from headlining the 2015 Glastonbury Festival. The band performed for 48,000 people with Grohl in a custom-built moving throne which he claimed to have designed himself while on painkillers.
Beginning with the show on July 4, the Foo Fighters re-branded the North American tour as the Broken Leg Tour. The band continued to use the name at later North American performances. Prior to their August 21 concert at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri, the band rickrolled protesting members of the Westboro Baptist Church, as they had also done in 2011.
On November 23, 2015, a surprise release following a month-long countdown clock on the Foo Fighters' website revealed the free EP Saint Cecilia, including a single of the same name. Alongside its release, Grohl announced that the band would be going on an indefinite hiatus. In response to growing rumors of the band breaking up, the band released a mockumentary video in March 2016 portraying Grohl leaving the band to pursue an electronic music career and Nick Lachey (formerly of 98 Degrees) becoming the group's new singer, ending with: "For the millionth time, we're not breaking up. And nobody's going fucking solo!" In May 2016, Shiflett stated that the band still had no particular plans for reforming but assured that it would happen eventually.
Grohl announced that the band would spend much of 2017 recording their ninth studio album. On June 1, 2017, their new single "Run" was released. Run topped the US Billboard Mainstream Rock Songs chart the following month. The band confirmed touring keyboardist Rami Jaffee was officially the sixth member of the group. On June 20, 2017, the band announced that their new album, Concrete and Gold, would be released in September. On August 23, 2017, The Sky Is a Neighborhood was released as the second single and topped the Mainstream Rock chart. The Line was released in promotion of the album and later as the third single in 2018. Concrete and Gold was officially released on September 15, 2017, produced by Greg Kurstin. The album is noted as deriving influence from Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and The Beatles. Concrete and Gold also features Justin Timberlake on vocals for Make It Right, Shawn Stockman of Boyz II Men on backing vocals for the song Concrete and Gold, and Paul McCartney on the drums for Sunday Rain. The band began touring in June 2017, including headlining the Glastonbury Festival 2017. The tour in support of Concrete and Gold was extended to October 2018.
Medicine at Midnight and induction into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2019–present)
In October 2019, the band announced that they were recording their tenth studio album based on demos by Grohl. In November 2019, the band began releasing a series of EPs under the umbrella name of the Foo Files, largely consisting of previously released B sides and live performances. By February 2020, Grohl announced that the new album was complete but by May, it was delayed indefinitely because of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying, "We've kind of shelved it for now to figure out exactly when it's going to happen."
Starting in November 2020, promotion for the album ramped up. Its title, Medicine at Midnight, and release date, February 5, 2021, were announced. The band released three singles ahead of the album: "Shame Shame", "No Son of Mine", and "Waiting on a War". In January, the band performed at the US Presidential Inauguration of Joe Biden.
On February 10, 2021, Foo Fighters were announced as one of the 2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees in their first year of eligibility as their debut album had been released 25 years prior. On May 12, 2021, Foo Fighters were announced as one of 6 performer inductees.
For Record Store Day on July 17, 2021, the Foo Fighters released an album of disco covers, Hail Satin, under the name Dee Gees. The album contains four Bee Gees covers, a cover of Andy Gibb's "Shadow Dancing", plus five live versions of Medicine at Midnight tracks.
On December 2, 2021, a video was uploaded to the band's YouTube, which announced Studio 666, a rock and roll comedy horror film starring the members of the band. The trailer was released on January 11, 2022, and has a release date of February 25.
Musical style and legacy
Foo Fighters have been described as grunge, alternative rock, post-grunge, and hard rock. They were initially compared to Grohl's previous group, Nirvana. Grohl acknowledged that Kurt Cobain was an influence on his songwriting: "Through Kurt, I saw the beauty of minimalism and the importance of music that's stripped down." Foo Fighters also used the technique of shifting between quiet verses and loud choruses, which Grohl said was influenced by the members of Nirvana "liking The Knack, Bay City Rollers, Beatles, and ABBA as much as we liked Flipper and Black Flag, I suppose."
Writing and recording songs for their first album by himself, Grohl intended for the guitar riffs to be as rhythmic as possible. He approached the guitar in a similar manner to his drumming, assigning various drum parts to strings on the instrument. This allowed him to piece together songs easily; he said, "I could hear the song in my head before it was finished." Once Grohl assembled a full band, the members assisted in song arrangements. Pitchfork described Grohl and the band as "his generation's answer to Tom Petty—a consistent hit machine pumping out working-class rock."
The band members meld melodic and heavy elements. Grohl noted in 1997, "We all love music, whether it's the Beatles or Queen or punk rock. I think the lure of punk rock was the energy and immediacy; the need to thrash stuff around. But at the same time, we're all suckers for a beautiful melody, you know? So it is just natural." Grohl said in 2005, "I love being in a rock band, but I don't know if I necessarily wanna be in an alternative rock band from the 1990s for the rest of my life." Grohl noted that the band's acoustic tour was an attempt to broaden the group's sound.
Band membersCurrent members Dave Grohl – lead vocals, guitar (1994–present)
Pat Smear – guitar (1995–1997, 2010–present; session/touring member 2005–2010), backing vocals (1995–1997)
Chris Shiflett – guitar, backing vocals (1999–present)
Nate Mendel – bass (1995–present)
Taylor Hawkins – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1997–present)
Rami Jaffee – keyboard, piano (2017–present; session/touring member 2005–2017)Former members Franz Stahl – guitar, backing vocals (1997–1999)
William Goldsmith – drums, percussion (1995–1997)
Timeline
DiscographyStudio albums'''
Foo Fighters (1995)
The Colour and the Shape (1997)
There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1999)
One by One (2002)
In Your Honor (2005)
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (2007)
Wasting Light (2011)
Sonic Highways (2014)
Concrete and Gold (2017)
Medicine at Midnight (2021)
Awards and nominations
Foo Fighters first received a Grammy Award for their music video for Learn to Fly in 2000, and they have won ten others. These include four Grammys in the Best Rock Album category for There Is Nothing Left to Lose, One by One, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace and Wasting Light, and three awards for Best Hard Rock Performance for the songs All My Life, The Pretender and White Limo. The band also received three Kerrang! Awards. At the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, the band won Best Rock Video for Walk. They won the Radio Contraband Major Label Artist of the Year in 2011 and 2014. The band won Song of the Year for Something From Nothing and Album of the Year for Sonic Highways both in 2014.
On February 12, 2012, the band performed at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards playing Walk along with the remix version of Rope, featuring deadmau5. The band was nominated for six Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Best Rock Performance, Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance, Best Rock Song, Best Rock Album and Best Long Form Music Video (for Back and Forth''). They won five of the six, losing only to Adele in the Album of the Year category.
In 2021, Foo Fighters were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in their first year of eligibility.
In 2021, the band was announced as recipients of the first-ever global icon award at the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards.
References
External links
Alternative rock groups from Washington (state)
American post-grunge musical groups
Grunge musical groups
Brit Award winners
Grammy Award winners
Hard rock musical groups from Washington (state)
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1994
Musical groups from Seattle
NME Awards winners
Nirvana (band)
RCA Records artists
Articles which contain graphical timelines
Late Show with David Letterman
1994 establishments in Washington (state) | false | [
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts",
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region"
] |
[
"Foo Fighters",
"The Colour and the Shape (1996-1997)",
"What is the colour and the shape",
"second album.",
"What singles did the album have?",
"The album included the singles \"Monkey Wrench\", \"Everlong\", \"My Hero\", and \"Walking After You\"",
"Did they go on tour?",
"The Colour and the Shape album included a main stage performance at the 1998 Glastonbury Festival",
"What are some interesting aspects about this article?",
"Dear Lover\", appeared in the horror film Scream 2."
] | C_44cfa9f1a9614dc1970959a59917acbd_1 | What other songs did they have that were featured on films? | 5 | What other songs were featured on films besides "Dear Lover"? | Foo Fighters | After touring through the spring of 1996, Foo Fighters entered Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, Washington, with producer Gil Norton to record its second album. While Grohl once again wrote all the songs, the rest of the band collaborated on the arrangements. With the sessions nearly complete, Grohl took the rough mixes with him to Los Angeles, intending to finish up his vocal and guitar parts. While there, Grohl realized that he was not happy with how the mixes were turning out, and changed William Goldsmith's "drum tracks with his own for all but two songs." During the L.A. sessions, Grohl had played drums on the songs. Unhappy with Goldsmith's drumming, Grohl removed it from the recordings and re-recorded the drum tracks. As Goldsmith was about to come down to L.A. to find out why he wasn't being called upon to re-record his parts, he called Mendel from Seattle inquiring if he should make the trip. Grohl then called Goldsmith saying, "Dude, don't come down here, I'm recording some of the drum tracks". Shocked by this, Goldsmith met up with Mendel in Seattle and repeated Grohl's claim to be re-recording "some" of the tracks. Mendel asked, "Is that what he told you?"; Goldsmith affirmed it, and Mendel stated, "No, man, he did them all". Grohl explained that he'd wanted the drums to sound a certain way on the album. He wanted Goldsmith to play for the tour even though it would not be his drumming but Grohl's on the album. Feeling betrayed, Goldsmith left the band. In need of a replacement for Goldsmith, Grohl contacted Alanis Morissette's touring drummer Taylor Hawkins to see if he could recommend anybody. Grohl was surprised when Hawkins volunteered his own services as drummer. Hawkins made his debut with the group in time for the release of its second album, The Colour and the Shape, in May 1997. The album included the singles "Monkey Wrench", "Everlong", "My Hero", and "Walking After You" Pat Smear announced to the rest of the group that he wanted to leave the band claiming exhaustion and burnout but agreed to stay with the band until a replacement could be found for him. Four months later in September 1997 at the MTV Video Music Awards, Smear simultaneously announced to the public his departure from the band and introduced his replacement, Grohl's former Scream bandmate Franz Stahl. Stahl toured with the band for the next few months, and appeared on two tracks that the band recorded for movie soundtracks, a re-recording of "Walking After You" for The X-Files and "A320" for Godzilla. A B-side from the "My Hero" single, "Dear Lover", appeared in the horror film Scream 2. The tour for The Colour and the Shape album included a main stage performance at the 1998 Glastonbury Festival and culminated with a performance at the 1998 Reading Festival, both in England. CANNOTANSWER | "Walking After You" for The X-Files and "A320" for Godzilla. A B-side from the "My Hero" single, | Foo Fighters are an American rock band formed in 1994 in Seattle, Washington. The band was founded by former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a one-man project following the dissolution of Nirvana after the suicide of Kurt Cobain. The group took its name from foo fighter, a nickname coined by Allied aircraft pilots for UFOs and other aerial phenomena. Over the course of their career, Foo Fighters have won 12 Grammy Awards, including Best Rock Album four times. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021, their first year of eligibility.
Prior to the release of Foo Fighters' 1995 debut album Foo Fighters, which featured Grohl as the only official member, Grohl recruited bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith, both formerly of Sunny Day Real Estate, as well as Nirvana touring guitarist Pat Smear. The band began with performances in Portland, Oregon. Goldsmith quit during the recording of their second album The Colour and the Shape (1997); most of the drum parts were re-recorded by Grohl. Smear departed soon afterward but appeared as a guest with the band frequently from 2005; he rejoined in 2010.
Smear and Goldsmith were replaced by Franz Stahl and Taylor Hawkins; Stahl was fired before the recording of the group's third album, There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1999). The band briefly continued as a trio until Chris Shiflett joined on guitar after the completion of There Is Nothing Left to Lose. Foo Fighters released their fourth album, One by One, in 2002. It was followed with the two-disc In Your Honor (2005), which was split between acoustic songs and heavier material. Foo Fighters released their sixth album, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, in 2007.
For Foo Fighters' seventh studio album, Wasting Light (2011), produced by Butch Vig, Smear returned as a full member. Sonic Highways (2014) was released as the soundtrack to the television miniseries directed by Grohl. Concrete and Gold (2017) was the second Foo Fighters album to reach number one in the United States and their first studio album to feature longtime session and touring keyboardist Rami Jaffee as a full member. In 2021, the band released their tenth album, Medicine at Midnight.
History
Background and first demos (1990–1994)
In 1990, Dave Grohl joined the grunge band Nirvana as drummer. During tours, he took a guitar with him and wrote songs, but was too intimidated to share them with the band; he was "in awe" of the songs written by frontman Kurt Cobain. Grohl occasionally booked studio time to record demos and covers, issuing an album of demos, Pocketwatch, under the pseudonym Late! in 1992.
Nirvana disbanded after the death of Cobain in 1994. Grohl received offers to work with various artists; press rumors indicated he might join Pearl Jam, and he almost accepted a position as drummer in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Grohl later said: "I was supposed to just join another band and be a drummer the rest of my life. I thought that I would rather do what no one expected me to do." Grohl instead entered Robert Lang Studios in October 1994 to record 15 of his own songs. With the exception of a guitar part on "X-Static", played by Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs, Grohl played every instrument and sang every vocal. He completed an album's worth of material in five days and handed out cassette copies of the sessions to his friends for feedback.
Grohl hoped to stay anonymous and release the recordings in a limited run under the name Foo Fighters, taken from foo fighter, a World War II term for unidentified flying objects. He hoped the name would lead listeners to assume the music was made by several people. He said later: "Had I actually considered this to be a career, I probably would have called it something else, because it's the stupidest fucking band name in the world." The demo tape circulated in the industry, creating interest among record labels.
Formation and debut album (1994–1995)
Grohl formed a band to support the album. He spoke to Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic about joining the group, but they decided against it; Grohl said it would have felt "really natural" for them to work together, but would have been "weird" for the others and place more pressure on Grohl. Instead, Grohl recruited bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith, both of the recently disbanded Seattle group Sunny Day Real Estate. Nirvana touring guitarist Pat Smear joined as second guitarist. Grohl licensed the album to Capitol Records, releasing it on his new label, Roswell Records.
Foo Fighters made their live public debut on February 23, 1995, at the Jambalaya Club in Arcata, California, followed by performances at Satyricon in Portland on March 3 and the Velvet Elvis in Seattle on March 4. The show on March 3 had been part of a benefit gig for the investigation of the rape and murder of Gits singer Mia Zapata. Grohl refused to do interviews or tour large venues to promote the album. Foo Fighters undertook their first major tour in the spring of 1995, opening for Mike Watt. The band's first single, "This Is a Call", was released in June 1995, and its debut album Foo Fighters was released the next month. "I'll Stick Around," "For All the Cows," and "Big Me" were released as subsequent singles. The band spent the following months on tour, including their first appearance at the Reading Festival in England in August.
The Colour and the Shape (1996–1997)
After touring through the spring of 1996, Foo Fighters entered Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, Washington, with producer Gil Norton to record its second album. While Grohl once again wrote all the songs, the rest of the band collaborated on the arrangements. With the sessions nearly complete, Grohl took the rough mixes to Los Angeles, intending to finish his vocal and guitar parts. While there, Grohl realized that he was not happy with the drumming and replaced most of Goldsmith's drum tracks with his own. Though Grohl hoped that Goldsmith would still play on the tour, Goldsmith felt betrayed and left the band.
In need of a replacement for Goldsmith, Grohl contacted Alanis Morissette's touring drummer Taylor Hawkins for a recommendation. Grohl was surprised when Hawkins volunteered himself. Hawkins made his debut with the group in time for the release of its second album, The Colour and the Shape, in May 1997. The album included the singles "Monkey Wrench", "Everlong", "My Hero", and "Walking After You".
Smear left Foo Fighters in 1997, citing exhaustion and burnout, and was replaced by Grohl's former Scream bandmate Franz Stahl. Stahl toured with Foo Fighters for the next few months and appeared on two tracks recorded for movie soundtracks, a re-recording of "Walking After You" for The X-Files and A320 for Godzilla. A B-side from the "My Hero" single, "Dear Lover," appeared in the horror film Scream 2. The tour for The Colour and the Shape album in 1998 included performances at Glastonbury Festival (on the main stage) and the Reading Festival.
There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1998–2001)
In 1998, Foo Fighters traveled to Grohl's home state of Virginia to write their third album. However, Grohl and Stahl were unable to co-operate as songwriters; Grohl told Kerrang! in 1999, "in those few weeks it just seemed like the three of us were moving in one direction and Franz wasn't." Grohl was distraught over the decision to fire Stahl as the two had been friends since childhood. Shortly after that, Mendel called Grohl to say he was quitting to reunite with Sunny Day Real Estate, only to reverse his decision the next day. The remaining trio of Grohl, Mendel, and Hawkins spent several months recording the band's third album, There Is Nothing Left to Lose, in Grohl's home studio. The album spawned several singles, including "Learn to Fly", the band's first to reach the US Billboard Hot 100. Other singles included "Stacked Actors," "Generator," "Next Year," and "Breakout."
Before the release of the album, Capitol Records president Gary Gersh was forced out of the label. Given Grohl's history with Gersh, Foo Fighters' contract had included a "key man clause" that allowed them to leave the label upon Gersh's departure. They left Capitol and signed with RCA, who later acquired the rights to the band's Capitol albums.
After recording There Is Nothing Left to Lose was completed, the band auditioned a number of potential guitarists and settled on Chris Shiflett, who performed with Me First and the Gimme Gimmes and California punk band No Use for a Name. Shiflett initially joined as a touring guitarist but achieved full-time status prior to the recording of the group's fourth album.
In January 2000, Nate Mendel led a benefit concert in Hollywood for AIDS denialist group Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives with a speech by founder Christine Maggiore and free copies of her self-published book, What If Everything You Thought You Knew About AIDS Was Wrong? Additionally, the band's official website featured a section devoted to Alive & Well. Sandra Thurman, then director of the Office of National AIDS Policy stated this was "extraordinarily irresponsible behavior" because "there is no doubt about the link between HIV and AIDS in the respected scientific community." Links and references to Alive & Well were removed from the band's website by March 2003.
Around 2001, Foo Fighters established a relationship with rock band Queen as the band (particularly Grohl and Hawkins) were fans. In March of that year, Grohl and Hawkins inducted them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and joined them to perform the 1976 classic, Tie Your Mother Down, with Hawkins playing drums alongside Roger Taylor. Guitarist Brian May added a guitar track to Foo Fighters' second cover of Pink Floyd's "Have a Cigar," which appeared on the soundtrack to the movie Mission: Impossible 2. In 2002, guitarist May contributed guitar work to Tired of You and an outtake called Knucklehead. The bands have performed together on several occasions since, including VH1 Rock Honors and Foo Fighters' headlining concert in Hyde Park.
One by One (2001–2004)
Near the end of 2001, the band reconvened to record its fourth album. After spending four months in a Los Angeles studio, the album "just didn't sound right" and the band had no confidence it would sell very well. With the album not reaching their expectations amid much infighting, Grohl spent some time helping Queens of the Stone Age complete their 2002 album Songs for the Deaf. Once that album was finished and touring had started for both Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age, the band was on the verge of breaking up entirely. Grohl reunited with Hawkins, Shiflett, and Mendel to play the Coachella Festival, alternating days with Queens of the Stone Age. Hawkins and Grohl talked about resuming work on One by One and after a very satisfying performance the following day, they agreed to stay together. The group re-recorded nearly all of the album (save Tired of You) in a ten-day stretch at Grohl's home studio in Alexandria, Virginia, the following month. The original version of One by One, referred to by the band as Million Dollar Demos, has never been released in its entirety although seven tracks were leaked online in 2012 and 2015.
The album was released in October 2002 under the title One by One. Singles from the album included "All My Life," "Times Like These," "Low," and "Have It All." The tour for the album included a headline performance at the 2002 Reading and Leeds Festivals.
For most of its history, the band chose to stay away from the political realm. However, in 2004, upon learning that George W. Bush's presidential campaign was using "Times Like These" at rallies, Grohl decided to lend his public support to John Kerry's campaign, saying, "There's no way of stopping the president playing your songs, so I went out and played it for John Kerry's people instead, where I thought the message would kinda make more sense." Grohl attended several Kerry rallies and occasionally performed solo acoustic sets. The entire band joined Grohl for a performance in Arizona coinciding with one of the presidential debates.
In Your Honor (2005–2006)
Having spent a year and a half touring behind One by One, Grohl did not want to rush into recording another Foo Fighters record. Initially Grohl intended to write acoustic material by himself but eventually the project involved the entire band. To record its fifth album, the band shifted to Los Angeles and built a recording studio, dubbed Studio 606 West. Grohl insisted that the album be divided into two discs–one full of rock songs, the other featuring acoustic tracks. In Your Honor was released in June 2005. The album's singles included Best of You, DOA, Resolve, and No Way Back/Cold Day in the Sun.
During September and October 2005, the band toured with Weezer on what was billed as the Foozer Tour. Foo Fighters played a headline performance at the 2005 Reading and Leeds Festivals. On June 17, 2006, Foo Fighters performed their largest non-festival headlining concert to date at London's Hyde Park. Motörhead's Lemmy joined the band on stage to sing Shake Your Blood from Dave Grohl's Probot album. As a surprise performance, Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen appeared to play part of We Will Rock You as a lead in to Tie Your Mother Down.
In further support of In Your Honor, the band organized a short acoustic tour for the summer of 2006. Members who had performed with them in late 2005 appeared, such as Pat Smear, Petra Haden on violin and backing vocals, Drew Hester on percussion, and Rami Jaffee of The Wallflowers on keyboard and piano. While much of the setlist focused on In Your Honors acoustic half, the band also used the opportunity to play lesser-known songs, such as Ain't It The Life, Floaty, and See You. The band also performed Marigold, a Pocketwatch-era song that was best known as a Nirvana B side.
In November 2006, the band released their first ever live CD, Skin and Bones, featuring fifteen performances captured over a three-night stint in Los Angeles.
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace and Greatest Hits (2007–2009)
For the follow-up to In Your Honor, the band recruited The Colour and the Shape producer Gil Norton. Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace was released on September 25, 2007. The album's first single, The Pretender, was issued to radio in early August. In mid-to-late 2007 The Pretender topped Billboard's Modern Rock chart for a record 19 weeks. The second single, Long Road to Ruin, was released in December 2007, supported by a music video directed by longtime collaborator Jesse Peretz (formerly of the Lemonheads). Other singles included Let It Die and Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running).
In October 2007, Foo Fighters started their world tour in support of the album. The band performed shows throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia, including headlining the Virgin Mobile Festival in Baltimore on August 9. At the European MTV Music Awards in 2007, Pat Smear confirmed his return to the band.
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace was nominated for five Grammy Awards in 2008. Foo Fighters went home with Best Rock Album and Best Hard Rock Performance (for The Pretender). The album was also nominated for Album of the Year, while The Pretender was also nominated for Record of the Year and Best Rock Song.
On June 7, 2008, the band played Wembley Stadium, London, and was joined by Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin to play Rock and Roll (with Grohl on drums and Hawkins on vocals) and Ramble On (sung by Grohl, drums by Hawkins). As Page and Jones left the stage before a final encore of Best Of You, an ecstatic Grohl shouted "Welcome to the greatest fucking day of my whole entire life!". Throughout the tour for Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, Foo Fighters had been writing and practicing new songs at sound checks. After Foo Fighters had completed this tour in September 2008, they recorded 13 new songs in studio 606, shortly after announcing a hiatus from touring (which would last until January 2011). These sessions likely lasted from late 2008 – early 2009. While the members of Foo Fighters had initially planned for their new album (composed of songs from this recording session) to have come out in 2009 with almost no touring support, they ultimately decided to shelve most of the songs from these sessions. Three of these songs were later released — Wheels and Word Forward (on their 2009 compilation album, Greatest Hits); and a newly recorded version of Rope (which ended up making the final cut of Wasting Light).
In order to promote their greatest hits album, Foo Fighters performed an online show at studio 606 in October 2009 during which the band took fan requests.
Wasting Light (2010–2012)
In August 2010, the band began recording their seventh studio album with producer Butch Vig, who had previously produced the two new tracks for the band's Greatest Hits album. The album was recorded in Dave Grohl's garage using only analog equipment. The album won five Grammys and was nominated for six. The recording was analog to tape and used no computers, not even to mix or master. Vig said in an interview with MTV that the album was entirely analog until post-mastering. Pat Smear was present in many photos posted by Grohl on Twitter and a press release in December confirmed Smear played on every track on the album and was considered a core member of the band once again.
The first single from Wasting Light, Rope, was released to radio in February 2011. On April 16, 2011, Foo Fighters released an album of covers, Medium Rare, as a limited-edition vinyl for Record Store Day. The promotion for the album has been highly praised for its originality. Wasting Light debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, becoming the band's first album to do so. Other singles for the album included Walk, Arlandria, These Days, and Bridge Burning.
Alongside Wasting Lights release, Foo Fighters released a rockumentary, directed by Academy Award-winner James Moll. The film, titled Back and Forth, chronicles the band's career. Then current and past members, and producer Butch Vig, tell the story of the band through interviews. After debuting on March 15, 2011, at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, it was released on DVD three months later.
On May 21, 2011, Foo Fighters headlined the middle day of the Hangout Music Festival in Gulf Shores, Alabama. On June 4, 2011, they played a surprise set at the 2011 KROQ Weenie Roast. They also headlined two sold-out shows at the Milton Keynes National Bowl on July 2 and 3, joined on stage by artists such as Alice Cooper, Seasick Steve, and John Paul Jones. They headlined the final night at the 20th anniversary of Lollapalooza in Chicago's Grant Park on August 7, 2011, performing part of their set in a driving rainstorm.
In September 2011 before a show in Kansas City, the band performed a parody song in front of a protest by the Westboro Baptist Church. It mocked the church's opposition to homosexuality and was performed in the same faux-trucker garb that was seen in the band's Hot Buns promotional video.
It was announced on September 28, 2011, that Foo Fighters would be performing during the closing ceremony of Blizzard Entertainment's annual video game convention, BlizzCon.
On August 27, 2012, Foo Fighters ended their European tour with a headline performance at Reading and Leeds Festival. On September 5, the band performed a show at the Fillmore in Charlotte, North Carolina, as a benefit for Rock the Vote. The show, which occurred at the same time as the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, was announced only two weeks prior. Tickets to the 2000-person capacity venue sold out in under 60 seconds, setting a record for the site. The band set another personal record during the show itself, being the longest that the band had played to date at just under 3.5 hours with a setlist of 36 songs. On September 21, the band headlined the Music Midtown Festival in Atlanta, Georgia. The following evening, they headlined the DeLuna Festival in Pensacola Beach, Florida. On September 29, the band performed at the Global Citizens' Festival before embarking on a break.
Sonic Highways (2013–2015)
Despite initially announcing a break after supporting Wasting Light, Grohl stated in January 2013 that the band had started writing material for an eighth studio album. On February 20, 2013, at the Brit Awards, Grohl said he was resuming work on the album the following day.
On September 6, 2013, Shiflett posted a photo to his Instagram account that indicated 13 songs were being recorded and later described it as "pretty fucking fun". Rami Jaffee has recorded parts for three songs, one of which was In the Way. Butch Vig, who worked with the band on Wasting Light, confirmed via Twitter in late August 2013 that he was producing the album. The band confirmed that it would end its hiatus by playing two shows in Mexico City on December 11 and 13. On October 31, a video appeared on the official Foo Fighters YouTube channel showing a motorcyclist, later revealed to be Erik Estrada, delivering each of the band members an invitation to play in Mexico.
On January 16, 2014, a picture was posted to Foo Fighters' Facebook page with several master tapes labeled LP 8. On May 15, it was announced that the album would be released in November and that the Foo Fighters would commemorate the album and their 20th anniversary with an HBO TV series directed by Grohl titled Sonic Highways. Eight songs were written and recorded in eight studios in eight different American cities with video capturing the history and feel of each town. On July 30, Butch Vig revealed that the Foo Fighters had finished recording and mixing the album and that it was slated to be released a month after the premiere of the TV show.
In June 2014, the band agreed to play a show in Richmond, Virginia, that was entirely crowd-funded by fans on the website Tilt.com. The show took place on September 17 before 1,500 fans. The band played 23 songs over the course of two and a half hours. Foo Fighters announced their tour would include performances in Cape Town on December 10 and Johannesburg on December 13. The band played three performances under the alias The Holy Shits in September 2014; the first at the Concorde 2 club in Brighton, England, where Grohl invited lead singer Jay Apperley of the tribute band UK Foo Fighters on stage to sing, followed by the House of Vans and the Islington Assembly Hall. On September 14, 2014, the band performed at the closing ceremony of the Invictus Games, their first official show in England since closing Reading Festival in 2012. They closed out the 2014 VooDoo Music and Arts Festival in New Orleans on November 2, 2014, in a two and a half hour performance that included an appearance from New Orleans native Trombone Shorty, who played This is a Call with the band.
On August 8, the band released a short clip of their latest work, titled 8. On August 11, the band announced that the new album would be titled Sonic Highways and released on November 10, 2014. An international tour, dubbed the Sonic Highways World Tour, followed with performances in South Africa in December and South America in January 2015. It continued to Australia and New Zealand in February and March.
On May 20, 2015, the Foo Fighters were the final musical act to perform on Late Show with David Letterman, continuing their long association with the host as he wrapped up his 33-year career in late night television. The show ended with a montage of Letterman highlights while the Foo Fighters played "Everlong", which Letterman said had significant meaning for him after his open-heart surgery in 2000. The band postponed their international tour to make the appearance; the tour resumed on May 24, with a performance at Radio 1's Big Weekend in Norwich, England.
On June 12, Grohl fell from the stage in Gothenburg, Sweden, during the group's second song, breaking his leg. The band continued playing while Grohl received medical attention, who then returned to the stage to finish the last two hours of the band's set from a chair while a medic tended to his leg. After the concert, Grohl was flown to London for surgery, requiring six metal pins to stabilize the fracture. As a result of the injury, the band canceled its remaining European tour dates.
In July, one thousand Italian fans held the Rockin' 1000 gathering in Cesena, Italy, performing Learn to Fly and asking Foo Fighters to come play in the town. The performance video went viral and impressed Grohl, resulting in the band appearing in Cesena on November 3.
Saint Cecilia EP and Concrete and Gold (2015–2019)
The Foo Fighters planned to follow their international tour with a North American tour to promote Sonic Highways, beginning with a special Fourth of July event in Washington, D.C., that would commemorate the band's 20th anniversary. The all-day event was to be held at Washington's RFK Stadium featuring performances by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Heart, LL Cool J, Gary Clark Jr., and Buddy Guy. Dave Grohl's injury initially led to speculation that the band would drop out of the event but they later confirmed they would perform; however, the injury did prevent them from headlining the 2015 Glastonbury Festival. The band performed for 48,000 people with Grohl in a custom-built moving throne which he claimed to have designed himself while on painkillers.
Beginning with the show on July 4, the Foo Fighters re-branded the North American tour as the Broken Leg Tour. The band continued to use the name at later North American performances. Prior to their August 21 concert at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri, the band rickrolled protesting members of the Westboro Baptist Church, as they had also done in 2011.
On November 23, 2015, a surprise release following a month-long countdown clock on the Foo Fighters' website revealed the free EP Saint Cecilia, including a single of the same name. Alongside its release, Grohl announced that the band would be going on an indefinite hiatus. In response to growing rumors of the band breaking up, the band released a mockumentary video in March 2016 portraying Grohl leaving the band to pursue an electronic music career and Nick Lachey (formerly of 98 Degrees) becoming the group's new singer, ending with: "For the millionth time, we're not breaking up. And nobody's going fucking solo!" In May 2016, Shiflett stated that the band still had no particular plans for reforming but assured that it would happen eventually.
Grohl announced that the band would spend much of 2017 recording their ninth studio album. On June 1, 2017, their new single "Run" was released. Run topped the US Billboard Mainstream Rock Songs chart the following month. The band confirmed touring keyboardist Rami Jaffee was officially the sixth member of the group. On June 20, 2017, the band announced that their new album, Concrete and Gold, would be released in September. On August 23, 2017, The Sky Is a Neighborhood was released as the second single and topped the Mainstream Rock chart. The Line was released in promotion of the album and later as the third single in 2018. Concrete and Gold was officially released on September 15, 2017, produced by Greg Kurstin. The album is noted as deriving influence from Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and The Beatles. Concrete and Gold also features Justin Timberlake on vocals for Make It Right, Shawn Stockman of Boyz II Men on backing vocals for the song Concrete and Gold, and Paul McCartney on the drums for Sunday Rain. The band began touring in June 2017, including headlining the Glastonbury Festival 2017. The tour in support of Concrete and Gold was extended to October 2018.
Medicine at Midnight and induction into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2019–present)
In October 2019, the band announced that they were recording their tenth studio album based on demos by Grohl. In November 2019, the band began releasing a series of EPs under the umbrella name of the Foo Files, largely consisting of previously released B sides and live performances. By February 2020, Grohl announced that the new album was complete but by May, it was delayed indefinitely because of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying, "We've kind of shelved it for now to figure out exactly when it's going to happen."
Starting in November 2020, promotion for the album ramped up. Its title, Medicine at Midnight, and release date, February 5, 2021, were announced. The band released three singles ahead of the album: "Shame Shame", "No Son of Mine", and "Waiting on a War". In January, the band performed at the US Presidential Inauguration of Joe Biden.
On February 10, 2021, Foo Fighters were announced as one of the 2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees in their first year of eligibility as their debut album had been released 25 years prior. On May 12, 2021, Foo Fighters were announced as one of 6 performer inductees.
For Record Store Day on July 17, 2021, the Foo Fighters released an album of disco covers, Hail Satin, under the name Dee Gees. The album contains four Bee Gees covers, a cover of Andy Gibb's "Shadow Dancing", plus five live versions of Medicine at Midnight tracks.
On December 2, 2021, a video was uploaded to the band's YouTube, which announced Studio 666, a rock and roll comedy horror film starring the members of the band. The trailer was released on January 11, 2022, and has a release date of February 25.
Musical style and legacy
Foo Fighters have been described as grunge, alternative rock, post-grunge, and hard rock. They were initially compared to Grohl's previous group, Nirvana. Grohl acknowledged that Kurt Cobain was an influence on his songwriting: "Through Kurt, I saw the beauty of minimalism and the importance of music that's stripped down." Foo Fighters also used the technique of shifting between quiet verses and loud choruses, which Grohl said was influenced by the members of Nirvana "liking The Knack, Bay City Rollers, Beatles, and ABBA as much as we liked Flipper and Black Flag, I suppose."
Writing and recording songs for their first album by himself, Grohl intended for the guitar riffs to be as rhythmic as possible. He approached the guitar in a similar manner to his drumming, assigning various drum parts to strings on the instrument. This allowed him to piece together songs easily; he said, "I could hear the song in my head before it was finished." Once Grohl assembled a full band, the members assisted in song arrangements. Pitchfork described Grohl and the band as "his generation's answer to Tom Petty—a consistent hit machine pumping out working-class rock."
The band members meld melodic and heavy elements. Grohl noted in 1997, "We all love music, whether it's the Beatles or Queen or punk rock. I think the lure of punk rock was the energy and immediacy; the need to thrash stuff around. But at the same time, we're all suckers for a beautiful melody, you know? So it is just natural." Grohl said in 2005, "I love being in a rock band, but I don't know if I necessarily wanna be in an alternative rock band from the 1990s for the rest of my life." Grohl noted that the band's acoustic tour was an attempt to broaden the group's sound.
Band membersCurrent members Dave Grohl – lead vocals, guitar (1994–present)
Pat Smear – guitar (1995–1997, 2010–present; session/touring member 2005–2010), backing vocals (1995–1997)
Chris Shiflett – guitar, backing vocals (1999–present)
Nate Mendel – bass (1995–present)
Taylor Hawkins – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1997–present)
Rami Jaffee – keyboard, piano (2017–present; session/touring member 2005–2017)Former members Franz Stahl – guitar, backing vocals (1997–1999)
William Goldsmith – drums, percussion (1995–1997)
Timeline
DiscographyStudio albums'''
Foo Fighters (1995)
The Colour and the Shape (1997)
There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1999)
One by One (2002)
In Your Honor (2005)
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (2007)
Wasting Light (2011)
Sonic Highways (2014)
Concrete and Gold (2017)
Medicine at Midnight (2021)
Awards and nominations
Foo Fighters first received a Grammy Award for their music video for Learn to Fly in 2000, and they have won ten others. These include four Grammys in the Best Rock Album category for There Is Nothing Left to Lose, One by One, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace and Wasting Light, and three awards for Best Hard Rock Performance for the songs All My Life, The Pretender and White Limo. The band also received three Kerrang! Awards. At the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, the band won Best Rock Video for Walk. They won the Radio Contraband Major Label Artist of the Year in 2011 and 2014. The band won Song of the Year for Something From Nothing and Album of the Year for Sonic Highways both in 2014.
On February 12, 2012, the band performed at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards playing Walk along with the remix version of Rope, featuring deadmau5. The band was nominated for six Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Best Rock Performance, Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance, Best Rock Song, Best Rock Album and Best Long Form Music Video (for Back and Forth''). They won five of the six, losing only to Adele in the Album of the Year category.
In 2021, Foo Fighters were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in their first year of eligibility.
In 2021, the band was announced as recipients of the first-ever global icon award at the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards.
References
External links
Alternative rock groups from Washington (state)
American post-grunge musical groups
Grunge musical groups
Brit Award winners
Grammy Award winners
Hard rock musical groups from Washington (state)
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1994
Musical groups from Seattle
NME Awards winners
Nirvana (band)
RCA Records artists
Articles which contain graphical timelines
Late Show with David Letterman
1994 establishments in Washington (state) | false | [
"The following is a list of films and other media in which Betty Boop has appeared. She was featured in 90 theatrical cartoons between 1930 and 1939. All of them were released by many labels but there were no such releases for the Betty Boop cartoons on DVD and Blu-ray, up until 2013 when Olive Films finally released the non-public domain cartoons, although they were restored from the original television internegatives that carried the altered opening and closing credits. Volume 1 was released on August 20, 2013, and Volume 2 on September 24, 2013. Volume 3 was released on April 29, 2014, and Volume 4 on September 30, 2014.\n\nAppearances in Talkartoons and Screen Songs series\nNote: see the Talkartoons and Screen Songs filmography for additional entries in the series.\n\nBetty Boop series\n\nTelevision films\n\nSource:\n\nOther appearances\nBetty Boop made an appearance in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.\n\nReferences\n\nBetty Boop cartoons",
"The discography of American rapper Memphis Bleek consists of four studio albums, twelve mixtapes, seventeen singles (including four as a featured artist) and fifteen music videos. An early signing to rapper Jay-Z's record label Roc-A-Fella Records, Bleek appeared on several of Jay-Z's early songs, and collaborated with him on the single \"It's Alright\" from the soundtrack to the film Streets Is Watching, which peaked at number 61 on the US Billboard Hot 100. Bleek went on to release his debut album, Coming of Age, in 1999, which contained the singles \"Memphis Bleek Is...\", \"My Hood to Your Hood\" and \"What You Think of That\".\n\nAfter collaborating with Jay-Z on the singles \"Hey Papi\" and \"Change the Game\", Bleek's second album, The Understanding, was released on December 5, 2000. The album featured the single \"Is That Your Chick (The Lost Verses)\", a collaboration with Jay-Z and fellow rappers Missy Elliott and Twista, which achieved chart success in the United States, peaking at number 68 on the Billboard Hot 100, number 18 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and number seven on the US Hot Rap Singles chart. The album also included the singles \"My Mind Right\" and \"Do My...\". Both Coming of Age and The Understanding were certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).\n\nBleek released his third album, M.A.D.E., on December 16, 2003, which featured the singles \"Round Here\" and \"Need Me In Your Life\"; the former peaked at number 53 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. His fourth album, 534, peaked at number 11 on the Billboard 200, number three on the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and number one on the US Top Rap Albums chart following its release on May 17, 2005. 534 contained the singles \"Like That\" featuring Swizz Beatz, which peaked at number 47 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and number 22 on the Hot Rap Songs chart, and \"Dear Summer\".\n\nAlbums\n\nStudio albums\n\nMixtapes\n\nSingles\n\nAs lead artist\n\nAs featured artist\n\nOther charted songs\n\nGuest appearances\n\nMusic videos\n\nAs featured performer\n\nNotes\n\nA \"What You Think of That\" did not enter the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but peaked at number 9 on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.\nB \"Like That\" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but peaked at number 13 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot 100.\nC \"Dear Summer\" did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but peaked at number 16 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot 100.\nD \"Good Life\" did not enter the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but peaked at number 13 on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.\nE \"Parking Lot Pimpin did not enter the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, but peaked at number 13 on the Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart, which acts as a 25-song extension to the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.\n\nReferences\n\nHip hop discographies\nDiscographies of American artists"
] |
[
"Foo Fighters",
"The Colour and the Shape (1996-1997)",
"What is the colour and the shape",
"second album.",
"What singles did the album have?",
"The album included the singles \"Monkey Wrench\", \"Everlong\", \"My Hero\", and \"Walking After You\"",
"Did they go on tour?",
"The Colour and the Shape album included a main stage performance at the 1998 Glastonbury Festival",
"What are some interesting aspects about this article?",
"Dear Lover\", appeared in the horror film Scream 2.",
"What other songs did they have that were featured on films?",
"\"Walking After You\" for The X-Files and \"A320\" for Godzilla. A B-side from the \"My Hero\" single,"
] | C_44cfa9f1a9614dc1970959a59917acbd_1 | Any others? | 6 | Any others songs were featured on films besides "Dear Lover", "Walking After You" for The X-Files and "A320"? | Foo Fighters | After touring through the spring of 1996, Foo Fighters entered Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, Washington, with producer Gil Norton to record its second album. While Grohl once again wrote all the songs, the rest of the band collaborated on the arrangements. With the sessions nearly complete, Grohl took the rough mixes with him to Los Angeles, intending to finish up his vocal and guitar parts. While there, Grohl realized that he was not happy with how the mixes were turning out, and changed William Goldsmith's "drum tracks with his own for all but two songs." During the L.A. sessions, Grohl had played drums on the songs. Unhappy with Goldsmith's drumming, Grohl removed it from the recordings and re-recorded the drum tracks. As Goldsmith was about to come down to L.A. to find out why he wasn't being called upon to re-record his parts, he called Mendel from Seattle inquiring if he should make the trip. Grohl then called Goldsmith saying, "Dude, don't come down here, I'm recording some of the drum tracks". Shocked by this, Goldsmith met up with Mendel in Seattle and repeated Grohl's claim to be re-recording "some" of the tracks. Mendel asked, "Is that what he told you?"; Goldsmith affirmed it, and Mendel stated, "No, man, he did them all". Grohl explained that he'd wanted the drums to sound a certain way on the album. He wanted Goldsmith to play for the tour even though it would not be his drumming but Grohl's on the album. Feeling betrayed, Goldsmith left the band. In need of a replacement for Goldsmith, Grohl contacted Alanis Morissette's touring drummer Taylor Hawkins to see if he could recommend anybody. Grohl was surprised when Hawkins volunteered his own services as drummer. Hawkins made his debut with the group in time for the release of its second album, The Colour and the Shape, in May 1997. The album included the singles "Monkey Wrench", "Everlong", "My Hero", and "Walking After You" Pat Smear announced to the rest of the group that he wanted to leave the band claiming exhaustion and burnout but agreed to stay with the band until a replacement could be found for him. Four months later in September 1997 at the MTV Video Music Awards, Smear simultaneously announced to the public his departure from the band and introduced his replacement, Grohl's former Scream bandmate Franz Stahl. Stahl toured with the band for the next few months, and appeared on two tracks that the band recorded for movie soundtracks, a re-recording of "Walking After You" for The X-Files and "A320" for Godzilla. A B-side from the "My Hero" single, "Dear Lover", appeared in the horror film Scream 2. The tour for The Colour and the Shape album included a main stage performance at the 1998 Glastonbury Festival and culminated with a performance at the 1998 Reading Festival, both in England. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Foo Fighters are an American rock band formed in 1994 in Seattle, Washington. The band was founded by former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a one-man project following the dissolution of Nirvana after the suicide of Kurt Cobain. The group took its name from foo fighter, a nickname coined by Allied aircraft pilots for UFOs and other aerial phenomena. Over the course of their career, Foo Fighters have won 12 Grammy Awards, including Best Rock Album four times. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021, their first year of eligibility.
Prior to the release of Foo Fighters' 1995 debut album Foo Fighters, which featured Grohl as the only official member, Grohl recruited bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith, both formerly of Sunny Day Real Estate, as well as Nirvana touring guitarist Pat Smear. The band began with performances in Portland, Oregon. Goldsmith quit during the recording of their second album The Colour and the Shape (1997); most of the drum parts were re-recorded by Grohl. Smear departed soon afterward but appeared as a guest with the band frequently from 2005; he rejoined in 2010.
Smear and Goldsmith were replaced by Franz Stahl and Taylor Hawkins; Stahl was fired before the recording of the group's third album, There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1999). The band briefly continued as a trio until Chris Shiflett joined on guitar after the completion of There Is Nothing Left to Lose. Foo Fighters released their fourth album, One by One, in 2002. It was followed with the two-disc In Your Honor (2005), which was split between acoustic songs and heavier material. Foo Fighters released their sixth album, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, in 2007.
For Foo Fighters' seventh studio album, Wasting Light (2011), produced by Butch Vig, Smear returned as a full member. Sonic Highways (2014) was released as the soundtrack to the television miniseries directed by Grohl. Concrete and Gold (2017) was the second Foo Fighters album to reach number one in the United States and their first studio album to feature longtime session and touring keyboardist Rami Jaffee as a full member. In 2021, the band released their tenth album, Medicine at Midnight.
History
Background and first demos (1990–1994)
In 1990, Dave Grohl joined the grunge band Nirvana as drummer. During tours, he took a guitar with him and wrote songs, but was too intimidated to share them with the band; he was "in awe" of the songs written by frontman Kurt Cobain. Grohl occasionally booked studio time to record demos and covers, issuing an album of demos, Pocketwatch, under the pseudonym Late! in 1992.
Nirvana disbanded after the death of Cobain in 1994. Grohl received offers to work with various artists; press rumors indicated he might join Pearl Jam, and he almost accepted a position as drummer in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Grohl later said: "I was supposed to just join another band and be a drummer the rest of my life. I thought that I would rather do what no one expected me to do." Grohl instead entered Robert Lang Studios in October 1994 to record 15 of his own songs. With the exception of a guitar part on "X-Static", played by Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs, Grohl played every instrument and sang every vocal. He completed an album's worth of material in five days and handed out cassette copies of the sessions to his friends for feedback.
Grohl hoped to stay anonymous and release the recordings in a limited run under the name Foo Fighters, taken from foo fighter, a World War II term for unidentified flying objects. He hoped the name would lead listeners to assume the music was made by several people. He said later: "Had I actually considered this to be a career, I probably would have called it something else, because it's the stupidest fucking band name in the world." The demo tape circulated in the industry, creating interest among record labels.
Formation and debut album (1994–1995)
Grohl formed a band to support the album. He spoke to Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic about joining the group, but they decided against it; Grohl said it would have felt "really natural" for them to work together, but would have been "weird" for the others and place more pressure on Grohl. Instead, Grohl recruited bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith, both of the recently disbanded Seattle group Sunny Day Real Estate. Nirvana touring guitarist Pat Smear joined as second guitarist. Grohl licensed the album to Capitol Records, releasing it on his new label, Roswell Records.
Foo Fighters made their live public debut on February 23, 1995, at the Jambalaya Club in Arcata, California, followed by performances at Satyricon in Portland on March 3 and the Velvet Elvis in Seattle on March 4. The show on March 3 had been part of a benefit gig for the investigation of the rape and murder of Gits singer Mia Zapata. Grohl refused to do interviews or tour large venues to promote the album. Foo Fighters undertook their first major tour in the spring of 1995, opening for Mike Watt. The band's first single, "This Is a Call", was released in June 1995, and its debut album Foo Fighters was released the next month. "I'll Stick Around," "For All the Cows," and "Big Me" were released as subsequent singles. The band spent the following months on tour, including their first appearance at the Reading Festival in England in August.
The Colour and the Shape (1996–1997)
After touring through the spring of 1996, Foo Fighters entered Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, Washington, with producer Gil Norton to record its second album. While Grohl once again wrote all the songs, the rest of the band collaborated on the arrangements. With the sessions nearly complete, Grohl took the rough mixes to Los Angeles, intending to finish his vocal and guitar parts. While there, Grohl realized that he was not happy with the drumming and replaced most of Goldsmith's drum tracks with his own. Though Grohl hoped that Goldsmith would still play on the tour, Goldsmith felt betrayed and left the band.
In need of a replacement for Goldsmith, Grohl contacted Alanis Morissette's touring drummer Taylor Hawkins for a recommendation. Grohl was surprised when Hawkins volunteered himself. Hawkins made his debut with the group in time for the release of its second album, The Colour and the Shape, in May 1997. The album included the singles "Monkey Wrench", "Everlong", "My Hero", and "Walking After You".
Smear left Foo Fighters in 1997, citing exhaustion and burnout, and was replaced by Grohl's former Scream bandmate Franz Stahl. Stahl toured with Foo Fighters for the next few months and appeared on two tracks recorded for movie soundtracks, a re-recording of "Walking After You" for The X-Files and A320 for Godzilla. A B-side from the "My Hero" single, "Dear Lover," appeared in the horror film Scream 2. The tour for The Colour and the Shape album in 1998 included performances at Glastonbury Festival (on the main stage) and the Reading Festival.
There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1998–2001)
In 1998, Foo Fighters traveled to Grohl's home state of Virginia to write their third album. However, Grohl and Stahl were unable to co-operate as songwriters; Grohl told Kerrang! in 1999, "in those few weeks it just seemed like the three of us were moving in one direction and Franz wasn't." Grohl was distraught over the decision to fire Stahl as the two had been friends since childhood. Shortly after that, Mendel called Grohl to say he was quitting to reunite with Sunny Day Real Estate, only to reverse his decision the next day. The remaining trio of Grohl, Mendel, and Hawkins spent several months recording the band's third album, There Is Nothing Left to Lose, in Grohl's home studio. The album spawned several singles, including "Learn to Fly", the band's first to reach the US Billboard Hot 100. Other singles included "Stacked Actors," "Generator," "Next Year," and "Breakout."
Before the release of the album, Capitol Records president Gary Gersh was forced out of the label. Given Grohl's history with Gersh, Foo Fighters' contract had included a "key man clause" that allowed them to leave the label upon Gersh's departure. They left Capitol and signed with RCA, who later acquired the rights to the band's Capitol albums.
After recording There Is Nothing Left to Lose was completed, the band auditioned a number of potential guitarists and settled on Chris Shiflett, who performed with Me First and the Gimme Gimmes and California punk band No Use for a Name. Shiflett initially joined as a touring guitarist but achieved full-time status prior to the recording of the group's fourth album.
In January 2000, Nate Mendel led a benefit concert in Hollywood for AIDS denialist group Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives with a speech by founder Christine Maggiore and free copies of her self-published book, What If Everything You Thought You Knew About AIDS Was Wrong? Additionally, the band's official website featured a section devoted to Alive & Well. Sandra Thurman, then director of the Office of National AIDS Policy stated this was "extraordinarily irresponsible behavior" because "there is no doubt about the link between HIV and AIDS in the respected scientific community." Links and references to Alive & Well were removed from the band's website by March 2003.
Around 2001, Foo Fighters established a relationship with rock band Queen as the band (particularly Grohl and Hawkins) were fans. In March of that year, Grohl and Hawkins inducted them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and joined them to perform the 1976 classic, Tie Your Mother Down, with Hawkins playing drums alongside Roger Taylor. Guitarist Brian May added a guitar track to Foo Fighters' second cover of Pink Floyd's "Have a Cigar," which appeared on the soundtrack to the movie Mission: Impossible 2. In 2002, guitarist May contributed guitar work to Tired of You and an outtake called Knucklehead. The bands have performed together on several occasions since, including VH1 Rock Honors and Foo Fighters' headlining concert in Hyde Park.
One by One (2001–2004)
Near the end of 2001, the band reconvened to record its fourth album. After spending four months in a Los Angeles studio, the album "just didn't sound right" and the band had no confidence it would sell very well. With the album not reaching their expectations amid much infighting, Grohl spent some time helping Queens of the Stone Age complete their 2002 album Songs for the Deaf. Once that album was finished and touring had started for both Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age, the band was on the verge of breaking up entirely. Grohl reunited with Hawkins, Shiflett, and Mendel to play the Coachella Festival, alternating days with Queens of the Stone Age. Hawkins and Grohl talked about resuming work on One by One and after a very satisfying performance the following day, they agreed to stay together. The group re-recorded nearly all of the album (save Tired of You) in a ten-day stretch at Grohl's home studio in Alexandria, Virginia, the following month. The original version of One by One, referred to by the band as Million Dollar Demos, has never been released in its entirety although seven tracks were leaked online in 2012 and 2015.
The album was released in October 2002 under the title One by One. Singles from the album included "All My Life," "Times Like These," "Low," and "Have It All." The tour for the album included a headline performance at the 2002 Reading and Leeds Festivals.
For most of its history, the band chose to stay away from the political realm. However, in 2004, upon learning that George W. Bush's presidential campaign was using "Times Like These" at rallies, Grohl decided to lend his public support to John Kerry's campaign, saying, "There's no way of stopping the president playing your songs, so I went out and played it for John Kerry's people instead, where I thought the message would kinda make more sense." Grohl attended several Kerry rallies and occasionally performed solo acoustic sets. The entire band joined Grohl for a performance in Arizona coinciding with one of the presidential debates.
In Your Honor (2005–2006)
Having spent a year and a half touring behind One by One, Grohl did not want to rush into recording another Foo Fighters record. Initially Grohl intended to write acoustic material by himself but eventually the project involved the entire band. To record its fifth album, the band shifted to Los Angeles and built a recording studio, dubbed Studio 606 West. Grohl insisted that the album be divided into two discs–one full of rock songs, the other featuring acoustic tracks. In Your Honor was released in June 2005. The album's singles included Best of You, DOA, Resolve, and No Way Back/Cold Day in the Sun.
During September and October 2005, the band toured with Weezer on what was billed as the Foozer Tour. Foo Fighters played a headline performance at the 2005 Reading and Leeds Festivals. On June 17, 2006, Foo Fighters performed their largest non-festival headlining concert to date at London's Hyde Park. Motörhead's Lemmy joined the band on stage to sing Shake Your Blood from Dave Grohl's Probot album. As a surprise performance, Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen appeared to play part of We Will Rock You as a lead in to Tie Your Mother Down.
In further support of In Your Honor, the band organized a short acoustic tour for the summer of 2006. Members who had performed with them in late 2005 appeared, such as Pat Smear, Petra Haden on violin and backing vocals, Drew Hester on percussion, and Rami Jaffee of The Wallflowers on keyboard and piano. While much of the setlist focused on In Your Honors acoustic half, the band also used the opportunity to play lesser-known songs, such as Ain't It The Life, Floaty, and See You. The band also performed Marigold, a Pocketwatch-era song that was best known as a Nirvana B side.
In November 2006, the band released their first ever live CD, Skin and Bones, featuring fifteen performances captured over a three-night stint in Los Angeles.
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace and Greatest Hits (2007–2009)
For the follow-up to In Your Honor, the band recruited The Colour and the Shape producer Gil Norton. Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace was released on September 25, 2007. The album's first single, The Pretender, was issued to radio in early August. In mid-to-late 2007 The Pretender topped Billboard's Modern Rock chart for a record 19 weeks. The second single, Long Road to Ruin, was released in December 2007, supported by a music video directed by longtime collaborator Jesse Peretz (formerly of the Lemonheads). Other singles included Let It Die and Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running).
In October 2007, Foo Fighters started their world tour in support of the album. The band performed shows throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia, including headlining the Virgin Mobile Festival in Baltimore on August 9. At the European MTV Music Awards in 2007, Pat Smear confirmed his return to the band.
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace was nominated for five Grammy Awards in 2008. Foo Fighters went home with Best Rock Album and Best Hard Rock Performance (for The Pretender). The album was also nominated for Album of the Year, while The Pretender was also nominated for Record of the Year and Best Rock Song.
On June 7, 2008, the band played Wembley Stadium, London, and was joined by Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin to play Rock and Roll (with Grohl on drums and Hawkins on vocals) and Ramble On (sung by Grohl, drums by Hawkins). As Page and Jones left the stage before a final encore of Best Of You, an ecstatic Grohl shouted "Welcome to the greatest fucking day of my whole entire life!". Throughout the tour for Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, Foo Fighters had been writing and practicing new songs at sound checks. After Foo Fighters had completed this tour in September 2008, they recorded 13 new songs in studio 606, shortly after announcing a hiatus from touring (which would last until January 2011). These sessions likely lasted from late 2008 – early 2009. While the members of Foo Fighters had initially planned for their new album (composed of songs from this recording session) to have come out in 2009 with almost no touring support, they ultimately decided to shelve most of the songs from these sessions. Three of these songs were later released — Wheels and Word Forward (on their 2009 compilation album, Greatest Hits); and a newly recorded version of Rope (which ended up making the final cut of Wasting Light).
In order to promote their greatest hits album, Foo Fighters performed an online show at studio 606 in October 2009 during which the band took fan requests.
Wasting Light (2010–2012)
In August 2010, the band began recording their seventh studio album with producer Butch Vig, who had previously produced the two new tracks for the band's Greatest Hits album. The album was recorded in Dave Grohl's garage using only analog equipment. The album won five Grammys and was nominated for six. The recording was analog to tape and used no computers, not even to mix or master. Vig said in an interview with MTV that the album was entirely analog until post-mastering. Pat Smear was present in many photos posted by Grohl on Twitter and a press release in December confirmed Smear played on every track on the album and was considered a core member of the band once again.
The first single from Wasting Light, Rope, was released to radio in February 2011. On April 16, 2011, Foo Fighters released an album of covers, Medium Rare, as a limited-edition vinyl for Record Store Day. The promotion for the album has been highly praised for its originality. Wasting Light debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, becoming the band's first album to do so. Other singles for the album included Walk, Arlandria, These Days, and Bridge Burning.
Alongside Wasting Lights release, Foo Fighters released a rockumentary, directed by Academy Award-winner James Moll. The film, titled Back and Forth, chronicles the band's career. Then current and past members, and producer Butch Vig, tell the story of the band through interviews. After debuting on March 15, 2011, at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, it was released on DVD three months later.
On May 21, 2011, Foo Fighters headlined the middle day of the Hangout Music Festival in Gulf Shores, Alabama. On June 4, 2011, they played a surprise set at the 2011 KROQ Weenie Roast. They also headlined two sold-out shows at the Milton Keynes National Bowl on July 2 and 3, joined on stage by artists such as Alice Cooper, Seasick Steve, and John Paul Jones. They headlined the final night at the 20th anniversary of Lollapalooza in Chicago's Grant Park on August 7, 2011, performing part of their set in a driving rainstorm.
In September 2011 before a show in Kansas City, the band performed a parody song in front of a protest by the Westboro Baptist Church. It mocked the church's opposition to homosexuality and was performed in the same faux-trucker garb that was seen in the band's Hot Buns promotional video.
It was announced on September 28, 2011, that Foo Fighters would be performing during the closing ceremony of Blizzard Entertainment's annual video game convention, BlizzCon.
On August 27, 2012, Foo Fighters ended their European tour with a headline performance at Reading and Leeds Festival. On September 5, the band performed a show at the Fillmore in Charlotte, North Carolina, as a benefit for Rock the Vote. The show, which occurred at the same time as the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, was announced only two weeks prior. Tickets to the 2000-person capacity venue sold out in under 60 seconds, setting a record for the site. The band set another personal record during the show itself, being the longest that the band had played to date at just under 3.5 hours with a setlist of 36 songs. On September 21, the band headlined the Music Midtown Festival in Atlanta, Georgia. The following evening, they headlined the DeLuna Festival in Pensacola Beach, Florida. On September 29, the band performed at the Global Citizens' Festival before embarking on a break.
Sonic Highways (2013–2015)
Despite initially announcing a break after supporting Wasting Light, Grohl stated in January 2013 that the band had started writing material for an eighth studio album. On February 20, 2013, at the Brit Awards, Grohl said he was resuming work on the album the following day.
On September 6, 2013, Shiflett posted a photo to his Instagram account that indicated 13 songs were being recorded and later described it as "pretty fucking fun". Rami Jaffee has recorded parts for three songs, one of which was In the Way. Butch Vig, who worked with the band on Wasting Light, confirmed via Twitter in late August 2013 that he was producing the album. The band confirmed that it would end its hiatus by playing two shows in Mexico City on December 11 and 13. On October 31, a video appeared on the official Foo Fighters YouTube channel showing a motorcyclist, later revealed to be Erik Estrada, delivering each of the band members an invitation to play in Mexico.
On January 16, 2014, a picture was posted to Foo Fighters' Facebook page with several master tapes labeled LP 8. On May 15, it was announced that the album would be released in November and that the Foo Fighters would commemorate the album and their 20th anniversary with an HBO TV series directed by Grohl titled Sonic Highways. Eight songs were written and recorded in eight studios in eight different American cities with video capturing the history and feel of each town. On July 30, Butch Vig revealed that the Foo Fighters had finished recording and mixing the album and that it was slated to be released a month after the premiere of the TV show.
In June 2014, the band agreed to play a show in Richmond, Virginia, that was entirely crowd-funded by fans on the website Tilt.com. The show took place on September 17 before 1,500 fans. The band played 23 songs over the course of two and a half hours. Foo Fighters announced their tour would include performances in Cape Town on December 10 and Johannesburg on December 13. The band played three performances under the alias The Holy Shits in September 2014; the first at the Concorde 2 club in Brighton, England, where Grohl invited lead singer Jay Apperley of the tribute band UK Foo Fighters on stage to sing, followed by the House of Vans and the Islington Assembly Hall. On September 14, 2014, the band performed at the closing ceremony of the Invictus Games, their first official show in England since closing Reading Festival in 2012. They closed out the 2014 VooDoo Music and Arts Festival in New Orleans on November 2, 2014, in a two and a half hour performance that included an appearance from New Orleans native Trombone Shorty, who played This is a Call with the band.
On August 8, the band released a short clip of their latest work, titled 8. On August 11, the band announced that the new album would be titled Sonic Highways and released on November 10, 2014. An international tour, dubbed the Sonic Highways World Tour, followed with performances in South Africa in December and South America in January 2015. It continued to Australia and New Zealand in February and March.
On May 20, 2015, the Foo Fighters were the final musical act to perform on Late Show with David Letterman, continuing their long association with the host as he wrapped up his 33-year career in late night television. The show ended with a montage of Letterman highlights while the Foo Fighters played "Everlong", which Letterman said had significant meaning for him after his open-heart surgery in 2000. The band postponed their international tour to make the appearance; the tour resumed on May 24, with a performance at Radio 1's Big Weekend in Norwich, England.
On June 12, Grohl fell from the stage in Gothenburg, Sweden, during the group's second song, breaking his leg. The band continued playing while Grohl received medical attention, who then returned to the stage to finish the last two hours of the band's set from a chair while a medic tended to his leg. After the concert, Grohl was flown to London for surgery, requiring six metal pins to stabilize the fracture. As a result of the injury, the band canceled its remaining European tour dates.
In July, one thousand Italian fans held the Rockin' 1000 gathering in Cesena, Italy, performing Learn to Fly and asking Foo Fighters to come play in the town. The performance video went viral and impressed Grohl, resulting in the band appearing in Cesena on November 3.
Saint Cecilia EP and Concrete and Gold (2015–2019)
The Foo Fighters planned to follow their international tour with a North American tour to promote Sonic Highways, beginning with a special Fourth of July event in Washington, D.C., that would commemorate the band's 20th anniversary. The all-day event was to be held at Washington's RFK Stadium featuring performances by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Heart, LL Cool J, Gary Clark Jr., and Buddy Guy. Dave Grohl's injury initially led to speculation that the band would drop out of the event but they later confirmed they would perform; however, the injury did prevent them from headlining the 2015 Glastonbury Festival. The band performed for 48,000 people with Grohl in a custom-built moving throne which he claimed to have designed himself while on painkillers.
Beginning with the show on July 4, the Foo Fighters re-branded the North American tour as the Broken Leg Tour. The band continued to use the name at later North American performances. Prior to their August 21 concert at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri, the band rickrolled protesting members of the Westboro Baptist Church, as they had also done in 2011.
On November 23, 2015, a surprise release following a month-long countdown clock on the Foo Fighters' website revealed the free EP Saint Cecilia, including a single of the same name. Alongside its release, Grohl announced that the band would be going on an indefinite hiatus. In response to growing rumors of the band breaking up, the band released a mockumentary video in March 2016 portraying Grohl leaving the band to pursue an electronic music career and Nick Lachey (formerly of 98 Degrees) becoming the group's new singer, ending with: "For the millionth time, we're not breaking up. And nobody's going fucking solo!" In May 2016, Shiflett stated that the band still had no particular plans for reforming but assured that it would happen eventually.
Grohl announced that the band would spend much of 2017 recording their ninth studio album. On June 1, 2017, their new single "Run" was released. Run topped the US Billboard Mainstream Rock Songs chart the following month. The band confirmed touring keyboardist Rami Jaffee was officially the sixth member of the group. On June 20, 2017, the band announced that their new album, Concrete and Gold, would be released in September. On August 23, 2017, The Sky Is a Neighborhood was released as the second single and topped the Mainstream Rock chart. The Line was released in promotion of the album and later as the third single in 2018. Concrete and Gold was officially released on September 15, 2017, produced by Greg Kurstin. The album is noted as deriving influence from Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and The Beatles. Concrete and Gold also features Justin Timberlake on vocals for Make It Right, Shawn Stockman of Boyz II Men on backing vocals for the song Concrete and Gold, and Paul McCartney on the drums for Sunday Rain. The band began touring in June 2017, including headlining the Glastonbury Festival 2017. The tour in support of Concrete and Gold was extended to October 2018.
Medicine at Midnight and induction into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2019–present)
In October 2019, the band announced that they were recording their tenth studio album based on demos by Grohl. In November 2019, the band began releasing a series of EPs under the umbrella name of the Foo Files, largely consisting of previously released B sides and live performances. By February 2020, Grohl announced that the new album was complete but by May, it was delayed indefinitely because of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying, "We've kind of shelved it for now to figure out exactly when it's going to happen."
Starting in November 2020, promotion for the album ramped up. Its title, Medicine at Midnight, and release date, February 5, 2021, were announced. The band released three singles ahead of the album: "Shame Shame", "No Son of Mine", and "Waiting on a War". In January, the band performed at the US Presidential Inauguration of Joe Biden.
On February 10, 2021, Foo Fighters were announced as one of the 2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees in their first year of eligibility as their debut album had been released 25 years prior. On May 12, 2021, Foo Fighters were announced as one of 6 performer inductees.
For Record Store Day on July 17, 2021, the Foo Fighters released an album of disco covers, Hail Satin, under the name Dee Gees. The album contains four Bee Gees covers, a cover of Andy Gibb's "Shadow Dancing", plus five live versions of Medicine at Midnight tracks.
On December 2, 2021, a video was uploaded to the band's YouTube, which announced Studio 666, a rock and roll comedy horror film starring the members of the band. The trailer was released on January 11, 2022, and has a release date of February 25.
Musical style and legacy
Foo Fighters have been described as grunge, alternative rock, post-grunge, and hard rock. They were initially compared to Grohl's previous group, Nirvana. Grohl acknowledged that Kurt Cobain was an influence on his songwriting: "Through Kurt, I saw the beauty of minimalism and the importance of music that's stripped down." Foo Fighters also used the technique of shifting between quiet verses and loud choruses, which Grohl said was influenced by the members of Nirvana "liking The Knack, Bay City Rollers, Beatles, and ABBA as much as we liked Flipper and Black Flag, I suppose."
Writing and recording songs for their first album by himself, Grohl intended for the guitar riffs to be as rhythmic as possible. He approached the guitar in a similar manner to his drumming, assigning various drum parts to strings on the instrument. This allowed him to piece together songs easily; he said, "I could hear the song in my head before it was finished." Once Grohl assembled a full band, the members assisted in song arrangements. Pitchfork described Grohl and the band as "his generation's answer to Tom Petty—a consistent hit machine pumping out working-class rock."
The band members meld melodic and heavy elements. Grohl noted in 1997, "We all love music, whether it's the Beatles or Queen or punk rock. I think the lure of punk rock was the energy and immediacy; the need to thrash stuff around. But at the same time, we're all suckers for a beautiful melody, you know? So it is just natural." Grohl said in 2005, "I love being in a rock band, but I don't know if I necessarily wanna be in an alternative rock band from the 1990s for the rest of my life." Grohl noted that the band's acoustic tour was an attempt to broaden the group's sound.
Band membersCurrent members Dave Grohl – lead vocals, guitar (1994–present)
Pat Smear – guitar (1995–1997, 2010–present; session/touring member 2005–2010), backing vocals (1995–1997)
Chris Shiflett – guitar, backing vocals (1999–present)
Nate Mendel – bass (1995–present)
Taylor Hawkins – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1997–present)
Rami Jaffee – keyboard, piano (2017–present; session/touring member 2005–2017)Former members Franz Stahl – guitar, backing vocals (1997–1999)
William Goldsmith – drums, percussion (1995–1997)
Timeline
DiscographyStudio albums'''
Foo Fighters (1995)
The Colour and the Shape (1997)
There Is Nothing Left to Lose (1999)
One by One (2002)
In Your Honor (2005)
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (2007)
Wasting Light (2011)
Sonic Highways (2014)
Concrete and Gold (2017)
Medicine at Midnight (2021)
Awards and nominations
Foo Fighters first received a Grammy Award for their music video for Learn to Fly in 2000, and they have won ten others. These include four Grammys in the Best Rock Album category for There Is Nothing Left to Lose, One by One, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace and Wasting Light, and three awards for Best Hard Rock Performance for the songs All My Life, The Pretender and White Limo. The band also received three Kerrang! Awards. At the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, the band won Best Rock Video for Walk. They won the Radio Contraband Major Label Artist of the Year in 2011 and 2014. The band won Song of the Year for Something From Nothing and Album of the Year for Sonic Highways both in 2014.
On February 12, 2012, the band performed at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards playing Walk along with the remix version of Rope, featuring deadmau5. The band was nominated for six Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Best Rock Performance, Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance, Best Rock Song, Best Rock Album and Best Long Form Music Video (for Back and Forth''). They won five of the six, losing only to Adele in the Album of the Year category.
In 2021, Foo Fighters were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in their first year of eligibility.
In 2021, the band was announced as recipients of the first-ever global icon award at the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards.
References
External links
Alternative rock groups from Washington (state)
American post-grunge musical groups
Grunge musical groups
Brit Award winners
Grammy Award winners
Hard rock musical groups from Washington (state)
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1994
Musical groups from Seattle
NME Awards winners
Nirvana (band)
RCA Records artists
Articles which contain graphical timelines
Late Show with David Letterman
1994 establishments in Washington (state) | false | [
"By any means necessary is a phrase used by Jean-Paul Sartre and Malcolm X.\n\nBy any means necessary may also refer to:\n\nMusic\nBy Any Means Necessary (Gary Thomas album), 1989\nBy Any Means Necessary (Pastor Troy album), 2004\n\nOthers\n\"By Any Means Necessary\" (Babylon 5), an episode of the television series Babylon 5\nBAMN, or By Any Means Necessary, an American militant left-wing civil rights group\n\nSee also\nBy Any Means (2008 TV series), a travel documentary series\nBy Any Means (2013 TV series), a crime drama series",
"Paul Gillard was a British television actor. He appeared in British television series Crane, Knock on Any Door, The Avengers, UFO and others.\n\nActing credits\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nBritish male television actors\nPossibly living people\nYear of birth missing"
] |
[
"Bobby Robson",
"International playing career"
] | C_f615186a82b8421aacb4ca18fca24b42_0 | Where did Robson play internationally? | 1 | Where did Robson play internationally? | Bobby Robson | During his first spell at Fulham, Robson participated in two ambassadorial Football Association tours in the West Indies in 1955 and South Africa in 1956. However, it was during his time at West Bromwich Albion that he graduated to the full England squad, with his first call-up in 1956. His manager, Vic Buckingham, advocated the "push and run" approach to the game, a precursor to "total football", and playing this, Robson graduated to the full England squad in 1956, It was also at West Brom when Robson met future England international and assistant coach Don Howe. Robson went on to make 20 appearances for the England national team, making his debut in a November 1957 victory against France, scoring twice in a 4-0 victory. Although he made a successful debut, he was dropped for England's next match, against Scotland, in favour of Bobby Charlton. However, Robson was selected for the 1958 FIFA World Cup squad, ahead of Nat Lofthouse and Stanley Matthews, but returned from host nation Sweden disappointed after England were defeated by the Soviet Union in a group play-off match. Following the World Cup, Robson became an established member of the England squad, enjoying considerable success in a period between October 1960 and March 1961 when he played in six England victories, including scoring a goal in the record 9-3 defeat of Scotland at Wembley Stadium. He was selected for the 1962 World Cup finals in Chile, but an injury to his ankle sustained in a pre-tournament friendly against a Chilean club side ruled him out of most of the tournament. As Robson recalled, "I never played for England again... my international career was unfulfilled." His place in the England team was taken by Bobby Moore. CANNOTANSWER | Robson participated in two ambassadorial Football Association tours in the West Indies in 1955 and South Africa in 1956. | Sir Robert William Robson (18 February 1933 – 31 July 2009) was an English footballer and football manager. His career included periods playing for and later managing the England national team and being a UEFA Cup-winning manager at Ipswich Town.
Robson's professional playing career as an inside forward spanned nearly 20 years, during which he played for three clubs: Fulham, West Bromwich Albion, and, briefly, Vancouver Royals. He also made 20 appearances for England, scoring four goals. After his playing career, he found success as both a club and international manager, winning league championships in both the Netherlands and Portugal, earning trophies in England and Spain, and taking England to the semi-finals of the 1990 FIFA World Cup, which remained the national team's best run in a World Cup since 1966 until they reached the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup. His last management role was as a mentor to the manager of the Republic of Ireland national team, while his final official club job was at boyhood club Newcastle United, whom he left in 2004. He held several managerial positions outside of England, most notably one year at Barcelona in 1996–97, as well as stints at PSV, Sporting CP and Porto.
Robson was created a Knight Bachelor in 2002, was inducted as a member of the English Football Hall of Fame in 2003, and was the honorary president of Ipswich Town F.C. From 1991 onwards, he suffered recurrent medical problems with cancer, and in March 2008, put his name and efforts into the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, a cancer research charity which has so far raised over £12 million (March 2018). In August 2008, his lung cancer was confirmed to be terminal; he said, "My condition is described as static and has not altered since my last bout of chemotherapy... I am going to die sooner rather than later. But then everyone has to go sometime and I have enjoyed every minute." He died just under a year later.
Early life
Bobby Robson was born in Sacriston, County Durham, the fourth of five sons of Philip and Lilian Robson (née Watt). When he was a few months old, Robson's family moved to the nearby village of Langley Park where his father was a coal miner. Their two-bedroom house had no bath and an outside toilet. As a boy, he was often taken by his father to watch Newcastle United play at St James' Park on Saturday afternoons, requiring a 34-mile round trip. Robson described Jackie Milburn and Len Shackleton as his childhood heroes. Both played for Newcastle in the inside-forward position, the position Robson would later assume during his playing career.
Robson attended Langley Park primary school and then Waterhouses secondary modern school, after failing his eleven-plus but the headmaster did not allow the school football team to join a league. Instead, he began to play for Langley Park Juniors on Saturday mornings at age 11, and by the time he was 15, he was representing the club at under-18 level. Robson played football whenever he possibly could but left school aged 15 to start work as an electrician's apprentice for the National Coal Board in the Langley Park colliery. In May 1950, Bill Dodgin, the manager of Fulham, made a personal visit to the Robson household to offer Bobby a professional contract. Despite being offered a contract by nearby Middlesbrough, the offer made by Dodgin was too attractive to turn down, so he signed for Fulham and moved to London, playing as a wing half and inside forward. Robson had also interested his beloved Newcastle, but he opted to join Fulham as, in his opinion, "Newcastle made no appreciable effort to secure [my] signature." He also thought he stood a better chance of breaking into the first team at Fulham. Robson suffered from partial deafness in one ear, which rendered him ineligible to be called up for national service.
Playing career
Club playing career
Although Robson had signed professionally, his father insisted he continue to work as an electrician. He spent the day working at the Festival of Britain site and trained three nights a week at Fulham. Eventually, this took its toll on Robson and he gave up his trade for full-time professional football.
In 1950, Robson made his first-team debut for Fulham, recently promoted to the First Division, in a match against Sheffield Wednesday. He came to regard Fulham as "a nice club, a social club...", but "never... a serious, championship-challenging club". Indeed, he and Fulham were relegated from the top-flight in the 1951–52 season, but he made his return to the First Division, four years later, when he signed for Vic Buckingham's West Bromwich Albion in March 1956. The transfer fee of £25,000 was a club record for West Brom at the time.
He made his West Brom debut in a 4–0 home defeat to Manchester City on 10 March 1956. In 1957–58, he was the club's top league goalscorer; his tally of 24 goals included four in a 5–1 win against Burnley. Often playing as a midfielder, he went on to play 257 matches and score 61 goals for West Brom, and he captained the team for the 1960–61 and 1961–62 seasons. However, in August 1962, he returned to Fulham after a disagreement with West Brom vice-chairman Jim Gaunt over his salary. The ongoing dispute over both minimum and maximum wages in the game, instigated by Robson's teammate Jimmy Hill and the Professional Footballers' Association, combined with the birth of Robson's second son, prompted Robson to demand a higher salary. Gaunt refused to negotiate Robson's contract, so Robson placed a transfer request and was sold to Fulham for £20,000 in a deal which doubled his salary. Soon after Robson joined Fulham, the club sold Alan Mullery and Rodney Marsh, meaning Robson's chances of securing any significant honour there were substantially reduced. Robson himself stated, "In all my time as a footballer, I didn't win a thing."
Despite press reports of interest from Arsenal, and the offer of a player-manager role by Southend United, Robson left Fulham in 1967 and accepted a three-year deal with Canada's Vancouver Royals. He was to be player-manager in their inaugural 1968 season in the North American Soccer League (NASL) and believed it "was a chance too good to miss". He began scouting and holding tryout camps for the new team in the Fall of 1967. The position proved difficult; a long-distance joint-ownership agreement gave the Hungarian footballer Ferenc Puskás control over the San Francisco section of the squad, while Robson took care of the Vancouver squad. Robson was dissatisfied by this situation and when, in January 1968, Fulham offered him a contract as their manager, he accepted the position at Craven Cottage.
International playing career
During his first spell at Fulham, Robson participated in two ambassadorial Football Association tours in the West Indies in 1955 and South Africa in 1956. However, it was during his time at West Bromwich Albion that he graduated to the full England squad, with his first call-up in 1956. His manager, Vic Buckingham, advocated the "push and run" approach to the game, a precursor to "total football", and playing this, Robson graduated to the full England squad in 1956, It was also at West Brom when Robson met future England international and assistant coach Don Howe.
Robson went on to make 20 appearances for the England national team, making his debut in a November 1957 victory against France, scoring twice in a 4–0 victory. Although he made a successful debut, he was dropped for England's next match, against Scotland, in favour of Bobby Charlton. However, Robson was selected for the 1958 FIFA World Cup squad, ahead of Nat Lofthouse and Stanley Matthews, but returned from host nation Sweden disappointed after England were defeated by the Soviet Union in a group play-off match.
Following the World Cup, Robson became an established member of the England squad, enjoying considerable success in a period between October 1960 and March 1961 when he played in six England victories, including scoring a goal in the record 9–3 defeat of Scotland at Wembley Stadium. He was selected for the 1962 World Cup finals in Chile, but an injury to his ankle sustained in a pre-tournament friendly against a Chilean club side ruled him out of most of the tournament. As Robson recalled, "I never played for England again... my international career was unfulfilled." His place in the England team was taken by Bobby Moore.
Managerial career
Early club management
In 1959, the then England manager and the Football Association (FA) director of coaching, Walter Winterbottom, suggested to Robson that he take a coaching course at Lilleshall. He obtained coaching qualifications during his second spell at Fulham, and coached Oxford University A.F.C. Robson made his debut as a manager in January 1968 at his former club Fulham, against Macclesfield Town, then in the Cheshire County League, in the third round of the FA Cup. Fulham were struggling with 16 points from 24 matches. Despite the acquisition of the young Malcolm Macdonald, Robson could not save the club from relegation to the Second Division, and he left them in November with the club sitting eighth in the Second Division. He discovered he had been sacked not from the club itself, but from the headline "Robson sacked" on an Evening Standard placard outside Putney station.
He moved on to Ipswich Town in 1969 and it was there that he established his reputation as a successful manager, supported by the club chairman John Cobbold and then later by his brother Patrick Cobbold. He won the vacant job at the Suffolk club after a chance encounter with Town director Murray Sangster while scouting at Portman Road for Chelsea manager Dave Sexton. After four mediocre seasons, Robson led Ipswich to fourth place in the First Division and success in the Texaco Cup in the 1972–73 season. In the following nine seasons, Ipswich finished lower than sixth place in the First Division only once, in the 1977–78 season. However, that season was a success with a 1–0 victory over Arsenal in the FA Cup final. His reign at Ipswich lasted 13 years, during which time the club twice finished as League runners-up, and made regular appearances in European competitions, capturing the UEFA Cup in 1981 with a 5–4 aggregate victory over Dutch side AZ 67 Alkmaar. About that team, Robson said: "We played with two strikers, no wingers, Eric Gates sitting off the front two, two semi-wide midfield players in Arnold Muhren and Frans Thijssen and Johnny Wark sitting in the holding role". During his 13-year tenure, he brought in only 14 players from other clubs, most notably Allan Hunter, Bryan Hamilton and Paul Mariner, relying instead on players developed through Ipswich's youth programmes, including Terry Butcher, George Burley, John Wark, Mick Mills, Colin Viljoen, Alan Brazil, Trevor Whymark, Brian Talbot, Kevin Beattie and Eric Gates, who all went on to play international football. His imports included Dutch players Frans Thijssen and Arnold Mühren. Robson was not a tactical genius but he showed a talent for developing new players, with his good interpersonal skills, caring attitude, hard work and enthusiasm helping them to achieve their best.
In 2002, in recognition of his achievements with the club, a life-size statue of Robson was unveiled opposite the Cobbold Stand of Ipswich Town's ground, Portman Road. On 7 July 2006, Robson was named as honorary president of Ipswich Town Football Club, the first since Lady Blanche Cobbold who had died in 1987.
England manager
Robson's achievements with Ipswich earned him a job offer from the Football Association for the position of national coach, and he declined an offer of a ten-year contract extension and increased salary from Ipswich director Patrick Cobbold. On 7 July 1982, two days after England were knocked out of the 1982 World Cup, he succeeded Ron Greenwood as coach of the England national team, selecting former West Bromwich Albion teammate Don Howe as his chief coach.
Robson's first match in charge saw immediate controversy, as he dropped Kevin Keegan for the match against Denmark. On 21 September 1983, Robson suffered his only loss in the 28 qualifying matches he was to undertake as England manager. The defeat, again to Denmark, ultimately led to England's failure to qualify for the 1984 European Championships and resulted in Robson offering to resign in favour of Brian Clough. The resignation was rejected by FA chairman Bert Millichip (primarily down to his and the FA's disdain for Clough), and Robson went on to lead the England team to qualify for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.
England began the competition poorly and captain Bryan Robson was injured with a recurrence of a dislocated shoulder. Bobby Robson changed the team's tactics for the final match of the first round, selecting Peter Beardsley ahead of Mark Hateley as a striking partner for Gary Lineker. The team won its next two matches, against Poland and Paraguay, 3–0, and qualified for the quarter-finals. England were defeated in the last eight by Argentina with a brace of goals from Diego Maradona, the infamous "Hand of God" goal and the "Goal of the Century" he scored five minutes later. Robson was unimpressed by Maradona's claim of divine intervention:
Robson's England dropped only one point in qualifying for Euro 1988, which included an 8–0 victory over Turkey. However, this was followed by failure at the tournament itself, held in West Germany, where England were eliminated in the group stage. They finished bottom of their group, succumbing to defeats against the Republic of Ireland, the eventual winners, the Netherlands, and the eventual runners-up, the Soviet Union. Robson was vilified by the British press, and after a draw in a friendly with Saudi Arabia, one newspaper demanded, "In the name of Allah, go." Again Robson submitted his resignation, and again it was rejected by Millichip (again Brian Clough is often cited as a reason).
Robson led England without conceding a goal through the six-match qualification for the 1990 World Cup where they were one of six seeded teams. Again they were placed in a group with the Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland, with Egypt the fourth side. As in the 1986 World Cup, Robson was denied the service of his captain, Bryan Robson, who suffered an achilles tendon injury which prevented him playing in the latter stages of the tournament. England topped their qualifying group, accumulating four points from their three matches. However, their progress was not without controversy. England changed formation from their traditional 4–4–2 to 5–3–2 incorporating a sweeper, with some sources suggesting this was due to player revolt after the 1–1 draw in the first match with the Republic of Ireland. Robson denied this claim:
This was followed by victories over Belgium and Cameroon in the knock-out stages, to set up a semi-final with West Germany. England lost the match on a penalty shoot-out, after the score had been tied at 1–1 following extra time. Robson said afterwards, "[N]ot a day goes by when [he] does not think about the semi-final and other choices [he] might have made." Robson was the second coach, after Alf Ramsey, to take England to a World Cup semi-final, and the first coach to do so on foreign soil, an achievement not equalled until Gareth Southgate's team reached the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup.
Robson's final game in charge of England was the third-place play off against hosts Italy, which England lost 2-1.
Continental management
Before the 1990 World Cup, the FA told Robson it would not renew his contract as England manager, so he moved on to the Netherlands to coach PSV Eindhoven, succeeding manager Guus Hiddink, who had left the team after leading them to the 1987–88 European Cup victory and four consecutive Eredivisie titles. PSV sought a manager capable of instilling discipline into a fractious squad, much as Hiddink had done previously. Robson described the move as "a culture shock" but felt "a sense of adventure". News of Robson's new position in the Netherlands became public before the start of the 1990 World Cup, leading to tabloid stories impugning Robson's patriotism; he sued Today for calling him a traitor.
The Dutch penchant for tactical debate surprised Robson. In an interview with Voetbal International, he lamented, "An English pro accepts the manager's decision. After every match here, the substitutes come and visit me." Another of his challenges at PSV was handling the Brazilian international Romário. Robson became frustrated with the Brazilian's work ethic, although admitted "in some matches he would be scintillating". Robson arranged showdown talks with Romário, with Frank Arnesen, Robson's assistant, acting as a translator. The talks proved unsuccessful, with Romário unwilling to change his lifestyle. Despite this, PSV won the Eredivisie in both the 1990–91 and 1991–92 seasons. However, the team did not make the progress expected by the board in European competitions and Robson was informed he would be leaving the club at the end of the 1991–92 season.
Robson moved to Sporting CP in July 1992, where his Portuguese interpreter was a young José Mourinho, future Porto, Chelsea, Internazionale, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur and Roma manager. Robson guided the club to a third-place finish in his first season in charge while admitting the club was in "a terrible state". He described the club's president as a "loose cannon" who frequently signed players without Robson's consent. Robson was sacked in December 1993 with the club sitting at the top of the league table. Club president Sousa Cintra cited the club's early exit from the UEFA Cup, at the hands of Casino Salzburg, as the reason for his dismissal.
Sporting CP's rivals Porto quickly hired Robson, with Mourinho appointed as his assistant manager. Living in the same apartment block at the time was another future Porto, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur manager, the young André Villas-Boas, who, aged 16, introduced himself to Robson. Robson subsequently appointed Villas-Boas to work in the Porto observation department and helped him gain his UEFA "C" coaching badge in Scotland, despite him technically being ineligible as he was aged 17. Porto were in a poor state when Robson arrived and the average attendance had dwindled to 10,000. The club promptly went on to beat Robson's former club, Sporting CP, in the Taça de Portugal final, following that achievement with successive League titles in the 1994–95 and 1995–96 seasons.
Such was the impact of Robson at Porto, he became known to the locals as "Bobby Five-O" in honour of the number of matches Porto won 5–0, and he signed a new contract with the club in 1995. Suffering from malignant melanoma and missing the first few months of the 1995–96 season, Robson still successfully led Porto in defence of their league title.
A phone call during the summer of 1996 from Barcelona vice-president Joan Gaspart to discuss Luís Figo resulted in an offer of employment with the Spanish club. Robson took over in July 1996, where again his assistant was Mourinho; Robson had made Mourinho's move with him to the Camp Nou a condition of his employment. One of the key decisions Robson made during his brief tenure at Barcelona was the US$19.5 million signing of Ronaldo, who was influential in a season when Barcelona won the Copa del Rey, Supercopa de España and European Cup Winners' Cup. Robson himself was voted European Manager of the Year for 1996–97, while Ronaldo stated, "as a trainer without doubt [Robson] is one of the greatest in the world".
The 1997–98 season saw Robson moved "upstairs" to the general manager position, with Louis van Gaal taking over as manager, but Robson stayed in this position for only one season before returning to manage PSV on a short-term deal for the 1998–99 season. PSV missed out on the league title, finishing third behind Feyenoord and Willem II, but Robson still led the club to victory in the Johan Cruyff Shield and also qualification for the UEFA Champions League on the last day of the season.
Return to England
After Robson's contract expired, he returned to England to take up a position in the Football Association's technical department, but following the resignation of Ruud Gullit at Newcastle United, Robson moved to St James' Park in September 1999. Robson was disappointed with the club's opening salary offer, stating, "[I]t was miles below the going rate," but negotiated a one-year, £1 million deal.
In Robson's first home match in charge, bottom-placed Newcastle faced second bottom Sheffield Wednesday, thrashing them 8–0. In his first season in charge, 1999–2000, Robson led the club to an 11th-place finish, with 14 wins from his 32 matches in charge. In late 2000, following the resignation of ex-Magpies boss Kevin Keegan as England manager, the FA asked Newcastle club chairman Freddy Shepherd to permit Robson to take over in a part-time caretaker capacity, but the request was refused. Robson guided Newcastle from bottom of the Premier League to a fourth-place finish in the 2001–02 season. The following season, Newcastle finished third, ensuring qualification for the UEFA Champions League for the second consecutive year.
However, Robson was unable to guide Newcastle through the Champions League qualifying rounds, and the club was dropped to participate in the UEFA Cup for the 2003–04 season. At the end of the 2003–04 season, Newcastle finished fifth in the table, five points short of the Champions League qualifying fourth place but reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup before losing to Marseille.
Robson held the Newcastle post until 30 August 2004, when he was dismissed by Freddy Shepherd, after a poor start to the Premier League season and alleged discontent in the dressing room. Robson's dismissal followed publication of his off the record observation of his disappointment that only 5,000 fans stayed to see the traditional lap of honour made by the players at St James' Park at the end of the previous season. However, he remains held in the highest esteem by the fans; he was granted the Freedom of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne on 2 March 2005.
Robson's autobiography, entitled Bobby Robson: Farewell but not Goodbye was released in 2005. The title is based on one of his quotes upon leaving the England job in 1990: "I'm here to say goodbye—maybe not goodbye but farewell." In the book, Robson was critical of Shepherd, claiming that while manager he was denied information regarding the players' contracts and transfer negotiations. He also criticised Shepherd and the club's deputy chairman Douglas Hall, for their focus on the first team and St James' Park, causing them to neglect less glamorous issues, such as the training ground, youth development and talent scouts. The club's training ground was later blamed by Graeme Souness, Robson's successor, for a series of injuries to first team players.
Football consultant for Republic of Ireland and retirement
On 7 June 2005, Robson declined the invitation to become director of football of Heart of Midlothian because he wanted to stay in the Newcastle area. On 13 January 2006, Steve Staunton was appointed manager of the Republic of Ireland national team, with Robson named in a support role as "international football consultant". Robson stepped down from his role of consultant on 17 November 2007 following the nation's final match in their unsuccessful qualifying campaign for Euro 2008. Robson was a former vice president of the League Managers Association, a non-executive role.
Life outside football
Personal life
Robson met Elsie Gray on a trip back to his parents' home in Langley Park. Gray was a student nurse, and later a teacher. They were married on 25 June 1955 with Fulham teammate Tom Wilson as Robson's best man.
After 1991, Robson was repeatedly diagnosed as suffering from cancer. He had several operations and in 2006 was operated on for a brain tumour. This, on occasion, affected his work; while at Porto, for example, Robson suffered from malignant melanoma, which resulted in his missing the first few months of the 1995–96 season.
On 17 October 2006, it was revealed that Robson had been given the all-clear and was set to see out his contract as consultant to the Irish team. Robson revealed on 7 May 2007 he had been diagnosed with cancer for the fifth time. On 17 May 2008, Robson was the guest of honour at the 2008 FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium when Portsmouth defeated Cardiff City 1–0. He presented the trophy to the victorious captain, Sol Campbell.
Other activities
Robson made a number of product endorsements, including an appearance in Carlsberg's "Best Pub Side" television commercial. He also acted as a pundit for ITV during the 2002 World Cup and Euro 2004.
Bobby Robson Foundation
Robson defeated bowel cancer in 1992, a malignant melanoma in 1995, and a tumour in his right lung and a brain tumour, both in 2006. Treatment of these conditions had left him partially paralysed due to a stroke caused by the brain tumour, and also with a partially prosthetic upper jaw after the melanoma was surgically removed. His fifth diagnosis of cancer in 2007, consisting of cancerous nodules in both lungs, was diagnosed as terminal in February 2007, and as of December 2008, was being controlled through bouts of chemotherapy. After these experiences, and following his fifth diagnosis with cancer, Robson devoted the remaining years of his life to helping fight the disease. On 25 March 2008, he launched the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation. The Foundation raised over £1 million, which funded equipment for the Sir Bobby Robson Cancer Trials Research Centre, in the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne, and would go on to fund other cancer projects in the North East of England.
In aid of the Foundation, Robson's 1990 World Cup semi-final 4–3 loss after penalties against West Germany was replayed on 26 July 2009 as the Sir Bobby Robson Trophy match at St James' Park, featuring players from the original 1990 World Cup squads and other special guests. Robson was given a guard of honour before the match, which finished 3–2 to the England side.
At the time of Robson's death, the Foundation had raised £1.6 million. Donations totalling £156,000 were received by the Foundation in the 18 days following his death, and on 15 October 2009, it was announced the Foundation had raised over £2 million, and that at the request of Robson's family, Alan Shearer would take over Robson's role as the Foundation's patron. It passed the £2.5 million mark in September 2010. Three other patrons were added in 2010, Steve Gibson, Mick Mills and Niall Quinn.
Death
On 31 July 2009, Robson died of lung cancer at his home in County Durham, aged 76, after a long battle with the disease. After the news of his death, leading figures from the world of football and politics paid tribute to him. Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson called him a "great friend, a wonderful individual and tremendous football man". UEFA president Michel Platini said, "He will be remembered not only for his playing career and his outstanding managerial career at both club and international level, but also because he was a truly warm and passionate human being." Gary Lineker said, "It is a sad day and a great loss. He was a wonderful man and will be deeply missed by everybody in the country. I never played for a more enthusiastic man. He gave so much to the game." Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair described Robson as a "real Geordie gentleman". According to the then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Robson "epitomised everything that is great about football in this country". His friend, the broadcaster Michael Parkinson, said, "Robson will be remembered long after the present lot are old bones. By his decency, his humour, his love of the game's traditions and origins and confusion at what it had become, he made present day football look what it is – shabby by comparison. I can think of no more fitting epitaph."
Robson's funeral, a private family ceremony, took place on 5 August 2009. The location remained undisclosed at the request of his family until the funeral had taken place. It was later revealed to be Esh, County Durham. A thanksgiving service for Robson was held on 21 September 2009 at Durham Cathedral. One thousand invited guests attended the service, which was also broadcast live on national television, and to Newcastle United's St James' Park, Ipswich Town's Portman Road ground and Fulham's Craven Cottage.
Robson was survived by his wife and their three sons: Andrew, Paul and Mark.
Achievements
Robson was awarded a number of honours for his contributions to football. In 1990, at the end of his eight-year reign as England manager, he was appointed a CBE in 1991 and in 2002, he was knighted; both awards were for services to football.
In 2002 (during his time as Newcastle manager), the 69-year-old Robson was awarded the freedom of Newcastle upon Tyne and the UEFA President's Award for "services to football". He was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2003 in recognition of his impact as a manager. Following his time as Newcastle United manager in 2005, Robson was made an Honorary Freeman of Newcastle, which, in his autobiography, he described as being "the proudest moment of my life". Robson also won the 1992 Football Writers' Association Tribute Award for an outstanding contribution to the national game, and the 2001 British Sports Writers' Association Pat Besford Trophy for Outstanding Achievement. In 2005, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Sports Coach UK Awards, and was also awarded the Eircom International Personality of the Year in 2006. On 9 December 2007, Robson was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year show in recognition of "his contribution as both player and manager in a career spanning more than half a century".
On 5 May 2008, during the 30th anniversary celebrations of Ipswich Town's 1978 FA Cup win, Robson was granted the Freedom of Ipswich by the Lady Mayor. On 8 December 2008, he earned another such accolade when he was given the Freedom of the City of Durham. In March 2009, UEFA awarded Robson the Emerald UEFA Order of Merit award, awarded to "individuals who have dedicated their talents to the good of the game". The award was presented to Robson at St James' Park on 26 July 2009, prior to the Sir Bobby Robson Trophy match, and just five days before his death.
Posthumous honours
In December 2009, Robson was posthumously awarded the FIFA Fair Play Award, for the "gentlemanly qualities he showed throughout his career as a player and coach". All English football league matches held a one minute's applause in his memory at the beginning of the 2009–10 season.
The Football League gave Newcastle United and Ipswich Town special dispensation to wear special commemorative kits for their Championship match on 26 September 2009 at Portman Road, in aid of Sir Bobby's Foundation. At half-time during this match, the North Stand of Portman Road was renamed the Sir Bobby Robson Stand.
The first anniversary of Robson's death on 31 July 2010 was marked with a ceremony and pre-season friendly match at Newcastle's St James' Park, between two of his former clubs Newcastle United and PSV Eindhoven, involving Robson's PSV captain Stan Valckx presenting a PSV shirt to the club.
In July 2010, plans were unveiled for a memorial garden to Robson to be built in Newcastle. It was to be created by the city council in partnership with the regeneration company NE1Ltd, and located on Gallowgate street close to the Newcastle United stadium St James' Park. Work began on the site in November 2010, which was completed by Spring 2011. The garden covers 400 square meters, and features a tiered seating area and sculpted stone plinths reflecting aspects of his life and work. The area also hosts 400 square metre memorial garden to Sir Bobby Robson.
With a keen interest in cricket as well as football, Robson was to have replaced Mike Gatting as president of the Lord's Taverners charity and cricket club in 2007, but this was prevented by his ill-health. After his death, the club held a dinner in his honour, as "The best President we never had".
In March 2011, the East Coast train operating company named one of its Class 91 electric locomotives Sir Bobby Robson, unveiled at Newcastle station by his widow Elsie and Alan Shearer. Similarly, in December 2011, the Port of Tyne Authority named its new work boat the Sir Bobby Robson. On 6 May 2012, a statue of Robson created by sculptor Tom Maley was unveiled at St James' Park before a 2–0 defeat to eventual champions Manchester City. On 16 July 2013, marking the 150th anniversary celebrations of the FA, the FA designated 10 August as the Sir Bobby Robson National Football Day, celebrated as a day to celebrate the national game. In 2018, Bobby Robson: More Than A Manager, a feature-length British film about Robson's career and cancer diagnosis, was released to critical acclaim.
In September 2020 the Sir Bobby Robson School opened in Ipswich. The school will serve children aged 8–16 with social, emotional and mental health needs.
Career statistics
Club
International
Scores and results list England's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Robson goal.
Managerial statistics
Honours
Manager
Ipswich Town
UEFA Cup: 1980–81
FA Cup: 1977–78
National Fives Tournament: 1977
Texaco Cup: 1972–73
PSV Eindhoven
Eredivisie: 1990–91, 1991–92
Johan Cruyff Shield: 1998
Porto
Primeira Divisão: 1994–95, 1995–96
Taça de Portugal: 1993–94
Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira: 1993, 1994
Barcelona
Copa del Rey: 1996–97
Supercopa de España: 1996
European Cup Winners' Cup: 1996–97
Individual
FWA Tribute Award: 1992
European Manager of the Year: 1996–97
Premier League Manager of the Month: February 2000, August 2000, December 2001, February 2002, January 2003, October 2003
UEFA President's Award: 2002
English Football Hall of Fame Inductee: 2003
PFA Merit Award: 2003
FAI International Football Awards – International Personality: 2006
BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award: 2007
FIFA Fair Play Award: 2009
FIFA Order of Merit: 2009
UEFA Order of Merit: 2009
Ipswich Town Hall of Fame: Inductee 2009
See also
List of longest managerial reigns in association football
Bibliography
References
Sources
(Career statistics)
Further reading
External links
The Sir Bobby Robson Foundation
1933 births
2009 deaths
1986 FIFA World Cup managers
1990 FIFA World Cup managers
1958 FIFA World Cup players
1962 FIFA World Cup players
Deaths from cancer in England
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Deaths from lung cancer
English expatriate footballers
English expatriate sportspeople in Canada
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
English football managers
English expatriate football managers
English footballers
England international footballers
England national football team managers
Eredivisie managers
Expatriate soccer players in Canada
Expatriate football managers in the Netherlands
Expatriate football managers in Portugal
Expatriate football managers in Spain
FC Barcelona managers
FC Porto managers
Association football people awarded knighthoods
Fulham F.C. players
Fulham F.C. managers
Ipswich Town F.C. managers
Knights Bachelor
La Liga managers
Newcastle United F.C. managers
People from Sacriston
Primeira Liga managers
English Football League managers
Premier League managers
PSV Eindhoven managers
Sporting CP managers
UEFA Cup winning managers
UEFA Euro 1988 managers
United Soccer Association players
Vancouver Royals players
West Bromwich Albion F.C. players
English expatriate sportspeople in the Netherlands
English expatriate sportspeople in Portugal
English expatriate sportspeople in Spain
English Football League players
English Football League representative players
Association football forwards
BBC Sports Personality Lifetime Achievement Award recipients
Deaf association football players
Deaf people from England
People from Langley Park, County Durham | true | [
"Alexander Lawrie Robson (February 7, 1898 – January 27, 1974) was a Scottish-Canadian professional golfer.\n\nRobson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Having moved to Canada, he had a successful tournament career, highlighted by winning the Canadian PGA Championship in 1932, and finishing as runner-up in the Canadian Open in 1933. He also won the Millar Trophy, originally awarded for the Ontario PGA Match Play championship and later the Canadian PGA Match Play, on six occasions.\n\nIn 1934, as recognition for his consistently good play, Robson was invited to compete in the inaugural Masters Tournament but he was unable to play. In 2008 he was inducted into the Ontario Golf Hall of Fame.\n\nRobson served as the head professional at several golf clubs in Ontario, most notably at Islington Golf Club in Etobicoke for many years until 1939, when he moved to Kawartha Golf & Country Club in Peterborough where he remained for 25 years.\n\nProfessional wins\n 1931 Millar Trophy\n 1932 Canadian PGA Championship, Millar Trophy\n 1934 Millar Trophy\n 1935 Ontario Open, Millar Trophy\n 1936 Millar Trophy\n 1939 Millar Trophy\n\nReferences\n\nCanadian male golfers\nScottish emigrants to Canada\nScottish male golfers\nGolfing people from Ontario\nGolfers from Edinburgh\nSportspeople from Peterborough, Ontario\n1898 births\n1974 deaths",
"Laura Robson (born 21 January 1994) is a British tennis player. She debuted on the ITF Junior Circuit in 2007, and a year later won the Junior Wimbledon championships at the age of 14. As a junior, she also twice reached the final of the girls' singles tournament at the Australian Open, in 2009 and 2010. She won her first tournament on the ITF Women's Circuit in November 2008.\n\nIn singles tennis, Robson was the first British woman since Samantha Smith at Wimbledon in 1998 to reach the fourth round of a Grand Slam tournament, doing so at the 2012 US Open and the 2013 Wimbledon Championships. At the 2012 Guangzhou Women's Open, Robson became the first British woman since Jo Durie in 1990 to reach a WTA Tour final, where she lost to Hsieh Su-wei. She was named WTA Newcomer of the Year for 2012 and reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 27 the following year.\n\nIn doubles, she won a silver medal in the mixed-doubles competition at the 2012 London Olympics playing with Andy Murray, with whom she also reached the 2010 Hopman Cup final. She has a career-high doubles ranking of No. 82 (July 2013).\n\nRobson suffered from various injuries throughout the 2014 and 2015 seasons, notably to her left (and dominant) wrist for which she underwent surgery in April 2014, resulting in multiple prolonged absences from the WTA Tour. She dropped out of the world rankings in early 2015, returning at No. 906 in July 2015. After returning to full-time tennis in January 2016 post-injury, Robson struggled with form and has not returned to the top 150 in singles tennis. In July 2018, she underwent hip surgery, and has been inactive on the WTA Tour ever since.\n\nEarly life and junior career\nRobson was born on 21 January 1994 in Melbourne, the third child of Australian parents Andrew, an oil executive with Royal Dutch Shell, and Kathy Robson, a sports coach and former professional basketball player. Robson and her family moved from Melbourne to Singapore when she was 18 months old, where she attended Tanglin Trust School and then to the United Kingdom when she was six.\n\nAccording to her parents, she began playing tennis \"as soon as she could hold a tennis racquet\", and after being encouraged by them, she entered a junior tennis academy at age seven. She signed with management company Octagon when she was ten, with Adidas at age 11, and also signed a racquet deal with Wilson Sporting Goods.\n\nAfter working with several coaches, including the head of the Lawn Tennis Association Carl Maes, she chose coach Martijn Bok in 2007. Bok said later that although Robson \"had trouble staying emotionally under control\", he \"saw right away...a lot of potential in Laura.\" Robson also began training at the National Tennis Centre, under the guidance of Bok, Maes, and the head of women's tennis at the centre, Nigel Sears, while taking school lessons at home.\n\nRobson's first tournament on the Junior ITF Circuit was in 2007. She went from the qualifying draw of the tournament to the quarterfinals, and reached the final of two other tournaments, and won her first title in October. In the first half of 2008, she reached the finals of three tournaments, but was also eliminated before the third round in three straight tournaments.\n\nRobson competed in her first junior Grand Slam at the Wimbledon girls' event, as an unseeded player. As the youngest player in the tournament, she beat top seed Melanie Oudin on her way to the finals where she defeated third seed Noppawan Lertcheewakarn. Her victory made her the first British player to win the girls' event since Annabel Croft in 1984, and the British media described her as the \"new darling\" of British tennis, and the \"Queen of Wimbledon\".\n\nAfter a brief period on the main tour, Robson returned to junior competition but was knocked out in the second round of a tournament in December. In the same month she played her final junior tournament of 2008, the Orange Bowl, where she had to retire in the third round with a stomach strain. At the end of the year, she was shortlisted for the BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year, but lost out to Paralympic swimmer Eleanor Simmonds.\n\nAfter recovering from her injury, Robson entered the junior tournament of the 2009 Australian Open, where she was seeded fifth. In the semifinals she faced a replay of her Wimbledon final, against top seed Tara Flanagan, whom she beat in straight sets to reach her second Grand Slam junior final. Facing third seed Ksenia Pervak from Russia, Robson was defeated in straight sets. She later attributed her loss to Pervak's greater consistency, and her coach Bok said that \"everybody has to be patient\". After the tournament, Robson started to train with Gil Reyes, the former trainer of Andre Agassi. She was also named the MCC Young Sportswoman of the Year. She claimed the top ranking of ITF Junior Tour in April, despite not playing for two months because of shin splints. \n\nAt the French Open, Robson was the top seed in the junior's competition, but was defeated in round two by Sandra Zaniewska. Robson was the defending champion at Wimbledon, but she fell in the second round to Quirine Lemoine.\n\nDue to her focusing on her senior career, Robson entered the US Open unseeded. In the first round, she beat Ons Jabeur of Tunisia. She then faced the seventh seed Lauren Embree of the United States and beat her in three sets. She went on to face the 12th seed, Tamaryn Hendler, who she defeated in straight sets. Robson then beat Lauren Davis in the quarterfinals. In her semifinal, she faced Yana Buchina of Russia. Due to rain delay, both quarter- and semifinals were played on the same day. Therefore, the semifinal followed the quarterfinal match. Despite starting strongly, Robson tired, losing the match in three sets.\n\nAt the junior singles at the 2010 Australian Open, Robson was unseeded and defeated Belinda Woolcock, Yulia Putintseva, and Cristina Dinu to reach the quarterfinals. In the last eight, she easily overcame American Ester Goldfeld to move through to her fourth junior Grand Slam semifinal where she defeated Kristýna Plíšková of the Czech Republic. She was defeated by Kristýna's twin sister Karolína in the final. In the Wimbledon junior singles she reached the semifinals, losing to Sachie Ishizu of Japan.\n\nProfessional career\n\n2008\nFollowing her victory at Wimbledon, Robson made her debut on the ITF Women's Circuit circuit at a $10k tournament in Limoges, France. She won two matches to qualify for the main draw of the tournament, as well as her first-round match, before having to retire with a shoulder injury in the second round against the second seed Marina Melnikova.\n\nRobson was then given a wildcard into the main draw of the $75k event in Shrewsbury. After beating 2007 Wimbledon girls' singles champion Urszula Radwańska and fourth seed Tzipi Obziler, Robson lost to second seed Maret Ani in three sets in the semifinals. She was given another wildcard into the $50k in Barnstaple, but was defeated in three sets in her first round match against the seventh seed Angelique Kerber, who later said that it was \"unbelievable how she's playing\".\n\nHer first match on the WTA Tour was courtesy of a wildcard into the Luxembourg Open. She lost in the first round against world No. 42, Iveta Benešová. Returning to the ITF Circuit, Robson entered as the fifth seed in a $10k event held in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear. After beating third seed Laura-Ioana Andrei in the quarterfinals, she also beat fellow Brits Tara Moore and Samantha Vickers in straight sets to win her first ITF title at the age of 14 years and 9 months.\n\n2009\nRobson returned to the junior circuit for the first half of 2009. On 9 June, Wimbledon announced that Robson received a wildcard for the singles event. She faced former world No. 5 and 2002 Wimbledon quarterfinalist, Daniela Hantuchová, in the first round but lost despite being a break up in the second set. With Georgie Stoop she also entered into the doubles tournament, progressing to the second round before losing to 16th seeds, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Amélie Mauresmo.\n\nIn August 2009, Robson received also a wildcard into the US Open qualifying. She defeated Stéphanie Foretz in the first round in straight sets, and went on to beat Anikó Kapros of Hungary. In the final round, she lost to Eva Hrdinová, after leading 4–1 in the third set.\n\nOn 17 October, Robson entered the qualifying draw at the Luxembourg Open. In the first round, she defeated world No. 180, Zuzana Ondrášková, and in the second Julia Görges, the world No. 79. In the final round of qualifying, she lost to Maria Elena Camerin. On 10 November, Robson beat Yuliya Beygelzimer in the first round of the Minsk ITF event. She defeated Tetyana Arefyeva in the second round but was defeated in the quarterfinals by Vitalia Diatchenko.\n\n2010\n\nRobson began the season playing with Andy Murray in the Hopman Cup, as part of Britain's first team in the tournament since 1992. She lost her opening match to Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan. Later in the day she won the mixed-doubles match against Kazakhstan, partnering with Murray to secure a win. Robson was defeated by Germany's Sabine Lisicki but won the mixed doubles against Germany. Robson and Murray defeated Russia to advance to the finals. Despite her first win of the tournament against world No. 26, María José Martínez Sánchez, Robson and Murray lost to Spain's Martínez Sánchez and Tommy Robredo in a very close match.\n\nRobson was granted a wildcard in the qualifying draw for the women's singles of the Australian Open. In her first match, she defeated Sophie Ferguson of Australia. In her second match, she lost to Michaëlla Krajicek. Robson, however, received a wildcard into the main draw of the doubles, partnering Sally Peers. They defeated Jill Craybas and Abigail Spears to set up a second-round clash with the 12th seeds Chuang Chia-jung and Květa Peschke, who they beat in straight sets. Peers and Robson won their third-round clash with Vera Dushevina and Anastasia Rodionova to advance to the quarterfinals, before falling to the No. 15 seeds, Maria Kirilenko and Agnieszka Radwańska.\n\nAfter the Australian Open, Robson did not play again until the start of April. In her third tournament back, she made the semifinal losing to Edina Gallovits of the ITF event in Dothan, after having to qualify for the main draw. She also played in the doubles, and after reaching the quarterfinals, she reached a career high of No. 102 for doubles. She followed this up with a quarterfinal appearance in Charlottesville losing to Anastasiya Yakimova.\n\nShe then qualified for the main draw of the Aegon Classic in Edgbaston, after receiving a wildcard for the qualifying. She beat Nina Bratchikova and Vitalia Diatchenko. Robson then went on to win her first-ever match on the WTA Tour, after her opponent Stefanie Vögele retired during the second set of their first-round match. She lost to the third seed Yanina Wickmayer in the second round. She also received a wildcard for the Rosmalen Open but was beaten by Dominika Cibulková in the first round.\n\nShe received a wildcard for Wimbledon, and faced fourth seed Jelena Janković to whom she lost in two sets. Robson's next senior level competition was a GB Pro-Series event at Woking. Seeded seventh, her first senior seeding, she reached the quarterfinals. Her next competitive match did not come till the end of August 2010, when she entered the qualifying tournament for the US Open. In the first round she shocked second seed Jelena Dokić. She beat Vesna Manasieva, but lost in the third round to Nuria Llagostera Vives.\n\nOn 21 September, Robson announced that she was to split with her coach Martijn Bok, as Bok was unwilling to meet her more demanding 2011 tour schedule.\n\nRobson next competed in the Pan Pacific Open. She beat world No. 57, Anastasija Sevastova, in the first round of qualifying and reached the main draw by beating world No. 100, Simona Halep. She was defeated in the first round of the main draw by the experienced 31-year-old player Gréta Arn.\n\n2011\nFor 2011, Robson hired a new coach, Frenchman Patrick Mouratoglou, and moved her working base to Paris. Her season was disrupted by injury at the Hopman Cup and she did not compete in a tournament until March 2011; her comeback was then delayed for a further month by an injury in her second competition. Returning again at the end of April 2011, Robson's best performance to date came at the $50k tournament at Indian Harbor Beach, Florida, where she reached the semifinals. Robson split from Mouratoglou just before Wimbledon. She then won her first match at a Grand Slam tournament as she defeated Angelique Kerber, but lost to Maria Sharapova in the second round.\n\nAt the US Open, Robson won her three qualifying matches to advance into the main draw. In the first round of the main draw, she was leading when her opponent, Ayumi Morita, retired from the match. She was then beaten by Anabel Medina Garrigues.\n\n2012: First WTA final, Olympic mixed doubles silver medalist\n\nRobson came through three rounds of qualifying at the Australian Open, beating Melanie Oudin, Anna Floris and Olga Savchuk to advance to the main draw for the first time. She lost to 13th seed Jelena Janković in the first round.\n\nRobson was selected for the first time in her career to be a member of British Fed Cup team to play in the Europe/Africa Group-1 match at Eilat, Israel, on 1–4 February 2012. In the group stages she played doubles with Heather Watson, defeating pairs from Portugal, Netherlands and Israel in the group stages. Robson and Watson did not need to play the play-off match against Austria as Anne Keothavong and Elena Baltacha won their singles rubbers, and the 2–0 lead qualified the team for a place in the World Group-II promotion play-off in April 2012.\n\nRobson lost in the third round of qualifying for the 2012 French Open at Roland Garros. However, she got a place in the first round of the main draw as a lucky loser when Sílvia Soler Espinosa withdrew, but then lost her first-round match to Anabel Medina Garrigues.\n\nAfter a second round showing at the Birmingham Classic (lost to Marina Erakovic), Robson came through qualifying at the Eastbourne International. She reached the second round before losing to Ekaterina Makarova. However, the result helped Robson break into the top 100 for the first time in her career. In the first round of Wimbledon, Robson lost to Francesca Schiavone in three sets.\n\nImmediately after Wimbledon, Robson entered the Palermo Open where she reached her first ever WTA Tour semifinal. After beating the world No. 240, Valentyna Ivakhnenko, for the loss of just one game in the first round, she shocked the No. 2 seed and world No. 27, Roberta Vinci, in straight sets to reach her first ever WTA quarterfinal. She continued her good form in the quarterfinal, where she emerged victorious against No. 5 seed, Carla Suárez Navarro, in three sets. However, her run came to an end when she lost in the semifinals to Barbora Záhlavová-Strýcová in three sets. Robson then received a wildcard to enter the main draw of the Swedish Open but lost her first match against Medina Garrigues.\n\nShe received a late place into the women's singles at the 2012 Olympics due to the withdrawal of Croatian Petra Martić. In her first-round match, she beat the world No. 22, Lucie Šafářová, in straight sets, setting up a second round encounter with Maria Sharapova. She lost to the Russian world No. 3 in a tightly contested match. She also competed in the doubles competition with Heather Watson, losing in the first round to the German pairing of Angelique Kerber and Sabine Lisicki. She then received a wildcard entry into the mixed doubles with Andy Murray. They were drawn against Czech pair Lucie Hradecká and Radek Štěpánek in the first round and won in three sets. In the second round, the pair beat the Australian duo of Lleyton Hewitt and Samantha Stosur, and reached the final by beating Germans Sabine Lisicki and Christopher Kas, where they were beaten by the Belarusian pair Victoria Azarenka and Max Mirnyi.\n\nRobson had direct entry to the main draw of the US Open from her WTA ranking, where she defeated Samantha Crawford in the first round. In the second she defeated former US Open champion Kim Clijsters in Clijsters' final singles match before her retirement. Robson consequently reached the third round of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in her career and joined Serena Williams, Lindsay Davenport, Venus Williams, Amélie Mauresmo and Justine Henin as one of the only six people to beat Clijsters at the US Open championships, and the first player to beat her there since 2003. She followed up her performance with her first victory over a top-ten player, beating ninth seed Li Na in the third round, in three sets. Robson became the first female British tennis player to reach this stage of a Grand Slam tournament since Samantha Smith reached the fourth round of Wimbledon 14 years previously, but she was defeated by defending champion Stosur, ending her best run at a Grand Slam tournament to date.\n\nHer next appearance was at the Guangzhou Open where she beat the then world No. 22, Zheng Jie, and the No. 3 seed Sorana Cîrstea on the way to her first WTA Tour final against Hsieh Su-wei. This was the first WTA singles final for any British woman since Jo Durie in 1990. Robson was eventually defeated, having saved five championship points in the second set and despite taking a 3–0 lead in the third set. The result pushed her ranking inside the top 70 for the first time.\n\nRobson qualified for the main draw of the China Open after defeating Garbiñe Muguruza and Johanna Larsson and reached the second round but she lost to Lourdes Domínguez Lino in straight sets. At the Japan Open in Osaka, she was seeded eighth, the first time in her career she had been seeded at a WTA tournament. She reached the quarterfinals before losing to Chang Kai-chen in three sets, but the result ensured that she finished the year with a ranking of 53.\n\nIn October, Robson was nominated for the Sports Journalists' Association Sportswoman of the Year. In November, along with Heather Watson, won \"Young Sportswoman of the Year\" at the 2012 Sunday Times Sportswomen of the Year Awards. Robson was also nominated for \"WTA Newcomer of the Year\" and William Hill \"Sportswoman of the Year\" in November, winning the former award.\n\n2013: Career-high ranking\n\nAt the start of the year, Robson had reached the top 50 for the first time in her career. She followed this with her first victory at the Australian Open with a convincing straight sets victory over Melanie Oudin. In the second round she played former Wimbledon champion, and fellow left-hander, Petra Kvitová. Robson came back after losing the first set to beat Kvitová in a three-hour match, to set up a third-round meeting with Sloane Stephens. After stopping for several shoulder treatments, Robson was eventually beaten in two sets. After the Australian Open, Robson played six matches in Fed Cup competition that saw Great Britain earn a World Group II play-off spot against Argentina. Following this success, she went on to lose two successive matches, losing to Daniela Hantuchová in Doha and to wildcard Yulia Putintseva in Dubai.\n\nAt Indian Wells, Robson lost her first-round match against Sofia Arvidsson in three sets. Her next tournament was at Miami. In the singles, Robson reached the second round before losing to Alizé Cornet. In the doubles Laura Robson was given a wildcard to play with Lisa Raymond. The pair reached the final, beating the world No. 1 pairing of Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci, in straight sets in the semifinals, before losing to Nadia Petrova and Katarina Srebotnik.\n\nRobson was seeded 16th at Charleston and reached the second round before losing to Eugenie Bouchard in three sets. At the Katowice Open, Robson was seeded eighth, but lost in the first round to Lourdes Domínguez Lino.\n\nRobson represented Great Britain in the Fed Cup World Group II play-off against Argentina. After Johanna Konta lost her opening rubber to Paula Ormaechea, Robson easily won her first match over Florencia Molinero. Robson lost her second match against Paula Ormaechea in three sets.\n\nAfter several first-round defeats at the start to the European clay-court season, Robson defeated world No. 4, Agnieszka Radwańska, in the second round of the Madrid Open. She subsequently lost to former world No. 1, Ana Ivanovic, in the next round, having led 5–2 in the final set. Robson then made her debut at the Italian Open where she defeated Venus Williams in the first round but subsequently lost to her sister, world No. 1 and eventual champion, Serena Williams, in the second round. At the French Open Robson was beaten in the first round by former world No. 1, Caroline Wozniacki, in straight sets.\n\nTo begin the grass-court season, Robson entered the Birmingham Classic where she was seeded seventh. Despite the seeding, she lost in straight sets to the eventual champion Daniela Hantuchová. She then participated in the Eastbourne International. In the first round, she faced Yuliya Beygelzimer in which she won in straight sets. In the second round, she lost to Caroline Wozniacki in straight sets for the second time in a row.\n\nIn the first round of Wimbledon, she was drawn against the No. 10 seed Maria Kirilenko, whom she beat in straight sets. She beat world No. 117, Mariana Duque, in the second round on Centre Court. In the third round, she came from a set down to beat Marina Erakovic to progress to the last 16 where she was beaten by Kaia Kanepi. Her performance pushed her up to 27 in the world, the first Briton in the top 30 since Jo Durie in 1987.\n\nRobson started her US Open Series campaign on 30 July 2013 at the Southern California Open in Carlsbad being drawn against Ayumi Morita, whom she beat having come back from a set down in two hours and 40 minutes. Laura moved into the second round faced with the world No. 7 Petra Kvitová from Czech Republic but lost in straight sets putting an end to her Southern California Open.\n\nTo start the Canadian Open in Toronto, Robson was due to play Yanina Wickmayer on 5 August 2013 in her opening match, but had to pull out due to a wrist injury. The same injury also led to her pulling out of the tournament in Cincinnati, however her ranking of No. 32 meant that she would be seeded at a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in her career, entering the US Open as the 30th seed.\n\nAt the US Open, Robson returned after intensive rehab on her wrist injury and began her campaign against Spain's Lourdes Domínguez Lino, whom she had lost to twice previously. After winning a scrappy first set, Robson powered through the second at love. In the second round, she faced world No. 75 Caroline Garcia, and won in two tight sets. She then fell in straight sets in the next round to Li Na in the same place they had played last year, where Robson had won. The fifth seed Li powered 11 aces to beat her 12-year younger opponent, Robson in straight sets. After a break of around three weeks, Robson returned to action at the Guangzhou Open, a tournament in which she was a finalist the previous year. She started strongly, with straight sets wins over qualifier Jovana Jakšić in the first round, and Zheng Saisai in the second round. She subsequently lost to another Chinese player in Zheng Jie, despite taking the first set 6–1.\n\nIn October 2013, it was announced that Miles Maclagan's coaching partnership with Laura had ended and that she would be taking a couple of weeks out and starting the search for a new coach.\n\n2014–15: Wrist injury, extended absence\nRobson started her 2014 season at the Hobart International, where she had to retire in her first round match against Yanina Wickmayer due to a left wrist injury. Her wrist continued to affect her at the Australian Open, where Kirsten Flipkens defeated her in straight sets. After taking three-months rest from the tour, Robson underwent surgery on her left wrist in April. The surgery forced her to miss the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open, and although Robson initially hoped to be playing by the end of the season, she only started training in October, and did not play again in 2014.\n\nRobson did not enter the Australian Open in 2015 and subsequently left the WTA rankings, having not competed for 12 months. Robson planned to return at the $25k tournament at Surprise, Arizona, but delayed her return and did not enter another ITF event in February. She declined a wildcard into the qualifying event of the Miami Masters in March. Her agent Eisenbund stated that she had not suffered a setback, and was \"closer and closer\" to a return.\n\nAfter an absence of a year and a half, Robson's first competitive match was at the qualifying draw of the Eastbourne International in June. She lost to top-seed Daria Gavrilova, in straight sets. Robson was granted a wildcard to compete at Wimbledon, but she was defeated in the first round by Evgeniya Rodina.\n\nIn July 2015, she played at the $50k event in Granby and won a tough three-set match over second seed Naomi Osaka. However, she lost her next match to American qualifier Ellie Halbauer. Robson also reached the final in doubles partnering Erin Routliffe. In Gatineau, she retired from her first-round match, generating fear that her wrist injury had returned, but Robson said that she had been hampered by a stomach strain she had suffered during practice.\n\n2016: Return to tennis, struggle with form\nAfter receiving some further surgery on her wrist at the end of 2015, Robson took some more time off from tennis and subsequently missed the Australian Open. She started off the year playing some American Challenger events, with limited success. She made her return to WTA events by using her protected ranking to enter Indian Wells. Here she made a reasonable effort in her first round but lost to Magdaléna Rybáriková who subsequently went on to reach the quarterfinals of the event. She also received a wildcard entry into the main draw of Miami and used her protected ranking to enter into the qualifying of Charleston but lost in the first round at both events.\n\nRobson later won her first WTA match since her injury in 2013 by beating Klára Koukalová, 6–2, 6–3 in the qualifying of Stuttgart. However, she lost her next match in qualifying to Océane Dodin in straight sets. She also claimed her first main-draw WTA victory since 2013 in Rabat by defeating local wildcard Ghita Benhadi in straight sets. However, she later lost her next match to Tímea Babos.\n\nRobson also used her protected ranking to enter Premier clay events in Madrid and Rome, where she lost her first round matches to Victoria Azarenka and Christina McHale, respectively. She had put on a promising display against Azarenka, but was unable to convert 8 out of nine breakpoints, allowing Azarenka to clinch victory in straight sets. Robson was awarded a wildcard into Wimbledon for a second year, but was defeated in 69 minutes by Angelique Kerber in the first round in an error-strewn performance.\nIn August Robson won a second tier ITF tournament in USA. She was then given a wildcard entry to the 2016 US Open qualifying tournament. Straight-set victories over Jang Su-jeong, Isabella Shinikova and Tatjana Maria gained her entry to the main draw of the tournament, losing in the first round to fellow Brit Naomi Broady, 7–6, 3–6, 4–6.\n\nPost-US Open, Robson lost in the first round in four out of six ITF tournaments, including a loss to a player ranked 1048.\n\n2017: Continued struggle with form\nRobson began her 2017 season at the Auckland, but lost in the first round of qualifying to Tereza Martincová. At the Australian Open, she also lost in the first round of qualifying to Amandine Hesse, in straight sets. She then played in the $60k tournament at Andrézieux-Bouthéon and reached the quarterfinals, before losing in straight sets to Amra Sadiković. Between the end of January and the beginning of May, Robson reached three quarterfinals on the ITF Circuit. Robson won the biggest title of her career at a $60k tournament in Kurume, Fukuoka, defeating fellow Briton Katie Boulter in straight sets. The tournament win moved her up 80 places in the ranking, causing her to reach the top 200 for the first time since 2014.\n\nAt the beginning of her grass-court season, Robson played the $100k event in Surbiton, but lost in the first round to Marina Erakovic. She then played at Nottingham, but fell to Julia Boserup in the first round. She reached the second round of the Ilkley $100k event before falling to Maryna Zanevska in three sets. She received a wildcard for Wimbledon, but lost in the first round to Brazil's Beatriz Haddad Maia.\n\nShe continued to struggle with form throughout the latter half of the season post-Wimbledon, losing eleven matches and winning just seven on the ITF Circuit, including a loss in the first round of the qualifying draw at the US Open to world No. 311, Alla Kudryavtseva.\n\n2018: Hip surgery\nRobson was unable to play in the Australian Open qualifying draw as her ranking – at 230 – remained too low to gain direct entry. She did, however, play in the first round of the women's doubles draw with CoCo Vandeweghe, which they lost in straight sets. The following week, she lost in the first round of the Burnie International to world No. 415, Jennifer Elie, but won the doubles title partnering Vania King.\n\nIn March, Robson teamed up with Fanny Stollár to win the doubles at the ITF event in Yokohama.\nIn July 2018, she underwent hip surgery.\n\n2019: Return, further hip problems\nAfter eight months recovering from surgery, Robson returned to tennis on 12 February at the $60k in Shrewsbury, losing to Kathinka von Deichmann, in three sets. Robson's world ranking at this point was 511. She then entered the Bolton $25k qualifying tournament in April, and reached round two before falling to Tara Moore, in straight sets. The following week, Robson entered the $25k Sunderland qualifying and beat Ellie Tsimbilakis, in straight sets, and Alicia Barnett in the match tiebreaker to qualify for the main draw. This was her first main-draw appearance after her comeback. She won her first-round match in a tight three-setter but eventually fell to fellow Brit and top seed Harriet Dart, after having to retire before the second set. However, this injury was not considered serious, and Robson stated she planned to play some tournaments in about two weeks time.\n\nIn spite of this, Robson was not to play again for the rest of the year and announced in December that she had decided to have another operation on her hip.\n\nPlaying style\nRobson plays left-handed, with a two-handed backhand. One of her strengths is her \"dominant\" serve. She has a strong game from the back of the court and is also noted for having an aggressive forehand return. However, she has been criticised for having \"poor lateral movement\", as well as an inconsistent second serve, resulting in a considerable number of double faults. She has been praised for showing \"extraordinary poise\", and having \"the attitude and technique required of a leading player\". Commentator Simon Reed said that she \"has every tool she needs\", and former Grand Slam champion Pat Cash called her \"a special talent\" who \"seems to have all the attributes to progress\". Former WTA player Ana Ivanovic said that Robson \"hits the ball really, really hard\", former top British player Samantha Smith said that \"she doesn't have any weaknesses at all\", and Serena Williams stated that Robson is an \"all-around good player\". Robson's favourite surface to play on is grass and her favourite shot is her forehand down the line.\n\nCareer statistics\n\nOlympic Games\n\nMixed doubles final: 1 (runner-up)\n\nGrand Slam tournament performance timelines\n\nSingles\n\nJunior Grand Slam finals\n\nSingles: 3 (1–2)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n \n \n\n1994 births\nLiving people\nSportswomen from Victoria (Australia)\nBritish female tennis players\nAustralian emigrants to England\nCitizens of the United Kingdom through descent\nBritish expatriates in France\nWimbledon junior champions\nGrand Slam (tennis) champions in girls' singles\nHopman Cup competitors\nTennis players at the 2012 Summer Olympics\nOlympic tennis players of Great Britain\nOlympic silver medallists for Great Britain\nOlympic medalists in tennis\nMedalists at the 2012 Summer Olympics\nTennis players from Melbourne"
] |
[
"Bobby Robson",
"International playing career",
"Where did Robson play internationally?",
"Robson participated in two ambassadorial Football Association tours in the West Indies in 1955 and South Africa in 1956."
] | C_f615186a82b8421aacb4ca18fca24b42_0 | Where else did he play after 1956? | 2 | Other than playing in South Africa in 1956, where else did Robson play after 1956? | Bobby Robson | During his first spell at Fulham, Robson participated in two ambassadorial Football Association tours in the West Indies in 1955 and South Africa in 1956. However, it was during his time at West Bromwich Albion that he graduated to the full England squad, with his first call-up in 1956. His manager, Vic Buckingham, advocated the "push and run" approach to the game, a precursor to "total football", and playing this, Robson graduated to the full England squad in 1956, It was also at West Brom when Robson met future England international and assistant coach Don Howe. Robson went on to make 20 appearances for the England national team, making his debut in a November 1957 victory against France, scoring twice in a 4-0 victory. Although he made a successful debut, he was dropped for England's next match, against Scotland, in favour of Bobby Charlton. However, Robson was selected for the 1958 FIFA World Cup squad, ahead of Nat Lofthouse and Stanley Matthews, but returned from host nation Sweden disappointed after England were defeated by the Soviet Union in a group play-off match. Following the World Cup, Robson became an established member of the England squad, enjoying considerable success in a period between October 1960 and March 1961 when he played in six England victories, including scoring a goal in the record 9-3 defeat of Scotland at Wembley Stadium. He was selected for the 1962 World Cup finals in Chile, but an injury to his ankle sustained in a pre-tournament friendly against a Chilean club side ruled him out of most of the tournament. As Robson recalled, "I never played for England again... my international career was unfulfilled." His place in the England team was taken by Bobby Moore. CANNOTANSWER | his debut in a November 1957 victory against France, | Sir Robert William Robson (18 February 1933 – 31 July 2009) was an English footballer and football manager. His career included periods playing for and later managing the England national team and being a UEFA Cup-winning manager at Ipswich Town.
Robson's professional playing career as an inside forward spanned nearly 20 years, during which he played for three clubs: Fulham, West Bromwich Albion, and, briefly, Vancouver Royals. He also made 20 appearances for England, scoring four goals. After his playing career, he found success as both a club and international manager, winning league championships in both the Netherlands and Portugal, earning trophies in England and Spain, and taking England to the semi-finals of the 1990 FIFA World Cup, which remained the national team's best run in a World Cup since 1966 until they reached the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup. His last management role was as a mentor to the manager of the Republic of Ireland national team, while his final official club job was at boyhood club Newcastle United, whom he left in 2004. He held several managerial positions outside of England, most notably one year at Barcelona in 1996–97, as well as stints at PSV, Sporting CP and Porto.
Robson was created a Knight Bachelor in 2002, was inducted as a member of the English Football Hall of Fame in 2003, and was the honorary president of Ipswich Town F.C. From 1991 onwards, he suffered recurrent medical problems with cancer, and in March 2008, put his name and efforts into the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, a cancer research charity which has so far raised over £12 million (March 2018). In August 2008, his lung cancer was confirmed to be terminal; he said, "My condition is described as static and has not altered since my last bout of chemotherapy... I am going to die sooner rather than later. But then everyone has to go sometime and I have enjoyed every minute." He died just under a year later.
Early life
Bobby Robson was born in Sacriston, County Durham, the fourth of five sons of Philip and Lilian Robson (née Watt). When he was a few months old, Robson's family moved to the nearby village of Langley Park where his father was a coal miner. Their two-bedroom house had no bath and an outside toilet. As a boy, he was often taken by his father to watch Newcastle United play at St James' Park on Saturday afternoons, requiring a 34-mile round trip. Robson described Jackie Milburn and Len Shackleton as his childhood heroes. Both played for Newcastle in the inside-forward position, the position Robson would later assume during his playing career.
Robson attended Langley Park primary school and then Waterhouses secondary modern school, after failing his eleven-plus but the headmaster did not allow the school football team to join a league. Instead, he began to play for Langley Park Juniors on Saturday mornings at age 11, and by the time he was 15, he was representing the club at under-18 level. Robson played football whenever he possibly could but left school aged 15 to start work as an electrician's apprentice for the National Coal Board in the Langley Park colliery. In May 1950, Bill Dodgin, the manager of Fulham, made a personal visit to the Robson household to offer Bobby a professional contract. Despite being offered a contract by nearby Middlesbrough, the offer made by Dodgin was too attractive to turn down, so he signed for Fulham and moved to London, playing as a wing half and inside forward. Robson had also interested his beloved Newcastle, but he opted to join Fulham as, in his opinion, "Newcastle made no appreciable effort to secure [my] signature." He also thought he stood a better chance of breaking into the first team at Fulham. Robson suffered from partial deafness in one ear, which rendered him ineligible to be called up for national service.
Playing career
Club playing career
Although Robson had signed professionally, his father insisted he continue to work as an electrician. He spent the day working at the Festival of Britain site and trained three nights a week at Fulham. Eventually, this took its toll on Robson and he gave up his trade for full-time professional football.
In 1950, Robson made his first-team debut for Fulham, recently promoted to the First Division, in a match against Sheffield Wednesday. He came to regard Fulham as "a nice club, a social club...", but "never... a serious, championship-challenging club". Indeed, he and Fulham were relegated from the top-flight in the 1951–52 season, but he made his return to the First Division, four years later, when he signed for Vic Buckingham's West Bromwich Albion in March 1956. The transfer fee of £25,000 was a club record for West Brom at the time.
He made his West Brom debut in a 4–0 home defeat to Manchester City on 10 March 1956. In 1957–58, he was the club's top league goalscorer; his tally of 24 goals included four in a 5–1 win against Burnley. Often playing as a midfielder, he went on to play 257 matches and score 61 goals for West Brom, and he captained the team for the 1960–61 and 1961–62 seasons. However, in August 1962, he returned to Fulham after a disagreement with West Brom vice-chairman Jim Gaunt over his salary. The ongoing dispute over both minimum and maximum wages in the game, instigated by Robson's teammate Jimmy Hill and the Professional Footballers' Association, combined with the birth of Robson's second son, prompted Robson to demand a higher salary. Gaunt refused to negotiate Robson's contract, so Robson placed a transfer request and was sold to Fulham for £20,000 in a deal which doubled his salary. Soon after Robson joined Fulham, the club sold Alan Mullery and Rodney Marsh, meaning Robson's chances of securing any significant honour there were substantially reduced. Robson himself stated, "In all my time as a footballer, I didn't win a thing."
Despite press reports of interest from Arsenal, and the offer of a player-manager role by Southend United, Robson left Fulham in 1967 and accepted a three-year deal with Canada's Vancouver Royals. He was to be player-manager in their inaugural 1968 season in the North American Soccer League (NASL) and believed it "was a chance too good to miss". He began scouting and holding tryout camps for the new team in the Fall of 1967. The position proved difficult; a long-distance joint-ownership agreement gave the Hungarian footballer Ferenc Puskás control over the San Francisco section of the squad, while Robson took care of the Vancouver squad. Robson was dissatisfied by this situation and when, in January 1968, Fulham offered him a contract as their manager, he accepted the position at Craven Cottage.
International playing career
During his first spell at Fulham, Robson participated in two ambassadorial Football Association tours in the West Indies in 1955 and South Africa in 1956. However, it was during his time at West Bromwich Albion that he graduated to the full England squad, with his first call-up in 1956. His manager, Vic Buckingham, advocated the "push and run" approach to the game, a precursor to "total football", and playing this, Robson graduated to the full England squad in 1956, It was also at West Brom when Robson met future England international and assistant coach Don Howe.
Robson went on to make 20 appearances for the England national team, making his debut in a November 1957 victory against France, scoring twice in a 4–0 victory. Although he made a successful debut, he was dropped for England's next match, against Scotland, in favour of Bobby Charlton. However, Robson was selected for the 1958 FIFA World Cup squad, ahead of Nat Lofthouse and Stanley Matthews, but returned from host nation Sweden disappointed after England were defeated by the Soviet Union in a group play-off match.
Following the World Cup, Robson became an established member of the England squad, enjoying considerable success in a period between October 1960 and March 1961 when he played in six England victories, including scoring a goal in the record 9–3 defeat of Scotland at Wembley Stadium. He was selected for the 1962 World Cup finals in Chile, but an injury to his ankle sustained in a pre-tournament friendly against a Chilean club side ruled him out of most of the tournament. As Robson recalled, "I never played for England again... my international career was unfulfilled." His place in the England team was taken by Bobby Moore.
Managerial career
Early club management
In 1959, the then England manager and the Football Association (FA) director of coaching, Walter Winterbottom, suggested to Robson that he take a coaching course at Lilleshall. He obtained coaching qualifications during his second spell at Fulham, and coached Oxford University A.F.C. Robson made his debut as a manager in January 1968 at his former club Fulham, against Macclesfield Town, then in the Cheshire County League, in the third round of the FA Cup. Fulham were struggling with 16 points from 24 matches. Despite the acquisition of the young Malcolm Macdonald, Robson could not save the club from relegation to the Second Division, and he left them in November with the club sitting eighth in the Second Division. He discovered he had been sacked not from the club itself, but from the headline "Robson sacked" on an Evening Standard placard outside Putney station.
He moved on to Ipswich Town in 1969 and it was there that he established his reputation as a successful manager, supported by the club chairman John Cobbold and then later by his brother Patrick Cobbold. He won the vacant job at the Suffolk club after a chance encounter with Town director Murray Sangster while scouting at Portman Road for Chelsea manager Dave Sexton. After four mediocre seasons, Robson led Ipswich to fourth place in the First Division and success in the Texaco Cup in the 1972–73 season. In the following nine seasons, Ipswich finished lower than sixth place in the First Division only once, in the 1977–78 season. However, that season was a success with a 1–0 victory over Arsenal in the FA Cup final. His reign at Ipswich lasted 13 years, during which time the club twice finished as League runners-up, and made regular appearances in European competitions, capturing the UEFA Cup in 1981 with a 5–4 aggregate victory over Dutch side AZ 67 Alkmaar. About that team, Robson said: "We played with two strikers, no wingers, Eric Gates sitting off the front two, two semi-wide midfield players in Arnold Muhren and Frans Thijssen and Johnny Wark sitting in the holding role". During his 13-year tenure, he brought in only 14 players from other clubs, most notably Allan Hunter, Bryan Hamilton and Paul Mariner, relying instead on players developed through Ipswich's youth programmes, including Terry Butcher, George Burley, John Wark, Mick Mills, Colin Viljoen, Alan Brazil, Trevor Whymark, Brian Talbot, Kevin Beattie and Eric Gates, who all went on to play international football. His imports included Dutch players Frans Thijssen and Arnold Mühren. Robson was not a tactical genius but he showed a talent for developing new players, with his good interpersonal skills, caring attitude, hard work and enthusiasm helping them to achieve their best.
In 2002, in recognition of his achievements with the club, a life-size statue of Robson was unveiled opposite the Cobbold Stand of Ipswich Town's ground, Portman Road. On 7 July 2006, Robson was named as honorary president of Ipswich Town Football Club, the first since Lady Blanche Cobbold who had died in 1987.
England manager
Robson's achievements with Ipswich earned him a job offer from the Football Association for the position of national coach, and he declined an offer of a ten-year contract extension and increased salary from Ipswich director Patrick Cobbold. On 7 July 1982, two days after England were knocked out of the 1982 World Cup, he succeeded Ron Greenwood as coach of the England national team, selecting former West Bromwich Albion teammate Don Howe as his chief coach.
Robson's first match in charge saw immediate controversy, as he dropped Kevin Keegan for the match against Denmark. On 21 September 1983, Robson suffered his only loss in the 28 qualifying matches he was to undertake as England manager. The defeat, again to Denmark, ultimately led to England's failure to qualify for the 1984 European Championships and resulted in Robson offering to resign in favour of Brian Clough. The resignation was rejected by FA chairman Bert Millichip (primarily down to his and the FA's disdain for Clough), and Robson went on to lead the England team to qualify for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.
England began the competition poorly and captain Bryan Robson was injured with a recurrence of a dislocated shoulder. Bobby Robson changed the team's tactics for the final match of the first round, selecting Peter Beardsley ahead of Mark Hateley as a striking partner for Gary Lineker. The team won its next two matches, against Poland and Paraguay, 3–0, and qualified for the quarter-finals. England were defeated in the last eight by Argentina with a brace of goals from Diego Maradona, the infamous "Hand of God" goal and the "Goal of the Century" he scored five minutes later. Robson was unimpressed by Maradona's claim of divine intervention:
Robson's England dropped only one point in qualifying for Euro 1988, which included an 8–0 victory over Turkey. However, this was followed by failure at the tournament itself, held in West Germany, where England were eliminated in the group stage. They finished bottom of their group, succumbing to defeats against the Republic of Ireland, the eventual winners, the Netherlands, and the eventual runners-up, the Soviet Union. Robson was vilified by the British press, and after a draw in a friendly with Saudi Arabia, one newspaper demanded, "In the name of Allah, go." Again Robson submitted his resignation, and again it was rejected by Millichip (again Brian Clough is often cited as a reason).
Robson led England without conceding a goal through the six-match qualification for the 1990 World Cup where they were one of six seeded teams. Again they were placed in a group with the Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland, with Egypt the fourth side. As in the 1986 World Cup, Robson was denied the service of his captain, Bryan Robson, who suffered an achilles tendon injury which prevented him playing in the latter stages of the tournament. England topped their qualifying group, accumulating four points from their three matches. However, their progress was not without controversy. England changed formation from their traditional 4–4–2 to 5–3–2 incorporating a sweeper, with some sources suggesting this was due to player revolt after the 1–1 draw in the first match with the Republic of Ireland. Robson denied this claim:
This was followed by victories over Belgium and Cameroon in the knock-out stages, to set up a semi-final with West Germany. England lost the match on a penalty shoot-out, after the score had been tied at 1–1 following extra time. Robson said afterwards, "[N]ot a day goes by when [he] does not think about the semi-final and other choices [he] might have made." Robson was the second coach, after Alf Ramsey, to take England to a World Cup semi-final, and the first coach to do so on foreign soil, an achievement not equalled until Gareth Southgate's team reached the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup.
Robson's final game in charge of England was the third-place play off against hosts Italy, which England lost 2-1.
Continental management
Before the 1990 World Cup, the FA told Robson it would not renew his contract as England manager, so he moved on to the Netherlands to coach PSV Eindhoven, succeeding manager Guus Hiddink, who had left the team after leading them to the 1987–88 European Cup victory and four consecutive Eredivisie titles. PSV sought a manager capable of instilling discipline into a fractious squad, much as Hiddink had done previously. Robson described the move as "a culture shock" but felt "a sense of adventure". News of Robson's new position in the Netherlands became public before the start of the 1990 World Cup, leading to tabloid stories impugning Robson's patriotism; he sued Today for calling him a traitor.
The Dutch penchant for tactical debate surprised Robson. In an interview with Voetbal International, he lamented, "An English pro accepts the manager's decision. After every match here, the substitutes come and visit me." Another of his challenges at PSV was handling the Brazilian international Romário. Robson became frustrated with the Brazilian's work ethic, although admitted "in some matches he would be scintillating". Robson arranged showdown talks with Romário, with Frank Arnesen, Robson's assistant, acting as a translator. The talks proved unsuccessful, with Romário unwilling to change his lifestyle. Despite this, PSV won the Eredivisie in both the 1990–91 and 1991–92 seasons. However, the team did not make the progress expected by the board in European competitions and Robson was informed he would be leaving the club at the end of the 1991–92 season.
Robson moved to Sporting CP in July 1992, where his Portuguese interpreter was a young José Mourinho, future Porto, Chelsea, Internazionale, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur and Roma manager. Robson guided the club to a third-place finish in his first season in charge while admitting the club was in "a terrible state". He described the club's president as a "loose cannon" who frequently signed players without Robson's consent. Robson was sacked in December 1993 with the club sitting at the top of the league table. Club president Sousa Cintra cited the club's early exit from the UEFA Cup, at the hands of Casino Salzburg, as the reason for his dismissal.
Sporting CP's rivals Porto quickly hired Robson, with Mourinho appointed as his assistant manager. Living in the same apartment block at the time was another future Porto, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur manager, the young André Villas-Boas, who, aged 16, introduced himself to Robson. Robson subsequently appointed Villas-Boas to work in the Porto observation department and helped him gain his UEFA "C" coaching badge in Scotland, despite him technically being ineligible as he was aged 17. Porto were in a poor state when Robson arrived and the average attendance had dwindled to 10,000. The club promptly went on to beat Robson's former club, Sporting CP, in the Taça de Portugal final, following that achievement with successive League titles in the 1994–95 and 1995–96 seasons.
Such was the impact of Robson at Porto, he became known to the locals as "Bobby Five-O" in honour of the number of matches Porto won 5–0, and he signed a new contract with the club in 1995. Suffering from malignant melanoma and missing the first few months of the 1995–96 season, Robson still successfully led Porto in defence of their league title.
A phone call during the summer of 1996 from Barcelona vice-president Joan Gaspart to discuss Luís Figo resulted in an offer of employment with the Spanish club. Robson took over in July 1996, where again his assistant was Mourinho; Robson had made Mourinho's move with him to the Camp Nou a condition of his employment. One of the key decisions Robson made during his brief tenure at Barcelona was the US$19.5 million signing of Ronaldo, who was influential in a season when Barcelona won the Copa del Rey, Supercopa de España and European Cup Winners' Cup. Robson himself was voted European Manager of the Year for 1996–97, while Ronaldo stated, "as a trainer without doubt [Robson] is one of the greatest in the world".
The 1997–98 season saw Robson moved "upstairs" to the general manager position, with Louis van Gaal taking over as manager, but Robson stayed in this position for only one season before returning to manage PSV on a short-term deal for the 1998–99 season. PSV missed out on the league title, finishing third behind Feyenoord and Willem II, but Robson still led the club to victory in the Johan Cruyff Shield and also qualification for the UEFA Champions League on the last day of the season.
Return to England
After Robson's contract expired, he returned to England to take up a position in the Football Association's technical department, but following the resignation of Ruud Gullit at Newcastle United, Robson moved to St James' Park in September 1999. Robson was disappointed with the club's opening salary offer, stating, "[I]t was miles below the going rate," but negotiated a one-year, £1 million deal.
In Robson's first home match in charge, bottom-placed Newcastle faced second bottom Sheffield Wednesday, thrashing them 8–0. In his first season in charge, 1999–2000, Robson led the club to an 11th-place finish, with 14 wins from his 32 matches in charge. In late 2000, following the resignation of ex-Magpies boss Kevin Keegan as England manager, the FA asked Newcastle club chairman Freddy Shepherd to permit Robson to take over in a part-time caretaker capacity, but the request was refused. Robson guided Newcastle from bottom of the Premier League to a fourth-place finish in the 2001–02 season. The following season, Newcastle finished third, ensuring qualification for the UEFA Champions League for the second consecutive year.
However, Robson was unable to guide Newcastle through the Champions League qualifying rounds, and the club was dropped to participate in the UEFA Cup for the 2003–04 season. At the end of the 2003–04 season, Newcastle finished fifth in the table, five points short of the Champions League qualifying fourth place but reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup before losing to Marseille.
Robson held the Newcastle post until 30 August 2004, when he was dismissed by Freddy Shepherd, after a poor start to the Premier League season and alleged discontent in the dressing room. Robson's dismissal followed publication of his off the record observation of his disappointment that only 5,000 fans stayed to see the traditional lap of honour made by the players at St James' Park at the end of the previous season. However, he remains held in the highest esteem by the fans; he was granted the Freedom of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne on 2 March 2005.
Robson's autobiography, entitled Bobby Robson: Farewell but not Goodbye was released in 2005. The title is based on one of his quotes upon leaving the England job in 1990: "I'm here to say goodbye—maybe not goodbye but farewell." In the book, Robson was critical of Shepherd, claiming that while manager he was denied information regarding the players' contracts and transfer negotiations. He also criticised Shepherd and the club's deputy chairman Douglas Hall, for their focus on the first team and St James' Park, causing them to neglect less glamorous issues, such as the training ground, youth development and talent scouts. The club's training ground was later blamed by Graeme Souness, Robson's successor, for a series of injuries to first team players.
Football consultant for Republic of Ireland and retirement
On 7 June 2005, Robson declined the invitation to become director of football of Heart of Midlothian because he wanted to stay in the Newcastle area. On 13 January 2006, Steve Staunton was appointed manager of the Republic of Ireland national team, with Robson named in a support role as "international football consultant". Robson stepped down from his role of consultant on 17 November 2007 following the nation's final match in their unsuccessful qualifying campaign for Euro 2008. Robson was a former vice president of the League Managers Association, a non-executive role.
Life outside football
Personal life
Robson met Elsie Gray on a trip back to his parents' home in Langley Park. Gray was a student nurse, and later a teacher. They were married on 25 June 1955 with Fulham teammate Tom Wilson as Robson's best man.
After 1991, Robson was repeatedly diagnosed as suffering from cancer. He had several operations and in 2006 was operated on for a brain tumour. This, on occasion, affected his work; while at Porto, for example, Robson suffered from malignant melanoma, which resulted in his missing the first few months of the 1995–96 season.
On 17 October 2006, it was revealed that Robson had been given the all-clear and was set to see out his contract as consultant to the Irish team. Robson revealed on 7 May 2007 he had been diagnosed with cancer for the fifth time. On 17 May 2008, Robson was the guest of honour at the 2008 FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium when Portsmouth defeated Cardiff City 1–0. He presented the trophy to the victorious captain, Sol Campbell.
Other activities
Robson made a number of product endorsements, including an appearance in Carlsberg's "Best Pub Side" television commercial. He also acted as a pundit for ITV during the 2002 World Cup and Euro 2004.
Bobby Robson Foundation
Robson defeated bowel cancer in 1992, a malignant melanoma in 1995, and a tumour in his right lung and a brain tumour, both in 2006. Treatment of these conditions had left him partially paralysed due to a stroke caused by the brain tumour, and also with a partially prosthetic upper jaw after the melanoma was surgically removed. His fifth diagnosis of cancer in 2007, consisting of cancerous nodules in both lungs, was diagnosed as terminal in February 2007, and as of December 2008, was being controlled through bouts of chemotherapy. After these experiences, and following his fifth diagnosis with cancer, Robson devoted the remaining years of his life to helping fight the disease. On 25 March 2008, he launched the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation. The Foundation raised over £1 million, which funded equipment for the Sir Bobby Robson Cancer Trials Research Centre, in the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne, and would go on to fund other cancer projects in the North East of England.
In aid of the Foundation, Robson's 1990 World Cup semi-final 4–3 loss after penalties against West Germany was replayed on 26 July 2009 as the Sir Bobby Robson Trophy match at St James' Park, featuring players from the original 1990 World Cup squads and other special guests. Robson was given a guard of honour before the match, which finished 3–2 to the England side.
At the time of Robson's death, the Foundation had raised £1.6 million. Donations totalling £156,000 were received by the Foundation in the 18 days following his death, and on 15 October 2009, it was announced the Foundation had raised over £2 million, and that at the request of Robson's family, Alan Shearer would take over Robson's role as the Foundation's patron. It passed the £2.5 million mark in September 2010. Three other patrons were added in 2010, Steve Gibson, Mick Mills and Niall Quinn.
Death
On 31 July 2009, Robson died of lung cancer at his home in County Durham, aged 76, after a long battle with the disease. After the news of his death, leading figures from the world of football and politics paid tribute to him. Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson called him a "great friend, a wonderful individual and tremendous football man". UEFA president Michel Platini said, "He will be remembered not only for his playing career and his outstanding managerial career at both club and international level, but also because he was a truly warm and passionate human being." Gary Lineker said, "It is a sad day and a great loss. He was a wonderful man and will be deeply missed by everybody in the country. I never played for a more enthusiastic man. He gave so much to the game." Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair described Robson as a "real Geordie gentleman". According to the then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Robson "epitomised everything that is great about football in this country". His friend, the broadcaster Michael Parkinson, said, "Robson will be remembered long after the present lot are old bones. By his decency, his humour, his love of the game's traditions and origins and confusion at what it had become, he made present day football look what it is – shabby by comparison. I can think of no more fitting epitaph."
Robson's funeral, a private family ceremony, took place on 5 August 2009. The location remained undisclosed at the request of his family until the funeral had taken place. It was later revealed to be Esh, County Durham. A thanksgiving service for Robson was held on 21 September 2009 at Durham Cathedral. One thousand invited guests attended the service, which was also broadcast live on national television, and to Newcastle United's St James' Park, Ipswich Town's Portman Road ground and Fulham's Craven Cottage.
Robson was survived by his wife and their three sons: Andrew, Paul and Mark.
Achievements
Robson was awarded a number of honours for his contributions to football. In 1990, at the end of his eight-year reign as England manager, he was appointed a CBE in 1991 and in 2002, he was knighted; both awards were for services to football.
In 2002 (during his time as Newcastle manager), the 69-year-old Robson was awarded the freedom of Newcastle upon Tyne and the UEFA President's Award for "services to football". He was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2003 in recognition of his impact as a manager. Following his time as Newcastle United manager in 2005, Robson was made an Honorary Freeman of Newcastle, which, in his autobiography, he described as being "the proudest moment of my life". Robson also won the 1992 Football Writers' Association Tribute Award for an outstanding contribution to the national game, and the 2001 British Sports Writers' Association Pat Besford Trophy for Outstanding Achievement. In 2005, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Sports Coach UK Awards, and was also awarded the Eircom International Personality of the Year in 2006. On 9 December 2007, Robson was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year show in recognition of "his contribution as both player and manager in a career spanning more than half a century".
On 5 May 2008, during the 30th anniversary celebrations of Ipswich Town's 1978 FA Cup win, Robson was granted the Freedom of Ipswich by the Lady Mayor. On 8 December 2008, he earned another such accolade when he was given the Freedom of the City of Durham. In March 2009, UEFA awarded Robson the Emerald UEFA Order of Merit award, awarded to "individuals who have dedicated their talents to the good of the game". The award was presented to Robson at St James' Park on 26 July 2009, prior to the Sir Bobby Robson Trophy match, and just five days before his death.
Posthumous honours
In December 2009, Robson was posthumously awarded the FIFA Fair Play Award, for the "gentlemanly qualities he showed throughout his career as a player and coach". All English football league matches held a one minute's applause in his memory at the beginning of the 2009–10 season.
The Football League gave Newcastle United and Ipswich Town special dispensation to wear special commemorative kits for their Championship match on 26 September 2009 at Portman Road, in aid of Sir Bobby's Foundation. At half-time during this match, the North Stand of Portman Road was renamed the Sir Bobby Robson Stand.
The first anniversary of Robson's death on 31 July 2010 was marked with a ceremony and pre-season friendly match at Newcastle's St James' Park, between two of his former clubs Newcastle United and PSV Eindhoven, involving Robson's PSV captain Stan Valckx presenting a PSV shirt to the club.
In July 2010, plans were unveiled for a memorial garden to Robson to be built in Newcastle. It was to be created by the city council in partnership with the regeneration company NE1Ltd, and located on Gallowgate street close to the Newcastle United stadium St James' Park. Work began on the site in November 2010, which was completed by Spring 2011. The garden covers 400 square meters, and features a tiered seating area and sculpted stone plinths reflecting aspects of his life and work. The area also hosts 400 square metre memorial garden to Sir Bobby Robson.
With a keen interest in cricket as well as football, Robson was to have replaced Mike Gatting as president of the Lord's Taverners charity and cricket club in 2007, but this was prevented by his ill-health. After his death, the club held a dinner in his honour, as "The best President we never had".
In March 2011, the East Coast train operating company named one of its Class 91 electric locomotives Sir Bobby Robson, unveiled at Newcastle station by his widow Elsie and Alan Shearer. Similarly, in December 2011, the Port of Tyne Authority named its new work boat the Sir Bobby Robson. On 6 May 2012, a statue of Robson created by sculptor Tom Maley was unveiled at St James' Park before a 2–0 defeat to eventual champions Manchester City. On 16 July 2013, marking the 150th anniversary celebrations of the FA, the FA designated 10 August as the Sir Bobby Robson National Football Day, celebrated as a day to celebrate the national game. In 2018, Bobby Robson: More Than A Manager, a feature-length British film about Robson's career and cancer diagnosis, was released to critical acclaim.
In September 2020 the Sir Bobby Robson School opened in Ipswich. The school will serve children aged 8–16 with social, emotional and mental health needs.
Career statistics
Club
International
Scores and results list England's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Robson goal.
Managerial statistics
Honours
Manager
Ipswich Town
UEFA Cup: 1980–81
FA Cup: 1977–78
National Fives Tournament: 1977
Texaco Cup: 1972–73
PSV Eindhoven
Eredivisie: 1990–91, 1991–92
Johan Cruyff Shield: 1998
Porto
Primeira Divisão: 1994–95, 1995–96
Taça de Portugal: 1993–94
Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira: 1993, 1994
Barcelona
Copa del Rey: 1996–97
Supercopa de España: 1996
European Cup Winners' Cup: 1996–97
Individual
FWA Tribute Award: 1992
European Manager of the Year: 1996–97
Premier League Manager of the Month: February 2000, August 2000, December 2001, February 2002, January 2003, October 2003
UEFA President's Award: 2002
English Football Hall of Fame Inductee: 2003
PFA Merit Award: 2003
FAI International Football Awards – International Personality: 2006
BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award: 2007
FIFA Fair Play Award: 2009
FIFA Order of Merit: 2009
UEFA Order of Merit: 2009
Ipswich Town Hall of Fame: Inductee 2009
See also
List of longest managerial reigns in association football
Bibliography
References
Sources
(Career statistics)
Further reading
External links
The Sir Bobby Robson Foundation
1933 births
2009 deaths
1986 FIFA World Cup managers
1990 FIFA World Cup managers
1958 FIFA World Cup players
1962 FIFA World Cup players
Deaths from cancer in England
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Deaths from lung cancer
English expatriate footballers
English expatriate sportspeople in Canada
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
English football managers
English expatriate football managers
English footballers
England international footballers
England national football team managers
Eredivisie managers
Expatriate soccer players in Canada
Expatriate football managers in the Netherlands
Expatriate football managers in Portugal
Expatriate football managers in Spain
FC Barcelona managers
FC Porto managers
Association football people awarded knighthoods
Fulham F.C. players
Fulham F.C. managers
Ipswich Town F.C. managers
Knights Bachelor
La Liga managers
Newcastle United F.C. managers
People from Sacriston
Primeira Liga managers
English Football League managers
Premier League managers
PSV Eindhoven managers
Sporting CP managers
UEFA Cup winning managers
UEFA Euro 1988 managers
United Soccer Association players
Vancouver Royals players
West Bromwich Albion F.C. players
English expatriate sportspeople in the Netherlands
English expatriate sportspeople in Portugal
English expatriate sportspeople in Spain
English Football League players
English Football League representative players
Association football forwards
BBC Sports Personality Lifetime Achievement Award recipients
Deaf association football players
Deaf people from England
People from Langley Park, County Durham | true | [
"Robert Else (17 November 1876 – 16 September 1955) was an English first-class cricketer who played for Derbyshire in 1901 and 1903.\n\nElse was born at Lea, Holloway, Derbyshire, the son of John Else and his wife Henrietta Lowe. His father was a bobbin maker and in 1881 they were all living with his grandparents at the Old Hat Factory in Wirksworth. Else made his debut for Derbyshire in May 1901 against Surrey, when his scores were 1 and 2. He played again that season against the South Africans when he opened the batting scoring a duck in the first innings and surviving the whole of the second innings for 6 not out. He did not play again until July 1903 when against London County he took a wicket and made his top score of 28. He played his last two matches in 1903 and made little impression in them.\n\nElse was a left-hand batsman and played ten innings in five first-class matches with an average of 7.3 and a top score of 28. He bowled fifteen overs and took 1 first-class wicket for 61 runs in total.\n\nElse died at Broomhill, Sheffield, Yorkshire at the age of 78.\n\nReferences\n\n1876 births\n1955 deaths\nDerbyshire cricketers\nEnglish cricketers\nPeople from Dethick, Lea and Holloway",
"Fredrick Else (31 March 193320 July 2015) was an English footballer, who played as a goalkeeper. Else gained over 600 professional appearances in his career playing for three clubs, Preston North End, Blackburn Rovers and Barrow.\n\nClub career\nElse was born in Golborne near Wigan on 31 March 1933. Whilst on national service in the north-east he played for amateur club Axwell Park Colliery Welfare in the Derwent Valley League. He attracted the attention of Football League teams and signed as a junior for Preston North End in 1951, and as a professional in 1953. He made his debut for Preston against Manchester City in 1954, but was restricted to 14 appearances over his first three seasons. He eventually became first choice, displacing George Thompson, and played 238 times for North End. During this time Preston's most successful season came in 1957–58, when the club finished as runners up in Division One.\n\nThe 1960–61 season ended in relegation for Preston and Else was sold to neighbours Blackburn Rovers for £20,000. Else became a first choice for Blackburn straight away and played 221 times for the club. A collarbone injury in 1964–65 resulted in a period out of the game, though Else returned to regain the goalkeeper's jersey at Blackburn. Nonetheless the team were relegated the following season and Else was released. During the summer of 1966 Else signed with Barrow of the Fourth Division. Else became part of Barrow's most successful team, with the side winning promotion to the Third Division in his first season there. Else was Barrow's first choice keeper for the entire period that they were in the third division, and played 148 league matches for the club. He retired from football after Barrow's relegation in 1970 following a leg infection. His final season included a brief stint as caretaker manager at Barrow.\n\nHonours\n Football League Division One Runner-up 1957–1958\n Football League Division Four Promotion 1966–1967\n\nInternational career\nElse has been described by fans of the clubs that he played for as one of the best English goalkeepers never to win a full international cap. He did, however, make one appearance for the England B team in 1957 against Scotland B, as well as participating in a Football Association touring side of 1961.\n\nPersonal life and death\nElse met his wife Marjorie in 1949 in Douglas on the Isle of Man. They married when Else was 22 and Marjorie 20, on 29 October 1955, a Saturday morning. The wedding was held in Marjorie's home town of Blackpool and the date was chosen so that the couple could marry in the morning and Else could then travel either to Deepdale, to play for Preston North End's reserve team, or to Bloomfield Road where Preston's first team was due to be playing Blackpool F.C. In the event Else was selected for the reserves and the couple had to travel by bus to Preston.\n\nAfter retiring from football, Else remained in Barrow-in-Furness, becoming a geography and maths teacher at a local secondary school. He retired from teaching in 1999 and moved to Cyprus, though still attended some Barrow matches. Else died in Barrow-in-Furness on 20 July 2015, aged 82.\n\nReferences\n\n2015 deaths\n1933 births\nBarrow A.F.C. managers\nBarrow A.F.C. players\nBlackburn Rovers F.C. players\nPreston North End F.C. players\nPeople from Golborne\nEnglish footballers\nAssociation football goalkeepers\nSchoolteachers from Cumbria\nEnglish Football League players\nEngland B international footballers\nEnglish football managers"
] |
[
"Bobby Robson",
"International playing career",
"Where did Robson play internationally?",
"Robson participated in two ambassadorial Football Association tours in the West Indies in 1955 and South Africa in 1956.",
"Where else did he play after 1956?",
"his debut in a November 1957 victory against France,"
] | C_f615186a82b8421aacb4ca18fca24b42_0 | Who was he playing for in 1957? | 3 | Who was Robson playing for in 1957? | Bobby Robson | During his first spell at Fulham, Robson participated in two ambassadorial Football Association tours in the West Indies in 1955 and South Africa in 1956. However, it was during his time at West Bromwich Albion that he graduated to the full England squad, with his first call-up in 1956. His manager, Vic Buckingham, advocated the "push and run" approach to the game, a precursor to "total football", and playing this, Robson graduated to the full England squad in 1956, It was also at West Brom when Robson met future England international and assistant coach Don Howe. Robson went on to make 20 appearances for the England national team, making his debut in a November 1957 victory against France, scoring twice in a 4-0 victory. Although he made a successful debut, he was dropped for England's next match, against Scotland, in favour of Bobby Charlton. However, Robson was selected for the 1958 FIFA World Cup squad, ahead of Nat Lofthouse and Stanley Matthews, but returned from host nation Sweden disappointed after England were defeated by the Soviet Union in a group play-off match. Following the World Cup, Robson became an established member of the England squad, enjoying considerable success in a period between October 1960 and March 1961 when he played in six England victories, including scoring a goal in the record 9-3 defeat of Scotland at Wembley Stadium. He was selected for the 1962 World Cup finals in Chile, but an injury to his ankle sustained in a pre-tournament friendly against a Chilean club side ruled him out of most of the tournament. As Robson recalled, "I never played for England again... my international career was unfulfilled." His place in the England team was taken by Bobby Moore. CANNOTANSWER | the England national team, | Sir Robert William Robson (18 February 1933 – 31 July 2009) was an English footballer and football manager. His career included periods playing for and later managing the England national team and being a UEFA Cup-winning manager at Ipswich Town.
Robson's professional playing career as an inside forward spanned nearly 20 years, during which he played for three clubs: Fulham, West Bromwich Albion, and, briefly, Vancouver Royals. He also made 20 appearances for England, scoring four goals. After his playing career, he found success as both a club and international manager, winning league championships in both the Netherlands and Portugal, earning trophies in England and Spain, and taking England to the semi-finals of the 1990 FIFA World Cup, which remained the national team's best run in a World Cup since 1966 until they reached the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup. His last management role was as a mentor to the manager of the Republic of Ireland national team, while his final official club job was at boyhood club Newcastle United, whom he left in 2004. He held several managerial positions outside of England, most notably one year at Barcelona in 1996–97, as well as stints at PSV, Sporting CP and Porto.
Robson was created a Knight Bachelor in 2002, was inducted as a member of the English Football Hall of Fame in 2003, and was the honorary president of Ipswich Town F.C. From 1991 onwards, he suffered recurrent medical problems with cancer, and in March 2008, put his name and efforts into the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, a cancer research charity which has so far raised over £12 million (March 2018). In August 2008, his lung cancer was confirmed to be terminal; he said, "My condition is described as static and has not altered since my last bout of chemotherapy... I am going to die sooner rather than later. But then everyone has to go sometime and I have enjoyed every minute." He died just under a year later.
Early life
Bobby Robson was born in Sacriston, County Durham, the fourth of five sons of Philip and Lilian Robson (née Watt). When he was a few months old, Robson's family moved to the nearby village of Langley Park where his father was a coal miner. Their two-bedroom house had no bath and an outside toilet. As a boy, he was often taken by his father to watch Newcastle United play at St James' Park on Saturday afternoons, requiring a 34-mile round trip. Robson described Jackie Milburn and Len Shackleton as his childhood heroes. Both played for Newcastle in the inside-forward position, the position Robson would later assume during his playing career.
Robson attended Langley Park primary school and then Waterhouses secondary modern school, after failing his eleven-plus but the headmaster did not allow the school football team to join a league. Instead, he began to play for Langley Park Juniors on Saturday mornings at age 11, and by the time he was 15, he was representing the club at under-18 level. Robson played football whenever he possibly could but left school aged 15 to start work as an electrician's apprentice for the National Coal Board in the Langley Park colliery. In May 1950, Bill Dodgin, the manager of Fulham, made a personal visit to the Robson household to offer Bobby a professional contract. Despite being offered a contract by nearby Middlesbrough, the offer made by Dodgin was too attractive to turn down, so he signed for Fulham and moved to London, playing as a wing half and inside forward. Robson had also interested his beloved Newcastle, but he opted to join Fulham as, in his opinion, "Newcastle made no appreciable effort to secure [my] signature." He also thought he stood a better chance of breaking into the first team at Fulham. Robson suffered from partial deafness in one ear, which rendered him ineligible to be called up for national service.
Playing career
Club playing career
Although Robson had signed professionally, his father insisted he continue to work as an electrician. He spent the day working at the Festival of Britain site and trained three nights a week at Fulham. Eventually, this took its toll on Robson and he gave up his trade for full-time professional football.
In 1950, Robson made his first-team debut for Fulham, recently promoted to the First Division, in a match against Sheffield Wednesday. He came to regard Fulham as "a nice club, a social club...", but "never... a serious, championship-challenging club". Indeed, he and Fulham were relegated from the top-flight in the 1951–52 season, but he made his return to the First Division, four years later, when he signed for Vic Buckingham's West Bromwich Albion in March 1956. The transfer fee of £25,000 was a club record for West Brom at the time.
He made his West Brom debut in a 4–0 home defeat to Manchester City on 10 March 1956. In 1957–58, he was the club's top league goalscorer; his tally of 24 goals included four in a 5–1 win against Burnley. Often playing as a midfielder, he went on to play 257 matches and score 61 goals for West Brom, and he captained the team for the 1960–61 and 1961–62 seasons. However, in August 1962, he returned to Fulham after a disagreement with West Brom vice-chairman Jim Gaunt over his salary. The ongoing dispute over both minimum and maximum wages in the game, instigated by Robson's teammate Jimmy Hill and the Professional Footballers' Association, combined with the birth of Robson's second son, prompted Robson to demand a higher salary. Gaunt refused to negotiate Robson's contract, so Robson placed a transfer request and was sold to Fulham for £20,000 in a deal which doubled his salary. Soon after Robson joined Fulham, the club sold Alan Mullery and Rodney Marsh, meaning Robson's chances of securing any significant honour there were substantially reduced. Robson himself stated, "In all my time as a footballer, I didn't win a thing."
Despite press reports of interest from Arsenal, and the offer of a player-manager role by Southend United, Robson left Fulham in 1967 and accepted a three-year deal with Canada's Vancouver Royals. He was to be player-manager in their inaugural 1968 season in the North American Soccer League (NASL) and believed it "was a chance too good to miss". He began scouting and holding tryout camps for the new team in the Fall of 1967. The position proved difficult; a long-distance joint-ownership agreement gave the Hungarian footballer Ferenc Puskás control over the San Francisco section of the squad, while Robson took care of the Vancouver squad. Robson was dissatisfied by this situation and when, in January 1968, Fulham offered him a contract as their manager, he accepted the position at Craven Cottage.
International playing career
During his first spell at Fulham, Robson participated in two ambassadorial Football Association tours in the West Indies in 1955 and South Africa in 1956. However, it was during his time at West Bromwich Albion that he graduated to the full England squad, with his first call-up in 1956. His manager, Vic Buckingham, advocated the "push and run" approach to the game, a precursor to "total football", and playing this, Robson graduated to the full England squad in 1956, It was also at West Brom when Robson met future England international and assistant coach Don Howe.
Robson went on to make 20 appearances for the England national team, making his debut in a November 1957 victory against France, scoring twice in a 4–0 victory. Although he made a successful debut, he was dropped for England's next match, against Scotland, in favour of Bobby Charlton. However, Robson was selected for the 1958 FIFA World Cup squad, ahead of Nat Lofthouse and Stanley Matthews, but returned from host nation Sweden disappointed after England were defeated by the Soviet Union in a group play-off match.
Following the World Cup, Robson became an established member of the England squad, enjoying considerable success in a period between October 1960 and March 1961 when he played in six England victories, including scoring a goal in the record 9–3 defeat of Scotland at Wembley Stadium. He was selected for the 1962 World Cup finals in Chile, but an injury to his ankle sustained in a pre-tournament friendly against a Chilean club side ruled him out of most of the tournament. As Robson recalled, "I never played for England again... my international career was unfulfilled." His place in the England team was taken by Bobby Moore.
Managerial career
Early club management
In 1959, the then England manager and the Football Association (FA) director of coaching, Walter Winterbottom, suggested to Robson that he take a coaching course at Lilleshall. He obtained coaching qualifications during his second spell at Fulham, and coached Oxford University A.F.C. Robson made his debut as a manager in January 1968 at his former club Fulham, against Macclesfield Town, then in the Cheshire County League, in the third round of the FA Cup. Fulham were struggling with 16 points from 24 matches. Despite the acquisition of the young Malcolm Macdonald, Robson could not save the club from relegation to the Second Division, and he left them in November with the club sitting eighth in the Second Division. He discovered he had been sacked not from the club itself, but from the headline "Robson sacked" on an Evening Standard placard outside Putney station.
He moved on to Ipswich Town in 1969 and it was there that he established his reputation as a successful manager, supported by the club chairman John Cobbold and then later by his brother Patrick Cobbold. He won the vacant job at the Suffolk club after a chance encounter with Town director Murray Sangster while scouting at Portman Road for Chelsea manager Dave Sexton. After four mediocre seasons, Robson led Ipswich to fourth place in the First Division and success in the Texaco Cup in the 1972–73 season. In the following nine seasons, Ipswich finished lower than sixth place in the First Division only once, in the 1977–78 season. However, that season was a success with a 1–0 victory over Arsenal in the FA Cup final. His reign at Ipswich lasted 13 years, during which time the club twice finished as League runners-up, and made regular appearances in European competitions, capturing the UEFA Cup in 1981 with a 5–4 aggregate victory over Dutch side AZ 67 Alkmaar. About that team, Robson said: "We played with two strikers, no wingers, Eric Gates sitting off the front two, two semi-wide midfield players in Arnold Muhren and Frans Thijssen and Johnny Wark sitting in the holding role". During his 13-year tenure, he brought in only 14 players from other clubs, most notably Allan Hunter, Bryan Hamilton and Paul Mariner, relying instead on players developed through Ipswich's youth programmes, including Terry Butcher, George Burley, John Wark, Mick Mills, Colin Viljoen, Alan Brazil, Trevor Whymark, Brian Talbot, Kevin Beattie and Eric Gates, who all went on to play international football. His imports included Dutch players Frans Thijssen and Arnold Mühren. Robson was not a tactical genius but he showed a talent for developing new players, with his good interpersonal skills, caring attitude, hard work and enthusiasm helping them to achieve their best.
In 2002, in recognition of his achievements with the club, a life-size statue of Robson was unveiled opposite the Cobbold Stand of Ipswich Town's ground, Portman Road. On 7 July 2006, Robson was named as honorary president of Ipswich Town Football Club, the first since Lady Blanche Cobbold who had died in 1987.
England manager
Robson's achievements with Ipswich earned him a job offer from the Football Association for the position of national coach, and he declined an offer of a ten-year contract extension and increased salary from Ipswich director Patrick Cobbold. On 7 July 1982, two days after England were knocked out of the 1982 World Cup, he succeeded Ron Greenwood as coach of the England national team, selecting former West Bromwich Albion teammate Don Howe as his chief coach.
Robson's first match in charge saw immediate controversy, as he dropped Kevin Keegan for the match against Denmark. On 21 September 1983, Robson suffered his only loss in the 28 qualifying matches he was to undertake as England manager. The defeat, again to Denmark, ultimately led to England's failure to qualify for the 1984 European Championships and resulted in Robson offering to resign in favour of Brian Clough. The resignation was rejected by FA chairman Bert Millichip (primarily down to his and the FA's disdain for Clough), and Robson went on to lead the England team to qualify for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.
England began the competition poorly and captain Bryan Robson was injured with a recurrence of a dislocated shoulder. Bobby Robson changed the team's tactics for the final match of the first round, selecting Peter Beardsley ahead of Mark Hateley as a striking partner for Gary Lineker. The team won its next two matches, against Poland and Paraguay, 3–0, and qualified for the quarter-finals. England were defeated in the last eight by Argentina with a brace of goals from Diego Maradona, the infamous "Hand of God" goal and the "Goal of the Century" he scored five minutes later. Robson was unimpressed by Maradona's claim of divine intervention:
Robson's England dropped only one point in qualifying for Euro 1988, which included an 8–0 victory over Turkey. However, this was followed by failure at the tournament itself, held in West Germany, where England were eliminated in the group stage. They finished bottom of their group, succumbing to defeats against the Republic of Ireland, the eventual winners, the Netherlands, and the eventual runners-up, the Soviet Union. Robson was vilified by the British press, and after a draw in a friendly with Saudi Arabia, one newspaper demanded, "In the name of Allah, go." Again Robson submitted his resignation, and again it was rejected by Millichip (again Brian Clough is often cited as a reason).
Robson led England without conceding a goal through the six-match qualification for the 1990 World Cup where they were one of six seeded teams. Again they were placed in a group with the Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland, with Egypt the fourth side. As in the 1986 World Cup, Robson was denied the service of his captain, Bryan Robson, who suffered an achilles tendon injury which prevented him playing in the latter stages of the tournament. England topped their qualifying group, accumulating four points from their three matches. However, their progress was not without controversy. England changed formation from their traditional 4–4–2 to 5–3–2 incorporating a sweeper, with some sources suggesting this was due to player revolt after the 1–1 draw in the first match with the Republic of Ireland. Robson denied this claim:
This was followed by victories over Belgium and Cameroon in the knock-out stages, to set up a semi-final with West Germany. England lost the match on a penalty shoot-out, after the score had been tied at 1–1 following extra time. Robson said afterwards, "[N]ot a day goes by when [he] does not think about the semi-final and other choices [he] might have made." Robson was the second coach, after Alf Ramsey, to take England to a World Cup semi-final, and the first coach to do so on foreign soil, an achievement not equalled until Gareth Southgate's team reached the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup.
Robson's final game in charge of England was the third-place play off against hosts Italy, which England lost 2-1.
Continental management
Before the 1990 World Cup, the FA told Robson it would not renew his contract as England manager, so he moved on to the Netherlands to coach PSV Eindhoven, succeeding manager Guus Hiddink, who had left the team after leading them to the 1987–88 European Cup victory and four consecutive Eredivisie titles. PSV sought a manager capable of instilling discipline into a fractious squad, much as Hiddink had done previously. Robson described the move as "a culture shock" but felt "a sense of adventure". News of Robson's new position in the Netherlands became public before the start of the 1990 World Cup, leading to tabloid stories impugning Robson's patriotism; he sued Today for calling him a traitor.
The Dutch penchant for tactical debate surprised Robson. In an interview with Voetbal International, he lamented, "An English pro accepts the manager's decision. After every match here, the substitutes come and visit me." Another of his challenges at PSV was handling the Brazilian international Romário. Robson became frustrated with the Brazilian's work ethic, although admitted "in some matches he would be scintillating". Robson arranged showdown talks with Romário, with Frank Arnesen, Robson's assistant, acting as a translator. The talks proved unsuccessful, with Romário unwilling to change his lifestyle. Despite this, PSV won the Eredivisie in both the 1990–91 and 1991–92 seasons. However, the team did not make the progress expected by the board in European competitions and Robson was informed he would be leaving the club at the end of the 1991–92 season.
Robson moved to Sporting CP in July 1992, where his Portuguese interpreter was a young José Mourinho, future Porto, Chelsea, Internazionale, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur and Roma manager. Robson guided the club to a third-place finish in his first season in charge while admitting the club was in "a terrible state". He described the club's president as a "loose cannon" who frequently signed players without Robson's consent. Robson was sacked in December 1993 with the club sitting at the top of the league table. Club president Sousa Cintra cited the club's early exit from the UEFA Cup, at the hands of Casino Salzburg, as the reason for his dismissal.
Sporting CP's rivals Porto quickly hired Robson, with Mourinho appointed as his assistant manager. Living in the same apartment block at the time was another future Porto, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur manager, the young André Villas-Boas, who, aged 16, introduced himself to Robson. Robson subsequently appointed Villas-Boas to work in the Porto observation department and helped him gain his UEFA "C" coaching badge in Scotland, despite him technically being ineligible as he was aged 17. Porto were in a poor state when Robson arrived and the average attendance had dwindled to 10,000. The club promptly went on to beat Robson's former club, Sporting CP, in the Taça de Portugal final, following that achievement with successive League titles in the 1994–95 and 1995–96 seasons.
Such was the impact of Robson at Porto, he became known to the locals as "Bobby Five-O" in honour of the number of matches Porto won 5–0, and he signed a new contract with the club in 1995. Suffering from malignant melanoma and missing the first few months of the 1995–96 season, Robson still successfully led Porto in defence of their league title.
A phone call during the summer of 1996 from Barcelona vice-president Joan Gaspart to discuss Luís Figo resulted in an offer of employment with the Spanish club. Robson took over in July 1996, where again his assistant was Mourinho; Robson had made Mourinho's move with him to the Camp Nou a condition of his employment. One of the key decisions Robson made during his brief tenure at Barcelona was the US$19.5 million signing of Ronaldo, who was influential in a season when Barcelona won the Copa del Rey, Supercopa de España and European Cup Winners' Cup. Robson himself was voted European Manager of the Year for 1996–97, while Ronaldo stated, "as a trainer without doubt [Robson] is one of the greatest in the world".
The 1997–98 season saw Robson moved "upstairs" to the general manager position, with Louis van Gaal taking over as manager, but Robson stayed in this position for only one season before returning to manage PSV on a short-term deal for the 1998–99 season. PSV missed out on the league title, finishing third behind Feyenoord and Willem II, but Robson still led the club to victory in the Johan Cruyff Shield and also qualification for the UEFA Champions League on the last day of the season.
Return to England
After Robson's contract expired, he returned to England to take up a position in the Football Association's technical department, but following the resignation of Ruud Gullit at Newcastle United, Robson moved to St James' Park in September 1999. Robson was disappointed with the club's opening salary offer, stating, "[I]t was miles below the going rate," but negotiated a one-year, £1 million deal.
In Robson's first home match in charge, bottom-placed Newcastle faced second bottom Sheffield Wednesday, thrashing them 8–0. In his first season in charge, 1999–2000, Robson led the club to an 11th-place finish, with 14 wins from his 32 matches in charge. In late 2000, following the resignation of ex-Magpies boss Kevin Keegan as England manager, the FA asked Newcastle club chairman Freddy Shepherd to permit Robson to take over in a part-time caretaker capacity, but the request was refused. Robson guided Newcastle from bottom of the Premier League to a fourth-place finish in the 2001–02 season. The following season, Newcastle finished third, ensuring qualification for the UEFA Champions League for the second consecutive year.
However, Robson was unable to guide Newcastle through the Champions League qualifying rounds, and the club was dropped to participate in the UEFA Cup for the 2003–04 season. At the end of the 2003–04 season, Newcastle finished fifth in the table, five points short of the Champions League qualifying fourth place but reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup before losing to Marseille.
Robson held the Newcastle post until 30 August 2004, when he was dismissed by Freddy Shepherd, after a poor start to the Premier League season and alleged discontent in the dressing room. Robson's dismissal followed publication of his off the record observation of his disappointment that only 5,000 fans stayed to see the traditional lap of honour made by the players at St James' Park at the end of the previous season. However, he remains held in the highest esteem by the fans; he was granted the Freedom of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne on 2 March 2005.
Robson's autobiography, entitled Bobby Robson: Farewell but not Goodbye was released in 2005. The title is based on one of his quotes upon leaving the England job in 1990: "I'm here to say goodbye—maybe not goodbye but farewell." In the book, Robson was critical of Shepherd, claiming that while manager he was denied information regarding the players' contracts and transfer negotiations. He also criticised Shepherd and the club's deputy chairman Douglas Hall, for their focus on the first team and St James' Park, causing them to neglect less glamorous issues, such as the training ground, youth development and talent scouts. The club's training ground was later blamed by Graeme Souness, Robson's successor, for a series of injuries to first team players.
Football consultant for Republic of Ireland and retirement
On 7 June 2005, Robson declined the invitation to become director of football of Heart of Midlothian because he wanted to stay in the Newcastle area. On 13 January 2006, Steve Staunton was appointed manager of the Republic of Ireland national team, with Robson named in a support role as "international football consultant". Robson stepped down from his role of consultant on 17 November 2007 following the nation's final match in their unsuccessful qualifying campaign for Euro 2008. Robson was a former vice president of the League Managers Association, a non-executive role.
Life outside football
Personal life
Robson met Elsie Gray on a trip back to his parents' home in Langley Park. Gray was a student nurse, and later a teacher. They were married on 25 June 1955 with Fulham teammate Tom Wilson as Robson's best man.
After 1991, Robson was repeatedly diagnosed as suffering from cancer. He had several operations and in 2006 was operated on for a brain tumour. This, on occasion, affected his work; while at Porto, for example, Robson suffered from malignant melanoma, which resulted in his missing the first few months of the 1995–96 season.
On 17 October 2006, it was revealed that Robson had been given the all-clear and was set to see out his contract as consultant to the Irish team. Robson revealed on 7 May 2007 he had been diagnosed with cancer for the fifth time. On 17 May 2008, Robson was the guest of honour at the 2008 FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium when Portsmouth defeated Cardiff City 1–0. He presented the trophy to the victorious captain, Sol Campbell.
Other activities
Robson made a number of product endorsements, including an appearance in Carlsberg's "Best Pub Side" television commercial. He also acted as a pundit for ITV during the 2002 World Cup and Euro 2004.
Bobby Robson Foundation
Robson defeated bowel cancer in 1992, a malignant melanoma in 1995, and a tumour in his right lung and a brain tumour, both in 2006. Treatment of these conditions had left him partially paralysed due to a stroke caused by the brain tumour, and also with a partially prosthetic upper jaw after the melanoma was surgically removed. His fifth diagnosis of cancer in 2007, consisting of cancerous nodules in both lungs, was diagnosed as terminal in February 2007, and as of December 2008, was being controlled through bouts of chemotherapy. After these experiences, and following his fifth diagnosis with cancer, Robson devoted the remaining years of his life to helping fight the disease. On 25 March 2008, he launched the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation. The Foundation raised over £1 million, which funded equipment for the Sir Bobby Robson Cancer Trials Research Centre, in the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne, and would go on to fund other cancer projects in the North East of England.
In aid of the Foundation, Robson's 1990 World Cup semi-final 4–3 loss after penalties against West Germany was replayed on 26 July 2009 as the Sir Bobby Robson Trophy match at St James' Park, featuring players from the original 1990 World Cup squads and other special guests. Robson was given a guard of honour before the match, which finished 3–2 to the England side.
At the time of Robson's death, the Foundation had raised £1.6 million. Donations totalling £156,000 were received by the Foundation in the 18 days following his death, and on 15 October 2009, it was announced the Foundation had raised over £2 million, and that at the request of Robson's family, Alan Shearer would take over Robson's role as the Foundation's patron. It passed the £2.5 million mark in September 2010. Three other patrons were added in 2010, Steve Gibson, Mick Mills and Niall Quinn.
Death
On 31 July 2009, Robson died of lung cancer at his home in County Durham, aged 76, after a long battle with the disease. After the news of his death, leading figures from the world of football and politics paid tribute to him. Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson called him a "great friend, a wonderful individual and tremendous football man". UEFA president Michel Platini said, "He will be remembered not only for his playing career and his outstanding managerial career at both club and international level, but also because he was a truly warm and passionate human being." Gary Lineker said, "It is a sad day and a great loss. He was a wonderful man and will be deeply missed by everybody in the country. I never played for a more enthusiastic man. He gave so much to the game." Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair described Robson as a "real Geordie gentleman". According to the then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Robson "epitomised everything that is great about football in this country". His friend, the broadcaster Michael Parkinson, said, "Robson will be remembered long after the present lot are old bones. By his decency, his humour, his love of the game's traditions and origins and confusion at what it had become, he made present day football look what it is – shabby by comparison. I can think of no more fitting epitaph."
Robson's funeral, a private family ceremony, took place on 5 August 2009. The location remained undisclosed at the request of his family until the funeral had taken place. It was later revealed to be Esh, County Durham. A thanksgiving service for Robson was held on 21 September 2009 at Durham Cathedral. One thousand invited guests attended the service, which was also broadcast live on national television, and to Newcastle United's St James' Park, Ipswich Town's Portman Road ground and Fulham's Craven Cottage.
Robson was survived by his wife and their three sons: Andrew, Paul and Mark.
Achievements
Robson was awarded a number of honours for his contributions to football. In 1990, at the end of his eight-year reign as England manager, he was appointed a CBE in 1991 and in 2002, he was knighted; both awards were for services to football.
In 2002 (during his time as Newcastle manager), the 69-year-old Robson was awarded the freedom of Newcastle upon Tyne and the UEFA President's Award for "services to football". He was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2003 in recognition of his impact as a manager. Following his time as Newcastle United manager in 2005, Robson was made an Honorary Freeman of Newcastle, which, in his autobiography, he described as being "the proudest moment of my life". Robson also won the 1992 Football Writers' Association Tribute Award for an outstanding contribution to the national game, and the 2001 British Sports Writers' Association Pat Besford Trophy for Outstanding Achievement. In 2005, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Sports Coach UK Awards, and was also awarded the Eircom International Personality of the Year in 2006. On 9 December 2007, Robson was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year show in recognition of "his contribution as both player and manager in a career spanning more than half a century".
On 5 May 2008, during the 30th anniversary celebrations of Ipswich Town's 1978 FA Cup win, Robson was granted the Freedom of Ipswich by the Lady Mayor. On 8 December 2008, he earned another such accolade when he was given the Freedom of the City of Durham. In March 2009, UEFA awarded Robson the Emerald UEFA Order of Merit award, awarded to "individuals who have dedicated their talents to the good of the game". The award was presented to Robson at St James' Park on 26 July 2009, prior to the Sir Bobby Robson Trophy match, and just five days before his death.
Posthumous honours
In December 2009, Robson was posthumously awarded the FIFA Fair Play Award, for the "gentlemanly qualities he showed throughout his career as a player and coach". All English football league matches held a one minute's applause in his memory at the beginning of the 2009–10 season.
The Football League gave Newcastle United and Ipswich Town special dispensation to wear special commemorative kits for their Championship match on 26 September 2009 at Portman Road, in aid of Sir Bobby's Foundation. At half-time during this match, the North Stand of Portman Road was renamed the Sir Bobby Robson Stand.
The first anniversary of Robson's death on 31 July 2010 was marked with a ceremony and pre-season friendly match at Newcastle's St James' Park, between two of his former clubs Newcastle United and PSV Eindhoven, involving Robson's PSV captain Stan Valckx presenting a PSV shirt to the club.
In July 2010, plans were unveiled for a memorial garden to Robson to be built in Newcastle. It was to be created by the city council in partnership with the regeneration company NE1Ltd, and located on Gallowgate street close to the Newcastle United stadium St James' Park. Work began on the site in November 2010, which was completed by Spring 2011. The garden covers 400 square meters, and features a tiered seating area and sculpted stone plinths reflecting aspects of his life and work. The area also hosts 400 square metre memorial garden to Sir Bobby Robson.
With a keen interest in cricket as well as football, Robson was to have replaced Mike Gatting as president of the Lord's Taverners charity and cricket club in 2007, but this was prevented by his ill-health. After his death, the club held a dinner in his honour, as "The best President we never had".
In March 2011, the East Coast train operating company named one of its Class 91 electric locomotives Sir Bobby Robson, unveiled at Newcastle station by his widow Elsie and Alan Shearer. Similarly, in December 2011, the Port of Tyne Authority named its new work boat the Sir Bobby Robson. On 6 May 2012, a statue of Robson created by sculptor Tom Maley was unveiled at St James' Park before a 2–0 defeat to eventual champions Manchester City. On 16 July 2013, marking the 150th anniversary celebrations of the FA, the FA designated 10 August as the Sir Bobby Robson National Football Day, celebrated as a day to celebrate the national game. In 2018, Bobby Robson: More Than A Manager, a feature-length British film about Robson's career and cancer diagnosis, was released to critical acclaim.
In September 2020 the Sir Bobby Robson School opened in Ipswich. The school will serve children aged 8–16 with social, emotional and mental health needs.
Career statistics
Club
International
Scores and results list England's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Robson goal.
Managerial statistics
Honours
Manager
Ipswich Town
UEFA Cup: 1980–81
FA Cup: 1977–78
National Fives Tournament: 1977
Texaco Cup: 1972–73
PSV Eindhoven
Eredivisie: 1990–91, 1991–92
Johan Cruyff Shield: 1998
Porto
Primeira Divisão: 1994–95, 1995–96
Taça de Portugal: 1993–94
Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira: 1993, 1994
Barcelona
Copa del Rey: 1996–97
Supercopa de España: 1996
European Cup Winners' Cup: 1996–97
Individual
FWA Tribute Award: 1992
European Manager of the Year: 1996–97
Premier League Manager of the Month: February 2000, August 2000, December 2001, February 2002, January 2003, October 2003
UEFA President's Award: 2002
English Football Hall of Fame Inductee: 2003
PFA Merit Award: 2003
FAI International Football Awards – International Personality: 2006
BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award: 2007
FIFA Fair Play Award: 2009
FIFA Order of Merit: 2009
UEFA Order of Merit: 2009
Ipswich Town Hall of Fame: Inductee 2009
See also
List of longest managerial reigns in association football
Bibliography
References
Sources
(Career statistics)
Further reading
External links
The Sir Bobby Robson Foundation
1933 births
2009 deaths
1986 FIFA World Cup managers
1990 FIFA World Cup managers
1958 FIFA World Cup players
1962 FIFA World Cup players
Deaths from cancer in England
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Deaths from lung cancer
English expatriate footballers
English expatriate sportspeople in Canada
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
English football managers
English expatriate football managers
English footballers
England international footballers
England national football team managers
Eredivisie managers
Expatriate soccer players in Canada
Expatriate football managers in the Netherlands
Expatriate football managers in Portugal
Expatriate football managers in Spain
FC Barcelona managers
FC Porto managers
Association football people awarded knighthoods
Fulham F.C. players
Fulham F.C. managers
Ipswich Town F.C. managers
Knights Bachelor
La Liga managers
Newcastle United F.C. managers
People from Sacriston
Primeira Liga managers
English Football League managers
Premier League managers
PSV Eindhoven managers
Sporting CP managers
UEFA Cup winning managers
UEFA Euro 1988 managers
United Soccer Association players
Vancouver Royals players
West Bromwich Albion F.C. players
English expatriate sportspeople in the Netherlands
English expatriate sportspeople in Portugal
English expatriate sportspeople in Spain
English Football League players
English Football League representative players
Association football forwards
BBC Sports Personality Lifetime Achievement Award recipients
Deaf association football players
Deaf people from England
People from Langley Park, County Durham | true | [
"William Hoare (23 October 1868 – 16 December 1954) was an Australian cricketer. He played fourteen first-class matches for Queensland from 1892-93 to 1902-03.\n\nCricket career\nAs of 1883 Hoare was playing for Unions cricket club in Brisbane. In 1884 he moved to Gregorys club, and in 1886 he played for Windsor club. In 1887 he played for a combined team representing the clubs competing in Brisbane Junior Cricket against a combined Dinmore and Goodna side. In 1888 he played for Nelson cricket club. \n\nBy early 1890 he was playing for Pembroke cricket club in the Southern Queensland Cricket Union competition, but he moved to the South Brisbane Cricket Club later in the year. By 1893 he was playing for Graziers' Cricket Club. In March 1893 he was selected for a practice match between two Queensland sides played to decide who would represent the state in its inaugural first-class match against New South Wales and took 7 for 19, a performance which earned him selection in the first-class game in March.\n\nWhen Brisbane electoral cricket was established in 1897 Hoare played for the Woolloongabba club in the new competition.\n\nSee also\n List of Queensland first-class cricketers\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1868 births\n1954 deaths\nAustralian cricketers\nQueensland cricketers\nCricketers from Brisbane",
"Mathias Haarup (born 10 February 1996) is a Danish footballer who plays as a right-back or left-back for Hobro IK in the Danish 1st Division.\n\nClub career\n\nEarly career\nAt the age of four, Haarup started playing for local club Havndal Udbyneder IF, where he was coached by his own father, who began working for the club. He later signed for Hobro IK at the age of 12, where he had many friends from the talent-team. At this time, Haarup was playing as a forward. His last youth destination was Randers FC, which he joined at the age of 14. At this time, he was already involved with the first team.\n\nRanders Freja\nIn 2015, Haarup was promoted to the Denmark Series team of Randers FC, because he became too old for playing for the U19 team and was not deemed good enough for the first team squad. Though, he was also training and playing for the reserve team of Randers. In 2016, he became the captain of the Denmark Series team.\n\nIn December 2016, Haarup went on a trial at Skive IK, without getting offered any contract at the end.\n\nBrabrand IF\nOn 24 December 2016, Haarup signed for Danish 2nd Division club, Brabrand IF. He played 12 games for the club, before leaving in the summer 2017. This was announced by Brabrand IF in June 2016. He was playing as a winger during his time in Brabrand.\n\nHobro IK\nAfter playing in the Denmark Series and a half year in the Danish 2nd Division, he finally reached the top league, after re-signing for newly-promoted Danish Superliga club Hobro IK on 21 June 2017.\n\nHaarup got his debut for Hobro IK on 14 August 2017. He started on the bench, but replaced Danny Olsen in the 89th minute in a 1-1 draw against AaB in the Danish Superliga.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n Mathias Haarup at Hobro IK\n\n1996 births\nLiving people\nDanish footballers\nAssociation football defenders\nDanish Superliga players\nDanish 2nd Division players\nHobro IK players\nBrabrand IF players\nPeople from Aarhus\nRanders FC players"
] |
[
"Bobby Robson",
"International playing career",
"Where did Robson play internationally?",
"Robson participated in two ambassadorial Football Association tours in the West Indies in 1955 and South Africa in 1956.",
"Where else did he play after 1956?",
"his debut in a November 1957 victory against France,",
"Who was he playing for in 1957?",
"the England national team,"
] | C_f615186a82b8421aacb4ca18fca24b42_0 | Which team did he play for longest? | 4 | Which team did Robson play for longest? | Bobby Robson | During his first spell at Fulham, Robson participated in two ambassadorial Football Association tours in the West Indies in 1955 and South Africa in 1956. However, it was during his time at West Bromwich Albion that he graduated to the full England squad, with his first call-up in 1956. His manager, Vic Buckingham, advocated the "push and run" approach to the game, a precursor to "total football", and playing this, Robson graduated to the full England squad in 1956, It was also at West Brom when Robson met future England international and assistant coach Don Howe. Robson went on to make 20 appearances for the England national team, making his debut in a November 1957 victory against France, scoring twice in a 4-0 victory. Although he made a successful debut, he was dropped for England's next match, against Scotland, in favour of Bobby Charlton. However, Robson was selected for the 1958 FIFA World Cup squad, ahead of Nat Lofthouse and Stanley Matthews, but returned from host nation Sweden disappointed after England were defeated by the Soviet Union in a group play-off match. Following the World Cup, Robson became an established member of the England squad, enjoying considerable success in a period between October 1960 and March 1961 when he played in six England victories, including scoring a goal in the record 9-3 defeat of Scotland at Wembley Stadium. He was selected for the 1962 World Cup finals in Chile, but an injury to his ankle sustained in a pre-tournament friendly against a Chilean club side ruled him out of most of the tournament. As Robson recalled, "I never played for England again... my international career was unfulfilled." His place in the England team was taken by Bobby Moore. CANNOTANSWER | England | Sir Robert William Robson (18 February 1933 – 31 July 2009) was an English footballer and football manager. His career included periods playing for and later managing the England national team and being a UEFA Cup-winning manager at Ipswich Town.
Robson's professional playing career as an inside forward spanned nearly 20 years, during which he played for three clubs: Fulham, West Bromwich Albion, and, briefly, Vancouver Royals. He also made 20 appearances for England, scoring four goals. After his playing career, he found success as both a club and international manager, winning league championships in both the Netherlands and Portugal, earning trophies in England and Spain, and taking England to the semi-finals of the 1990 FIFA World Cup, which remained the national team's best run in a World Cup since 1966 until they reached the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup. His last management role was as a mentor to the manager of the Republic of Ireland national team, while his final official club job was at boyhood club Newcastle United, whom he left in 2004. He held several managerial positions outside of England, most notably one year at Barcelona in 1996–97, as well as stints at PSV, Sporting CP and Porto.
Robson was created a Knight Bachelor in 2002, was inducted as a member of the English Football Hall of Fame in 2003, and was the honorary president of Ipswich Town F.C. From 1991 onwards, he suffered recurrent medical problems with cancer, and in March 2008, put his name and efforts into the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, a cancer research charity which has so far raised over £12 million (March 2018). In August 2008, his lung cancer was confirmed to be terminal; he said, "My condition is described as static and has not altered since my last bout of chemotherapy... I am going to die sooner rather than later. But then everyone has to go sometime and I have enjoyed every minute." He died just under a year later.
Early life
Bobby Robson was born in Sacriston, County Durham, the fourth of five sons of Philip and Lilian Robson (née Watt). When he was a few months old, Robson's family moved to the nearby village of Langley Park where his father was a coal miner. Their two-bedroom house had no bath and an outside toilet. As a boy, he was often taken by his father to watch Newcastle United play at St James' Park on Saturday afternoons, requiring a 34-mile round trip. Robson described Jackie Milburn and Len Shackleton as his childhood heroes. Both played for Newcastle in the inside-forward position, the position Robson would later assume during his playing career.
Robson attended Langley Park primary school and then Waterhouses secondary modern school, after failing his eleven-plus but the headmaster did not allow the school football team to join a league. Instead, he began to play for Langley Park Juniors on Saturday mornings at age 11, and by the time he was 15, he was representing the club at under-18 level. Robson played football whenever he possibly could but left school aged 15 to start work as an electrician's apprentice for the National Coal Board in the Langley Park colliery. In May 1950, Bill Dodgin, the manager of Fulham, made a personal visit to the Robson household to offer Bobby a professional contract. Despite being offered a contract by nearby Middlesbrough, the offer made by Dodgin was too attractive to turn down, so he signed for Fulham and moved to London, playing as a wing half and inside forward. Robson had also interested his beloved Newcastle, but he opted to join Fulham as, in his opinion, "Newcastle made no appreciable effort to secure [my] signature." He also thought he stood a better chance of breaking into the first team at Fulham. Robson suffered from partial deafness in one ear, which rendered him ineligible to be called up for national service.
Playing career
Club playing career
Although Robson had signed professionally, his father insisted he continue to work as an electrician. He spent the day working at the Festival of Britain site and trained three nights a week at Fulham. Eventually, this took its toll on Robson and he gave up his trade for full-time professional football.
In 1950, Robson made his first-team debut for Fulham, recently promoted to the First Division, in a match against Sheffield Wednesday. He came to regard Fulham as "a nice club, a social club...", but "never... a serious, championship-challenging club". Indeed, he and Fulham were relegated from the top-flight in the 1951–52 season, but he made his return to the First Division, four years later, when he signed for Vic Buckingham's West Bromwich Albion in March 1956. The transfer fee of £25,000 was a club record for West Brom at the time.
He made his West Brom debut in a 4–0 home defeat to Manchester City on 10 March 1956. In 1957–58, he was the club's top league goalscorer; his tally of 24 goals included four in a 5–1 win against Burnley. Often playing as a midfielder, he went on to play 257 matches and score 61 goals for West Brom, and he captained the team for the 1960–61 and 1961–62 seasons. However, in August 1962, he returned to Fulham after a disagreement with West Brom vice-chairman Jim Gaunt over his salary. The ongoing dispute over both minimum and maximum wages in the game, instigated by Robson's teammate Jimmy Hill and the Professional Footballers' Association, combined with the birth of Robson's second son, prompted Robson to demand a higher salary. Gaunt refused to negotiate Robson's contract, so Robson placed a transfer request and was sold to Fulham for £20,000 in a deal which doubled his salary. Soon after Robson joined Fulham, the club sold Alan Mullery and Rodney Marsh, meaning Robson's chances of securing any significant honour there were substantially reduced. Robson himself stated, "In all my time as a footballer, I didn't win a thing."
Despite press reports of interest from Arsenal, and the offer of a player-manager role by Southend United, Robson left Fulham in 1967 and accepted a three-year deal with Canada's Vancouver Royals. He was to be player-manager in their inaugural 1968 season in the North American Soccer League (NASL) and believed it "was a chance too good to miss". He began scouting and holding tryout camps for the new team in the Fall of 1967. The position proved difficult; a long-distance joint-ownership agreement gave the Hungarian footballer Ferenc Puskás control over the San Francisco section of the squad, while Robson took care of the Vancouver squad. Robson was dissatisfied by this situation and when, in January 1968, Fulham offered him a contract as their manager, he accepted the position at Craven Cottage.
International playing career
During his first spell at Fulham, Robson participated in two ambassadorial Football Association tours in the West Indies in 1955 and South Africa in 1956. However, it was during his time at West Bromwich Albion that he graduated to the full England squad, with his first call-up in 1956. His manager, Vic Buckingham, advocated the "push and run" approach to the game, a precursor to "total football", and playing this, Robson graduated to the full England squad in 1956, It was also at West Brom when Robson met future England international and assistant coach Don Howe.
Robson went on to make 20 appearances for the England national team, making his debut in a November 1957 victory against France, scoring twice in a 4–0 victory. Although he made a successful debut, he was dropped for England's next match, against Scotland, in favour of Bobby Charlton. However, Robson was selected for the 1958 FIFA World Cup squad, ahead of Nat Lofthouse and Stanley Matthews, but returned from host nation Sweden disappointed after England were defeated by the Soviet Union in a group play-off match.
Following the World Cup, Robson became an established member of the England squad, enjoying considerable success in a period between October 1960 and March 1961 when he played in six England victories, including scoring a goal in the record 9–3 defeat of Scotland at Wembley Stadium. He was selected for the 1962 World Cup finals in Chile, but an injury to his ankle sustained in a pre-tournament friendly against a Chilean club side ruled him out of most of the tournament. As Robson recalled, "I never played for England again... my international career was unfulfilled." His place in the England team was taken by Bobby Moore.
Managerial career
Early club management
In 1959, the then England manager and the Football Association (FA) director of coaching, Walter Winterbottom, suggested to Robson that he take a coaching course at Lilleshall. He obtained coaching qualifications during his second spell at Fulham, and coached Oxford University A.F.C. Robson made his debut as a manager in January 1968 at his former club Fulham, against Macclesfield Town, then in the Cheshire County League, in the third round of the FA Cup. Fulham were struggling with 16 points from 24 matches. Despite the acquisition of the young Malcolm Macdonald, Robson could not save the club from relegation to the Second Division, and he left them in November with the club sitting eighth in the Second Division. He discovered he had been sacked not from the club itself, but from the headline "Robson sacked" on an Evening Standard placard outside Putney station.
He moved on to Ipswich Town in 1969 and it was there that he established his reputation as a successful manager, supported by the club chairman John Cobbold and then later by his brother Patrick Cobbold. He won the vacant job at the Suffolk club after a chance encounter with Town director Murray Sangster while scouting at Portman Road for Chelsea manager Dave Sexton. After four mediocre seasons, Robson led Ipswich to fourth place in the First Division and success in the Texaco Cup in the 1972–73 season. In the following nine seasons, Ipswich finished lower than sixth place in the First Division only once, in the 1977–78 season. However, that season was a success with a 1–0 victory over Arsenal in the FA Cup final. His reign at Ipswich lasted 13 years, during which time the club twice finished as League runners-up, and made regular appearances in European competitions, capturing the UEFA Cup in 1981 with a 5–4 aggregate victory over Dutch side AZ 67 Alkmaar. About that team, Robson said: "We played with two strikers, no wingers, Eric Gates sitting off the front two, two semi-wide midfield players in Arnold Muhren and Frans Thijssen and Johnny Wark sitting in the holding role". During his 13-year tenure, he brought in only 14 players from other clubs, most notably Allan Hunter, Bryan Hamilton and Paul Mariner, relying instead on players developed through Ipswich's youth programmes, including Terry Butcher, George Burley, John Wark, Mick Mills, Colin Viljoen, Alan Brazil, Trevor Whymark, Brian Talbot, Kevin Beattie and Eric Gates, who all went on to play international football. His imports included Dutch players Frans Thijssen and Arnold Mühren. Robson was not a tactical genius but he showed a talent for developing new players, with his good interpersonal skills, caring attitude, hard work and enthusiasm helping them to achieve their best.
In 2002, in recognition of his achievements with the club, a life-size statue of Robson was unveiled opposite the Cobbold Stand of Ipswich Town's ground, Portman Road. On 7 July 2006, Robson was named as honorary president of Ipswich Town Football Club, the first since Lady Blanche Cobbold who had died in 1987.
England manager
Robson's achievements with Ipswich earned him a job offer from the Football Association for the position of national coach, and he declined an offer of a ten-year contract extension and increased salary from Ipswich director Patrick Cobbold. On 7 July 1982, two days after England were knocked out of the 1982 World Cup, he succeeded Ron Greenwood as coach of the England national team, selecting former West Bromwich Albion teammate Don Howe as his chief coach.
Robson's first match in charge saw immediate controversy, as he dropped Kevin Keegan for the match against Denmark. On 21 September 1983, Robson suffered his only loss in the 28 qualifying matches he was to undertake as England manager. The defeat, again to Denmark, ultimately led to England's failure to qualify for the 1984 European Championships and resulted in Robson offering to resign in favour of Brian Clough. The resignation was rejected by FA chairman Bert Millichip (primarily down to his and the FA's disdain for Clough), and Robson went on to lead the England team to qualify for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.
England began the competition poorly and captain Bryan Robson was injured with a recurrence of a dislocated shoulder. Bobby Robson changed the team's tactics for the final match of the first round, selecting Peter Beardsley ahead of Mark Hateley as a striking partner for Gary Lineker. The team won its next two matches, against Poland and Paraguay, 3–0, and qualified for the quarter-finals. England were defeated in the last eight by Argentina with a brace of goals from Diego Maradona, the infamous "Hand of God" goal and the "Goal of the Century" he scored five minutes later. Robson was unimpressed by Maradona's claim of divine intervention:
Robson's England dropped only one point in qualifying for Euro 1988, which included an 8–0 victory over Turkey. However, this was followed by failure at the tournament itself, held in West Germany, where England were eliminated in the group stage. They finished bottom of their group, succumbing to defeats against the Republic of Ireland, the eventual winners, the Netherlands, and the eventual runners-up, the Soviet Union. Robson was vilified by the British press, and after a draw in a friendly with Saudi Arabia, one newspaper demanded, "In the name of Allah, go." Again Robson submitted his resignation, and again it was rejected by Millichip (again Brian Clough is often cited as a reason).
Robson led England without conceding a goal through the six-match qualification for the 1990 World Cup where they were one of six seeded teams. Again they were placed in a group with the Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland, with Egypt the fourth side. As in the 1986 World Cup, Robson was denied the service of his captain, Bryan Robson, who suffered an achilles tendon injury which prevented him playing in the latter stages of the tournament. England topped their qualifying group, accumulating four points from their three matches. However, their progress was not without controversy. England changed formation from their traditional 4–4–2 to 5–3–2 incorporating a sweeper, with some sources suggesting this was due to player revolt after the 1–1 draw in the first match with the Republic of Ireland. Robson denied this claim:
This was followed by victories over Belgium and Cameroon in the knock-out stages, to set up a semi-final with West Germany. England lost the match on a penalty shoot-out, after the score had been tied at 1–1 following extra time. Robson said afterwards, "[N]ot a day goes by when [he] does not think about the semi-final and other choices [he] might have made." Robson was the second coach, after Alf Ramsey, to take England to a World Cup semi-final, and the first coach to do so on foreign soil, an achievement not equalled until Gareth Southgate's team reached the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup.
Robson's final game in charge of England was the third-place play off against hosts Italy, which England lost 2-1.
Continental management
Before the 1990 World Cup, the FA told Robson it would not renew his contract as England manager, so he moved on to the Netherlands to coach PSV Eindhoven, succeeding manager Guus Hiddink, who had left the team after leading them to the 1987–88 European Cup victory and four consecutive Eredivisie titles. PSV sought a manager capable of instilling discipline into a fractious squad, much as Hiddink had done previously. Robson described the move as "a culture shock" but felt "a sense of adventure". News of Robson's new position in the Netherlands became public before the start of the 1990 World Cup, leading to tabloid stories impugning Robson's patriotism; he sued Today for calling him a traitor.
The Dutch penchant for tactical debate surprised Robson. In an interview with Voetbal International, he lamented, "An English pro accepts the manager's decision. After every match here, the substitutes come and visit me." Another of his challenges at PSV was handling the Brazilian international Romário. Robson became frustrated with the Brazilian's work ethic, although admitted "in some matches he would be scintillating". Robson arranged showdown talks with Romário, with Frank Arnesen, Robson's assistant, acting as a translator. The talks proved unsuccessful, with Romário unwilling to change his lifestyle. Despite this, PSV won the Eredivisie in both the 1990–91 and 1991–92 seasons. However, the team did not make the progress expected by the board in European competitions and Robson was informed he would be leaving the club at the end of the 1991–92 season.
Robson moved to Sporting CP in July 1992, where his Portuguese interpreter was a young José Mourinho, future Porto, Chelsea, Internazionale, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur and Roma manager. Robson guided the club to a third-place finish in his first season in charge while admitting the club was in "a terrible state". He described the club's president as a "loose cannon" who frequently signed players without Robson's consent. Robson was sacked in December 1993 with the club sitting at the top of the league table. Club president Sousa Cintra cited the club's early exit from the UEFA Cup, at the hands of Casino Salzburg, as the reason for his dismissal.
Sporting CP's rivals Porto quickly hired Robson, with Mourinho appointed as his assistant manager. Living in the same apartment block at the time was another future Porto, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur manager, the young André Villas-Boas, who, aged 16, introduced himself to Robson. Robson subsequently appointed Villas-Boas to work in the Porto observation department and helped him gain his UEFA "C" coaching badge in Scotland, despite him technically being ineligible as he was aged 17. Porto were in a poor state when Robson arrived and the average attendance had dwindled to 10,000. The club promptly went on to beat Robson's former club, Sporting CP, in the Taça de Portugal final, following that achievement with successive League titles in the 1994–95 and 1995–96 seasons.
Such was the impact of Robson at Porto, he became known to the locals as "Bobby Five-O" in honour of the number of matches Porto won 5–0, and he signed a new contract with the club in 1995. Suffering from malignant melanoma and missing the first few months of the 1995–96 season, Robson still successfully led Porto in defence of their league title.
A phone call during the summer of 1996 from Barcelona vice-president Joan Gaspart to discuss Luís Figo resulted in an offer of employment with the Spanish club. Robson took over in July 1996, where again his assistant was Mourinho; Robson had made Mourinho's move with him to the Camp Nou a condition of his employment. One of the key decisions Robson made during his brief tenure at Barcelona was the US$19.5 million signing of Ronaldo, who was influential in a season when Barcelona won the Copa del Rey, Supercopa de España and European Cup Winners' Cup. Robson himself was voted European Manager of the Year for 1996–97, while Ronaldo stated, "as a trainer without doubt [Robson] is one of the greatest in the world".
The 1997–98 season saw Robson moved "upstairs" to the general manager position, with Louis van Gaal taking over as manager, but Robson stayed in this position for only one season before returning to manage PSV on a short-term deal for the 1998–99 season. PSV missed out on the league title, finishing third behind Feyenoord and Willem II, but Robson still led the club to victory in the Johan Cruyff Shield and also qualification for the UEFA Champions League on the last day of the season.
Return to England
After Robson's contract expired, he returned to England to take up a position in the Football Association's technical department, but following the resignation of Ruud Gullit at Newcastle United, Robson moved to St James' Park in September 1999. Robson was disappointed with the club's opening salary offer, stating, "[I]t was miles below the going rate," but negotiated a one-year, £1 million deal.
In Robson's first home match in charge, bottom-placed Newcastle faced second bottom Sheffield Wednesday, thrashing them 8–0. In his first season in charge, 1999–2000, Robson led the club to an 11th-place finish, with 14 wins from his 32 matches in charge. In late 2000, following the resignation of ex-Magpies boss Kevin Keegan as England manager, the FA asked Newcastle club chairman Freddy Shepherd to permit Robson to take over in a part-time caretaker capacity, but the request was refused. Robson guided Newcastle from bottom of the Premier League to a fourth-place finish in the 2001–02 season. The following season, Newcastle finished third, ensuring qualification for the UEFA Champions League for the second consecutive year.
However, Robson was unable to guide Newcastle through the Champions League qualifying rounds, and the club was dropped to participate in the UEFA Cup for the 2003–04 season. At the end of the 2003–04 season, Newcastle finished fifth in the table, five points short of the Champions League qualifying fourth place but reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup before losing to Marseille.
Robson held the Newcastle post until 30 August 2004, when he was dismissed by Freddy Shepherd, after a poor start to the Premier League season and alleged discontent in the dressing room. Robson's dismissal followed publication of his off the record observation of his disappointment that only 5,000 fans stayed to see the traditional lap of honour made by the players at St James' Park at the end of the previous season. However, he remains held in the highest esteem by the fans; he was granted the Freedom of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne on 2 March 2005.
Robson's autobiography, entitled Bobby Robson: Farewell but not Goodbye was released in 2005. The title is based on one of his quotes upon leaving the England job in 1990: "I'm here to say goodbye—maybe not goodbye but farewell." In the book, Robson was critical of Shepherd, claiming that while manager he was denied information regarding the players' contracts and transfer negotiations. He also criticised Shepherd and the club's deputy chairman Douglas Hall, for their focus on the first team and St James' Park, causing them to neglect less glamorous issues, such as the training ground, youth development and talent scouts. The club's training ground was later blamed by Graeme Souness, Robson's successor, for a series of injuries to first team players.
Football consultant for Republic of Ireland and retirement
On 7 June 2005, Robson declined the invitation to become director of football of Heart of Midlothian because he wanted to stay in the Newcastle area. On 13 January 2006, Steve Staunton was appointed manager of the Republic of Ireland national team, with Robson named in a support role as "international football consultant". Robson stepped down from his role of consultant on 17 November 2007 following the nation's final match in their unsuccessful qualifying campaign for Euro 2008. Robson was a former vice president of the League Managers Association, a non-executive role.
Life outside football
Personal life
Robson met Elsie Gray on a trip back to his parents' home in Langley Park. Gray was a student nurse, and later a teacher. They were married on 25 June 1955 with Fulham teammate Tom Wilson as Robson's best man.
After 1991, Robson was repeatedly diagnosed as suffering from cancer. He had several operations and in 2006 was operated on for a brain tumour. This, on occasion, affected his work; while at Porto, for example, Robson suffered from malignant melanoma, which resulted in his missing the first few months of the 1995–96 season.
On 17 October 2006, it was revealed that Robson had been given the all-clear and was set to see out his contract as consultant to the Irish team. Robson revealed on 7 May 2007 he had been diagnosed with cancer for the fifth time. On 17 May 2008, Robson was the guest of honour at the 2008 FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium when Portsmouth defeated Cardiff City 1–0. He presented the trophy to the victorious captain, Sol Campbell.
Other activities
Robson made a number of product endorsements, including an appearance in Carlsberg's "Best Pub Side" television commercial. He also acted as a pundit for ITV during the 2002 World Cup and Euro 2004.
Bobby Robson Foundation
Robson defeated bowel cancer in 1992, a malignant melanoma in 1995, and a tumour in his right lung and a brain tumour, both in 2006. Treatment of these conditions had left him partially paralysed due to a stroke caused by the brain tumour, and also with a partially prosthetic upper jaw after the melanoma was surgically removed. His fifth diagnosis of cancer in 2007, consisting of cancerous nodules in both lungs, was diagnosed as terminal in February 2007, and as of December 2008, was being controlled through bouts of chemotherapy. After these experiences, and following his fifth diagnosis with cancer, Robson devoted the remaining years of his life to helping fight the disease. On 25 March 2008, he launched the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation. The Foundation raised over £1 million, which funded equipment for the Sir Bobby Robson Cancer Trials Research Centre, in the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne, and would go on to fund other cancer projects in the North East of England.
In aid of the Foundation, Robson's 1990 World Cup semi-final 4–3 loss after penalties against West Germany was replayed on 26 July 2009 as the Sir Bobby Robson Trophy match at St James' Park, featuring players from the original 1990 World Cup squads and other special guests. Robson was given a guard of honour before the match, which finished 3–2 to the England side.
At the time of Robson's death, the Foundation had raised £1.6 million. Donations totalling £156,000 were received by the Foundation in the 18 days following his death, and on 15 October 2009, it was announced the Foundation had raised over £2 million, and that at the request of Robson's family, Alan Shearer would take over Robson's role as the Foundation's patron. It passed the £2.5 million mark in September 2010. Three other patrons were added in 2010, Steve Gibson, Mick Mills and Niall Quinn.
Death
On 31 July 2009, Robson died of lung cancer at his home in County Durham, aged 76, after a long battle with the disease. After the news of his death, leading figures from the world of football and politics paid tribute to him. Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson called him a "great friend, a wonderful individual and tremendous football man". UEFA president Michel Platini said, "He will be remembered not only for his playing career and his outstanding managerial career at both club and international level, but also because he was a truly warm and passionate human being." Gary Lineker said, "It is a sad day and a great loss. He was a wonderful man and will be deeply missed by everybody in the country. I never played for a more enthusiastic man. He gave so much to the game." Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair described Robson as a "real Geordie gentleman". According to the then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Robson "epitomised everything that is great about football in this country". His friend, the broadcaster Michael Parkinson, said, "Robson will be remembered long after the present lot are old bones. By his decency, his humour, his love of the game's traditions and origins and confusion at what it had become, he made present day football look what it is – shabby by comparison. I can think of no more fitting epitaph."
Robson's funeral, a private family ceremony, took place on 5 August 2009. The location remained undisclosed at the request of his family until the funeral had taken place. It was later revealed to be Esh, County Durham. A thanksgiving service for Robson was held on 21 September 2009 at Durham Cathedral. One thousand invited guests attended the service, which was also broadcast live on national television, and to Newcastle United's St James' Park, Ipswich Town's Portman Road ground and Fulham's Craven Cottage.
Robson was survived by his wife and their three sons: Andrew, Paul and Mark.
Achievements
Robson was awarded a number of honours for his contributions to football. In 1990, at the end of his eight-year reign as England manager, he was appointed a CBE in 1991 and in 2002, he was knighted; both awards were for services to football.
In 2002 (during his time as Newcastle manager), the 69-year-old Robson was awarded the freedom of Newcastle upon Tyne and the UEFA President's Award for "services to football". He was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2003 in recognition of his impact as a manager. Following his time as Newcastle United manager in 2005, Robson was made an Honorary Freeman of Newcastle, which, in his autobiography, he described as being "the proudest moment of my life". Robson also won the 1992 Football Writers' Association Tribute Award for an outstanding contribution to the national game, and the 2001 British Sports Writers' Association Pat Besford Trophy for Outstanding Achievement. In 2005, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Sports Coach UK Awards, and was also awarded the Eircom International Personality of the Year in 2006. On 9 December 2007, Robson was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year show in recognition of "his contribution as both player and manager in a career spanning more than half a century".
On 5 May 2008, during the 30th anniversary celebrations of Ipswich Town's 1978 FA Cup win, Robson was granted the Freedom of Ipswich by the Lady Mayor. On 8 December 2008, he earned another such accolade when he was given the Freedom of the City of Durham. In March 2009, UEFA awarded Robson the Emerald UEFA Order of Merit award, awarded to "individuals who have dedicated their talents to the good of the game". The award was presented to Robson at St James' Park on 26 July 2009, prior to the Sir Bobby Robson Trophy match, and just five days before his death.
Posthumous honours
In December 2009, Robson was posthumously awarded the FIFA Fair Play Award, for the "gentlemanly qualities he showed throughout his career as a player and coach". All English football league matches held a one minute's applause in his memory at the beginning of the 2009–10 season.
The Football League gave Newcastle United and Ipswich Town special dispensation to wear special commemorative kits for their Championship match on 26 September 2009 at Portman Road, in aid of Sir Bobby's Foundation. At half-time during this match, the North Stand of Portman Road was renamed the Sir Bobby Robson Stand.
The first anniversary of Robson's death on 31 July 2010 was marked with a ceremony and pre-season friendly match at Newcastle's St James' Park, between two of his former clubs Newcastle United and PSV Eindhoven, involving Robson's PSV captain Stan Valckx presenting a PSV shirt to the club.
In July 2010, plans were unveiled for a memorial garden to Robson to be built in Newcastle. It was to be created by the city council in partnership with the regeneration company NE1Ltd, and located on Gallowgate street close to the Newcastle United stadium St James' Park. Work began on the site in November 2010, which was completed by Spring 2011. The garden covers 400 square meters, and features a tiered seating area and sculpted stone plinths reflecting aspects of his life and work. The area also hosts 400 square metre memorial garden to Sir Bobby Robson.
With a keen interest in cricket as well as football, Robson was to have replaced Mike Gatting as president of the Lord's Taverners charity and cricket club in 2007, but this was prevented by his ill-health. After his death, the club held a dinner in his honour, as "The best President we never had".
In March 2011, the East Coast train operating company named one of its Class 91 electric locomotives Sir Bobby Robson, unveiled at Newcastle station by his widow Elsie and Alan Shearer. Similarly, in December 2011, the Port of Tyne Authority named its new work boat the Sir Bobby Robson. On 6 May 2012, a statue of Robson created by sculptor Tom Maley was unveiled at St James' Park before a 2–0 defeat to eventual champions Manchester City. On 16 July 2013, marking the 150th anniversary celebrations of the FA, the FA designated 10 August as the Sir Bobby Robson National Football Day, celebrated as a day to celebrate the national game. In 2018, Bobby Robson: More Than A Manager, a feature-length British film about Robson's career and cancer diagnosis, was released to critical acclaim.
In September 2020 the Sir Bobby Robson School opened in Ipswich. The school will serve children aged 8–16 with social, emotional and mental health needs.
Career statistics
Club
International
Scores and results list England's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Robson goal.
Managerial statistics
Honours
Manager
Ipswich Town
UEFA Cup: 1980–81
FA Cup: 1977–78
National Fives Tournament: 1977
Texaco Cup: 1972–73
PSV Eindhoven
Eredivisie: 1990–91, 1991–92
Johan Cruyff Shield: 1998
Porto
Primeira Divisão: 1994–95, 1995–96
Taça de Portugal: 1993–94
Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira: 1993, 1994
Barcelona
Copa del Rey: 1996–97
Supercopa de España: 1996
European Cup Winners' Cup: 1996–97
Individual
FWA Tribute Award: 1992
European Manager of the Year: 1996–97
Premier League Manager of the Month: February 2000, August 2000, December 2001, February 2002, January 2003, October 2003
UEFA President's Award: 2002
English Football Hall of Fame Inductee: 2003
PFA Merit Award: 2003
FAI International Football Awards – International Personality: 2006
BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award: 2007
FIFA Fair Play Award: 2009
FIFA Order of Merit: 2009
UEFA Order of Merit: 2009
Ipswich Town Hall of Fame: Inductee 2009
See also
List of longest managerial reigns in association football
Bibliography
References
Sources
(Career statistics)
Further reading
External links
The Sir Bobby Robson Foundation
1933 births
2009 deaths
1986 FIFA World Cup managers
1990 FIFA World Cup managers
1958 FIFA World Cup players
1962 FIFA World Cup players
Deaths from cancer in England
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Deaths from lung cancer
English expatriate footballers
English expatriate sportspeople in Canada
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
English football managers
English expatriate football managers
English footballers
England international footballers
England national football team managers
Eredivisie managers
Expatriate soccer players in Canada
Expatriate football managers in the Netherlands
Expatriate football managers in Portugal
Expatriate football managers in Spain
FC Barcelona managers
FC Porto managers
Association football people awarded knighthoods
Fulham F.C. players
Fulham F.C. managers
Ipswich Town F.C. managers
Knights Bachelor
La Liga managers
Newcastle United F.C. managers
People from Sacriston
Primeira Liga managers
English Football League managers
Premier League managers
PSV Eindhoven managers
Sporting CP managers
UEFA Cup winning managers
UEFA Euro 1988 managers
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People from Langley Park, County Durham | true | [
"The Labour Day Classic (, branded as Mark's Labour Day Weekend for sponsorship reasons) is a week of the Canadian Football League (CFL) schedule played over the Labour Day weekend (which includes the first Monday in September). Labour Day weekend, roughly 12 or 13 weeks into the CFL season, is known for its matchups that do not change from year to year, unlike other \"rivalry\" weeks of the CFL schedule. Labour Day weekend is also one of typically two weeks (the Thanksgiving Day Classic being the other) in the CFL schedule that the league plays on a Monday. Mark's is the presenting sponsor of the event as of 2014.\n\nThe current weekend matchups involve the Winnipeg Blue Bombers visiting the Saskatchewan Roughriders on the Sunday and on Labour Day itself, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats play at home against the Toronto Argonauts, while the Edmonton Elks visit the Calgary Stampeders. The Montreal Alouettes would normally play against the Ottawa Redblacks on the Thursday or Friday, but after both teams were given a bye week in 2019, the rivalry would be further diminished in 2020 with a scheduled Ottawa vs BC Lions matchup on the weekend. The BC Lions have no geographic rival and would typically have a bye on Labour Day.\n\nHistory\nThe Labour Day Classic began in 1949 and pre-dates the founding of the CFL by nine years. The matchups have remained mostly the same throughout history, except during Montreal and Ottawa's periods of hiatus or due to scheduling conflicts.\n\nDuring the early 1980s, the Montreal Concordes played the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and the remaining three teams (Toronto, Ottawa and BC) rotated each year. Ottawa and BC faced each other during the late 1980s and early 1990s while the league had no team in Montreal.\n\nBecause Ottawa had no active team from 1997–2001 and 2006–2013, the Alouettes usually played the Lions during those seasons, creating a \"coast-to-coast\" rivalry.\n\nDue to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, the entire 2020 CFL season was cancelled and therefore no Labour Day weekend games were played for the first time in CFL history.\n\nHamilton \nDue to scheduling conflicts, the Tiger-Cats temporarily revived its rivalry with the current incarnation of the Alouettes in the Labour Day game for the 2011 season; the change in opponents led Hamilton to dub the game the Labour Day Classique in reference to Montreal's francophone community. While in 2011, this automatically resulted in Toronto and BC facing each other.\n\nIn 2013, the Tiger-Cats' did not host a game on Labour Day for only the second time in franchise history (the first being 1995). It was also the first time that they did not host a game on that weekend. Because Ivor Wynne Stadium was demolished to make way for the new Tim Hortons Field, the team played out of Alumni Stadium in Guelph. The University of Guelph Gryphons (along with most Ontario University Athletics teams) were playing that same day, so the Tiger-Cats could not host the game. To make up for it, the Toronto at Hamilton matchup was played in the Thanksgiving Day Classic.\n\nFor the 2016 contest, to avoid any further conflicts with OUA games, the CFL moved the Toronto/Hamilton matchup to prime time Labour Day evening. That year, the OUA's McMaster Marauders football team moved its Labour Day matchup with the Toronto Varsity Blues football squad to Tim Hortons Field, creating a doubleheader with a series of concerts in-between games. This was moved back to a 1pm start in 2019.\n\nRelated events \nAlthough not directly associated with the Labour Day Classic, the week after Labour Day often has a repeat match-up of the Bombers vs Roughriders (see Banjo Bowl), Stampeders vs Eskimos (see Battle of Alberta), and Tiger-Cats vs Argonauts (a rivalry which began in 1873), with home field advantage now to the team that did not have it during the Labour Day weekend.\n\nAs the league has been increasing in popularity in recent years, print ads for the Labour Day Classic try to evoke the tradition of watching Canadian football on the last weekend of summer. Slogans include \"Long Live the Rivalries\" and \"Watch the Team You Love Play the Team You Love to Hate\". Some of the teams wear special third jerseys or throwback uniforms if they play at home.\n\nCurrent matchups\n\nEdmonton vs Calgary\n\nLongest Winning Streak (Edmonton): 7 (1950-1961)\nLongest Winning Streak (Stampeders): 8 (2012-2019)\n\nDid not play in the following years: 1954–1958, 1964–1968, 1973, 1981, 2020\n\nWinnipeg vs Saskatchewan\nIn the week following the Winnipeg vs Saskatchewan Labour Day Classic matchup, the two teams rematch annually in the Banjo Bowl.\n\nLongest winning streak (Roughriders): 11 (2005–2015)\nLongest winning streak (Blue Bombers): 4 (1978–1982)\n\nDid not play the following years: 1955–1960, 1964–1969, 1971, 1973, 1976, 1981, 2020\n\nToronto vs Hamilton\nThe Toronto—Hamilton Classic is one of the components of the Harold Ballard Trophy, an award given to the winner of the season series between the Tiger-Cats and Argonauts. The trophy is named after Harold Ballard, who owned the Tiger-Cats for much of the 1980s and owned Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment for most of that time. A trophy has been awarded to the winner of the series since 1979.\n\nThe Toronto—Hamilton contest is officially known as Football Day in Hamilton and has its own presenting sponsor, WeatherTech Canada. Since the opening of Tim Hortons Field, Football Day in Hamilton has consisted of a Tiger-Cats game as well as a concert and either a McMaster Marauders football or a Hamilton Hurricanes (CJFL) matinée.\n\nLongest Winning Streak (Tiger-Cats): 7 (2014-2021)\nLongest Winning Streak (Argonauts): 3 (1994-1997, 2006-2008)\n\nDid not play the following years: 1962, 1965–1966, 1969–1970, 1972–1974, 1976–1977, 1979, 1981–1986, 1990, 1995, 2011, 2013, 2020\n\nOttawa vs Montreal\n\nLongest Winning Streak (Ottawa): 8 (1961-2003)\nLongest Winning Streak (Montreal): 7 (1954-1960)\n\nDid not play in following years: 1950–1951, 1962, 1964–1966, 1968–1970, 1972–1974, 1976–1977, 1979–1986, 2002, 2015, 2019, 2020\nNotes\nNo Montreal team 1987–1995\nNo Ottawa team 1997–2001, 2006–2013\n\nOther matchups\n\nBC vs Montreal\n\nBC vs Ottawa\n\nMontreal vs Hamilton\nHamilton has played and hosted the Labour Day Classic against Montreal (aka Labour Day Classique) nine times in CFL history. According to a Hamilton Spectator article, 2011 marked 25 years since Montreal had battled Hamilton in this Classic at home. In previous years, Montreal has played as either the Alouettes or Concordes. The Classique has been a notoriously one-sided rivalry; Hamilton is undefeated in the Labour Day series, and Montreal is winless, with their best result being a tie in the first Classique in 1962.\n\nReferences\n\nCanadian Football League\nCanadian football in Alberta\nCanadian football in Ontario\nCanadian football in Saskatchewan\nRecurring sporting events established in 1949\nSeptember events\nSport in Calgary\nSport in Hamilton, Ontario\nSport in Regina, Saskatchewan\nSports rivalries in Canada\n1949 establishments in Canada",
"Joseph Michaels was an American soccer player. He made three appearances for United States men's national soccer team between 1937 and 1947.\n\nMichaels first played for the national team in a 7-3 loss to Mexico on September 19, 1937. His second game was another blowout loss, 5-1, to Mexico six days later. The U.S. did not play an international game for nearly ten years. In 1947, Michaels club team, Ponta Delgada S.C. won both the National Challenge Cup and National Amateur Cup. Based on these result, the U.S. Soccer Federation selected Ponta Delgada to represent the United States at the 1947 NAFC Championship. Consequently, Michaels played in the July 20, 1947, 5-2 loss to Cuba. This gave Michaels the U.S. record for the longest gap between national team games, nine years, nine months and twenty-four days.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nJoseph Michaels' profile at worldfootball.net\n\nAmerican soccer players\nUnited States men's international soccer players\nPonta Delgada S.C. players\nYear of birth missing\nYear of death missing\n\nAssociation footballers not categorized by position"
] |
[
"Bobby Robson",
"International playing career",
"Where did Robson play internationally?",
"Robson participated in two ambassadorial Football Association tours in the West Indies in 1955 and South Africa in 1956.",
"Where else did he play after 1956?",
"his debut in a November 1957 victory against France,",
"Who was he playing for in 1957?",
"the England national team,",
"Which team did he play for longest?",
"England"
] | C_f615186a82b8421aacb4ca18fca24b42_0 | What did he do after playing for England? | 5 | What did Robson do after playing for England? | Bobby Robson | During his first spell at Fulham, Robson participated in two ambassadorial Football Association tours in the West Indies in 1955 and South Africa in 1956. However, it was during his time at West Bromwich Albion that he graduated to the full England squad, with his first call-up in 1956. His manager, Vic Buckingham, advocated the "push and run" approach to the game, a precursor to "total football", and playing this, Robson graduated to the full England squad in 1956, It was also at West Brom when Robson met future England international and assistant coach Don Howe. Robson went on to make 20 appearances for the England national team, making his debut in a November 1957 victory against France, scoring twice in a 4-0 victory. Although he made a successful debut, he was dropped for England's next match, against Scotland, in favour of Bobby Charlton. However, Robson was selected for the 1958 FIFA World Cup squad, ahead of Nat Lofthouse and Stanley Matthews, but returned from host nation Sweden disappointed after England were defeated by the Soviet Union in a group play-off match. Following the World Cup, Robson became an established member of the England squad, enjoying considerable success in a period between October 1960 and March 1961 when he played in six England victories, including scoring a goal in the record 9-3 defeat of Scotland at Wembley Stadium. He was selected for the 1962 World Cup finals in Chile, but an injury to his ankle sustained in a pre-tournament friendly against a Chilean club side ruled him out of most of the tournament. As Robson recalled, "I never played for England again... my international career was unfulfilled." His place in the England team was taken by Bobby Moore. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Sir Robert William Robson (18 February 1933 – 31 July 2009) was an English footballer and football manager. His career included periods playing for and later managing the England national team and being a UEFA Cup-winning manager at Ipswich Town.
Robson's professional playing career as an inside forward spanned nearly 20 years, during which he played for three clubs: Fulham, West Bromwich Albion, and, briefly, Vancouver Royals. He also made 20 appearances for England, scoring four goals. After his playing career, he found success as both a club and international manager, winning league championships in both the Netherlands and Portugal, earning trophies in England and Spain, and taking England to the semi-finals of the 1990 FIFA World Cup, which remained the national team's best run in a World Cup since 1966 until they reached the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup. His last management role was as a mentor to the manager of the Republic of Ireland national team, while his final official club job was at boyhood club Newcastle United, whom he left in 2004. He held several managerial positions outside of England, most notably one year at Barcelona in 1996–97, as well as stints at PSV, Sporting CP and Porto.
Robson was created a Knight Bachelor in 2002, was inducted as a member of the English Football Hall of Fame in 2003, and was the honorary president of Ipswich Town F.C. From 1991 onwards, he suffered recurrent medical problems with cancer, and in March 2008, put his name and efforts into the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation, a cancer research charity which has so far raised over £12 million (March 2018). In August 2008, his lung cancer was confirmed to be terminal; he said, "My condition is described as static and has not altered since my last bout of chemotherapy... I am going to die sooner rather than later. But then everyone has to go sometime and I have enjoyed every minute." He died just under a year later.
Early life
Bobby Robson was born in Sacriston, County Durham, the fourth of five sons of Philip and Lilian Robson (née Watt). When he was a few months old, Robson's family moved to the nearby village of Langley Park where his father was a coal miner. Their two-bedroom house had no bath and an outside toilet. As a boy, he was often taken by his father to watch Newcastle United play at St James' Park on Saturday afternoons, requiring a 34-mile round trip. Robson described Jackie Milburn and Len Shackleton as his childhood heroes. Both played for Newcastle in the inside-forward position, the position Robson would later assume during his playing career.
Robson attended Langley Park primary school and then Waterhouses secondary modern school, after failing his eleven-plus but the headmaster did not allow the school football team to join a league. Instead, he began to play for Langley Park Juniors on Saturday mornings at age 11, and by the time he was 15, he was representing the club at under-18 level. Robson played football whenever he possibly could but left school aged 15 to start work as an electrician's apprentice for the National Coal Board in the Langley Park colliery. In May 1950, Bill Dodgin, the manager of Fulham, made a personal visit to the Robson household to offer Bobby a professional contract. Despite being offered a contract by nearby Middlesbrough, the offer made by Dodgin was too attractive to turn down, so he signed for Fulham and moved to London, playing as a wing half and inside forward. Robson had also interested his beloved Newcastle, but he opted to join Fulham as, in his opinion, "Newcastle made no appreciable effort to secure [my] signature." He also thought he stood a better chance of breaking into the first team at Fulham. Robson suffered from partial deafness in one ear, which rendered him ineligible to be called up for national service.
Playing career
Club playing career
Although Robson had signed professionally, his father insisted he continue to work as an electrician. He spent the day working at the Festival of Britain site and trained three nights a week at Fulham. Eventually, this took its toll on Robson and he gave up his trade for full-time professional football.
In 1950, Robson made his first-team debut for Fulham, recently promoted to the First Division, in a match against Sheffield Wednesday. He came to regard Fulham as "a nice club, a social club...", but "never... a serious, championship-challenging club". Indeed, he and Fulham were relegated from the top-flight in the 1951–52 season, but he made his return to the First Division, four years later, when he signed for Vic Buckingham's West Bromwich Albion in March 1956. The transfer fee of £25,000 was a club record for West Brom at the time.
He made his West Brom debut in a 4–0 home defeat to Manchester City on 10 March 1956. In 1957–58, he was the club's top league goalscorer; his tally of 24 goals included four in a 5–1 win against Burnley. Often playing as a midfielder, he went on to play 257 matches and score 61 goals for West Brom, and he captained the team for the 1960–61 and 1961–62 seasons. However, in August 1962, he returned to Fulham after a disagreement with West Brom vice-chairman Jim Gaunt over his salary. The ongoing dispute over both minimum and maximum wages in the game, instigated by Robson's teammate Jimmy Hill and the Professional Footballers' Association, combined with the birth of Robson's second son, prompted Robson to demand a higher salary. Gaunt refused to negotiate Robson's contract, so Robson placed a transfer request and was sold to Fulham for £20,000 in a deal which doubled his salary. Soon after Robson joined Fulham, the club sold Alan Mullery and Rodney Marsh, meaning Robson's chances of securing any significant honour there were substantially reduced. Robson himself stated, "In all my time as a footballer, I didn't win a thing."
Despite press reports of interest from Arsenal, and the offer of a player-manager role by Southend United, Robson left Fulham in 1967 and accepted a three-year deal with Canada's Vancouver Royals. He was to be player-manager in their inaugural 1968 season in the North American Soccer League (NASL) and believed it "was a chance too good to miss". He began scouting and holding tryout camps for the new team in the Fall of 1967. The position proved difficult; a long-distance joint-ownership agreement gave the Hungarian footballer Ferenc Puskás control over the San Francisco section of the squad, while Robson took care of the Vancouver squad. Robson was dissatisfied by this situation and when, in January 1968, Fulham offered him a contract as their manager, he accepted the position at Craven Cottage.
International playing career
During his first spell at Fulham, Robson participated in two ambassadorial Football Association tours in the West Indies in 1955 and South Africa in 1956. However, it was during his time at West Bromwich Albion that he graduated to the full England squad, with his first call-up in 1956. His manager, Vic Buckingham, advocated the "push and run" approach to the game, a precursor to "total football", and playing this, Robson graduated to the full England squad in 1956, It was also at West Brom when Robson met future England international and assistant coach Don Howe.
Robson went on to make 20 appearances for the England national team, making his debut in a November 1957 victory against France, scoring twice in a 4–0 victory. Although he made a successful debut, he was dropped for England's next match, against Scotland, in favour of Bobby Charlton. However, Robson was selected for the 1958 FIFA World Cup squad, ahead of Nat Lofthouse and Stanley Matthews, but returned from host nation Sweden disappointed after England were defeated by the Soviet Union in a group play-off match.
Following the World Cup, Robson became an established member of the England squad, enjoying considerable success in a period between October 1960 and March 1961 when he played in six England victories, including scoring a goal in the record 9–3 defeat of Scotland at Wembley Stadium. He was selected for the 1962 World Cup finals in Chile, but an injury to his ankle sustained in a pre-tournament friendly against a Chilean club side ruled him out of most of the tournament. As Robson recalled, "I never played for England again... my international career was unfulfilled." His place in the England team was taken by Bobby Moore.
Managerial career
Early club management
In 1959, the then England manager and the Football Association (FA) director of coaching, Walter Winterbottom, suggested to Robson that he take a coaching course at Lilleshall. He obtained coaching qualifications during his second spell at Fulham, and coached Oxford University A.F.C. Robson made his debut as a manager in January 1968 at his former club Fulham, against Macclesfield Town, then in the Cheshire County League, in the third round of the FA Cup. Fulham were struggling with 16 points from 24 matches. Despite the acquisition of the young Malcolm Macdonald, Robson could not save the club from relegation to the Second Division, and he left them in November with the club sitting eighth in the Second Division. He discovered he had been sacked not from the club itself, but from the headline "Robson sacked" on an Evening Standard placard outside Putney station.
He moved on to Ipswich Town in 1969 and it was there that he established his reputation as a successful manager, supported by the club chairman John Cobbold and then later by his brother Patrick Cobbold. He won the vacant job at the Suffolk club after a chance encounter with Town director Murray Sangster while scouting at Portman Road for Chelsea manager Dave Sexton. After four mediocre seasons, Robson led Ipswich to fourth place in the First Division and success in the Texaco Cup in the 1972–73 season. In the following nine seasons, Ipswich finished lower than sixth place in the First Division only once, in the 1977–78 season. However, that season was a success with a 1–0 victory over Arsenal in the FA Cup final. His reign at Ipswich lasted 13 years, during which time the club twice finished as League runners-up, and made regular appearances in European competitions, capturing the UEFA Cup in 1981 with a 5–4 aggregate victory over Dutch side AZ 67 Alkmaar. About that team, Robson said: "We played with two strikers, no wingers, Eric Gates sitting off the front two, two semi-wide midfield players in Arnold Muhren and Frans Thijssen and Johnny Wark sitting in the holding role". During his 13-year tenure, he brought in only 14 players from other clubs, most notably Allan Hunter, Bryan Hamilton and Paul Mariner, relying instead on players developed through Ipswich's youth programmes, including Terry Butcher, George Burley, John Wark, Mick Mills, Colin Viljoen, Alan Brazil, Trevor Whymark, Brian Talbot, Kevin Beattie and Eric Gates, who all went on to play international football. His imports included Dutch players Frans Thijssen and Arnold Mühren. Robson was not a tactical genius but he showed a talent for developing new players, with his good interpersonal skills, caring attitude, hard work and enthusiasm helping them to achieve their best.
In 2002, in recognition of his achievements with the club, a life-size statue of Robson was unveiled opposite the Cobbold Stand of Ipswich Town's ground, Portman Road. On 7 July 2006, Robson was named as honorary president of Ipswich Town Football Club, the first since Lady Blanche Cobbold who had died in 1987.
England manager
Robson's achievements with Ipswich earned him a job offer from the Football Association for the position of national coach, and he declined an offer of a ten-year contract extension and increased salary from Ipswich director Patrick Cobbold. On 7 July 1982, two days after England were knocked out of the 1982 World Cup, he succeeded Ron Greenwood as coach of the England national team, selecting former West Bromwich Albion teammate Don Howe as his chief coach.
Robson's first match in charge saw immediate controversy, as he dropped Kevin Keegan for the match against Denmark. On 21 September 1983, Robson suffered his only loss in the 28 qualifying matches he was to undertake as England manager. The defeat, again to Denmark, ultimately led to England's failure to qualify for the 1984 European Championships and resulted in Robson offering to resign in favour of Brian Clough. The resignation was rejected by FA chairman Bert Millichip (primarily down to his and the FA's disdain for Clough), and Robson went on to lead the England team to qualify for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.
England began the competition poorly and captain Bryan Robson was injured with a recurrence of a dislocated shoulder. Bobby Robson changed the team's tactics for the final match of the first round, selecting Peter Beardsley ahead of Mark Hateley as a striking partner for Gary Lineker. The team won its next two matches, against Poland and Paraguay, 3–0, and qualified for the quarter-finals. England were defeated in the last eight by Argentina with a brace of goals from Diego Maradona, the infamous "Hand of God" goal and the "Goal of the Century" he scored five minutes later. Robson was unimpressed by Maradona's claim of divine intervention:
Robson's England dropped only one point in qualifying for Euro 1988, which included an 8–0 victory over Turkey. However, this was followed by failure at the tournament itself, held in West Germany, where England were eliminated in the group stage. They finished bottom of their group, succumbing to defeats against the Republic of Ireland, the eventual winners, the Netherlands, and the eventual runners-up, the Soviet Union. Robson was vilified by the British press, and after a draw in a friendly with Saudi Arabia, one newspaper demanded, "In the name of Allah, go." Again Robson submitted his resignation, and again it was rejected by Millichip (again Brian Clough is often cited as a reason).
Robson led England without conceding a goal through the six-match qualification for the 1990 World Cup where they were one of six seeded teams. Again they were placed in a group with the Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland, with Egypt the fourth side. As in the 1986 World Cup, Robson was denied the service of his captain, Bryan Robson, who suffered an achilles tendon injury which prevented him playing in the latter stages of the tournament. England topped their qualifying group, accumulating four points from their three matches. However, their progress was not without controversy. England changed formation from their traditional 4–4–2 to 5–3–2 incorporating a sweeper, with some sources suggesting this was due to player revolt after the 1–1 draw in the first match with the Republic of Ireland. Robson denied this claim:
This was followed by victories over Belgium and Cameroon in the knock-out stages, to set up a semi-final with West Germany. England lost the match on a penalty shoot-out, after the score had been tied at 1–1 following extra time. Robson said afterwards, "[N]ot a day goes by when [he] does not think about the semi-final and other choices [he] might have made." Robson was the second coach, after Alf Ramsey, to take England to a World Cup semi-final, and the first coach to do so on foreign soil, an achievement not equalled until Gareth Southgate's team reached the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup.
Robson's final game in charge of England was the third-place play off against hosts Italy, which England lost 2-1.
Continental management
Before the 1990 World Cup, the FA told Robson it would not renew his contract as England manager, so he moved on to the Netherlands to coach PSV Eindhoven, succeeding manager Guus Hiddink, who had left the team after leading them to the 1987–88 European Cup victory and four consecutive Eredivisie titles. PSV sought a manager capable of instilling discipline into a fractious squad, much as Hiddink had done previously. Robson described the move as "a culture shock" but felt "a sense of adventure". News of Robson's new position in the Netherlands became public before the start of the 1990 World Cup, leading to tabloid stories impugning Robson's patriotism; he sued Today for calling him a traitor.
The Dutch penchant for tactical debate surprised Robson. In an interview with Voetbal International, he lamented, "An English pro accepts the manager's decision. After every match here, the substitutes come and visit me." Another of his challenges at PSV was handling the Brazilian international Romário. Robson became frustrated with the Brazilian's work ethic, although admitted "in some matches he would be scintillating". Robson arranged showdown talks with Romário, with Frank Arnesen, Robson's assistant, acting as a translator. The talks proved unsuccessful, with Romário unwilling to change his lifestyle. Despite this, PSV won the Eredivisie in both the 1990–91 and 1991–92 seasons. However, the team did not make the progress expected by the board in European competitions and Robson was informed he would be leaving the club at the end of the 1991–92 season.
Robson moved to Sporting CP in July 1992, where his Portuguese interpreter was a young José Mourinho, future Porto, Chelsea, Internazionale, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur and Roma manager. Robson guided the club to a third-place finish in his first season in charge while admitting the club was in "a terrible state". He described the club's president as a "loose cannon" who frequently signed players without Robson's consent. Robson was sacked in December 1993 with the club sitting at the top of the league table. Club president Sousa Cintra cited the club's early exit from the UEFA Cup, at the hands of Casino Salzburg, as the reason for his dismissal.
Sporting CP's rivals Porto quickly hired Robson, with Mourinho appointed as his assistant manager. Living in the same apartment block at the time was another future Porto, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur manager, the young André Villas-Boas, who, aged 16, introduced himself to Robson. Robson subsequently appointed Villas-Boas to work in the Porto observation department and helped him gain his UEFA "C" coaching badge in Scotland, despite him technically being ineligible as he was aged 17. Porto were in a poor state when Robson arrived and the average attendance had dwindled to 10,000. The club promptly went on to beat Robson's former club, Sporting CP, in the Taça de Portugal final, following that achievement with successive League titles in the 1994–95 and 1995–96 seasons.
Such was the impact of Robson at Porto, he became known to the locals as "Bobby Five-O" in honour of the number of matches Porto won 5–0, and he signed a new contract with the club in 1995. Suffering from malignant melanoma and missing the first few months of the 1995–96 season, Robson still successfully led Porto in defence of their league title.
A phone call during the summer of 1996 from Barcelona vice-president Joan Gaspart to discuss Luís Figo resulted in an offer of employment with the Spanish club. Robson took over in July 1996, where again his assistant was Mourinho; Robson had made Mourinho's move with him to the Camp Nou a condition of his employment. One of the key decisions Robson made during his brief tenure at Barcelona was the US$19.5 million signing of Ronaldo, who was influential in a season when Barcelona won the Copa del Rey, Supercopa de España and European Cup Winners' Cup. Robson himself was voted European Manager of the Year for 1996–97, while Ronaldo stated, "as a trainer without doubt [Robson] is one of the greatest in the world".
The 1997–98 season saw Robson moved "upstairs" to the general manager position, with Louis van Gaal taking over as manager, but Robson stayed in this position for only one season before returning to manage PSV on a short-term deal for the 1998–99 season. PSV missed out on the league title, finishing third behind Feyenoord and Willem II, but Robson still led the club to victory in the Johan Cruyff Shield and also qualification for the UEFA Champions League on the last day of the season.
Return to England
After Robson's contract expired, he returned to England to take up a position in the Football Association's technical department, but following the resignation of Ruud Gullit at Newcastle United, Robson moved to St James' Park in September 1999. Robson was disappointed with the club's opening salary offer, stating, "[I]t was miles below the going rate," but negotiated a one-year, £1 million deal.
In Robson's first home match in charge, bottom-placed Newcastle faced second bottom Sheffield Wednesday, thrashing them 8–0. In his first season in charge, 1999–2000, Robson led the club to an 11th-place finish, with 14 wins from his 32 matches in charge. In late 2000, following the resignation of ex-Magpies boss Kevin Keegan as England manager, the FA asked Newcastle club chairman Freddy Shepherd to permit Robson to take over in a part-time caretaker capacity, but the request was refused. Robson guided Newcastle from bottom of the Premier League to a fourth-place finish in the 2001–02 season. The following season, Newcastle finished third, ensuring qualification for the UEFA Champions League for the second consecutive year.
However, Robson was unable to guide Newcastle through the Champions League qualifying rounds, and the club was dropped to participate in the UEFA Cup for the 2003–04 season. At the end of the 2003–04 season, Newcastle finished fifth in the table, five points short of the Champions League qualifying fourth place but reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup before losing to Marseille.
Robson held the Newcastle post until 30 August 2004, when he was dismissed by Freddy Shepherd, after a poor start to the Premier League season and alleged discontent in the dressing room. Robson's dismissal followed publication of his off the record observation of his disappointment that only 5,000 fans stayed to see the traditional lap of honour made by the players at St James' Park at the end of the previous season. However, he remains held in the highest esteem by the fans; he was granted the Freedom of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne on 2 March 2005.
Robson's autobiography, entitled Bobby Robson: Farewell but not Goodbye was released in 2005. The title is based on one of his quotes upon leaving the England job in 1990: "I'm here to say goodbye—maybe not goodbye but farewell." In the book, Robson was critical of Shepherd, claiming that while manager he was denied information regarding the players' contracts and transfer negotiations. He also criticised Shepherd and the club's deputy chairman Douglas Hall, for their focus on the first team and St James' Park, causing them to neglect less glamorous issues, such as the training ground, youth development and talent scouts. The club's training ground was later blamed by Graeme Souness, Robson's successor, for a series of injuries to first team players.
Football consultant for Republic of Ireland and retirement
On 7 June 2005, Robson declined the invitation to become director of football of Heart of Midlothian because he wanted to stay in the Newcastle area. On 13 January 2006, Steve Staunton was appointed manager of the Republic of Ireland national team, with Robson named in a support role as "international football consultant". Robson stepped down from his role of consultant on 17 November 2007 following the nation's final match in their unsuccessful qualifying campaign for Euro 2008. Robson was a former vice president of the League Managers Association, a non-executive role.
Life outside football
Personal life
Robson met Elsie Gray on a trip back to his parents' home in Langley Park. Gray was a student nurse, and later a teacher. They were married on 25 June 1955 with Fulham teammate Tom Wilson as Robson's best man.
After 1991, Robson was repeatedly diagnosed as suffering from cancer. He had several operations and in 2006 was operated on for a brain tumour. This, on occasion, affected his work; while at Porto, for example, Robson suffered from malignant melanoma, which resulted in his missing the first few months of the 1995–96 season.
On 17 October 2006, it was revealed that Robson had been given the all-clear and was set to see out his contract as consultant to the Irish team. Robson revealed on 7 May 2007 he had been diagnosed with cancer for the fifth time. On 17 May 2008, Robson was the guest of honour at the 2008 FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium when Portsmouth defeated Cardiff City 1–0. He presented the trophy to the victorious captain, Sol Campbell.
Other activities
Robson made a number of product endorsements, including an appearance in Carlsberg's "Best Pub Side" television commercial. He also acted as a pundit for ITV during the 2002 World Cup and Euro 2004.
Bobby Robson Foundation
Robson defeated bowel cancer in 1992, a malignant melanoma in 1995, and a tumour in his right lung and a brain tumour, both in 2006. Treatment of these conditions had left him partially paralysed due to a stroke caused by the brain tumour, and also with a partially prosthetic upper jaw after the melanoma was surgically removed. His fifth diagnosis of cancer in 2007, consisting of cancerous nodules in both lungs, was diagnosed as terminal in February 2007, and as of December 2008, was being controlled through bouts of chemotherapy. After these experiences, and following his fifth diagnosis with cancer, Robson devoted the remaining years of his life to helping fight the disease. On 25 March 2008, he launched the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation. The Foundation raised over £1 million, which funded equipment for the Sir Bobby Robson Cancer Trials Research Centre, in the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne, and would go on to fund other cancer projects in the North East of England.
In aid of the Foundation, Robson's 1990 World Cup semi-final 4–3 loss after penalties against West Germany was replayed on 26 July 2009 as the Sir Bobby Robson Trophy match at St James' Park, featuring players from the original 1990 World Cup squads and other special guests. Robson was given a guard of honour before the match, which finished 3–2 to the England side.
At the time of Robson's death, the Foundation had raised £1.6 million. Donations totalling £156,000 were received by the Foundation in the 18 days following his death, and on 15 October 2009, it was announced the Foundation had raised over £2 million, and that at the request of Robson's family, Alan Shearer would take over Robson's role as the Foundation's patron. It passed the £2.5 million mark in September 2010. Three other patrons were added in 2010, Steve Gibson, Mick Mills and Niall Quinn.
Death
On 31 July 2009, Robson died of lung cancer at his home in County Durham, aged 76, after a long battle with the disease. After the news of his death, leading figures from the world of football and politics paid tribute to him. Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson called him a "great friend, a wonderful individual and tremendous football man". UEFA president Michel Platini said, "He will be remembered not only for his playing career and his outstanding managerial career at both club and international level, but also because he was a truly warm and passionate human being." Gary Lineker said, "It is a sad day and a great loss. He was a wonderful man and will be deeply missed by everybody in the country. I never played for a more enthusiastic man. He gave so much to the game." Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair described Robson as a "real Geordie gentleman". According to the then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Robson "epitomised everything that is great about football in this country". His friend, the broadcaster Michael Parkinson, said, "Robson will be remembered long after the present lot are old bones. By his decency, his humour, his love of the game's traditions and origins and confusion at what it had become, he made present day football look what it is – shabby by comparison. I can think of no more fitting epitaph."
Robson's funeral, a private family ceremony, took place on 5 August 2009. The location remained undisclosed at the request of his family until the funeral had taken place. It was later revealed to be Esh, County Durham. A thanksgiving service for Robson was held on 21 September 2009 at Durham Cathedral. One thousand invited guests attended the service, which was also broadcast live on national television, and to Newcastle United's St James' Park, Ipswich Town's Portman Road ground and Fulham's Craven Cottage.
Robson was survived by his wife and their three sons: Andrew, Paul and Mark.
Achievements
Robson was awarded a number of honours for his contributions to football. In 1990, at the end of his eight-year reign as England manager, he was appointed a CBE in 1991 and in 2002, he was knighted; both awards were for services to football.
In 2002 (during his time as Newcastle manager), the 69-year-old Robson was awarded the freedom of Newcastle upon Tyne and the UEFA President's Award for "services to football". He was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2003 in recognition of his impact as a manager. Following his time as Newcastle United manager in 2005, Robson was made an Honorary Freeman of Newcastle, which, in his autobiography, he described as being "the proudest moment of my life". Robson also won the 1992 Football Writers' Association Tribute Award for an outstanding contribution to the national game, and the 2001 British Sports Writers' Association Pat Besford Trophy for Outstanding Achievement. In 2005, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Sports Coach UK Awards, and was also awarded the Eircom International Personality of the Year in 2006. On 9 December 2007, Robson was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year show in recognition of "his contribution as both player and manager in a career spanning more than half a century".
On 5 May 2008, during the 30th anniversary celebrations of Ipswich Town's 1978 FA Cup win, Robson was granted the Freedom of Ipswich by the Lady Mayor. On 8 December 2008, he earned another such accolade when he was given the Freedom of the City of Durham. In March 2009, UEFA awarded Robson the Emerald UEFA Order of Merit award, awarded to "individuals who have dedicated their talents to the good of the game". The award was presented to Robson at St James' Park on 26 July 2009, prior to the Sir Bobby Robson Trophy match, and just five days before his death.
Posthumous honours
In December 2009, Robson was posthumously awarded the FIFA Fair Play Award, for the "gentlemanly qualities he showed throughout his career as a player and coach". All English football league matches held a one minute's applause in his memory at the beginning of the 2009–10 season.
The Football League gave Newcastle United and Ipswich Town special dispensation to wear special commemorative kits for their Championship match on 26 September 2009 at Portman Road, in aid of Sir Bobby's Foundation. At half-time during this match, the North Stand of Portman Road was renamed the Sir Bobby Robson Stand.
The first anniversary of Robson's death on 31 July 2010 was marked with a ceremony and pre-season friendly match at Newcastle's St James' Park, between two of his former clubs Newcastle United and PSV Eindhoven, involving Robson's PSV captain Stan Valckx presenting a PSV shirt to the club.
In July 2010, plans were unveiled for a memorial garden to Robson to be built in Newcastle. It was to be created by the city council in partnership with the regeneration company NE1Ltd, and located on Gallowgate street close to the Newcastle United stadium St James' Park. Work began on the site in November 2010, which was completed by Spring 2011. The garden covers 400 square meters, and features a tiered seating area and sculpted stone plinths reflecting aspects of his life and work. The area also hosts 400 square metre memorial garden to Sir Bobby Robson.
With a keen interest in cricket as well as football, Robson was to have replaced Mike Gatting as president of the Lord's Taverners charity and cricket club in 2007, but this was prevented by his ill-health. After his death, the club held a dinner in his honour, as "The best President we never had".
In March 2011, the East Coast train operating company named one of its Class 91 electric locomotives Sir Bobby Robson, unveiled at Newcastle station by his widow Elsie and Alan Shearer. Similarly, in December 2011, the Port of Tyne Authority named its new work boat the Sir Bobby Robson. On 6 May 2012, a statue of Robson created by sculptor Tom Maley was unveiled at St James' Park before a 2–0 defeat to eventual champions Manchester City. On 16 July 2013, marking the 150th anniversary celebrations of the FA, the FA designated 10 August as the Sir Bobby Robson National Football Day, celebrated as a day to celebrate the national game. In 2018, Bobby Robson: More Than A Manager, a feature-length British film about Robson's career and cancer diagnosis, was released to critical acclaim.
In September 2020 the Sir Bobby Robson School opened in Ipswich. The school will serve children aged 8–16 with social, emotional and mental health needs.
Career statistics
Club
International
Scores and results list England's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Robson goal.
Managerial statistics
Honours
Manager
Ipswich Town
UEFA Cup: 1980–81
FA Cup: 1977–78
National Fives Tournament: 1977
Texaco Cup: 1972–73
PSV Eindhoven
Eredivisie: 1990–91, 1991–92
Johan Cruyff Shield: 1998
Porto
Primeira Divisão: 1994–95, 1995–96
Taça de Portugal: 1993–94
Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira: 1993, 1994
Barcelona
Copa del Rey: 1996–97
Supercopa de España: 1996
European Cup Winners' Cup: 1996–97
Individual
FWA Tribute Award: 1992
European Manager of the Year: 1996–97
Premier League Manager of the Month: February 2000, August 2000, December 2001, February 2002, January 2003, October 2003
UEFA President's Award: 2002
English Football Hall of Fame Inductee: 2003
PFA Merit Award: 2003
FAI International Football Awards – International Personality: 2006
BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award: 2007
FIFA Fair Play Award: 2009
FIFA Order of Merit: 2009
UEFA Order of Merit: 2009
Ipswich Town Hall of Fame: Inductee 2009
See also
List of longest managerial reigns in association football
Bibliography
References
Sources
(Career statistics)
Further reading
External links
The Sir Bobby Robson Foundation
1933 births
2009 deaths
1986 FIFA World Cup managers
1990 FIFA World Cup managers
1958 FIFA World Cup players
1962 FIFA World Cup players
Deaths from cancer in England
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Deaths from lung cancer
English expatriate footballers
English expatriate sportspeople in Canada
English Football Hall of Fame inductees
English football managers
English expatriate football managers
English footballers
England international footballers
England national football team managers
Eredivisie managers
Expatriate soccer players in Canada
Expatriate football managers in the Netherlands
Expatriate football managers in Portugal
Expatriate football managers in Spain
FC Barcelona managers
FC Porto managers
Association football people awarded knighthoods
Fulham F.C. players
Fulham F.C. managers
Ipswich Town F.C. managers
Knights Bachelor
La Liga managers
Newcastle United F.C. managers
People from Sacriston
Primeira Liga managers
English Football League managers
Premier League managers
PSV Eindhoven managers
Sporting CP managers
UEFA Cup winning managers
UEFA Euro 1988 managers
United Soccer Association players
Vancouver Royals players
West Bromwich Albion F.C. players
English expatriate sportspeople in the Netherlands
English expatriate sportspeople in Portugal
English expatriate sportspeople in Spain
English Football League players
English Football League representative players
Association football forwards
BBC Sports Personality Lifetime Achievement Award recipients
Deaf association football players
Deaf people from England
People from Langley Park, County Durham | false | [
"Kevin Sharp (born 6 April 1959, Leeds, Yorkshire, England) is an English cricket coach and a former first-class cricketer. He was educated at Abbey Grange High School in Leeds.\n\nSharp succeeded the long-serving Steve Rhodes as Worcestershire Head Coach in 2018. \n\nHe had a fourteen-year first-class career playing for Yorkshire County Cricket Club and Griqualand West cricket team. He was a left-handed batsman and bowled right-arm off-spin.\n\nUnlike his contemporary David Gower, this curly haired left-handed batsman failed to do justice to his talent, and did not win the England cap predicted, after he scored 260* for England Young Cricketers in 1978.\n\nSharp made his first-class debut for Yorkshire County Cricket Club in 1976, and was awarded his cap in 1982. As well as Yorkshire, he spent three seasons with Griqualand West in South Africa between 1981 and 1984, playing seventeen first-class matches, and averaging just under 40.\n\nAfter finishing his Yorkshire first-class career in 1990, Sharp played for Shropshire in the Minor Counties from 1993 to 1997, while playing club cricket for Bridgnorth, and Ossett in Yorkshire.\n\nAfter retiring from the game he has worked as a batting coach for Yorkshire, and as an umpire. He was appointed as Head Coach of Worcestershire on 12 January 2018.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1959 births\nLiving people\nCricketers from Leeds\nEnglish cricket coaches \nEnglish cricketers\nGriqualand West cricketers\nMarylebone Cricket Club cricketers\nMinor Counties cricketers\nShropshire cricketers\nYorkshire cricketers\nD. B. Close's XI cricketers\nD. H. Robins' XI cricketers\nYoung England cricketers",
"This is a list of the Fall 1975 PGA Tour Qualifying School graduates. The event was held at three courses at the Walt Disney World Resort: Magnolia Golf Course, Palm Golf Course, and Cypress Creek Golf Club. 375 players made the finals. \n\nTwo significant international players were in the event. They were Dale Hayes, \"a highly regarded players from Pretoria, South Africa,\" and England's Maurice Bembridge. Hayes opened, well with a 69 (−3), to put himself two back of the lead. Bembridge, however, struggled in the first round with a 76 (+4). Overall, Bobby Stroble and Andy Bean held the joint first round lead at 67 (−5). After the second round, it was Jerry Pate and Sandy Galbraith that were tied for the lead at 139 (−5). Pate went on to earn medallist honors. Among the first round leaders, both Strobble and Bean easily qualified, both finishing in the top ten. Among the international players, Hayes qualified for the tour while Bembridge did not. Meanwhile, Galbraith, the joint leader with Pate after the second round, also qualified.\n\nJim Thorpe also earned playing privileges on the PGA Tour for the first time. In addition, Bill Mallon, a recent graduate of Duke University, also earned playing privileges. Shortly after he graduated he told The Boston Globe, \"I am a touring professional golfer. I did it. Achieved a lifelong dream. I've wanted to be a professional golfer for a long time. I know a lot of good young players who were 15 or 16 and they said this is want they wanted. They want to be a pro when they see Nicklaus or Palmer on TV. Well I said it. And now I've done it. I've got a long way to go to do what I want to do yet. But this is the first step.\" \n\nSource:\n\nReferences \n\n1975 2\nPGA Tour Qualifying School Graduates\nPGA Tour Qualifying School Graduates"
] |
[
"Odissi",
"Medieval era"
] | C_c50f120990f34e0cb4e97ecfbab870af_1 | Was Odissi an acceptable form of dancing during the Medieval era? | 1 | Was Odissi an acceptable form of dancing during the Medieval era? | Odissi | The Buddhist, Jain and Hindu archaeological sites in Odisha state, particularly the Assia range of hills show inscriptions and carvings of dances that are dated to the 6th to 9th century CE. Important sites include the Ranigumpha in Udaygiri, and various caves and temples at Lalitgiri, Ratnagiri and Alatgiri sites. The Buddhist icons, for example, are depicted as dancing gods and goddesses, with Haruka, Vajravarahi, and Marichi in Odissi-like postures. Historical evidence, states Alexandra Carter, shows that Odissi Maharis (Hindu temple dancers) and dance halls architecture (nata-mandap) were in vogue at least by the 9th century CE. According to Kapila Vatsyayan, the Kalpasutra of Jainism, in its manuscripts discovered in Gujarat, includes classical Indian dance poses - such as the Samapada, the Tribhangi and the Chuaka of Odissi. This, states Vatsyayan, suggests that Odissi was admired or at least well known in distant parts of India, far from Odisha in the medieval era, to be included in the margins of an important Jain text. However, the Jain manuscripts use the dance poses as decorative art in the margins and cover, but do not describe or discuss the dance. Hindu dance texts such as the Abhinaya Chandrika and Abhinaya Darpana provide a detailed description of the movements of the feet, hands, the standing postures, the movement and the dance repertoire. It includes illustrations of the Karanas mentioned in NatyaShastra. Similarly, the illustrated Hindu text on temple architecture from Odisha, the Shilpaprakasha, deals with Odia architecture and sculpture, and includes Odissi postures. Actual sculptures that have survived into the modern era and panel reliefs in Odia temples, dated to be from the 10th to 14th century, show Odissi dance. This is evidenced in Jagannath temple in Puri, as well as other temples of Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Vedic deities such as Surya (Sun) in Odisha. There are several sculptures of dancers and musicians in Konark Sun Temple and Brahmeswara Temple in Bhubaneswar. The composition of the poetic texts by 8th century Shankaracharya and particularly of divine love inspired Gitagovinda by 12th century Jayadeva influenced the focus and growth of modern Odissi. Odissi was performed in the temples by the dancers called Maharis, who played out these spiritual poems and underlying religious plays, after training and perfecting their art of dance starting from an early age, and who were revered as auspicious to religious services. CANNOTANSWER | The Buddhist icons, for example, are depicted as dancing gods and goddesses, | Odissi (), also referred to as Orissi in older literature, is a major ancient Indian classical dance that originated in the Hindu temples of Odisha – an eastern coastal state of India. Odissi, in its history, was performed predominantly by women, and expressed religious stories and spiritual ideas, particularly of Vaishnavism. Odissi performances have also expressed ideas of other traditions such as those related to Hindu gods Shiva and Surya, as well as Hindu goddesses (Shaktism).
The theoretical foundations of Odissi trace to the ancient Sanskrit text Natya Shastra, its existence in antiquity evidenced by the dance poses in the sculptures of Odissi Hindu temples, and archeological sites related to Hinduism (Sanatana Dharma), Buddhism and Jainism. It was suppressed under the British Rule. The suppression was protested by the Indians, followed by its revival, reconstruction and expansion since India gained independence from the colonial rule.
Odissi is traditionally a dance-drama genre of performance art, where the artist(s) and musicians play out a story, a spiritual message or devotional poem from the Hindu texts, using symbolic costumes, body movement, abhinaya (expressions) and mudras (gestures and sign language) set out in ancient Sanskrit literature. Classical Odia literature & the Gitagovinda set to traditional Odissi music are used for the abhinaya. Odissi is learnt and performed as a composite of basic dance motif called the Bhangas (symmetric body bends, stance). It involves lower (footwork), mid (torso) and upper (hand and head) as three sources of perfecting expression and audience engagement with geometric symmetry and rhythmic musical resonance. An Odissi performance repertoire includes invocation, nritta (pure dance), nritya (expressive dance), natya (dance drama) and moksha (dance climax connoting freedom of the soul and spiritual release).
Traditional Odissi exists in two major styles, the first perfected by women and focussed on solemn, spiritual temple dance (maharis); the second perfected by boys dressed as girls (gotipuas) which diversified to include athletic and acrobatic moves, and were performed from festive occasions in temples to general folksy entertainment. Modern Odissi productions by Indian artists have presented a diverse range of experimental ideas, culture fusion, themes and plays.
Odissi was the only Indian dance form present in Michael Jackson's 1991 hit single Black or White.
History
The foundations of Odissi are found in Natya Shastra, the ancient Hindu Sanskrit text of performance arts. The basic dance units described in Natyashastra, all 108 of them, are identical to those in Odissi.
Natya Shastra is attributed to the ancient scholar Bharata Muni, and its first complete compilation is dated to between 200 BCE and 200 CE, but estimates vary between 500 BCE and 500 CE. The most studied version of the Natya Shastra text consists of about 6000 verses structured into 36 chapters. The text, states Natalia Lidova, describes the theory of Tāṇḍava dance (Shiva), the theory of rasa, of bhāva, expression, gestures, acting techniques, basic steps, standing postures – all of which are part of Indian classical dances. Dance and performance arts, states this ancient text, are a form of expression of spiritual ideas, virtues and the essence of scriptures. The Natya Shastra refers to four vrittis (methods of expressive delivery) in vogue – Avanti, Dakshinatya, Panchali and Odra-Magadhi; of these, the Odra refers to Odisha.
More direct historical evidence of dance and music as an ancient performance art are found in archaeological sites such as caves and in temple carvings of Bhubaneswar, Konark and Puri. The Manchapuri cave in Udayagiri shows carvings of dance and musicians, and this has been dated to the time of Jain king Kharavela in the first or second century BCE. The Hathigumpha inscriptions, also dated to the same ruler, mention music and dance:
<blockquote style="background-color:none;margin-right:5em;margin-left:0em;border-left:solid 6px #FFE0BB;padding:1.0em">
(he [the king]) versed in the science of the Gandharvas (i.e., music), entertains the capital with the exhibition of dapa, dancing, singing and instrumental music and by causing to be held festivities and assemblies (samajas)...</p>
— Hathigumpha inscription, Line 5, ~ 2nd–1st century BCE
</blockquote>
The musical tradition of Odisha also has ancient roots. Archeologists have reported the discovery of 20-key, carefully shaped polished basalt lithophone in Sankarjang, the highlands of Odisha, which is dated to about 1000 BCE.
Medieval era
The Hindu, Jain and Buddhist archaeological sites in Odisha state, particularly the Assia range of hills show inscriptions and carvings of dances that are dated to the 6th to 9th century CE. Important sites include the Ranigumpha in Udaygiri, and various caves and temples at Lalitgiri, Ratnagiri and Alatgiri sites. The Buddhist icons, for example, are depicted as dancing gods and goddesses, with Haruka, Vajravarahi, and Marichi in Odissi-like postures. Historical evidence, states Alexandra Carter, shows that Odissi Maharis (Hindu temple dancers) and dance halls architecture (nata-mandap) were in vogue at least by the 9th century CE.
According to Kapila Vatsyayan, the Kalpasutra of Jainism, in its manuscripts discovered in Gujarat, includes classical Indian dance poses – such as the Samapada, the Tribhangi and the Chuaka of Odissi. This, states Vatsyayan, suggests that Odissi was admired or at least well known in distant parts of India, far from Odisha in the medieval era, to be included in the margins of an important Jain text. However, the Jain manuscripts use the dance poses as decorative art in the margins and cover, but do not describe or discuss the dance. Hindu dance texts such as the Abhinaya Chandrika and Abhinaya Darpana provide a detailed description of the movements of the feet, hands, the standing postures, the movement and the dance repertoire. It includes illustrations of the Karanãs mentioned in NãtyaShãstra. Similarly, the illustrated Hindu text on temple architecture from Odisha, the Shilpaprakãsha, deals with Odia architecture and sculpture, and includes Odissi postures.
Actual sculptures that have survived into the modern era and panel reliefs in Odia temples, dated to be from the 10th to 14th century, show Odissi dance. This is evidenced in Jagannatha temple in Puri, as well as other temples of Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Vedic deities such as Surya (Sun) in Odisha. There are several sculptures of dancers and musicians in Konark Sun Temple and Brahmeswara Temple in Bhubaneswar.
The composition of the poetic texts by 8th century Shankaracharya and particularly of divine love inspired Gitagovinda by 12th century Jayadeva influenced the focus and growth of modern Odissi. Odissi was performed in the temples by the dancers called Maharis, who played out these spiritual poems and underlying religious plays, after training and perfecting their art of dance starting from an early age, and who were revered as auspicious to religious services.
Mughal and British period
After 12th-century, Odia temples, monasteries and nearby institutions such as the Puspagiri in eastern Indian subcontinent came under waves of attacks and ransacking by Muslim armies, a turmoil that impacted all arts and eroded the freedoms previously enjoyed by performance artists. The official records of Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq's invasion in Odisha (13601361 CE), for example, describe the destruction of the Jagannath temple as well as numerous other temples, defacing of dancing statues, and ruining of dance halls. This led to a broad decline in Odissi and other religious arts, but there were some benevolent rulers in this period who supported arts particularly through performances at courts. During the Sultanate and Mughal era of India, the temple dancers were moved to entertain the Sultan's family and courts. They became associated with concubinage to the nobility.
The Odissi dance likely expanded in the 17th century, states Alexandra Carter, under King Ramachandradeva's patronage. This expansion integrated martial arts (akhanda) and athletics into Odissi dance, by engaging boys and youth called Gotipuas, as a means to physically train the young for the military and to resist foreign invasions. According to Ragini Devi, historical evidence suggests that the Gotipuas tradition was known and nurtured in the 14th century, by Raja of Khordha.
During the British Raj, the officials of the colonial government ridiculed the temple traditions, while Christian missionaries launched a sustained attack on the moral outrage of sensuousness of Odissi and other Hindu temple dance arts. In 1872, a British civil servant named William Hunter watched a performance at the Jagannatha temple in Puri, then wrote, "Indecent ceremonies disgraced the ritual, and dancing girls with rolling eyes put the modest worshipper to the blush...", and then attacked them as idol-worshipping prostitutes who expressed their devotion with "airy gyrations".
Christian missionaries launched the "anti-dance movement" in 1892, to ban all such dance forms. The dancers were frequently stigmatized as prostitutes by Europeans during the colonial era. In 1910, the British colonial government in India banned temple dancing, and the dance artists were reduced to abject poverty from the lack of any financial support for performance arts, combined with stereotyping stigma.
Post-independence
The temple dance ban and the cultural discrimination during the colonial rule marshaled a movement by Hindus to question the stereotypes and to revive the regional arts of India, including Odissi. Due to these efforts, the classical Indian dances witnessed a period of renaissance and reconstruction, which gained momentum particularly after Indians gained their freedom from colonialism.
Odissi, along with several other major Indian dances gained recognition after efforts by many scholars and performers in the 1950s, particularly by Kavichandra Kalicharan Pattanayak, an Oriya poet, dramatist and researcher. Pattanayak is also credited with naming the dance form as "Odissi".
Repertoire
Odissi, in the classical and medieval period has been, a team dance founded on Hindu texts. This drama-dance involved women (Maharis) enacting a spiritual poem or a religious story either in the inner sanctum of a Hindu temple, or in the Natamandira attached to the temple. The Odissi performing Maharis combined pure dance with expression, to play out and communicate the underlying text through abhinaya (gestures). The performance art evolved to include another aspect, wherein teams of boys – dressed as girls – called Gotipuas expanded the Odissi repertoire, such as by adding acrobatics and athletic moves, and they performed both near the temples and open fairs for general folksy entertainment. In the Indian tradition, many of the accomplished gotipuas became the gurus (teachers) in their adulthood. Modern Odissi is a diversified performance art, men have joined the women, and its reconstruction since the 1950s have added new plays and aspects of other Indian dances.
Love is a universal theme and one of the paradigmatic values in Indian religions. This theme is expressed through sensuous love poems and metaphors of sexual union in Krishna-related literature, and as longing eros (Shringara) in its dance arts such as in Odissi, from the early times. Hinduism, states Judith Hanna, encourages the artist to "strive to suggest, reveal or re-create the infinite, divine self", and art is considered as "the supreme means of realizing the Universal Being". Physical intimacy is not something considered as a reason for shame, rather considered a form of celebration and worship, where the saint is the lover and the lover is the saint. This aspect of Odissi dancing has been subdued in the modern post-colonial reconstructions, states Alexandra Carter, and the emphasis has expanded to "expressions of personal artistic excellence as ritualized spiritual articulations".
The traditional Odissi repertoire, like all classical Indian dances, includes Nritta (pure dance, solo), Nritya (dance with emotions, solo) and Natya (dramatic dance, group). These three performance aspects of Odissi are described and illustrated in the foundational Hindu texts, particularly the Natya Shastra, Abhinaya Darpana and the 16th-century Abhinaya Chandrika by Maheshwara Mahapatra of Odisha.
The Nritta performance is abstract, fast and rhythmic aspect of the dance. The viewer is presented with pure movement in Nritta, wherein the emphasis is the beauty in motion, form, speed, range and pattern. This part of the repertoire has no interpretative aspect, no telling of story. It is a technical performance, and aims to engage the senses (prakriti) of the audience.
The Nritya is slower and expressive aspect of the dance that attempts to communicate feelings, storyline particularly with spiritual themes in Hindu dance traditions. In a nritya, the dance-acting expands to include silent expression of words through the sign language of gestures and body motion set to musical notes. This part of a repertoire is more than sensory enjoyment, it aims to engage the emotions and mind of the viewer.
The Natyam is a play, typically a team performance, but can be acted out by a solo performer where the dancer uses certain standardized body movements to indicate a new character in the underlying story. A Natya incorporates the elements of a Nritya.
The Mokshya is a climatic pure dance of Odissi, aiming to highlight the liberation of soul and serenity in the spiritual.
Odissi dance can be accompanied by both northern Indian (Hindustani) and southern Indian (Carnatic) music, though mainly, recitals are in Odia and Sanskrit language in the Odissi music tradition.
Sequence
Traditional Odissi repertoire sequence starts with an invocation called Mangalacharana. A shloka (hymn) in praise of a God or Goddess is sung, such as to Jagannath (an avatar of Vishnu), the meaning of which is expressed through dance. Mangalacharana is followed by Pushpanjali (offering of flowers) and Bhumi Pranam (salutation to mother earth). The invocation also includes Trikhandi Pranam or the three-fold salutation – to the Devas (gods), to the Gurus (teachers) and to the Lokas or Rasikas (fellow dancers and audience).
The next sequential step in an Odissi performance is Batu, also known as Battu Nrutya or Sthayee Nrutya or Batuka Bhairava. It is a fast pace, pure dance (nritta) performed in the honor of Shiva. There is no song or recitation accompanying this part of the dance, just rhythmic music. This pure dance sequence in Odissi builds up to a Pallavi which is often slow, graceful & lyrical movements of the eyes, neck, torso & feet & slowly builds in a crescendo to climax in a fast tempo at the end.
The nritya follows next, and consists of Abhinaya, or an expressional dance which is an enactment of a song or poetry. The dancer(s) communicate the story in a sign language, using mudras (hand gestures), bhavas (enacting mood, emotions), eye and body movement. The dance is fluid, graceful and sensual. Abhinaya in Odissi is performed to verses recited in Sanskrit or Odia language. Most common are Abhinayas on Oriya songs or Sanskrit Ashthapadis or Sanskrit stutis like Dasavatar Stotram (depicting the ten incarnations of Lord Vishnu) or Ardhanari Stotram (half man, half woman form of the divine). Many regionally performed Abhinaya compositions are based on the Radha-Krishna theme. The Astapadis of the Radha-Krishna love poem Gita Govinda written by Jayadeva are usually performed in Odisha, as part of the dance repertoire.
The natya part, or dance drama, is next in sequence. Usually Hindu mythologies, epics and legendary dramas are chosen as themes.
A distinctive part of the Odissi tradition is the inclusion of Moksha (or Mokshya) finale in the performance sequence. This the concluding item of a recital. Moksha in Hindu traditions means “spiritual liberation”. This dance movement traditionally attempts to convey a sense of spiritual release and soul liberation, soaring into the realm of pure aesthetics. Movement and pose merge in a fast pace pure dance climax.
Basic moves and mudras
The basic unit of Odissi are called bhangas. These are made up of eight belis, or body positions and movements, combined in many varieties. Motion is uthas (rising or up), baithas (sitting or down) or sthankas (standing). The gaits or movement on the dance floor is called chaalis, with movement tempo linked to emotions according to the classical Sanskrit texts. Thus, for example, burhas or quick pace suggest excitement, while a slow confused pace suggests dejection. For aesthetics, movement is centered on a core, a point in space or floor, and each dancer has her imaginary square of space, with spins and expression held within it. The foot movement or pada bhedas too have basic dance units, and Odissi has six of these, in contrast to four found in most classical Indian dances.
The three primary dance positions in Odissi are:
Samabhanga – the square position, with weight equally placed on the two legs, spine straight, arms raised up with elbows bent.
Abhanga – the body weight shifts from side to side, due to deep leg bends, while the feet and knees are turned outwards, and one hip extending sideways.
Tribhanga – is an S-shaped three-fold bending of body, with torso deflecting in one direction while the head and hips deflecting in the opposite direction of torso. Further, the hands and legs frame the body into a composite of two squares (rectangle), providing an aesthetic frame of reference. This is described in the ancient Sanskrit texts, and forms of it are found in other Hindu dance arts, but tribhanga postures developed most in and are distinctive to Odissi, and they are found in historic Hindu temple reliefs.
Mudras or Hastas are hand gestures which are used to express the meaning of a given act. Like all classical dances of India, the aim of Odissi is in part to convey emotions, mood and inner feelings in the story by appropriate hand and facial gestures. There are 63 Hastas in modern Odissi dance, and these have the same names or structure as those in the pan-Indian Hindu texts, but most closely matching those in the Abhinaya Chandrika. These are subdivided into three, according to the traditional texts:
Asamyukta Hasta – Single hand Mudras – 28 Prakar (gestures, for instance to communicate a salute, prayer, embrace, energy, bond, swing, carriage, shell, arrow, holding a thing, wheel, and so on.)
Samyukta Hasta – Double hand Mudras – 24 Prakar (gestures, for instance to indicate a flag, flower, type of bird or animal, moon, action like grasping, and so on.)
Nrutya Hasta – “Pure Dance” Mudras
The Mudra system is derived from the "Abhinaya Darpana" by Nandikeshavara and the ancient Natya Shastra of Bharata Muni.
Costumes
The Odissi dancers are colorfully dressed with makeup and jewellery. The Saree worn by Odissi dancers are brightly coloured, and usually of local silk (Pattasari). It is worn with pleats, or may have a pleat tailor stitched in front, to allow maximum flexibility during the footwork. These sarees have traditional prints of Odisha with regional designs and embellishments, and may be the Sambalpuri Saree and Bomkai Saree.
The jewellery includes silver pieces, a metal favored in regional tradition. The hair is tied up, and typically drawn into an elaborate bun resembling a Hindu temple spire, and decorated with Seenthi. Their hairstyle may contain a moon shaped crest of white flowers, or a reed crown called Mukoot with peacock feathers (symbolism for Lord Krishna). The dancers forehead is marked with Tikka, and adorned with various jewelry such as the Allaka (head piece on which the tikka hangs). The eyes are ringed with Kajal (black eyeliner).
Ear covers called Kapa or ear rings decorate the sides of the head, while necklace adorns the neck. The dancer wears a pair of armlets also called Bahichudi or Bajuband, on the upper arm. The wrist is covered with Kankana (bangles). At the waist they wear an elaborate belt which ties down one end of the Sari. The ankles are decorated with a leather piece on top of which are bells (ghungroo). The dancer's palms and soles may be painted with red coloured dye called the Alta.
Modern Odissi male performers wear dhoti – a broadcloth tied around waist, pleated for movement, and tucked between legs; usually extends to knee or lower. Upper body is bare chested, and a long thin folded translucent sheet wrapping over one shoulder and usually tucked below a wide belt.
Music and instruments
Odissi dance is accompanied by the traditional classical music of the state of Odisha, Odissi music. The primary Odissi ragas are Kalyana, Nata, Shree Gowda, Baradi, Panchama, Dhanashri, Karnata, Bhairavee and Shokabaradi.
Odissi dance, states Ragini Devi, is a form of "visualized music", wherein the Ragas and Raginis, respectively the primary and secondary musical modes, are integrated by the musicians and interpreted through the dancer. Each note is a means, has a purpose and with a mood in classical Indian music, which Odissi accompanies to express sentiments in a song through Parija. This is true whether the performance is formal, or less formal as in Nartana and Natangi used during festive occasions and the folksy celebration of life.
An Odissi troupe comes with musicians and musical instruments. The orchestra consists of various regional musical instruments, such as the Mardala (barrel drum), harmonium, flute, sitar, violin, cymbals held in fingers and others.
Styles
The Odissi tradition existed in three schools: Mahari, Nartaki, and Gotipua:
Maharis were Oriya devadasis or temple girls, their name deriving from Maha (great) and Nari (girl), or Mahri (chosen) particularly those at the temple of Jagganath at Puri. Early Maharis performed Nritta (pure dance) and Abhinaya (interpretation of poetry) dedicated to various Hindu gods and goddesses, as well as Puranic mythologies and Vedic legends. Later, Maharis especially performed dance sequences based on the lyrics of Jayadev's Gita Govinda. This style is more sensuous and closer to the classical Sanskrit texts on dance, music and performance arts.
Gotipuas were boys dressed up as girls and taught the dance by the Maharis. This style included martial arts, athletics and acrobatics. Gotipuas danced to these compositions outside the temples and fairgrounds as folksy entertainment.
Nartaki dance took place in the royal courts, where it was prevalent before the British period.
Schools, training and recognition
Odissi maestros and performers
Kelucharan Mohapatra, Pankaj Charan Das, Deba Prasad Das and Raghunath Dutta were the four major gurus who revived Odissi in the late forties and early fifties. Sanjukta Panigrahi was a leading disciple of Kelucharan Mohapatra who popularized Odissi by performing in India and abroad. In the mid-sixties, three other disciples of Kelucharan Mohapatra, Kumkum Mohanty and Sonal Mansingh, were known for their performances in India and abroad. Laximipriya Mohapatra performed a piece of Odissi abhinaya in the Annapurna Theatre in Cuttack in 1948, a show upheld as the first classical Odissi dance performance after its contemporary revival. Guru Mayadhar Raut played a pivotal role in giving Odissi dance its classical status. He introduced Mudra Vinyoga in 1955 and Sancharibhava in the Odissi dance items, and portrayed Shringara Rasa in Gita Govinda Ashthapadis. His notable compositions include Pashyati Dishi Dishi and Priya Charu Shile, composed in 1961.
Schools
IIT Bhubaneswar
Odissi has been included in Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar's BTech syllabus since 2015 as the first Indian national technical institute to introduce any classical dance in syllabus.
In Guinness World records
Guinness World Records has acknowledged the feat of the largest congregation of Odissi dancers in a single event. 555 Odissi dancers performed at the event hosted on 23 December 2011, in the Kalinga stadium, Bhubaneswar, Odisha. The dancers performed the Mangalacharan, Battu, Pallavi, Abhinay and Mokshya dance items from the Odissi repertoire.
More than 1000 Odissi dancers performed at the World Cultural Festival 12 March 2016. This is till date the largest congregation of Odissi dancers in a single event.
Odissi Centre at Oxford University
An Odissi dance centre has been opened from January 2016, at the University of Oxford. Known as Oxford Odissi Centre, it is an initiative of the Odissi dancer and choreographer Baisali Mohanty who is also a post-graduate scholar at the University of Oxford.
Beside holding regular Odissi dance classes at its institution, the Oxford Odissi Centre also conducts Odissi dance workshops at other academic institutions in the United Kingdom.
See also
Indian classical dance
Ghungroo
Odissi music
Gotipua
References
Bibliography
Odissi : What, Why and How… Evolution, Revival and Technique, by Madhumita Raut. Published by B. R. Rhythms, Delhi, 2007. .
Odissi Yaatra: The Journey of Guru Mayadhar Raut, by Aadya Kaktikar (ed. Madhumita Raut). Published by B. R. Rhythms, Delhi, 2010. .
Odissi Dance, by Dhirendranath Patnaik. Published by Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1971.
Odissi – The Dance Divine, by Ranjana Gauhar and Dushyant Parasher. Published by Niyogi Books, 2007. .
Odissi, Indian Classical Dance Art: Odisi Nritya, by Sunil Kothari, Avinash Pasricha. Marg Publications, 1990. .
Perspectives on Odissi Theatre, by Ramesh Prasad Panigrahi, Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi. Published by Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1998.
Abhinaya-chandrika and Odissi dance, by Maheshwar Mahapatra, Alekha Chandra Sarangi, Sushama Kulshreshthaa, Maya Das. Published by Eastern Book Linkers, 2001. .
Rethinking Odissi, by Dinanath Pathy. Published by Harman Pub. House, 2007. .
, Table of Contents
External links
Odissi solo performance: Nitisha Nanda, Arabhi Pallav, New Delhi 2013
Odissi group dance: Megh Pallavi, Vancouver 2014
Maryam Shakiba – Odissi Dance – Manglacharan Ganesh Vandana Pushkar 2014
Odissi links at the Open Directory
Odissi schools, Classical Indian Dance Portal
The annotated Odissi Dance Archive on Pad.ma
History of Odissi and Geeta Govinda JN Dhar, Orissa Review
Bharat Bhavan, a Kerala-based Department of Culture information website.
Arts of Odisha
Odia culture
Jayadeva
Classical dance genres of India
Hindu temple dance
Odissi dancers
Odissi music
Artforms based on Odissi music | true | [
"Laxmipriya Mohapatra (born 1928 - died 20 March 2021) was an Indian classical dancer, performing Odissi dance on stage and in films. Along with her husband, Kelucharan Mohapatra, she is credited with reviving Odissi dance in India, in the 1940s and 50s.\n\nCareer \nMohapatra was born in Khurda, Odisha, and was taught to dance by her mother, actress and dancer Tulasi Devi. At the age of seven, she began performing at the Annapurna Theatre in Puri, Odisha, and by the age of 17, was their star performer, drawing large crowds who attended her performances. She moved to Cuttack, where she met her husband, Kelucharan Mohapatra, a trained Odissi dancer who was at the time playing tabla, a classical form of percussion, as an accompaniment, for dance performances. In 1946, after training in Odissi with her husband, she performed the first solo Odissi dance on stage, which was considered a milestone in efforts to revive the classical dance form. She is also the first woman to perform the traditional form of Gotipua dance on stage. In addition to performing Odissi, she was trained in several traditional folk dance forms, and performed at Republic Day parades in India's capital, New Delhi, in the 1950s. She performed in a number of plays on stage, as well as in several Odia films, including Manika Jodi, Suryamukhi, Mala Jahna and Amadabata. \n\nWhen her husband, Kelucharan, became a dancer and choreographer, she retired in 1985 from professional dancing to support him. Along with him, she established and taught at Srjan, a well-known classical dance school in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. Their son, Ratikant Mohapatra, is also an Odissi dancer and choreographer. She taught a number of modern Odissi dancers, including Minati Mishra, Priyambada Mohanty Hejmadi, and Kumkum Mohanty. She died on 20 March 2021, at the age of 86, and was buried with state honors. in September 2021, a five-day Odissi festival was dedicated to her memory, and included Odissi performances by many of her former students.\n\nReferences \n\n1928 births\n2021 deaths\nOdissi dancers\nIndian dancers\nIndian female classical dancers\nDancers from Odisha\nPeople from Odisha\nPerformers of Indian classical dance\n20th-century Indian dancers\nPeople from Khordha district",
"Saswat Joshi (born December 18, 1984) is an Indian classical dancer, choreographer, model and an exponent of the Odissi dancing style.\n\nEarly life and background\nSaswat Joshi was born in Titlagarh on 18 December 1984. Saswat started his journey as a dancer when he was five years old under the able guidance of Guru Prasanta Patnaik and Guru Shantanu Behera at his native village Titlagarh, Bolangir. He learned the basics of dance and postures of Odissi dance with great interest and dedication as a child artist.\n\nCareer\n\nAs an Odissi dancer\nSaswat started his professional Odissi training under Guru Padma Shri Kumkum Mohanty in 2000. He has been an exponent of Padma Bibhusan Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra Odissi style. Under the tutelage of Guru Padma Shri Ileana Citaristi, his dancing flourished into its perfection. He is the recipient of a national scholarship from Ministry of Culture Government of India. He did his Visharad from Chandigarh University and was awarded Sangeet Ratna from Rabindra Bharati University. He has performed in world's biggest museum of Asian painting Musée Guimet at Paris, France in 2012. He has given many lecture demonstrations of Odissi in various universities worldwide. He is the only male dancer who performed in front of world wonders Eiffel Tower, Paris, France; and The Colosseum, Rome, Italy.\n\nTo popularise Odissi as Indian classical dance, he traveled and performed Odissi in many European and Asian countries such as Italy, France, Hungary, Finland, Japan, South Korea, Thailand etc..\n\nHe had shared the stage with many international celebrities of dance like Carla Fracci, Luciana Savignano, Giuseppe Picone, Beppe Menegatti, Rossella Brescia and Luciano Mattia Cannito in a production called 'I Have a Dream' at Palermo city, Sicily of Insular Italy\n\nFilmography\nKoun Kitney Panee Mein by Nila Madhab Panda\nKranti Dhara by Himanshu Khatua\nChoreography consultancy in various Bollywood films\n\nAs a dance teacher\nSaswat is the founder of Lasyakala Institute of Performing Arts, where many new Odissi practitioners and talents are being shaped into their performing excellence. Under this banner Aekalavya Dance Festival is being organised every year to felicitate practitioners, experts and critics of Odissi.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n\"Happy for Hope virtual event during COVID-19 lock down\"\nGhungroo Missing? short film released by Saswat Joshi\nChakaa Aakhii Short Film by Saswat Joshi, streaming now \n\n1984 births\nLiving people\nIndian dance teachers\nOdissi dancers\nIndian film choreographers\nIndian classical choreographers\nDancers from Odisha"
] |
[
"Odissi",
"Medieval era",
"Was Odissi an acceptable form of dancing during the Medieval era?",
"The Buddhist icons, for example, are depicted as dancing gods and goddesses,"
] | C_c50f120990f34e0cb4e97ecfbab870af_1 | Was Odissi popular form of dancing during the Medieval era? | 2 | Was Odissi a popular form of dancing during the Medieval era? | Odissi | The Buddhist, Jain and Hindu archaeological sites in Odisha state, particularly the Assia range of hills show inscriptions and carvings of dances that are dated to the 6th to 9th century CE. Important sites include the Ranigumpha in Udaygiri, and various caves and temples at Lalitgiri, Ratnagiri and Alatgiri sites. The Buddhist icons, for example, are depicted as dancing gods and goddesses, with Haruka, Vajravarahi, and Marichi in Odissi-like postures. Historical evidence, states Alexandra Carter, shows that Odissi Maharis (Hindu temple dancers) and dance halls architecture (nata-mandap) were in vogue at least by the 9th century CE. According to Kapila Vatsyayan, the Kalpasutra of Jainism, in its manuscripts discovered in Gujarat, includes classical Indian dance poses - such as the Samapada, the Tribhangi and the Chuaka of Odissi. This, states Vatsyayan, suggests that Odissi was admired or at least well known in distant parts of India, far from Odisha in the medieval era, to be included in the margins of an important Jain text. However, the Jain manuscripts use the dance poses as decorative art in the margins and cover, but do not describe or discuss the dance. Hindu dance texts such as the Abhinaya Chandrika and Abhinaya Darpana provide a detailed description of the movements of the feet, hands, the standing postures, the movement and the dance repertoire. It includes illustrations of the Karanas mentioned in NatyaShastra. Similarly, the illustrated Hindu text on temple architecture from Odisha, the Shilpaprakasha, deals with Odia architecture and sculpture, and includes Odissi postures. Actual sculptures that have survived into the modern era and panel reliefs in Odia temples, dated to be from the 10th to 14th century, show Odissi dance. This is evidenced in Jagannath temple in Puri, as well as other temples of Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Vedic deities such as Surya (Sun) in Odisha. There are several sculptures of dancers and musicians in Konark Sun Temple and Brahmeswara Temple in Bhubaneswar. The composition of the poetic texts by 8th century Shankaracharya and particularly of divine love inspired Gitagovinda by 12th century Jayadeva influenced the focus and growth of modern Odissi. Odissi was performed in the temples by the dancers called Maharis, who played out these spiritual poems and underlying religious plays, after training and perfecting their art of dance starting from an early age, and who were revered as auspicious to religious services. CANNOTANSWER | Historical evidence, states Alexandra Carter, shows that Odissi Maharis (Hindu temple dancers) and dance halls architecture (nata-mandap) were in vogue | Odissi (), also referred to as Orissi in older literature, is a major ancient Indian classical dance that originated in the Hindu temples of Odisha – an eastern coastal state of India. Odissi, in its history, was performed predominantly by women, and expressed religious stories and spiritual ideas, particularly of Vaishnavism. Odissi performances have also expressed ideas of other traditions such as those related to Hindu gods Shiva and Surya, as well as Hindu goddesses (Shaktism).
The theoretical foundations of Odissi trace to the ancient Sanskrit text Natya Shastra, its existence in antiquity evidenced by the dance poses in the sculptures of Odissi Hindu temples, and archeological sites related to Hinduism (Sanatana Dharma), Buddhism and Jainism. It was suppressed under the British Rule. The suppression was protested by the Indians, followed by its revival, reconstruction and expansion since India gained independence from the colonial rule.
Odissi is traditionally a dance-drama genre of performance art, where the artist(s) and musicians play out a story, a spiritual message or devotional poem from the Hindu texts, using symbolic costumes, body movement, abhinaya (expressions) and mudras (gestures and sign language) set out in ancient Sanskrit literature. Classical Odia literature & the Gitagovinda set to traditional Odissi music are used for the abhinaya. Odissi is learnt and performed as a composite of basic dance motif called the Bhangas (symmetric body bends, stance). It involves lower (footwork), mid (torso) and upper (hand and head) as three sources of perfecting expression and audience engagement with geometric symmetry and rhythmic musical resonance. An Odissi performance repertoire includes invocation, nritta (pure dance), nritya (expressive dance), natya (dance drama) and moksha (dance climax connoting freedom of the soul and spiritual release).
Traditional Odissi exists in two major styles, the first perfected by women and focussed on solemn, spiritual temple dance (maharis); the second perfected by boys dressed as girls (gotipuas) which diversified to include athletic and acrobatic moves, and were performed from festive occasions in temples to general folksy entertainment. Modern Odissi productions by Indian artists have presented a diverse range of experimental ideas, culture fusion, themes and plays.
Odissi was the only Indian dance form present in Michael Jackson's 1991 hit single Black or White.
History
The foundations of Odissi are found in Natya Shastra, the ancient Hindu Sanskrit text of performance arts. The basic dance units described in Natyashastra, all 108 of them, are identical to those in Odissi.
Natya Shastra is attributed to the ancient scholar Bharata Muni, and its first complete compilation is dated to between 200 BCE and 200 CE, but estimates vary between 500 BCE and 500 CE. The most studied version of the Natya Shastra text consists of about 6000 verses structured into 36 chapters. The text, states Natalia Lidova, describes the theory of Tāṇḍava dance (Shiva), the theory of rasa, of bhāva, expression, gestures, acting techniques, basic steps, standing postures – all of which are part of Indian classical dances. Dance and performance arts, states this ancient text, are a form of expression of spiritual ideas, virtues and the essence of scriptures. The Natya Shastra refers to four vrittis (methods of expressive delivery) in vogue – Avanti, Dakshinatya, Panchali and Odra-Magadhi; of these, the Odra refers to Odisha.
More direct historical evidence of dance and music as an ancient performance art are found in archaeological sites such as caves and in temple carvings of Bhubaneswar, Konark and Puri. The Manchapuri cave in Udayagiri shows carvings of dance and musicians, and this has been dated to the time of Jain king Kharavela in the first or second century BCE. The Hathigumpha inscriptions, also dated to the same ruler, mention music and dance:
<blockquote style="background-color:none;margin-right:5em;margin-left:0em;border-left:solid 6px #FFE0BB;padding:1.0em">
(he [the king]) versed in the science of the Gandharvas (i.e., music), entertains the capital with the exhibition of dapa, dancing, singing and instrumental music and by causing to be held festivities and assemblies (samajas)...</p>
— Hathigumpha inscription, Line 5, ~ 2nd–1st century BCE
</blockquote>
The musical tradition of Odisha also has ancient roots. Archeologists have reported the discovery of 20-key, carefully shaped polished basalt lithophone in Sankarjang, the highlands of Odisha, which is dated to about 1000 BCE.
Medieval era
The Hindu, Jain and Buddhist archaeological sites in Odisha state, particularly the Assia range of hills show inscriptions and carvings of dances that are dated to the 6th to 9th century CE. Important sites include the Ranigumpha in Udaygiri, and various caves and temples at Lalitgiri, Ratnagiri and Alatgiri sites. The Buddhist icons, for example, are depicted as dancing gods and goddesses, with Haruka, Vajravarahi, and Marichi in Odissi-like postures. Historical evidence, states Alexandra Carter, shows that Odissi Maharis (Hindu temple dancers) and dance halls architecture (nata-mandap) were in vogue at least by the 9th century CE.
According to Kapila Vatsyayan, the Kalpasutra of Jainism, in its manuscripts discovered in Gujarat, includes classical Indian dance poses – such as the Samapada, the Tribhangi and the Chuaka of Odissi. This, states Vatsyayan, suggests that Odissi was admired or at least well known in distant parts of India, far from Odisha in the medieval era, to be included in the margins of an important Jain text. However, the Jain manuscripts use the dance poses as decorative art in the margins and cover, but do not describe or discuss the dance. Hindu dance texts such as the Abhinaya Chandrika and Abhinaya Darpana provide a detailed description of the movements of the feet, hands, the standing postures, the movement and the dance repertoire. It includes illustrations of the Karanãs mentioned in NãtyaShãstra. Similarly, the illustrated Hindu text on temple architecture from Odisha, the Shilpaprakãsha, deals with Odia architecture and sculpture, and includes Odissi postures.
Actual sculptures that have survived into the modern era and panel reliefs in Odia temples, dated to be from the 10th to 14th century, show Odissi dance. This is evidenced in Jagannatha temple in Puri, as well as other temples of Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Vedic deities such as Surya (Sun) in Odisha. There are several sculptures of dancers and musicians in Konark Sun Temple and Brahmeswara Temple in Bhubaneswar.
The composition of the poetic texts by 8th century Shankaracharya and particularly of divine love inspired Gitagovinda by 12th century Jayadeva influenced the focus and growth of modern Odissi. Odissi was performed in the temples by the dancers called Maharis, who played out these spiritual poems and underlying religious plays, after training and perfecting their art of dance starting from an early age, and who were revered as auspicious to religious services.
Mughal and British period
After 12th-century, Odia temples, monasteries and nearby institutions such as the Puspagiri in eastern Indian subcontinent came under waves of attacks and ransacking by Muslim armies, a turmoil that impacted all arts and eroded the freedoms previously enjoyed by performance artists. The official records of Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq's invasion in Odisha (13601361 CE), for example, describe the destruction of the Jagannath temple as well as numerous other temples, defacing of dancing statues, and ruining of dance halls. This led to a broad decline in Odissi and other religious arts, but there were some benevolent rulers in this period who supported arts particularly through performances at courts. During the Sultanate and Mughal era of India, the temple dancers were moved to entertain the Sultan's family and courts. They became associated with concubinage to the nobility.
The Odissi dance likely expanded in the 17th century, states Alexandra Carter, under King Ramachandradeva's patronage. This expansion integrated martial arts (akhanda) and athletics into Odissi dance, by engaging boys and youth called Gotipuas, as a means to physically train the young for the military and to resist foreign invasions. According to Ragini Devi, historical evidence suggests that the Gotipuas tradition was known and nurtured in the 14th century, by Raja of Khordha.
During the British Raj, the officials of the colonial government ridiculed the temple traditions, while Christian missionaries launched a sustained attack on the moral outrage of sensuousness of Odissi and other Hindu temple dance arts. In 1872, a British civil servant named William Hunter watched a performance at the Jagannatha temple in Puri, then wrote, "Indecent ceremonies disgraced the ritual, and dancing girls with rolling eyes put the modest worshipper to the blush...", and then attacked them as idol-worshipping prostitutes who expressed their devotion with "airy gyrations".
Christian missionaries launched the "anti-dance movement" in 1892, to ban all such dance forms. The dancers were frequently stigmatized as prostitutes by Europeans during the colonial era. In 1910, the British colonial government in India banned temple dancing, and the dance artists were reduced to abject poverty from the lack of any financial support for performance arts, combined with stereotyping stigma.
Post-independence
The temple dance ban and the cultural discrimination during the colonial rule marshaled a movement by Hindus to question the stereotypes and to revive the regional arts of India, including Odissi. Due to these efforts, the classical Indian dances witnessed a period of renaissance and reconstruction, which gained momentum particularly after Indians gained their freedom from colonialism.
Odissi, along with several other major Indian dances gained recognition after efforts by many scholars and performers in the 1950s, particularly by Kavichandra Kalicharan Pattanayak, an Oriya poet, dramatist and researcher. Pattanayak is also credited with naming the dance form as "Odissi".
Repertoire
Odissi, in the classical and medieval period has been, a team dance founded on Hindu texts. This drama-dance involved women (Maharis) enacting a spiritual poem or a religious story either in the inner sanctum of a Hindu temple, or in the Natamandira attached to the temple. The Odissi performing Maharis combined pure dance with expression, to play out and communicate the underlying text through abhinaya (gestures). The performance art evolved to include another aspect, wherein teams of boys – dressed as girls – called Gotipuas expanded the Odissi repertoire, such as by adding acrobatics and athletic moves, and they performed both near the temples and open fairs for general folksy entertainment. In the Indian tradition, many of the accomplished gotipuas became the gurus (teachers) in their adulthood. Modern Odissi is a diversified performance art, men have joined the women, and its reconstruction since the 1950s have added new plays and aspects of other Indian dances.
Love is a universal theme and one of the paradigmatic values in Indian religions. This theme is expressed through sensuous love poems and metaphors of sexual union in Krishna-related literature, and as longing eros (Shringara) in its dance arts such as in Odissi, from the early times. Hinduism, states Judith Hanna, encourages the artist to "strive to suggest, reveal or re-create the infinite, divine self", and art is considered as "the supreme means of realizing the Universal Being". Physical intimacy is not something considered as a reason for shame, rather considered a form of celebration and worship, where the saint is the lover and the lover is the saint. This aspect of Odissi dancing has been subdued in the modern post-colonial reconstructions, states Alexandra Carter, and the emphasis has expanded to "expressions of personal artistic excellence as ritualized spiritual articulations".
The traditional Odissi repertoire, like all classical Indian dances, includes Nritta (pure dance, solo), Nritya (dance with emotions, solo) and Natya (dramatic dance, group). These three performance aspects of Odissi are described and illustrated in the foundational Hindu texts, particularly the Natya Shastra, Abhinaya Darpana and the 16th-century Abhinaya Chandrika by Maheshwara Mahapatra of Odisha.
The Nritta performance is abstract, fast and rhythmic aspect of the dance. The viewer is presented with pure movement in Nritta, wherein the emphasis is the beauty in motion, form, speed, range and pattern. This part of the repertoire has no interpretative aspect, no telling of story. It is a technical performance, and aims to engage the senses (prakriti) of the audience.
The Nritya is slower and expressive aspect of the dance that attempts to communicate feelings, storyline particularly with spiritual themes in Hindu dance traditions. In a nritya, the dance-acting expands to include silent expression of words through the sign language of gestures and body motion set to musical notes. This part of a repertoire is more than sensory enjoyment, it aims to engage the emotions and mind of the viewer.
The Natyam is a play, typically a team performance, but can be acted out by a solo performer where the dancer uses certain standardized body movements to indicate a new character in the underlying story. A Natya incorporates the elements of a Nritya.
The Mokshya is a climatic pure dance of Odissi, aiming to highlight the liberation of soul and serenity in the spiritual.
Odissi dance can be accompanied by both northern Indian (Hindustani) and southern Indian (Carnatic) music, though mainly, recitals are in Odia and Sanskrit language in the Odissi music tradition.
Sequence
Traditional Odissi repertoire sequence starts with an invocation called Mangalacharana. A shloka (hymn) in praise of a God or Goddess is sung, such as to Jagannath (an avatar of Vishnu), the meaning of which is expressed through dance. Mangalacharana is followed by Pushpanjali (offering of flowers) and Bhumi Pranam (salutation to mother earth). The invocation also includes Trikhandi Pranam or the three-fold salutation – to the Devas (gods), to the Gurus (teachers) and to the Lokas or Rasikas (fellow dancers and audience).
The next sequential step in an Odissi performance is Batu, also known as Battu Nrutya or Sthayee Nrutya or Batuka Bhairava. It is a fast pace, pure dance (nritta) performed in the honor of Shiva. There is no song or recitation accompanying this part of the dance, just rhythmic music. This pure dance sequence in Odissi builds up to a Pallavi which is often slow, graceful & lyrical movements of the eyes, neck, torso & feet & slowly builds in a crescendo to climax in a fast tempo at the end.
The nritya follows next, and consists of Abhinaya, or an expressional dance which is an enactment of a song or poetry. The dancer(s) communicate the story in a sign language, using mudras (hand gestures), bhavas (enacting mood, emotions), eye and body movement. The dance is fluid, graceful and sensual. Abhinaya in Odissi is performed to verses recited in Sanskrit or Odia language. Most common are Abhinayas on Oriya songs or Sanskrit Ashthapadis or Sanskrit stutis like Dasavatar Stotram (depicting the ten incarnations of Lord Vishnu) or Ardhanari Stotram (half man, half woman form of the divine). Many regionally performed Abhinaya compositions are based on the Radha-Krishna theme. The Astapadis of the Radha-Krishna love poem Gita Govinda written by Jayadeva are usually performed in Odisha, as part of the dance repertoire.
The natya part, or dance drama, is next in sequence. Usually Hindu mythologies, epics and legendary dramas are chosen as themes.
A distinctive part of the Odissi tradition is the inclusion of Moksha (or Mokshya) finale in the performance sequence. This the concluding item of a recital. Moksha in Hindu traditions means “spiritual liberation”. This dance movement traditionally attempts to convey a sense of spiritual release and soul liberation, soaring into the realm of pure aesthetics. Movement and pose merge in a fast pace pure dance climax.
Basic moves and mudras
The basic unit of Odissi are called bhangas. These are made up of eight belis, or body positions and movements, combined in many varieties. Motion is uthas (rising or up), baithas (sitting or down) or sthankas (standing). The gaits or movement on the dance floor is called chaalis, with movement tempo linked to emotions according to the classical Sanskrit texts. Thus, for example, burhas or quick pace suggest excitement, while a slow confused pace suggests dejection. For aesthetics, movement is centered on a core, a point in space or floor, and each dancer has her imaginary square of space, with spins and expression held within it. The foot movement or pada bhedas too have basic dance units, and Odissi has six of these, in contrast to four found in most classical Indian dances.
The three primary dance positions in Odissi are:
Samabhanga – the square position, with weight equally placed on the two legs, spine straight, arms raised up with elbows bent.
Abhanga – the body weight shifts from side to side, due to deep leg bends, while the feet and knees are turned outwards, and one hip extending sideways.
Tribhanga – is an S-shaped three-fold bending of body, with torso deflecting in one direction while the head and hips deflecting in the opposite direction of torso. Further, the hands and legs frame the body into a composite of two squares (rectangle), providing an aesthetic frame of reference. This is described in the ancient Sanskrit texts, and forms of it are found in other Hindu dance arts, but tribhanga postures developed most in and are distinctive to Odissi, and they are found in historic Hindu temple reliefs.
Mudras or Hastas are hand gestures which are used to express the meaning of a given act. Like all classical dances of India, the aim of Odissi is in part to convey emotions, mood and inner feelings in the story by appropriate hand and facial gestures. There are 63 Hastas in modern Odissi dance, and these have the same names or structure as those in the pan-Indian Hindu texts, but most closely matching those in the Abhinaya Chandrika. These are subdivided into three, according to the traditional texts:
Asamyukta Hasta – Single hand Mudras – 28 Prakar (gestures, for instance to communicate a salute, prayer, embrace, energy, bond, swing, carriage, shell, arrow, holding a thing, wheel, and so on.)
Samyukta Hasta – Double hand Mudras – 24 Prakar (gestures, for instance to indicate a flag, flower, type of bird or animal, moon, action like grasping, and so on.)
Nrutya Hasta – “Pure Dance” Mudras
The Mudra system is derived from the "Abhinaya Darpana" by Nandikeshavara and the ancient Natya Shastra of Bharata Muni.
Costumes
The Odissi dancers are colorfully dressed with makeup and jewellery. The Saree worn by Odissi dancers are brightly coloured, and usually of local silk (Pattasari). It is worn with pleats, or may have a pleat tailor stitched in front, to allow maximum flexibility during the footwork. These sarees have traditional prints of Odisha with regional designs and embellishments, and may be the Sambalpuri Saree and Bomkai Saree.
The jewellery includes silver pieces, a metal favored in regional tradition. The hair is tied up, and typically drawn into an elaborate bun resembling a Hindu temple spire, and decorated with Seenthi. Their hairstyle may contain a moon shaped crest of white flowers, or a reed crown called Mukoot with peacock feathers (symbolism for Lord Krishna). The dancers forehead is marked with Tikka, and adorned with various jewelry such as the Allaka (head piece on which the tikka hangs). The eyes are ringed with Kajal (black eyeliner).
Ear covers called Kapa or ear rings decorate the sides of the head, while necklace adorns the neck. The dancer wears a pair of armlets also called Bahichudi or Bajuband, on the upper arm. The wrist is covered with Kankana (bangles). At the waist they wear an elaborate belt which ties down one end of the Sari. The ankles are decorated with a leather piece on top of which are bells (ghungroo). The dancer's palms and soles may be painted with red coloured dye called the Alta.
Modern Odissi male performers wear dhoti – a broadcloth tied around waist, pleated for movement, and tucked between legs; usually extends to knee or lower. Upper body is bare chested, and a long thin folded translucent sheet wrapping over one shoulder and usually tucked below a wide belt.
Music and instruments
Odissi dance is accompanied by the traditional classical music of the state of Odisha, Odissi music. The primary Odissi ragas are Kalyana, Nata, Shree Gowda, Baradi, Panchama, Dhanashri, Karnata, Bhairavee and Shokabaradi.
Odissi dance, states Ragini Devi, is a form of "visualized music", wherein the Ragas and Raginis, respectively the primary and secondary musical modes, are integrated by the musicians and interpreted through the dancer. Each note is a means, has a purpose and with a mood in classical Indian music, which Odissi accompanies to express sentiments in a song through Parija. This is true whether the performance is formal, or less formal as in Nartana and Natangi used during festive occasions and the folksy celebration of life.
An Odissi troupe comes with musicians and musical instruments. The orchestra consists of various regional musical instruments, such as the Mardala (barrel drum), harmonium, flute, sitar, violin, cymbals held in fingers and others.
Styles
The Odissi tradition existed in three schools: Mahari, Nartaki, and Gotipua:
Maharis were Oriya devadasis or temple girls, their name deriving from Maha (great) and Nari (girl), or Mahri (chosen) particularly those at the temple of Jagganath at Puri. Early Maharis performed Nritta (pure dance) and Abhinaya (interpretation of poetry) dedicated to various Hindu gods and goddesses, as well as Puranic mythologies and Vedic legends. Later, Maharis especially performed dance sequences based on the lyrics of Jayadev's Gita Govinda. This style is more sensuous and closer to the classical Sanskrit texts on dance, music and performance arts.
Gotipuas were boys dressed up as girls and taught the dance by the Maharis. This style included martial arts, athletics and acrobatics. Gotipuas danced to these compositions outside the temples and fairgrounds as folksy entertainment.
Nartaki dance took place in the royal courts, where it was prevalent before the British period.
Schools, training and recognition
Odissi maestros and performers
Kelucharan Mohapatra, Pankaj Charan Das, Deba Prasad Das and Raghunath Dutta were the four major gurus who revived Odissi in the late forties and early fifties. Sanjukta Panigrahi was a leading disciple of Kelucharan Mohapatra who popularized Odissi by performing in India and abroad. In the mid-sixties, three other disciples of Kelucharan Mohapatra, Kumkum Mohanty and Sonal Mansingh, were known for their performances in India and abroad. Laximipriya Mohapatra performed a piece of Odissi abhinaya in the Annapurna Theatre in Cuttack in 1948, a show upheld as the first classical Odissi dance performance after its contemporary revival. Guru Mayadhar Raut played a pivotal role in giving Odissi dance its classical status. He introduced Mudra Vinyoga in 1955 and Sancharibhava in the Odissi dance items, and portrayed Shringara Rasa in Gita Govinda Ashthapadis. His notable compositions include Pashyati Dishi Dishi and Priya Charu Shile, composed in 1961.
Schools
IIT Bhubaneswar
Odissi has been included in Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar's BTech syllabus since 2015 as the first Indian national technical institute to introduce any classical dance in syllabus.
In Guinness World records
Guinness World Records has acknowledged the feat of the largest congregation of Odissi dancers in a single event. 555 Odissi dancers performed at the event hosted on 23 December 2011, in the Kalinga stadium, Bhubaneswar, Odisha. The dancers performed the Mangalacharan, Battu, Pallavi, Abhinay and Mokshya dance items from the Odissi repertoire.
More than 1000 Odissi dancers performed at the World Cultural Festival 12 March 2016. This is till date the largest congregation of Odissi dancers in a single event.
Odissi Centre at Oxford University
An Odissi dance centre has been opened from January 2016, at the University of Oxford. Known as Oxford Odissi Centre, it is an initiative of the Odissi dancer and choreographer Baisali Mohanty who is also a post-graduate scholar at the University of Oxford.
Beside holding regular Odissi dance classes at its institution, the Oxford Odissi Centre also conducts Odissi dance workshops at other academic institutions in the United Kingdom.
See also
Indian classical dance
Ghungroo
Odissi music
Gotipua
References
Bibliography
Odissi : What, Why and How… Evolution, Revival and Technique, by Madhumita Raut. Published by B. R. Rhythms, Delhi, 2007. .
Odissi Yaatra: The Journey of Guru Mayadhar Raut, by Aadya Kaktikar (ed. Madhumita Raut). Published by B. R. Rhythms, Delhi, 2010. .
Odissi Dance, by Dhirendranath Patnaik. Published by Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1971.
Odissi – The Dance Divine, by Ranjana Gauhar and Dushyant Parasher. Published by Niyogi Books, 2007. .
Odissi, Indian Classical Dance Art: Odisi Nritya, by Sunil Kothari, Avinash Pasricha. Marg Publications, 1990. .
Perspectives on Odissi Theatre, by Ramesh Prasad Panigrahi, Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi. Published by Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1998.
Abhinaya-chandrika and Odissi dance, by Maheshwar Mahapatra, Alekha Chandra Sarangi, Sushama Kulshreshthaa, Maya Das. Published by Eastern Book Linkers, 2001. .
Rethinking Odissi, by Dinanath Pathy. Published by Harman Pub. House, 2007. .
, Table of Contents
External links
Odissi solo performance: Nitisha Nanda, Arabhi Pallav, New Delhi 2013
Odissi group dance: Megh Pallavi, Vancouver 2014
Maryam Shakiba – Odissi Dance – Manglacharan Ganesh Vandana Pushkar 2014
Odissi links at the Open Directory
Odissi schools, Classical Indian Dance Portal
The annotated Odissi Dance Archive on Pad.ma
History of Odissi and Geeta Govinda JN Dhar, Orissa Review
Bharat Bhavan, a Kerala-based Department of Culture information website.
Arts of Odisha
Odia culture
Jayadeva
Classical dance genres of India
Hindu temple dance
Odissi dancers
Odissi music
Artforms based on Odissi music | true | [
"Laxmipriya Mohapatra (born 1928 - died 20 March 2021) was an Indian classical dancer, performing Odissi dance on stage and in films. Along with her husband, Kelucharan Mohapatra, she is credited with reviving Odissi dance in India, in the 1940s and 50s.\n\nCareer \nMohapatra was born in Khurda, Odisha, and was taught to dance by her mother, actress and dancer Tulasi Devi. At the age of seven, she began performing at the Annapurna Theatre in Puri, Odisha, and by the age of 17, was their star performer, drawing large crowds who attended her performances. She moved to Cuttack, where she met her husband, Kelucharan Mohapatra, a trained Odissi dancer who was at the time playing tabla, a classical form of percussion, as an accompaniment, for dance performances. In 1946, after training in Odissi with her husband, she performed the first solo Odissi dance on stage, which was considered a milestone in efforts to revive the classical dance form. She is also the first woman to perform the traditional form of Gotipua dance on stage. In addition to performing Odissi, she was trained in several traditional folk dance forms, and performed at Republic Day parades in India's capital, New Delhi, in the 1950s. She performed in a number of plays on stage, as well as in several Odia films, including Manika Jodi, Suryamukhi, Mala Jahna and Amadabata. \n\nWhen her husband, Kelucharan, became a dancer and choreographer, she retired in 1985 from professional dancing to support him. Along with him, she established and taught at Srjan, a well-known classical dance school in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. Their son, Ratikant Mohapatra, is also an Odissi dancer and choreographer. She taught a number of modern Odissi dancers, including Minati Mishra, Priyambada Mohanty Hejmadi, and Kumkum Mohanty. She died on 20 March 2021, at the age of 86, and was buried with state honors. in September 2021, a five-day Odissi festival was dedicated to her memory, and included Odissi performances by many of her former students.\n\nReferences \n\n1928 births\n2021 deaths\nOdissi dancers\nIndian dancers\nIndian female classical dancers\nDancers from Odisha\nPeople from Odisha\nPerformers of Indian classical dance\n20th-century Indian dancers\nPeople from Khordha district",
"Sanjukta Panigrahi (24 August 1944 – 24 June 1997) was a dancer from India, who was the foremost exponent of Indian classical dance Odissi. Sanjukta was the first Odia woman to embrace this ancient classical dance at an early age and ensure its grand revival.\n\nIn recognition of her contribution to dancing and associated activities, she was honoured with one of India's highest civilian awards the, Padma Shri (1975). She is also recipient of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1976.\n\nApart from presenting Odissi performances in different parts of India, Sanjukta Panigrahi has been a part of Government's cultural delegation to different countries, including to the US and the Philippines (1969), United Kingdom (1983), Israel, Delphi International Festival in Greece (1989). She has also performed in France for eleven weeks, and participated there in the International Music Festival at Paris.\n\nEarly life and background\nPanigrahi was born in Berhampur, Ganjam District, Odisha state, to a traditional Brahmin family of Abhiram Mishra and Shakuntala Mishra.\n\nWhen she was a small child, she would start dancing intuitively to any rhythmic sound like the sound of chopping of vegetable or cutting of firewood. Her mother was from Baripada and belonged to a family, which had been patronising chhau folk dance for long. She recognised the talent in her daughter, and encouraged her despite some initial resistance from Abhiram Misra, Sanjukta's father. The reason for the resistance was the fact that in those days this form of dance was performed generally by temple dancing girls, called Maharis. Male dancers are called Gotipuas. These girls were like Devadasis in the temples of South India.\n\nTraining\nAt the initiative of her mother, she started to learn dance from Kelucharan Mohapatra at age of four. She was assessed to be the best child artist by the Bisuba Milan consecutively for three years during 1950–1953.\n\nIn one of her performances as six-year-old girl, she refused to leave the stage and continued to perform energetically even after the time was over. Her mother had to shout at and cajole her to stop dancing. At nine, she performed at annual festival of the Children's Little Theatre in Calcutta.\n\nShe won the first prize in International Children's Film Festival in 1952. Encouraged by her success, her parents decided to send her for better dance training, to Kalakshetra at Chennai. There she continued her lessons under the guidance of Rukmini Devi Arundale. For the next six years she stayed there, and eventually graduated with a Nrityapraveen diploma in Bharatnatyam with Kathakali as the second subject. After that, she toured many places in India and abroad, as a member of the 'Kalakshetra Ballet Troupe'.\n\nAt the age of 14, she returned to Odisha. The state government awarded her a scholarship to learn Kathak from Guru Hazarilal in Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai. However, she left the course and returned to Odisha to concentrate on Odissi.\n\nCareer\nThe initial years were very challenging for the Sanjukta and her husband, more in terms of eking out a living than anything else. Though things turned for the better, when in 1966, her guru Kelucharan Mahapatra was conferred with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, and she rendered an Odissi performance during the award ceremony in New Delhi. The audience was enthralled by her performance. She had made her mark at the national level, and from that point she did not look back.\n\nMeanwhile, her husband had emerged as a fine vocalist, and also started rendering music for her performances. In the coming decades, the Sanjukta-Raghunath duo enthralled the audience, even outlasting the Yamini-Jyothismathi duo, and were jointly awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1976.\n\nSanjukta later came to be known as Guru Kelucharan Mahapatra's greatest disciple, and they travelled the length and the breath of the India, performing together and popularising the almost lost dance form of Odissi, so much so that today, both are considered equal revivalists of the dance form.\n\nDance style\nSanjukta Panigrahi spent some time at the International School of Theatre Anthropology at Bologna, Italy in 1986, 1990 and 1992, teaching short courses and demonstrating Odissi dance to foreign students, further adding to its global popularity.\n\nSanjukta's forte was her Nritta, or pure dance, in which she was outstanding. Her great advantage was her musician husband, whose constant presence helped her finesse her abilities in this genre. In Abhinaya (interpretation of poetry), connoisseurs and critics were agreed on the fact that she more often than not veered towards jatra and melodrama.\n\nTogether with her musician husband, Sanjukta has left behind a rich repertoire of Odissi dance, both modern as well as classical, ranging from traditional numbers based on the Jayadeva's Gita Govinda to the padabalies of Surdas, Chaupais from the Ramacharitamanasa of Tulasidas and the songs of Vidyapati and Rabindranath Tagore, with piece-de-resistance being, the innovative Yugma-Dwanda: a sort of Jugalbandi between the dancer and the musician in Raga Bageshri, composed by Pandit Raghunath Panigrahi and the sublime, Moksha Mangalam which in time had become her personal signature, which she used to end her performances, on an ethereal note.\n\nIn the words of noted dance critic, Dr. Sunil Kothari, \"Sanjukta gave up Bharatnatyam and devoted her life to Odissi, putting her signature on the form.\"\n\nLater years \nShe continued to perform in most of the state functions. With her pioneering efforts, she brought forth an almost forgotten Odissi style of dancing to an important position in the dance repertory of India.\n\nShe died of cancer at the age of 52, on 24 June 1997.\n\nPersonal life\nAt Kalakshetra, Chennai, she had fallen in love with Raghunath Panigrahi, ten-year her senior, and a fine vocalist of Gita Govinda, who left a promising career in film music in Chennai, to provide vocal support in her performances. When she was 16 years of age, they got married and over a period of time had two sons.\n\nLegacy\nSanjukta left behind many accomplished students, including Dr. Chitra Krishnamurti, director of Nrityalaya (an Odissi school in Potomac) and Joyoti Das a resident of Melbourne, a devout disciple of her in Australia, the artistic director and teacher of Kalamandir School of Indian classical dances, dedicated to maintain the continuum of Sanjukta's Odissi style. Sanjukta Panigrahi is considered an embodiment of Guru Kelucharan Mahapatra's art.\n\nSanjukta Panigrahi Awards \nAfter her death, her husband Raghunath Panigrahi formed a trust in her name, 'Sanjukta Panigrahi Memorial Trust', in 1999, to promote the cause of Odissi dance. Since 2001, every year on her birth anniversary, the trust has been giving away scholarships to budding dancers, and awards excellence in the field of Odissi dance.\n\nQuotes \n \"I had two gurus, each with contradicting views. Rukmini Devi Arundale stressed technique while Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra insisted upon forgetting technique. I was confused. Much later I realized that with dedication and hard work, technique would follow automatically.\" As told to a disciple, Joyoti Das.\n \"Shakti [. . .] which is neither masculine nor feminine [. . .]. A performer of either sex is always Shakti, energy which creates.\"\n\nFilms on Sanjukta Panigrahi \n Encounter With the Gods: Odissi Dance With Sanjukta Panigrahi. 1999\n\nSee also\n Indian women in dance\n\nReferences\n\n Indra Gupta, India's 50 Most Illustrious Women New Delhi: Icon Publications, 2003.\n\nExternal links\n Jack Anderson, Dance: Sanjukta Panigrahi in The New York Times, 14 October 1984 accessed at 31 July 2006\n \n Sanjukta Panigrahi Images\nVideo links\n \n \n\n1944 births\n1997 deaths\nPeople from Ganjam district\nRecipients of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award\nRecipients of the Padma Shri in arts\nOdissi dancers\nPerformers of Indian classical dance\nIndian classical choreographers\nTeachers of Indian classical dance\nKalakshetra Foundation alumni\nIndian women choreographers\nIndian choreographers\nDancers from Odisha\n20th-century Indian educators\n20th-century Indian dancers\n20th-century Indian women artists\nEducators from Odisha\nWomen artists from Odisha\nWomen educators from Odisha\nIndian female classical dancers\n20th-century women educators"
] |
[
"Odissi",
"Medieval era",
"Was Odissi an acceptable form of dancing during the Medieval era?",
"The Buddhist icons, for example, are depicted as dancing gods and goddesses,",
"Was Odissi popular form of dancing during the Medieval era?",
"Historical evidence, states Alexandra Carter, shows that Odissi Maharis (Hindu temple dancers) and dance halls architecture (nata-mandap) were in vogue"
] | C_c50f120990f34e0cb4e97ecfbab870af_1 | Was there a popular Odissi dancer in this era? | 3 | Was there a popular Odissi dancer in the Medieval era? | Odissi | The Buddhist, Jain and Hindu archaeological sites in Odisha state, particularly the Assia range of hills show inscriptions and carvings of dances that are dated to the 6th to 9th century CE. Important sites include the Ranigumpha in Udaygiri, and various caves and temples at Lalitgiri, Ratnagiri and Alatgiri sites. The Buddhist icons, for example, are depicted as dancing gods and goddesses, with Haruka, Vajravarahi, and Marichi in Odissi-like postures. Historical evidence, states Alexandra Carter, shows that Odissi Maharis (Hindu temple dancers) and dance halls architecture (nata-mandap) were in vogue at least by the 9th century CE. According to Kapila Vatsyayan, the Kalpasutra of Jainism, in its manuscripts discovered in Gujarat, includes classical Indian dance poses - such as the Samapada, the Tribhangi and the Chuaka of Odissi. This, states Vatsyayan, suggests that Odissi was admired or at least well known in distant parts of India, far from Odisha in the medieval era, to be included in the margins of an important Jain text. However, the Jain manuscripts use the dance poses as decorative art in the margins and cover, but do not describe or discuss the dance. Hindu dance texts such as the Abhinaya Chandrika and Abhinaya Darpana provide a detailed description of the movements of the feet, hands, the standing postures, the movement and the dance repertoire. It includes illustrations of the Karanas mentioned in NatyaShastra. Similarly, the illustrated Hindu text on temple architecture from Odisha, the Shilpaprakasha, deals with Odia architecture and sculpture, and includes Odissi postures. Actual sculptures that have survived into the modern era and panel reliefs in Odia temples, dated to be from the 10th to 14th century, show Odissi dance. This is evidenced in Jagannath temple in Puri, as well as other temples of Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Vedic deities such as Surya (Sun) in Odisha. There are several sculptures of dancers and musicians in Konark Sun Temple and Brahmeswara Temple in Bhubaneswar. The composition of the poetic texts by 8th century Shankaracharya and particularly of divine love inspired Gitagovinda by 12th century Jayadeva influenced the focus and growth of modern Odissi. Odissi was performed in the temples by the dancers called Maharis, who played out these spiritual poems and underlying religious plays, after training and perfecting their art of dance starting from an early age, and who were revered as auspicious to religious services. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Odissi (), also referred to as Orissi in older literature, is a major ancient Indian classical dance that originated in the Hindu temples of Odisha – an eastern coastal state of India. Odissi, in its history, was performed predominantly by women, and expressed religious stories and spiritual ideas, particularly of Vaishnavism. Odissi performances have also expressed ideas of other traditions such as those related to Hindu gods Shiva and Surya, as well as Hindu goddesses (Shaktism).
The theoretical foundations of Odissi trace to the ancient Sanskrit text Natya Shastra, its existence in antiquity evidenced by the dance poses in the sculptures of Odissi Hindu temples, and archeological sites related to Hinduism (Sanatana Dharma), Buddhism and Jainism. It was suppressed under the British Rule. The suppression was protested by the Indians, followed by its revival, reconstruction and expansion since India gained independence from the colonial rule.
Odissi is traditionally a dance-drama genre of performance art, where the artist(s) and musicians play out a story, a spiritual message or devotional poem from the Hindu texts, using symbolic costumes, body movement, abhinaya (expressions) and mudras (gestures and sign language) set out in ancient Sanskrit literature. Classical Odia literature & the Gitagovinda set to traditional Odissi music are used for the abhinaya. Odissi is learnt and performed as a composite of basic dance motif called the Bhangas (symmetric body bends, stance). It involves lower (footwork), mid (torso) and upper (hand and head) as three sources of perfecting expression and audience engagement with geometric symmetry and rhythmic musical resonance. An Odissi performance repertoire includes invocation, nritta (pure dance), nritya (expressive dance), natya (dance drama) and moksha (dance climax connoting freedom of the soul and spiritual release).
Traditional Odissi exists in two major styles, the first perfected by women and focussed on solemn, spiritual temple dance (maharis); the second perfected by boys dressed as girls (gotipuas) which diversified to include athletic and acrobatic moves, and were performed from festive occasions in temples to general folksy entertainment. Modern Odissi productions by Indian artists have presented a diverse range of experimental ideas, culture fusion, themes and plays.
Odissi was the only Indian dance form present in Michael Jackson's 1991 hit single Black or White.
History
The foundations of Odissi are found in Natya Shastra, the ancient Hindu Sanskrit text of performance arts. The basic dance units described in Natyashastra, all 108 of them, are identical to those in Odissi.
Natya Shastra is attributed to the ancient scholar Bharata Muni, and its first complete compilation is dated to between 200 BCE and 200 CE, but estimates vary between 500 BCE and 500 CE. The most studied version of the Natya Shastra text consists of about 6000 verses structured into 36 chapters. The text, states Natalia Lidova, describes the theory of Tāṇḍava dance (Shiva), the theory of rasa, of bhāva, expression, gestures, acting techniques, basic steps, standing postures – all of which are part of Indian classical dances. Dance and performance arts, states this ancient text, are a form of expression of spiritual ideas, virtues and the essence of scriptures. The Natya Shastra refers to four vrittis (methods of expressive delivery) in vogue – Avanti, Dakshinatya, Panchali and Odra-Magadhi; of these, the Odra refers to Odisha.
More direct historical evidence of dance and music as an ancient performance art are found in archaeological sites such as caves and in temple carvings of Bhubaneswar, Konark and Puri. The Manchapuri cave in Udayagiri shows carvings of dance and musicians, and this has been dated to the time of Jain king Kharavela in the first or second century BCE. The Hathigumpha inscriptions, also dated to the same ruler, mention music and dance:
<blockquote style="background-color:none;margin-right:5em;margin-left:0em;border-left:solid 6px #FFE0BB;padding:1.0em">
(he [the king]) versed in the science of the Gandharvas (i.e., music), entertains the capital with the exhibition of dapa, dancing, singing and instrumental music and by causing to be held festivities and assemblies (samajas)...</p>
— Hathigumpha inscription, Line 5, ~ 2nd–1st century BCE
</blockquote>
The musical tradition of Odisha also has ancient roots. Archeologists have reported the discovery of 20-key, carefully shaped polished basalt lithophone in Sankarjang, the highlands of Odisha, which is dated to about 1000 BCE.
Medieval era
The Hindu, Jain and Buddhist archaeological sites in Odisha state, particularly the Assia range of hills show inscriptions and carvings of dances that are dated to the 6th to 9th century CE. Important sites include the Ranigumpha in Udaygiri, and various caves and temples at Lalitgiri, Ratnagiri and Alatgiri sites. The Buddhist icons, for example, are depicted as dancing gods and goddesses, with Haruka, Vajravarahi, and Marichi in Odissi-like postures. Historical evidence, states Alexandra Carter, shows that Odissi Maharis (Hindu temple dancers) and dance halls architecture (nata-mandap) were in vogue at least by the 9th century CE.
According to Kapila Vatsyayan, the Kalpasutra of Jainism, in its manuscripts discovered in Gujarat, includes classical Indian dance poses – such as the Samapada, the Tribhangi and the Chuaka of Odissi. This, states Vatsyayan, suggests that Odissi was admired or at least well known in distant parts of India, far from Odisha in the medieval era, to be included in the margins of an important Jain text. However, the Jain manuscripts use the dance poses as decorative art in the margins and cover, but do not describe or discuss the dance. Hindu dance texts such as the Abhinaya Chandrika and Abhinaya Darpana provide a detailed description of the movements of the feet, hands, the standing postures, the movement and the dance repertoire. It includes illustrations of the Karanãs mentioned in NãtyaShãstra. Similarly, the illustrated Hindu text on temple architecture from Odisha, the Shilpaprakãsha, deals with Odia architecture and sculpture, and includes Odissi postures.
Actual sculptures that have survived into the modern era and panel reliefs in Odia temples, dated to be from the 10th to 14th century, show Odissi dance. This is evidenced in Jagannatha temple in Puri, as well as other temples of Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Vedic deities such as Surya (Sun) in Odisha. There are several sculptures of dancers and musicians in Konark Sun Temple and Brahmeswara Temple in Bhubaneswar.
The composition of the poetic texts by 8th century Shankaracharya and particularly of divine love inspired Gitagovinda by 12th century Jayadeva influenced the focus and growth of modern Odissi. Odissi was performed in the temples by the dancers called Maharis, who played out these spiritual poems and underlying religious plays, after training and perfecting their art of dance starting from an early age, and who were revered as auspicious to religious services.
Mughal and British period
After 12th-century, Odia temples, monasteries and nearby institutions such as the Puspagiri in eastern Indian subcontinent came under waves of attacks and ransacking by Muslim armies, a turmoil that impacted all arts and eroded the freedoms previously enjoyed by performance artists. The official records of Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq's invasion in Odisha (13601361 CE), for example, describe the destruction of the Jagannath temple as well as numerous other temples, defacing of dancing statues, and ruining of dance halls. This led to a broad decline in Odissi and other religious arts, but there were some benevolent rulers in this period who supported arts particularly through performances at courts. During the Sultanate and Mughal era of India, the temple dancers were moved to entertain the Sultan's family and courts. They became associated with concubinage to the nobility.
The Odissi dance likely expanded in the 17th century, states Alexandra Carter, under King Ramachandradeva's patronage. This expansion integrated martial arts (akhanda) and athletics into Odissi dance, by engaging boys and youth called Gotipuas, as a means to physically train the young for the military and to resist foreign invasions. According to Ragini Devi, historical evidence suggests that the Gotipuas tradition was known and nurtured in the 14th century, by Raja of Khordha.
During the British Raj, the officials of the colonial government ridiculed the temple traditions, while Christian missionaries launched a sustained attack on the moral outrage of sensuousness of Odissi and other Hindu temple dance arts. In 1872, a British civil servant named William Hunter watched a performance at the Jagannatha temple in Puri, then wrote, "Indecent ceremonies disgraced the ritual, and dancing girls with rolling eyes put the modest worshipper to the blush...", and then attacked them as idol-worshipping prostitutes who expressed their devotion with "airy gyrations".
Christian missionaries launched the "anti-dance movement" in 1892, to ban all such dance forms. The dancers were frequently stigmatized as prostitutes by Europeans during the colonial era. In 1910, the British colonial government in India banned temple dancing, and the dance artists were reduced to abject poverty from the lack of any financial support for performance arts, combined with stereotyping stigma.
Post-independence
The temple dance ban and the cultural discrimination during the colonial rule marshaled a movement by Hindus to question the stereotypes and to revive the regional arts of India, including Odissi. Due to these efforts, the classical Indian dances witnessed a period of renaissance and reconstruction, which gained momentum particularly after Indians gained their freedom from colonialism.
Odissi, along with several other major Indian dances gained recognition after efforts by many scholars and performers in the 1950s, particularly by Kavichandra Kalicharan Pattanayak, an Oriya poet, dramatist and researcher. Pattanayak is also credited with naming the dance form as "Odissi".
Repertoire
Odissi, in the classical and medieval period has been, a team dance founded on Hindu texts. This drama-dance involved women (Maharis) enacting a spiritual poem or a religious story either in the inner sanctum of a Hindu temple, or in the Natamandira attached to the temple. The Odissi performing Maharis combined pure dance with expression, to play out and communicate the underlying text through abhinaya (gestures). The performance art evolved to include another aspect, wherein teams of boys – dressed as girls – called Gotipuas expanded the Odissi repertoire, such as by adding acrobatics and athletic moves, and they performed both near the temples and open fairs for general folksy entertainment. In the Indian tradition, many of the accomplished gotipuas became the gurus (teachers) in their adulthood. Modern Odissi is a diversified performance art, men have joined the women, and its reconstruction since the 1950s have added new plays and aspects of other Indian dances.
Love is a universal theme and one of the paradigmatic values in Indian religions. This theme is expressed through sensuous love poems and metaphors of sexual union in Krishna-related literature, and as longing eros (Shringara) in its dance arts such as in Odissi, from the early times. Hinduism, states Judith Hanna, encourages the artist to "strive to suggest, reveal or re-create the infinite, divine self", and art is considered as "the supreme means of realizing the Universal Being". Physical intimacy is not something considered as a reason for shame, rather considered a form of celebration and worship, where the saint is the lover and the lover is the saint. This aspect of Odissi dancing has been subdued in the modern post-colonial reconstructions, states Alexandra Carter, and the emphasis has expanded to "expressions of personal artistic excellence as ritualized spiritual articulations".
The traditional Odissi repertoire, like all classical Indian dances, includes Nritta (pure dance, solo), Nritya (dance with emotions, solo) and Natya (dramatic dance, group). These three performance aspects of Odissi are described and illustrated in the foundational Hindu texts, particularly the Natya Shastra, Abhinaya Darpana and the 16th-century Abhinaya Chandrika by Maheshwara Mahapatra of Odisha.
The Nritta performance is abstract, fast and rhythmic aspect of the dance. The viewer is presented with pure movement in Nritta, wherein the emphasis is the beauty in motion, form, speed, range and pattern. This part of the repertoire has no interpretative aspect, no telling of story. It is a technical performance, and aims to engage the senses (prakriti) of the audience.
The Nritya is slower and expressive aspect of the dance that attempts to communicate feelings, storyline particularly with spiritual themes in Hindu dance traditions. In a nritya, the dance-acting expands to include silent expression of words through the sign language of gestures and body motion set to musical notes. This part of a repertoire is more than sensory enjoyment, it aims to engage the emotions and mind of the viewer.
The Natyam is a play, typically a team performance, but can be acted out by a solo performer where the dancer uses certain standardized body movements to indicate a new character in the underlying story. A Natya incorporates the elements of a Nritya.
The Mokshya is a climatic pure dance of Odissi, aiming to highlight the liberation of soul and serenity in the spiritual.
Odissi dance can be accompanied by both northern Indian (Hindustani) and southern Indian (Carnatic) music, though mainly, recitals are in Odia and Sanskrit language in the Odissi music tradition.
Sequence
Traditional Odissi repertoire sequence starts with an invocation called Mangalacharana. A shloka (hymn) in praise of a God or Goddess is sung, such as to Jagannath (an avatar of Vishnu), the meaning of which is expressed through dance. Mangalacharana is followed by Pushpanjali (offering of flowers) and Bhumi Pranam (salutation to mother earth). The invocation also includes Trikhandi Pranam or the three-fold salutation – to the Devas (gods), to the Gurus (teachers) and to the Lokas or Rasikas (fellow dancers and audience).
The next sequential step in an Odissi performance is Batu, also known as Battu Nrutya or Sthayee Nrutya or Batuka Bhairava. It is a fast pace, pure dance (nritta) performed in the honor of Shiva. There is no song or recitation accompanying this part of the dance, just rhythmic music. This pure dance sequence in Odissi builds up to a Pallavi which is often slow, graceful & lyrical movements of the eyes, neck, torso & feet & slowly builds in a crescendo to climax in a fast tempo at the end.
The nritya follows next, and consists of Abhinaya, or an expressional dance which is an enactment of a song or poetry. The dancer(s) communicate the story in a sign language, using mudras (hand gestures), bhavas (enacting mood, emotions), eye and body movement. The dance is fluid, graceful and sensual. Abhinaya in Odissi is performed to verses recited in Sanskrit or Odia language. Most common are Abhinayas on Oriya songs or Sanskrit Ashthapadis or Sanskrit stutis like Dasavatar Stotram (depicting the ten incarnations of Lord Vishnu) or Ardhanari Stotram (half man, half woman form of the divine). Many regionally performed Abhinaya compositions are based on the Radha-Krishna theme. The Astapadis of the Radha-Krishna love poem Gita Govinda written by Jayadeva are usually performed in Odisha, as part of the dance repertoire.
The natya part, or dance drama, is next in sequence. Usually Hindu mythologies, epics and legendary dramas are chosen as themes.
A distinctive part of the Odissi tradition is the inclusion of Moksha (or Mokshya) finale in the performance sequence. This the concluding item of a recital. Moksha in Hindu traditions means “spiritual liberation”. This dance movement traditionally attempts to convey a sense of spiritual release and soul liberation, soaring into the realm of pure aesthetics. Movement and pose merge in a fast pace pure dance climax.
Basic moves and mudras
The basic unit of Odissi are called bhangas. These are made up of eight belis, or body positions and movements, combined in many varieties. Motion is uthas (rising or up), baithas (sitting or down) or sthankas (standing). The gaits or movement on the dance floor is called chaalis, with movement tempo linked to emotions according to the classical Sanskrit texts. Thus, for example, burhas or quick pace suggest excitement, while a slow confused pace suggests dejection. For aesthetics, movement is centered on a core, a point in space or floor, and each dancer has her imaginary square of space, with spins and expression held within it. The foot movement or pada bhedas too have basic dance units, and Odissi has six of these, in contrast to four found in most classical Indian dances.
The three primary dance positions in Odissi are:
Samabhanga – the square position, with weight equally placed on the two legs, spine straight, arms raised up with elbows bent.
Abhanga – the body weight shifts from side to side, due to deep leg bends, while the feet and knees are turned outwards, and one hip extending sideways.
Tribhanga – is an S-shaped three-fold bending of body, with torso deflecting in one direction while the head and hips deflecting in the opposite direction of torso. Further, the hands and legs frame the body into a composite of two squares (rectangle), providing an aesthetic frame of reference. This is described in the ancient Sanskrit texts, and forms of it are found in other Hindu dance arts, but tribhanga postures developed most in and are distinctive to Odissi, and they are found in historic Hindu temple reliefs.
Mudras or Hastas are hand gestures which are used to express the meaning of a given act. Like all classical dances of India, the aim of Odissi is in part to convey emotions, mood and inner feelings in the story by appropriate hand and facial gestures. There are 63 Hastas in modern Odissi dance, and these have the same names or structure as those in the pan-Indian Hindu texts, but most closely matching those in the Abhinaya Chandrika. These are subdivided into three, according to the traditional texts:
Asamyukta Hasta – Single hand Mudras – 28 Prakar (gestures, for instance to communicate a salute, prayer, embrace, energy, bond, swing, carriage, shell, arrow, holding a thing, wheel, and so on.)
Samyukta Hasta – Double hand Mudras – 24 Prakar (gestures, for instance to indicate a flag, flower, type of bird or animal, moon, action like grasping, and so on.)
Nrutya Hasta – “Pure Dance” Mudras
The Mudra system is derived from the "Abhinaya Darpana" by Nandikeshavara and the ancient Natya Shastra of Bharata Muni.
Costumes
The Odissi dancers are colorfully dressed with makeup and jewellery. The Saree worn by Odissi dancers are brightly coloured, and usually of local silk (Pattasari). It is worn with pleats, or may have a pleat tailor stitched in front, to allow maximum flexibility during the footwork. These sarees have traditional prints of Odisha with regional designs and embellishments, and may be the Sambalpuri Saree and Bomkai Saree.
The jewellery includes silver pieces, a metal favored in regional tradition. The hair is tied up, and typically drawn into an elaborate bun resembling a Hindu temple spire, and decorated with Seenthi. Their hairstyle may contain a moon shaped crest of white flowers, or a reed crown called Mukoot with peacock feathers (symbolism for Lord Krishna). The dancers forehead is marked with Tikka, and adorned with various jewelry such as the Allaka (head piece on which the tikka hangs). The eyes are ringed with Kajal (black eyeliner).
Ear covers called Kapa or ear rings decorate the sides of the head, while necklace adorns the neck. The dancer wears a pair of armlets also called Bahichudi or Bajuband, on the upper arm. The wrist is covered with Kankana (bangles). At the waist they wear an elaborate belt which ties down one end of the Sari. The ankles are decorated with a leather piece on top of which are bells (ghungroo). The dancer's palms and soles may be painted with red coloured dye called the Alta.
Modern Odissi male performers wear dhoti – a broadcloth tied around waist, pleated for movement, and tucked between legs; usually extends to knee or lower. Upper body is bare chested, and a long thin folded translucent sheet wrapping over one shoulder and usually tucked below a wide belt.
Music and instruments
Odissi dance is accompanied by the traditional classical music of the state of Odisha, Odissi music. The primary Odissi ragas are Kalyana, Nata, Shree Gowda, Baradi, Panchama, Dhanashri, Karnata, Bhairavee and Shokabaradi.
Odissi dance, states Ragini Devi, is a form of "visualized music", wherein the Ragas and Raginis, respectively the primary and secondary musical modes, are integrated by the musicians and interpreted through the dancer. Each note is a means, has a purpose and with a mood in classical Indian music, which Odissi accompanies to express sentiments in a song through Parija. This is true whether the performance is formal, or less formal as in Nartana and Natangi used during festive occasions and the folksy celebration of life.
An Odissi troupe comes with musicians and musical instruments. The orchestra consists of various regional musical instruments, such as the Mardala (barrel drum), harmonium, flute, sitar, violin, cymbals held in fingers and others.
Styles
The Odissi tradition existed in three schools: Mahari, Nartaki, and Gotipua:
Maharis were Oriya devadasis or temple girls, their name deriving from Maha (great) and Nari (girl), or Mahri (chosen) particularly those at the temple of Jagganath at Puri. Early Maharis performed Nritta (pure dance) and Abhinaya (interpretation of poetry) dedicated to various Hindu gods and goddesses, as well as Puranic mythologies and Vedic legends. Later, Maharis especially performed dance sequences based on the lyrics of Jayadev's Gita Govinda. This style is more sensuous and closer to the classical Sanskrit texts on dance, music and performance arts.
Gotipuas were boys dressed up as girls and taught the dance by the Maharis. This style included martial arts, athletics and acrobatics. Gotipuas danced to these compositions outside the temples and fairgrounds as folksy entertainment.
Nartaki dance took place in the royal courts, where it was prevalent before the British period.
Schools, training and recognition
Odissi maestros and performers
Kelucharan Mohapatra, Pankaj Charan Das, Deba Prasad Das and Raghunath Dutta were the four major gurus who revived Odissi in the late forties and early fifties. Sanjukta Panigrahi was a leading disciple of Kelucharan Mohapatra who popularized Odissi by performing in India and abroad. In the mid-sixties, three other disciples of Kelucharan Mohapatra, Kumkum Mohanty and Sonal Mansingh, were known for their performances in India and abroad. Laximipriya Mohapatra performed a piece of Odissi abhinaya in the Annapurna Theatre in Cuttack in 1948, a show upheld as the first classical Odissi dance performance after its contemporary revival. Guru Mayadhar Raut played a pivotal role in giving Odissi dance its classical status. He introduced Mudra Vinyoga in 1955 and Sancharibhava in the Odissi dance items, and portrayed Shringara Rasa in Gita Govinda Ashthapadis. His notable compositions include Pashyati Dishi Dishi and Priya Charu Shile, composed in 1961.
Schools
IIT Bhubaneswar
Odissi has been included in Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar's BTech syllabus since 2015 as the first Indian national technical institute to introduce any classical dance in syllabus.
In Guinness World records
Guinness World Records has acknowledged the feat of the largest congregation of Odissi dancers in a single event. 555 Odissi dancers performed at the event hosted on 23 December 2011, in the Kalinga stadium, Bhubaneswar, Odisha. The dancers performed the Mangalacharan, Battu, Pallavi, Abhinay and Mokshya dance items from the Odissi repertoire.
More than 1000 Odissi dancers performed at the World Cultural Festival 12 March 2016. This is till date the largest congregation of Odissi dancers in a single event.
Odissi Centre at Oxford University
An Odissi dance centre has been opened from January 2016, at the University of Oxford. Known as Oxford Odissi Centre, it is an initiative of the Odissi dancer and choreographer Baisali Mohanty who is also a post-graduate scholar at the University of Oxford.
Beside holding regular Odissi dance classes at its institution, the Oxford Odissi Centre also conducts Odissi dance workshops at other academic institutions in the United Kingdom.
See also
Indian classical dance
Ghungroo
Odissi music
Gotipua
References
Bibliography
Odissi : What, Why and How… Evolution, Revival and Technique, by Madhumita Raut. Published by B. R. Rhythms, Delhi, 2007. .
Odissi Yaatra: The Journey of Guru Mayadhar Raut, by Aadya Kaktikar (ed. Madhumita Raut). Published by B. R. Rhythms, Delhi, 2010. .
Odissi Dance, by Dhirendranath Patnaik. Published by Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1971.
Odissi – The Dance Divine, by Ranjana Gauhar and Dushyant Parasher. Published by Niyogi Books, 2007. .
Odissi, Indian Classical Dance Art: Odisi Nritya, by Sunil Kothari, Avinash Pasricha. Marg Publications, 1990. .
Perspectives on Odissi Theatre, by Ramesh Prasad Panigrahi, Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi. Published by Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1998.
Abhinaya-chandrika and Odissi dance, by Maheshwar Mahapatra, Alekha Chandra Sarangi, Sushama Kulshreshthaa, Maya Das. Published by Eastern Book Linkers, 2001. .
Rethinking Odissi, by Dinanath Pathy. Published by Harman Pub. House, 2007. .
, Table of Contents
External links
Odissi solo performance: Nitisha Nanda, Arabhi Pallav, New Delhi 2013
Odissi group dance: Megh Pallavi, Vancouver 2014
Maryam Shakiba – Odissi Dance – Manglacharan Ganesh Vandana Pushkar 2014
Odissi links at the Open Directory
Odissi schools, Classical Indian Dance Portal
The annotated Odissi Dance Archive on Pad.ma
History of Odissi and Geeta Govinda JN Dhar, Orissa Review
Bharat Bhavan, a Kerala-based Department of Culture information website.
Arts of Odisha
Odia culture
Jayadeva
Classical dance genres of India
Hindu temple dance
Odissi dancers
Odissi music
Artforms based on Odissi music | false | [
"Laxmipriya Mohapatra (born 1928 - died 20 March 2021) was an Indian classical dancer, performing Odissi dance on stage and in films. Along with her husband, Kelucharan Mohapatra, she is credited with reviving Odissi dance in India, in the 1940s and 50s.\n\nCareer \nMohapatra was born in Khurda, Odisha, and was taught to dance by her mother, actress and dancer Tulasi Devi. At the age of seven, she began performing at the Annapurna Theatre in Puri, Odisha, and by the age of 17, was their star performer, drawing large crowds who attended her performances. She moved to Cuttack, where she met her husband, Kelucharan Mohapatra, a trained Odissi dancer who was at the time playing tabla, a classical form of percussion, as an accompaniment, for dance performances. In 1946, after training in Odissi with her husband, she performed the first solo Odissi dance on stage, which was considered a milestone in efforts to revive the classical dance form. She is also the first woman to perform the traditional form of Gotipua dance on stage. In addition to performing Odissi, she was trained in several traditional folk dance forms, and performed at Republic Day parades in India's capital, New Delhi, in the 1950s. She performed in a number of plays on stage, as well as in several Odia films, including Manika Jodi, Suryamukhi, Mala Jahna and Amadabata. \n\nWhen her husband, Kelucharan, became a dancer and choreographer, she retired in 1985 from professional dancing to support him. Along with him, she established and taught at Srjan, a well-known classical dance school in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. Their son, Ratikant Mohapatra, is also an Odissi dancer and choreographer. She taught a number of modern Odissi dancers, including Minati Mishra, Priyambada Mohanty Hejmadi, and Kumkum Mohanty. She died on 20 March 2021, at the age of 86, and was buried with state honors. in September 2021, a five-day Odissi festival was dedicated to her memory, and included Odissi performances by many of her former students.\n\nReferences \n\n1928 births\n2021 deaths\nOdissi dancers\nIndian dancers\nIndian female classical dancers\nDancers from Odisha\nPeople from Odisha\nPerformers of Indian classical dance\n20th-century Indian dancers\nPeople from Khordha district",
"Oxford Odissi Festival is an annual Indian classical dance festival held at University of Oxford, United Kingdom.\n\nThe festival was founded by Indian dancer and choreographer Baisali Mohanty in 2015 and is organised by Oxford Odissi Centre in association with the High Commission of India to the United Kingdom.\n\nBeside exhibiting new and innovative choreographies in Odissi, the festival showcases all forms of Indian classical dance.\n\nHistory \nThe festival was conceptualised by Baisali Mohanty, a master's degree student at University of Oxford and a classical dancer and choreographer, to help popularise Odissi and other forms of Indian classical dance at one of the premier seat of learning.\n\nThe first edition of the festival was held on May 27, 2016, at the Grove Auditorium of Magdalen College, University of Oxford.\n\nFestival Programme \nThe festival hosts solo, duet and group choreographies. A major attraction of the festival is a fusion featuring Odissi, Kathak, Bharata Natyam and Mohiniyattam, highlighting the interconnectedness that runs through this different dance forms, as a reflection of the underlying unity among diverse Indian culture.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nhttps://web.archive.org/web/20160815224843/http://www.southasia.ox.ac.uk/oxford-odissi-festival\nhttp://epaper.telegraphindia.com/details/191794-24846140.html\n\nDance festivals in the United Kingdom\nArt festivals in the United Kingdom\nAnnual events in England\nDance in India\nDance events\nOdissi\nFestivals in Oxford"
] |
[
"Odissi",
"Medieval era",
"Was Odissi an acceptable form of dancing during the Medieval era?",
"The Buddhist icons, for example, are depicted as dancing gods and goddesses,",
"Was Odissi popular form of dancing during the Medieval era?",
"Historical evidence, states Alexandra Carter, shows that Odissi Maharis (Hindu temple dancers) and dance halls architecture (nata-mandap) were in vogue",
"Was there a popular Odissi dancer in this era?",
"I don't know."
] | C_c50f120990f34e0cb4e97ecfbab870af_1 | Is there anything significant about Odissi dancing in the Medieval era? | 4 | Is there anything significant about Odissi dancing in the Medieval era? | Odissi | The Buddhist, Jain and Hindu archaeological sites in Odisha state, particularly the Assia range of hills show inscriptions and carvings of dances that are dated to the 6th to 9th century CE. Important sites include the Ranigumpha in Udaygiri, and various caves and temples at Lalitgiri, Ratnagiri and Alatgiri sites. The Buddhist icons, for example, are depicted as dancing gods and goddesses, with Haruka, Vajravarahi, and Marichi in Odissi-like postures. Historical evidence, states Alexandra Carter, shows that Odissi Maharis (Hindu temple dancers) and dance halls architecture (nata-mandap) were in vogue at least by the 9th century CE. According to Kapila Vatsyayan, the Kalpasutra of Jainism, in its manuscripts discovered in Gujarat, includes classical Indian dance poses - such as the Samapada, the Tribhangi and the Chuaka of Odissi. This, states Vatsyayan, suggests that Odissi was admired or at least well known in distant parts of India, far from Odisha in the medieval era, to be included in the margins of an important Jain text. However, the Jain manuscripts use the dance poses as decorative art in the margins and cover, but do not describe or discuss the dance. Hindu dance texts such as the Abhinaya Chandrika and Abhinaya Darpana provide a detailed description of the movements of the feet, hands, the standing postures, the movement and the dance repertoire. It includes illustrations of the Karanas mentioned in NatyaShastra. Similarly, the illustrated Hindu text on temple architecture from Odisha, the Shilpaprakasha, deals with Odia architecture and sculpture, and includes Odissi postures. Actual sculptures that have survived into the modern era and panel reliefs in Odia temples, dated to be from the 10th to 14th century, show Odissi dance. This is evidenced in Jagannath temple in Puri, as well as other temples of Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Vedic deities such as Surya (Sun) in Odisha. There are several sculptures of dancers and musicians in Konark Sun Temple and Brahmeswara Temple in Bhubaneswar. The composition of the poetic texts by 8th century Shankaracharya and particularly of divine love inspired Gitagovinda by 12th century Jayadeva influenced the focus and growth of modern Odissi. Odissi was performed in the temples by the dancers called Maharis, who played out these spiritual poems and underlying religious plays, after training and perfecting their art of dance starting from an early age, and who were revered as auspicious to religious services. CANNOTANSWER | Odissi was admired or at least well known in distant parts of India, far from Odisha in the medieval era, | Odissi (), also referred to as Orissi in older literature, is a major ancient Indian classical dance that originated in the Hindu temples of Odisha – an eastern coastal state of India. Odissi, in its history, was performed predominantly by women, and expressed religious stories and spiritual ideas, particularly of Vaishnavism. Odissi performances have also expressed ideas of other traditions such as those related to Hindu gods Shiva and Surya, as well as Hindu goddesses (Shaktism).
The theoretical foundations of Odissi trace to the ancient Sanskrit text Natya Shastra, its existence in antiquity evidenced by the dance poses in the sculptures of Odissi Hindu temples, and archeological sites related to Hinduism (Sanatana Dharma), Buddhism and Jainism. It was suppressed under the British Rule. The suppression was protested by the Indians, followed by its revival, reconstruction and expansion since India gained independence from the colonial rule.
Odissi is traditionally a dance-drama genre of performance art, where the artist(s) and musicians play out a story, a spiritual message or devotional poem from the Hindu texts, using symbolic costumes, body movement, abhinaya (expressions) and mudras (gestures and sign language) set out in ancient Sanskrit literature. Classical Odia literature & the Gitagovinda set to traditional Odissi music are used for the abhinaya. Odissi is learnt and performed as a composite of basic dance motif called the Bhangas (symmetric body bends, stance). It involves lower (footwork), mid (torso) and upper (hand and head) as three sources of perfecting expression and audience engagement with geometric symmetry and rhythmic musical resonance. An Odissi performance repertoire includes invocation, nritta (pure dance), nritya (expressive dance), natya (dance drama) and moksha (dance climax connoting freedom of the soul and spiritual release).
Traditional Odissi exists in two major styles, the first perfected by women and focussed on solemn, spiritual temple dance (maharis); the second perfected by boys dressed as girls (gotipuas) which diversified to include athletic and acrobatic moves, and were performed from festive occasions in temples to general folksy entertainment. Modern Odissi productions by Indian artists have presented a diverse range of experimental ideas, culture fusion, themes and plays.
Odissi was the only Indian dance form present in Michael Jackson's 1991 hit single Black or White.
History
The foundations of Odissi are found in Natya Shastra, the ancient Hindu Sanskrit text of performance arts. The basic dance units described in Natyashastra, all 108 of them, are identical to those in Odissi.
Natya Shastra is attributed to the ancient scholar Bharata Muni, and its first complete compilation is dated to between 200 BCE and 200 CE, but estimates vary between 500 BCE and 500 CE. The most studied version of the Natya Shastra text consists of about 6000 verses structured into 36 chapters. The text, states Natalia Lidova, describes the theory of Tāṇḍava dance (Shiva), the theory of rasa, of bhāva, expression, gestures, acting techniques, basic steps, standing postures – all of which are part of Indian classical dances. Dance and performance arts, states this ancient text, are a form of expression of spiritual ideas, virtues and the essence of scriptures. The Natya Shastra refers to four vrittis (methods of expressive delivery) in vogue – Avanti, Dakshinatya, Panchali and Odra-Magadhi; of these, the Odra refers to Odisha.
More direct historical evidence of dance and music as an ancient performance art are found in archaeological sites such as caves and in temple carvings of Bhubaneswar, Konark and Puri. The Manchapuri cave in Udayagiri shows carvings of dance and musicians, and this has been dated to the time of Jain king Kharavela in the first or second century BCE. The Hathigumpha inscriptions, also dated to the same ruler, mention music and dance:
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(he [the king]) versed in the science of the Gandharvas (i.e., music), entertains the capital with the exhibition of dapa, dancing, singing and instrumental music and by causing to be held festivities and assemblies (samajas)...</p>
— Hathigumpha inscription, Line 5, ~ 2nd–1st century BCE
</blockquote>
The musical tradition of Odisha also has ancient roots. Archeologists have reported the discovery of 20-key, carefully shaped polished basalt lithophone in Sankarjang, the highlands of Odisha, which is dated to about 1000 BCE.
Medieval era
The Hindu, Jain and Buddhist archaeological sites in Odisha state, particularly the Assia range of hills show inscriptions and carvings of dances that are dated to the 6th to 9th century CE. Important sites include the Ranigumpha in Udaygiri, and various caves and temples at Lalitgiri, Ratnagiri and Alatgiri sites. The Buddhist icons, for example, are depicted as dancing gods and goddesses, with Haruka, Vajravarahi, and Marichi in Odissi-like postures. Historical evidence, states Alexandra Carter, shows that Odissi Maharis (Hindu temple dancers) and dance halls architecture (nata-mandap) were in vogue at least by the 9th century CE.
According to Kapila Vatsyayan, the Kalpasutra of Jainism, in its manuscripts discovered in Gujarat, includes classical Indian dance poses – such as the Samapada, the Tribhangi and the Chuaka of Odissi. This, states Vatsyayan, suggests that Odissi was admired or at least well known in distant parts of India, far from Odisha in the medieval era, to be included in the margins of an important Jain text. However, the Jain manuscripts use the dance poses as decorative art in the margins and cover, but do not describe or discuss the dance. Hindu dance texts such as the Abhinaya Chandrika and Abhinaya Darpana provide a detailed description of the movements of the feet, hands, the standing postures, the movement and the dance repertoire. It includes illustrations of the Karanãs mentioned in NãtyaShãstra. Similarly, the illustrated Hindu text on temple architecture from Odisha, the Shilpaprakãsha, deals with Odia architecture and sculpture, and includes Odissi postures.
Actual sculptures that have survived into the modern era and panel reliefs in Odia temples, dated to be from the 10th to 14th century, show Odissi dance. This is evidenced in Jagannatha temple in Puri, as well as other temples of Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Vedic deities such as Surya (Sun) in Odisha. There are several sculptures of dancers and musicians in Konark Sun Temple and Brahmeswara Temple in Bhubaneswar.
The composition of the poetic texts by 8th century Shankaracharya and particularly of divine love inspired Gitagovinda by 12th century Jayadeva influenced the focus and growth of modern Odissi. Odissi was performed in the temples by the dancers called Maharis, who played out these spiritual poems and underlying religious plays, after training and perfecting their art of dance starting from an early age, and who were revered as auspicious to religious services.
Mughal and British period
After 12th-century, Odia temples, monasteries and nearby institutions such as the Puspagiri in eastern Indian subcontinent came under waves of attacks and ransacking by Muslim armies, a turmoil that impacted all arts and eroded the freedoms previously enjoyed by performance artists. The official records of Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq's invasion in Odisha (13601361 CE), for example, describe the destruction of the Jagannath temple as well as numerous other temples, defacing of dancing statues, and ruining of dance halls. This led to a broad decline in Odissi and other religious arts, but there were some benevolent rulers in this period who supported arts particularly through performances at courts. During the Sultanate and Mughal era of India, the temple dancers were moved to entertain the Sultan's family and courts. They became associated with concubinage to the nobility.
The Odissi dance likely expanded in the 17th century, states Alexandra Carter, under King Ramachandradeva's patronage. This expansion integrated martial arts (akhanda) and athletics into Odissi dance, by engaging boys and youth called Gotipuas, as a means to physically train the young for the military and to resist foreign invasions. According to Ragini Devi, historical evidence suggests that the Gotipuas tradition was known and nurtured in the 14th century, by Raja of Khordha.
During the British Raj, the officials of the colonial government ridiculed the temple traditions, while Christian missionaries launched a sustained attack on the moral outrage of sensuousness of Odissi and other Hindu temple dance arts. In 1872, a British civil servant named William Hunter watched a performance at the Jagannatha temple in Puri, then wrote, "Indecent ceremonies disgraced the ritual, and dancing girls with rolling eyes put the modest worshipper to the blush...", and then attacked them as idol-worshipping prostitutes who expressed their devotion with "airy gyrations".
Christian missionaries launched the "anti-dance movement" in 1892, to ban all such dance forms. The dancers were frequently stigmatized as prostitutes by Europeans during the colonial era. In 1910, the British colonial government in India banned temple dancing, and the dance artists were reduced to abject poverty from the lack of any financial support for performance arts, combined with stereotyping stigma.
Post-independence
The temple dance ban and the cultural discrimination during the colonial rule marshaled a movement by Hindus to question the stereotypes and to revive the regional arts of India, including Odissi. Due to these efforts, the classical Indian dances witnessed a period of renaissance and reconstruction, which gained momentum particularly after Indians gained their freedom from colonialism.
Odissi, along with several other major Indian dances gained recognition after efforts by many scholars and performers in the 1950s, particularly by Kavichandra Kalicharan Pattanayak, an Oriya poet, dramatist and researcher. Pattanayak is also credited with naming the dance form as "Odissi".
Repertoire
Odissi, in the classical and medieval period has been, a team dance founded on Hindu texts. This drama-dance involved women (Maharis) enacting a spiritual poem or a religious story either in the inner sanctum of a Hindu temple, or in the Natamandira attached to the temple. The Odissi performing Maharis combined pure dance with expression, to play out and communicate the underlying text through abhinaya (gestures). The performance art evolved to include another aspect, wherein teams of boys – dressed as girls – called Gotipuas expanded the Odissi repertoire, such as by adding acrobatics and athletic moves, and they performed both near the temples and open fairs for general folksy entertainment. In the Indian tradition, many of the accomplished gotipuas became the gurus (teachers) in their adulthood. Modern Odissi is a diversified performance art, men have joined the women, and its reconstruction since the 1950s have added new plays and aspects of other Indian dances.
Love is a universal theme and one of the paradigmatic values in Indian religions. This theme is expressed through sensuous love poems and metaphors of sexual union in Krishna-related literature, and as longing eros (Shringara) in its dance arts such as in Odissi, from the early times. Hinduism, states Judith Hanna, encourages the artist to "strive to suggest, reveal or re-create the infinite, divine self", and art is considered as "the supreme means of realizing the Universal Being". Physical intimacy is not something considered as a reason for shame, rather considered a form of celebration and worship, where the saint is the lover and the lover is the saint. This aspect of Odissi dancing has been subdued in the modern post-colonial reconstructions, states Alexandra Carter, and the emphasis has expanded to "expressions of personal artistic excellence as ritualized spiritual articulations".
The traditional Odissi repertoire, like all classical Indian dances, includes Nritta (pure dance, solo), Nritya (dance with emotions, solo) and Natya (dramatic dance, group). These three performance aspects of Odissi are described and illustrated in the foundational Hindu texts, particularly the Natya Shastra, Abhinaya Darpana and the 16th-century Abhinaya Chandrika by Maheshwara Mahapatra of Odisha.
The Nritta performance is abstract, fast and rhythmic aspect of the dance. The viewer is presented with pure movement in Nritta, wherein the emphasis is the beauty in motion, form, speed, range and pattern. This part of the repertoire has no interpretative aspect, no telling of story. It is a technical performance, and aims to engage the senses (prakriti) of the audience.
The Nritya is slower and expressive aspect of the dance that attempts to communicate feelings, storyline particularly with spiritual themes in Hindu dance traditions. In a nritya, the dance-acting expands to include silent expression of words through the sign language of gestures and body motion set to musical notes. This part of a repertoire is more than sensory enjoyment, it aims to engage the emotions and mind of the viewer.
The Natyam is a play, typically a team performance, but can be acted out by a solo performer where the dancer uses certain standardized body movements to indicate a new character in the underlying story. A Natya incorporates the elements of a Nritya.
The Mokshya is a climatic pure dance of Odissi, aiming to highlight the liberation of soul and serenity in the spiritual.
Odissi dance can be accompanied by both northern Indian (Hindustani) and southern Indian (Carnatic) music, though mainly, recitals are in Odia and Sanskrit language in the Odissi music tradition.
Sequence
Traditional Odissi repertoire sequence starts with an invocation called Mangalacharana. A shloka (hymn) in praise of a God or Goddess is sung, such as to Jagannath (an avatar of Vishnu), the meaning of which is expressed through dance. Mangalacharana is followed by Pushpanjali (offering of flowers) and Bhumi Pranam (salutation to mother earth). The invocation also includes Trikhandi Pranam or the three-fold salutation – to the Devas (gods), to the Gurus (teachers) and to the Lokas or Rasikas (fellow dancers and audience).
The next sequential step in an Odissi performance is Batu, also known as Battu Nrutya or Sthayee Nrutya or Batuka Bhairava. It is a fast pace, pure dance (nritta) performed in the honor of Shiva. There is no song or recitation accompanying this part of the dance, just rhythmic music. This pure dance sequence in Odissi builds up to a Pallavi which is often slow, graceful & lyrical movements of the eyes, neck, torso & feet & slowly builds in a crescendo to climax in a fast tempo at the end.
The nritya follows next, and consists of Abhinaya, or an expressional dance which is an enactment of a song or poetry. The dancer(s) communicate the story in a sign language, using mudras (hand gestures), bhavas (enacting mood, emotions), eye and body movement. The dance is fluid, graceful and sensual. Abhinaya in Odissi is performed to verses recited in Sanskrit or Odia language. Most common are Abhinayas on Oriya songs or Sanskrit Ashthapadis or Sanskrit stutis like Dasavatar Stotram (depicting the ten incarnations of Lord Vishnu) or Ardhanari Stotram (half man, half woman form of the divine). Many regionally performed Abhinaya compositions are based on the Radha-Krishna theme. The Astapadis of the Radha-Krishna love poem Gita Govinda written by Jayadeva are usually performed in Odisha, as part of the dance repertoire.
The natya part, or dance drama, is next in sequence. Usually Hindu mythologies, epics and legendary dramas are chosen as themes.
A distinctive part of the Odissi tradition is the inclusion of Moksha (or Mokshya) finale in the performance sequence. This the concluding item of a recital. Moksha in Hindu traditions means “spiritual liberation”. This dance movement traditionally attempts to convey a sense of spiritual release and soul liberation, soaring into the realm of pure aesthetics. Movement and pose merge in a fast pace pure dance climax.
Basic moves and mudras
The basic unit of Odissi are called bhangas. These are made up of eight belis, or body positions and movements, combined in many varieties. Motion is uthas (rising or up), baithas (sitting or down) or sthankas (standing). The gaits or movement on the dance floor is called chaalis, with movement tempo linked to emotions according to the classical Sanskrit texts. Thus, for example, burhas or quick pace suggest excitement, while a slow confused pace suggests dejection. For aesthetics, movement is centered on a core, a point in space or floor, and each dancer has her imaginary square of space, with spins and expression held within it. The foot movement or pada bhedas too have basic dance units, and Odissi has six of these, in contrast to four found in most classical Indian dances.
The three primary dance positions in Odissi are:
Samabhanga – the square position, with weight equally placed on the two legs, spine straight, arms raised up with elbows bent.
Abhanga – the body weight shifts from side to side, due to deep leg bends, while the feet and knees are turned outwards, and one hip extending sideways.
Tribhanga – is an S-shaped three-fold bending of body, with torso deflecting in one direction while the head and hips deflecting in the opposite direction of torso. Further, the hands and legs frame the body into a composite of two squares (rectangle), providing an aesthetic frame of reference. This is described in the ancient Sanskrit texts, and forms of it are found in other Hindu dance arts, but tribhanga postures developed most in and are distinctive to Odissi, and they are found in historic Hindu temple reliefs.
Mudras or Hastas are hand gestures which are used to express the meaning of a given act. Like all classical dances of India, the aim of Odissi is in part to convey emotions, mood and inner feelings in the story by appropriate hand and facial gestures. There are 63 Hastas in modern Odissi dance, and these have the same names or structure as those in the pan-Indian Hindu texts, but most closely matching those in the Abhinaya Chandrika. These are subdivided into three, according to the traditional texts:
Asamyukta Hasta – Single hand Mudras – 28 Prakar (gestures, for instance to communicate a salute, prayer, embrace, energy, bond, swing, carriage, shell, arrow, holding a thing, wheel, and so on.)
Samyukta Hasta – Double hand Mudras – 24 Prakar (gestures, for instance to indicate a flag, flower, type of bird or animal, moon, action like grasping, and so on.)
Nrutya Hasta – “Pure Dance” Mudras
The Mudra system is derived from the "Abhinaya Darpana" by Nandikeshavara and the ancient Natya Shastra of Bharata Muni.
Costumes
The Odissi dancers are colorfully dressed with makeup and jewellery. The Saree worn by Odissi dancers are brightly coloured, and usually of local silk (Pattasari). It is worn with pleats, or may have a pleat tailor stitched in front, to allow maximum flexibility during the footwork. These sarees have traditional prints of Odisha with regional designs and embellishments, and may be the Sambalpuri Saree and Bomkai Saree.
The jewellery includes silver pieces, a metal favored in regional tradition. The hair is tied up, and typically drawn into an elaborate bun resembling a Hindu temple spire, and decorated with Seenthi. Their hairstyle may contain a moon shaped crest of white flowers, or a reed crown called Mukoot with peacock feathers (symbolism for Lord Krishna). The dancers forehead is marked with Tikka, and adorned with various jewelry such as the Allaka (head piece on which the tikka hangs). The eyes are ringed with Kajal (black eyeliner).
Ear covers called Kapa or ear rings decorate the sides of the head, while necklace adorns the neck. The dancer wears a pair of armlets also called Bahichudi or Bajuband, on the upper arm. The wrist is covered with Kankana (bangles). At the waist they wear an elaborate belt which ties down one end of the Sari. The ankles are decorated with a leather piece on top of which are bells (ghungroo). The dancer's palms and soles may be painted with red coloured dye called the Alta.
Modern Odissi male performers wear dhoti – a broadcloth tied around waist, pleated for movement, and tucked between legs; usually extends to knee or lower. Upper body is bare chested, and a long thin folded translucent sheet wrapping over one shoulder and usually tucked below a wide belt.
Music and instruments
Odissi dance is accompanied by the traditional classical music of the state of Odisha, Odissi music. The primary Odissi ragas are Kalyana, Nata, Shree Gowda, Baradi, Panchama, Dhanashri, Karnata, Bhairavee and Shokabaradi.
Odissi dance, states Ragini Devi, is a form of "visualized music", wherein the Ragas and Raginis, respectively the primary and secondary musical modes, are integrated by the musicians and interpreted through the dancer. Each note is a means, has a purpose and with a mood in classical Indian music, which Odissi accompanies to express sentiments in a song through Parija. This is true whether the performance is formal, or less formal as in Nartana and Natangi used during festive occasions and the folksy celebration of life.
An Odissi troupe comes with musicians and musical instruments. The orchestra consists of various regional musical instruments, such as the Mardala (barrel drum), harmonium, flute, sitar, violin, cymbals held in fingers and others.
Styles
The Odissi tradition existed in three schools: Mahari, Nartaki, and Gotipua:
Maharis were Oriya devadasis or temple girls, their name deriving from Maha (great) and Nari (girl), or Mahri (chosen) particularly those at the temple of Jagganath at Puri. Early Maharis performed Nritta (pure dance) and Abhinaya (interpretation of poetry) dedicated to various Hindu gods and goddesses, as well as Puranic mythologies and Vedic legends. Later, Maharis especially performed dance sequences based on the lyrics of Jayadev's Gita Govinda. This style is more sensuous and closer to the classical Sanskrit texts on dance, music and performance arts.
Gotipuas were boys dressed up as girls and taught the dance by the Maharis. This style included martial arts, athletics and acrobatics. Gotipuas danced to these compositions outside the temples and fairgrounds as folksy entertainment.
Nartaki dance took place in the royal courts, where it was prevalent before the British period.
Schools, training and recognition
Odissi maestros and performers
Kelucharan Mohapatra, Pankaj Charan Das, Deba Prasad Das and Raghunath Dutta were the four major gurus who revived Odissi in the late forties and early fifties. Sanjukta Panigrahi was a leading disciple of Kelucharan Mohapatra who popularized Odissi by performing in India and abroad. In the mid-sixties, three other disciples of Kelucharan Mohapatra, Kumkum Mohanty and Sonal Mansingh, were known for their performances in India and abroad. Laximipriya Mohapatra performed a piece of Odissi abhinaya in the Annapurna Theatre in Cuttack in 1948, a show upheld as the first classical Odissi dance performance after its contemporary revival. Guru Mayadhar Raut played a pivotal role in giving Odissi dance its classical status. He introduced Mudra Vinyoga in 1955 and Sancharibhava in the Odissi dance items, and portrayed Shringara Rasa in Gita Govinda Ashthapadis. His notable compositions include Pashyati Dishi Dishi and Priya Charu Shile, composed in 1961.
Schools
IIT Bhubaneswar
Odissi has been included in Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar's BTech syllabus since 2015 as the first Indian national technical institute to introduce any classical dance in syllabus.
In Guinness World records
Guinness World Records has acknowledged the feat of the largest congregation of Odissi dancers in a single event. 555 Odissi dancers performed at the event hosted on 23 December 2011, in the Kalinga stadium, Bhubaneswar, Odisha. The dancers performed the Mangalacharan, Battu, Pallavi, Abhinay and Mokshya dance items from the Odissi repertoire.
More than 1000 Odissi dancers performed at the World Cultural Festival 12 March 2016. This is till date the largest congregation of Odissi dancers in a single event.
Odissi Centre at Oxford University
An Odissi dance centre has been opened from January 2016, at the University of Oxford. Known as Oxford Odissi Centre, it is an initiative of the Odissi dancer and choreographer Baisali Mohanty who is also a post-graduate scholar at the University of Oxford.
Beside holding regular Odissi dance classes at its institution, the Oxford Odissi Centre also conducts Odissi dance workshops at other academic institutions in the United Kingdom.
See also
Indian classical dance
Ghungroo
Odissi music
Gotipua
References
Bibliography
Odissi : What, Why and How… Evolution, Revival and Technique, by Madhumita Raut. Published by B. R. Rhythms, Delhi, 2007. .
Odissi Yaatra: The Journey of Guru Mayadhar Raut, by Aadya Kaktikar (ed. Madhumita Raut). Published by B. R. Rhythms, Delhi, 2010. .
Odissi Dance, by Dhirendranath Patnaik. Published by Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1971.
Odissi – The Dance Divine, by Ranjana Gauhar and Dushyant Parasher. Published by Niyogi Books, 2007. .
Odissi, Indian Classical Dance Art: Odisi Nritya, by Sunil Kothari, Avinash Pasricha. Marg Publications, 1990. .
Perspectives on Odissi Theatre, by Ramesh Prasad Panigrahi, Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi. Published by Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1998.
Abhinaya-chandrika and Odissi dance, by Maheshwar Mahapatra, Alekha Chandra Sarangi, Sushama Kulshreshthaa, Maya Das. Published by Eastern Book Linkers, 2001. .
Rethinking Odissi, by Dinanath Pathy. Published by Harman Pub. House, 2007. .
, Table of Contents
External links
Odissi solo performance: Nitisha Nanda, Arabhi Pallav, New Delhi 2013
Odissi group dance: Megh Pallavi, Vancouver 2014
Maryam Shakiba – Odissi Dance – Manglacharan Ganesh Vandana Pushkar 2014
Odissi links at the Open Directory
Odissi schools, Classical Indian Dance Portal
The annotated Odissi Dance Archive on Pad.ma
History of Odissi and Geeta Govinda JN Dhar, Orissa Review
Bharat Bhavan, a Kerala-based Department of Culture information website.
Arts of Odisha
Odia culture
Jayadeva
Classical dance genres of India
Hindu temple dance
Odissi dancers
Odissi music
Artforms based on Odissi music | true | [
"Sujata Mohapatra (born 27 June 1968) is an Indian classical dancer and teacher of Odissi dancing style.\n\nEarly life and background\nSujata Mohapatra was born in Balasore in 1968. She started learning Odissi at an early age from Guru Sudhakar Sahu.\n\nSujata Mohapatra came to Bhubaneshwar, Odisha, in 1987 to further her training under Padma Vibhushan Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra at Odissi Research Center in Bhubaneshwar. She married Ratikant Mohapatra, son of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra. Her daughter Preetisha Mohapatra is also an Odissi dancer.\n\nCareer\n\nSujata Mohapatra started dancing Odissi classical and folk dance with Sahu's dance troupe in programs across Odisha. Under the tutelage of Kelucharan Mohapatra, her dance style evolved, and she was groomed to become one of the foremost Odissi dancers of her generation. Sujata Mohapatra performs in India, and other countries, as a soloist and a leading member of the Srjan Dance Troupe, founded by her father-in-law.\n\nSujata Mohapatra is actively involved in teaching Odissi. She is the Principal of 'Srjan' (Odissi Nrityabasa), a prime Odissi Dance Institution founded by MGuru Kelucharan Mohapatra She holds a master's degree in Oriya Literature from Utkal University, and has done research work at the Odissi Research Centre, Bhubaneshwar.\n\nIn July 2011, she opened an Odissi Institute - Guru Keerti Srjan, in her hometown, Balasore.\n\nAwards\n\n Central Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, 2017\n Nritya Choodamani from Krishna Gana Sabha, Chennai, 2014 \n Mahari Award, Pankaj Charan Odissi Research Foundation\n 2nd Sanjukta Panigrahi Award, Chitra Krishnamurthi from Washington D.C.\n Aditya Birla Kala Kiran Award, Mumbai\n Raaza Foundation Award, Delhi\n Hope of India, 2001\n Nritya Ragini, Puri, 2002\n Baisakhi Award\n Prana Natta Samman\n Abhi Nandika, Puri, 2004\n Bhimeswar Pratikha Samman, 2004\n Raaza Puruskar, 2008\n Top Grade Artist of Doordarshan Outstanding Category Artist in ICCR\n\nSee also\n Video on India Video\n Indian women in dance\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1968 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Balasore district\nOdissi dancers\nIndian female classical dancers\nPerformers of Indian classical dance\nIndian classical choreographers\nIndian women choreographers\nIndian choreographers\nDancers from Odisha\n20th-century Indian dancers\n20th-century Indian women artists\nWomen artists from Odisha",
"Saswat Joshi (born December 18, 1984) is an Indian classical dancer, choreographer, model and an exponent of the Odissi dancing style.\n\nEarly life and background\nSaswat Joshi was born in Titlagarh on 18 December 1984. Saswat started his journey as a dancer when he was five years old under the able guidance of Guru Prasanta Patnaik and Guru Shantanu Behera at his native village Titlagarh, Bolangir. He learned the basics of dance and postures of Odissi dance with great interest and dedication as a child artist.\n\nCareer\n\nAs an Odissi dancer\nSaswat started his professional Odissi training under Guru Padma Shri Kumkum Mohanty in 2000. He has been an exponent of Padma Bibhusan Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra Odissi style. Under the tutelage of Guru Padma Shri Ileana Citaristi, his dancing flourished into its perfection. He is the recipient of a national scholarship from Ministry of Culture Government of India. He did his Visharad from Chandigarh University and was awarded Sangeet Ratna from Rabindra Bharati University. He has performed in world's biggest museum of Asian painting Musée Guimet at Paris, France in 2012. He has given many lecture demonstrations of Odissi in various universities worldwide. He is the only male dancer who performed in front of world wonders Eiffel Tower, Paris, France; and The Colosseum, Rome, Italy.\n\nTo popularise Odissi as Indian classical dance, he traveled and performed Odissi in many European and Asian countries such as Italy, France, Hungary, Finland, Japan, South Korea, Thailand etc..\n\nHe had shared the stage with many international celebrities of dance like Carla Fracci, Luciana Savignano, Giuseppe Picone, Beppe Menegatti, Rossella Brescia and Luciano Mattia Cannito in a production called 'I Have a Dream' at Palermo city, Sicily of Insular Italy\n\nFilmography\nKoun Kitney Panee Mein by Nila Madhab Panda\nKranti Dhara by Himanshu Khatua\nChoreography consultancy in various Bollywood films\n\nAs a dance teacher\nSaswat is the founder of Lasyakala Institute of Performing Arts, where many new Odissi practitioners and talents are being shaped into their performing excellence. Under this banner Aekalavya Dance Festival is being organised every year to felicitate practitioners, experts and critics of Odissi.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n\"Happy for Hope virtual event during COVID-19 lock down\"\nGhungroo Missing? short film released by Saswat Joshi\nChakaa Aakhii Short Film by Saswat Joshi, streaming now \n\n1984 births\nLiving people\nIndian dance teachers\nOdissi dancers\nIndian film choreographers\nIndian classical choreographers\nDancers from Odisha"
] |
[
"Odissi",
"Medieval era",
"Was Odissi an acceptable form of dancing during the Medieval era?",
"The Buddhist icons, for example, are depicted as dancing gods and goddesses,",
"Was Odissi popular form of dancing during the Medieval era?",
"Historical evidence, states Alexandra Carter, shows that Odissi Maharis (Hindu temple dancers) and dance halls architecture (nata-mandap) were in vogue",
"Was there a popular Odissi dancer in this era?",
"I don't know.",
"Is there anything significant about Odissi dancing in the Medieval era?",
"Odissi was admired or at least well known in distant parts of India, far from Odisha in the medieval era,"
] | C_c50f120990f34e0cb4e97ecfbab870af_1 | Was Odissi a good source of income for the performers? | 5 | Was Odissi dancing a good source of income for the Medieval era performers? | Odissi | The Buddhist, Jain and Hindu archaeological sites in Odisha state, particularly the Assia range of hills show inscriptions and carvings of dances that are dated to the 6th to 9th century CE. Important sites include the Ranigumpha in Udaygiri, and various caves and temples at Lalitgiri, Ratnagiri and Alatgiri sites. The Buddhist icons, for example, are depicted as dancing gods and goddesses, with Haruka, Vajravarahi, and Marichi in Odissi-like postures. Historical evidence, states Alexandra Carter, shows that Odissi Maharis (Hindu temple dancers) and dance halls architecture (nata-mandap) were in vogue at least by the 9th century CE. According to Kapila Vatsyayan, the Kalpasutra of Jainism, in its manuscripts discovered in Gujarat, includes classical Indian dance poses - such as the Samapada, the Tribhangi and the Chuaka of Odissi. This, states Vatsyayan, suggests that Odissi was admired or at least well known in distant parts of India, far from Odisha in the medieval era, to be included in the margins of an important Jain text. However, the Jain manuscripts use the dance poses as decorative art in the margins and cover, but do not describe or discuss the dance. Hindu dance texts such as the Abhinaya Chandrika and Abhinaya Darpana provide a detailed description of the movements of the feet, hands, the standing postures, the movement and the dance repertoire. It includes illustrations of the Karanas mentioned in NatyaShastra. Similarly, the illustrated Hindu text on temple architecture from Odisha, the Shilpaprakasha, deals with Odia architecture and sculpture, and includes Odissi postures. Actual sculptures that have survived into the modern era and panel reliefs in Odia temples, dated to be from the 10th to 14th century, show Odissi dance. This is evidenced in Jagannath temple in Puri, as well as other temples of Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Vedic deities such as Surya (Sun) in Odisha. There are several sculptures of dancers and musicians in Konark Sun Temple and Brahmeswara Temple in Bhubaneswar. The composition of the poetic texts by 8th century Shankaracharya and particularly of divine love inspired Gitagovinda by 12th century Jayadeva influenced the focus and growth of modern Odissi. Odissi was performed in the temples by the dancers called Maharis, who played out these spiritual poems and underlying religious plays, after training and perfecting their art of dance starting from an early age, and who were revered as auspicious to religious services. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Odissi (), also referred to as Orissi in older literature, is a major ancient Indian classical dance that originated in the Hindu temples of Odisha – an eastern coastal state of India. Odissi, in its history, was performed predominantly by women, and expressed religious stories and spiritual ideas, particularly of Vaishnavism. Odissi performances have also expressed ideas of other traditions such as those related to Hindu gods Shiva and Surya, as well as Hindu goddesses (Shaktism).
The theoretical foundations of Odissi trace to the ancient Sanskrit text Natya Shastra, its existence in antiquity evidenced by the dance poses in the sculptures of Odissi Hindu temples, and archeological sites related to Hinduism (Sanatana Dharma), Buddhism and Jainism. It was suppressed under the British Rule. The suppression was protested by the Indians, followed by its revival, reconstruction and expansion since India gained independence from the colonial rule.
Odissi is traditionally a dance-drama genre of performance art, where the artist(s) and musicians play out a story, a spiritual message or devotional poem from the Hindu texts, using symbolic costumes, body movement, abhinaya (expressions) and mudras (gestures and sign language) set out in ancient Sanskrit literature. Classical Odia literature & the Gitagovinda set to traditional Odissi music are used for the abhinaya. Odissi is learnt and performed as a composite of basic dance motif called the Bhangas (symmetric body bends, stance). It involves lower (footwork), mid (torso) and upper (hand and head) as three sources of perfecting expression and audience engagement with geometric symmetry and rhythmic musical resonance. An Odissi performance repertoire includes invocation, nritta (pure dance), nritya (expressive dance), natya (dance drama) and moksha (dance climax connoting freedom of the soul and spiritual release).
Traditional Odissi exists in two major styles, the first perfected by women and focussed on solemn, spiritual temple dance (maharis); the second perfected by boys dressed as girls (gotipuas) which diversified to include athletic and acrobatic moves, and were performed from festive occasions in temples to general folksy entertainment. Modern Odissi productions by Indian artists have presented a diverse range of experimental ideas, culture fusion, themes and plays.
Odissi was the only Indian dance form present in Michael Jackson's 1991 hit single Black or White.
History
The foundations of Odissi are found in Natya Shastra, the ancient Hindu Sanskrit text of performance arts. The basic dance units described in Natyashastra, all 108 of them, are identical to those in Odissi.
Natya Shastra is attributed to the ancient scholar Bharata Muni, and its first complete compilation is dated to between 200 BCE and 200 CE, but estimates vary between 500 BCE and 500 CE. The most studied version of the Natya Shastra text consists of about 6000 verses structured into 36 chapters. The text, states Natalia Lidova, describes the theory of Tāṇḍava dance (Shiva), the theory of rasa, of bhāva, expression, gestures, acting techniques, basic steps, standing postures – all of which are part of Indian classical dances. Dance and performance arts, states this ancient text, are a form of expression of spiritual ideas, virtues and the essence of scriptures. The Natya Shastra refers to four vrittis (methods of expressive delivery) in vogue – Avanti, Dakshinatya, Panchali and Odra-Magadhi; of these, the Odra refers to Odisha.
More direct historical evidence of dance and music as an ancient performance art are found in archaeological sites such as caves and in temple carvings of Bhubaneswar, Konark and Puri. The Manchapuri cave in Udayagiri shows carvings of dance and musicians, and this has been dated to the time of Jain king Kharavela in the first or second century BCE. The Hathigumpha inscriptions, also dated to the same ruler, mention music and dance:
<blockquote style="background-color:none;margin-right:5em;margin-left:0em;border-left:solid 6px #FFE0BB;padding:1.0em">
(he [the king]) versed in the science of the Gandharvas (i.e., music), entertains the capital with the exhibition of dapa, dancing, singing and instrumental music and by causing to be held festivities and assemblies (samajas)...</p>
— Hathigumpha inscription, Line 5, ~ 2nd–1st century BCE
</blockquote>
The musical tradition of Odisha also has ancient roots. Archeologists have reported the discovery of 20-key, carefully shaped polished basalt lithophone in Sankarjang, the highlands of Odisha, which is dated to about 1000 BCE.
Medieval era
The Hindu, Jain and Buddhist archaeological sites in Odisha state, particularly the Assia range of hills show inscriptions and carvings of dances that are dated to the 6th to 9th century CE. Important sites include the Ranigumpha in Udaygiri, and various caves and temples at Lalitgiri, Ratnagiri and Alatgiri sites. The Buddhist icons, for example, are depicted as dancing gods and goddesses, with Haruka, Vajravarahi, and Marichi in Odissi-like postures. Historical evidence, states Alexandra Carter, shows that Odissi Maharis (Hindu temple dancers) and dance halls architecture (nata-mandap) were in vogue at least by the 9th century CE.
According to Kapila Vatsyayan, the Kalpasutra of Jainism, in its manuscripts discovered in Gujarat, includes classical Indian dance poses – such as the Samapada, the Tribhangi and the Chuaka of Odissi. This, states Vatsyayan, suggests that Odissi was admired or at least well known in distant parts of India, far from Odisha in the medieval era, to be included in the margins of an important Jain text. However, the Jain manuscripts use the dance poses as decorative art in the margins and cover, but do not describe or discuss the dance. Hindu dance texts such as the Abhinaya Chandrika and Abhinaya Darpana provide a detailed description of the movements of the feet, hands, the standing postures, the movement and the dance repertoire. It includes illustrations of the Karanãs mentioned in NãtyaShãstra. Similarly, the illustrated Hindu text on temple architecture from Odisha, the Shilpaprakãsha, deals with Odia architecture and sculpture, and includes Odissi postures.
Actual sculptures that have survived into the modern era and panel reliefs in Odia temples, dated to be from the 10th to 14th century, show Odissi dance. This is evidenced in Jagannatha temple in Puri, as well as other temples of Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Vedic deities such as Surya (Sun) in Odisha. There are several sculptures of dancers and musicians in Konark Sun Temple and Brahmeswara Temple in Bhubaneswar.
The composition of the poetic texts by 8th century Shankaracharya and particularly of divine love inspired Gitagovinda by 12th century Jayadeva influenced the focus and growth of modern Odissi. Odissi was performed in the temples by the dancers called Maharis, who played out these spiritual poems and underlying religious plays, after training and perfecting their art of dance starting from an early age, and who were revered as auspicious to religious services.
Mughal and British period
After 12th-century, Odia temples, monasteries and nearby institutions such as the Puspagiri in eastern Indian subcontinent came under waves of attacks and ransacking by Muslim armies, a turmoil that impacted all arts and eroded the freedoms previously enjoyed by performance artists. The official records of Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq's invasion in Odisha (13601361 CE), for example, describe the destruction of the Jagannath temple as well as numerous other temples, defacing of dancing statues, and ruining of dance halls. This led to a broad decline in Odissi and other religious arts, but there were some benevolent rulers in this period who supported arts particularly through performances at courts. During the Sultanate and Mughal era of India, the temple dancers were moved to entertain the Sultan's family and courts. They became associated with concubinage to the nobility.
The Odissi dance likely expanded in the 17th century, states Alexandra Carter, under King Ramachandradeva's patronage. This expansion integrated martial arts (akhanda) and athletics into Odissi dance, by engaging boys and youth called Gotipuas, as a means to physically train the young for the military and to resist foreign invasions. According to Ragini Devi, historical evidence suggests that the Gotipuas tradition was known and nurtured in the 14th century, by Raja of Khordha.
During the British Raj, the officials of the colonial government ridiculed the temple traditions, while Christian missionaries launched a sustained attack on the moral outrage of sensuousness of Odissi and other Hindu temple dance arts. In 1872, a British civil servant named William Hunter watched a performance at the Jagannatha temple in Puri, then wrote, "Indecent ceremonies disgraced the ritual, and dancing girls with rolling eyes put the modest worshipper to the blush...", and then attacked them as idol-worshipping prostitutes who expressed their devotion with "airy gyrations".
Christian missionaries launched the "anti-dance movement" in 1892, to ban all such dance forms. The dancers were frequently stigmatized as prostitutes by Europeans during the colonial era. In 1910, the British colonial government in India banned temple dancing, and the dance artists were reduced to abject poverty from the lack of any financial support for performance arts, combined with stereotyping stigma.
Post-independence
The temple dance ban and the cultural discrimination during the colonial rule marshaled a movement by Hindus to question the stereotypes and to revive the regional arts of India, including Odissi. Due to these efforts, the classical Indian dances witnessed a period of renaissance and reconstruction, which gained momentum particularly after Indians gained their freedom from colonialism.
Odissi, along with several other major Indian dances gained recognition after efforts by many scholars and performers in the 1950s, particularly by Kavichandra Kalicharan Pattanayak, an Oriya poet, dramatist and researcher. Pattanayak is also credited with naming the dance form as "Odissi".
Repertoire
Odissi, in the classical and medieval period has been, a team dance founded on Hindu texts. This drama-dance involved women (Maharis) enacting a spiritual poem or a religious story either in the inner sanctum of a Hindu temple, or in the Natamandira attached to the temple. The Odissi performing Maharis combined pure dance with expression, to play out and communicate the underlying text through abhinaya (gestures). The performance art evolved to include another aspect, wherein teams of boys – dressed as girls – called Gotipuas expanded the Odissi repertoire, such as by adding acrobatics and athletic moves, and they performed both near the temples and open fairs for general folksy entertainment. In the Indian tradition, many of the accomplished gotipuas became the gurus (teachers) in their adulthood. Modern Odissi is a diversified performance art, men have joined the women, and its reconstruction since the 1950s have added new plays and aspects of other Indian dances.
Love is a universal theme and one of the paradigmatic values in Indian religions. This theme is expressed through sensuous love poems and metaphors of sexual union in Krishna-related literature, and as longing eros (Shringara) in its dance arts such as in Odissi, from the early times. Hinduism, states Judith Hanna, encourages the artist to "strive to suggest, reveal or re-create the infinite, divine self", and art is considered as "the supreme means of realizing the Universal Being". Physical intimacy is not something considered as a reason for shame, rather considered a form of celebration and worship, where the saint is the lover and the lover is the saint. This aspect of Odissi dancing has been subdued in the modern post-colonial reconstructions, states Alexandra Carter, and the emphasis has expanded to "expressions of personal artistic excellence as ritualized spiritual articulations".
The traditional Odissi repertoire, like all classical Indian dances, includes Nritta (pure dance, solo), Nritya (dance with emotions, solo) and Natya (dramatic dance, group). These three performance aspects of Odissi are described and illustrated in the foundational Hindu texts, particularly the Natya Shastra, Abhinaya Darpana and the 16th-century Abhinaya Chandrika by Maheshwara Mahapatra of Odisha.
The Nritta performance is abstract, fast and rhythmic aspect of the dance. The viewer is presented with pure movement in Nritta, wherein the emphasis is the beauty in motion, form, speed, range and pattern. This part of the repertoire has no interpretative aspect, no telling of story. It is a technical performance, and aims to engage the senses (prakriti) of the audience.
The Nritya is slower and expressive aspect of the dance that attempts to communicate feelings, storyline particularly with spiritual themes in Hindu dance traditions. In a nritya, the dance-acting expands to include silent expression of words through the sign language of gestures and body motion set to musical notes. This part of a repertoire is more than sensory enjoyment, it aims to engage the emotions and mind of the viewer.
The Natyam is a play, typically a team performance, but can be acted out by a solo performer where the dancer uses certain standardized body movements to indicate a new character in the underlying story. A Natya incorporates the elements of a Nritya.
The Mokshya is a climatic pure dance of Odissi, aiming to highlight the liberation of soul and serenity in the spiritual.
Odissi dance can be accompanied by both northern Indian (Hindustani) and southern Indian (Carnatic) music, though mainly, recitals are in Odia and Sanskrit language in the Odissi music tradition.
Sequence
Traditional Odissi repertoire sequence starts with an invocation called Mangalacharana. A shloka (hymn) in praise of a God or Goddess is sung, such as to Jagannath (an avatar of Vishnu), the meaning of which is expressed through dance. Mangalacharana is followed by Pushpanjali (offering of flowers) and Bhumi Pranam (salutation to mother earth). The invocation also includes Trikhandi Pranam or the three-fold salutation – to the Devas (gods), to the Gurus (teachers) and to the Lokas or Rasikas (fellow dancers and audience).
The next sequential step in an Odissi performance is Batu, also known as Battu Nrutya or Sthayee Nrutya or Batuka Bhairava. It is a fast pace, pure dance (nritta) performed in the honor of Shiva. There is no song or recitation accompanying this part of the dance, just rhythmic music. This pure dance sequence in Odissi builds up to a Pallavi which is often slow, graceful & lyrical movements of the eyes, neck, torso & feet & slowly builds in a crescendo to climax in a fast tempo at the end.
The nritya follows next, and consists of Abhinaya, or an expressional dance which is an enactment of a song or poetry. The dancer(s) communicate the story in a sign language, using mudras (hand gestures), bhavas (enacting mood, emotions), eye and body movement. The dance is fluid, graceful and sensual. Abhinaya in Odissi is performed to verses recited in Sanskrit or Odia language. Most common are Abhinayas on Oriya songs or Sanskrit Ashthapadis or Sanskrit stutis like Dasavatar Stotram (depicting the ten incarnations of Lord Vishnu) or Ardhanari Stotram (half man, half woman form of the divine). Many regionally performed Abhinaya compositions are based on the Radha-Krishna theme. The Astapadis of the Radha-Krishna love poem Gita Govinda written by Jayadeva are usually performed in Odisha, as part of the dance repertoire.
The natya part, or dance drama, is next in sequence. Usually Hindu mythologies, epics and legendary dramas are chosen as themes.
A distinctive part of the Odissi tradition is the inclusion of Moksha (or Mokshya) finale in the performance sequence. This the concluding item of a recital. Moksha in Hindu traditions means “spiritual liberation”. This dance movement traditionally attempts to convey a sense of spiritual release and soul liberation, soaring into the realm of pure aesthetics. Movement and pose merge in a fast pace pure dance climax.
Basic moves and mudras
The basic unit of Odissi are called bhangas. These are made up of eight belis, or body positions and movements, combined in many varieties. Motion is uthas (rising or up), baithas (sitting or down) or sthankas (standing). The gaits or movement on the dance floor is called chaalis, with movement tempo linked to emotions according to the classical Sanskrit texts. Thus, for example, burhas or quick pace suggest excitement, while a slow confused pace suggests dejection. For aesthetics, movement is centered on a core, a point in space or floor, and each dancer has her imaginary square of space, with spins and expression held within it. The foot movement or pada bhedas too have basic dance units, and Odissi has six of these, in contrast to four found in most classical Indian dances.
The three primary dance positions in Odissi are:
Samabhanga – the square position, with weight equally placed on the two legs, spine straight, arms raised up with elbows bent.
Abhanga – the body weight shifts from side to side, due to deep leg bends, while the feet and knees are turned outwards, and one hip extending sideways.
Tribhanga – is an S-shaped three-fold bending of body, with torso deflecting in one direction while the head and hips deflecting in the opposite direction of torso. Further, the hands and legs frame the body into a composite of two squares (rectangle), providing an aesthetic frame of reference. This is described in the ancient Sanskrit texts, and forms of it are found in other Hindu dance arts, but tribhanga postures developed most in and are distinctive to Odissi, and they are found in historic Hindu temple reliefs.
Mudras or Hastas are hand gestures which are used to express the meaning of a given act. Like all classical dances of India, the aim of Odissi is in part to convey emotions, mood and inner feelings in the story by appropriate hand and facial gestures. There are 63 Hastas in modern Odissi dance, and these have the same names or structure as those in the pan-Indian Hindu texts, but most closely matching those in the Abhinaya Chandrika. These are subdivided into three, according to the traditional texts:
Asamyukta Hasta – Single hand Mudras – 28 Prakar (gestures, for instance to communicate a salute, prayer, embrace, energy, bond, swing, carriage, shell, arrow, holding a thing, wheel, and so on.)
Samyukta Hasta – Double hand Mudras – 24 Prakar (gestures, for instance to indicate a flag, flower, type of bird or animal, moon, action like grasping, and so on.)
Nrutya Hasta – “Pure Dance” Mudras
The Mudra system is derived from the "Abhinaya Darpana" by Nandikeshavara and the ancient Natya Shastra of Bharata Muni.
Costumes
The Odissi dancers are colorfully dressed with makeup and jewellery. The Saree worn by Odissi dancers are brightly coloured, and usually of local silk (Pattasari). It is worn with pleats, or may have a pleat tailor stitched in front, to allow maximum flexibility during the footwork. These sarees have traditional prints of Odisha with regional designs and embellishments, and may be the Sambalpuri Saree and Bomkai Saree.
The jewellery includes silver pieces, a metal favored in regional tradition. The hair is tied up, and typically drawn into an elaborate bun resembling a Hindu temple spire, and decorated with Seenthi. Their hairstyle may contain a moon shaped crest of white flowers, or a reed crown called Mukoot with peacock feathers (symbolism for Lord Krishna). The dancers forehead is marked with Tikka, and adorned with various jewelry such as the Allaka (head piece on which the tikka hangs). The eyes are ringed with Kajal (black eyeliner).
Ear covers called Kapa or ear rings decorate the sides of the head, while necklace adorns the neck. The dancer wears a pair of armlets also called Bahichudi or Bajuband, on the upper arm. The wrist is covered with Kankana (bangles). At the waist they wear an elaborate belt which ties down one end of the Sari. The ankles are decorated with a leather piece on top of which are bells (ghungroo). The dancer's palms and soles may be painted with red coloured dye called the Alta.
Modern Odissi male performers wear dhoti – a broadcloth tied around waist, pleated for movement, and tucked between legs; usually extends to knee or lower. Upper body is bare chested, and a long thin folded translucent sheet wrapping over one shoulder and usually tucked below a wide belt.
Music and instruments
Odissi dance is accompanied by the traditional classical music of the state of Odisha, Odissi music. The primary Odissi ragas are Kalyana, Nata, Shree Gowda, Baradi, Panchama, Dhanashri, Karnata, Bhairavee and Shokabaradi.
Odissi dance, states Ragini Devi, is a form of "visualized music", wherein the Ragas and Raginis, respectively the primary and secondary musical modes, are integrated by the musicians and interpreted through the dancer. Each note is a means, has a purpose and with a mood in classical Indian music, which Odissi accompanies to express sentiments in a song through Parija. This is true whether the performance is formal, or less formal as in Nartana and Natangi used during festive occasions and the folksy celebration of life.
An Odissi troupe comes with musicians and musical instruments. The orchestra consists of various regional musical instruments, such as the Mardala (barrel drum), harmonium, flute, sitar, violin, cymbals held in fingers and others.
Styles
The Odissi tradition existed in three schools: Mahari, Nartaki, and Gotipua:
Maharis were Oriya devadasis or temple girls, their name deriving from Maha (great) and Nari (girl), or Mahri (chosen) particularly those at the temple of Jagganath at Puri. Early Maharis performed Nritta (pure dance) and Abhinaya (interpretation of poetry) dedicated to various Hindu gods and goddesses, as well as Puranic mythologies and Vedic legends. Later, Maharis especially performed dance sequences based on the lyrics of Jayadev's Gita Govinda. This style is more sensuous and closer to the classical Sanskrit texts on dance, music and performance arts.
Gotipuas were boys dressed up as girls and taught the dance by the Maharis. This style included martial arts, athletics and acrobatics. Gotipuas danced to these compositions outside the temples and fairgrounds as folksy entertainment.
Nartaki dance took place in the royal courts, where it was prevalent before the British period.
Schools, training and recognition
Odissi maestros and performers
Kelucharan Mohapatra, Pankaj Charan Das, Deba Prasad Das and Raghunath Dutta were the four major gurus who revived Odissi in the late forties and early fifties. Sanjukta Panigrahi was a leading disciple of Kelucharan Mohapatra who popularized Odissi by performing in India and abroad. In the mid-sixties, three other disciples of Kelucharan Mohapatra, Kumkum Mohanty and Sonal Mansingh, were known for their performances in India and abroad. Laximipriya Mohapatra performed a piece of Odissi abhinaya in the Annapurna Theatre in Cuttack in 1948, a show upheld as the first classical Odissi dance performance after its contemporary revival. Guru Mayadhar Raut played a pivotal role in giving Odissi dance its classical status. He introduced Mudra Vinyoga in 1955 and Sancharibhava in the Odissi dance items, and portrayed Shringara Rasa in Gita Govinda Ashthapadis. His notable compositions include Pashyati Dishi Dishi and Priya Charu Shile, composed in 1961.
Schools
IIT Bhubaneswar
Odissi has been included in Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar's BTech syllabus since 2015 as the first Indian national technical institute to introduce any classical dance in syllabus.
In Guinness World records
Guinness World Records has acknowledged the feat of the largest congregation of Odissi dancers in a single event. 555 Odissi dancers performed at the event hosted on 23 December 2011, in the Kalinga stadium, Bhubaneswar, Odisha. The dancers performed the Mangalacharan, Battu, Pallavi, Abhinay and Mokshya dance items from the Odissi repertoire.
More than 1000 Odissi dancers performed at the World Cultural Festival 12 March 2016. This is till date the largest congregation of Odissi dancers in a single event.
Odissi Centre at Oxford University
An Odissi dance centre has been opened from January 2016, at the University of Oxford. Known as Oxford Odissi Centre, it is an initiative of the Odissi dancer and choreographer Baisali Mohanty who is also a post-graduate scholar at the University of Oxford.
Beside holding regular Odissi dance classes at its institution, the Oxford Odissi Centre also conducts Odissi dance workshops at other academic institutions in the United Kingdom.
See also
Indian classical dance
Ghungroo
Odissi music
Gotipua
References
Bibliography
Odissi : What, Why and How… Evolution, Revival and Technique, by Madhumita Raut. Published by B. R. Rhythms, Delhi, 2007. .
Odissi Yaatra: The Journey of Guru Mayadhar Raut, by Aadya Kaktikar (ed. Madhumita Raut). Published by B. R. Rhythms, Delhi, 2010. .
Odissi Dance, by Dhirendranath Patnaik. Published by Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1971.
Odissi – The Dance Divine, by Ranjana Gauhar and Dushyant Parasher. Published by Niyogi Books, 2007. .
Odissi, Indian Classical Dance Art: Odisi Nritya, by Sunil Kothari, Avinash Pasricha. Marg Publications, 1990. .
Perspectives on Odissi Theatre, by Ramesh Prasad Panigrahi, Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi. Published by Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1998.
Abhinaya-chandrika and Odissi dance, by Maheshwar Mahapatra, Alekha Chandra Sarangi, Sushama Kulshreshthaa, Maya Das. Published by Eastern Book Linkers, 2001. .
Rethinking Odissi, by Dinanath Pathy. Published by Harman Pub. House, 2007. .
, Table of Contents
External links
Odissi solo performance: Nitisha Nanda, Arabhi Pallav, New Delhi 2013
Odissi group dance: Megh Pallavi, Vancouver 2014
Maryam Shakiba – Odissi Dance – Manglacharan Ganesh Vandana Pushkar 2014
Odissi links at the Open Directory
Odissi schools, Classical Indian Dance Portal
The annotated Odissi Dance Archive on Pad.ma
History of Odissi and Geeta Govinda JN Dhar, Orissa Review
Bharat Bhavan, a Kerala-based Department of Culture information website.
Arts of Odisha
Odia culture
Jayadeva
Classical dance genres of India
Hindu temple dance
Odissi dancers
Odissi music
Artforms based on Odissi music | false | [
"Nandita Behera (née Pattnaik) is an Odissi dance instructor and founder of Odissi Dance Circle in Cerritos, California. A student of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra and Guru Gangadhar Pradhan, Nandita Behera has been teaching Odissi in California for the past twenty years. She was awarded Sringaramanai by Sur Singar Samsad Bombay and is also a recipient of the National Scholarship for Dance in India.\n\nSee also \n Dance in India\n Indian classical dance\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nWebsite for Odissi Dance Circle\n\n1957 births\nLiving people\nArtists from Bhubaneswar\nOdissi dancers\nIndian female classical dancers\nPerformers of Indian classical dance\nIndian emigrants to the United States\nDancers from Odisha",
"Acharya Tarini Charan Patra (; 1901 – 4 March 1979) was a renowned Odissi musician, Guru, singer, scholar, poet, composer & Binākara (exponent of Odissi Veena). One of the most eminent artistes of Odissi classical music in the 20th century, he was known for his vocal renditions & Veena recitals on gramophone records & over the All India Radio, as well as his pioneering efforts in institutionalizing the training of Odissi music by setting up one of the earliest music universities in erstwhile Odisha, the Gandhiji Sangita Kalamandira at Boirani, Ganjam that remained active from 1940 until Patra's demise in 1979.\n\nHe began his musical training first from his elder brother, who taught him Odissi, Chhanda, Champu and the various facets of Odissi music. He then continued his training under Guru Gaurahari Mahapatra of Bhanjanagar.\n\nIn 1940, he established an institution called Sangita Kalamandira at his hometown Boirani (now Kabisuryanagar) for imparting systematic education in Odissi music. At the time, it was the first musical institute in all of South Odisha. Patra received encouragement from Ramachandra Marddaraja, the king of Khallikote and Sadashiva Tripathy, then Chief Minister of Odisha. Traditionally, Odissi music was taught in the ancient gurukula system or at temples, mathas, jagas & akhadas. The concept of a formal institution only for musical education was quite new for the region. The institute was later renamed to Gandhiji Sangita Kalamandira in honour of Mahatma Gandhi.\n\nAmong his disciples are Odissi Veena exponent Guru Ramarao Patra.\n\nHe is the author of several books on Odissi music, the best-known of them being Odisi Sangita Prakasa (1970) and Sri Gitagobindara Swaralipi containing the first complete notation of all 24 ashtapadis of Jayadeva's Gitagovinda, which is a cornerstone of the Odissi music tradition.\n\nFor his efforts, he received the Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi award in 1972.\n\nSee also \n\n Odissi music\n Mardala\n Gita Govinda\n Gitaprakasa\n\nReferences \n\n1901 births\n1979 deaths\nOdissi music composers\nOdissi music"
] |
[
"Odissi",
"Medieval era",
"Was Odissi an acceptable form of dancing during the Medieval era?",
"The Buddhist icons, for example, are depicted as dancing gods and goddesses,",
"Was Odissi popular form of dancing during the Medieval era?",
"Historical evidence, states Alexandra Carter, shows that Odissi Maharis (Hindu temple dancers) and dance halls architecture (nata-mandap) were in vogue",
"Was there a popular Odissi dancer in this era?",
"I don't know.",
"Is there anything significant about Odissi dancing in the Medieval era?",
"Odissi was admired or at least well known in distant parts of India, far from Odisha in the medieval era,",
"Was Odissi a good source of income for the performers?",
"I don't know."
] | C_c50f120990f34e0cb4e97ecfbab870af_1 | Were there anyone in the Medieval who did not like this form of dancing? | 6 | Was there anyone in the Medieval era who did not like the Odissi form of dancing? | Odissi | The Buddhist, Jain and Hindu archaeological sites in Odisha state, particularly the Assia range of hills show inscriptions and carvings of dances that are dated to the 6th to 9th century CE. Important sites include the Ranigumpha in Udaygiri, and various caves and temples at Lalitgiri, Ratnagiri and Alatgiri sites. The Buddhist icons, for example, are depicted as dancing gods and goddesses, with Haruka, Vajravarahi, and Marichi in Odissi-like postures. Historical evidence, states Alexandra Carter, shows that Odissi Maharis (Hindu temple dancers) and dance halls architecture (nata-mandap) were in vogue at least by the 9th century CE. According to Kapila Vatsyayan, the Kalpasutra of Jainism, in its manuscripts discovered in Gujarat, includes classical Indian dance poses - such as the Samapada, the Tribhangi and the Chuaka of Odissi. This, states Vatsyayan, suggests that Odissi was admired or at least well known in distant parts of India, far from Odisha in the medieval era, to be included in the margins of an important Jain text. However, the Jain manuscripts use the dance poses as decorative art in the margins and cover, but do not describe or discuss the dance. Hindu dance texts such as the Abhinaya Chandrika and Abhinaya Darpana provide a detailed description of the movements of the feet, hands, the standing postures, the movement and the dance repertoire. It includes illustrations of the Karanas mentioned in NatyaShastra. Similarly, the illustrated Hindu text on temple architecture from Odisha, the Shilpaprakasha, deals with Odia architecture and sculpture, and includes Odissi postures. Actual sculptures that have survived into the modern era and panel reliefs in Odia temples, dated to be from the 10th to 14th century, show Odissi dance. This is evidenced in Jagannath temple in Puri, as well as other temples of Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Vedic deities such as Surya (Sun) in Odisha. There are several sculptures of dancers and musicians in Konark Sun Temple and Brahmeswara Temple in Bhubaneswar. The composition of the poetic texts by 8th century Shankaracharya and particularly of divine love inspired Gitagovinda by 12th century Jayadeva influenced the focus and growth of modern Odissi. Odissi was performed in the temples by the dancers called Maharis, who played out these spiritual poems and underlying religious plays, after training and perfecting their art of dance starting from an early age, and who were revered as auspicious to religious services. CANNOTANSWER | were revered as auspicious to religious services. | Odissi (), also referred to as Orissi in older literature, is a major ancient Indian classical dance that originated in the Hindu temples of Odisha – an eastern coastal state of India. Odissi, in its history, was performed predominantly by women, and expressed religious stories and spiritual ideas, particularly of Vaishnavism. Odissi performances have also expressed ideas of other traditions such as those related to Hindu gods Shiva and Surya, as well as Hindu goddesses (Shaktism).
The theoretical foundations of Odissi trace to the ancient Sanskrit text Natya Shastra, its existence in antiquity evidenced by the dance poses in the sculptures of Odissi Hindu temples, and archeological sites related to Hinduism (Sanatana Dharma), Buddhism and Jainism. It was suppressed under the British Rule. The suppression was protested by the Indians, followed by its revival, reconstruction and expansion since India gained independence from the colonial rule.
Odissi is traditionally a dance-drama genre of performance art, where the artist(s) and musicians play out a story, a spiritual message or devotional poem from the Hindu texts, using symbolic costumes, body movement, abhinaya (expressions) and mudras (gestures and sign language) set out in ancient Sanskrit literature. Classical Odia literature & the Gitagovinda set to traditional Odissi music are used for the abhinaya. Odissi is learnt and performed as a composite of basic dance motif called the Bhangas (symmetric body bends, stance). It involves lower (footwork), mid (torso) and upper (hand and head) as three sources of perfecting expression and audience engagement with geometric symmetry and rhythmic musical resonance. An Odissi performance repertoire includes invocation, nritta (pure dance), nritya (expressive dance), natya (dance drama) and moksha (dance climax connoting freedom of the soul and spiritual release).
Traditional Odissi exists in two major styles, the first perfected by women and focussed on solemn, spiritual temple dance (maharis); the second perfected by boys dressed as girls (gotipuas) which diversified to include athletic and acrobatic moves, and were performed from festive occasions in temples to general folksy entertainment. Modern Odissi productions by Indian artists have presented a diverse range of experimental ideas, culture fusion, themes and plays.
Odissi was the only Indian dance form present in Michael Jackson's 1991 hit single Black or White.
History
The foundations of Odissi are found in Natya Shastra, the ancient Hindu Sanskrit text of performance arts. The basic dance units described in Natyashastra, all 108 of them, are identical to those in Odissi.
Natya Shastra is attributed to the ancient scholar Bharata Muni, and its first complete compilation is dated to between 200 BCE and 200 CE, but estimates vary between 500 BCE and 500 CE. The most studied version of the Natya Shastra text consists of about 6000 verses structured into 36 chapters. The text, states Natalia Lidova, describes the theory of Tāṇḍava dance (Shiva), the theory of rasa, of bhāva, expression, gestures, acting techniques, basic steps, standing postures – all of which are part of Indian classical dances. Dance and performance arts, states this ancient text, are a form of expression of spiritual ideas, virtues and the essence of scriptures. The Natya Shastra refers to four vrittis (methods of expressive delivery) in vogue – Avanti, Dakshinatya, Panchali and Odra-Magadhi; of these, the Odra refers to Odisha.
More direct historical evidence of dance and music as an ancient performance art are found in archaeological sites such as caves and in temple carvings of Bhubaneswar, Konark and Puri. The Manchapuri cave in Udayagiri shows carvings of dance and musicians, and this has been dated to the time of Jain king Kharavela in the first or second century BCE. The Hathigumpha inscriptions, also dated to the same ruler, mention music and dance:
<blockquote style="background-color:none;margin-right:5em;margin-left:0em;border-left:solid 6px #FFE0BB;padding:1.0em">
(he [the king]) versed in the science of the Gandharvas (i.e., music), entertains the capital with the exhibition of dapa, dancing, singing and instrumental music and by causing to be held festivities and assemblies (samajas)...</p>
— Hathigumpha inscription, Line 5, ~ 2nd–1st century BCE
</blockquote>
The musical tradition of Odisha also has ancient roots. Archeologists have reported the discovery of 20-key, carefully shaped polished basalt lithophone in Sankarjang, the highlands of Odisha, which is dated to about 1000 BCE.
Medieval era
The Hindu, Jain and Buddhist archaeological sites in Odisha state, particularly the Assia range of hills show inscriptions and carvings of dances that are dated to the 6th to 9th century CE. Important sites include the Ranigumpha in Udaygiri, and various caves and temples at Lalitgiri, Ratnagiri and Alatgiri sites. The Buddhist icons, for example, are depicted as dancing gods and goddesses, with Haruka, Vajravarahi, and Marichi in Odissi-like postures. Historical evidence, states Alexandra Carter, shows that Odissi Maharis (Hindu temple dancers) and dance halls architecture (nata-mandap) were in vogue at least by the 9th century CE.
According to Kapila Vatsyayan, the Kalpasutra of Jainism, in its manuscripts discovered in Gujarat, includes classical Indian dance poses – such as the Samapada, the Tribhangi and the Chuaka of Odissi. This, states Vatsyayan, suggests that Odissi was admired or at least well known in distant parts of India, far from Odisha in the medieval era, to be included in the margins of an important Jain text. However, the Jain manuscripts use the dance poses as decorative art in the margins and cover, but do not describe or discuss the dance. Hindu dance texts such as the Abhinaya Chandrika and Abhinaya Darpana provide a detailed description of the movements of the feet, hands, the standing postures, the movement and the dance repertoire. It includes illustrations of the Karanãs mentioned in NãtyaShãstra. Similarly, the illustrated Hindu text on temple architecture from Odisha, the Shilpaprakãsha, deals with Odia architecture and sculpture, and includes Odissi postures.
Actual sculptures that have survived into the modern era and panel reliefs in Odia temples, dated to be from the 10th to 14th century, show Odissi dance. This is evidenced in Jagannatha temple in Puri, as well as other temples of Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Vedic deities such as Surya (Sun) in Odisha. There are several sculptures of dancers and musicians in Konark Sun Temple and Brahmeswara Temple in Bhubaneswar.
The composition of the poetic texts by 8th century Shankaracharya and particularly of divine love inspired Gitagovinda by 12th century Jayadeva influenced the focus and growth of modern Odissi. Odissi was performed in the temples by the dancers called Maharis, who played out these spiritual poems and underlying religious plays, after training and perfecting their art of dance starting from an early age, and who were revered as auspicious to religious services.
Mughal and British period
After 12th-century, Odia temples, monasteries and nearby institutions such as the Puspagiri in eastern Indian subcontinent came under waves of attacks and ransacking by Muslim armies, a turmoil that impacted all arts and eroded the freedoms previously enjoyed by performance artists. The official records of Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq's invasion in Odisha (13601361 CE), for example, describe the destruction of the Jagannath temple as well as numerous other temples, defacing of dancing statues, and ruining of dance halls. This led to a broad decline in Odissi and other religious arts, but there were some benevolent rulers in this period who supported arts particularly through performances at courts. During the Sultanate and Mughal era of India, the temple dancers were moved to entertain the Sultan's family and courts. They became associated with concubinage to the nobility.
The Odissi dance likely expanded in the 17th century, states Alexandra Carter, under King Ramachandradeva's patronage. This expansion integrated martial arts (akhanda) and athletics into Odissi dance, by engaging boys and youth called Gotipuas, as a means to physically train the young for the military and to resist foreign invasions. According to Ragini Devi, historical evidence suggests that the Gotipuas tradition was known and nurtured in the 14th century, by Raja of Khordha.
During the British Raj, the officials of the colonial government ridiculed the temple traditions, while Christian missionaries launched a sustained attack on the moral outrage of sensuousness of Odissi and other Hindu temple dance arts. In 1872, a British civil servant named William Hunter watched a performance at the Jagannatha temple in Puri, then wrote, "Indecent ceremonies disgraced the ritual, and dancing girls with rolling eyes put the modest worshipper to the blush...", and then attacked them as idol-worshipping prostitutes who expressed their devotion with "airy gyrations".
Christian missionaries launched the "anti-dance movement" in 1892, to ban all such dance forms. The dancers were frequently stigmatized as prostitutes by Europeans during the colonial era. In 1910, the British colonial government in India banned temple dancing, and the dance artists were reduced to abject poverty from the lack of any financial support for performance arts, combined with stereotyping stigma.
Post-independence
The temple dance ban and the cultural discrimination during the colonial rule marshaled a movement by Hindus to question the stereotypes and to revive the regional arts of India, including Odissi. Due to these efforts, the classical Indian dances witnessed a period of renaissance and reconstruction, which gained momentum particularly after Indians gained their freedom from colonialism.
Odissi, along with several other major Indian dances gained recognition after efforts by many scholars and performers in the 1950s, particularly by Kavichandra Kalicharan Pattanayak, an Oriya poet, dramatist and researcher. Pattanayak is also credited with naming the dance form as "Odissi".
Repertoire
Odissi, in the classical and medieval period has been, a team dance founded on Hindu texts. This drama-dance involved women (Maharis) enacting a spiritual poem or a religious story either in the inner sanctum of a Hindu temple, or in the Natamandira attached to the temple. The Odissi performing Maharis combined pure dance with expression, to play out and communicate the underlying text through abhinaya (gestures). The performance art evolved to include another aspect, wherein teams of boys – dressed as girls – called Gotipuas expanded the Odissi repertoire, such as by adding acrobatics and athletic moves, and they performed both near the temples and open fairs for general folksy entertainment. In the Indian tradition, many of the accomplished gotipuas became the gurus (teachers) in their adulthood. Modern Odissi is a diversified performance art, men have joined the women, and its reconstruction since the 1950s have added new plays and aspects of other Indian dances.
Love is a universal theme and one of the paradigmatic values in Indian religions. This theme is expressed through sensuous love poems and metaphors of sexual union in Krishna-related literature, and as longing eros (Shringara) in its dance arts such as in Odissi, from the early times. Hinduism, states Judith Hanna, encourages the artist to "strive to suggest, reveal or re-create the infinite, divine self", and art is considered as "the supreme means of realizing the Universal Being". Physical intimacy is not something considered as a reason for shame, rather considered a form of celebration and worship, where the saint is the lover and the lover is the saint. This aspect of Odissi dancing has been subdued in the modern post-colonial reconstructions, states Alexandra Carter, and the emphasis has expanded to "expressions of personal artistic excellence as ritualized spiritual articulations".
The traditional Odissi repertoire, like all classical Indian dances, includes Nritta (pure dance, solo), Nritya (dance with emotions, solo) and Natya (dramatic dance, group). These three performance aspects of Odissi are described and illustrated in the foundational Hindu texts, particularly the Natya Shastra, Abhinaya Darpana and the 16th-century Abhinaya Chandrika by Maheshwara Mahapatra of Odisha.
The Nritta performance is abstract, fast and rhythmic aspect of the dance. The viewer is presented with pure movement in Nritta, wherein the emphasis is the beauty in motion, form, speed, range and pattern. This part of the repertoire has no interpretative aspect, no telling of story. It is a technical performance, and aims to engage the senses (prakriti) of the audience.
The Nritya is slower and expressive aspect of the dance that attempts to communicate feelings, storyline particularly with spiritual themes in Hindu dance traditions. In a nritya, the dance-acting expands to include silent expression of words through the sign language of gestures and body motion set to musical notes. This part of a repertoire is more than sensory enjoyment, it aims to engage the emotions and mind of the viewer.
The Natyam is a play, typically a team performance, but can be acted out by a solo performer where the dancer uses certain standardized body movements to indicate a new character in the underlying story. A Natya incorporates the elements of a Nritya.
The Mokshya is a climatic pure dance of Odissi, aiming to highlight the liberation of soul and serenity in the spiritual.
Odissi dance can be accompanied by both northern Indian (Hindustani) and southern Indian (Carnatic) music, though mainly, recitals are in Odia and Sanskrit language in the Odissi music tradition.
Sequence
Traditional Odissi repertoire sequence starts with an invocation called Mangalacharana. A shloka (hymn) in praise of a God or Goddess is sung, such as to Jagannath (an avatar of Vishnu), the meaning of which is expressed through dance. Mangalacharana is followed by Pushpanjali (offering of flowers) and Bhumi Pranam (salutation to mother earth). The invocation also includes Trikhandi Pranam or the three-fold salutation – to the Devas (gods), to the Gurus (teachers) and to the Lokas or Rasikas (fellow dancers and audience).
The next sequential step in an Odissi performance is Batu, also known as Battu Nrutya or Sthayee Nrutya or Batuka Bhairava. It is a fast pace, pure dance (nritta) performed in the honor of Shiva. There is no song or recitation accompanying this part of the dance, just rhythmic music. This pure dance sequence in Odissi builds up to a Pallavi which is often slow, graceful & lyrical movements of the eyes, neck, torso & feet & slowly builds in a crescendo to climax in a fast tempo at the end.
The nritya follows next, and consists of Abhinaya, or an expressional dance which is an enactment of a song or poetry. The dancer(s) communicate the story in a sign language, using mudras (hand gestures), bhavas (enacting mood, emotions), eye and body movement. The dance is fluid, graceful and sensual. Abhinaya in Odissi is performed to verses recited in Sanskrit or Odia language. Most common are Abhinayas on Oriya songs or Sanskrit Ashthapadis or Sanskrit stutis like Dasavatar Stotram (depicting the ten incarnations of Lord Vishnu) or Ardhanari Stotram (half man, half woman form of the divine). Many regionally performed Abhinaya compositions are based on the Radha-Krishna theme. The Astapadis of the Radha-Krishna love poem Gita Govinda written by Jayadeva are usually performed in Odisha, as part of the dance repertoire.
The natya part, or dance drama, is next in sequence. Usually Hindu mythologies, epics and legendary dramas are chosen as themes.
A distinctive part of the Odissi tradition is the inclusion of Moksha (or Mokshya) finale in the performance sequence. This the concluding item of a recital. Moksha in Hindu traditions means “spiritual liberation”. This dance movement traditionally attempts to convey a sense of spiritual release and soul liberation, soaring into the realm of pure aesthetics. Movement and pose merge in a fast pace pure dance climax.
Basic moves and mudras
The basic unit of Odissi are called bhangas. These are made up of eight belis, or body positions and movements, combined in many varieties. Motion is uthas (rising or up), baithas (sitting or down) or sthankas (standing). The gaits or movement on the dance floor is called chaalis, with movement tempo linked to emotions according to the classical Sanskrit texts. Thus, for example, burhas or quick pace suggest excitement, while a slow confused pace suggests dejection. For aesthetics, movement is centered on a core, a point in space or floor, and each dancer has her imaginary square of space, with spins and expression held within it. The foot movement or pada bhedas too have basic dance units, and Odissi has six of these, in contrast to four found in most classical Indian dances.
The three primary dance positions in Odissi are:
Samabhanga – the square position, with weight equally placed on the two legs, spine straight, arms raised up with elbows bent.
Abhanga – the body weight shifts from side to side, due to deep leg bends, while the feet and knees are turned outwards, and one hip extending sideways.
Tribhanga – is an S-shaped three-fold bending of body, with torso deflecting in one direction while the head and hips deflecting in the opposite direction of torso. Further, the hands and legs frame the body into a composite of two squares (rectangle), providing an aesthetic frame of reference. This is described in the ancient Sanskrit texts, and forms of it are found in other Hindu dance arts, but tribhanga postures developed most in and are distinctive to Odissi, and they are found in historic Hindu temple reliefs.
Mudras or Hastas are hand gestures which are used to express the meaning of a given act. Like all classical dances of India, the aim of Odissi is in part to convey emotions, mood and inner feelings in the story by appropriate hand and facial gestures. There are 63 Hastas in modern Odissi dance, and these have the same names or structure as those in the pan-Indian Hindu texts, but most closely matching those in the Abhinaya Chandrika. These are subdivided into three, according to the traditional texts:
Asamyukta Hasta – Single hand Mudras – 28 Prakar (gestures, for instance to communicate a salute, prayer, embrace, energy, bond, swing, carriage, shell, arrow, holding a thing, wheel, and so on.)
Samyukta Hasta – Double hand Mudras – 24 Prakar (gestures, for instance to indicate a flag, flower, type of bird or animal, moon, action like grasping, and so on.)
Nrutya Hasta – “Pure Dance” Mudras
The Mudra system is derived from the "Abhinaya Darpana" by Nandikeshavara and the ancient Natya Shastra of Bharata Muni.
Costumes
The Odissi dancers are colorfully dressed with makeup and jewellery. The Saree worn by Odissi dancers are brightly coloured, and usually of local silk (Pattasari). It is worn with pleats, or may have a pleat tailor stitched in front, to allow maximum flexibility during the footwork. These sarees have traditional prints of Odisha with regional designs and embellishments, and may be the Sambalpuri Saree and Bomkai Saree.
The jewellery includes silver pieces, a metal favored in regional tradition. The hair is tied up, and typically drawn into an elaborate bun resembling a Hindu temple spire, and decorated with Seenthi. Their hairstyle may contain a moon shaped crest of white flowers, or a reed crown called Mukoot with peacock feathers (symbolism for Lord Krishna). The dancers forehead is marked with Tikka, and adorned with various jewelry such as the Allaka (head piece on which the tikka hangs). The eyes are ringed with Kajal (black eyeliner).
Ear covers called Kapa or ear rings decorate the sides of the head, while necklace adorns the neck. The dancer wears a pair of armlets also called Bahichudi or Bajuband, on the upper arm. The wrist is covered with Kankana (bangles). At the waist they wear an elaborate belt which ties down one end of the Sari. The ankles are decorated with a leather piece on top of which are bells (ghungroo). The dancer's palms and soles may be painted with red coloured dye called the Alta.
Modern Odissi male performers wear dhoti – a broadcloth tied around waist, pleated for movement, and tucked between legs; usually extends to knee or lower. Upper body is bare chested, and a long thin folded translucent sheet wrapping over one shoulder and usually tucked below a wide belt.
Music and instruments
Odissi dance is accompanied by the traditional classical music of the state of Odisha, Odissi music. The primary Odissi ragas are Kalyana, Nata, Shree Gowda, Baradi, Panchama, Dhanashri, Karnata, Bhairavee and Shokabaradi.
Odissi dance, states Ragini Devi, is a form of "visualized music", wherein the Ragas and Raginis, respectively the primary and secondary musical modes, are integrated by the musicians and interpreted through the dancer. Each note is a means, has a purpose and with a mood in classical Indian music, which Odissi accompanies to express sentiments in a song through Parija. This is true whether the performance is formal, or less formal as in Nartana and Natangi used during festive occasions and the folksy celebration of life.
An Odissi troupe comes with musicians and musical instruments. The orchestra consists of various regional musical instruments, such as the Mardala (barrel drum), harmonium, flute, sitar, violin, cymbals held in fingers and others.
Styles
The Odissi tradition existed in three schools: Mahari, Nartaki, and Gotipua:
Maharis were Oriya devadasis or temple girls, their name deriving from Maha (great) and Nari (girl), or Mahri (chosen) particularly those at the temple of Jagganath at Puri. Early Maharis performed Nritta (pure dance) and Abhinaya (interpretation of poetry) dedicated to various Hindu gods and goddesses, as well as Puranic mythologies and Vedic legends. Later, Maharis especially performed dance sequences based on the lyrics of Jayadev's Gita Govinda. This style is more sensuous and closer to the classical Sanskrit texts on dance, music and performance arts.
Gotipuas were boys dressed up as girls and taught the dance by the Maharis. This style included martial arts, athletics and acrobatics. Gotipuas danced to these compositions outside the temples and fairgrounds as folksy entertainment.
Nartaki dance took place in the royal courts, where it was prevalent before the British period.
Schools, training and recognition
Odissi maestros and performers
Kelucharan Mohapatra, Pankaj Charan Das, Deba Prasad Das and Raghunath Dutta were the four major gurus who revived Odissi in the late forties and early fifties. Sanjukta Panigrahi was a leading disciple of Kelucharan Mohapatra who popularized Odissi by performing in India and abroad. In the mid-sixties, three other disciples of Kelucharan Mohapatra, Kumkum Mohanty and Sonal Mansingh, were known for their performances in India and abroad. Laximipriya Mohapatra performed a piece of Odissi abhinaya in the Annapurna Theatre in Cuttack in 1948, a show upheld as the first classical Odissi dance performance after its contemporary revival. Guru Mayadhar Raut played a pivotal role in giving Odissi dance its classical status. He introduced Mudra Vinyoga in 1955 and Sancharibhava in the Odissi dance items, and portrayed Shringara Rasa in Gita Govinda Ashthapadis. His notable compositions include Pashyati Dishi Dishi and Priya Charu Shile, composed in 1961.
Schools
IIT Bhubaneswar
Odissi has been included in Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar's BTech syllabus since 2015 as the first Indian national technical institute to introduce any classical dance in syllabus.
In Guinness World records
Guinness World Records has acknowledged the feat of the largest congregation of Odissi dancers in a single event. 555 Odissi dancers performed at the event hosted on 23 December 2011, in the Kalinga stadium, Bhubaneswar, Odisha. The dancers performed the Mangalacharan, Battu, Pallavi, Abhinay and Mokshya dance items from the Odissi repertoire.
More than 1000 Odissi dancers performed at the World Cultural Festival 12 March 2016. This is till date the largest congregation of Odissi dancers in a single event.
Odissi Centre at Oxford University
An Odissi dance centre has been opened from January 2016, at the University of Oxford. Known as Oxford Odissi Centre, it is an initiative of the Odissi dancer and choreographer Baisali Mohanty who is also a post-graduate scholar at the University of Oxford.
Beside holding regular Odissi dance classes at its institution, the Oxford Odissi Centre also conducts Odissi dance workshops at other academic institutions in the United Kingdom.
See also
Indian classical dance
Ghungroo
Odissi music
Gotipua
References
Bibliography
Odissi : What, Why and How… Evolution, Revival and Technique, by Madhumita Raut. Published by B. R. Rhythms, Delhi, 2007. .
Odissi Yaatra: The Journey of Guru Mayadhar Raut, by Aadya Kaktikar (ed. Madhumita Raut). Published by B. R. Rhythms, Delhi, 2010. .
Odissi Dance, by Dhirendranath Patnaik. Published by Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1971.
Odissi – The Dance Divine, by Ranjana Gauhar and Dushyant Parasher. Published by Niyogi Books, 2007. .
Odissi, Indian Classical Dance Art: Odisi Nritya, by Sunil Kothari, Avinash Pasricha. Marg Publications, 1990. .
Perspectives on Odissi Theatre, by Ramesh Prasad Panigrahi, Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi. Published by Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1998.
Abhinaya-chandrika and Odissi dance, by Maheshwar Mahapatra, Alekha Chandra Sarangi, Sushama Kulshreshthaa, Maya Das. Published by Eastern Book Linkers, 2001. .
Rethinking Odissi, by Dinanath Pathy. Published by Harman Pub. House, 2007. .
, Table of Contents
External links
Odissi solo performance: Nitisha Nanda, Arabhi Pallav, New Delhi 2013
Odissi group dance: Megh Pallavi, Vancouver 2014
Maryam Shakiba – Odissi Dance – Manglacharan Ganesh Vandana Pushkar 2014
Odissi links at the Open Directory
Odissi schools, Classical Indian Dance Portal
The annotated Odissi Dance Archive on Pad.ma
History of Odissi and Geeta Govinda JN Dhar, Orissa Review
Bharat Bhavan, a Kerala-based Department of Culture information website.
Arts of Odisha
Odia culture
Jayadeva
Classical dance genres of India
Hindu temple dance
Odissi dancers
Odissi music
Artforms based on Odissi music | true | [
"The dancing plague of 1518, or dance epidemic of 1518, was a case of dancing mania that occurred in Strasbourg, Alsace (modern-day France), in the Holy Roman Empire from July 1518 to September 1518. Somewhere between 50 and 400 people took to dancing for days.\n\nEvents \nThe outbreak began in July 1518 when a woman began to dance fervently in a street in Strasbourg. By early September, the outbreak began to subside.\n\nHistorical documents, including \"physician notes, cathedral sermons, local and regional chronicles, and even notes issued by the Strasbourg city council\" are clear that the victims danced; it is not known why. Historical sources agree that there was an outbreak of dancing after a single woman started dancing, a group of mostly young women joined in, and the dancing did not seem to die down. It lasted for such a long time that it attracted the attention of the Strasbourg magistrate and bishop, and some number of doctors ultimately intervened, putting the afflicted in a hospital.\n\nEvents similar to this are said to have occurred throughout the medieval age including 11th century in Kölbigk Saxony, where it was believed to be the cause of demonic possession or divine judgment. In 15th century Apulia Italy, a woman was bitten by a tarantula, the venom making her dance convulsively. The only way to cure the bite was to \"shimmy\" and to have the right sort of music available, which was an accepted remedy by scholars like Athanasius Kircher.\n\nContemporaneous explanations included demonic possession and overheated blood.\n\nVeracity of deaths\nControversy exists over whether people ultimately danced to their deaths. Some sources claim that for a period the plague killed around fifteen people per day, but the sources of the city of Strasbourg at the time of the events did not mention the number of deaths, or even if there were fatalities. There do not appear to be any sources contemporaneous to the events that make note of any fatalities.\n\nThe main source for the claim is John Waller, who has written several journal articles on the subject, and the book A Time to Dance, a Time to Die: The Extraordinary Story of the Dancing Plague of 1518. The sources cited by Waller that mention deaths were all from later accounts of the events. There is also uncertainty around the identity of the initial dancer (either an unnamed woman or \"Frau Troffea\") and the number of dancers involved (somewhere between 50 and 400). Of the six chronicle accounts, four support Lady Troffea as the first dancer.\n\nModern theories\n\nFood poisoning \nSome believe the dancing could have been brought on by food poisoning caused by the toxic and psychoactive chemical products of ergot fungi (ergotism), which grows commonly on grains (such as rye) used for baking bread. Ergotamine is the main psychoactive product of ergot fungi; it is structurally related to the drug lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25) and is the substance from which LSD-25 was originally synthesized. The same fungus has also been implicated in other major historical anomalies, including the Salem witch trials.\n\nIn The Lancet, John Waller argues that \"this theory does not seem tenable, since it is unlikely that those poisoned by ergot could have danced for days at a time. Nor would so many people have reacted to its psychotropic chemicals in the same way. The ergotism theory also fails to explain why virtually every outbreak occurred somewhere along the Rhine and Moselle rivers, areas linked by water but with quite different climates and crops\".\n\nStress-induced mass hysteria \nThis could have been a florid example of psychogenic movement disorder happening in mass hysteria or mass psychogenic illness, which involves many individuals suddenly exhibiting the same bizarre behavior. The behavior spreads rapidly and broadly in an epidemic pattern. This kind of comportment could have been caused by elevated levels of psychological stress, caused by the ruthless years (even by the rough standards of the early modern period) the people of Alsace were suffering.\n\nWaller speculates that the dancing was \"stress-induced psychosis\" on a mass level, since the region where the people danced was riddled with starvation and disease, and the inhabitants tended to be superstitious. Seven other cases of dancing plague were reported in the same region during the medieval era.\n\nThis psychogenic illness could have created a chorea (from the Greek khoreia meaning \"to dance\"), a situation comprising random and intricate unintentional movements that flit from body part to body part. Diverse choreas (St. Vitus' dance, St. John's dance, and tarantism) were labeled in the Middle Ages referring to the independent epidemics of \"dancing mania\" that happened in central Europe, particularly at the time of the plague.\n\nSee also\n Sydenham's chorea\n Tanganyika laughter epidemic\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links\n \"Dancing death\" by John Waller. BBC News. 12 September 2008.\n \"Strasbourg 1518\" (dance-theatre production) by Borderline Arts Ensemble. New Zealand Festival of the Arts. 12 March 2020.\n \"Strasbourg 1518\" (short film) by Jonathan Glazer. BBC. 20 July 2020. \n\n1518\n1518 in Europe\n16th-century health disasters\nHealth disasters in France\nAilments of unknown cause\nPlague\nHistory of Strasbourg\nMass hysteria\nRetrospective diagnosis",
"Dancing mania (also known as dancing plague, choreomania, St. John's Dance, tarantism and St. Vitus' Dance) was a social phenomenon that occurred primarily in mainland Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries. It involved groups of people dancing erratically, sometimes thousands at a time. The mania affected adults and children who danced until they collapsed from exhaustion and injuries. One of the first major outbreaks was in Aachen, in the Holy Roman Empire (in modern-day Germany), in 1374, and it quickly spread throughout Europe; one particularly notable outbreak occurred in Strasbourg in 1518 in Alsace, also in the Holy Roman Empire (now France).\n\nAffecting thousands of people across several centuries, dancing mania was not an isolated event, and was well documented in contemporary reports. It was nevertheless poorly understood, and remedies were based on guesswork. Often musicians accompanied dancers, due to a belief that music would treat the mania, but this tactic sometimes backfired by encouraging more to join in. There is no consensus among modern-day scholars as to the cause of dancing mania.\n\nThe several theories proposed range from religious cults being behind the processions to people dancing to relieve themselves of stress and put the poverty of the period out of their minds. It is speculated to have been a mass psychogenic illness, in which physical symptoms with no known physical cause are observed to affect a group of people, as a form of social influence.\n\nDefinition\n\"Dancing mania\" is derived from the term \"choreomania\", from the Greek choros (dance) and mania (madness), and is also known as \"dancing plague\". The term was coined by Paracelsus, and the condition was initially considered a curse sent by a saint, usually St. John the Baptist or St. Vitus, and was therefore known as \"St. Vitus' Dance\" or \"St. John's Dance\". Victims of dancing mania often ended their processions at places dedicated to that saint, who was prayed to in an effort to end the dancing; incidents often broke out around the time of the feast of St. Vitus.\n\nSt. Vitus' Dance was diagnosed, in the 17th century, as Sydenham chorea. Dancing mania has also been known as epidemic chorea and epidemic dancing. A disease of the nervous system, chorea is characterized by symptoms resembling those of dancing mania, which has also rather unconvincingly been considered a form of epilepsy.\n\nOther scientists have described dancing mania as a \"collective mental disorder\", \"collective hysterical disorder\" and \"mass madness\".\n\nOutbreaks\nThe earliest-known outbreak of dancing mania occurred in the 7th century, and it reappeared many times across Europe until about the 17th century, when it stopped abruptly. One of the earliest-known incidents occurred sometime in the 1020s in Bernburg, where 18 peasants began singing and dancing around a church, disturbing a Christmas Eve service.\n\nFurther outbreaks occurred during the 13th century, including one in 1237 in which a large group of children travelled from Erfurt to Arnstadt (about ), jumping and dancing all the way, in marked similarity to the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, a legend that originated at around the same time. Another incident, in 1278, involved about 200 people dancing on a bridge over the River Meuse resulting in its collapse. Many of the survivors were restored to full health at a nearby chapel dedicated to St. Vitus. The first major outbreak of the mania occurred between 1373 and 1374, with incidents reported in England, Germany and the Netherlands.\n\nOn 24 June 1374, one of the biggest outbreaks began in Aachen, before spreading to other places such as Cologne, Flanders, Franconia, Hainaut, Metz, Strasbourg, Tongeren, Utrecht, and regions and countries such as Italy and Luxembourg. Further episodes occurred in 1375 and 1376, with incidents in France, Germany and Netherlands, and in 1381 there was an outbreak in Augsburg. Further incidents occurred in 1418 in Strasbourg, where people fasted for days and the outbreak was possibly caused by exhaustion. In another outbreak, in 1428 in Schaffhausen, a monk danced to death and, in the same year, a group of women in Zurich were reportedly in a dancing frenzy.\n\nAnother of the biggest outbreaks occurred in July 1518, in Strasbourg (see Dancing plague of 1518), where a woman began dancing in the street and between 50 and 400 people joined her. Further incidents occurred during the 16th century, when the mania was at its peak: in 1536 in Basel, involving a group of children; and in 1551 in Anhalt, involving just one man. In the 17th century, incidents of recurrent dancing were recorded by professor of medicine Gregor Horst, who noted:\n\nDancing mania appears to have completely died out by the mid-17th century. According to John Waller, although numerous incidents were recorded, the best documented cases are the outbreaks of 1374 and 1518, for which there is abundant contemporary evidence.\n\nCharacteristics\nThe outbreaks of dancing mania varied, and several characteristics of it have been recorded. Generally occurring in times of hardship, up to tens of thousands of people would appear to dance for hours, days, weeks, and even months.\n\nWomen have often been portrayed in modern literature as the usual participants in dancing mania, although contemporary sources suggest otherwise. Whether the dancing was spontaneous, or an organized event, is also debated. What is certain, however, is that dancers seemed to be in a state of unconsciousness, and unable to control themselves.\n\nIn his research into social phenomena, author Robert Bartholomew notes that contemporary sources record that participants often did not reside where the dancing took place. Such people would travel from place to place, and others would join them along the way. With them they brought customs and behaviour that were strange to the local people. Bartholomew describes how dancers wore \"strange, colorful attire\" and \"held wooden sticks\".\n\nRobert Marks, in his study of hypnotism, notes that some decorated their hair with garlands. However, not all outbreaks involved foreigners, and not all were particularly calm. Bartholomew notes that some \"paraded around naked\" and made \"obscene gestures\". Some even had sexual intercourse. Others acted like animals, and jumped, hopped and leaped about.\n\nThey hardly stopped, and some danced until they broke their ribs and subsequently died. Throughout, dancers screamed, laughed, or cried, and some sang. Bartholomew also notes that observers of dancing mania were sometimes treated violently if they refused to join in. Participants demonstrated odd reactions to the color red; in A History of Madness in Sixteenth-Century Germany, Midelfort notes they \"could not perceive the color red at all\", and Bartholomew reports \"it was said that dancers could not stand... the color red, often becoming violent on seeing [it]\".\n\nBartholomew also notes that dancers \"could not stand pointed shoes\", and that dancers enjoyed their feet being hit. Throughout, those affected by dancing mania suffered from a variety of ailments, including chest pains, convulsions, hallucinations, hyperventilation, epileptic fits, and visions. In the end, most simply dropped down, overwhelmed with exhaustion. Midelfort, however, describes how some ended up in a state of ecstasy. Typically, the mania was contagious but it often struck small groups, such as families and individuals.\n\nTarantism \n\nIn Italy, a similar phenomenon was tarantism, in which the victims were said to have been poisoned by a tarantula or scorpion. Its earliest-known outbreak was in the 13th century, and the only antidote known was to dance to particular music to separate the venom from the blood. It occurred only in the summer months. As with dancing mania, people would suddenly begin to dance, sometimes affected by a perceived bite or sting and were joined by others, who believed the venom from their own old bites was reactivated by the heat or the music. Dancers would perform a tarantella, accompanied by music which would eventually \"cure\" the victim, at least temporarily.\n\nSome participated in further activities, such as tying themselves up with vines and whipping each other, pretending to sword fight, drinking large amounts of wine, and jumping into the sea. Some died if there was no music to accompany their dancing. Sufferers typically had symptoms resembling those of dancing mania, such as headaches, trembling, twitching and visions.\n\nAs with dancing mania, participants apparently did not like the color black, and women were reported to be most affected. Unlike dancing mania, tarantism was confined to Italy and southern Europe. It was common until the 17th century, but ended suddenly, with only very small outbreaks in Italy until as late as 1959.\n\nA study of the phenomenon in 1959 by religious history professor Ernesto de Martino revealed that most cases of tarantism were probably unrelated to spider bites. Many participants admitted that they had not been bitten, but believed they were infected by someone who had been, or that they had simply touched a spider. The result was mass panic, with a \"cure\" that allowed people to behave in ways that were, normally, prohibited at the time. Despite their differences, tarantism and dancing mania are often considered synonymous.\n\nReactions\n\nAs the real cause of dancing mania was unknown, many of the treatments for it were simply hopeful guesses, although some did seem effective. The 1374 outbreak occurred only decades after the Black Death, and was treated in a similar fashion: dancers were isolated, and some were exorcised. People believed that the dancing was a curse brought about by St. Vitus; they responded by praying and making pilgrimages to places dedicated to St. Vitus.\n\nPrayers were also made to St. John the Baptist, who some believed also caused the dancing. Others claimed to be possessed by demons, or Satan, therefore exorcisms were often performed on dancers. Bartholomew notes that music was often played while participants danced, as that was believed to be an effective remedy, and during some outbreaks musicians were even employed to play. Midelfort describes how the music encouraged others to join in, however, and thus effectively made things worse, as did the dancing places that were sometimes set up.\n\nTheories\nNumerous hypotheses have been proposed for the causes of dancing mania, and it remains unclear whether it was a real illness or a social phenomenon. One of the most prominent theories is that victims suffered from ergot poisoning, which was known as St. Anthony's fire in the Middle Ages. During floods and damp periods, ergots were able to grow and affect rye and other crops. Ergotism can cause hallucinations and convulsions, but cannot account for the other strange behaviour most commonly identified with dancing mania.\n\nOther theories suggest that the symptoms were similar to encephalitis, epilepsy, and typhus, but as with ergotism, those conditions cannot account for all symptoms.\n\nNumerous sources discuss how dancing mania, and tarantism, may have simply been the result of stress and tension caused by natural disasters around the time, such as plagues and floods. Hetherington and Munro describe dancing mania as a result of \"shared stress\"; people may have danced to relieve themselves of the stress and poverty of the day, and in so doing, attempted to become ecstatic and see visions.\n\nAnother popular theory is that the outbreaks were all staged, and the appearance of strange behaviour was due to its unfamiliarity. Religious cults may have been acting out well-organised dances, in accordance with ancient Greek and Roman rituals. Despite being banned at the time, these rituals could be performed under the guise of uncontrollable dancing mania. Justus Hecker, a 19th-century medical writer, described it as a kind of festival, where a practice known as \"the kindling of the Nodfyr\" was carried out. This involved jumping through fire and smoke, in an attempt to ward off disease. Bartholomew notes how participants in this ritual would often continue to jump and leap long after the flames had gone.\n\nIt is certain that many participants of dancing mania were psychologically disturbed, but it is also likely that some took part out of fear, or simply wished to copy everyone else. Sources agree that dancing mania was one of the earliest-recorded forms of mass hysteria, and describe it as a \"psychic epidemic\", with numerous explanations that might account for the behaviour of the dancers. It has been suggested that the outbreaks may have been due to cultural contagion triggered, in times of particular hardship, by deeply rooted popular beliefs in the region regarding angry spirits capable of inflicting a \"dancing curse\" to punish their victims.\n\nSee also\n Dance marathon\n Ee ja nai ka, a cultural practice in 19th-century Japan with some similarities\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n Dancing Mania, by Leah Esterianna & Richard the Poor of Ely\n\nExternal links\n\n \n\nAilments of unknown cause\nMania\nHistory of mental health\nRenaissance dance\nMass hysteria\nMedieval events\nMedieval health disasters\nHealth disasters in Germany\nDance in Europe"
] |
[
"Odissi",
"Medieval era",
"Was Odissi an acceptable form of dancing during the Medieval era?",
"The Buddhist icons, for example, are depicted as dancing gods and goddesses,",
"Was Odissi popular form of dancing during the Medieval era?",
"Historical evidence, states Alexandra Carter, shows that Odissi Maharis (Hindu temple dancers) and dance halls architecture (nata-mandap) were in vogue",
"Was there a popular Odissi dancer in this era?",
"I don't know.",
"Is there anything significant about Odissi dancing in the Medieval era?",
"Odissi was admired or at least well known in distant parts of India, far from Odisha in the medieval era,",
"Was Odissi a good source of income for the performers?",
"I don't know.",
"Were there anyone in the Medieval who did not like this form of dancing?",
"were revered as auspicious to religious services."
] | C_c50f120990f34e0cb4e97ecfbab870af_1 | In what arenas were you able to witness the Odissi performers in the Medieval era? | 7 | In what arenas were you able to witness the Odissi performers in the Medieval era? | Odissi | The Buddhist, Jain and Hindu archaeological sites in Odisha state, particularly the Assia range of hills show inscriptions and carvings of dances that are dated to the 6th to 9th century CE. Important sites include the Ranigumpha in Udaygiri, and various caves and temples at Lalitgiri, Ratnagiri and Alatgiri sites. The Buddhist icons, for example, are depicted as dancing gods and goddesses, with Haruka, Vajravarahi, and Marichi in Odissi-like postures. Historical evidence, states Alexandra Carter, shows that Odissi Maharis (Hindu temple dancers) and dance halls architecture (nata-mandap) were in vogue at least by the 9th century CE. According to Kapila Vatsyayan, the Kalpasutra of Jainism, in its manuscripts discovered in Gujarat, includes classical Indian dance poses - such as the Samapada, the Tribhangi and the Chuaka of Odissi. This, states Vatsyayan, suggests that Odissi was admired or at least well known in distant parts of India, far from Odisha in the medieval era, to be included in the margins of an important Jain text. However, the Jain manuscripts use the dance poses as decorative art in the margins and cover, but do not describe or discuss the dance. Hindu dance texts such as the Abhinaya Chandrika and Abhinaya Darpana provide a detailed description of the movements of the feet, hands, the standing postures, the movement and the dance repertoire. It includes illustrations of the Karanas mentioned in NatyaShastra. Similarly, the illustrated Hindu text on temple architecture from Odisha, the Shilpaprakasha, deals with Odia architecture and sculpture, and includes Odissi postures. Actual sculptures that have survived into the modern era and panel reliefs in Odia temples, dated to be from the 10th to 14th century, show Odissi dance. This is evidenced in Jagannath temple in Puri, as well as other temples of Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Vedic deities such as Surya (Sun) in Odisha. There are several sculptures of dancers and musicians in Konark Sun Temple and Brahmeswara Temple in Bhubaneswar. The composition of the poetic texts by 8th century Shankaracharya and particularly of divine love inspired Gitagovinda by 12th century Jayadeva influenced the focus and growth of modern Odissi. Odissi was performed in the temples by the dancers called Maharis, who played out these spiritual poems and underlying religious plays, after training and perfecting their art of dance starting from an early age, and who were revered as auspicious to religious services. CANNOTANSWER | Odissi was performed in the temples by the dancers called Maharis, | Odissi (), also referred to as Orissi in older literature, is a major ancient Indian classical dance that originated in the Hindu temples of Odisha – an eastern coastal state of India. Odissi, in its history, was performed predominantly by women, and expressed religious stories and spiritual ideas, particularly of Vaishnavism. Odissi performances have also expressed ideas of other traditions such as those related to Hindu gods Shiva and Surya, as well as Hindu goddesses (Shaktism).
The theoretical foundations of Odissi trace to the ancient Sanskrit text Natya Shastra, its existence in antiquity evidenced by the dance poses in the sculptures of Odissi Hindu temples, and archeological sites related to Hinduism (Sanatana Dharma), Buddhism and Jainism. It was suppressed under the British Rule. The suppression was protested by the Indians, followed by its revival, reconstruction and expansion since India gained independence from the colonial rule.
Odissi is traditionally a dance-drama genre of performance art, where the artist(s) and musicians play out a story, a spiritual message or devotional poem from the Hindu texts, using symbolic costumes, body movement, abhinaya (expressions) and mudras (gestures and sign language) set out in ancient Sanskrit literature. Classical Odia literature & the Gitagovinda set to traditional Odissi music are used for the abhinaya. Odissi is learnt and performed as a composite of basic dance motif called the Bhangas (symmetric body bends, stance). It involves lower (footwork), mid (torso) and upper (hand and head) as three sources of perfecting expression and audience engagement with geometric symmetry and rhythmic musical resonance. An Odissi performance repertoire includes invocation, nritta (pure dance), nritya (expressive dance), natya (dance drama) and moksha (dance climax connoting freedom of the soul and spiritual release).
Traditional Odissi exists in two major styles, the first perfected by women and focussed on solemn, spiritual temple dance (maharis); the second perfected by boys dressed as girls (gotipuas) which diversified to include athletic and acrobatic moves, and were performed from festive occasions in temples to general folksy entertainment. Modern Odissi productions by Indian artists have presented a diverse range of experimental ideas, culture fusion, themes and plays.
Odissi was the only Indian dance form present in Michael Jackson's 1991 hit single Black or White.
History
The foundations of Odissi are found in Natya Shastra, the ancient Hindu Sanskrit text of performance arts. The basic dance units described in Natyashastra, all 108 of them, are identical to those in Odissi.
Natya Shastra is attributed to the ancient scholar Bharata Muni, and its first complete compilation is dated to between 200 BCE and 200 CE, but estimates vary between 500 BCE and 500 CE. The most studied version of the Natya Shastra text consists of about 6000 verses structured into 36 chapters. The text, states Natalia Lidova, describes the theory of Tāṇḍava dance (Shiva), the theory of rasa, of bhāva, expression, gestures, acting techniques, basic steps, standing postures – all of which are part of Indian classical dances. Dance and performance arts, states this ancient text, are a form of expression of spiritual ideas, virtues and the essence of scriptures. The Natya Shastra refers to four vrittis (methods of expressive delivery) in vogue – Avanti, Dakshinatya, Panchali and Odra-Magadhi; of these, the Odra refers to Odisha.
More direct historical evidence of dance and music as an ancient performance art are found in archaeological sites such as caves and in temple carvings of Bhubaneswar, Konark and Puri. The Manchapuri cave in Udayagiri shows carvings of dance and musicians, and this has been dated to the time of Jain king Kharavela in the first or second century BCE. The Hathigumpha inscriptions, also dated to the same ruler, mention music and dance:
<blockquote style="background-color:none;margin-right:5em;margin-left:0em;border-left:solid 6px #FFE0BB;padding:1.0em">
(he [the king]) versed in the science of the Gandharvas (i.e., music), entertains the capital with the exhibition of dapa, dancing, singing and instrumental music and by causing to be held festivities and assemblies (samajas)...</p>
— Hathigumpha inscription, Line 5, ~ 2nd–1st century BCE
</blockquote>
The musical tradition of Odisha also has ancient roots. Archeologists have reported the discovery of 20-key, carefully shaped polished basalt lithophone in Sankarjang, the highlands of Odisha, which is dated to about 1000 BCE.
Medieval era
The Hindu, Jain and Buddhist archaeological sites in Odisha state, particularly the Assia range of hills show inscriptions and carvings of dances that are dated to the 6th to 9th century CE. Important sites include the Ranigumpha in Udaygiri, and various caves and temples at Lalitgiri, Ratnagiri and Alatgiri sites. The Buddhist icons, for example, are depicted as dancing gods and goddesses, with Haruka, Vajravarahi, and Marichi in Odissi-like postures. Historical evidence, states Alexandra Carter, shows that Odissi Maharis (Hindu temple dancers) and dance halls architecture (nata-mandap) were in vogue at least by the 9th century CE.
According to Kapila Vatsyayan, the Kalpasutra of Jainism, in its manuscripts discovered in Gujarat, includes classical Indian dance poses – such as the Samapada, the Tribhangi and the Chuaka of Odissi. This, states Vatsyayan, suggests that Odissi was admired or at least well known in distant parts of India, far from Odisha in the medieval era, to be included in the margins of an important Jain text. However, the Jain manuscripts use the dance poses as decorative art in the margins and cover, but do not describe or discuss the dance. Hindu dance texts such as the Abhinaya Chandrika and Abhinaya Darpana provide a detailed description of the movements of the feet, hands, the standing postures, the movement and the dance repertoire. It includes illustrations of the Karanãs mentioned in NãtyaShãstra. Similarly, the illustrated Hindu text on temple architecture from Odisha, the Shilpaprakãsha, deals with Odia architecture and sculpture, and includes Odissi postures.
Actual sculptures that have survived into the modern era and panel reliefs in Odia temples, dated to be from the 10th to 14th century, show Odissi dance. This is evidenced in Jagannatha temple in Puri, as well as other temples of Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism and Vedic deities such as Surya (Sun) in Odisha. There are several sculptures of dancers and musicians in Konark Sun Temple and Brahmeswara Temple in Bhubaneswar.
The composition of the poetic texts by 8th century Shankaracharya and particularly of divine love inspired Gitagovinda by 12th century Jayadeva influenced the focus and growth of modern Odissi. Odissi was performed in the temples by the dancers called Maharis, who played out these spiritual poems and underlying religious plays, after training and perfecting their art of dance starting from an early age, and who were revered as auspicious to religious services.
Mughal and British period
After 12th-century, Odia temples, monasteries and nearby institutions such as the Puspagiri in eastern Indian subcontinent came under waves of attacks and ransacking by Muslim armies, a turmoil that impacted all arts and eroded the freedoms previously enjoyed by performance artists. The official records of Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq's invasion in Odisha (13601361 CE), for example, describe the destruction of the Jagannath temple as well as numerous other temples, defacing of dancing statues, and ruining of dance halls. This led to a broad decline in Odissi and other religious arts, but there were some benevolent rulers in this period who supported arts particularly through performances at courts. During the Sultanate and Mughal era of India, the temple dancers were moved to entertain the Sultan's family and courts. They became associated with concubinage to the nobility.
The Odissi dance likely expanded in the 17th century, states Alexandra Carter, under King Ramachandradeva's patronage. This expansion integrated martial arts (akhanda) and athletics into Odissi dance, by engaging boys and youth called Gotipuas, as a means to physically train the young for the military and to resist foreign invasions. According to Ragini Devi, historical evidence suggests that the Gotipuas tradition was known and nurtured in the 14th century, by Raja of Khordha.
During the British Raj, the officials of the colonial government ridiculed the temple traditions, while Christian missionaries launched a sustained attack on the moral outrage of sensuousness of Odissi and other Hindu temple dance arts. In 1872, a British civil servant named William Hunter watched a performance at the Jagannatha temple in Puri, then wrote, "Indecent ceremonies disgraced the ritual, and dancing girls with rolling eyes put the modest worshipper to the blush...", and then attacked them as idol-worshipping prostitutes who expressed their devotion with "airy gyrations".
Christian missionaries launched the "anti-dance movement" in 1892, to ban all such dance forms. The dancers were frequently stigmatized as prostitutes by Europeans during the colonial era. In 1910, the British colonial government in India banned temple dancing, and the dance artists were reduced to abject poverty from the lack of any financial support for performance arts, combined with stereotyping stigma.
Post-independence
The temple dance ban and the cultural discrimination during the colonial rule marshaled a movement by Hindus to question the stereotypes and to revive the regional arts of India, including Odissi. Due to these efforts, the classical Indian dances witnessed a period of renaissance and reconstruction, which gained momentum particularly after Indians gained their freedom from colonialism.
Odissi, along with several other major Indian dances gained recognition after efforts by many scholars and performers in the 1950s, particularly by Kavichandra Kalicharan Pattanayak, an Oriya poet, dramatist and researcher. Pattanayak is also credited with naming the dance form as "Odissi".
Repertoire
Odissi, in the classical and medieval period has been, a team dance founded on Hindu texts. This drama-dance involved women (Maharis) enacting a spiritual poem or a religious story either in the inner sanctum of a Hindu temple, or in the Natamandira attached to the temple. The Odissi performing Maharis combined pure dance with expression, to play out and communicate the underlying text through abhinaya (gestures). The performance art evolved to include another aspect, wherein teams of boys – dressed as girls – called Gotipuas expanded the Odissi repertoire, such as by adding acrobatics and athletic moves, and they performed both near the temples and open fairs for general folksy entertainment. In the Indian tradition, many of the accomplished gotipuas became the gurus (teachers) in their adulthood. Modern Odissi is a diversified performance art, men have joined the women, and its reconstruction since the 1950s have added new plays and aspects of other Indian dances.
Love is a universal theme and one of the paradigmatic values in Indian religions. This theme is expressed through sensuous love poems and metaphors of sexual union in Krishna-related literature, and as longing eros (Shringara) in its dance arts such as in Odissi, from the early times. Hinduism, states Judith Hanna, encourages the artist to "strive to suggest, reveal or re-create the infinite, divine self", and art is considered as "the supreme means of realizing the Universal Being". Physical intimacy is not something considered as a reason for shame, rather considered a form of celebration and worship, where the saint is the lover and the lover is the saint. This aspect of Odissi dancing has been subdued in the modern post-colonial reconstructions, states Alexandra Carter, and the emphasis has expanded to "expressions of personal artistic excellence as ritualized spiritual articulations".
The traditional Odissi repertoire, like all classical Indian dances, includes Nritta (pure dance, solo), Nritya (dance with emotions, solo) and Natya (dramatic dance, group). These three performance aspects of Odissi are described and illustrated in the foundational Hindu texts, particularly the Natya Shastra, Abhinaya Darpana and the 16th-century Abhinaya Chandrika by Maheshwara Mahapatra of Odisha.
The Nritta performance is abstract, fast and rhythmic aspect of the dance. The viewer is presented with pure movement in Nritta, wherein the emphasis is the beauty in motion, form, speed, range and pattern. This part of the repertoire has no interpretative aspect, no telling of story. It is a technical performance, and aims to engage the senses (prakriti) of the audience.
The Nritya is slower and expressive aspect of the dance that attempts to communicate feelings, storyline particularly with spiritual themes in Hindu dance traditions. In a nritya, the dance-acting expands to include silent expression of words through the sign language of gestures and body motion set to musical notes. This part of a repertoire is more than sensory enjoyment, it aims to engage the emotions and mind of the viewer.
The Natyam is a play, typically a team performance, but can be acted out by a solo performer where the dancer uses certain standardized body movements to indicate a new character in the underlying story. A Natya incorporates the elements of a Nritya.
The Mokshya is a climatic pure dance of Odissi, aiming to highlight the liberation of soul and serenity in the spiritual.
Odissi dance can be accompanied by both northern Indian (Hindustani) and southern Indian (Carnatic) music, though mainly, recitals are in Odia and Sanskrit language in the Odissi music tradition.
Sequence
Traditional Odissi repertoire sequence starts with an invocation called Mangalacharana. A shloka (hymn) in praise of a God or Goddess is sung, such as to Jagannath (an avatar of Vishnu), the meaning of which is expressed through dance. Mangalacharana is followed by Pushpanjali (offering of flowers) and Bhumi Pranam (salutation to mother earth). The invocation also includes Trikhandi Pranam or the three-fold salutation – to the Devas (gods), to the Gurus (teachers) and to the Lokas or Rasikas (fellow dancers and audience).
The next sequential step in an Odissi performance is Batu, also known as Battu Nrutya or Sthayee Nrutya or Batuka Bhairava. It is a fast pace, pure dance (nritta) performed in the honor of Shiva. There is no song or recitation accompanying this part of the dance, just rhythmic music. This pure dance sequence in Odissi builds up to a Pallavi which is often slow, graceful & lyrical movements of the eyes, neck, torso & feet & slowly builds in a crescendo to climax in a fast tempo at the end.
The nritya follows next, and consists of Abhinaya, or an expressional dance which is an enactment of a song or poetry. The dancer(s) communicate the story in a sign language, using mudras (hand gestures), bhavas (enacting mood, emotions), eye and body movement. The dance is fluid, graceful and sensual. Abhinaya in Odissi is performed to verses recited in Sanskrit or Odia language. Most common are Abhinayas on Oriya songs or Sanskrit Ashthapadis or Sanskrit stutis like Dasavatar Stotram (depicting the ten incarnations of Lord Vishnu) or Ardhanari Stotram (half man, half woman form of the divine). Many regionally performed Abhinaya compositions are based on the Radha-Krishna theme. The Astapadis of the Radha-Krishna love poem Gita Govinda written by Jayadeva are usually performed in Odisha, as part of the dance repertoire.
The natya part, or dance drama, is next in sequence. Usually Hindu mythologies, epics and legendary dramas are chosen as themes.
A distinctive part of the Odissi tradition is the inclusion of Moksha (or Mokshya) finale in the performance sequence. This the concluding item of a recital. Moksha in Hindu traditions means “spiritual liberation”. This dance movement traditionally attempts to convey a sense of spiritual release and soul liberation, soaring into the realm of pure aesthetics. Movement and pose merge in a fast pace pure dance climax.
Basic moves and mudras
The basic unit of Odissi are called bhangas. These are made up of eight belis, or body positions and movements, combined in many varieties. Motion is uthas (rising or up), baithas (sitting or down) or sthankas (standing). The gaits or movement on the dance floor is called chaalis, with movement tempo linked to emotions according to the classical Sanskrit texts. Thus, for example, burhas or quick pace suggest excitement, while a slow confused pace suggests dejection. For aesthetics, movement is centered on a core, a point in space or floor, and each dancer has her imaginary square of space, with spins and expression held within it. The foot movement or pada bhedas too have basic dance units, and Odissi has six of these, in contrast to four found in most classical Indian dances.
The three primary dance positions in Odissi are:
Samabhanga – the square position, with weight equally placed on the two legs, spine straight, arms raised up with elbows bent.
Abhanga – the body weight shifts from side to side, due to deep leg bends, while the feet and knees are turned outwards, and one hip extending sideways.
Tribhanga – is an S-shaped three-fold bending of body, with torso deflecting in one direction while the head and hips deflecting in the opposite direction of torso. Further, the hands and legs frame the body into a composite of two squares (rectangle), providing an aesthetic frame of reference. This is described in the ancient Sanskrit texts, and forms of it are found in other Hindu dance arts, but tribhanga postures developed most in and are distinctive to Odissi, and they are found in historic Hindu temple reliefs.
Mudras or Hastas are hand gestures which are used to express the meaning of a given act. Like all classical dances of India, the aim of Odissi is in part to convey emotions, mood and inner feelings in the story by appropriate hand and facial gestures. There are 63 Hastas in modern Odissi dance, and these have the same names or structure as those in the pan-Indian Hindu texts, but most closely matching those in the Abhinaya Chandrika. These are subdivided into three, according to the traditional texts:
Asamyukta Hasta – Single hand Mudras – 28 Prakar (gestures, for instance to communicate a salute, prayer, embrace, energy, bond, swing, carriage, shell, arrow, holding a thing, wheel, and so on.)
Samyukta Hasta – Double hand Mudras – 24 Prakar (gestures, for instance to indicate a flag, flower, type of bird or animal, moon, action like grasping, and so on.)
Nrutya Hasta – “Pure Dance” Mudras
The Mudra system is derived from the "Abhinaya Darpana" by Nandikeshavara and the ancient Natya Shastra of Bharata Muni.
Costumes
The Odissi dancers are colorfully dressed with makeup and jewellery. The Saree worn by Odissi dancers are brightly coloured, and usually of local silk (Pattasari). It is worn with pleats, or may have a pleat tailor stitched in front, to allow maximum flexibility during the footwork. These sarees have traditional prints of Odisha with regional designs and embellishments, and may be the Sambalpuri Saree and Bomkai Saree.
The jewellery includes silver pieces, a metal favored in regional tradition. The hair is tied up, and typically drawn into an elaborate bun resembling a Hindu temple spire, and decorated with Seenthi. Their hairstyle may contain a moon shaped crest of white flowers, or a reed crown called Mukoot with peacock feathers (symbolism for Lord Krishna). The dancers forehead is marked with Tikka, and adorned with various jewelry such as the Allaka (head piece on which the tikka hangs). The eyes are ringed with Kajal (black eyeliner).
Ear covers called Kapa or ear rings decorate the sides of the head, while necklace adorns the neck. The dancer wears a pair of armlets also called Bahichudi or Bajuband, on the upper arm. The wrist is covered with Kankana (bangles). At the waist they wear an elaborate belt which ties down one end of the Sari. The ankles are decorated with a leather piece on top of which are bells (ghungroo). The dancer's palms and soles may be painted with red coloured dye called the Alta.
Modern Odissi male performers wear dhoti – a broadcloth tied around waist, pleated for movement, and tucked between legs; usually extends to knee or lower. Upper body is bare chested, and a long thin folded translucent sheet wrapping over one shoulder and usually tucked below a wide belt.
Music and instruments
Odissi dance is accompanied by the traditional classical music of the state of Odisha, Odissi music. The primary Odissi ragas are Kalyana, Nata, Shree Gowda, Baradi, Panchama, Dhanashri, Karnata, Bhairavee and Shokabaradi.
Odissi dance, states Ragini Devi, is a form of "visualized music", wherein the Ragas and Raginis, respectively the primary and secondary musical modes, are integrated by the musicians and interpreted through the dancer. Each note is a means, has a purpose and with a mood in classical Indian music, which Odissi accompanies to express sentiments in a song through Parija. This is true whether the performance is formal, or less formal as in Nartana and Natangi used during festive occasions and the folksy celebration of life.
An Odissi troupe comes with musicians and musical instruments. The orchestra consists of various regional musical instruments, such as the Mardala (barrel drum), harmonium, flute, sitar, violin, cymbals held in fingers and others.
Styles
The Odissi tradition existed in three schools: Mahari, Nartaki, and Gotipua:
Maharis were Oriya devadasis or temple girls, their name deriving from Maha (great) and Nari (girl), or Mahri (chosen) particularly those at the temple of Jagganath at Puri. Early Maharis performed Nritta (pure dance) and Abhinaya (interpretation of poetry) dedicated to various Hindu gods and goddesses, as well as Puranic mythologies and Vedic legends. Later, Maharis especially performed dance sequences based on the lyrics of Jayadev's Gita Govinda. This style is more sensuous and closer to the classical Sanskrit texts on dance, music and performance arts.
Gotipuas were boys dressed up as girls and taught the dance by the Maharis. This style included martial arts, athletics and acrobatics. Gotipuas danced to these compositions outside the temples and fairgrounds as folksy entertainment.
Nartaki dance took place in the royal courts, where it was prevalent before the British period.
Schools, training and recognition
Odissi maestros and performers
Kelucharan Mohapatra, Pankaj Charan Das, Deba Prasad Das and Raghunath Dutta were the four major gurus who revived Odissi in the late forties and early fifties. Sanjukta Panigrahi was a leading disciple of Kelucharan Mohapatra who popularized Odissi by performing in India and abroad. In the mid-sixties, three other disciples of Kelucharan Mohapatra, Kumkum Mohanty and Sonal Mansingh, were known for their performances in India and abroad. Laximipriya Mohapatra performed a piece of Odissi abhinaya in the Annapurna Theatre in Cuttack in 1948, a show upheld as the first classical Odissi dance performance after its contemporary revival. Guru Mayadhar Raut played a pivotal role in giving Odissi dance its classical status. He introduced Mudra Vinyoga in 1955 and Sancharibhava in the Odissi dance items, and portrayed Shringara Rasa in Gita Govinda Ashthapadis. His notable compositions include Pashyati Dishi Dishi and Priya Charu Shile, composed in 1961.
Schools
IIT Bhubaneswar
Odissi has been included in Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar's BTech syllabus since 2015 as the first Indian national technical institute to introduce any classical dance in syllabus.
In Guinness World records
Guinness World Records has acknowledged the feat of the largest congregation of Odissi dancers in a single event. 555 Odissi dancers performed at the event hosted on 23 December 2011, in the Kalinga stadium, Bhubaneswar, Odisha. The dancers performed the Mangalacharan, Battu, Pallavi, Abhinay and Mokshya dance items from the Odissi repertoire.
More than 1000 Odissi dancers performed at the World Cultural Festival 12 March 2016. This is till date the largest congregation of Odissi dancers in a single event.
Odissi Centre at Oxford University
An Odissi dance centre has been opened from January 2016, at the University of Oxford. Known as Oxford Odissi Centre, it is an initiative of the Odissi dancer and choreographer Baisali Mohanty who is also a post-graduate scholar at the University of Oxford.
Beside holding regular Odissi dance classes at its institution, the Oxford Odissi Centre also conducts Odissi dance workshops at other academic institutions in the United Kingdom.
See also
Indian classical dance
Ghungroo
Odissi music
Gotipua
References
Bibliography
Odissi : What, Why and How… Evolution, Revival and Technique, by Madhumita Raut. Published by B. R. Rhythms, Delhi, 2007. .
Odissi Yaatra: The Journey of Guru Mayadhar Raut, by Aadya Kaktikar (ed. Madhumita Raut). Published by B. R. Rhythms, Delhi, 2010. .
Odissi Dance, by Dhirendranath Patnaik. Published by Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1971.
Odissi – The Dance Divine, by Ranjana Gauhar and Dushyant Parasher. Published by Niyogi Books, 2007. .
Odissi, Indian Classical Dance Art: Odisi Nritya, by Sunil Kothari, Avinash Pasricha. Marg Publications, 1990. .
Perspectives on Odissi Theatre, by Ramesh Prasad Panigrahi, Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi. Published by Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1998.
Abhinaya-chandrika and Odissi dance, by Maheshwar Mahapatra, Alekha Chandra Sarangi, Sushama Kulshreshthaa, Maya Das. Published by Eastern Book Linkers, 2001. .
Rethinking Odissi, by Dinanath Pathy. Published by Harman Pub. House, 2007. .
, Table of Contents
External links
Odissi solo performance: Nitisha Nanda, Arabhi Pallav, New Delhi 2013
Odissi group dance: Megh Pallavi, Vancouver 2014
Maryam Shakiba – Odissi Dance – Manglacharan Ganesh Vandana Pushkar 2014
Odissi links at the Open Directory
Odissi schools, Classical Indian Dance Portal
The annotated Odissi Dance Archive on Pad.ma
History of Odissi and Geeta Govinda JN Dhar, Orissa Review
Bharat Bhavan, a Kerala-based Department of Culture information website.
Arts of Odisha
Odia culture
Jayadeva
Classical dance genres of India
Hindu temple dance
Odissi dancers
Odissi music
Artforms based on Odissi music | true | [
"Laxmipriya Mohapatra (born 1928 - died 20 March 2021) was an Indian classical dancer, performing Odissi dance on stage and in films. Along with her husband, Kelucharan Mohapatra, she is credited with reviving Odissi dance in India, in the 1940s and 50s.\n\nCareer \nMohapatra was born in Khurda, Odisha, and was taught to dance by her mother, actress and dancer Tulasi Devi. At the age of seven, she began performing at the Annapurna Theatre in Puri, Odisha, and by the age of 17, was their star performer, drawing large crowds who attended her performances. She moved to Cuttack, where she met her husband, Kelucharan Mohapatra, a trained Odissi dancer who was at the time playing tabla, a classical form of percussion, as an accompaniment, for dance performances. In 1946, after training in Odissi with her husband, she performed the first solo Odissi dance on stage, which was considered a milestone in efforts to revive the classical dance form. She is also the first woman to perform the traditional form of Gotipua dance on stage. In addition to performing Odissi, she was trained in several traditional folk dance forms, and performed at Republic Day parades in India's capital, New Delhi, in the 1950s. She performed in a number of plays on stage, as well as in several Odia films, including Manika Jodi, Suryamukhi, Mala Jahna and Amadabata. \n\nWhen her husband, Kelucharan, became a dancer and choreographer, she retired in 1985 from professional dancing to support him. Along with him, she established and taught at Srjan, a well-known classical dance school in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. Their son, Ratikant Mohapatra, is also an Odissi dancer and choreographer. She taught a number of modern Odissi dancers, including Minati Mishra, Priyambada Mohanty Hejmadi, and Kumkum Mohanty. She died on 20 March 2021, at the age of 86, and was buried with state honors. in September 2021, a five-day Odissi festival was dedicated to her memory, and included Odissi performances by many of her former students.\n\nReferences \n\n1928 births\n2021 deaths\nOdissi dancers\nIndian dancers\nIndian female classical dancers\nDancers from Odisha\nPeople from Odisha\nPerformers of Indian classical dance\n20th-century Indian dancers\nPeople from Khordha district",
"Nandita Behera (née Pattnaik) is an Odissi dance instructor and founder of Odissi Dance Circle in Cerritos, California. A student of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra and Guru Gangadhar Pradhan, Nandita Behera has been teaching Odissi in California for the past twenty years. She was awarded Sringaramanai by Sur Singar Samsad Bombay and is also a recipient of the National Scholarship for Dance in India.\n\nSee also \n Dance in India\n Indian classical dance\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nWebsite for Odissi Dance Circle\n\n1957 births\nLiving people\nArtists from Bhubaneswar\nOdissi dancers\nIndian female classical dancers\nPerformers of Indian classical dance\nIndian emigrants to the United States\nDancers from Odisha"
] |
[
"Enya",
"2008-present: And Winter Came... and Dark Sky Island"
] | C_ca2198202da140e28165132567967682_1 | Can you provide me with a little information on And Winter Came..and Dark Sky Island? | 1 | Can you provide me with a little information on And Winter Came..and Dark Sky Island by Enya? | Enya | Enya continued to write music with a winter and Christmas theme for her seventh studio album, And Winter Came.... Initially she intended to make an album of seasonal songs and hymns set for a release in late 2007, but decided to produce a winter-themed album instead. The track "My! My! Time Flies!", a tribute to the late Irish guitarist Jimmy Faulkner, incorporates a guitar solo performed by Pat Farrell, the first use of a guitar on an Enya album since "I Want Tomorrow" from Enya. Upon its release in November 2008, And Winter Came... reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 8 in the US and sold almost 3.5 million copies worldwide by 2011. After promoting And Winter Came..., Enya took an extended break from writing and recording music. She spent her time resting, visiting family in Australia, and renovating her new home in the south of France. In March 2009, her first four studio albums were reissued in Japan in the Super High Material CD format with bonus tracks. Her second compilation album and DVD, The Very Best of Enya, was released in November 2009 and features songs from 1987 to 2008, including a previously unreleased version of "Aniron". In 2013, "Only Time" was used in an advertisement by Volvo Trucks starring Jean-Claude Van Damme who does the splits while suspended between two lorries. The video went viral, leading to numerous parodies of the commercial uploaded to YouTube also using "Only Time". The attention resulted in the song peaking at No. 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. In 2012, Enya returned to the studio to record her eighth album, Dark Sky Island. Its name references the island of Sark, where it became the first island to be designated a dark-sky preserve, and a series of poems on islands by Roma Ryan. The new album was promoted with the premiere in October 2015 of its lead single, "Echoes in Rain", on Ken Bruce's radio show and with the release in the same month of the single as a digital download. Upon its release on 20 November 2015, Dark Sky Island went to No. 4 in the UK, Enya's highest charting studio album there since Shepherd Moons went to No. 1, and to No. 8 in the US. A Deluxe Edition features three additional songs. Enya completed a promotional tour of the UK and Europe, the US and Japan. During her visit to Japan, Enya performed "Orinoco Flow" and "Echoes in Rain" at the Universal Studios Japan Christmas show in Osaka. In December 2016, Enya appeared on the Raidio Teilifis Eireann Christmas special Christmas Carols from Cork, marking her first appearance on Irish television in a decade. She sang "Adeste Fideles" and "Oiche Chiuin" as well as her own carol composition "The Spirit of Christmas Past". CANNOTANSWER | seventh studio album, And Winter Came.... | Enya Patricia Brennan ( ; born 17 May 1961) is an Irish singer, songwriter and musician, known for pioneering modern Celtic and New-age music. Regarded as the "Queen of New Age", Enya is the best-selling Irish solo artist in history, and second-best-selling overall behind U2. Born into a musical family and raised in the Irish-speaking area of Gweedore, County Donegal, Enya began her music career when she joined her family's Celtic folk band Clannad in 1980 on keyboards and backing vocals. She left the group in 1982 with their manager and producer Nicky Ryan to pursue a solo career, with Ryan's wife Roma Ryan as her lyricist. Enya developed her sound over the following four years with multitracked vocals and keyboards with elements of new age, Celtic, classical, church, world, pop, and Irish folk. Thus far, she has sung in ten languages, most notably English, Irish Gaelic (Gaeilge), Latin, and Welsh.
Enya's first projects as a solo artist included soundtrack work for The Frog Prince (1984) and the 1987 BBC documentary series The Celts, which was released as her debut album, Enya (1987). She signed with Warner Music UK, which granted her artistic freedom and minimal interference from the label. The commercial and critical success of Watermark (1988) propelled her to worldwide fame, helped by the UK number one and international hit single "Orinoco Flow". This was followed by the multi-million-selling albums Shepherd Moons (1991), The Memory of Trees (1995), and A Day Without Rain (2000). Sales of the latter and its lead single, "Only Time", surged in the United States following its use in the media coverage of the September 11 attacks. Following Amarantine (2005) and And Winter Came... (2008), Enya took a four-year career hiatus before she resumed in 2012 and released her eighth studio album, Dark Sky Island (2015).
Enya's discography has sold 26.5 million certified albums in the United States and an estimated 75 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. A Day Without Rain (2000) remains the best-selling new-age album, with an estimated 16 million copies sold worldwide. Enya has won numerous awards, including seven World Music Awards, four Grammy Awards for Best New Age Album, and an Ivor Novello Award. She was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for "May It Be", written for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).
Early life
Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin was born on 17 May 1961 in Dore, a settlement in the parish of Gweedore, in County Donegal. It is a Gaeltacht region where Irish is the primary language. Her name is anglicised as Enya Patricia Brennan, where Enya is the phonetic spelling of how "Eithne" is pronounced in her native Ulster dialect of Irish; "Ní Bhraonáin" translates to "daughter of Brennan". The sixth of nine children, Enya was born into a Roman Catholic family of musicians. Her father, Leo Brennan, was the leader of the Slieve Foy Band, an Irish showband, and ran Leo's Tavern in Meenaleck. Her mother, Máire Brennan (née Duggan), who has distant Spanish roots whose ancestors settled on Tory Island, was an amateur musician who played in Leo's band and taught music at Gweedore Community School. Enya's maternal grandfather Aodh was the headmaster of the primary school in Dore, and her grandmother was a teacher there. Aodh was also the founder of the Gweedore Theatre company.
Enya described her upbringing as "very quiet and happy." At age three, she took part in her first singing competition at the annual Feis Ceoil music festival. She took part in pantomimes at Gweedore Theatre and sang with her siblings in her mother's choir at St Mary's church in Derrybeg. She learned English at primary school and began piano lessons at age four. "I had to do school work and then travel to a neighbouring town for piano lessons, and then more school work. I ... remember my brothers and sisters playing outside ... and I would be inside playing the piano. This one big book of scales, practising them over and over." When Enya turned eleven, her grandfather paid for her education at a strict convent boarding school in Milford run by nuns of the Loreto order, where she developed a taste for classical music, art, Latin and watercolour painting. She said: "It was devastating to be torn away from such a large family, but it was good for my music." Enya left the school at 17 and studied classical music in college for one year, with the aim of becoming "a piano teacher sort of person. I never thought of myself composing or being on stage."
Career
1980–1985: Clannad and early solo career
In 1970, several members of Enya's family formed Clannad, a Celtic folk band who later acquired Nicky Ryan as their manager, sound engineer, and producer, and his future wife, Roma Ryan, as tour manager and administrator. In 1980, after her year at college, Enya decided against pursuing music at university and accepted Ryan's invitation to join the group as he wanted to expand their sound with an additional vocalist and introducing keyboards. Enya performed an uncredited role their sixth studio album, Crann Úll (1980), with a line-up of siblings Máire, Pól, and Ciarán Brennan, and twin uncles Noel and Pádraig Duggan. She became an official member by the time their follow-up, Fuaim (1981), was released, and is photographed with the band on the front cover. Nicky maintained it was never his intention to make Enya a permanent member, and saw she was "fiercely independent ... intent on playing her own music. She was just not sure of how to go about it". This sparked discussions between the two on layering vocal tracks to create a "choir of one", a concept inspired by the Wall of Sound technique by producer Phil Spector that interested them both.
During a Clannad tour in 1982, Nicky called for a band meeting to address internal issues that had arisen. He added, "It was short and only required a vote, I was a minority of one and lost. Roma and I were out. This left the question of what happened with Enya. I decided to stand back and say nothing". Enya chose to leave with the Ryans and pursue a solo career as she felt confined in the group, and disliked being "somebody in the background". This caused some friction between the two parties at first, but they settled their differences. Nicky suggested to Enya that either she return to Gweedore "with no particular definite future", or live with him and Roma in Artane, Dublin "and see what happens, musically", which she accepted. After their bank denied them a loan, Enya sold her saxophone and gave piano lessons for income and the Ryans used what they could afford from their savings to build a recording facility in a shed in their garden. They named it Aigle Studio, after the French word for "eagle", and rented it out to musicians to help recoup the costs. The trio formed a musical partnership, with Nicky as Enya's producer and arranger and Roma her lyricist, and established their music company, Aigle Music. In the following two years, Enya developed her technique and composition by listening to recordings of her reciting pieces of classical music, and repeated the process until she started to improvise sections and develop her own arrangements. Her first composition was "An Taibhse Uaighneach", Irish for "The Lonely Ghost". During this time Enya played the synthesiser on Ceol Aduaidh (1983) by Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh and Frankie Kennedy, and performed with the duo and Mhaonaigh's brother Gearóid in their short lived group, Ragairne.
Enya's first solo endeavour arrived in 1983 when she recorded two piano instrumentals, "An Ghaoth Ón Ghrian", Irish for "The Solar Wind", and "Miss Clare Remembers", at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin which were released on Touch Travel (1984), a limited release cassette of music from various artists on the Touch label. She is credited as Eithne Ní Bhraonáin on its liner notes. After several months of preparation, Enya's first live solo performance took place on 23 September 1983 at the National Stadium in Dublin, which was televised for RTÉ's music show Festival Folk. Niall Morris, a musician who worked with her during this time, recalled she "was so nervous she could barely get on stage, and she cowered behind the piano until the gig was over."
Morris assisted Enya in the production of a demo tape, playing additional keyboards to her compositions, which Roma thought would suit accompanying visuals and sent it to various film producers. Among them was David Puttnam, who liked the tape and offered Enya to compose the soundtrack to his upcoming romantic comedy film, The Frog Prince (1984). Enya scored nine pieces for the film but they were later rearranged and orchestrated against her wishes by Richard Myhill, except for two that she sang on, "The Frog Prince" and "Dreams"; the words to the latter were penned by Charlie McGettigan. Film editor Jim Clark said the rearrangements were necessary as Enya found it difficult to compose to picture. Released in 1985, the album is the first commercial release that credits her as Enya, after Nicky Ryan thought "Eithne" would be too difficult for non-Irish people to pronounce correctly and suggested the phonetic spelling of her name. Enya looked back on the film as a good career move, but a disappointing one as "we weren't part of it at the end". She then sang on three tracks on Ordinary Man (1985) by Christy Moore.
1985–1989: The Celts and Watermark
In 1985, producer Tony McAuley asked Enya to contribute a track for a six-part BBC television documentary series The Celts. She had already written a Celtic-influenced song named "The March of the Celts", and submitted it to the project. Each episode was to feature a different composer at first, but director David Richardson liked her track so much, he had Enya score the entire series. Enya recorded 72 minutes of music at Aigle Studio and the BBC studios in Wood Lane, London without recording to picture, though she was required to portray certain themes and ideas that the producers wanted. Unlike The Frog Prince, she worked with little interference which granted her freedom to establish her sound that she would adopt throughout her future career, signified by layered vocals, keyboard-oriented music, and percussion with elements of Celtic, classical, church and folk music.
In March 1987, two months before The Celts aired, a 40-minute selection of Enya's score was released as her debut solo album, Enya, by BBC Records in the United Kingdom and by Atlantic Records in the United States. The latter promoted it with a new-age imprint on the packaging, which Nicky later thought was "a cowardly thing for them to do". The album gained enough public attention to reach number 8 on the Irish Albums Chart and number 69 on the UK Albums Chart. "I Want Tomorrow" was released as Enya's first single. "Boadicea" was sampled by The Fugees on their 1996 song "Ready or Not"; the group neither sought permission nor gave credit, and Enya took legal action. The group subsequently gave her credit and paid a fee worth around $3 million. Later in 1987, Enya appeared on Sinéad O'Connor's debut album The Lion and the Cobra, reciting Psalm 91 in Irish on "Never Get Old".
Several weeks after the release of Enya, Enya secured a recording contract with Warner Music UK after Rob Dickins, the label's chairman and a fan of Clannad, took a liking to Enya and found himself playing it "every night before I went to bed". He then met Enya and the Ryans at a chance meeting at the Irish Recorded Music Association award ceremony in Dublin, and learned Enya had entered negotiations with a rival label. Dickins seized the opportunity and signed her to Warner Music with a deal worth £75,000, granting her wish to write and record with artistic freedom, minimal interference from the label, and without set deadlines to finish albums. Dickins said: "Sometimes you sign an act to make money, and sometimes you sign an act to make music. This was clearly the latter ... I just wanted to be involved with this music." Enya then left Atlantic and signed with the Warner-led Geffen Records to handle her American distribution.
With the green-light to produce a new studio album, Enya recorded Watermark from June 1987 to April 1988. It was initially recorded in analogue at Aigle Studio before Dickins requested to have it re-recorded digitally at Orinoco Studios in Bermondsey, London. Watermark was released in September 1988 and became an unexpected hit, reaching number 5 in the United Kingdom and number 25 on the Billboard 200 in the United States following its release there in January 1989. Its lead single, "Orinoco Flow", was the last song written for the album. It was not intended to be a single at first, but Enya and the Ryans chose it after Dickins asked for a single from them several times as a joke, knowing Enya's music was not made for the Top 40 chart. Dickins and engineer Ross Cullum are referenced in the songs' lyrics. "Orinoco Flow" became an international top 10 hit and was number one in the United Kingdom for three weeks. The new-found success propelled Enya to international fame and she received endorsement deals and offers to use her music in television commercials. She spent one year travelling worldwide to promote the album which increased her exposure through interviews, appearances, and live performances. By 1996, Watermark had sold in excess of 1.2 million copies in the United Kingdom and 4 million in the United States.
1989–1997: Shepherd Moons and The Memory of Trees
After promoting Watermark, Enya purchased new recording equipment and started work on her next album, Shepherd Moons. She found the success of Watermark caused a considerable amount of pressure when it came to writing new songs, adding, "I kept thinking, 'Would this have gone on Watermark? Is it as good?' Eventually I had to forget about this and start on a blank canvas and just really go with what felt right." Enya wrote songs based on several ideas, including entries from her diary, the Blitz in London, and her grandparents. Shepherd Moons was released in November 1991, her first album released under Warner-led Reprise Records in the United States. It became a greater commercial success than Watermark, reaching number one in the UK for one week and number 17 in the United States. "Caribbean Blue", its lead single, charted at number thirteen in the United Kingdom. By 1997, the album had reached multi-platinum certification for selling in excess of 1.2 million copies in the United Kingdom and 5 million in the United States.
In 1991, Warner Music released a collection of five Enya music videos as Moonshadows for home video. In 1993, Enya won her first Grammy Award for Best New Age Album for Shepherd Moons. Soon after, Enya and Nicky entered discussions with Industrial Light & Magic, founded by George Lucas, regarding an elaborate stage lighting system for a proposed concert tour, but nothing came out of the meetings. In November 1992, Warner had obtained the rights to Enya and re-released the album as The Celts with new artwork. It surpassed its initial sale performance, reaching number 10 in the United Kingdom and reached platinum certification in the United States in 1996 for one million copies shipped.
After travelling worldwide to promote Shepherd Moons, Enya started to write and record her fourth album, The Memory of Trees. The album was released in November 1995. It peaked at number five in the United Kingdom and number nine in the United States, where it sold over 3 million copies. Its lead single, "Anywhere Is", reached number seven in the United Kingdom. The second, "On My Way Home", reached number twenty-six in the same country. In late 1994, Enya put out an extended play of Christmas music titled The Christmas EP. Enya was offered to compose the score for Titanic, but declined. A recording of her singing "Oíche Chiúin", an Irish-language version of "Silent Night", appeared on the charity album A Very Special Christmas 3, released in benefit of the Special Olympics in October 1997.
In early 1997, Enya began to select tracks for her first compilation album, "trying to select the obvious ones, the hits, and others." She chose to work on the collection following the promotional tour for The Memory of Trees as she felt it was the right time in her career, and that her contract with WEA required her to release a "best of" album. The set, named Paint the Sky with Stars: The Best of Enya, features two new tracks, "Paint the Sky with Stars" and "Only If...". Released in November 1997, the album was a worldwide commercial success, reaching No. 4 in the UK and No. 30 in the US, where it went on to sell over 4 million copies. "Only If..." was released as a single in 1997. Enya described the album as "like a musical diary ... each melody has a little story and I live through that whole story from the beginning ... your mind goes back to that day and what you were thinking."
1998–2007: A Day Without Rain and Amarantine
Enya started work on her fifth studio album, titled A Day Without Rain, in mid-1998. In a departure from her previous albums she incorporated the use of a string section into her compositions, something that was not a conscious decision at first, but Enya and Nicky Ryan agreed it complemented the songs that were being written. The album was released in November 2000, and reached number 6 in the United Kingdom and an initial peak of number 17 in the United States. In the aftermath of the 11 September attacks, sales of the album and its lead single, "Only Time", surged after the song was widely used during radio and television coverage of the events, leading to its description as "a post-September 11 anthem". The exposure caused A Day Without Rain to outperform its original chart performance to peak at number 2 on the Billboard 200, and the release of a maxi single containing the original and a pop remix of "Only Time" in November 2001. Enya donated its proceeds in aid of the International Association of Firefighters. The song topped the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart and went to number 10 on the Hot 100 singles, Enya's highest charting US single to date. A second single, "Wild Child", was released in December 2001. A Day Without Rain remains Enya's biggest seller, with 7 million copies sold in the US and the most sold new-age album of all time with an estimated 13 million copies sold worldwide.
In 2001, Enya agreed to write and perform on two tracks for the soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) at the request of director Peter Jackson. Its composer Howard Shore "imagined her voice" as he wrote the film's score, making an uncommon exception to include another artist in one of his soundtracks. After flying to New Zealand to observe the filming and to watch a rough cut of the film, Enya returned to Ireland and composed "Aníron (Theme for Aragorn and Arwen)" with lyrics by Roma in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Elvish language Sindarin, and "May It Be", sung in English and another Tolkien language, Quenya. Shore then based his orchestrations around Enya's recorded vocals and themes to create "a seamless sound". In 2002, Enya released "May It Be" as a single which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. She performed the song live at the 74th Academy Awards ceremony with an orchestra in March 2002, and later cited the moment as a career highlight.
Enya undertook additional studio projects in 2001 and 2002. The first was work on the soundtrack to the Japanese romantic film Calmi Cuori Appassionati (2001) which was subsequently released as Themes from Calmi Cuori Appassionati (2001). The album is formed of tracks spanning her career from Enya to A Day Without Rain with two B-sides. The album went to number 2 in Japan, and became Enya's second to sell one million copies in the country. November 2002 saw the release of Only Time – The Collection, a box set of 51 tracks recorded through her career which received a limited release of 200,000 copies.
In September 2003, Enya returned to Aigle Studio to start work on her sixth studio album, Amarantine. Roma said the title means "everlasting". The album marks the first instance of Enya singing in Loxian, a fictional language created by Roma that came about when Enya was working on "Water Shows the Hidden Heart". After numerous attempts to sing the song in English, Irish and Latin, Roma suggested a new language based on some of the sounds Enya would sing along to when developing her songs. It was a success, and Enya sang "Less Than a Pearl" and "The River Sings" in the same way. Roma worked on the language further, creating a "culture and history" behind it surrounding the Loxian people who are of another planet, questioning the existence of life on another. "Sumiregusa (Wild Violet)" is sung in Japanese. Amarantine was a global success, reaching number 6 on the Billboard 200 and number 8 in the UK. It has sold over 1 million certified copies in the US, a considerable drop in sales in comparison to her previous albums. Enya dedicated the album to BBC producer Tony McAuley, who had commissioned Enya to write the soundtrack to The Celts, following his death in 2003. The lead single, "Amarantine", was released in December 2005. A Christmas Special Edition was released in 2006, followed by a Deluxe Edition.
In 2006, Enya released Sounds of the Season: The Enya Holiday Collection, a Christmas-themed EP released exclusively in the US following an exclusive partnership with the NBC network and the Target department store chain. It includes two new songs, "Christmas Secrets" and "The Magic of the Night".
In June 2007, Enya received an honorary doctorate from the National University of Ireland, Galway. A month later, she received one from the University of Ulster.
2008–present: And Winter Came..., Dark Sky Island, and future
Enya continued to write music with a winter and Christmas theme for her seventh studio album, And Winter Came.... Initially she intended to make an album of seasonal songs and hymns set for a release in late 2007, but decided to produce a winter-themed album instead. The track "My! My! Time Flies!", a tribute to the late Irish guitarist Jimmy Faulkner, incorporates a guitar solo performed by Pat Farrell, the first use of a guitar on an Enya album since "I Want Tomorrow" from Enya. The lyrics also include atypical pop-culture references, such as to The Beatles' famous photo shoot for the cover of Abbey Road. Upon its release in November 2008, And Winter Came... reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 8 in the US and sold almost 3.5 million copies worldwide by 2011.
After promoting And Winter Came..., Enya took an extended break from writing and recording music. She spent her time resting, visiting family in Australia, and renovating her new home in the south of France. In March 2009, her first four studio albums were reissued in Japan in the Super High Material CD format with bonus tracks. Her second compilation album, The Very Best of Enya, was released in November 2009 and features songs from 1987 to 2008, including a previously unreleased version of "Aníron" and a DVD compiling most of her music videos to date. In 2013, "Only Time" was used in the "Epic Split" advertisement by Volvo Trucks starring Jean-Claude Van Damme who does the splits while suspended between two lorries. The video went viral, leading to numerous parodies of the commercial uploaded to YouTube also using "Only Time". The attention resulted in the song peaking at No. 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
In 2012, Enya returned to the studio to record her eighth album, Dark Sky Island. Its name refers to the island of Sark, which became the first island to be designated a dark-sky preserve, and a series of poems on islands by Roma Ryan. Upon its release on 20 November 2015, Dark Sky Island went to No. 4 in the UK, Enya's highest charting studio album there since Shepherd Moons went to No. 1, and to No. 8 in the US. A Deluxe Edition features three additional songs. Enya completed a promotional tour of the UK and Europe, the US and Japan. During her visit to Japan, Enya performed "Orinoco Flow" and "Echoes in Rain" at the Universal Studios Japan Christmas show in Osaka. In December 2016, Enya appeared on the Irish television show Christmas Carols from Cork, marking her first Irish television appearance in over seven years. She sang "Adeste Fideles", "Oiche Chiúin", and "The Spirit of Christmas Past".
On 4 November 2021, a Shepherd Moons "watch party" video was uploaded to Enya's official YouTube channel to commemorate the album's 30th anniversary. In his introductory message, Nicky Ryan said that Roma, Enya, and he used the downtime from the COVID-19 pandemic to renovate Aigle Studio, and install new recording equipment and instruments. When this is complete, Enya will begin working on new music.
Musical style
Enya's vocal range is mezzo-soprano. She has cited her musical foundations as "the classics", church music, and "Irish reels and jigs" with a particular interest in Sergei Rachmaninoff, a favourite composer of hers. She has an autographed picture of him in her home. Since 1982, she has recorded her music with Nicky Ryan as producer and arranger and his wife Roma Ryan as lyricist. While in Clannad, Enya chose to work with Nicky as the two shared an interest in vocal harmonies, and Ryan, influenced by The Beach Boys and the "Wall of Sound" technique that Phil Spector pioneered, wanted to explore the idea of "the multivocals" for which her music became known. According to Enya, "Angeles" from Shepherd Moons has roughly 500 vocals recorded individually and layered. Enya performs all vocals and the majority of instruments in her songs apart from musicians to play percussion, guitar, uilleann pipes, cornet, and double bass. Her early works including Watermark feature numerous keyboards, including the Yamaha KX88 Master, Yamaha DX7, Oberheim Matrix, Akai S900, Roland D-50, and Roland Juno-60, the latter a particular favourite of hers.
Numerous critics and reviewers classify Enya's albums as new age music and she has won four Grammy Awards in the category. However, Enya does not classify her music as part of the genre. When asked what genre she would classify her music, her reply was "Enya". Nicky Ryan commented on the new age comments: "Initially it was fine, but it's really not new age. Enya plays a whole lot of instruments, not just keyboards. Her melodies are strong and she sings a lot. So I can't see a comparison." The music video to "Caribbean Blue" and the art work to The Memory of Trees feature adapted works from artist Maxfield Parrish.
Enya has sung in ten languages in her career, including English, Irish, Latin, Welsh, Spanish, French and Japanese. She has recorded music influenced by works from fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien, including the instrumental "Lothlórien" from Shepherd Moons. For The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, she sang "May It Be" in English and Tolkien's fictional language Quenya, and sang "Aníron" in another of Tolkien's fictional languages, Sindarin. Her albums Amarantine and Dark Sky Island include songs sung in Loxian, a fictional language created by Roma, that has no official syntax. Its vocabulary was formed by Enya singing the song's notes to which Roma wrote their phonetic spelling.
Enya adopted a composing and songwriting method that has deviated little throughout her career. At the start of the recording process for an album she enters the studio, forgetting about her previous success, fame, and songs of hers that became hits. "If I did that", she said, "I'd have to call it a day". She then develops ideas on the piano, keeping note of any arrangement that can be worked on further. During her time writing, Enya works a five-day week, takes weekends off, and does not work on her music at home. With Irish as her first language, Enya initially records her songs in Irish as she can express "feeling much more directly" than English. After a period of time, Enya presents her ideas to Nicky to discuss what pieces work best, while Roma works in parallel to devise a lyric to the songs. Enya considered "Fallen Embers" from A Day Without Rain a perfect time when the lyrics reflect as to how she felt while writing the song. In 2008, she newly discovered her tendency to write "two or three songs" during the winter months, work on the arrangements and lyrics the following spring and summer, and then work on the next couple of songs when autumn arrives.
Live performances
Enya says that Warner Music and she "did not see eye to eye" initially as the label imagined her performing on stage "with a piano ... maybe two or three synthesiser players and that's it". Enya also explained that the time put into her studio albums causes her to "run overtime", leaving little time to plan for other such projects. She also expressed the difficulty in recreating her studio-oriented sound for the stage. In 1996, Ryan said Enya had received an offer worth almost £500,000 to perform a concert in Japan. In 2016, Enya spoke about the prospect of a live concert when she revealed talks with the Ryans during her three-year break after And Winter Came... (2008) to perform a show at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City that would be simulcast to cinemas worldwide. Before such an event could happen, Nicky suggested that she enter a studio and record "all the hits" live with an orchestra and choir to see how they would sound.
Enya has sung with live and lip synching vocals on various talk and music shows, events, and ceremonies throughout her career, usually during her worldwide press tours for each album. In December 1995, she performed "Anywhere Is" at a Christmas concert at Vatican City with Pope John Paul II in attendance, who met and thanked her for performing. In April 1996, Enya performed the same song during her surprise appearance at the fiftieth birthday celebration for Carl XVI Gustaf, the King of Sweden and a fan of Enya's. In 1997, Enya participated in a live Christmas Eve broadcast in London and flew to County Donegal afterwards to join her family for their annual midnight Mass choral performance, in which she participates each year. In March 2002, she performed "May It Be" with an orchestra at the year's Academy Awards ceremony. Enya and her sisters performed as part of the local choir Cor Mhuire in July 2005 at St. Mary's church in Gweedore during the annual Earagail Arts Festival.
Personal life
Since the 1980s, Enya has attracted the attention of several stalkers. In 1996, an Italian man who was seen in Dublin wearing a photograph of Enya around his neck stabbed himself outside her parents' pub after being ejected from the premises.
In 1991, a minor planet first discovered in 1978, 6433 Enya, was named after her. In 2017, a newly discovered species of fish, Leporinus enyae, found in the Orinoco River drainage area, was also named after her.
Enya is known for keeping a private lifestyle, saying: "The music is what sells. Not me, or what I stand for ... that's the way I've always wanted it". She is not married and is a surrogate aunt to the Ryans' two daughters. In 1991, she said: "I'm afraid of marriage because I'm afraid someone might want me because of who I am instead of because they loved me... I wouldn't go rushing into anything unexpected, but I do think a great deal about this". A relationship she had with one man ended in 1997, around the time when she considered taking time out of music to have a family but found she was putting pressure on herself over the matter and "gone the route I wanted to go". She declares herself as "more spiritual than religious... I derive from religion what I enjoy."
In 1997, Enya bought a Victorian Grade A listed castellated mansion in Killiney, County Dublin for IR£2.5 million at auction. Formerly known as Victoria Castle and Ayesha Castle, she renamed it Manderley Castle after the house from the novel Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. In all, she spent seven years renovating her property and also installing considerable security measures. In 2005, Enya spent around £250,000 on security improvements, covering gaps in the castle's outer wall and installing bollards and iron railings. In October of that year, two people broke into the home; one attacked and tied up one of her housekeepers and left with several of Enya's items after she had raised the alarm in her safe room. In 2009, during her three-year break from music, Enya purchased a home in southern France.
In 2006, Enya ranked third in a list of the wealthiest Irish entertainers with an estimated fortune of £75 million, and was number 95 in the Sunday Times Rich List of the richest 250 Irish people. In the 2016 edition, which listed its top 50 Music Millionaires of Britain and Ireland, she emerged as the richest female singer with a fortune of £91 million and ranked number 28 overall.
Awards and nominations
Billboard Music Awards
|-
| rowspan=4|2001
| rowspan=2|Enya
| Top Billboard 200 Artist - Female
|
|-
| Top New Age Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=3|A Day Without Rain
| Top Internet Album
|
|-
| rowspan=2|Top New Age Album
|
|-
| rowspan=3|2002
|
|-
| rowspan=2|Enya
| Top New Age Artist
|
|-
| Top Adult Contemporary Artist
|
Grammy Awards
|-
| rowspan=2|1990
| rowspan=2|"Orinoco Flow"
| Best New Age Performance
|
|-
| Best Music Video
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|-
| 1993
| Shepherd Moons
| rowspan=3|Best New Age Album
|
|-
| 1997
| The Memory of Trees
|
|-
| 2002
| A Day Without Rain
|
|-
| 2003
| "May It Be"
| Best Song Written for Visual Media
|
|-
| rowspan="2"|2007
| "Drifting"
| Best Pop Instrumental Performance
|
|-
| Amarantine
| rowspan=2|Best New Age Album
|
|-
| 2017
| Dark Sky Island
|
IFPI Hong Kong Top Sales Music Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 2001
| A Day Without Rain
| Top 10 Best Sales Foreign Albums
|
|
Japan Gold Disc Awards
|-
| 1990
| Enya
| New Artist of the Year
|
|-
| 1998
| Paint the Sky with Stars
| Best 3 Albums
|
|-
| 2001
| A Day Without Rain
| International Pop Album of the Year
|
|-
| 2002
| Themes from Calmi Cuori Appassionati
| Best 3 Albums
|
|-
| 2006
| Amarantine
| International Album of the Year
|
World Music Awards
|-
| rowspan="2"|2001
| rowspan="7"| Enya
| World's Best Selling Irish Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=2|World's Best Selling New Age Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=3|2002
|
|-
| World's Best Selling Female Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=3|World's Best Selling Irish Artist
|
|-
| 2003
|
|-
| 2006
|
Žebřík Music Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1993
| rowspan=3|Enya
| rowspan=3|Best International Female
|
|
|-
| 1997
|
|
|-
| 2005
|
|
Other Awards
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|1989
|rowspan="3"|Enya
| Brit Award for Best International Artist
|
|-
| Brit Award for Best International Female
|
|-
| IRMA Award for Best Female Irish Artist
|
|-
!scope="row"|1990
| "Orinoco Flow"
| BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row"|1992
|rowspan="3"|Enya
|rowspan="2"|Brit Award for Best International Solo Artist
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|1993
|
|-
| IRMA Award for Best Female Irish Artist
|
|-
| "Book of Days"
| Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan=1|1998
| Enya, Nicky Ryan, and Roma Ryan
| Ivor Novello Award for International Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row"|2001
| rowspan="4"| "May It Be"
| Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Song
|
|-
!scope="row"|2001
| Broadcast Film Critics Association for Best Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row"|2002
| Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row"|2002
| Academy Award for Best Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="4"|2002
| rowspan="2"| Enya
| American Music Award for Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist
|
|-
| Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
|
|-
| rowspan=3|"Only Time"
| ECHO Award for Best Single of the Year (International)
|
|-
| BDSCertified Spin Awards – 300,000 Spins
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="1"|2003
| rowspan="1"|BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|2004
| rowspan=4|"I Don't Wanna Know"
| Vibe Award for R&B Song of the Year
|
|-
| MOBO Award for Best Single
|
|-
| MOBO Award for Best Ringtone
|
|-
!scope="row"|2005
| BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row"|2016
| Dark Sky Island
| ECHO Award for Best Female of the Year (International)
|
|-
|}
Discography
Studio albums
Enya (1987) (reissued in 1992 as The Celts)
Watermark (1988)
Shepherd Moons (1991)
The Memory of Trees (1995)
A Day Without Rain (2000)
Amarantine (2005)
And Winter Came... (2008)
Dark Sky Island (2015)
See also
Honorific nicknames in popular music
List of ambient music artists
List of artists who reached number one on the UK Singles Chart
List of best-selling music artists
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
References
Sources
External links
1961 births
20th-century Irish women singers
21st-century Irish women singers
Celtic fusion musicians
Clannad members
Grammy Award winners
Irish women composers
Irish folk singers
Irish-language singers
Irish mezzo-sopranos
Irish pianists
Irish pop singers
Irish women singer-songwriters
Ivor Novello Award winners
Latin-language singers
Living people
Musicians from County Donegal
New-age musicians
People from Dalkey
People from Gweedore
Warner Music Group artists
Women in electronic music
World Music Awards winners
People from Killiney
20th-century women composers
21st-century women composers | true | [
"Dark Sky Island is the eighth studio album by Irish singer, songwriter, and musician Enya, released on 20 November 2015 by Warner Bros. Records. After the release of her previous album, And Winter Came... (2008), Enya was unsure of her next career move so she decided to take a break from music, which lasted three years. In the spring of 2012 she started to write and record new material for a new album with her longtime collaborators, producer and arranger Nicky Ryan and his wife, lyricist Roma Ryan. Enya gained inspiration for the title track and the album from the 2011 designation of Sark in the Channel Islands as a dark-sky preserve and a collection of Roma Ryan's poems on islands.\n\nDark Sky Island received positive reviews from critics and was a commercial success upon release. It peaked at No. 4 in the UK Albums Chart, Enya's highest position on the chart since Paint the Sky with Stars (1997), and No. 8 on the Billboard 200 in the United States. Elsewhere, it reached the top five in nine countries. A deluxe edition features three additional tracks. Enya promoted the album with a worldwide media tour that included performances of some songs from the album. Dark Sky Island was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best New Age Album.\n\nBackground and recording\nFollowing the release of her winter-themed album And Winter Came... (2008), Enya was unsure on her next career move. Among the options she considered was to take a \"proper break\" away from activity, which she decided to do and lasted three years. She felt it was needed for herself and her music. During this period she released her second greatest hits album, The Very Best of Enya (2009) and spent time travelling, including visits to Ireland, Australia and France, where she bought a new home on its southern coast and renovated it. Enya also caught up with her longtime collaborators, producer and arranger Nicky Ryan and his wife, lyricist Roma Ryan, to discuss ideas on the next album and when to start work. At one meeting, Roma presented Enya with a collection of poems she had written about islands, one of which was about Sark in the English Channel, and spoke about its designation as the first island to become a dark-sky preserve in 2011. Enya was inspired by the idea to start writing new music, but had to wait until renovation work was complete at Aigle Studio, the Ryans' home studio in Killiney, County Dublin. In May 2011, Ryan announced that work on a new album had started, early plans for which included orchestral and choral arrangements recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London that never came into fruition. In the spring of 2012, Enya felt the time was right to start recording. Enya said the album has an underlying theme of journeys: \"Journeys to the island; through the length of a lifetime; through history, through emotions; and journeys across great oceans\", yet denies it is a concept album.\n\nThe album was recorded from 2012 to 2015. Enya and the Ryans adopted their usual method of writing and recording for Dark Sky Island. The process began with Enya working alone, recording ideas in the form of basic melodies or sketches of ideas on the piano. She would arrive at the studio at 10 a.m. and work until around 6 p.m. and have weekends off. Enya is a self-described \"very slow writer\" and did not give herself a deadline to have a set number of songs complete by. At times when a strong enough idea had not arrived after some weeks, Nicky would encourage her to continue. She added: \"It's a day closer to writing and finding what I'm trying to say and express within the music.\" After a collection of ideas have been put down Enya would present them to Nicky and Roma \"to see [whether] they understand what I'm trying to say [...] to see, emotionally, that they sense what the song is about. And then we know we have a song for the album.\" The album's eleven tracks, plus three bonus tracks, were all the songs that Enya had written in the three-year period.\n\nSongs\n\nThe title track was the first to be written. \"The Humming...\" is a song \"that muses on the cycle of the universe and how change affects everything\". While Enya was working on the music, there was a part that she started to hum to and decided to keep the section as the humming part. She had read a story that Roma had given her about the earliest sound in the universe was a humming sound, which Nicky said was around forty-seven octaves below the lowest piano key\". The sound was inaudible to humans until scientists took the information picked up by the Planck space telescope and reproduced it through audio compression and pitch alteration, which created a humming sound and gave the track a fitting title.\n\n\"So I Could Find My Way\" is set in waltz time and composed in the key of D major. Enya described the melody as \"very emotional\". The song is dedicated to Nicky Ryan's deceased mother Mona and its subject of \"a mother moving on\" is \"something quite universal ... You think about what she left behind in your life. That's what you'll always remember. What her stories were, what she was hoping for you; hoping you'd find your way\".\n\n\"Even in the Shadows\" features a double bass played by Irish rock and jazz musician Eddie Lee. Lee was a member of Those Nervous Animals from Sligo, Ireland who were label mates, under the Tara Music label, of the Brennan family band Clannad in the 1980s; Enya was a member of Clannad from 1980 to 1982.\n\nThere are two songs on the album that feature lyrics in Loxian, a language created by Roma Ryan, for the first time since Amarantine (2005). These songs in particular focus on the \"intergalactic theme\" and otherworldly and futuristic tales Roma Ryan uses Loxian for, along with the non-Loxian \"Astra et Luna\".\n\n\"Echoes in Rain\" is in a minor scale, specifically F-sharp minor, and has a \"marching rhythm celebrating a journey's end\". The song includes a piano-based bridge similar to Enya's solo piano tracks on her earlier albums. Enya's vocals span two octaves from B2 to E5. The lyrics describe the feelings of a long journey home, travelling through night and through day, with the verses detailing how the surroundings and emotions change throughout the journey. It was the final song written for the album.\n\n\"I Could Never Say Goodbye\" is an Irish lament with \"a sparse, hymnal arrangement\".\n\n\"Sancta Maria\" blends synthesizers and classical instrumentation.\n\nPromotion\nThe album was announced by Enya on her website in September 2015. The title, first single and track listing were announced on 7 October 2015. Along with standard and deluxe editions on digital formats, a vinyl edition was made available, making Dark Sky Island Enya's first vinyl release since her self-titled album's re-release in 1992.\n\nIn the weeks preceding Dark Sky Islands release, Enya's various official social media accounts posted interviews with Enya and her lyricist Roma Ryan, previews for the album, exclusive photos and 'behind the scenes' moments, lyric and regular music videos, and information on iTunes' exclusive early releases of the album's songs. This is the first use of social media to promote Enya's music as well as using it for giving fans exclusive, official information and content. Embarking upon the promotional trip for Dark Sky Island, Enya herself initially promoted the album in Britain and Ireland, being interviewed for The Irish Times, before guesting on Lorraine and on BBC Radio 4's BBC Front Row on 19 November 2015, and on other major radio shows like The Chris Evans Breakfast Show on BBC Radio 2 and Gerry Kelly's show on BBC Radio Ulster upon the album's release day. She then promoted the album worldwide with interviews in Japan and the US on news and morning television. On 13 December 2015, Enya gave a surprise performance at the Universal Studios Japan Christmas Show in Osaka, Japan, of two songs—\"Orinoco Flow\" and \"Echoes in Rain\". She called it a \"surprise gift\" to the Japanese fans, and complimented the \"spectacular\" celebrations of that day. On 18 January 2016, Enya was interviewed by Russell Davies on BBC Radio 2's The Art of Artists. On 2 March 2016, Enya was interviewed by Simon Mayo on BBC Radio 2's Simon Mayo Drivetime after guesting on This Morning. To promote the album in the United States, Enya performed \"Echoes in Rain\" on Live! with Kelly and Michael, \"Even in the Shadows\" on Good Day New York and was interviewed on HuffPost Live. On 7 April 2016, Enya performed \"Echoes in Rain\" at the 2016 ECHO Awards.\n\nRelease\nDark Sky Island was released on CD and as a digital download on 20 November 2015. It was released on LP on 18 December 2015.\n\nTwo promotional singles from the album were released. \"So I Could Find My Way\" was released digitally on 30 October 2015. Its music video, released on 6 November, features Enya performing in the Chapel Royal Church in Dublin with a female string ensemble and choir. \"The Humming...\" was released digitally on 13 November with an accompanying lyric video released the same day.\n\nDark Sky Island entered the UK Albums Chart at No. 4, Enya's highest-charting album there since Paint the Sky with Stars (1997). In the United States, Dark Sky Island debuted at number 8 on the Billboard 200, with 48,000 equivalent album units; it sold 46,000 copies in its first week of release.\n\nDark Sky Island ended 2015 as the 40th best selling album of the year with sales of 900,000 copies worldwide.\n\nReception\n{{Album ratings\n| AOTY = 64/100\n| ADM = 6.7/10\n| MC = 78/100\n| rev1 = AllMusic\n| rev1score = \n| rev2 = Evening Standard\n| rev2score = \n| rev3 = Fort Worth Star-Telegram\n| rev3score = \n| rev4 = The Guardian\n| rev4score = \n| rev5 = The Irish Times\n| rev5score = \n| rev6 = Música Nueva\n| rev6score = \n| rev7 = Newsday\n| rev7score = B+\n| rev8 = Pitchfork| rev8score = 7.1/10\n}}Dark Sky Island received mostly positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 78, which indicates \"generally favorable reviews\", based on 8 reviews. In his review for AllMusic, Timothy Monger rated the album four stars out of five. He wrote the album \"has all the thematic and sonic hallmarks typical of an Enya release but with significantly more highlights than on her two prior works\" and highlights \"The Humming\" as \"one of the strongest tracks she's produced in decades and resembles a dark cousin to 1991's masterwork 'Caribbean Blue'\". He summarised the album \"does manage to harness some of the power and creativity of Enya's early days and pairs it with both the confidence and shadows of age\". In the Evening Standard, John Aizlewood gave the album the same rating, calling it \"magnificent in every sense\" with \"songs built up with layer upon layer of vocals ... layer upon layer of instrumentation and layer upon layer of luxurious, uplifting, undeniably spiritual warmth\".\n\nSiobhan Kane of The Irish Times rated the album four stars out of five, praising Enya's vocal power \"that manages to be both frail and strong\" on \"So I Could Find My Way\", and summarised the album as \"nourishing and immersive\". Brad Nelson in his review for Pitchfork, likened the album to \"being embraced by air\" and said with \"some confidence\" that Dark Sky Island was Enya's best album since The Memory of Trees (1995), released almost twenty years prior; he gave a positive review and score of 7.1 out of 10. He praised Enya for \"drifting somewhat from her aesthetic\" and highlighted \"Even in the Shadows\" as a prime example and consequently called it \"one of the best [songs] on the album\".\n\nTrack listing\nAll music by Enya, lyrics by Roma Ryan, all songs produced by Nicky Ryan.\n\nPersonnel\nCredits are adapted from the album's 2015 liner notes.\n\nMusicians\nEnya – vocals, instrumentation, mixer\nEddie Lee – double bass on \"Even in the Shadows\"\n\nProduction\nRoma Ryan – lyrics, Loxian language, font\nNicky Ryan – arrangement, engineer, mixer, album sleeve conception\nDick Beetham – mastering at 360 Mastering in Hastings\nDaniel Polley – digital advisor, technician\nSimon Fowler – album sleeve conception, photography\nRichard Welland – booklet layout\nMichael Whitham – commissioner\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nThe album also peaked at number one on the Billboard'' Top New Age Albums chart for ten consecutive weeks after its release.\n\nYear-end charts\n\nCertifications and sales\n\n!scope=\"row\"| South Korea\n|\n|925\n|-\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nEnya albums\n2015 albums\nWarner Music Group albums",
"\"Pretty Little Dutch Girl\" is a children's nursery rhyme, clapping game and jump-rope rhyme. \tIt has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 12986.\n\nLyrics\nThe lyrics of the song vary considerably. British versions of this rhyme differ significantly, perhaps because many of the allusions in the rhyme were unknown to British children at the time. Common versions include:\n\nI am a pretty little Dutch girl,\nAs pretty as I can be, be, be,\nAnd all the boys in the baseball team\nGo crazy over me, me, me.\n\nMy boy friend’s name is Fatty,\nHe comes from the Senoratti,\nWith turned-up toes and a pimple on his nose,\nAnd this is how the story goes:\n\nVariation 1\n\nI am a pretty little Dutch girl\nAs pretty as I can be\nAnd all the boys in the neighborhood\nAre crazy over me\n\nMy boyfriend's name is Mello\nHe comes from the land of Jello\nWith pickles for his toes and a cherry for his nose\nAnd that's the way my story goes\n\nVariation 2\n\nI am a pretty little Dutch girl,\nAs pretty as pretty can be,\nAnd all the boys around the block \nGo crazy over me.\n\nMy boyfriend's name is Billy,\nHe comes from good ole Philly,\nWith a cherry on his nose\nAnd ten fat toes,\nAnd that's the way my story goes.\n\nMy boyfriend gave me peaches,\nMy boyfriend gave me pears,\nMy boyfriend gave me fifty cents\nAnd kissed me on the stairs.\n\nI gave him back his peaches,\nI gave him back his pears,\nI gave him back his fifty cents \nAnd kicked....him....down.....the.....stairs!\n\nVariation 3\n\nI am a pretty little Dutch girl,\nAs pretty as I can be.\nand all the boys in the neighborhood\ncome chasing after me me me.\n\nMy boyfriend's name is Tony,\nhe comes from the land of bologna,\nwith a pickle on his nose and 3 sore toes\nand that's the way the story goes!\n\nOne day he gave me peaches, \none day he gave me pears,\none day he gave me 50 cents \nand took me to the fair!\n\nAfter the fair was over,\nI asked him to take me home,\nhe ran off with another girl \nand left me all alone!\n\nI gave him back his peaches.\nI gave him back his pears.\nI gave him back his 50 cents,\nand kicked him down the stairs!\n\nVariation 4\n\nI am a pretty little Dutch girl\nAs pretty as pretty can be.\nAnd all the boys around the block\nGo crazy over me.\n\nI hate to do the dishes\nI hate to do the chores\nBut I love to kiss my boyfriend\nBehind the kitchen door.\n\nOne day while I was walking\nI heard my boyfriend talking\nTo a pretty little girl\nwith strawberry curls\n\nand this is what he said:\nI L-O-V-E love you\nAll the T-I-M-E time\nAnd I will K-I-S-S kiss you\nIn the D-A-R-K dark.\n\nVariation 5 (Western Canada, 1960s)\n\nI am a pretty little Dutch girl,\nAs pretty as pretty can be, be, be,\nAnd all the boys on the baseball team\nare chasing after me, me, me.\n\nMy father came from England,\nMy mother came from France, France, France.\nMy boyfriend came from the USA\nto teach me how to dance, dance, dance.\n\nMy boyfriend gave me apples,\nMy boyfriend gave me pears, pears, pears.\nMy boyfriend gave me fifty cents\nand kissed me up the stairs, stairs, stairs.\n\nI gave him back his apples,\nI gave him back his pears, pears, pears.\nI gave him back his fifty cents \nand kicked him down the stairs, stairs, stairs.\n\n...with a pickle on his nose and 3 sore toes,\nthat's the way it goes, goes, goes.\n\nVariation 6\nI am a pretty little Dutch girl\nAs pretty as pretty can be\nAnd all the boys around my block\nGo crazy over me!\n\nI had a boyfriend, Patty\nWho comes from Cincinnati\nWith 48 toes and a pickle on his nose\nAnd this is the way my story goes...\n\nOne day when I was walkin'\nI heard my boyfriend talkin'\nTo a pretty little girl with a strawberry curls\nAnd this is what he said to her...\n\nI L-O-V-E, love you\nto K-I-S-S, kiss you\nyes K-I-S-S, kiss you in \nthe D-A-R-K dark boom boom!\n\nVariation 7\n\nI am a pretty little Dutch girl\nAs pretty as pretty can be\nand all the boys in my hometown \nare crazy over me\n\nMy boyfriend's name is Chico\nhe came from Puerto Rico \nwith a rubber nose\nand 28 toes\nand this is how my story goes\n\nOne day as I was walking \nI heard my Chico talking\nto a pretty little girl\nwith strawberry curls\nand this is what he said to her\n\nI L-O-V-E love you\nI K-I-S-S kiss you\nI K-I-S-S kiss you \nin the D-A-R-K dark dark dark\n\nVariation 8\n\nI am a pretty little Dutch girl,\nAs pretty as can be, be, be,\nAnd all the boys on the baseball team,\nGo crazy after me, me, me!\nOne day they gave me peaches,\nOne day they gave me pears, pears, pears,\nOne days they gave me 50 cents and took me to the fair, fair, fair.\nAnd when the fair was over,\nI asked them to take me home, home, home,\nThey said they had another date and left me all alone, lone, lone.\nI gave them back their peaches,\nI gave them back their pears, pears, pears,\nI gave them back their 50 cents and kicked them down the stairs, stairs, stairs!\n\nVariation 9 (Northwest England, 2010s)\n\nMy boyfriend gave me an apple \nMy boyfriend gave me a pear\nMy boyfriend gave me a kiss on the lips, and he threw me down the stairs\n\nI gave him back his apple\nI gave him back his pear\nI gave him back kiss on the lips, and I threw him down the stairs\n\nI threw him over London\nI threw him over France\nI threw him over the football pitch, and he lost his underpants\n\nHis underpants were yellow\nHis underpants were green\nHis underpants were black and white, and smelt like rotten cheese\n\nVariation 10 (Austin, Texas 1960s) Given the actions that went with this, people assume this went through music halls.\n\nI am a pretty little Dutch girl\nAs pretty as pretty can be \nAnd all the boys around the block\nAre crazy over me.\n\nMy boyfriend's name is Harry.\nHe comes from Paris, France\nWith turned up toes and a pimple on his nose\nAnd this is the way my story goes.\n\nMy boyfriend gave me apples,\nMy boyfriend gave me pears.\nMy boyfriend gave me fifty cents \nAnd took me to the fair.\n\nOne day as I was walking\nI heard my boyfriend talking\nTo a pretty little girl with a strawberry curl\nand this is what he said to her:\n\nI L-O-V-E, love you.\nI K-I-S-S, kiss you.\nI K-I-S-S, kiss you \nOn your F-A-C-E, face, face, face.\n\nI gave him back his apples\nI gave him back his pears\nI gave him back his fifty cents\nAnd threw him down the stairs.\n\nI threw him over London.\nI threw him over France.\nI threw him over [substitute wherever here]\nAnd he lost his underpants.\n\nI have a little brother.\nHis name is Tiny Tim\nI put him in the bathtub \nTo see if he could swim\n\nHe drank up all the water\nHe ate up all the soap\nHe tried to eat the bathtub \nBut it wouldn't go down his throat\n\nOh, Suzy called the doctor, \nOh, Suzy called the nurse,\nOh, Suzy called the lady\nWith the alligator purse.\n\nin walked the doctor, \nIn walked the nurse,\nIn walked the lady\nWith the alligator purse.\n\nOut walked the doctor, \nOut walked the nurse,\nOut walked the lady \nWith the alligator purse.\n\nMy boyfriend's name is Harry.\nHe comes from Paris, France\nWith turned up toes and a pimple on his nose\nAnd this is the way my story goes.\n\nVariation 11\n\nI am a pretty little Dutch girl,\nAs pretty as can be,\nAnd all the boys around the block are crazy over me, me, me.\nMy boyfriend's name is Chaim,\nHe comes from yerushalayim\nWith a pickle up his nose and three black toes,\nAnd this is how my story goes.\n\nOne day when I was walking,\nI saw my boyfriend talking\nTo a pretty little girl with a strawberry curl\nAnd this is what he said to her:\nI L-O-V-E love you,\nI K-I-S-S kiss you.\nAnd he fell in the lake,\nAnd he swallowed a snake,\nAnd he came out with a bellyache.\n\nVariation 12 (Long Island, NY, 1970s - a clapping game)\nI am a pretty little Dutch girl,\nAs pretty as pretty can be,\nAnd all the boys around my block go crazy over me.\nMy boyfriend's name is Larry\nHe comes from Cincinnati\nWith his forty-two toes and a pickle in his nose\nAnd this is what he said to me:\n\"I L-O-V-E love you\nI K-I-S-S kiss you\nI K-I-S-S kiss you on your \nF-A-C-E, F-A-C-E, F-A-C-E, face, face, face!\"\n\nVariation 13 (from Australia)\nI am a pretty little Dutch girl,\nas pretty as pretty can be be be.\nAnd all the boys in the baseball team,\ngo crazy over me me me.\n\nMy boyfriends name is Steven, \nHe comes from New Zealand.\nWith five fat toes and a pimple on his nose,\nAnd this is how my story goes.\n\nOne day when I was walking,\nI heard my boyfriend talking. \nTo a pretty little girl with strawberry curls,\nand this is what he said to her:\n\"I LOVE love you and I KISS kiss you\"\nSo jump in the lake and swallow a snake,\nand come out with a belly ache.\n\nVariation 14 (from Tóg Sos CD, Ireland 2003)\nI am a pretty little Dutch girl,\nAs pretty as I can be, be, be,\nAnd all the boys in the baseball team\nGo crazy over me, me, me.\n\nMy boyfriend’s name is Johnny,\nHe comes from Cincinnati,\nWith forty-eight toes and a pickle up his nose,\nAnd this is how my story goes.\n\nOne day I went out walking,\nAnd I heard my boyfriend talking\nTo a pretty little girl with strawberry curls\nAnd this is what he said to her...\n\"I L-O-V-E love you,\nI K-I-S-S kiss you,\"\nSo I jumped in a lake and swallowed a snake\nAnd now I have a bellyache!\n\nVariation 15 (from USA, East Coast Early 2000s)\nI am a pretty little Dutch girl,\nAs pretty, as pretty as can be\nAnd all the boys in the baseball team\nGo crazy over me, me, me.\n\nMy boyfriend’s name is Tommy,\nHe comes from Salami,\nWith a pickle up his nose,\nAnd 55 toes\nAnd that's the way my story goes!\n\nStory told within the song\nThe rhyme (and at least some of its variants) tells the story of an extremely beautiful girl (of Dutch descent, hence the song's title) who is popular with boys (particularly around the neighborhood, block or the whole town) and has a rather unattractive boyfriend; some versions mention that the boyfriend dumps the pretty Dutch girl in favor of an even prettier girl. The Dutch girl is often depicted from illustration to illustration wearing traditional Dutch clothing, complete with ribbon-adorned long braids in her hair, wooden shoes and (occasionally exaggerated) Dutch cap.\n\nOrigins and distribution\nThe origins of the rhyme are obscure. The tune of the song is similar to \"A Sailor Went to Sea\" and \"Miss Suzie Had A Steamboat\" (though some notes are removed to account for the double-syllable words \"pretty\" and \"little\", and some notes are added in). The earliest record found so far is for New York around 1940. It seems to have spread over the US by the 1950s and reached Britain in 1959, where it was taken up very quickly across the country to become one of the most popular skipping rhymes among girls.\n\nUse in children's media\nIn the Wee Sing Video Series video Grandpa's Magical Toys, the song is represented and sung by a blonde-haired Barbie-like doll in Dutch traditional costume aptly named \"Dutch Girl\" (played by Jacqueline \"Jacque\" Drew) that enjoys jump-roping and is very concerned about the red ribbons tying her long braids together; she even gets very emotional when those ribbons come undone (she prefers them to be straight), but the three shrunken children in the movie (named Peter, David and Sara) talk her out of her moping and convince her that her then-straight ribbons aren't the reason why she played with them. Convinced, she then wears her ribbons undone throughout the rest of the movie, and her dress seem to be falling apart by the movie's end. She even says that Pretty Little Dutch Girl is \"my [her] song\" when she is introduced to the three kids, and she also has a tendency to prattle.\n(5:01)\n\nIn the 1977 Australian animated film Dot and the Kangaroo, two hopping mice near the end of the waterhole scene sang a song about a bushgirl who is pretty to the tune of Pretty Little Dutch Girl after they see Dot touching the bandicoot and scaring it and made the bandicoot jump in the waterhole where Dot laughs on what she did and the hopping mice laugh as well, so they did the same thing Dot did. One of the hopping mice pushed the other one into the waterhole.\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links\nVarious parody versions and original text\n\nEnglish children's songs\nAmerican folk songs\nTraditional children's songs\nClapping games\nSkipping rhymes\nAmerican nursery rhymes\nSongs about the Netherlands\nYear of song unknown\nSongwriter unknown"
] |
[
"Enya",
"2008-present: And Winter Came... and Dark Sky Island",
"Can you provide me with a little information on And Winter Came..and Dark Sky Island?",
"seventh studio album, And Winter Came...."
] | C_ca2198202da140e28165132567967682_1 | Is this the name of a music group? | 2 | Is Enya the name of a music group? | Enya | Enya continued to write music with a winter and Christmas theme for her seventh studio album, And Winter Came.... Initially she intended to make an album of seasonal songs and hymns set for a release in late 2007, but decided to produce a winter-themed album instead. The track "My! My! Time Flies!", a tribute to the late Irish guitarist Jimmy Faulkner, incorporates a guitar solo performed by Pat Farrell, the first use of a guitar on an Enya album since "I Want Tomorrow" from Enya. Upon its release in November 2008, And Winter Came... reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 8 in the US and sold almost 3.5 million copies worldwide by 2011. After promoting And Winter Came..., Enya took an extended break from writing and recording music. She spent her time resting, visiting family in Australia, and renovating her new home in the south of France. In March 2009, her first four studio albums were reissued in Japan in the Super High Material CD format with bonus tracks. Her second compilation album and DVD, The Very Best of Enya, was released in November 2009 and features songs from 1987 to 2008, including a previously unreleased version of "Aniron". In 2013, "Only Time" was used in an advertisement by Volvo Trucks starring Jean-Claude Van Damme who does the splits while suspended between two lorries. The video went viral, leading to numerous parodies of the commercial uploaded to YouTube also using "Only Time". The attention resulted in the song peaking at No. 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. In 2012, Enya returned to the studio to record her eighth album, Dark Sky Island. Its name references the island of Sark, where it became the first island to be designated a dark-sky preserve, and a series of poems on islands by Roma Ryan. The new album was promoted with the premiere in October 2015 of its lead single, "Echoes in Rain", on Ken Bruce's radio show and with the release in the same month of the single as a digital download. Upon its release on 20 November 2015, Dark Sky Island went to No. 4 in the UK, Enya's highest charting studio album there since Shepherd Moons went to No. 1, and to No. 8 in the US. A Deluxe Edition features three additional songs. Enya completed a promotional tour of the UK and Europe, the US and Japan. During her visit to Japan, Enya performed "Orinoco Flow" and "Echoes in Rain" at the Universal Studios Japan Christmas show in Osaka. In December 2016, Enya appeared on the Raidio Teilifis Eireann Christmas special Christmas Carols from Cork, marking her first appearance on Irish television in a decade. She sang "Adeste Fideles" and "Oiche Chiuin" as well as her own carol composition "The Spirit of Christmas Past". CANNOTANSWER | seventh studio album, | Enya Patricia Brennan ( ; born 17 May 1961) is an Irish singer, songwriter and musician, known for pioneering modern Celtic and New-age music. Regarded as the "Queen of New Age", Enya is the best-selling Irish solo artist in history, and second-best-selling overall behind U2. Born into a musical family and raised in the Irish-speaking area of Gweedore, County Donegal, Enya began her music career when she joined her family's Celtic folk band Clannad in 1980 on keyboards and backing vocals. She left the group in 1982 with their manager and producer Nicky Ryan to pursue a solo career, with Ryan's wife Roma Ryan as her lyricist. Enya developed her sound over the following four years with multitracked vocals and keyboards with elements of new age, Celtic, classical, church, world, pop, and Irish folk. Thus far, she has sung in ten languages, most notably English, Irish Gaelic (Gaeilge), Latin, and Welsh.
Enya's first projects as a solo artist included soundtrack work for The Frog Prince (1984) and the 1987 BBC documentary series The Celts, which was released as her debut album, Enya (1987). She signed with Warner Music UK, which granted her artistic freedom and minimal interference from the label. The commercial and critical success of Watermark (1988) propelled her to worldwide fame, helped by the UK number one and international hit single "Orinoco Flow". This was followed by the multi-million-selling albums Shepherd Moons (1991), The Memory of Trees (1995), and A Day Without Rain (2000). Sales of the latter and its lead single, "Only Time", surged in the United States following its use in the media coverage of the September 11 attacks. Following Amarantine (2005) and And Winter Came... (2008), Enya took a four-year career hiatus before she resumed in 2012 and released her eighth studio album, Dark Sky Island (2015).
Enya's discography has sold 26.5 million certified albums in the United States and an estimated 75 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. A Day Without Rain (2000) remains the best-selling new-age album, with an estimated 16 million copies sold worldwide. Enya has won numerous awards, including seven World Music Awards, four Grammy Awards for Best New Age Album, and an Ivor Novello Award. She was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for "May It Be", written for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).
Early life
Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin was born on 17 May 1961 in Dore, a settlement in the parish of Gweedore, in County Donegal. It is a Gaeltacht region where Irish is the primary language. Her name is anglicised as Enya Patricia Brennan, where Enya is the phonetic spelling of how "Eithne" is pronounced in her native Ulster dialect of Irish; "Ní Bhraonáin" translates to "daughter of Brennan". The sixth of nine children, Enya was born into a Roman Catholic family of musicians. Her father, Leo Brennan, was the leader of the Slieve Foy Band, an Irish showband, and ran Leo's Tavern in Meenaleck. Her mother, Máire Brennan (née Duggan), who has distant Spanish roots whose ancestors settled on Tory Island, was an amateur musician who played in Leo's band and taught music at Gweedore Community School. Enya's maternal grandfather Aodh was the headmaster of the primary school in Dore, and her grandmother was a teacher there. Aodh was also the founder of the Gweedore Theatre company.
Enya described her upbringing as "very quiet and happy." At age three, she took part in her first singing competition at the annual Feis Ceoil music festival. She took part in pantomimes at Gweedore Theatre and sang with her siblings in her mother's choir at St Mary's church in Derrybeg. She learned English at primary school and began piano lessons at age four. "I had to do school work and then travel to a neighbouring town for piano lessons, and then more school work. I ... remember my brothers and sisters playing outside ... and I would be inside playing the piano. This one big book of scales, practising them over and over." When Enya turned eleven, her grandfather paid for her education at a strict convent boarding school in Milford run by nuns of the Loreto order, where she developed a taste for classical music, art, Latin and watercolour painting. She said: "It was devastating to be torn away from such a large family, but it was good for my music." Enya left the school at 17 and studied classical music in college for one year, with the aim of becoming "a piano teacher sort of person. I never thought of myself composing or being on stage."
Career
1980–1985: Clannad and early solo career
In 1970, several members of Enya's family formed Clannad, a Celtic folk band who later acquired Nicky Ryan as their manager, sound engineer, and producer, and his future wife, Roma Ryan, as tour manager and administrator. In 1980, after her year at college, Enya decided against pursuing music at university and accepted Ryan's invitation to join the group as he wanted to expand their sound with an additional vocalist and introducing keyboards. Enya performed an uncredited role their sixth studio album, Crann Úll (1980), with a line-up of siblings Máire, Pól, and Ciarán Brennan, and twin uncles Noel and Pádraig Duggan. She became an official member by the time their follow-up, Fuaim (1981), was released, and is photographed with the band on the front cover. Nicky maintained it was never his intention to make Enya a permanent member, and saw she was "fiercely independent ... intent on playing her own music. She was just not sure of how to go about it". This sparked discussions between the two on layering vocal tracks to create a "choir of one", a concept inspired by the Wall of Sound technique by producer Phil Spector that interested them both.
During a Clannad tour in 1982, Nicky called for a band meeting to address internal issues that had arisen. He added, "It was short and only required a vote, I was a minority of one and lost. Roma and I were out. This left the question of what happened with Enya. I decided to stand back and say nothing". Enya chose to leave with the Ryans and pursue a solo career as she felt confined in the group, and disliked being "somebody in the background". This caused some friction between the two parties at first, but they settled their differences. Nicky suggested to Enya that either she return to Gweedore "with no particular definite future", or live with him and Roma in Artane, Dublin "and see what happens, musically", which she accepted. After their bank denied them a loan, Enya sold her saxophone and gave piano lessons for income and the Ryans used what they could afford from their savings to build a recording facility in a shed in their garden. They named it Aigle Studio, after the French word for "eagle", and rented it out to musicians to help recoup the costs. The trio formed a musical partnership, with Nicky as Enya's producer and arranger and Roma her lyricist, and established their music company, Aigle Music. In the following two years, Enya developed her technique and composition by listening to recordings of her reciting pieces of classical music, and repeated the process until she started to improvise sections and develop her own arrangements. Her first composition was "An Taibhse Uaighneach", Irish for "The Lonely Ghost". During this time Enya played the synthesiser on Ceol Aduaidh (1983) by Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh and Frankie Kennedy, and performed with the duo and Mhaonaigh's brother Gearóid in their short lived group, Ragairne.
Enya's first solo endeavour arrived in 1983 when she recorded two piano instrumentals, "An Ghaoth Ón Ghrian", Irish for "The Solar Wind", and "Miss Clare Remembers", at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin which were released on Touch Travel (1984), a limited release cassette of music from various artists on the Touch label. She is credited as Eithne Ní Bhraonáin on its liner notes. After several months of preparation, Enya's first live solo performance took place on 23 September 1983 at the National Stadium in Dublin, which was televised for RTÉ's music show Festival Folk. Niall Morris, a musician who worked with her during this time, recalled she "was so nervous she could barely get on stage, and she cowered behind the piano until the gig was over."
Morris assisted Enya in the production of a demo tape, playing additional keyboards to her compositions, which Roma thought would suit accompanying visuals and sent it to various film producers. Among them was David Puttnam, who liked the tape and offered Enya to compose the soundtrack to his upcoming romantic comedy film, The Frog Prince (1984). Enya scored nine pieces for the film but they were later rearranged and orchestrated against her wishes by Richard Myhill, except for two that she sang on, "The Frog Prince" and "Dreams"; the words to the latter were penned by Charlie McGettigan. Film editor Jim Clark said the rearrangements were necessary as Enya found it difficult to compose to picture. Released in 1985, the album is the first commercial release that credits her as Enya, after Nicky Ryan thought "Eithne" would be too difficult for non-Irish people to pronounce correctly and suggested the phonetic spelling of her name. Enya looked back on the film as a good career move, but a disappointing one as "we weren't part of it at the end". She then sang on three tracks on Ordinary Man (1985) by Christy Moore.
1985–1989: The Celts and Watermark
In 1985, producer Tony McAuley asked Enya to contribute a track for a six-part BBC television documentary series The Celts. She had already written a Celtic-influenced song named "The March of the Celts", and submitted it to the project. Each episode was to feature a different composer at first, but director David Richardson liked her track so much, he had Enya score the entire series. Enya recorded 72 minutes of music at Aigle Studio and the BBC studios in Wood Lane, London without recording to picture, though she was required to portray certain themes and ideas that the producers wanted. Unlike The Frog Prince, she worked with little interference which granted her freedom to establish her sound that she would adopt throughout her future career, signified by layered vocals, keyboard-oriented music, and percussion with elements of Celtic, classical, church and folk music.
In March 1987, two months before The Celts aired, a 40-minute selection of Enya's score was released as her debut solo album, Enya, by BBC Records in the United Kingdom and by Atlantic Records in the United States. The latter promoted it with a new-age imprint on the packaging, which Nicky later thought was "a cowardly thing for them to do". The album gained enough public attention to reach number 8 on the Irish Albums Chart and number 69 on the UK Albums Chart. "I Want Tomorrow" was released as Enya's first single. "Boadicea" was sampled by The Fugees on their 1996 song "Ready or Not"; the group neither sought permission nor gave credit, and Enya took legal action. The group subsequently gave her credit and paid a fee worth around $3 million. Later in 1987, Enya appeared on Sinéad O'Connor's debut album The Lion and the Cobra, reciting Psalm 91 in Irish on "Never Get Old".
Several weeks after the release of Enya, Enya secured a recording contract with Warner Music UK after Rob Dickins, the label's chairman and a fan of Clannad, took a liking to Enya and found himself playing it "every night before I went to bed". He then met Enya and the Ryans at a chance meeting at the Irish Recorded Music Association award ceremony in Dublin, and learned Enya had entered negotiations with a rival label. Dickins seized the opportunity and signed her to Warner Music with a deal worth £75,000, granting her wish to write and record with artistic freedom, minimal interference from the label, and without set deadlines to finish albums. Dickins said: "Sometimes you sign an act to make money, and sometimes you sign an act to make music. This was clearly the latter ... I just wanted to be involved with this music." Enya then left Atlantic and signed with the Warner-led Geffen Records to handle her American distribution.
With the green-light to produce a new studio album, Enya recorded Watermark from June 1987 to April 1988. It was initially recorded in analogue at Aigle Studio before Dickins requested to have it re-recorded digitally at Orinoco Studios in Bermondsey, London. Watermark was released in September 1988 and became an unexpected hit, reaching number 5 in the United Kingdom and number 25 on the Billboard 200 in the United States following its release there in January 1989. Its lead single, "Orinoco Flow", was the last song written for the album. It was not intended to be a single at first, but Enya and the Ryans chose it after Dickins asked for a single from them several times as a joke, knowing Enya's music was not made for the Top 40 chart. Dickins and engineer Ross Cullum are referenced in the songs' lyrics. "Orinoco Flow" became an international top 10 hit and was number one in the United Kingdom for three weeks. The new-found success propelled Enya to international fame and she received endorsement deals and offers to use her music in television commercials. She spent one year travelling worldwide to promote the album which increased her exposure through interviews, appearances, and live performances. By 1996, Watermark had sold in excess of 1.2 million copies in the United Kingdom and 4 million in the United States.
1989–1997: Shepherd Moons and The Memory of Trees
After promoting Watermark, Enya purchased new recording equipment and started work on her next album, Shepherd Moons. She found the success of Watermark caused a considerable amount of pressure when it came to writing new songs, adding, "I kept thinking, 'Would this have gone on Watermark? Is it as good?' Eventually I had to forget about this and start on a blank canvas and just really go with what felt right." Enya wrote songs based on several ideas, including entries from her diary, the Blitz in London, and her grandparents. Shepherd Moons was released in November 1991, her first album released under Warner-led Reprise Records in the United States. It became a greater commercial success than Watermark, reaching number one in the UK for one week and number 17 in the United States. "Caribbean Blue", its lead single, charted at number thirteen in the United Kingdom. By 1997, the album had reached multi-platinum certification for selling in excess of 1.2 million copies in the United Kingdom and 5 million in the United States.
In 1991, Warner Music released a collection of five Enya music videos as Moonshadows for home video. In 1993, Enya won her first Grammy Award for Best New Age Album for Shepherd Moons. Soon after, Enya and Nicky entered discussions with Industrial Light & Magic, founded by George Lucas, regarding an elaborate stage lighting system for a proposed concert tour, but nothing came out of the meetings. In November 1992, Warner had obtained the rights to Enya and re-released the album as The Celts with new artwork. It surpassed its initial sale performance, reaching number 10 in the United Kingdom and reached platinum certification in the United States in 1996 for one million copies shipped.
After travelling worldwide to promote Shepherd Moons, Enya started to write and record her fourth album, The Memory of Trees. The album was released in November 1995. It peaked at number five in the United Kingdom and number nine in the United States, where it sold over 3 million copies. Its lead single, "Anywhere Is", reached number seven in the United Kingdom. The second, "On My Way Home", reached number twenty-six in the same country. In late 1994, Enya put out an extended play of Christmas music titled The Christmas EP. Enya was offered to compose the score for Titanic, but declined. A recording of her singing "Oíche Chiúin", an Irish-language version of "Silent Night", appeared on the charity album A Very Special Christmas 3, released in benefit of the Special Olympics in October 1997.
In early 1997, Enya began to select tracks for her first compilation album, "trying to select the obvious ones, the hits, and others." She chose to work on the collection following the promotional tour for The Memory of Trees as she felt it was the right time in her career, and that her contract with WEA required her to release a "best of" album. The set, named Paint the Sky with Stars: The Best of Enya, features two new tracks, "Paint the Sky with Stars" and "Only If...". Released in November 1997, the album was a worldwide commercial success, reaching No. 4 in the UK and No. 30 in the US, where it went on to sell over 4 million copies. "Only If..." was released as a single in 1997. Enya described the album as "like a musical diary ... each melody has a little story and I live through that whole story from the beginning ... your mind goes back to that day and what you were thinking."
1998–2007: A Day Without Rain and Amarantine
Enya started work on her fifth studio album, titled A Day Without Rain, in mid-1998. In a departure from her previous albums she incorporated the use of a string section into her compositions, something that was not a conscious decision at first, but Enya and Nicky Ryan agreed it complemented the songs that were being written. The album was released in November 2000, and reached number 6 in the United Kingdom and an initial peak of number 17 in the United States. In the aftermath of the 11 September attacks, sales of the album and its lead single, "Only Time", surged after the song was widely used during radio and television coverage of the events, leading to its description as "a post-September 11 anthem". The exposure caused A Day Without Rain to outperform its original chart performance to peak at number 2 on the Billboard 200, and the release of a maxi single containing the original and a pop remix of "Only Time" in November 2001. Enya donated its proceeds in aid of the International Association of Firefighters. The song topped the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart and went to number 10 on the Hot 100 singles, Enya's highest charting US single to date. A second single, "Wild Child", was released in December 2001. A Day Without Rain remains Enya's biggest seller, with 7 million copies sold in the US and the most sold new-age album of all time with an estimated 13 million copies sold worldwide.
In 2001, Enya agreed to write and perform on two tracks for the soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) at the request of director Peter Jackson. Its composer Howard Shore "imagined her voice" as he wrote the film's score, making an uncommon exception to include another artist in one of his soundtracks. After flying to New Zealand to observe the filming and to watch a rough cut of the film, Enya returned to Ireland and composed "Aníron (Theme for Aragorn and Arwen)" with lyrics by Roma in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Elvish language Sindarin, and "May It Be", sung in English and another Tolkien language, Quenya. Shore then based his orchestrations around Enya's recorded vocals and themes to create "a seamless sound". In 2002, Enya released "May It Be" as a single which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. She performed the song live at the 74th Academy Awards ceremony with an orchestra in March 2002, and later cited the moment as a career highlight.
Enya undertook additional studio projects in 2001 and 2002. The first was work on the soundtrack to the Japanese romantic film Calmi Cuori Appassionati (2001) which was subsequently released as Themes from Calmi Cuori Appassionati (2001). The album is formed of tracks spanning her career from Enya to A Day Without Rain with two B-sides. The album went to number 2 in Japan, and became Enya's second to sell one million copies in the country. November 2002 saw the release of Only Time – The Collection, a box set of 51 tracks recorded through her career which received a limited release of 200,000 copies.
In September 2003, Enya returned to Aigle Studio to start work on her sixth studio album, Amarantine. Roma said the title means "everlasting". The album marks the first instance of Enya singing in Loxian, a fictional language created by Roma that came about when Enya was working on "Water Shows the Hidden Heart". After numerous attempts to sing the song in English, Irish and Latin, Roma suggested a new language based on some of the sounds Enya would sing along to when developing her songs. It was a success, and Enya sang "Less Than a Pearl" and "The River Sings" in the same way. Roma worked on the language further, creating a "culture and history" behind it surrounding the Loxian people who are of another planet, questioning the existence of life on another. "Sumiregusa (Wild Violet)" is sung in Japanese. Amarantine was a global success, reaching number 6 on the Billboard 200 and number 8 in the UK. It has sold over 1 million certified copies in the US, a considerable drop in sales in comparison to her previous albums. Enya dedicated the album to BBC producer Tony McAuley, who had commissioned Enya to write the soundtrack to The Celts, following his death in 2003. The lead single, "Amarantine", was released in December 2005. A Christmas Special Edition was released in 2006, followed by a Deluxe Edition.
In 2006, Enya released Sounds of the Season: The Enya Holiday Collection, a Christmas-themed EP released exclusively in the US following an exclusive partnership with the NBC network and the Target department store chain. It includes two new songs, "Christmas Secrets" and "The Magic of the Night".
In June 2007, Enya received an honorary doctorate from the National University of Ireland, Galway. A month later, she received one from the University of Ulster.
2008–present: And Winter Came..., Dark Sky Island, and future
Enya continued to write music with a winter and Christmas theme for her seventh studio album, And Winter Came.... Initially she intended to make an album of seasonal songs and hymns set for a release in late 2007, but decided to produce a winter-themed album instead. The track "My! My! Time Flies!", a tribute to the late Irish guitarist Jimmy Faulkner, incorporates a guitar solo performed by Pat Farrell, the first use of a guitar on an Enya album since "I Want Tomorrow" from Enya. The lyrics also include atypical pop-culture references, such as to The Beatles' famous photo shoot for the cover of Abbey Road. Upon its release in November 2008, And Winter Came... reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 8 in the US and sold almost 3.5 million copies worldwide by 2011.
After promoting And Winter Came..., Enya took an extended break from writing and recording music. She spent her time resting, visiting family in Australia, and renovating her new home in the south of France. In March 2009, her first four studio albums were reissued in Japan in the Super High Material CD format with bonus tracks. Her second compilation album, The Very Best of Enya, was released in November 2009 and features songs from 1987 to 2008, including a previously unreleased version of "Aníron" and a DVD compiling most of her music videos to date. In 2013, "Only Time" was used in the "Epic Split" advertisement by Volvo Trucks starring Jean-Claude Van Damme who does the splits while suspended between two lorries. The video went viral, leading to numerous parodies of the commercial uploaded to YouTube also using "Only Time". The attention resulted in the song peaking at No. 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
In 2012, Enya returned to the studio to record her eighth album, Dark Sky Island. Its name refers to the island of Sark, which became the first island to be designated a dark-sky preserve, and a series of poems on islands by Roma Ryan. Upon its release on 20 November 2015, Dark Sky Island went to No. 4 in the UK, Enya's highest charting studio album there since Shepherd Moons went to No. 1, and to No. 8 in the US. A Deluxe Edition features three additional songs. Enya completed a promotional tour of the UK and Europe, the US and Japan. During her visit to Japan, Enya performed "Orinoco Flow" and "Echoes in Rain" at the Universal Studios Japan Christmas show in Osaka. In December 2016, Enya appeared on the Irish television show Christmas Carols from Cork, marking her first Irish television appearance in over seven years. She sang "Adeste Fideles", "Oiche Chiúin", and "The Spirit of Christmas Past".
On 4 November 2021, a Shepherd Moons "watch party" video was uploaded to Enya's official YouTube channel to commemorate the album's 30th anniversary. In his introductory message, Nicky Ryan said that Roma, Enya, and he used the downtime from the COVID-19 pandemic to renovate Aigle Studio, and install new recording equipment and instruments. When this is complete, Enya will begin working on new music.
Musical style
Enya's vocal range is mezzo-soprano. She has cited her musical foundations as "the classics", church music, and "Irish reels and jigs" with a particular interest in Sergei Rachmaninoff, a favourite composer of hers. She has an autographed picture of him in her home. Since 1982, she has recorded her music with Nicky Ryan as producer and arranger and his wife Roma Ryan as lyricist. While in Clannad, Enya chose to work with Nicky as the two shared an interest in vocal harmonies, and Ryan, influenced by The Beach Boys and the "Wall of Sound" technique that Phil Spector pioneered, wanted to explore the idea of "the multivocals" for which her music became known. According to Enya, "Angeles" from Shepherd Moons has roughly 500 vocals recorded individually and layered. Enya performs all vocals and the majority of instruments in her songs apart from musicians to play percussion, guitar, uilleann pipes, cornet, and double bass. Her early works including Watermark feature numerous keyboards, including the Yamaha KX88 Master, Yamaha DX7, Oberheim Matrix, Akai S900, Roland D-50, and Roland Juno-60, the latter a particular favourite of hers.
Numerous critics and reviewers classify Enya's albums as new age music and she has won four Grammy Awards in the category. However, Enya does not classify her music as part of the genre. When asked what genre she would classify her music, her reply was "Enya". Nicky Ryan commented on the new age comments: "Initially it was fine, but it's really not new age. Enya plays a whole lot of instruments, not just keyboards. Her melodies are strong and she sings a lot. So I can't see a comparison." The music video to "Caribbean Blue" and the art work to The Memory of Trees feature adapted works from artist Maxfield Parrish.
Enya has sung in ten languages in her career, including English, Irish, Latin, Welsh, Spanish, French and Japanese. She has recorded music influenced by works from fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien, including the instrumental "Lothlórien" from Shepherd Moons. For The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, she sang "May It Be" in English and Tolkien's fictional language Quenya, and sang "Aníron" in another of Tolkien's fictional languages, Sindarin. Her albums Amarantine and Dark Sky Island include songs sung in Loxian, a fictional language created by Roma, that has no official syntax. Its vocabulary was formed by Enya singing the song's notes to which Roma wrote their phonetic spelling.
Enya adopted a composing and songwriting method that has deviated little throughout her career. At the start of the recording process for an album she enters the studio, forgetting about her previous success, fame, and songs of hers that became hits. "If I did that", she said, "I'd have to call it a day". She then develops ideas on the piano, keeping note of any arrangement that can be worked on further. During her time writing, Enya works a five-day week, takes weekends off, and does not work on her music at home. With Irish as her first language, Enya initially records her songs in Irish as she can express "feeling much more directly" than English. After a period of time, Enya presents her ideas to Nicky to discuss what pieces work best, while Roma works in parallel to devise a lyric to the songs. Enya considered "Fallen Embers" from A Day Without Rain a perfect time when the lyrics reflect as to how she felt while writing the song. In 2008, she newly discovered her tendency to write "two or three songs" during the winter months, work on the arrangements and lyrics the following spring and summer, and then work on the next couple of songs when autumn arrives.
Live performances
Enya says that Warner Music and she "did not see eye to eye" initially as the label imagined her performing on stage "with a piano ... maybe two or three synthesiser players and that's it". Enya also explained that the time put into her studio albums causes her to "run overtime", leaving little time to plan for other such projects. She also expressed the difficulty in recreating her studio-oriented sound for the stage. In 1996, Ryan said Enya had received an offer worth almost £500,000 to perform a concert in Japan. In 2016, Enya spoke about the prospect of a live concert when she revealed talks with the Ryans during her three-year break after And Winter Came... (2008) to perform a show at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City that would be simulcast to cinemas worldwide. Before such an event could happen, Nicky suggested that she enter a studio and record "all the hits" live with an orchestra and choir to see how they would sound.
Enya has sung with live and lip synching vocals on various talk and music shows, events, and ceremonies throughout her career, usually during her worldwide press tours for each album. In December 1995, she performed "Anywhere Is" at a Christmas concert at Vatican City with Pope John Paul II in attendance, who met and thanked her for performing. In April 1996, Enya performed the same song during her surprise appearance at the fiftieth birthday celebration for Carl XVI Gustaf, the King of Sweden and a fan of Enya's. In 1997, Enya participated in a live Christmas Eve broadcast in London and flew to County Donegal afterwards to join her family for their annual midnight Mass choral performance, in which she participates each year. In March 2002, she performed "May It Be" with an orchestra at the year's Academy Awards ceremony. Enya and her sisters performed as part of the local choir Cor Mhuire in July 2005 at St. Mary's church in Gweedore during the annual Earagail Arts Festival.
Personal life
Since the 1980s, Enya has attracted the attention of several stalkers. In 1996, an Italian man who was seen in Dublin wearing a photograph of Enya around his neck stabbed himself outside her parents' pub after being ejected from the premises.
In 1991, a minor planet first discovered in 1978, 6433 Enya, was named after her. In 2017, a newly discovered species of fish, Leporinus enyae, found in the Orinoco River drainage area, was also named after her.
Enya is known for keeping a private lifestyle, saying: "The music is what sells. Not me, or what I stand for ... that's the way I've always wanted it". She is not married and is a surrogate aunt to the Ryans' two daughters. In 1991, she said: "I'm afraid of marriage because I'm afraid someone might want me because of who I am instead of because they loved me... I wouldn't go rushing into anything unexpected, but I do think a great deal about this". A relationship she had with one man ended in 1997, around the time when she considered taking time out of music to have a family but found she was putting pressure on herself over the matter and "gone the route I wanted to go". She declares herself as "more spiritual than religious... I derive from religion what I enjoy."
In 1997, Enya bought a Victorian Grade A listed castellated mansion in Killiney, County Dublin for IR£2.5 million at auction. Formerly known as Victoria Castle and Ayesha Castle, she renamed it Manderley Castle after the house from the novel Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. In all, she spent seven years renovating her property and also installing considerable security measures. In 2005, Enya spent around £250,000 on security improvements, covering gaps in the castle's outer wall and installing bollards and iron railings. In October of that year, two people broke into the home; one attacked and tied up one of her housekeepers and left with several of Enya's items after she had raised the alarm in her safe room. In 2009, during her three-year break from music, Enya purchased a home in southern France.
In 2006, Enya ranked third in a list of the wealthiest Irish entertainers with an estimated fortune of £75 million, and was number 95 in the Sunday Times Rich List of the richest 250 Irish people. In the 2016 edition, which listed its top 50 Music Millionaires of Britain and Ireland, she emerged as the richest female singer with a fortune of £91 million and ranked number 28 overall.
Awards and nominations
Billboard Music Awards
|-
| rowspan=4|2001
| rowspan=2|Enya
| Top Billboard 200 Artist - Female
|
|-
| Top New Age Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=3|A Day Without Rain
| Top Internet Album
|
|-
| rowspan=2|Top New Age Album
|
|-
| rowspan=3|2002
|
|-
| rowspan=2|Enya
| Top New Age Artist
|
|-
| Top Adult Contemporary Artist
|
Grammy Awards
|-
| rowspan=2|1990
| rowspan=2|"Orinoco Flow"
| Best New Age Performance
|
|-
| Best Music Video
|
|-
| 1993
| Shepherd Moons
| rowspan=3|Best New Age Album
|
|-
| 1997
| The Memory of Trees
|
|-
| 2002
| A Day Without Rain
|
|-
| 2003
| "May It Be"
| Best Song Written for Visual Media
|
|-
| rowspan="2"|2007
| "Drifting"
| Best Pop Instrumental Performance
|
|-
| Amarantine
| rowspan=2|Best New Age Album
|
|-
| 2017
| Dark Sky Island
|
IFPI Hong Kong Top Sales Music Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 2001
| A Day Without Rain
| Top 10 Best Sales Foreign Albums
|
|
Japan Gold Disc Awards
|-
| 1990
| Enya
| New Artist of the Year
|
|-
| 1998
| Paint the Sky with Stars
| Best 3 Albums
|
|-
| 2001
| A Day Without Rain
| International Pop Album of the Year
|
|-
| 2002
| Themes from Calmi Cuori Appassionati
| Best 3 Albums
|
|-
| 2006
| Amarantine
| International Album of the Year
|
World Music Awards
|-
| rowspan="2"|2001
| rowspan="7"| Enya
| World's Best Selling Irish Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=2|World's Best Selling New Age Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=3|2002
|
|-
| World's Best Selling Female Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=3|World's Best Selling Irish Artist
|
|-
| 2003
|
|-
| 2006
|
Žebřík Music Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1993
| rowspan=3|Enya
| rowspan=3|Best International Female
|
|
|-
| 1997
|
|
|-
| 2005
|
|
Other Awards
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|1989
|rowspan="3"|Enya
| Brit Award for Best International Artist
|
|-
| Brit Award for Best International Female
|
|-
| IRMA Award for Best Female Irish Artist
|
|-
!scope="row"|1990
| "Orinoco Flow"
| BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row"|1992
|rowspan="3"|Enya
|rowspan="2"|Brit Award for Best International Solo Artist
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|1993
|
|-
| IRMA Award for Best Female Irish Artist
|
|-
| "Book of Days"
| Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan=1|1998
| Enya, Nicky Ryan, and Roma Ryan
| Ivor Novello Award for International Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row"|2001
| rowspan="4"| "May It Be"
| Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Song
|
|-
!scope="row"|2001
| Broadcast Film Critics Association for Best Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row"|2002
| Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row"|2002
| Academy Award for Best Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="4"|2002
| rowspan="2"| Enya
| American Music Award for Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist
|
|-
| Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
|
|-
| rowspan=3|"Only Time"
| ECHO Award for Best Single of the Year (International)
|
|-
| BDSCertified Spin Awards – 300,000 Spins
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="1"|2003
| rowspan="1"|BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|2004
| rowspan=4|"I Don't Wanna Know"
| Vibe Award for R&B Song of the Year
|
|-
| MOBO Award for Best Single
|
|-
| MOBO Award for Best Ringtone
|
|-
!scope="row"|2005
| BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row"|2016
| Dark Sky Island
| ECHO Award for Best Female of the Year (International)
|
|-
|}
Discography
Studio albums
Enya (1987) (reissued in 1992 as The Celts)
Watermark (1988)
Shepherd Moons (1991)
The Memory of Trees (1995)
A Day Without Rain (2000)
Amarantine (2005)
And Winter Came... (2008)
Dark Sky Island (2015)
See also
Honorific nicknames in popular music
List of ambient music artists
List of artists who reached number one on the UK Singles Chart
List of best-selling music artists
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
References
Sources
External links
1961 births
20th-century Irish women singers
21st-century Irish women singers
Celtic fusion musicians
Clannad members
Grammy Award winners
Irish women composers
Irish folk singers
Irish-language singers
Irish mezzo-sopranos
Irish pianists
Irish pop singers
Irish women singer-songwriters
Ivor Novello Award winners
Latin-language singers
Living people
Musicians from County Donegal
New-age musicians
People from Dalkey
People from Gweedore
Warner Music Group artists
Women in electronic music
World Music Awards winners
People from Killiney
20th-century women composers
21st-century women composers | true | [
"Universal Classics and Jazz (UCJ) is the name of two record label divisions of the Universal Music Group record company.\n\nCurrent divisions\n\nUCJ Germany\nUniversal Music Classics & Jazz (Germany) is a division of Universal Music Germany and is marketed under websites called Klassik Akzente and Jazz Echo.\n\nUCJ Japan (a.k.a. UM-CLJZ) \nThis Universal Music Japan subsidiary formerly operated as two separate labels: Universal Classics and Universal Jazz.\n\nOn 2013, Universal Music Japan merged the two labels into one. The label name is now Universal Classics and Jazz (UM-CLJZ).\n\nDefunct divisions\n\nUCJ (UK)\n\nUniversal Classics and Jazz was a division of the Universal Music Group based in London, United Kingdom. The UCJ roster included Jamie Cullum, Aled Jones, Nicola Benedetti and Katherine Jenkins.\n\nAt the time that Katherine Jenkins was signed to the label in 2003, she had signed the then-largest record deal in United Kingdom classical recording history, reportedly worth £1 million.\n\nThe label group was dismantled in 2011 with the restructuring of Universal Music UK's classical operations, as well Universal Music Group International's greater restructuring of its classical labels. The dismantling of UCJ ensued the revival of Decca Records in the UK, under the instigation of Max Hole, the newly appointed Chief operating officer (COO) of Universal Music Group International.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n – official site (UK)\n – official site (JP)\n\nKlassikakzente\nJazzEcho\n\nBritish record labels\nGerman record labels\nJazz record labels\nClassics",
"Swarobanjo (also spelled as Swarbenjo or Swarbanjo) is a Rajshahi based Bengali 'folk fusion' music group formed in 2014. The group is known for its folk music, original musical ideas, the use of indigenous musical instruments in concerts, and live performances. In 2014, Swarbanjo started performing as a music group with Yamin Iskra Rahman, Maisha, Ragib Niaz Rafi, and Asif Hasan Niloy, students of Rajshahi University. The group is open for others to join as a member. In 2015, they released their debut album 'Gan Bajna'. They later released 'Hawar Chithi' in 2016 and several other solo songs.\n\nHistory \nYamin Iskra Rahman, the main initiator of the formation of Swarobanjo, has been practicing music since childhood. In 2014, he studied law at Rajshahi University and practiced piano, tabla, and Hawaiian guitar. At that time, the writer Sadat Hossain wrote a song titled 'Boy of the Last Bench' on his Facebook and opened it for others to make music on it. Iskra sings Rafi's song and holds it in his ventricular voice. Through this song, they started performing as a music group. The group first performed directly to the university and various crowds under the name Nikhil Bangla Ukulele Sangha. The band's name was later changed to a more appropriate name. On the advice of former member Raunak Hassan Rono, the group unanimously adopted the name Swarbanjo. Swarbanjo released their first studio album in 2015 titled 'Gan Bajna' since the formation. Their second album 'Hawar Chithi' came in 2016. In 2016, the group performed at the Dhaka International Folk Music Festival, which is the group's first performance in an international event.\n\nFeatures \nThe group distributes their albums free of charge under the Creative Commons license rather than the commercial release.\n\nMembers \n\nSwarobanjo's group membership is open to everyone, although some members perform regularly for the group.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nBengali musical groups\nWorld music groups\nMusical groups established in 2014\nBangladeshi folk music groups\nBangladeshi folk rock groups\nBangladeshi indie folk groups\nMusical groups from Rajshahi"
] |
[
"Enya",
"2008-present: And Winter Came... and Dark Sky Island",
"Can you provide me with a little information on And Winter Came..and Dark Sky Island?",
"seventh studio album, And Winter Came....",
"Is this the name of a music group?",
"seventh studio album,"
] | C_ca2198202da140e28165132567967682_1 | What was all involved in the making of this album? | 3 | What was all involved in the making of the album And Winter Came... and Dark Sky Island? | Enya | Enya continued to write music with a winter and Christmas theme for her seventh studio album, And Winter Came.... Initially she intended to make an album of seasonal songs and hymns set for a release in late 2007, but decided to produce a winter-themed album instead. The track "My! My! Time Flies!", a tribute to the late Irish guitarist Jimmy Faulkner, incorporates a guitar solo performed by Pat Farrell, the first use of a guitar on an Enya album since "I Want Tomorrow" from Enya. Upon its release in November 2008, And Winter Came... reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 8 in the US and sold almost 3.5 million copies worldwide by 2011. After promoting And Winter Came..., Enya took an extended break from writing and recording music. She spent her time resting, visiting family in Australia, and renovating her new home in the south of France. In March 2009, her first four studio albums were reissued in Japan in the Super High Material CD format with bonus tracks. Her second compilation album and DVD, The Very Best of Enya, was released in November 2009 and features songs from 1987 to 2008, including a previously unreleased version of "Aniron". In 2013, "Only Time" was used in an advertisement by Volvo Trucks starring Jean-Claude Van Damme who does the splits while suspended between two lorries. The video went viral, leading to numerous parodies of the commercial uploaded to YouTube also using "Only Time". The attention resulted in the song peaking at No. 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. In 2012, Enya returned to the studio to record her eighth album, Dark Sky Island. Its name references the island of Sark, where it became the first island to be designated a dark-sky preserve, and a series of poems on islands by Roma Ryan. The new album was promoted with the premiere in October 2015 of its lead single, "Echoes in Rain", on Ken Bruce's radio show and with the release in the same month of the single as a digital download. Upon its release on 20 November 2015, Dark Sky Island went to No. 4 in the UK, Enya's highest charting studio album there since Shepherd Moons went to No. 1, and to No. 8 in the US. A Deluxe Edition features three additional songs. Enya completed a promotional tour of the UK and Europe, the US and Japan. During her visit to Japan, Enya performed "Orinoco Flow" and "Echoes in Rain" at the Universal Studios Japan Christmas show in Osaka. In December 2016, Enya appeared on the Raidio Teilifis Eireann Christmas special Christmas Carols from Cork, marking her first appearance on Irish television in a decade. She sang "Adeste Fideles" and "Oiche Chiuin" as well as her own carol composition "The Spirit of Christmas Past". CANNOTANSWER | Initially she intended to make an album of seasonal songs and hymns set for a release in late 2007, but decided to produce a winter-themed album instead. | Enya Patricia Brennan ( ; born 17 May 1961) is an Irish singer, songwriter and musician, known for pioneering modern Celtic and New-age music. Regarded as the "Queen of New Age", Enya is the best-selling Irish solo artist in history, and second-best-selling overall behind U2. Born into a musical family and raised in the Irish-speaking area of Gweedore, County Donegal, Enya began her music career when she joined her family's Celtic folk band Clannad in 1980 on keyboards and backing vocals. She left the group in 1982 with their manager and producer Nicky Ryan to pursue a solo career, with Ryan's wife Roma Ryan as her lyricist. Enya developed her sound over the following four years with multitracked vocals and keyboards with elements of new age, Celtic, classical, church, world, pop, and Irish folk. Thus far, she has sung in ten languages, most notably English, Irish Gaelic (Gaeilge), Latin, and Welsh.
Enya's first projects as a solo artist included soundtrack work for The Frog Prince (1984) and the 1987 BBC documentary series The Celts, which was released as her debut album, Enya (1987). She signed with Warner Music UK, which granted her artistic freedom and minimal interference from the label. The commercial and critical success of Watermark (1988) propelled her to worldwide fame, helped by the UK number one and international hit single "Orinoco Flow". This was followed by the multi-million-selling albums Shepherd Moons (1991), The Memory of Trees (1995), and A Day Without Rain (2000). Sales of the latter and its lead single, "Only Time", surged in the United States following its use in the media coverage of the September 11 attacks. Following Amarantine (2005) and And Winter Came... (2008), Enya took a four-year career hiatus before she resumed in 2012 and released her eighth studio album, Dark Sky Island (2015).
Enya's discography has sold 26.5 million certified albums in the United States and an estimated 75 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. A Day Without Rain (2000) remains the best-selling new-age album, with an estimated 16 million copies sold worldwide. Enya has won numerous awards, including seven World Music Awards, four Grammy Awards for Best New Age Album, and an Ivor Novello Award. She was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for "May It Be", written for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).
Early life
Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin was born on 17 May 1961 in Dore, a settlement in the parish of Gweedore, in County Donegal. It is a Gaeltacht region where Irish is the primary language. Her name is anglicised as Enya Patricia Brennan, where Enya is the phonetic spelling of how "Eithne" is pronounced in her native Ulster dialect of Irish; "Ní Bhraonáin" translates to "daughter of Brennan". The sixth of nine children, Enya was born into a Roman Catholic family of musicians. Her father, Leo Brennan, was the leader of the Slieve Foy Band, an Irish showband, and ran Leo's Tavern in Meenaleck. Her mother, Máire Brennan (née Duggan), who has distant Spanish roots whose ancestors settled on Tory Island, was an amateur musician who played in Leo's band and taught music at Gweedore Community School. Enya's maternal grandfather Aodh was the headmaster of the primary school in Dore, and her grandmother was a teacher there. Aodh was also the founder of the Gweedore Theatre company.
Enya described her upbringing as "very quiet and happy." At age three, she took part in her first singing competition at the annual Feis Ceoil music festival. She took part in pantomimes at Gweedore Theatre and sang with her siblings in her mother's choir at St Mary's church in Derrybeg. She learned English at primary school and began piano lessons at age four. "I had to do school work and then travel to a neighbouring town for piano lessons, and then more school work. I ... remember my brothers and sisters playing outside ... and I would be inside playing the piano. This one big book of scales, practising them over and over." When Enya turned eleven, her grandfather paid for her education at a strict convent boarding school in Milford run by nuns of the Loreto order, where she developed a taste for classical music, art, Latin and watercolour painting. She said: "It was devastating to be torn away from such a large family, but it was good for my music." Enya left the school at 17 and studied classical music in college for one year, with the aim of becoming "a piano teacher sort of person. I never thought of myself composing or being on stage."
Career
1980–1985: Clannad and early solo career
In 1970, several members of Enya's family formed Clannad, a Celtic folk band who later acquired Nicky Ryan as their manager, sound engineer, and producer, and his future wife, Roma Ryan, as tour manager and administrator. In 1980, after her year at college, Enya decided against pursuing music at university and accepted Ryan's invitation to join the group as he wanted to expand their sound with an additional vocalist and introducing keyboards. Enya performed an uncredited role their sixth studio album, Crann Úll (1980), with a line-up of siblings Máire, Pól, and Ciarán Brennan, and twin uncles Noel and Pádraig Duggan. She became an official member by the time their follow-up, Fuaim (1981), was released, and is photographed with the band on the front cover. Nicky maintained it was never his intention to make Enya a permanent member, and saw she was "fiercely independent ... intent on playing her own music. She was just not sure of how to go about it". This sparked discussions between the two on layering vocal tracks to create a "choir of one", a concept inspired by the Wall of Sound technique by producer Phil Spector that interested them both.
During a Clannad tour in 1982, Nicky called for a band meeting to address internal issues that had arisen. He added, "It was short and only required a vote, I was a minority of one and lost. Roma and I were out. This left the question of what happened with Enya. I decided to stand back and say nothing". Enya chose to leave with the Ryans and pursue a solo career as she felt confined in the group, and disliked being "somebody in the background". This caused some friction between the two parties at first, but they settled their differences. Nicky suggested to Enya that either she return to Gweedore "with no particular definite future", or live with him and Roma in Artane, Dublin "and see what happens, musically", which she accepted. After their bank denied them a loan, Enya sold her saxophone and gave piano lessons for income and the Ryans used what they could afford from their savings to build a recording facility in a shed in their garden. They named it Aigle Studio, after the French word for "eagle", and rented it out to musicians to help recoup the costs. The trio formed a musical partnership, with Nicky as Enya's producer and arranger and Roma her lyricist, and established their music company, Aigle Music. In the following two years, Enya developed her technique and composition by listening to recordings of her reciting pieces of classical music, and repeated the process until she started to improvise sections and develop her own arrangements. Her first composition was "An Taibhse Uaighneach", Irish for "The Lonely Ghost". During this time Enya played the synthesiser on Ceol Aduaidh (1983) by Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh and Frankie Kennedy, and performed with the duo and Mhaonaigh's brother Gearóid in their short lived group, Ragairne.
Enya's first solo endeavour arrived in 1983 when she recorded two piano instrumentals, "An Ghaoth Ón Ghrian", Irish for "The Solar Wind", and "Miss Clare Remembers", at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin which were released on Touch Travel (1984), a limited release cassette of music from various artists on the Touch label. She is credited as Eithne Ní Bhraonáin on its liner notes. After several months of preparation, Enya's first live solo performance took place on 23 September 1983 at the National Stadium in Dublin, which was televised for RTÉ's music show Festival Folk. Niall Morris, a musician who worked with her during this time, recalled she "was so nervous she could barely get on stage, and she cowered behind the piano until the gig was over."
Morris assisted Enya in the production of a demo tape, playing additional keyboards to her compositions, which Roma thought would suit accompanying visuals and sent it to various film producers. Among them was David Puttnam, who liked the tape and offered Enya to compose the soundtrack to his upcoming romantic comedy film, The Frog Prince (1984). Enya scored nine pieces for the film but they were later rearranged and orchestrated against her wishes by Richard Myhill, except for two that she sang on, "The Frog Prince" and "Dreams"; the words to the latter were penned by Charlie McGettigan. Film editor Jim Clark said the rearrangements were necessary as Enya found it difficult to compose to picture. Released in 1985, the album is the first commercial release that credits her as Enya, after Nicky Ryan thought "Eithne" would be too difficult for non-Irish people to pronounce correctly and suggested the phonetic spelling of her name. Enya looked back on the film as a good career move, but a disappointing one as "we weren't part of it at the end". She then sang on three tracks on Ordinary Man (1985) by Christy Moore.
1985–1989: The Celts and Watermark
In 1985, producer Tony McAuley asked Enya to contribute a track for a six-part BBC television documentary series The Celts. She had already written a Celtic-influenced song named "The March of the Celts", and submitted it to the project. Each episode was to feature a different composer at first, but director David Richardson liked her track so much, he had Enya score the entire series. Enya recorded 72 minutes of music at Aigle Studio and the BBC studios in Wood Lane, London without recording to picture, though she was required to portray certain themes and ideas that the producers wanted. Unlike The Frog Prince, she worked with little interference which granted her freedom to establish her sound that she would adopt throughout her future career, signified by layered vocals, keyboard-oriented music, and percussion with elements of Celtic, classical, church and folk music.
In March 1987, two months before The Celts aired, a 40-minute selection of Enya's score was released as her debut solo album, Enya, by BBC Records in the United Kingdom and by Atlantic Records in the United States. The latter promoted it with a new-age imprint on the packaging, which Nicky later thought was "a cowardly thing for them to do". The album gained enough public attention to reach number 8 on the Irish Albums Chart and number 69 on the UK Albums Chart. "I Want Tomorrow" was released as Enya's first single. "Boadicea" was sampled by The Fugees on their 1996 song "Ready or Not"; the group neither sought permission nor gave credit, and Enya took legal action. The group subsequently gave her credit and paid a fee worth around $3 million. Later in 1987, Enya appeared on Sinéad O'Connor's debut album The Lion and the Cobra, reciting Psalm 91 in Irish on "Never Get Old".
Several weeks after the release of Enya, Enya secured a recording contract with Warner Music UK after Rob Dickins, the label's chairman and a fan of Clannad, took a liking to Enya and found himself playing it "every night before I went to bed". He then met Enya and the Ryans at a chance meeting at the Irish Recorded Music Association award ceremony in Dublin, and learned Enya had entered negotiations with a rival label. Dickins seized the opportunity and signed her to Warner Music with a deal worth £75,000, granting her wish to write and record with artistic freedom, minimal interference from the label, and without set deadlines to finish albums. Dickins said: "Sometimes you sign an act to make money, and sometimes you sign an act to make music. This was clearly the latter ... I just wanted to be involved with this music." Enya then left Atlantic and signed with the Warner-led Geffen Records to handle her American distribution.
With the green-light to produce a new studio album, Enya recorded Watermark from June 1987 to April 1988. It was initially recorded in analogue at Aigle Studio before Dickins requested to have it re-recorded digitally at Orinoco Studios in Bermondsey, London. Watermark was released in September 1988 and became an unexpected hit, reaching number 5 in the United Kingdom and number 25 on the Billboard 200 in the United States following its release there in January 1989. Its lead single, "Orinoco Flow", was the last song written for the album. It was not intended to be a single at first, but Enya and the Ryans chose it after Dickins asked for a single from them several times as a joke, knowing Enya's music was not made for the Top 40 chart. Dickins and engineer Ross Cullum are referenced in the songs' lyrics. "Orinoco Flow" became an international top 10 hit and was number one in the United Kingdom for three weeks. The new-found success propelled Enya to international fame and she received endorsement deals and offers to use her music in television commercials. She spent one year travelling worldwide to promote the album which increased her exposure through interviews, appearances, and live performances. By 1996, Watermark had sold in excess of 1.2 million copies in the United Kingdom and 4 million in the United States.
1989–1997: Shepherd Moons and The Memory of Trees
After promoting Watermark, Enya purchased new recording equipment and started work on her next album, Shepherd Moons. She found the success of Watermark caused a considerable amount of pressure when it came to writing new songs, adding, "I kept thinking, 'Would this have gone on Watermark? Is it as good?' Eventually I had to forget about this and start on a blank canvas and just really go with what felt right." Enya wrote songs based on several ideas, including entries from her diary, the Blitz in London, and her grandparents. Shepherd Moons was released in November 1991, her first album released under Warner-led Reprise Records in the United States. It became a greater commercial success than Watermark, reaching number one in the UK for one week and number 17 in the United States. "Caribbean Blue", its lead single, charted at number thirteen in the United Kingdom. By 1997, the album had reached multi-platinum certification for selling in excess of 1.2 million copies in the United Kingdom and 5 million in the United States.
In 1991, Warner Music released a collection of five Enya music videos as Moonshadows for home video. In 1993, Enya won her first Grammy Award for Best New Age Album for Shepherd Moons. Soon after, Enya and Nicky entered discussions with Industrial Light & Magic, founded by George Lucas, regarding an elaborate stage lighting system for a proposed concert tour, but nothing came out of the meetings. In November 1992, Warner had obtained the rights to Enya and re-released the album as The Celts with new artwork. It surpassed its initial sale performance, reaching number 10 in the United Kingdom and reached platinum certification in the United States in 1996 for one million copies shipped.
After travelling worldwide to promote Shepherd Moons, Enya started to write and record her fourth album, The Memory of Trees. The album was released in November 1995. It peaked at number five in the United Kingdom and number nine in the United States, where it sold over 3 million copies. Its lead single, "Anywhere Is", reached number seven in the United Kingdom. The second, "On My Way Home", reached number twenty-six in the same country. In late 1994, Enya put out an extended play of Christmas music titled The Christmas EP. Enya was offered to compose the score for Titanic, but declined. A recording of her singing "Oíche Chiúin", an Irish-language version of "Silent Night", appeared on the charity album A Very Special Christmas 3, released in benefit of the Special Olympics in October 1997.
In early 1997, Enya began to select tracks for her first compilation album, "trying to select the obvious ones, the hits, and others." She chose to work on the collection following the promotional tour for The Memory of Trees as she felt it was the right time in her career, and that her contract with WEA required her to release a "best of" album. The set, named Paint the Sky with Stars: The Best of Enya, features two new tracks, "Paint the Sky with Stars" and "Only If...". Released in November 1997, the album was a worldwide commercial success, reaching No. 4 in the UK and No. 30 in the US, where it went on to sell over 4 million copies. "Only If..." was released as a single in 1997. Enya described the album as "like a musical diary ... each melody has a little story and I live through that whole story from the beginning ... your mind goes back to that day and what you were thinking."
1998–2007: A Day Without Rain and Amarantine
Enya started work on her fifth studio album, titled A Day Without Rain, in mid-1998. In a departure from her previous albums she incorporated the use of a string section into her compositions, something that was not a conscious decision at first, but Enya and Nicky Ryan agreed it complemented the songs that were being written. The album was released in November 2000, and reached number 6 in the United Kingdom and an initial peak of number 17 in the United States. In the aftermath of the 11 September attacks, sales of the album and its lead single, "Only Time", surged after the song was widely used during radio and television coverage of the events, leading to its description as "a post-September 11 anthem". The exposure caused A Day Without Rain to outperform its original chart performance to peak at number 2 on the Billboard 200, and the release of a maxi single containing the original and a pop remix of "Only Time" in November 2001. Enya donated its proceeds in aid of the International Association of Firefighters. The song topped the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart and went to number 10 on the Hot 100 singles, Enya's highest charting US single to date. A second single, "Wild Child", was released in December 2001. A Day Without Rain remains Enya's biggest seller, with 7 million copies sold in the US and the most sold new-age album of all time with an estimated 13 million copies sold worldwide.
In 2001, Enya agreed to write and perform on two tracks for the soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) at the request of director Peter Jackson. Its composer Howard Shore "imagined her voice" as he wrote the film's score, making an uncommon exception to include another artist in one of his soundtracks. After flying to New Zealand to observe the filming and to watch a rough cut of the film, Enya returned to Ireland and composed "Aníron (Theme for Aragorn and Arwen)" with lyrics by Roma in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Elvish language Sindarin, and "May It Be", sung in English and another Tolkien language, Quenya. Shore then based his orchestrations around Enya's recorded vocals and themes to create "a seamless sound". In 2002, Enya released "May It Be" as a single which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. She performed the song live at the 74th Academy Awards ceremony with an orchestra in March 2002, and later cited the moment as a career highlight.
Enya undertook additional studio projects in 2001 and 2002. The first was work on the soundtrack to the Japanese romantic film Calmi Cuori Appassionati (2001) which was subsequently released as Themes from Calmi Cuori Appassionati (2001). The album is formed of tracks spanning her career from Enya to A Day Without Rain with two B-sides. The album went to number 2 in Japan, and became Enya's second to sell one million copies in the country. November 2002 saw the release of Only Time – The Collection, a box set of 51 tracks recorded through her career which received a limited release of 200,000 copies.
In September 2003, Enya returned to Aigle Studio to start work on her sixth studio album, Amarantine. Roma said the title means "everlasting". The album marks the first instance of Enya singing in Loxian, a fictional language created by Roma that came about when Enya was working on "Water Shows the Hidden Heart". After numerous attempts to sing the song in English, Irish and Latin, Roma suggested a new language based on some of the sounds Enya would sing along to when developing her songs. It was a success, and Enya sang "Less Than a Pearl" and "The River Sings" in the same way. Roma worked on the language further, creating a "culture and history" behind it surrounding the Loxian people who are of another planet, questioning the existence of life on another. "Sumiregusa (Wild Violet)" is sung in Japanese. Amarantine was a global success, reaching number 6 on the Billboard 200 and number 8 in the UK. It has sold over 1 million certified copies in the US, a considerable drop in sales in comparison to her previous albums. Enya dedicated the album to BBC producer Tony McAuley, who had commissioned Enya to write the soundtrack to The Celts, following his death in 2003. The lead single, "Amarantine", was released in December 2005. A Christmas Special Edition was released in 2006, followed by a Deluxe Edition.
In 2006, Enya released Sounds of the Season: The Enya Holiday Collection, a Christmas-themed EP released exclusively in the US following an exclusive partnership with the NBC network and the Target department store chain. It includes two new songs, "Christmas Secrets" and "The Magic of the Night".
In June 2007, Enya received an honorary doctorate from the National University of Ireland, Galway. A month later, she received one from the University of Ulster.
2008–present: And Winter Came..., Dark Sky Island, and future
Enya continued to write music with a winter and Christmas theme for her seventh studio album, And Winter Came.... Initially she intended to make an album of seasonal songs and hymns set for a release in late 2007, but decided to produce a winter-themed album instead. The track "My! My! Time Flies!", a tribute to the late Irish guitarist Jimmy Faulkner, incorporates a guitar solo performed by Pat Farrell, the first use of a guitar on an Enya album since "I Want Tomorrow" from Enya. The lyrics also include atypical pop-culture references, such as to The Beatles' famous photo shoot for the cover of Abbey Road. Upon its release in November 2008, And Winter Came... reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 8 in the US and sold almost 3.5 million copies worldwide by 2011.
After promoting And Winter Came..., Enya took an extended break from writing and recording music. She spent her time resting, visiting family in Australia, and renovating her new home in the south of France. In March 2009, her first four studio albums were reissued in Japan in the Super High Material CD format with bonus tracks. Her second compilation album, The Very Best of Enya, was released in November 2009 and features songs from 1987 to 2008, including a previously unreleased version of "Aníron" and a DVD compiling most of her music videos to date. In 2013, "Only Time" was used in the "Epic Split" advertisement by Volvo Trucks starring Jean-Claude Van Damme who does the splits while suspended between two lorries. The video went viral, leading to numerous parodies of the commercial uploaded to YouTube also using "Only Time". The attention resulted in the song peaking at No. 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
In 2012, Enya returned to the studio to record her eighth album, Dark Sky Island. Its name refers to the island of Sark, which became the first island to be designated a dark-sky preserve, and a series of poems on islands by Roma Ryan. Upon its release on 20 November 2015, Dark Sky Island went to No. 4 in the UK, Enya's highest charting studio album there since Shepherd Moons went to No. 1, and to No. 8 in the US. A Deluxe Edition features three additional songs. Enya completed a promotional tour of the UK and Europe, the US and Japan. During her visit to Japan, Enya performed "Orinoco Flow" and "Echoes in Rain" at the Universal Studios Japan Christmas show in Osaka. In December 2016, Enya appeared on the Irish television show Christmas Carols from Cork, marking her first Irish television appearance in over seven years. She sang "Adeste Fideles", "Oiche Chiúin", and "The Spirit of Christmas Past".
On 4 November 2021, a Shepherd Moons "watch party" video was uploaded to Enya's official YouTube channel to commemorate the album's 30th anniversary. In his introductory message, Nicky Ryan said that Roma, Enya, and he used the downtime from the COVID-19 pandemic to renovate Aigle Studio, and install new recording equipment and instruments. When this is complete, Enya will begin working on new music.
Musical style
Enya's vocal range is mezzo-soprano. She has cited her musical foundations as "the classics", church music, and "Irish reels and jigs" with a particular interest in Sergei Rachmaninoff, a favourite composer of hers. She has an autographed picture of him in her home. Since 1982, she has recorded her music with Nicky Ryan as producer and arranger and his wife Roma Ryan as lyricist. While in Clannad, Enya chose to work with Nicky as the two shared an interest in vocal harmonies, and Ryan, influenced by The Beach Boys and the "Wall of Sound" technique that Phil Spector pioneered, wanted to explore the idea of "the multivocals" for which her music became known. According to Enya, "Angeles" from Shepherd Moons has roughly 500 vocals recorded individually and layered. Enya performs all vocals and the majority of instruments in her songs apart from musicians to play percussion, guitar, uilleann pipes, cornet, and double bass. Her early works including Watermark feature numerous keyboards, including the Yamaha KX88 Master, Yamaha DX7, Oberheim Matrix, Akai S900, Roland D-50, and Roland Juno-60, the latter a particular favourite of hers.
Numerous critics and reviewers classify Enya's albums as new age music and she has won four Grammy Awards in the category. However, Enya does not classify her music as part of the genre. When asked what genre she would classify her music, her reply was "Enya". Nicky Ryan commented on the new age comments: "Initially it was fine, but it's really not new age. Enya plays a whole lot of instruments, not just keyboards. Her melodies are strong and she sings a lot. So I can't see a comparison." The music video to "Caribbean Blue" and the art work to The Memory of Trees feature adapted works from artist Maxfield Parrish.
Enya has sung in ten languages in her career, including English, Irish, Latin, Welsh, Spanish, French and Japanese. She has recorded music influenced by works from fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien, including the instrumental "Lothlórien" from Shepherd Moons. For The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, she sang "May It Be" in English and Tolkien's fictional language Quenya, and sang "Aníron" in another of Tolkien's fictional languages, Sindarin. Her albums Amarantine and Dark Sky Island include songs sung in Loxian, a fictional language created by Roma, that has no official syntax. Its vocabulary was formed by Enya singing the song's notes to which Roma wrote their phonetic spelling.
Enya adopted a composing and songwriting method that has deviated little throughout her career. At the start of the recording process for an album she enters the studio, forgetting about her previous success, fame, and songs of hers that became hits. "If I did that", she said, "I'd have to call it a day". She then develops ideas on the piano, keeping note of any arrangement that can be worked on further. During her time writing, Enya works a five-day week, takes weekends off, and does not work on her music at home. With Irish as her first language, Enya initially records her songs in Irish as she can express "feeling much more directly" than English. After a period of time, Enya presents her ideas to Nicky to discuss what pieces work best, while Roma works in parallel to devise a lyric to the songs. Enya considered "Fallen Embers" from A Day Without Rain a perfect time when the lyrics reflect as to how she felt while writing the song. In 2008, she newly discovered her tendency to write "two or three songs" during the winter months, work on the arrangements and lyrics the following spring and summer, and then work on the next couple of songs when autumn arrives.
Live performances
Enya says that Warner Music and she "did not see eye to eye" initially as the label imagined her performing on stage "with a piano ... maybe two or three synthesiser players and that's it". Enya also explained that the time put into her studio albums causes her to "run overtime", leaving little time to plan for other such projects. She also expressed the difficulty in recreating her studio-oriented sound for the stage. In 1996, Ryan said Enya had received an offer worth almost £500,000 to perform a concert in Japan. In 2016, Enya spoke about the prospect of a live concert when she revealed talks with the Ryans during her three-year break after And Winter Came... (2008) to perform a show at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City that would be simulcast to cinemas worldwide. Before such an event could happen, Nicky suggested that she enter a studio and record "all the hits" live with an orchestra and choir to see how they would sound.
Enya has sung with live and lip synching vocals on various talk and music shows, events, and ceremonies throughout her career, usually during her worldwide press tours for each album. In December 1995, she performed "Anywhere Is" at a Christmas concert at Vatican City with Pope John Paul II in attendance, who met and thanked her for performing. In April 1996, Enya performed the same song during her surprise appearance at the fiftieth birthday celebration for Carl XVI Gustaf, the King of Sweden and a fan of Enya's. In 1997, Enya participated in a live Christmas Eve broadcast in London and flew to County Donegal afterwards to join her family for their annual midnight Mass choral performance, in which she participates each year. In March 2002, she performed "May It Be" with an orchestra at the year's Academy Awards ceremony. Enya and her sisters performed as part of the local choir Cor Mhuire in July 2005 at St. Mary's church in Gweedore during the annual Earagail Arts Festival.
Personal life
Since the 1980s, Enya has attracted the attention of several stalkers. In 1996, an Italian man who was seen in Dublin wearing a photograph of Enya around his neck stabbed himself outside her parents' pub after being ejected from the premises.
In 1991, a minor planet first discovered in 1978, 6433 Enya, was named after her. In 2017, a newly discovered species of fish, Leporinus enyae, found in the Orinoco River drainage area, was also named after her.
Enya is known for keeping a private lifestyle, saying: "The music is what sells. Not me, or what I stand for ... that's the way I've always wanted it". She is not married and is a surrogate aunt to the Ryans' two daughters. In 1991, she said: "I'm afraid of marriage because I'm afraid someone might want me because of who I am instead of because they loved me... I wouldn't go rushing into anything unexpected, but I do think a great deal about this". A relationship she had with one man ended in 1997, around the time when she considered taking time out of music to have a family but found she was putting pressure on herself over the matter and "gone the route I wanted to go". She declares herself as "more spiritual than religious... I derive from religion what I enjoy."
In 1997, Enya bought a Victorian Grade A listed castellated mansion in Killiney, County Dublin for IR£2.5 million at auction. Formerly known as Victoria Castle and Ayesha Castle, she renamed it Manderley Castle after the house from the novel Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. In all, she spent seven years renovating her property and also installing considerable security measures. In 2005, Enya spent around £250,000 on security improvements, covering gaps in the castle's outer wall and installing bollards and iron railings. In October of that year, two people broke into the home; one attacked and tied up one of her housekeepers and left with several of Enya's items after she had raised the alarm in her safe room. In 2009, during her three-year break from music, Enya purchased a home in southern France.
In 2006, Enya ranked third in a list of the wealthiest Irish entertainers with an estimated fortune of £75 million, and was number 95 in the Sunday Times Rich List of the richest 250 Irish people. In the 2016 edition, which listed its top 50 Music Millionaires of Britain and Ireland, she emerged as the richest female singer with a fortune of £91 million and ranked number 28 overall.
Awards and nominations
Billboard Music Awards
|-
| rowspan=4|2001
| rowspan=2|Enya
| Top Billboard 200 Artist - Female
|
|-
| Top New Age Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=3|A Day Without Rain
| Top Internet Album
|
|-
| rowspan=2|Top New Age Album
|
|-
| rowspan=3|2002
|
|-
| rowspan=2|Enya
| Top New Age Artist
|
|-
| Top Adult Contemporary Artist
|
Grammy Awards
|-
| rowspan=2|1990
| rowspan=2|"Orinoco Flow"
| Best New Age Performance
|
|-
| Best Music Video
|
|-
| 1993
| Shepherd Moons
| rowspan=3|Best New Age Album
|
|-
| 1997
| The Memory of Trees
|
|-
| 2002
| A Day Without Rain
|
|-
| 2003
| "May It Be"
| Best Song Written for Visual Media
|
|-
| rowspan="2"|2007
| "Drifting"
| Best Pop Instrumental Performance
|
|-
| Amarantine
| rowspan=2|Best New Age Album
|
|-
| 2017
| Dark Sky Island
|
IFPI Hong Kong Top Sales Music Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 2001
| A Day Without Rain
| Top 10 Best Sales Foreign Albums
|
|
Japan Gold Disc Awards
|-
| 1990
| Enya
| New Artist of the Year
|
|-
| 1998
| Paint the Sky with Stars
| Best 3 Albums
|
|-
| 2001
| A Day Without Rain
| International Pop Album of the Year
|
|-
| 2002
| Themes from Calmi Cuori Appassionati
| Best 3 Albums
|
|-
| 2006
| Amarantine
| International Album of the Year
|
World Music Awards
|-
| rowspan="2"|2001
| rowspan="7"| Enya
| World's Best Selling Irish Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=2|World's Best Selling New Age Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=3|2002
|
|-
| World's Best Selling Female Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=3|World's Best Selling Irish Artist
|
|-
| 2003
|
|-
| 2006
|
Žebřík Music Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1993
| rowspan=3|Enya
| rowspan=3|Best International Female
|
|
|-
| 1997
|
|
|-
| 2005
|
|
Other Awards
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|1989
|rowspan="3"|Enya
| Brit Award for Best International Artist
|
|-
| Brit Award for Best International Female
|
|-
| IRMA Award for Best Female Irish Artist
|
|-
!scope="row"|1990
| "Orinoco Flow"
| BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row"|1992
|rowspan="3"|Enya
|rowspan="2"|Brit Award for Best International Solo Artist
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|1993
|
|-
| IRMA Award for Best Female Irish Artist
|
|-
| "Book of Days"
| Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan=1|1998
| Enya, Nicky Ryan, and Roma Ryan
| Ivor Novello Award for International Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row"|2001
| rowspan="4"| "May It Be"
| Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Song
|
|-
!scope="row"|2001
| Broadcast Film Critics Association for Best Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row"|2002
| Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row"|2002
| Academy Award for Best Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="4"|2002
| rowspan="2"| Enya
| American Music Award for Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist
|
|-
| Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
|
|-
| rowspan=3|"Only Time"
| ECHO Award for Best Single of the Year (International)
|
|-
| BDSCertified Spin Awards – 300,000 Spins
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="1"|2003
| rowspan="1"|BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|2004
| rowspan=4|"I Don't Wanna Know"
| Vibe Award for R&B Song of the Year
|
|-
| MOBO Award for Best Single
|
|-
| MOBO Award for Best Ringtone
|
|-
!scope="row"|2005
| BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row"|2016
| Dark Sky Island
| ECHO Award for Best Female of the Year (International)
|
|-
|}
Discography
Studio albums
Enya (1987) (reissued in 1992 as The Celts)
Watermark (1988)
Shepherd Moons (1991)
The Memory of Trees (1995)
A Day Without Rain (2000)
Amarantine (2005)
And Winter Came... (2008)
Dark Sky Island (2015)
See also
Honorific nicknames in popular music
List of ambient music artists
List of artists who reached number one on the UK Singles Chart
List of best-selling music artists
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
References
Sources
External links
1961 births
20th-century Irish women singers
21st-century Irish women singers
Celtic fusion musicians
Clannad members
Grammy Award winners
Irish women composers
Irish folk singers
Irish-language singers
Irish mezzo-sopranos
Irish pianists
Irish pop singers
Irish women singer-songwriters
Ivor Novello Award winners
Latin-language singers
Living people
Musicians from County Donegal
New-age musicians
People from Dalkey
People from Gweedore
Warner Music Group artists
Women in electronic music
World Music Awards winners
People from Killiney
20th-century women composers
21st-century women composers | true | [
"Myriam is the second studio album by Myriam. On her website it is also called \"Myriam: Lo que Soy, lo que Pretendo y lo que Fui\" (Myriam: What I Am, What I Pretend and What I Was) making reference to the lyrics of the album's first single \"Hasta El Limite\". It includes eleven songs with the collaboration of Tiziano Ferro, Leonel (ex Sin Bandera). Again Myriam co-wrote a song along with Estrella. In this album Myriam brought a more fresh concept, almost 100% pop genre with a little touches of flamenco. It was released in July, 2004.\n\nAlbum information\nIt was recorded in Argentina and the producer was Cachorro López who had also worked with Julieta Venegas. Myriam's career was at a low point, as she was being criticized for her third place in Desafio de Estrellas, but all that was eclipsed by the success of this album. \"Hasta el Limite\" was the first single from the album; it was Myriam's first song with a promotional video, and stayed in the charts for more than 6 months. The second single was \"Porque Soy Mujer\" which was written by Myriam and her ex-classmate Estrella.\n\nThe album was a commercial success. Within two weeks of the launch date it reached gold status in Mexico, and sold more than 200,000 copies certificating 2× Platinum. The album was a Latin success in USA selling gold status, 50,000 copies.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\n2003 albums\nMyriam Montemayor Cruz albums",
"Time to Think is the Debut studio album by British pop singer-songwriter Sarah Whatmore. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 March 2009. It features the singles \"Smile\" (in collaboration with Greg Fitzgerald) and \"Undefined\".\n\nIt was only the first album that Pop Idol participant Sarah Whatmore had released, as the release of her planned debut album in 2003 was cancelled. This was in spite of the success of singles \"When I Lost You\" and \"Automatic\", which both reached the top 10 in the UK Singles Chart.\n\nProduction and writing\nIn an interview for Digital Spy, Sarah talked about the recording of her new album and why it had taken her so long to release new material. She said \"The album is full of beautiful, classic-sounding songs that won't date because everything on there is quite real.\" She went on to say \"I've been involved in terms of melody, lyrics and creating the sound I wanted for the album, which is lots of piano and real strings.\" She also told the Daily Mirror that she had written over 200 songs in preparing for the album.\n\nWhen asked about the reason why her debut album was never released, she said \"The album was all finished and ready to go, we'd released the first two singles and we couldn't decide on a third single. Then the song 'Toxic' came through the door and, for like two days, I was going to do it. But then obviously Britney got it and I was like, 'You know what, I want to go and write and see what I come up with myself'.\" She said that Simon Fuller had remained as her manager since her Pop Idol appearance and was involved in the production of the album. She was also uncertain about whether she would be able to get back into the music industry.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences \n\n2009 debut albums\nSarah Whatmore albums\n19 Recordings albums"
] |
[
"Enya",
"2008-present: And Winter Came... and Dark Sky Island",
"Can you provide me with a little information on And Winter Came..and Dark Sky Island?",
"seventh studio album, And Winter Came....",
"Is this the name of a music group?",
"seventh studio album,",
"What was all involved in the making of this album?",
"Initially she intended to make an album of seasonal songs and hymns set for a release in late 2007, but decided to produce a winter-themed album instead."
] | C_ca2198202da140e28165132567967682_1 | Is her winter-themed album popular? | 4 | Is Enya's winter-themed album popular? | Enya | Enya continued to write music with a winter and Christmas theme for her seventh studio album, And Winter Came.... Initially she intended to make an album of seasonal songs and hymns set for a release in late 2007, but decided to produce a winter-themed album instead. The track "My! My! Time Flies!", a tribute to the late Irish guitarist Jimmy Faulkner, incorporates a guitar solo performed by Pat Farrell, the first use of a guitar on an Enya album since "I Want Tomorrow" from Enya. Upon its release in November 2008, And Winter Came... reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 8 in the US and sold almost 3.5 million copies worldwide by 2011. After promoting And Winter Came..., Enya took an extended break from writing and recording music. She spent her time resting, visiting family in Australia, and renovating her new home in the south of France. In March 2009, her first four studio albums were reissued in Japan in the Super High Material CD format with bonus tracks. Her second compilation album and DVD, The Very Best of Enya, was released in November 2009 and features songs from 1987 to 2008, including a previously unreleased version of "Aniron". In 2013, "Only Time" was used in an advertisement by Volvo Trucks starring Jean-Claude Van Damme who does the splits while suspended between two lorries. The video went viral, leading to numerous parodies of the commercial uploaded to YouTube also using "Only Time". The attention resulted in the song peaking at No. 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. In 2012, Enya returned to the studio to record her eighth album, Dark Sky Island. Its name references the island of Sark, where it became the first island to be designated a dark-sky preserve, and a series of poems on islands by Roma Ryan. The new album was promoted with the premiere in October 2015 of its lead single, "Echoes in Rain", on Ken Bruce's radio show and with the release in the same month of the single as a digital download. Upon its release on 20 November 2015, Dark Sky Island went to No. 4 in the UK, Enya's highest charting studio album there since Shepherd Moons went to No. 1, and to No. 8 in the US. A Deluxe Edition features three additional songs. Enya completed a promotional tour of the UK and Europe, the US and Japan. During her visit to Japan, Enya performed "Orinoco Flow" and "Echoes in Rain" at the Universal Studios Japan Christmas show in Osaka. In December 2016, Enya appeared on the Raidio Teilifis Eireann Christmas special Christmas Carols from Cork, marking her first appearance on Irish television in a decade. She sang "Adeste Fideles" and "Oiche Chiuin" as well as her own carol composition "The Spirit of Christmas Past". CANNOTANSWER | reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 8 in the US and sold almost 3.5 million copies worldwide by 2011. | Enya Patricia Brennan ( ; born 17 May 1961) is an Irish singer, songwriter and musician, known for pioneering modern Celtic and New-age music. Regarded as the "Queen of New Age", Enya is the best-selling Irish solo artist in history, and second-best-selling overall behind U2. Born into a musical family and raised in the Irish-speaking area of Gweedore, County Donegal, Enya began her music career when she joined her family's Celtic folk band Clannad in 1980 on keyboards and backing vocals. She left the group in 1982 with their manager and producer Nicky Ryan to pursue a solo career, with Ryan's wife Roma Ryan as her lyricist. Enya developed her sound over the following four years with multitracked vocals and keyboards with elements of new age, Celtic, classical, church, world, pop, and Irish folk. Thus far, she has sung in ten languages, most notably English, Irish Gaelic (Gaeilge), Latin, and Welsh.
Enya's first projects as a solo artist included soundtrack work for The Frog Prince (1984) and the 1987 BBC documentary series The Celts, which was released as her debut album, Enya (1987). She signed with Warner Music UK, which granted her artistic freedom and minimal interference from the label. The commercial and critical success of Watermark (1988) propelled her to worldwide fame, helped by the UK number one and international hit single "Orinoco Flow". This was followed by the multi-million-selling albums Shepherd Moons (1991), The Memory of Trees (1995), and A Day Without Rain (2000). Sales of the latter and its lead single, "Only Time", surged in the United States following its use in the media coverage of the September 11 attacks. Following Amarantine (2005) and And Winter Came... (2008), Enya took a four-year career hiatus before she resumed in 2012 and released her eighth studio album, Dark Sky Island (2015).
Enya's discography has sold 26.5 million certified albums in the United States and an estimated 75 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. A Day Without Rain (2000) remains the best-selling new-age album, with an estimated 16 million copies sold worldwide. Enya has won numerous awards, including seven World Music Awards, four Grammy Awards for Best New Age Album, and an Ivor Novello Award. She was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for "May It Be", written for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).
Early life
Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin was born on 17 May 1961 in Dore, a settlement in the parish of Gweedore, in County Donegal. It is a Gaeltacht region where Irish is the primary language. Her name is anglicised as Enya Patricia Brennan, where Enya is the phonetic spelling of how "Eithne" is pronounced in her native Ulster dialect of Irish; "Ní Bhraonáin" translates to "daughter of Brennan". The sixth of nine children, Enya was born into a Roman Catholic family of musicians. Her father, Leo Brennan, was the leader of the Slieve Foy Band, an Irish showband, and ran Leo's Tavern in Meenaleck. Her mother, Máire Brennan (née Duggan), who has distant Spanish roots whose ancestors settled on Tory Island, was an amateur musician who played in Leo's band and taught music at Gweedore Community School. Enya's maternal grandfather Aodh was the headmaster of the primary school in Dore, and her grandmother was a teacher there. Aodh was also the founder of the Gweedore Theatre company.
Enya described her upbringing as "very quiet and happy." At age three, she took part in her first singing competition at the annual Feis Ceoil music festival. She took part in pantomimes at Gweedore Theatre and sang with her siblings in her mother's choir at St Mary's church in Derrybeg. She learned English at primary school and began piano lessons at age four. "I had to do school work and then travel to a neighbouring town for piano lessons, and then more school work. I ... remember my brothers and sisters playing outside ... and I would be inside playing the piano. This one big book of scales, practising them over and over." When Enya turned eleven, her grandfather paid for her education at a strict convent boarding school in Milford run by nuns of the Loreto order, where she developed a taste for classical music, art, Latin and watercolour painting. She said: "It was devastating to be torn away from such a large family, but it was good for my music." Enya left the school at 17 and studied classical music in college for one year, with the aim of becoming "a piano teacher sort of person. I never thought of myself composing or being on stage."
Career
1980–1985: Clannad and early solo career
In 1970, several members of Enya's family formed Clannad, a Celtic folk band who later acquired Nicky Ryan as their manager, sound engineer, and producer, and his future wife, Roma Ryan, as tour manager and administrator. In 1980, after her year at college, Enya decided against pursuing music at university and accepted Ryan's invitation to join the group as he wanted to expand their sound with an additional vocalist and introducing keyboards. Enya performed an uncredited role their sixth studio album, Crann Úll (1980), with a line-up of siblings Máire, Pól, and Ciarán Brennan, and twin uncles Noel and Pádraig Duggan. She became an official member by the time their follow-up, Fuaim (1981), was released, and is photographed with the band on the front cover. Nicky maintained it was never his intention to make Enya a permanent member, and saw she was "fiercely independent ... intent on playing her own music. She was just not sure of how to go about it". This sparked discussions between the two on layering vocal tracks to create a "choir of one", a concept inspired by the Wall of Sound technique by producer Phil Spector that interested them both.
During a Clannad tour in 1982, Nicky called for a band meeting to address internal issues that had arisen. He added, "It was short and only required a vote, I was a minority of one and lost. Roma and I were out. This left the question of what happened with Enya. I decided to stand back and say nothing". Enya chose to leave with the Ryans and pursue a solo career as she felt confined in the group, and disliked being "somebody in the background". This caused some friction between the two parties at first, but they settled their differences. Nicky suggested to Enya that either she return to Gweedore "with no particular definite future", or live with him and Roma in Artane, Dublin "and see what happens, musically", which she accepted. After their bank denied them a loan, Enya sold her saxophone and gave piano lessons for income and the Ryans used what they could afford from their savings to build a recording facility in a shed in their garden. They named it Aigle Studio, after the French word for "eagle", and rented it out to musicians to help recoup the costs. The trio formed a musical partnership, with Nicky as Enya's producer and arranger and Roma her lyricist, and established their music company, Aigle Music. In the following two years, Enya developed her technique and composition by listening to recordings of her reciting pieces of classical music, and repeated the process until she started to improvise sections and develop her own arrangements. Her first composition was "An Taibhse Uaighneach", Irish for "The Lonely Ghost". During this time Enya played the synthesiser on Ceol Aduaidh (1983) by Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh and Frankie Kennedy, and performed with the duo and Mhaonaigh's brother Gearóid in their short lived group, Ragairne.
Enya's first solo endeavour arrived in 1983 when she recorded two piano instrumentals, "An Ghaoth Ón Ghrian", Irish for "The Solar Wind", and "Miss Clare Remembers", at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin which were released on Touch Travel (1984), a limited release cassette of music from various artists on the Touch label. She is credited as Eithne Ní Bhraonáin on its liner notes. After several months of preparation, Enya's first live solo performance took place on 23 September 1983 at the National Stadium in Dublin, which was televised for RTÉ's music show Festival Folk. Niall Morris, a musician who worked with her during this time, recalled she "was so nervous she could barely get on stage, and she cowered behind the piano until the gig was over."
Morris assisted Enya in the production of a demo tape, playing additional keyboards to her compositions, which Roma thought would suit accompanying visuals and sent it to various film producers. Among them was David Puttnam, who liked the tape and offered Enya to compose the soundtrack to his upcoming romantic comedy film, The Frog Prince (1984). Enya scored nine pieces for the film but they were later rearranged and orchestrated against her wishes by Richard Myhill, except for two that she sang on, "The Frog Prince" and "Dreams"; the words to the latter were penned by Charlie McGettigan. Film editor Jim Clark said the rearrangements were necessary as Enya found it difficult to compose to picture. Released in 1985, the album is the first commercial release that credits her as Enya, after Nicky Ryan thought "Eithne" would be too difficult for non-Irish people to pronounce correctly and suggested the phonetic spelling of her name. Enya looked back on the film as a good career move, but a disappointing one as "we weren't part of it at the end". She then sang on three tracks on Ordinary Man (1985) by Christy Moore.
1985–1989: The Celts and Watermark
In 1985, producer Tony McAuley asked Enya to contribute a track for a six-part BBC television documentary series The Celts. She had already written a Celtic-influenced song named "The March of the Celts", and submitted it to the project. Each episode was to feature a different composer at first, but director David Richardson liked her track so much, he had Enya score the entire series. Enya recorded 72 minutes of music at Aigle Studio and the BBC studios in Wood Lane, London without recording to picture, though she was required to portray certain themes and ideas that the producers wanted. Unlike The Frog Prince, she worked with little interference which granted her freedom to establish her sound that she would adopt throughout her future career, signified by layered vocals, keyboard-oriented music, and percussion with elements of Celtic, classical, church and folk music.
In March 1987, two months before The Celts aired, a 40-minute selection of Enya's score was released as her debut solo album, Enya, by BBC Records in the United Kingdom and by Atlantic Records in the United States. The latter promoted it with a new-age imprint on the packaging, which Nicky later thought was "a cowardly thing for them to do". The album gained enough public attention to reach number 8 on the Irish Albums Chart and number 69 on the UK Albums Chart. "I Want Tomorrow" was released as Enya's first single. "Boadicea" was sampled by The Fugees on their 1996 song "Ready or Not"; the group neither sought permission nor gave credit, and Enya took legal action. The group subsequently gave her credit and paid a fee worth around $3 million. Later in 1987, Enya appeared on Sinéad O'Connor's debut album The Lion and the Cobra, reciting Psalm 91 in Irish on "Never Get Old".
Several weeks after the release of Enya, Enya secured a recording contract with Warner Music UK after Rob Dickins, the label's chairman and a fan of Clannad, took a liking to Enya and found himself playing it "every night before I went to bed". He then met Enya and the Ryans at a chance meeting at the Irish Recorded Music Association award ceremony in Dublin, and learned Enya had entered negotiations with a rival label. Dickins seized the opportunity and signed her to Warner Music with a deal worth £75,000, granting her wish to write and record with artistic freedom, minimal interference from the label, and without set deadlines to finish albums. Dickins said: "Sometimes you sign an act to make money, and sometimes you sign an act to make music. This was clearly the latter ... I just wanted to be involved with this music." Enya then left Atlantic and signed with the Warner-led Geffen Records to handle her American distribution.
With the green-light to produce a new studio album, Enya recorded Watermark from June 1987 to April 1988. It was initially recorded in analogue at Aigle Studio before Dickins requested to have it re-recorded digitally at Orinoco Studios in Bermondsey, London. Watermark was released in September 1988 and became an unexpected hit, reaching number 5 in the United Kingdom and number 25 on the Billboard 200 in the United States following its release there in January 1989. Its lead single, "Orinoco Flow", was the last song written for the album. It was not intended to be a single at first, but Enya and the Ryans chose it after Dickins asked for a single from them several times as a joke, knowing Enya's music was not made for the Top 40 chart. Dickins and engineer Ross Cullum are referenced in the songs' lyrics. "Orinoco Flow" became an international top 10 hit and was number one in the United Kingdom for three weeks. The new-found success propelled Enya to international fame and she received endorsement deals and offers to use her music in television commercials. She spent one year travelling worldwide to promote the album which increased her exposure through interviews, appearances, and live performances. By 1996, Watermark had sold in excess of 1.2 million copies in the United Kingdom and 4 million in the United States.
1989–1997: Shepherd Moons and The Memory of Trees
After promoting Watermark, Enya purchased new recording equipment and started work on her next album, Shepherd Moons. She found the success of Watermark caused a considerable amount of pressure when it came to writing new songs, adding, "I kept thinking, 'Would this have gone on Watermark? Is it as good?' Eventually I had to forget about this and start on a blank canvas and just really go with what felt right." Enya wrote songs based on several ideas, including entries from her diary, the Blitz in London, and her grandparents. Shepherd Moons was released in November 1991, her first album released under Warner-led Reprise Records in the United States. It became a greater commercial success than Watermark, reaching number one in the UK for one week and number 17 in the United States. "Caribbean Blue", its lead single, charted at number thirteen in the United Kingdom. By 1997, the album had reached multi-platinum certification for selling in excess of 1.2 million copies in the United Kingdom and 5 million in the United States.
In 1991, Warner Music released a collection of five Enya music videos as Moonshadows for home video. In 1993, Enya won her first Grammy Award for Best New Age Album for Shepherd Moons. Soon after, Enya and Nicky entered discussions with Industrial Light & Magic, founded by George Lucas, regarding an elaborate stage lighting system for a proposed concert tour, but nothing came out of the meetings. In November 1992, Warner had obtained the rights to Enya and re-released the album as The Celts with new artwork. It surpassed its initial sale performance, reaching number 10 in the United Kingdom and reached platinum certification in the United States in 1996 for one million copies shipped.
After travelling worldwide to promote Shepherd Moons, Enya started to write and record her fourth album, The Memory of Trees. The album was released in November 1995. It peaked at number five in the United Kingdom and number nine in the United States, where it sold over 3 million copies. Its lead single, "Anywhere Is", reached number seven in the United Kingdom. The second, "On My Way Home", reached number twenty-six in the same country. In late 1994, Enya put out an extended play of Christmas music titled The Christmas EP. Enya was offered to compose the score for Titanic, but declined. A recording of her singing "Oíche Chiúin", an Irish-language version of "Silent Night", appeared on the charity album A Very Special Christmas 3, released in benefit of the Special Olympics in October 1997.
In early 1997, Enya began to select tracks for her first compilation album, "trying to select the obvious ones, the hits, and others." She chose to work on the collection following the promotional tour for The Memory of Trees as she felt it was the right time in her career, and that her contract with WEA required her to release a "best of" album. The set, named Paint the Sky with Stars: The Best of Enya, features two new tracks, "Paint the Sky with Stars" and "Only If...". Released in November 1997, the album was a worldwide commercial success, reaching No. 4 in the UK and No. 30 in the US, where it went on to sell over 4 million copies. "Only If..." was released as a single in 1997. Enya described the album as "like a musical diary ... each melody has a little story and I live through that whole story from the beginning ... your mind goes back to that day and what you were thinking."
1998–2007: A Day Without Rain and Amarantine
Enya started work on her fifth studio album, titled A Day Without Rain, in mid-1998. In a departure from her previous albums she incorporated the use of a string section into her compositions, something that was not a conscious decision at first, but Enya and Nicky Ryan agreed it complemented the songs that were being written. The album was released in November 2000, and reached number 6 in the United Kingdom and an initial peak of number 17 in the United States. In the aftermath of the 11 September attacks, sales of the album and its lead single, "Only Time", surged after the song was widely used during radio and television coverage of the events, leading to its description as "a post-September 11 anthem". The exposure caused A Day Without Rain to outperform its original chart performance to peak at number 2 on the Billboard 200, and the release of a maxi single containing the original and a pop remix of "Only Time" in November 2001. Enya donated its proceeds in aid of the International Association of Firefighters. The song topped the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart and went to number 10 on the Hot 100 singles, Enya's highest charting US single to date. A second single, "Wild Child", was released in December 2001. A Day Without Rain remains Enya's biggest seller, with 7 million copies sold in the US and the most sold new-age album of all time with an estimated 13 million copies sold worldwide.
In 2001, Enya agreed to write and perform on two tracks for the soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) at the request of director Peter Jackson. Its composer Howard Shore "imagined her voice" as he wrote the film's score, making an uncommon exception to include another artist in one of his soundtracks. After flying to New Zealand to observe the filming and to watch a rough cut of the film, Enya returned to Ireland and composed "Aníron (Theme for Aragorn and Arwen)" with lyrics by Roma in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Elvish language Sindarin, and "May It Be", sung in English and another Tolkien language, Quenya. Shore then based his orchestrations around Enya's recorded vocals and themes to create "a seamless sound". In 2002, Enya released "May It Be" as a single which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. She performed the song live at the 74th Academy Awards ceremony with an orchestra in March 2002, and later cited the moment as a career highlight.
Enya undertook additional studio projects in 2001 and 2002. The first was work on the soundtrack to the Japanese romantic film Calmi Cuori Appassionati (2001) which was subsequently released as Themes from Calmi Cuori Appassionati (2001). The album is formed of tracks spanning her career from Enya to A Day Without Rain with two B-sides. The album went to number 2 in Japan, and became Enya's second to sell one million copies in the country. November 2002 saw the release of Only Time – The Collection, a box set of 51 tracks recorded through her career which received a limited release of 200,000 copies.
In September 2003, Enya returned to Aigle Studio to start work on her sixth studio album, Amarantine. Roma said the title means "everlasting". The album marks the first instance of Enya singing in Loxian, a fictional language created by Roma that came about when Enya was working on "Water Shows the Hidden Heart". After numerous attempts to sing the song in English, Irish and Latin, Roma suggested a new language based on some of the sounds Enya would sing along to when developing her songs. It was a success, and Enya sang "Less Than a Pearl" and "The River Sings" in the same way. Roma worked on the language further, creating a "culture and history" behind it surrounding the Loxian people who are of another planet, questioning the existence of life on another. "Sumiregusa (Wild Violet)" is sung in Japanese. Amarantine was a global success, reaching number 6 on the Billboard 200 and number 8 in the UK. It has sold over 1 million certified copies in the US, a considerable drop in sales in comparison to her previous albums. Enya dedicated the album to BBC producer Tony McAuley, who had commissioned Enya to write the soundtrack to The Celts, following his death in 2003. The lead single, "Amarantine", was released in December 2005. A Christmas Special Edition was released in 2006, followed by a Deluxe Edition.
In 2006, Enya released Sounds of the Season: The Enya Holiday Collection, a Christmas-themed EP released exclusively in the US following an exclusive partnership with the NBC network and the Target department store chain. It includes two new songs, "Christmas Secrets" and "The Magic of the Night".
In June 2007, Enya received an honorary doctorate from the National University of Ireland, Galway. A month later, she received one from the University of Ulster.
2008–present: And Winter Came..., Dark Sky Island, and future
Enya continued to write music with a winter and Christmas theme for her seventh studio album, And Winter Came.... Initially she intended to make an album of seasonal songs and hymns set for a release in late 2007, but decided to produce a winter-themed album instead. The track "My! My! Time Flies!", a tribute to the late Irish guitarist Jimmy Faulkner, incorporates a guitar solo performed by Pat Farrell, the first use of a guitar on an Enya album since "I Want Tomorrow" from Enya. The lyrics also include atypical pop-culture references, such as to The Beatles' famous photo shoot for the cover of Abbey Road. Upon its release in November 2008, And Winter Came... reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 8 in the US and sold almost 3.5 million copies worldwide by 2011.
After promoting And Winter Came..., Enya took an extended break from writing and recording music. She spent her time resting, visiting family in Australia, and renovating her new home in the south of France. In March 2009, her first four studio albums were reissued in Japan in the Super High Material CD format with bonus tracks. Her second compilation album, The Very Best of Enya, was released in November 2009 and features songs from 1987 to 2008, including a previously unreleased version of "Aníron" and a DVD compiling most of her music videos to date. In 2013, "Only Time" was used in the "Epic Split" advertisement by Volvo Trucks starring Jean-Claude Van Damme who does the splits while suspended between two lorries. The video went viral, leading to numerous parodies of the commercial uploaded to YouTube also using "Only Time". The attention resulted in the song peaking at No. 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
In 2012, Enya returned to the studio to record her eighth album, Dark Sky Island. Its name refers to the island of Sark, which became the first island to be designated a dark-sky preserve, and a series of poems on islands by Roma Ryan. Upon its release on 20 November 2015, Dark Sky Island went to No. 4 in the UK, Enya's highest charting studio album there since Shepherd Moons went to No. 1, and to No. 8 in the US. A Deluxe Edition features three additional songs. Enya completed a promotional tour of the UK and Europe, the US and Japan. During her visit to Japan, Enya performed "Orinoco Flow" and "Echoes in Rain" at the Universal Studios Japan Christmas show in Osaka. In December 2016, Enya appeared on the Irish television show Christmas Carols from Cork, marking her first Irish television appearance in over seven years. She sang "Adeste Fideles", "Oiche Chiúin", and "The Spirit of Christmas Past".
On 4 November 2021, a Shepherd Moons "watch party" video was uploaded to Enya's official YouTube channel to commemorate the album's 30th anniversary. In his introductory message, Nicky Ryan said that Roma, Enya, and he used the downtime from the COVID-19 pandemic to renovate Aigle Studio, and install new recording equipment and instruments. When this is complete, Enya will begin working on new music.
Musical style
Enya's vocal range is mezzo-soprano. She has cited her musical foundations as "the classics", church music, and "Irish reels and jigs" with a particular interest in Sergei Rachmaninoff, a favourite composer of hers. She has an autographed picture of him in her home. Since 1982, she has recorded her music with Nicky Ryan as producer and arranger and his wife Roma Ryan as lyricist. While in Clannad, Enya chose to work with Nicky as the two shared an interest in vocal harmonies, and Ryan, influenced by The Beach Boys and the "Wall of Sound" technique that Phil Spector pioneered, wanted to explore the idea of "the multivocals" for which her music became known. According to Enya, "Angeles" from Shepherd Moons has roughly 500 vocals recorded individually and layered. Enya performs all vocals and the majority of instruments in her songs apart from musicians to play percussion, guitar, uilleann pipes, cornet, and double bass. Her early works including Watermark feature numerous keyboards, including the Yamaha KX88 Master, Yamaha DX7, Oberheim Matrix, Akai S900, Roland D-50, and Roland Juno-60, the latter a particular favourite of hers.
Numerous critics and reviewers classify Enya's albums as new age music and she has won four Grammy Awards in the category. However, Enya does not classify her music as part of the genre. When asked what genre she would classify her music, her reply was "Enya". Nicky Ryan commented on the new age comments: "Initially it was fine, but it's really not new age. Enya plays a whole lot of instruments, not just keyboards. Her melodies are strong and she sings a lot. So I can't see a comparison." The music video to "Caribbean Blue" and the art work to The Memory of Trees feature adapted works from artist Maxfield Parrish.
Enya has sung in ten languages in her career, including English, Irish, Latin, Welsh, Spanish, French and Japanese. She has recorded music influenced by works from fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien, including the instrumental "Lothlórien" from Shepherd Moons. For The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, she sang "May It Be" in English and Tolkien's fictional language Quenya, and sang "Aníron" in another of Tolkien's fictional languages, Sindarin. Her albums Amarantine and Dark Sky Island include songs sung in Loxian, a fictional language created by Roma, that has no official syntax. Its vocabulary was formed by Enya singing the song's notes to which Roma wrote their phonetic spelling.
Enya adopted a composing and songwriting method that has deviated little throughout her career. At the start of the recording process for an album she enters the studio, forgetting about her previous success, fame, and songs of hers that became hits. "If I did that", she said, "I'd have to call it a day". She then develops ideas on the piano, keeping note of any arrangement that can be worked on further. During her time writing, Enya works a five-day week, takes weekends off, and does not work on her music at home. With Irish as her first language, Enya initially records her songs in Irish as she can express "feeling much more directly" than English. After a period of time, Enya presents her ideas to Nicky to discuss what pieces work best, while Roma works in parallel to devise a lyric to the songs. Enya considered "Fallen Embers" from A Day Without Rain a perfect time when the lyrics reflect as to how she felt while writing the song. In 2008, she newly discovered her tendency to write "two or three songs" during the winter months, work on the arrangements and lyrics the following spring and summer, and then work on the next couple of songs when autumn arrives.
Live performances
Enya says that Warner Music and she "did not see eye to eye" initially as the label imagined her performing on stage "with a piano ... maybe two or three synthesiser players and that's it". Enya also explained that the time put into her studio albums causes her to "run overtime", leaving little time to plan for other such projects. She also expressed the difficulty in recreating her studio-oriented sound for the stage. In 1996, Ryan said Enya had received an offer worth almost £500,000 to perform a concert in Japan. In 2016, Enya spoke about the prospect of a live concert when she revealed talks with the Ryans during her three-year break after And Winter Came... (2008) to perform a show at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City that would be simulcast to cinemas worldwide. Before such an event could happen, Nicky suggested that she enter a studio and record "all the hits" live with an orchestra and choir to see how they would sound.
Enya has sung with live and lip synching vocals on various talk and music shows, events, and ceremonies throughout her career, usually during her worldwide press tours for each album. In December 1995, she performed "Anywhere Is" at a Christmas concert at Vatican City with Pope John Paul II in attendance, who met and thanked her for performing. In April 1996, Enya performed the same song during her surprise appearance at the fiftieth birthday celebration for Carl XVI Gustaf, the King of Sweden and a fan of Enya's. In 1997, Enya participated in a live Christmas Eve broadcast in London and flew to County Donegal afterwards to join her family for their annual midnight Mass choral performance, in which she participates each year. In March 2002, she performed "May It Be" with an orchestra at the year's Academy Awards ceremony. Enya and her sisters performed as part of the local choir Cor Mhuire in July 2005 at St. Mary's church in Gweedore during the annual Earagail Arts Festival.
Personal life
Since the 1980s, Enya has attracted the attention of several stalkers. In 1996, an Italian man who was seen in Dublin wearing a photograph of Enya around his neck stabbed himself outside her parents' pub after being ejected from the premises.
In 1991, a minor planet first discovered in 1978, 6433 Enya, was named after her. In 2017, a newly discovered species of fish, Leporinus enyae, found in the Orinoco River drainage area, was also named after her.
Enya is known for keeping a private lifestyle, saying: "The music is what sells. Not me, or what I stand for ... that's the way I've always wanted it". She is not married and is a surrogate aunt to the Ryans' two daughters. In 1991, she said: "I'm afraid of marriage because I'm afraid someone might want me because of who I am instead of because they loved me... I wouldn't go rushing into anything unexpected, but I do think a great deal about this". A relationship she had with one man ended in 1997, around the time when she considered taking time out of music to have a family but found she was putting pressure on herself over the matter and "gone the route I wanted to go". She declares herself as "more spiritual than religious... I derive from religion what I enjoy."
In 1997, Enya bought a Victorian Grade A listed castellated mansion in Killiney, County Dublin for IR£2.5 million at auction. Formerly known as Victoria Castle and Ayesha Castle, she renamed it Manderley Castle after the house from the novel Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. In all, she spent seven years renovating her property and also installing considerable security measures. In 2005, Enya spent around £250,000 on security improvements, covering gaps in the castle's outer wall and installing bollards and iron railings. In October of that year, two people broke into the home; one attacked and tied up one of her housekeepers and left with several of Enya's items after she had raised the alarm in her safe room. In 2009, during her three-year break from music, Enya purchased a home in southern France.
In 2006, Enya ranked third in a list of the wealthiest Irish entertainers with an estimated fortune of £75 million, and was number 95 in the Sunday Times Rich List of the richest 250 Irish people. In the 2016 edition, which listed its top 50 Music Millionaires of Britain and Ireland, she emerged as the richest female singer with a fortune of £91 million and ranked number 28 overall.
Awards and nominations
Billboard Music Awards
|-
| rowspan=4|2001
| rowspan=2|Enya
| Top Billboard 200 Artist - Female
|
|-
| Top New Age Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=3|A Day Without Rain
| Top Internet Album
|
|-
| rowspan=2|Top New Age Album
|
|-
| rowspan=3|2002
|
|-
| rowspan=2|Enya
| Top New Age Artist
|
|-
| Top Adult Contemporary Artist
|
Grammy Awards
|-
| rowspan=2|1990
| rowspan=2|"Orinoco Flow"
| Best New Age Performance
|
|-
| Best Music Video
|
|-
| 1993
| Shepherd Moons
| rowspan=3|Best New Age Album
|
|-
| 1997
| The Memory of Trees
|
|-
| 2002
| A Day Without Rain
|
|-
| 2003
| "May It Be"
| Best Song Written for Visual Media
|
|-
| rowspan="2"|2007
| "Drifting"
| Best Pop Instrumental Performance
|
|-
| Amarantine
| rowspan=2|Best New Age Album
|
|-
| 2017
| Dark Sky Island
|
IFPI Hong Kong Top Sales Music Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 2001
| A Day Without Rain
| Top 10 Best Sales Foreign Albums
|
|
Japan Gold Disc Awards
|-
| 1990
| Enya
| New Artist of the Year
|
|-
| 1998
| Paint the Sky with Stars
| Best 3 Albums
|
|-
| 2001
| A Day Without Rain
| International Pop Album of the Year
|
|-
| 2002
| Themes from Calmi Cuori Appassionati
| Best 3 Albums
|
|-
| 2006
| Amarantine
| International Album of the Year
|
World Music Awards
|-
| rowspan="2"|2001
| rowspan="7"| Enya
| World's Best Selling Irish Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=2|World's Best Selling New Age Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=3|2002
|
|-
| World's Best Selling Female Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=3|World's Best Selling Irish Artist
|
|-
| 2003
|
|-
| 2006
|
Žebřík Music Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1993
| rowspan=3|Enya
| rowspan=3|Best International Female
|
|
|-
| 1997
|
|
|-
| 2005
|
|
Other Awards
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|1989
|rowspan="3"|Enya
| Brit Award for Best International Artist
|
|-
| Brit Award for Best International Female
|
|-
| IRMA Award for Best Female Irish Artist
|
|-
!scope="row"|1990
| "Orinoco Flow"
| BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row"|1992
|rowspan="3"|Enya
|rowspan="2"|Brit Award for Best International Solo Artist
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|1993
|
|-
| IRMA Award for Best Female Irish Artist
|
|-
| "Book of Days"
| Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan=1|1998
| Enya, Nicky Ryan, and Roma Ryan
| Ivor Novello Award for International Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row"|2001
| rowspan="4"| "May It Be"
| Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Song
|
|-
!scope="row"|2001
| Broadcast Film Critics Association for Best Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row"|2002
| Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row"|2002
| Academy Award for Best Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="4"|2002
| rowspan="2"| Enya
| American Music Award for Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist
|
|-
| Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
|
|-
| rowspan=3|"Only Time"
| ECHO Award for Best Single of the Year (International)
|
|-
| BDSCertified Spin Awards – 300,000 Spins
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="1"|2003
| rowspan="1"|BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|2004
| rowspan=4|"I Don't Wanna Know"
| Vibe Award for R&B Song of the Year
|
|-
| MOBO Award for Best Single
|
|-
| MOBO Award for Best Ringtone
|
|-
!scope="row"|2005
| BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row"|2016
| Dark Sky Island
| ECHO Award for Best Female of the Year (International)
|
|-
|}
Discography
Studio albums
Enya (1987) (reissued in 1992 as The Celts)
Watermark (1988)
Shepherd Moons (1991)
The Memory of Trees (1995)
A Day Without Rain (2000)
Amarantine (2005)
And Winter Came... (2008)
Dark Sky Island (2015)
See also
Honorific nicknames in popular music
List of ambient music artists
List of artists who reached number one on the UK Singles Chart
List of best-selling music artists
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
References
Sources
External links
1961 births
20th-century Irish women singers
21st-century Irish women singers
Celtic fusion musicians
Clannad members
Grammy Award winners
Irish women composers
Irish folk singers
Irish-language singers
Irish mezzo-sopranos
Irish pianists
Irish pop singers
Irish women singer-songwriters
Ivor Novello Award winners
Latin-language singers
Living people
Musicians from County Donegal
New-age musicians
People from Dalkey
People from Gweedore
Warner Music Group artists
Women in electronic music
World Music Awards winners
People from Killiney
20th-century women composers
21st-century women composers | false | [
"Holiday Harmony is the 15th studio album by American folk rock duo America, released by Rhino Records in 2002. Produced by Andrew Gold, it is a Christmas album. The album contains a number of traditional Christmas standards, some of which were recorded with distinct parallels to America's hits. For example, the \"la-la-la\" refrain in \"Winter Wonderland\" is strongly reminiscent of \"A Horse With No Name,\" while \"White Christmas\" uses a guitar strumming style similar to that in \"Tin Man.\" The album contains three new songs: \"A Christmas To Remember,\" \"Winter Holidays,\" and the \"Ventura Highway\"-themed \"Christmas In California\". \"Winter Wonderland\" became a minor hit during the Christmas season in 2002, reaching 26 on the Radio & Records Adult Contemporary chart.\n\nIn November 2010, the album was re-released on CD and digital download format as a \"Collector's Edition.\" This edition contained a bonus track, \"A Holly Jolly Christmas,\" produced by Bobby Woods.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\n2002 Christmas albums\nAmerica (band) albums\nChristmas albums by American artists\nPop rock Christmas albums\nRhino Records albums",
"Winter's Majesty is the seventeenth album by Nox Arcana, concluding their winter-themed trilogy, which also includes Winter's Knight (2005) and Winter's Eve (2009).\n\nThe music on this album features original and traditional holiday songs, including an instrumental version of \"We Three Kings\" and a new rendition of \"Scarborough Fair\" which is presented as a ghost-story with original lyrics and musical arrangements by Joseph Vargo.\n\nTrack listing\nAll music composed and performed by Joseph Vargo\n \"Aquilon’s Wish\" – 3:52\n \"Tranquility\" – 2:49\n \"White Woodlands\" – 3:13\n \"Secret Sanctuary\" – 3:03\n \"Summon the Wind\" – 1:43\n \"Snow in the Shire\" – 3:06\n \"Crystal Kingdom\" – 3:45\n \"Solstice Spirits\" – 3:07\n \"Shelter from the Cold\" – 3:51\n \"Angels in the Snow\" – 2:47\n \"Scarborough Fair\" – 5:47\n \"Ivory Steeds\" – 2:33\n \"Winter Haven\" – 3:00\n \"Forest Lullaby\" – 2:34\n \"Days of Olde\" – 2:54\n \"Saturnalia\" – 3:28\n \"The Coming of the King\" – 3:53\n \"Winter’s Majesty\" – 3:49\n \"We Three Kings\" – 3:17\n \"Polaris\" – 2:26\n \"Final Peace\" – 3:48\n The song \"Final Peace\" ends at 2:15. An untitled hidden track begins at 2:40.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n[ Winter's Majesty] at Allmusic\n\nNox Arcana albums\n2012 albums\n2012 Christmas albums\nChristmas albums by American artists"
] |
[
"Enya",
"2008-present: And Winter Came... and Dark Sky Island",
"Can you provide me with a little information on And Winter Came..and Dark Sky Island?",
"seventh studio album, And Winter Came....",
"Is this the name of a music group?",
"seventh studio album,",
"What was all involved in the making of this album?",
"Initially she intended to make an album of seasonal songs and hymns set for a release in late 2007, but decided to produce a winter-themed album instead.",
"Is her winter-themed album popular?",
"reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 8 in the US and sold almost 3.5 million copies worldwide by 2011."
] | C_ca2198202da140e28165132567967682_1 | What did she do after this success? | 5 | What did Enya do after her winter-themed album became a success? | Enya | Enya continued to write music with a winter and Christmas theme for her seventh studio album, And Winter Came.... Initially she intended to make an album of seasonal songs and hymns set for a release in late 2007, but decided to produce a winter-themed album instead. The track "My! My! Time Flies!", a tribute to the late Irish guitarist Jimmy Faulkner, incorporates a guitar solo performed by Pat Farrell, the first use of a guitar on an Enya album since "I Want Tomorrow" from Enya. Upon its release in November 2008, And Winter Came... reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 8 in the US and sold almost 3.5 million copies worldwide by 2011. After promoting And Winter Came..., Enya took an extended break from writing and recording music. She spent her time resting, visiting family in Australia, and renovating her new home in the south of France. In March 2009, her first four studio albums were reissued in Japan in the Super High Material CD format with bonus tracks. Her second compilation album and DVD, The Very Best of Enya, was released in November 2009 and features songs from 1987 to 2008, including a previously unreleased version of "Aniron". In 2013, "Only Time" was used in an advertisement by Volvo Trucks starring Jean-Claude Van Damme who does the splits while suspended between two lorries. The video went viral, leading to numerous parodies of the commercial uploaded to YouTube also using "Only Time". The attention resulted in the song peaking at No. 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. In 2012, Enya returned to the studio to record her eighth album, Dark Sky Island. Its name references the island of Sark, where it became the first island to be designated a dark-sky preserve, and a series of poems on islands by Roma Ryan. The new album was promoted with the premiere in October 2015 of its lead single, "Echoes in Rain", on Ken Bruce's radio show and with the release in the same month of the single as a digital download. Upon its release on 20 November 2015, Dark Sky Island went to No. 4 in the UK, Enya's highest charting studio album there since Shepherd Moons went to No. 1, and to No. 8 in the US. A Deluxe Edition features three additional songs. Enya completed a promotional tour of the UK and Europe, the US and Japan. During her visit to Japan, Enya performed "Orinoco Flow" and "Echoes in Rain" at the Universal Studios Japan Christmas show in Osaka. In December 2016, Enya appeared on the Raidio Teilifis Eireann Christmas special Christmas Carols from Cork, marking her first appearance on Irish television in a decade. She sang "Adeste Fideles" and "Oiche Chiuin" as well as her own carol composition "The Spirit of Christmas Past". CANNOTANSWER | After promoting And Winter Came..., Enya took an extended break from writing and recording music. | Enya Patricia Brennan ( ; born 17 May 1961) is an Irish singer, songwriter and musician, known for pioneering modern Celtic and New-age music. Regarded as the "Queen of New Age", Enya is the best-selling Irish solo artist in history, and second-best-selling overall behind U2. Born into a musical family and raised in the Irish-speaking area of Gweedore, County Donegal, Enya began her music career when she joined her family's Celtic folk band Clannad in 1980 on keyboards and backing vocals. She left the group in 1982 with their manager and producer Nicky Ryan to pursue a solo career, with Ryan's wife Roma Ryan as her lyricist. Enya developed her sound over the following four years with multitracked vocals and keyboards with elements of new age, Celtic, classical, church, world, pop, and Irish folk. Thus far, she has sung in ten languages, most notably English, Irish Gaelic (Gaeilge), Latin, and Welsh.
Enya's first projects as a solo artist included soundtrack work for The Frog Prince (1984) and the 1987 BBC documentary series The Celts, which was released as her debut album, Enya (1987). She signed with Warner Music UK, which granted her artistic freedom and minimal interference from the label. The commercial and critical success of Watermark (1988) propelled her to worldwide fame, helped by the UK number one and international hit single "Orinoco Flow". This was followed by the multi-million-selling albums Shepherd Moons (1991), The Memory of Trees (1995), and A Day Without Rain (2000). Sales of the latter and its lead single, "Only Time", surged in the United States following its use in the media coverage of the September 11 attacks. Following Amarantine (2005) and And Winter Came... (2008), Enya took a four-year career hiatus before she resumed in 2012 and released her eighth studio album, Dark Sky Island (2015).
Enya's discography has sold 26.5 million certified albums in the United States and an estimated 75 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. A Day Without Rain (2000) remains the best-selling new-age album, with an estimated 16 million copies sold worldwide. Enya has won numerous awards, including seven World Music Awards, four Grammy Awards for Best New Age Album, and an Ivor Novello Award. She was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for "May It Be", written for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).
Early life
Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin was born on 17 May 1961 in Dore, a settlement in the parish of Gweedore, in County Donegal. It is a Gaeltacht region where Irish is the primary language. Her name is anglicised as Enya Patricia Brennan, where Enya is the phonetic spelling of how "Eithne" is pronounced in her native Ulster dialect of Irish; "Ní Bhraonáin" translates to "daughter of Brennan". The sixth of nine children, Enya was born into a Roman Catholic family of musicians. Her father, Leo Brennan, was the leader of the Slieve Foy Band, an Irish showband, and ran Leo's Tavern in Meenaleck. Her mother, Máire Brennan (née Duggan), who has distant Spanish roots whose ancestors settled on Tory Island, was an amateur musician who played in Leo's band and taught music at Gweedore Community School. Enya's maternal grandfather Aodh was the headmaster of the primary school in Dore, and her grandmother was a teacher there. Aodh was also the founder of the Gweedore Theatre company.
Enya described her upbringing as "very quiet and happy." At age three, she took part in her first singing competition at the annual Feis Ceoil music festival. She took part in pantomimes at Gweedore Theatre and sang with her siblings in her mother's choir at St Mary's church in Derrybeg. She learned English at primary school and began piano lessons at age four. "I had to do school work and then travel to a neighbouring town for piano lessons, and then more school work. I ... remember my brothers and sisters playing outside ... and I would be inside playing the piano. This one big book of scales, practising them over and over." When Enya turned eleven, her grandfather paid for her education at a strict convent boarding school in Milford run by nuns of the Loreto order, where she developed a taste for classical music, art, Latin and watercolour painting. She said: "It was devastating to be torn away from such a large family, but it was good for my music." Enya left the school at 17 and studied classical music in college for one year, with the aim of becoming "a piano teacher sort of person. I never thought of myself composing or being on stage."
Career
1980–1985: Clannad and early solo career
In 1970, several members of Enya's family formed Clannad, a Celtic folk band who later acquired Nicky Ryan as their manager, sound engineer, and producer, and his future wife, Roma Ryan, as tour manager and administrator. In 1980, after her year at college, Enya decided against pursuing music at university and accepted Ryan's invitation to join the group as he wanted to expand their sound with an additional vocalist and introducing keyboards. Enya performed an uncredited role their sixth studio album, Crann Úll (1980), with a line-up of siblings Máire, Pól, and Ciarán Brennan, and twin uncles Noel and Pádraig Duggan. She became an official member by the time their follow-up, Fuaim (1981), was released, and is photographed with the band on the front cover. Nicky maintained it was never his intention to make Enya a permanent member, and saw she was "fiercely independent ... intent on playing her own music. She was just not sure of how to go about it". This sparked discussions between the two on layering vocal tracks to create a "choir of one", a concept inspired by the Wall of Sound technique by producer Phil Spector that interested them both.
During a Clannad tour in 1982, Nicky called for a band meeting to address internal issues that had arisen. He added, "It was short and only required a vote, I was a minority of one and lost. Roma and I were out. This left the question of what happened with Enya. I decided to stand back and say nothing". Enya chose to leave with the Ryans and pursue a solo career as she felt confined in the group, and disliked being "somebody in the background". This caused some friction between the two parties at first, but they settled their differences. Nicky suggested to Enya that either she return to Gweedore "with no particular definite future", or live with him and Roma in Artane, Dublin "and see what happens, musically", which she accepted. After their bank denied them a loan, Enya sold her saxophone and gave piano lessons for income and the Ryans used what they could afford from their savings to build a recording facility in a shed in their garden. They named it Aigle Studio, after the French word for "eagle", and rented it out to musicians to help recoup the costs. The trio formed a musical partnership, with Nicky as Enya's producer and arranger and Roma her lyricist, and established their music company, Aigle Music. In the following two years, Enya developed her technique and composition by listening to recordings of her reciting pieces of classical music, and repeated the process until she started to improvise sections and develop her own arrangements. Her first composition was "An Taibhse Uaighneach", Irish for "The Lonely Ghost". During this time Enya played the synthesiser on Ceol Aduaidh (1983) by Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh and Frankie Kennedy, and performed with the duo and Mhaonaigh's brother Gearóid in their short lived group, Ragairne.
Enya's first solo endeavour arrived in 1983 when she recorded two piano instrumentals, "An Ghaoth Ón Ghrian", Irish for "The Solar Wind", and "Miss Clare Remembers", at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin which were released on Touch Travel (1984), a limited release cassette of music from various artists on the Touch label. She is credited as Eithne Ní Bhraonáin on its liner notes. After several months of preparation, Enya's first live solo performance took place on 23 September 1983 at the National Stadium in Dublin, which was televised for RTÉ's music show Festival Folk. Niall Morris, a musician who worked with her during this time, recalled she "was so nervous she could barely get on stage, and she cowered behind the piano until the gig was over."
Morris assisted Enya in the production of a demo tape, playing additional keyboards to her compositions, which Roma thought would suit accompanying visuals and sent it to various film producers. Among them was David Puttnam, who liked the tape and offered Enya to compose the soundtrack to his upcoming romantic comedy film, The Frog Prince (1984). Enya scored nine pieces for the film but they were later rearranged and orchestrated against her wishes by Richard Myhill, except for two that she sang on, "The Frog Prince" and "Dreams"; the words to the latter were penned by Charlie McGettigan. Film editor Jim Clark said the rearrangements were necessary as Enya found it difficult to compose to picture. Released in 1985, the album is the first commercial release that credits her as Enya, after Nicky Ryan thought "Eithne" would be too difficult for non-Irish people to pronounce correctly and suggested the phonetic spelling of her name. Enya looked back on the film as a good career move, but a disappointing one as "we weren't part of it at the end". She then sang on three tracks on Ordinary Man (1985) by Christy Moore.
1985–1989: The Celts and Watermark
In 1985, producer Tony McAuley asked Enya to contribute a track for a six-part BBC television documentary series The Celts. She had already written a Celtic-influenced song named "The March of the Celts", and submitted it to the project. Each episode was to feature a different composer at first, but director David Richardson liked her track so much, he had Enya score the entire series. Enya recorded 72 minutes of music at Aigle Studio and the BBC studios in Wood Lane, London without recording to picture, though she was required to portray certain themes and ideas that the producers wanted. Unlike The Frog Prince, she worked with little interference which granted her freedom to establish her sound that she would adopt throughout her future career, signified by layered vocals, keyboard-oriented music, and percussion with elements of Celtic, classical, church and folk music.
In March 1987, two months before The Celts aired, a 40-minute selection of Enya's score was released as her debut solo album, Enya, by BBC Records in the United Kingdom and by Atlantic Records in the United States. The latter promoted it with a new-age imprint on the packaging, which Nicky later thought was "a cowardly thing for them to do". The album gained enough public attention to reach number 8 on the Irish Albums Chart and number 69 on the UK Albums Chart. "I Want Tomorrow" was released as Enya's first single. "Boadicea" was sampled by The Fugees on their 1996 song "Ready or Not"; the group neither sought permission nor gave credit, and Enya took legal action. The group subsequently gave her credit and paid a fee worth around $3 million. Later in 1987, Enya appeared on Sinéad O'Connor's debut album The Lion and the Cobra, reciting Psalm 91 in Irish on "Never Get Old".
Several weeks after the release of Enya, Enya secured a recording contract with Warner Music UK after Rob Dickins, the label's chairman and a fan of Clannad, took a liking to Enya and found himself playing it "every night before I went to bed". He then met Enya and the Ryans at a chance meeting at the Irish Recorded Music Association award ceremony in Dublin, and learned Enya had entered negotiations with a rival label. Dickins seized the opportunity and signed her to Warner Music with a deal worth £75,000, granting her wish to write and record with artistic freedom, minimal interference from the label, and without set deadlines to finish albums. Dickins said: "Sometimes you sign an act to make money, and sometimes you sign an act to make music. This was clearly the latter ... I just wanted to be involved with this music." Enya then left Atlantic and signed with the Warner-led Geffen Records to handle her American distribution.
With the green-light to produce a new studio album, Enya recorded Watermark from June 1987 to April 1988. It was initially recorded in analogue at Aigle Studio before Dickins requested to have it re-recorded digitally at Orinoco Studios in Bermondsey, London. Watermark was released in September 1988 and became an unexpected hit, reaching number 5 in the United Kingdom and number 25 on the Billboard 200 in the United States following its release there in January 1989. Its lead single, "Orinoco Flow", was the last song written for the album. It was not intended to be a single at first, but Enya and the Ryans chose it after Dickins asked for a single from them several times as a joke, knowing Enya's music was not made for the Top 40 chart. Dickins and engineer Ross Cullum are referenced in the songs' lyrics. "Orinoco Flow" became an international top 10 hit and was number one in the United Kingdom for three weeks. The new-found success propelled Enya to international fame and she received endorsement deals and offers to use her music in television commercials. She spent one year travelling worldwide to promote the album which increased her exposure through interviews, appearances, and live performances. By 1996, Watermark had sold in excess of 1.2 million copies in the United Kingdom and 4 million in the United States.
1989–1997: Shepherd Moons and The Memory of Trees
After promoting Watermark, Enya purchased new recording equipment and started work on her next album, Shepherd Moons. She found the success of Watermark caused a considerable amount of pressure when it came to writing new songs, adding, "I kept thinking, 'Would this have gone on Watermark? Is it as good?' Eventually I had to forget about this and start on a blank canvas and just really go with what felt right." Enya wrote songs based on several ideas, including entries from her diary, the Blitz in London, and her grandparents. Shepherd Moons was released in November 1991, her first album released under Warner-led Reprise Records in the United States. It became a greater commercial success than Watermark, reaching number one in the UK for one week and number 17 in the United States. "Caribbean Blue", its lead single, charted at number thirteen in the United Kingdom. By 1997, the album had reached multi-platinum certification for selling in excess of 1.2 million copies in the United Kingdom and 5 million in the United States.
In 1991, Warner Music released a collection of five Enya music videos as Moonshadows for home video. In 1993, Enya won her first Grammy Award for Best New Age Album for Shepherd Moons. Soon after, Enya and Nicky entered discussions with Industrial Light & Magic, founded by George Lucas, regarding an elaborate stage lighting system for a proposed concert tour, but nothing came out of the meetings. In November 1992, Warner had obtained the rights to Enya and re-released the album as The Celts with new artwork. It surpassed its initial sale performance, reaching number 10 in the United Kingdom and reached platinum certification in the United States in 1996 for one million copies shipped.
After travelling worldwide to promote Shepherd Moons, Enya started to write and record her fourth album, The Memory of Trees. The album was released in November 1995. It peaked at number five in the United Kingdom and number nine in the United States, where it sold over 3 million copies. Its lead single, "Anywhere Is", reached number seven in the United Kingdom. The second, "On My Way Home", reached number twenty-six in the same country. In late 1994, Enya put out an extended play of Christmas music titled The Christmas EP. Enya was offered to compose the score for Titanic, but declined. A recording of her singing "Oíche Chiúin", an Irish-language version of "Silent Night", appeared on the charity album A Very Special Christmas 3, released in benefit of the Special Olympics in October 1997.
In early 1997, Enya began to select tracks for her first compilation album, "trying to select the obvious ones, the hits, and others." She chose to work on the collection following the promotional tour for The Memory of Trees as she felt it was the right time in her career, and that her contract with WEA required her to release a "best of" album. The set, named Paint the Sky with Stars: The Best of Enya, features two new tracks, "Paint the Sky with Stars" and "Only If...". Released in November 1997, the album was a worldwide commercial success, reaching No. 4 in the UK and No. 30 in the US, where it went on to sell over 4 million copies. "Only If..." was released as a single in 1997. Enya described the album as "like a musical diary ... each melody has a little story and I live through that whole story from the beginning ... your mind goes back to that day and what you were thinking."
1998–2007: A Day Without Rain and Amarantine
Enya started work on her fifth studio album, titled A Day Without Rain, in mid-1998. In a departure from her previous albums she incorporated the use of a string section into her compositions, something that was not a conscious decision at first, but Enya and Nicky Ryan agreed it complemented the songs that were being written. The album was released in November 2000, and reached number 6 in the United Kingdom and an initial peak of number 17 in the United States. In the aftermath of the 11 September attacks, sales of the album and its lead single, "Only Time", surged after the song was widely used during radio and television coverage of the events, leading to its description as "a post-September 11 anthem". The exposure caused A Day Without Rain to outperform its original chart performance to peak at number 2 on the Billboard 200, and the release of a maxi single containing the original and a pop remix of "Only Time" in November 2001. Enya donated its proceeds in aid of the International Association of Firefighters. The song topped the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart and went to number 10 on the Hot 100 singles, Enya's highest charting US single to date. A second single, "Wild Child", was released in December 2001. A Day Without Rain remains Enya's biggest seller, with 7 million copies sold in the US and the most sold new-age album of all time with an estimated 13 million copies sold worldwide.
In 2001, Enya agreed to write and perform on two tracks for the soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) at the request of director Peter Jackson. Its composer Howard Shore "imagined her voice" as he wrote the film's score, making an uncommon exception to include another artist in one of his soundtracks. After flying to New Zealand to observe the filming and to watch a rough cut of the film, Enya returned to Ireland and composed "Aníron (Theme for Aragorn and Arwen)" with lyrics by Roma in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Elvish language Sindarin, and "May It Be", sung in English and another Tolkien language, Quenya. Shore then based his orchestrations around Enya's recorded vocals and themes to create "a seamless sound". In 2002, Enya released "May It Be" as a single which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. She performed the song live at the 74th Academy Awards ceremony with an orchestra in March 2002, and later cited the moment as a career highlight.
Enya undertook additional studio projects in 2001 and 2002. The first was work on the soundtrack to the Japanese romantic film Calmi Cuori Appassionati (2001) which was subsequently released as Themes from Calmi Cuori Appassionati (2001). The album is formed of tracks spanning her career from Enya to A Day Without Rain with two B-sides. The album went to number 2 in Japan, and became Enya's second to sell one million copies in the country. November 2002 saw the release of Only Time – The Collection, a box set of 51 tracks recorded through her career which received a limited release of 200,000 copies.
In September 2003, Enya returned to Aigle Studio to start work on her sixth studio album, Amarantine. Roma said the title means "everlasting". The album marks the first instance of Enya singing in Loxian, a fictional language created by Roma that came about when Enya was working on "Water Shows the Hidden Heart". After numerous attempts to sing the song in English, Irish and Latin, Roma suggested a new language based on some of the sounds Enya would sing along to when developing her songs. It was a success, and Enya sang "Less Than a Pearl" and "The River Sings" in the same way. Roma worked on the language further, creating a "culture and history" behind it surrounding the Loxian people who are of another planet, questioning the existence of life on another. "Sumiregusa (Wild Violet)" is sung in Japanese. Amarantine was a global success, reaching number 6 on the Billboard 200 and number 8 in the UK. It has sold over 1 million certified copies in the US, a considerable drop in sales in comparison to her previous albums. Enya dedicated the album to BBC producer Tony McAuley, who had commissioned Enya to write the soundtrack to The Celts, following his death in 2003. The lead single, "Amarantine", was released in December 2005. A Christmas Special Edition was released in 2006, followed by a Deluxe Edition.
In 2006, Enya released Sounds of the Season: The Enya Holiday Collection, a Christmas-themed EP released exclusively in the US following an exclusive partnership with the NBC network and the Target department store chain. It includes two new songs, "Christmas Secrets" and "The Magic of the Night".
In June 2007, Enya received an honorary doctorate from the National University of Ireland, Galway. A month later, she received one from the University of Ulster.
2008–present: And Winter Came..., Dark Sky Island, and future
Enya continued to write music with a winter and Christmas theme for her seventh studio album, And Winter Came.... Initially she intended to make an album of seasonal songs and hymns set for a release in late 2007, but decided to produce a winter-themed album instead. The track "My! My! Time Flies!", a tribute to the late Irish guitarist Jimmy Faulkner, incorporates a guitar solo performed by Pat Farrell, the first use of a guitar on an Enya album since "I Want Tomorrow" from Enya. The lyrics also include atypical pop-culture references, such as to The Beatles' famous photo shoot for the cover of Abbey Road. Upon its release in November 2008, And Winter Came... reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 8 in the US and sold almost 3.5 million copies worldwide by 2011.
After promoting And Winter Came..., Enya took an extended break from writing and recording music. She spent her time resting, visiting family in Australia, and renovating her new home in the south of France. In March 2009, her first four studio albums were reissued in Japan in the Super High Material CD format with bonus tracks. Her second compilation album, The Very Best of Enya, was released in November 2009 and features songs from 1987 to 2008, including a previously unreleased version of "Aníron" and a DVD compiling most of her music videos to date. In 2013, "Only Time" was used in the "Epic Split" advertisement by Volvo Trucks starring Jean-Claude Van Damme who does the splits while suspended between two lorries. The video went viral, leading to numerous parodies of the commercial uploaded to YouTube also using "Only Time". The attention resulted in the song peaking at No. 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
In 2012, Enya returned to the studio to record her eighth album, Dark Sky Island. Its name refers to the island of Sark, which became the first island to be designated a dark-sky preserve, and a series of poems on islands by Roma Ryan. Upon its release on 20 November 2015, Dark Sky Island went to No. 4 in the UK, Enya's highest charting studio album there since Shepherd Moons went to No. 1, and to No. 8 in the US. A Deluxe Edition features three additional songs. Enya completed a promotional tour of the UK and Europe, the US and Japan. During her visit to Japan, Enya performed "Orinoco Flow" and "Echoes in Rain" at the Universal Studios Japan Christmas show in Osaka. In December 2016, Enya appeared on the Irish television show Christmas Carols from Cork, marking her first Irish television appearance in over seven years. She sang "Adeste Fideles", "Oiche Chiúin", and "The Spirit of Christmas Past".
On 4 November 2021, a Shepherd Moons "watch party" video was uploaded to Enya's official YouTube channel to commemorate the album's 30th anniversary. In his introductory message, Nicky Ryan said that Roma, Enya, and he used the downtime from the COVID-19 pandemic to renovate Aigle Studio, and install new recording equipment and instruments. When this is complete, Enya will begin working on new music.
Musical style
Enya's vocal range is mezzo-soprano. She has cited her musical foundations as "the classics", church music, and "Irish reels and jigs" with a particular interest in Sergei Rachmaninoff, a favourite composer of hers. She has an autographed picture of him in her home. Since 1982, she has recorded her music with Nicky Ryan as producer and arranger and his wife Roma Ryan as lyricist. While in Clannad, Enya chose to work with Nicky as the two shared an interest in vocal harmonies, and Ryan, influenced by The Beach Boys and the "Wall of Sound" technique that Phil Spector pioneered, wanted to explore the idea of "the multivocals" for which her music became known. According to Enya, "Angeles" from Shepherd Moons has roughly 500 vocals recorded individually and layered. Enya performs all vocals and the majority of instruments in her songs apart from musicians to play percussion, guitar, uilleann pipes, cornet, and double bass. Her early works including Watermark feature numerous keyboards, including the Yamaha KX88 Master, Yamaha DX7, Oberheim Matrix, Akai S900, Roland D-50, and Roland Juno-60, the latter a particular favourite of hers.
Numerous critics and reviewers classify Enya's albums as new age music and she has won four Grammy Awards in the category. However, Enya does not classify her music as part of the genre. When asked what genre she would classify her music, her reply was "Enya". Nicky Ryan commented on the new age comments: "Initially it was fine, but it's really not new age. Enya plays a whole lot of instruments, not just keyboards. Her melodies are strong and she sings a lot. So I can't see a comparison." The music video to "Caribbean Blue" and the art work to The Memory of Trees feature adapted works from artist Maxfield Parrish.
Enya has sung in ten languages in her career, including English, Irish, Latin, Welsh, Spanish, French and Japanese. She has recorded music influenced by works from fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien, including the instrumental "Lothlórien" from Shepherd Moons. For The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, she sang "May It Be" in English and Tolkien's fictional language Quenya, and sang "Aníron" in another of Tolkien's fictional languages, Sindarin. Her albums Amarantine and Dark Sky Island include songs sung in Loxian, a fictional language created by Roma, that has no official syntax. Its vocabulary was formed by Enya singing the song's notes to which Roma wrote their phonetic spelling.
Enya adopted a composing and songwriting method that has deviated little throughout her career. At the start of the recording process for an album she enters the studio, forgetting about her previous success, fame, and songs of hers that became hits. "If I did that", she said, "I'd have to call it a day". She then develops ideas on the piano, keeping note of any arrangement that can be worked on further. During her time writing, Enya works a five-day week, takes weekends off, and does not work on her music at home. With Irish as her first language, Enya initially records her songs in Irish as she can express "feeling much more directly" than English. After a period of time, Enya presents her ideas to Nicky to discuss what pieces work best, while Roma works in parallel to devise a lyric to the songs. Enya considered "Fallen Embers" from A Day Without Rain a perfect time when the lyrics reflect as to how she felt while writing the song. In 2008, she newly discovered her tendency to write "two or three songs" during the winter months, work on the arrangements and lyrics the following spring and summer, and then work on the next couple of songs when autumn arrives.
Live performances
Enya says that Warner Music and she "did not see eye to eye" initially as the label imagined her performing on stage "with a piano ... maybe two or three synthesiser players and that's it". Enya also explained that the time put into her studio albums causes her to "run overtime", leaving little time to plan for other such projects. She also expressed the difficulty in recreating her studio-oriented sound for the stage. In 1996, Ryan said Enya had received an offer worth almost £500,000 to perform a concert in Japan. In 2016, Enya spoke about the prospect of a live concert when she revealed talks with the Ryans during her three-year break after And Winter Came... (2008) to perform a show at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City that would be simulcast to cinemas worldwide. Before such an event could happen, Nicky suggested that she enter a studio and record "all the hits" live with an orchestra and choir to see how they would sound.
Enya has sung with live and lip synching vocals on various talk and music shows, events, and ceremonies throughout her career, usually during her worldwide press tours for each album. In December 1995, she performed "Anywhere Is" at a Christmas concert at Vatican City with Pope John Paul II in attendance, who met and thanked her for performing. In April 1996, Enya performed the same song during her surprise appearance at the fiftieth birthday celebration for Carl XVI Gustaf, the King of Sweden and a fan of Enya's. In 1997, Enya participated in a live Christmas Eve broadcast in London and flew to County Donegal afterwards to join her family for their annual midnight Mass choral performance, in which she participates each year. In March 2002, she performed "May It Be" with an orchestra at the year's Academy Awards ceremony. Enya and her sisters performed as part of the local choir Cor Mhuire in July 2005 at St. Mary's church in Gweedore during the annual Earagail Arts Festival.
Personal life
Since the 1980s, Enya has attracted the attention of several stalkers. In 1996, an Italian man who was seen in Dublin wearing a photograph of Enya around his neck stabbed himself outside her parents' pub after being ejected from the premises.
In 1991, a minor planet first discovered in 1978, 6433 Enya, was named after her. In 2017, a newly discovered species of fish, Leporinus enyae, found in the Orinoco River drainage area, was also named after her.
Enya is known for keeping a private lifestyle, saying: "The music is what sells. Not me, or what I stand for ... that's the way I've always wanted it". She is not married and is a surrogate aunt to the Ryans' two daughters. In 1991, she said: "I'm afraid of marriage because I'm afraid someone might want me because of who I am instead of because they loved me... I wouldn't go rushing into anything unexpected, but I do think a great deal about this". A relationship she had with one man ended in 1997, around the time when she considered taking time out of music to have a family but found she was putting pressure on herself over the matter and "gone the route I wanted to go". She declares herself as "more spiritual than religious... I derive from religion what I enjoy."
In 1997, Enya bought a Victorian Grade A listed castellated mansion in Killiney, County Dublin for IR£2.5 million at auction. Formerly known as Victoria Castle and Ayesha Castle, she renamed it Manderley Castle after the house from the novel Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. In all, she spent seven years renovating her property and also installing considerable security measures. In 2005, Enya spent around £250,000 on security improvements, covering gaps in the castle's outer wall and installing bollards and iron railings. In October of that year, two people broke into the home; one attacked and tied up one of her housekeepers and left with several of Enya's items after she had raised the alarm in her safe room. In 2009, during her three-year break from music, Enya purchased a home in southern France.
In 2006, Enya ranked third in a list of the wealthiest Irish entertainers with an estimated fortune of £75 million, and was number 95 in the Sunday Times Rich List of the richest 250 Irish people. In the 2016 edition, which listed its top 50 Music Millionaires of Britain and Ireland, she emerged as the richest female singer with a fortune of £91 million and ranked number 28 overall.
Awards and nominations
Billboard Music Awards
|-
| rowspan=4|2001
| rowspan=2|Enya
| Top Billboard 200 Artist - Female
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|-
| Top New Age Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=3|A Day Without Rain
| Top Internet Album
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|-
| rowspan=2|Top New Age Album
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|-
| rowspan=3|2002
|
|-
| rowspan=2|Enya
| Top New Age Artist
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|-
| Top Adult Contemporary Artist
|
Grammy Awards
|-
| rowspan=2|1990
| rowspan=2|"Orinoco Flow"
| Best New Age Performance
|
|-
| Best Music Video
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| 1993
| Shepherd Moons
| rowspan=3|Best New Age Album
|
|-
| 1997
| The Memory of Trees
|
|-
| 2002
| A Day Without Rain
|
|-
| 2003
| "May It Be"
| Best Song Written for Visual Media
|
|-
| rowspan="2"|2007
| "Drifting"
| Best Pop Instrumental Performance
|
|-
| Amarantine
| rowspan=2|Best New Age Album
|
|-
| 2017
| Dark Sky Island
|
IFPI Hong Kong Top Sales Music Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 2001
| A Day Without Rain
| Top 10 Best Sales Foreign Albums
|
|
Japan Gold Disc Awards
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| 1990
| Enya
| New Artist of the Year
|
|-
| 1998
| Paint the Sky with Stars
| Best 3 Albums
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|-
| 2001
| A Day Without Rain
| International Pop Album of the Year
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|-
| 2002
| Themes from Calmi Cuori Appassionati
| Best 3 Albums
|
|-
| 2006
| Amarantine
| International Album of the Year
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World Music Awards
|-
| rowspan="2"|2001
| rowspan="7"| Enya
| World's Best Selling Irish Artist
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|-
| rowspan=2|World's Best Selling New Age Artist
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|-
| rowspan=3|2002
|
|-
| World's Best Selling Female Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=3|World's Best Selling Irish Artist
|
|-
| 2003
|
|-
| 2006
|
Žebřík Music Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1993
| rowspan=3|Enya
| rowspan=3|Best International Female
|
|
|-
| 1997
|
|
|-
| 2005
|
|
Other Awards
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|1989
|rowspan="3"|Enya
| Brit Award for Best International Artist
|
|-
| Brit Award for Best International Female
|
|-
| IRMA Award for Best Female Irish Artist
|
|-
!scope="row"|1990
| "Orinoco Flow"
| BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row"|1992
|rowspan="3"|Enya
|rowspan="2"|Brit Award for Best International Solo Artist
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|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|1993
|
|-
| IRMA Award for Best Female Irish Artist
|
|-
| "Book of Days"
| Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan=1|1998
| Enya, Nicky Ryan, and Roma Ryan
| Ivor Novello Award for International Achievement
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|-
!scope="row"|2001
| rowspan="4"| "May It Be"
| Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Song
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|-
!scope="row"|2001
| Broadcast Film Critics Association for Best Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row"|2002
| Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row"|2002
| Academy Award for Best Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="4"|2002
| rowspan="2"| Enya
| American Music Award for Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist
|
|-
| Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
|
|-
| rowspan=3|"Only Time"
| ECHO Award for Best Single of the Year (International)
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|-
| BDSCertified Spin Awards – 300,000 Spins
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="1"|2003
| rowspan="1"|BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|2004
| rowspan=4|"I Don't Wanna Know"
| Vibe Award for R&B Song of the Year
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|-
| MOBO Award for Best Single
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|-
| MOBO Award for Best Ringtone
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|-
!scope="row"|2005
| BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row"|2016
| Dark Sky Island
| ECHO Award for Best Female of the Year (International)
|
|-
|}
Discography
Studio albums
Enya (1987) (reissued in 1992 as The Celts)
Watermark (1988)
Shepherd Moons (1991)
The Memory of Trees (1995)
A Day Without Rain (2000)
Amarantine (2005)
And Winter Came... (2008)
Dark Sky Island (2015)
See also
Honorific nicknames in popular music
List of ambient music artists
List of artists who reached number one on the UK Singles Chart
List of best-selling music artists
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
References
Sources
External links
1961 births
20th-century Irish women singers
21st-century Irish women singers
Celtic fusion musicians
Clannad members
Grammy Award winners
Irish women composers
Irish folk singers
Irish-language singers
Irish mezzo-sopranos
Irish pianists
Irish pop singers
Irish women singer-songwriters
Ivor Novello Award winners
Latin-language singers
Living people
Musicians from County Donegal
New-age musicians
People from Dalkey
People from Gweedore
Warner Music Group artists
Women in electronic music
World Music Awards winners
People from Killiney
20th-century women composers
21st-century women composers | true | [
"Kim Na-young (; born December 31, 1991) is a South Korean singer who gained immense popularity through social media exposure on New Year's Eve 2015, when her single \"What If It Was Going\" topped Melon's (South Korea's biggest music streaming site) music charts, holding the top place for five days, and high spots on other streaming sites. She has recorded several soundtracks, including \"Once Again\" for Descendants of the Sun.\n\nMusic career \n\nShe debuted as a singer in 2012, after which she took the unusual route of busking in the Hongdae area, where a video clip of her singing on a cold winter night went viral and attracted over 1 million views.\n\nShe has had a few TV appearances and was a contestant on Mnet's Superstar K in 2013, but did not reach the finals. From her appearance on Superstar K, her singing skills were noticed in the K-pop industry and she did a 2014 original soundtrack for a Korean drama.\n\nNew Year's Eve 2015 viral success \n\nHer sudden rise in popularity, without being known much by mainstream media, occurred with the release of the viral video clip \"What If It Was Going\" and was called remarkable. Social media experts said the video's reception, which \"spread like wildfire among young trendsetters,\" was because \"mobile oriented social networks are changing the traditional routes to success for singers.\" She called the success, which coincided on her birthday, December 31, an unforgettable birthday gift.\n\nDescendants of the Sun OST\n\nShe has recorded a number of soundtracks, including those for The Girl Who Sees Smells, Orange Marmalade and Bubble Gum. In March 2016, she and Mad Clown collaborated for a well received OST \"Once Again\" for Descendants of the Sun, and used as background music when the drama's leading roles flashed back to old memories.\n\n2019: First music show win\nOn June 23, 2019, she received her first music show win on SBS' Inkigayo with her single \"To Be Honest\".\n\n2020: Do You Like Brahms? \nOn September 21, 2020, the original soundtrack Kim sang titled \"Dream\" was released for the South Korean television series Do You Like Brahms? as the sixth part.\n\nDiscography\n\nStudio albums\n\nSingles\n\nSoundtrack appearances\n\nFilmography\n\nTelevision shows\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n (in Korean)\n\n1991 births\nLiving people\nSouth Korean contemporary R&B singers\nSeoul Institute of the Arts alumni\n21st-century South Korean singers\n21st-century South Korean women singers",
"Dead Funny is a 1994 independent drama film directed by John Feldman. It stars Elizabeth Peña as Vivian Saunders, a woman who comes home from work and finds her boyfriend Reggie Barker (Andrew McCarthy) pinned to her kitchen table with a long knife.\n\nPlot\nVivian Saunders (Elizabeth Peña) comes home one day to an unusual surprise: her boyfriend Reggie Barker (Andrew McCarthy) is lying on the kitchen table with a large sword sticking out of his body. At first Vivian thinks this must be some sort of joke, but she discovers that Reggie is indeed dead, and as she calls her best friend Louise (Paige Turco) to figure out what might have happened and what to do, it occurs to her that she blacked out after too much wine the night before and isn't sure what she did before she passed out. After a few phone calls, Vivian's women's support group arrives, and what to do about Reggie soon takes second place to what Vivian should do for herself.\n\nCast\nElizabeth Peña as Vivian Saunders\nAndrew McCarthy as Reggie Barker\nPaige Turco as Louise\nBlanche Baker as Barbara\nAllison Janney as Jennifer\nAdelle Lutz as Mari\nNovella Nelson as Frances\nLisa Jane Persky as Sarah\nMichael Mantell as Harold\nKen Kensei as Yoshi\nBai Ling as Norriko\n\nRelease\nThis film has only been released on VHS and LaserDisc format.\n\nReception\nDavid Nusair of DVD Talk negatively reviewed the film, saying \"By the time we find out what really happened to McCarthy's character, it's impossible to care.\" Time Out also negatively reviewed the film, writing \"How did it happen? Who did it? Who cares? Probably not Feldman who seems more interested in shooting his actresses' naked thighs.\" The New York Times stated that Dead Funny \"tries so hard to be ingeniously tricky and ambiguous that it ends up outsmarting itself\".\n\nVariety positively reviewed the film, praising Peña's performance.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n\n1994 films\nAmerican drama films\nAmerican independent films\nAmerican films\n1994 drama films\nEnglish-language films"
] |
[
"Enya",
"2008-present: And Winter Came... and Dark Sky Island",
"Can you provide me with a little information on And Winter Came..and Dark Sky Island?",
"seventh studio album, And Winter Came....",
"Is this the name of a music group?",
"seventh studio album,",
"What was all involved in the making of this album?",
"Initially she intended to make an album of seasonal songs and hymns set for a release in late 2007, but decided to produce a winter-themed album instead.",
"Is her winter-themed album popular?",
"reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 8 in the US and sold almost 3.5 million copies worldwide by 2011.",
"What did she do after this success?",
"After promoting And Winter Came..., Enya took an extended break from writing and recording music."
] | C_ca2198202da140e28165132567967682_1 | What did she focus on during her break? | 6 | What did Enya focus on during her break after promoting And Winter Came...? | Enya | Enya continued to write music with a winter and Christmas theme for her seventh studio album, And Winter Came.... Initially she intended to make an album of seasonal songs and hymns set for a release in late 2007, but decided to produce a winter-themed album instead. The track "My! My! Time Flies!", a tribute to the late Irish guitarist Jimmy Faulkner, incorporates a guitar solo performed by Pat Farrell, the first use of a guitar on an Enya album since "I Want Tomorrow" from Enya. Upon its release in November 2008, And Winter Came... reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 8 in the US and sold almost 3.5 million copies worldwide by 2011. After promoting And Winter Came..., Enya took an extended break from writing and recording music. She spent her time resting, visiting family in Australia, and renovating her new home in the south of France. In March 2009, her first four studio albums were reissued in Japan in the Super High Material CD format with bonus tracks. Her second compilation album and DVD, The Very Best of Enya, was released in November 2009 and features songs from 1987 to 2008, including a previously unreleased version of "Aniron". In 2013, "Only Time" was used in an advertisement by Volvo Trucks starring Jean-Claude Van Damme who does the splits while suspended between two lorries. The video went viral, leading to numerous parodies of the commercial uploaded to YouTube also using "Only Time". The attention resulted in the song peaking at No. 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. In 2012, Enya returned to the studio to record her eighth album, Dark Sky Island. Its name references the island of Sark, where it became the first island to be designated a dark-sky preserve, and a series of poems on islands by Roma Ryan. The new album was promoted with the premiere in October 2015 of its lead single, "Echoes in Rain", on Ken Bruce's radio show and with the release in the same month of the single as a digital download. Upon its release on 20 November 2015, Dark Sky Island went to No. 4 in the UK, Enya's highest charting studio album there since Shepherd Moons went to No. 1, and to No. 8 in the US. A Deluxe Edition features three additional songs. Enya completed a promotional tour of the UK and Europe, the US and Japan. During her visit to Japan, Enya performed "Orinoco Flow" and "Echoes in Rain" at the Universal Studios Japan Christmas show in Osaka. In December 2016, Enya appeared on the Raidio Teilifis Eireann Christmas special Christmas Carols from Cork, marking her first appearance on Irish television in a decade. She sang "Adeste Fideles" and "Oiche Chiuin" as well as her own carol composition "The Spirit of Christmas Past". CANNOTANSWER | She spent her time resting, visiting family in Australia, and renovating her new home in the south of France. | Enya Patricia Brennan ( ; born 17 May 1961) is an Irish singer, songwriter and musician, known for pioneering modern Celtic and New-age music. Regarded as the "Queen of New Age", Enya is the best-selling Irish solo artist in history, and second-best-selling overall behind U2. Born into a musical family and raised in the Irish-speaking area of Gweedore, County Donegal, Enya began her music career when she joined her family's Celtic folk band Clannad in 1980 on keyboards and backing vocals. She left the group in 1982 with their manager and producer Nicky Ryan to pursue a solo career, with Ryan's wife Roma Ryan as her lyricist. Enya developed her sound over the following four years with multitracked vocals and keyboards with elements of new age, Celtic, classical, church, world, pop, and Irish folk. Thus far, she has sung in ten languages, most notably English, Irish Gaelic (Gaeilge), Latin, and Welsh.
Enya's first projects as a solo artist included soundtrack work for The Frog Prince (1984) and the 1987 BBC documentary series The Celts, which was released as her debut album, Enya (1987). She signed with Warner Music UK, which granted her artistic freedom and minimal interference from the label. The commercial and critical success of Watermark (1988) propelled her to worldwide fame, helped by the UK number one and international hit single "Orinoco Flow". This was followed by the multi-million-selling albums Shepherd Moons (1991), The Memory of Trees (1995), and A Day Without Rain (2000). Sales of the latter and its lead single, "Only Time", surged in the United States following its use in the media coverage of the September 11 attacks. Following Amarantine (2005) and And Winter Came... (2008), Enya took a four-year career hiatus before she resumed in 2012 and released her eighth studio album, Dark Sky Island (2015).
Enya's discography has sold 26.5 million certified albums in the United States and an estimated 75 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. A Day Without Rain (2000) remains the best-selling new-age album, with an estimated 16 million copies sold worldwide. Enya has won numerous awards, including seven World Music Awards, four Grammy Awards for Best New Age Album, and an Ivor Novello Award. She was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for "May It Be", written for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).
Early life
Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin was born on 17 May 1961 in Dore, a settlement in the parish of Gweedore, in County Donegal. It is a Gaeltacht region where Irish is the primary language. Her name is anglicised as Enya Patricia Brennan, where Enya is the phonetic spelling of how "Eithne" is pronounced in her native Ulster dialect of Irish; "Ní Bhraonáin" translates to "daughter of Brennan". The sixth of nine children, Enya was born into a Roman Catholic family of musicians. Her father, Leo Brennan, was the leader of the Slieve Foy Band, an Irish showband, and ran Leo's Tavern in Meenaleck. Her mother, Máire Brennan (née Duggan), who has distant Spanish roots whose ancestors settled on Tory Island, was an amateur musician who played in Leo's band and taught music at Gweedore Community School. Enya's maternal grandfather Aodh was the headmaster of the primary school in Dore, and her grandmother was a teacher there. Aodh was also the founder of the Gweedore Theatre company.
Enya described her upbringing as "very quiet and happy." At age three, she took part in her first singing competition at the annual Feis Ceoil music festival. She took part in pantomimes at Gweedore Theatre and sang with her siblings in her mother's choir at St Mary's church in Derrybeg. She learned English at primary school and began piano lessons at age four. "I had to do school work and then travel to a neighbouring town for piano lessons, and then more school work. I ... remember my brothers and sisters playing outside ... and I would be inside playing the piano. This one big book of scales, practising them over and over." When Enya turned eleven, her grandfather paid for her education at a strict convent boarding school in Milford run by nuns of the Loreto order, where she developed a taste for classical music, art, Latin and watercolour painting. She said: "It was devastating to be torn away from such a large family, but it was good for my music." Enya left the school at 17 and studied classical music in college for one year, with the aim of becoming "a piano teacher sort of person. I never thought of myself composing or being on stage."
Career
1980–1985: Clannad and early solo career
In 1970, several members of Enya's family formed Clannad, a Celtic folk band who later acquired Nicky Ryan as their manager, sound engineer, and producer, and his future wife, Roma Ryan, as tour manager and administrator. In 1980, after her year at college, Enya decided against pursuing music at university and accepted Ryan's invitation to join the group as he wanted to expand their sound with an additional vocalist and introducing keyboards. Enya performed an uncredited role their sixth studio album, Crann Úll (1980), with a line-up of siblings Máire, Pól, and Ciarán Brennan, and twin uncles Noel and Pádraig Duggan. She became an official member by the time their follow-up, Fuaim (1981), was released, and is photographed with the band on the front cover. Nicky maintained it was never his intention to make Enya a permanent member, and saw she was "fiercely independent ... intent on playing her own music. She was just not sure of how to go about it". This sparked discussions between the two on layering vocal tracks to create a "choir of one", a concept inspired by the Wall of Sound technique by producer Phil Spector that interested them both.
During a Clannad tour in 1982, Nicky called for a band meeting to address internal issues that had arisen. He added, "It was short and only required a vote, I was a minority of one and lost. Roma and I were out. This left the question of what happened with Enya. I decided to stand back and say nothing". Enya chose to leave with the Ryans and pursue a solo career as she felt confined in the group, and disliked being "somebody in the background". This caused some friction between the two parties at first, but they settled their differences. Nicky suggested to Enya that either she return to Gweedore "with no particular definite future", or live with him and Roma in Artane, Dublin "and see what happens, musically", which she accepted. After their bank denied them a loan, Enya sold her saxophone and gave piano lessons for income and the Ryans used what they could afford from their savings to build a recording facility in a shed in their garden. They named it Aigle Studio, after the French word for "eagle", and rented it out to musicians to help recoup the costs. The trio formed a musical partnership, with Nicky as Enya's producer and arranger and Roma her lyricist, and established their music company, Aigle Music. In the following two years, Enya developed her technique and composition by listening to recordings of her reciting pieces of classical music, and repeated the process until she started to improvise sections and develop her own arrangements. Her first composition was "An Taibhse Uaighneach", Irish for "The Lonely Ghost". During this time Enya played the synthesiser on Ceol Aduaidh (1983) by Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh and Frankie Kennedy, and performed with the duo and Mhaonaigh's brother Gearóid in their short lived group, Ragairne.
Enya's first solo endeavour arrived in 1983 when she recorded two piano instrumentals, "An Ghaoth Ón Ghrian", Irish for "The Solar Wind", and "Miss Clare Remembers", at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin which were released on Touch Travel (1984), a limited release cassette of music from various artists on the Touch label. She is credited as Eithne Ní Bhraonáin on its liner notes. After several months of preparation, Enya's first live solo performance took place on 23 September 1983 at the National Stadium in Dublin, which was televised for RTÉ's music show Festival Folk. Niall Morris, a musician who worked with her during this time, recalled she "was so nervous she could barely get on stage, and she cowered behind the piano until the gig was over."
Morris assisted Enya in the production of a demo tape, playing additional keyboards to her compositions, which Roma thought would suit accompanying visuals and sent it to various film producers. Among them was David Puttnam, who liked the tape and offered Enya to compose the soundtrack to his upcoming romantic comedy film, The Frog Prince (1984). Enya scored nine pieces for the film but they were later rearranged and orchestrated against her wishes by Richard Myhill, except for two that she sang on, "The Frog Prince" and "Dreams"; the words to the latter were penned by Charlie McGettigan. Film editor Jim Clark said the rearrangements were necessary as Enya found it difficult to compose to picture. Released in 1985, the album is the first commercial release that credits her as Enya, after Nicky Ryan thought "Eithne" would be too difficult for non-Irish people to pronounce correctly and suggested the phonetic spelling of her name. Enya looked back on the film as a good career move, but a disappointing one as "we weren't part of it at the end". She then sang on three tracks on Ordinary Man (1985) by Christy Moore.
1985–1989: The Celts and Watermark
In 1985, producer Tony McAuley asked Enya to contribute a track for a six-part BBC television documentary series The Celts. She had already written a Celtic-influenced song named "The March of the Celts", and submitted it to the project. Each episode was to feature a different composer at first, but director David Richardson liked her track so much, he had Enya score the entire series. Enya recorded 72 minutes of music at Aigle Studio and the BBC studios in Wood Lane, London without recording to picture, though she was required to portray certain themes and ideas that the producers wanted. Unlike The Frog Prince, she worked with little interference which granted her freedom to establish her sound that she would adopt throughout her future career, signified by layered vocals, keyboard-oriented music, and percussion with elements of Celtic, classical, church and folk music.
In March 1987, two months before The Celts aired, a 40-minute selection of Enya's score was released as her debut solo album, Enya, by BBC Records in the United Kingdom and by Atlantic Records in the United States. The latter promoted it with a new-age imprint on the packaging, which Nicky later thought was "a cowardly thing for them to do". The album gained enough public attention to reach number 8 on the Irish Albums Chart and number 69 on the UK Albums Chart. "I Want Tomorrow" was released as Enya's first single. "Boadicea" was sampled by The Fugees on their 1996 song "Ready or Not"; the group neither sought permission nor gave credit, and Enya took legal action. The group subsequently gave her credit and paid a fee worth around $3 million. Later in 1987, Enya appeared on Sinéad O'Connor's debut album The Lion and the Cobra, reciting Psalm 91 in Irish on "Never Get Old".
Several weeks after the release of Enya, Enya secured a recording contract with Warner Music UK after Rob Dickins, the label's chairman and a fan of Clannad, took a liking to Enya and found himself playing it "every night before I went to bed". He then met Enya and the Ryans at a chance meeting at the Irish Recorded Music Association award ceremony in Dublin, and learned Enya had entered negotiations with a rival label. Dickins seized the opportunity and signed her to Warner Music with a deal worth £75,000, granting her wish to write and record with artistic freedom, minimal interference from the label, and without set deadlines to finish albums. Dickins said: "Sometimes you sign an act to make money, and sometimes you sign an act to make music. This was clearly the latter ... I just wanted to be involved with this music." Enya then left Atlantic and signed with the Warner-led Geffen Records to handle her American distribution.
With the green-light to produce a new studio album, Enya recorded Watermark from June 1987 to April 1988. It was initially recorded in analogue at Aigle Studio before Dickins requested to have it re-recorded digitally at Orinoco Studios in Bermondsey, London. Watermark was released in September 1988 and became an unexpected hit, reaching number 5 in the United Kingdom and number 25 on the Billboard 200 in the United States following its release there in January 1989. Its lead single, "Orinoco Flow", was the last song written for the album. It was not intended to be a single at first, but Enya and the Ryans chose it after Dickins asked for a single from them several times as a joke, knowing Enya's music was not made for the Top 40 chart. Dickins and engineer Ross Cullum are referenced in the songs' lyrics. "Orinoco Flow" became an international top 10 hit and was number one in the United Kingdom for three weeks. The new-found success propelled Enya to international fame and she received endorsement deals and offers to use her music in television commercials. She spent one year travelling worldwide to promote the album which increased her exposure through interviews, appearances, and live performances. By 1996, Watermark had sold in excess of 1.2 million copies in the United Kingdom and 4 million in the United States.
1989–1997: Shepherd Moons and The Memory of Trees
After promoting Watermark, Enya purchased new recording equipment and started work on her next album, Shepherd Moons. She found the success of Watermark caused a considerable amount of pressure when it came to writing new songs, adding, "I kept thinking, 'Would this have gone on Watermark? Is it as good?' Eventually I had to forget about this and start on a blank canvas and just really go with what felt right." Enya wrote songs based on several ideas, including entries from her diary, the Blitz in London, and her grandparents. Shepherd Moons was released in November 1991, her first album released under Warner-led Reprise Records in the United States. It became a greater commercial success than Watermark, reaching number one in the UK for one week and number 17 in the United States. "Caribbean Blue", its lead single, charted at number thirteen in the United Kingdom. By 1997, the album had reached multi-platinum certification for selling in excess of 1.2 million copies in the United Kingdom and 5 million in the United States.
In 1991, Warner Music released a collection of five Enya music videos as Moonshadows for home video. In 1993, Enya won her first Grammy Award for Best New Age Album for Shepherd Moons. Soon after, Enya and Nicky entered discussions with Industrial Light & Magic, founded by George Lucas, regarding an elaborate stage lighting system for a proposed concert tour, but nothing came out of the meetings. In November 1992, Warner had obtained the rights to Enya and re-released the album as The Celts with new artwork. It surpassed its initial sale performance, reaching number 10 in the United Kingdom and reached platinum certification in the United States in 1996 for one million copies shipped.
After travelling worldwide to promote Shepherd Moons, Enya started to write and record her fourth album, The Memory of Trees. The album was released in November 1995. It peaked at number five in the United Kingdom and number nine in the United States, where it sold over 3 million copies. Its lead single, "Anywhere Is", reached number seven in the United Kingdom. The second, "On My Way Home", reached number twenty-six in the same country. In late 1994, Enya put out an extended play of Christmas music titled The Christmas EP. Enya was offered to compose the score for Titanic, but declined. A recording of her singing "Oíche Chiúin", an Irish-language version of "Silent Night", appeared on the charity album A Very Special Christmas 3, released in benefit of the Special Olympics in October 1997.
In early 1997, Enya began to select tracks for her first compilation album, "trying to select the obvious ones, the hits, and others." She chose to work on the collection following the promotional tour for The Memory of Trees as she felt it was the right time in her career, and that her contract with WEA required her to release a "best of" album. The set, named Paint the Sky with Stars: The Best of Enya, features two new tracks, "Paint the Sky with Stars" and "Only If...". Released in November 1997, the album was a worldwide commercial success, reaching No. 4 in the UK and No. 30 in the US, where it went on to sell over 4 million copies. "Only If..." was released as a single in 1997. Enya described the album as "like a musical diary ... each melody has a little story and I live through that whole story from the beginning ... your mind goes back to that day and what you were thinking."
1998–2007: A Day Without Rain and Amarantine
Enya started work on her fifth studio album, titled A Day Without Rain, in mid-1998. In a departure from her previous albums she incorporated the use of a string section into her compositions, something that was not a conscious decision at first, but Enya and Nicky Ryan agreed it complemented the songs that were being written. The album was released in November 2000, and reached number 6 in the United Kingdom and an initial peak of number 17 in the United States. In the aftermath of the 11 September attacks, sales of the album and its lead single, "Only Time", surged after the song was widely used during radio and television coverage of the events, leading to its description as "a post-September 11 anthem". The exposure caused A Day Without Rain to outperform its original chart performance to peak at number 2 on the Billboard 200, and the release of a maxi single containing the original and a pop remix of "Only Time" in November 2001. Enya donated its proceeds in aid of the International Association of Firefighters. The song topped the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart and went to number 10 on the Hot 100 singles, Enya's highest charting US single to date. A second single, "Wild Child", was released in December 2001. A Day Without Rain remains Enya's biggest seller, with 7 million copies sold in the US and the most sold new-age album of all time with an estimated 13 million copies sold worldwide.
In 2001, Enya agreed to write and perform on two tracks for the soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) at the request of director Peter Jackson. Its composer Howard Shore "imagined her voice" as he wrote the film's score, making an uncommon exception to include another artist in one of his soundtracks. After flying to New Zealand to observe the filming and to watch a rough cut of the film, Enya returned to Ireland and composed "Aníron (Theme for Aragorn and Arwen)" with lyrics by Roma in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Elvish language Sindarin, and "May It Be", sung in English and another Tolkien language, Quenya. Shore then based his orchestrations around Enya's recorded vocals and themes to create "a seamless sound". In 2002, Enya released "May It Be" as a single which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. She performed the song live at the 74th Academy Awards ceremony with an orchestra in March 2002, and later cited the moment as a career highlight.
Enya undertook additional studio projects in 2001 and 2002. The first was work on the soundtrack to the Japanese romantic film Calmi Cuori Appassionati (2001) which was subsequently released as Themes from Calmi Cuori Appassionati (2001). The album is formed of tracks spanning her career from Enya to A Day Without Rain with two B-sides. The album went to number 2 in Japan, and became Enya's second to sell one million copies in the country. November 2002 saw the release of Only Time – The Collection, a box set of 51 tracks recorded through her career which received a limited release of 200,000 copies.
In September 2003, Enya returned to Aigle Studio to start work on her sixth studio album, Amarantine. Roma said the title means "everlasting". The album marks the first instance of Enya singing in Loxian, a fictional language created by Roma that came about when Enya was working on "Water Shows the Hidden Heart". After numerous attempts to sing the song in English, Irish and Latin, Roma suggested a new language based on some of the sounds Enya would sing along to when developing her songs. It was a success, and Enya sang "Less Than a Pearl" and "The River Sings" in the same way. Roma worked on the language further, creating a "culture and history" behind it surrounding the Loxian people who are of another planet, questioning the existence of life on another. "Sumiregusa (Wild Violet)" is sung in Japanese. Amarantine was a global success, reaching number 6 on the Billboard 200 and number 8 in the UK. It has sold over 1 million certified copies in the US, a considerable drop in sales in comparison to her previous albums. Enya dedicated the album to BBC producer Tony McAuley, who had commissioned Enya to write the soundtrack to The Celts, following his death in 2003. The lead single, "Amarantine", was released in December 2005. A Christmas Special Edition was released in 2006, followed by a Deluxe Edition.
In 2006, Enya released Sounds of the Season: The Enya Holiday Collection, a Christmas-themed EP released exclusively in the US following an exclusive partnership with the NBC network and the Target department store chain. It includes two new songs, "Christmas Secrets" and "The Magic of the Night".
In June 2007, Enya received an honorary doctorate from the National University of Ireland, Galway. A month later, she received one from the University of Ulster.
2008–present: And Winter Came..., Dark Sky Island, and future
Enya continued to write music with a winter and Christmas theme for her seventh studio album, And Winter Came.... Initially she intended to make an album of seasonal songs and hymns set for a release in late 2007, but decided to produce a winter-themed album instead. The track "My! My! Time Flies!", a tribute to the late Irish guitarist Jimmy Faulkner, incorporates a guitar solo performed by Pat Farrell, the first use of a guitar on an Enya album since "I Want Tomorrow" from Enya. The lyrics also include atypical pop-culture references, such as to The Beatles' famous photo shoot for the cover of Abbey Road. Upon its release in November 2008, And Winter Came... reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 8 in the US and sold almost 3.5 million copies worldwide by 2011.
After promoting And Winter Came..., Enya took an extended break from writing and recording music. She spent her time resting, visiting family in Australia, and renovating her new home in the south of France. In March 2009, her first four studio albums were reissued in Japan in the Super High Material CD format with bonus tracks. Her second compilation album, The Very Best of Enya, was released in November 2009 and features songs from 1987 to 2008, including a previously unreleased version of "Aníron" and a DVD compiling most of her music videos to date. In 2013, "Only Time" was used in the "Epic Split" advertisement by Volvo Trucks starring Jean-Claude Van Damme who does the splits while suspended between two lorries. The video went viral, leading to numerous parodies of the commercial uploaded to YouTube also using "Only Time". The attention resulted in the song peaking at No. 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
In 2012, Enya returned to the studio to record her eighth album, Dark Sky Island. Its name refers to the island of Sark, which became the first island to be designated a dark-sky preserve, and a series of poems on islands by Roma Ryan. Upon its release on 20 November 2015, Dark Sky Island went to No. 4 in the UK, Enya's highest charting studio album there since Shepherd Moons went to No. 1, and to No. 8 in the US. A Deluxe Edition features three additional songs. Enya completed a promotional tour of the UK and Europe, the US and Japan. During her visit to Japan, Enya performed "Orinoco Flow" and "Echoes in Rain" at the Universal Studios Japan Christmas show in Osaka. In December 2016, Enya appeared on the Irish television show Christmas Carols from Cork, marking her first Irish television appearance in over seven years. She sang "Adeste Fideles", "Oiche Chiúin", and "The Spirit of Christmas Past".
On 4 November 2021, a Shepherd Moons "watch party" video was uploaded to Enya's official YouTube channel to commemorate the album's 30th anniversary. In his introductory message, Nicky Ryan said that Roma, Enya, and he used the downtime from the COVID-19 pandemic to renovate Aigle Studio, and install new recording equipment and instruments. When this is complete, Enya will begin working on new music.
Musical style
Enya's vocal range is mezzo-soprano. She has cited her musical foundations as "the classics", church music, and "Irish reels and jigs" with a particular interest in Sergei Rachmaninoff, a favourite composer of hers. She has an autographed picture of him in her home. Since 1982, she has recorded her music with Nicky Ryan as producer and arranger and his wife Roma Ryan as lyricist. While in Clannad, Enya chose to work with Nicky as the two shared an interest in vocal harmonies, and Ryan, influenced by The Beach Boys and the "Wall of Sound" technique that Phil Spector pioneered, wanted to explore the idea of "the multivocals" for which her music became known. According to Enya, "Angeles" from Shepherd Moons has roughly 500 vocals recorded individually and layered. Enya performs all vocals and the majority of instruments in her songs apart from musicians to play percussion, guitar, uilleann pipes, cornet, and double bass. Her early works including Watermark feature numerous keyboards, including the Yamaha KX88 Master, Yamaha DX7, Oberheim Matrix, Akai S900, Roland D-50, and Roland Juno-60, the latter a particular favourite of hers.
Numerous critics and reviewers classify Enya's albums as new age music and she has won four Grammy Awards in the category. However, Enya does not classify her music as part of the genre. When asked what genre she would classify her music, her reply was "Enya". Nicky Ryan commented on the new age comments: "Initially it was fine, but it's really not new age. Enya plays a whole lot of instruments, not just keyboards. Her melodies are strong and she sings a lot. So I can't see a comparison." The music video to "Caribbean Blue" and the art work to The Memory of Trees feature adapted works from artist Maxfield Parrish.
Enya has sung in ten languages in her career, including English, Irish, Latin, Welsh, Spanish, French and Japanese. She has recorded music influenced by works from fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien, including the instrumental "Lothlórien" from Shepherd Moons. For The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, she sang "May It Be" in English and Tolkien's fictional language Quenya, and sang "Aníron" in another of Tolkien's fictional languages, Sindarin. Her albums Amarantine and Dark Sky Island include songs sung in Loxian, a fictional language created by Roma, that has no official syntax. Its vocabulary was formed by Enya singing the song's notes to which Roma wrote their phonetic spelling.
Enya adopted a composing and songwriting method that has deviated little throughout her career. At the start of the recording process for an album she enters the studio, forgetting about her previous success, fame, and songs of hers that became hits. "If I did that", she said, "I'd have to call it a day". She then develops ideas on the piano, keeping note of any arrangement that can be worked on further. During her time writing, Enya works a five-day week, takes weekends off, and does not work on her music at home. With Irish as her first language, Enya initially records her songs in Irish as she can express "feeling much more directly" than English. After a period of time, Enya presents her ideas to Nicky to discuss what pieces work best, while Roma works in parallel to devise a lyric to the songs. Enya considered "Fallen Embers" from A Day Without Rain a perfect time when the lyrics reflect as to how she felt while writing the song. In 2008, she newly discovered her tendency to write "two or three songs" during the winter months, work on the arrangements and lyrics the following spring and summer, and then work on the next couple of songs when autumn arrives.
Live performances
Enya says that Warner Music and she "did not see eye to eye" initially as the label imagined her performing on stage "with a piano ... maybe two or three synthesiser players and that's it". Enya also explained that the time put into her studio albums causes her to "run overtime", leaving little time to plan for other such projects. She also expressed the difficulty in recreating her studio-oriented sound for the stage. In 1996, Ryan said Enya had received an offer worth almost £500,000 to perform a concert in Japan. In 2016, Enya spoke about the prospect of a live concert when she revealed talks with the Ryans during her three-year break after And Winter Came... (2008) to perform a show at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City that would be simulcast to cinemas worldwide. Before such an event could happen, Nicky suggested that she enter a studio and record "all the hits" live with an orchestra and choir to see how they would sound.
Enya has sung with live and lip synching vocals on various talk and music shows, events, and ceremonies throughout her career, usually during her worldwide press tours for each album. In December 1995, she performed "Anywhere Is" at a Christmas concert at Vatican City with Pope John Paul II in attendance, who met and thanked her for performing. In April 1996, Enya performed the same song during her surprise appearance at the fiftieth birthday celebration for Carl XVI Gustaf, the King of Sweden and a fan of Enya's. In 1997, Enya participated in a live Christmas Eve broadcast in London and flew to County Donegal afterwards to join her family for their annual midnight Mass choral performance, in which she participates each year. In March 2002, she performed "May It Be" with an orchestra at the year's Academy Awards ceremony. Enya and her sisters performed as part of the local choir Cor Mhuire in July 2005 at St. Mary's church in Gweedore during the annual Earagail Arts Festival.
Personal life
Since the 1980s, Enya has attracted the attention of several stalkers. In 1996, an Italian man who was seen in Dublin wearing a photograph of Enya around his neck stabbed himself outside her parents' pub after being ejected from the premises.
In 1991, a minor planet first discovered in 1978, 6433 Enya, was named after her. In 2017, a newly discovered species of fish, Leporinus enyae, found in the Orinoco River drainage area, was also named after her.
Enya is known for keeping a private lifestyle, saying: "The music is what sells. Not me, or what I stand for ... that's the way I've always wanted it". She is not married and is a surrogate aunt to the Ryans' two daughters. In 1991, she said: "I'm afraid of marriage because I'm afraid someone might want me because of who I am instead of because they loved me... I wouldn't go rushing into anything unexpected, but I do think a great deal about this". A relationship she had with one man ended in 1997, around the time when she considered taking time out of music to have a family but found she was putting pressure on herself over the matter and "gone the route I wanted to go". She declares herself as "more spiritual than religious... I derive from religion what I enjoy."
In 1997, Enya bought a Victorian Grade A listed castellated mansion in Killiney, County Dublin for IR£2.5 million at auction. Formerly known as Victoria Castle and Ayesha Castle, she renamed it Manderley Castle after the house from the novel Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. In all, she spent seven years renovating her property and also installing considerable security measures. In 2005, Enya spent around £250,000 on security improvements, covering gaps in the castle's outer wall and installing bollards and iron railings. In October of that year, two people broke into the home; one attacked and tied up one of her housekeepers and left with several of Enya's items after she had raised the alarm in her safe room. In 2009, during her three-year break from music, Enya purchased a home in southern France.
In 2006, Enya ranked third in a list of the wealthiest Irish entertainers with an estimated fortune of £75 million, and was number 95 in the Sunday Times Rich List of the richest 250 Irish people. In the 2016 edition, which listed its top 50 Music Millionaires of Britain and Ireland, she emerged as the richest female singer with a fortune of £91 million and ranked number 28 overall.
Awards and nominations
Billboard Music Awards
|-
| rowspan=4|2001
| rowspan=2|Enya
| Top Billboard 200 Artist - Female
|
|-
| Top New Age Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=3|A Day Without Rain
| Top Internet Album
|
|-
| rowspan=2|Top New Age Album
|
|-
| rowspan=3|2002
|
|-
| rowspan=2|Enya
| Top New Age Artist
|
|-
| Top Adult Contemporary Artist
|
Grammy Awards
|-
| rowspan=2|1990
| rowspan=2|"Orinoco Flow"
| Best New Age Performance
|
|-
| Best Music Video
|
|-
| 1993
| Shepherd Moons
| rowspan=3|Best New Age Album
|
|-
| 1997
| The Memory of Trees
|
|-
| 2002
| A Day Without Rain
|
|-
| 2003
| "May It Be"
| Best Song Written for Visual Media
|
|-
| rowspan="2"|2007
| "Drifting"
| Best Pop Instrumental Performance
|
|-
| Amarantine
| rowspan=2|Best New Age Album
|
|-
| 2017
| Dark Sky Island
|
IFPI Hong Kong Top Sales Music Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 2001
| A Day Without Rain
| Top 10 Best Sales Foreign Albums
|
|
Japan Gold Disc Awards
|-
| 1990
| Enya
| New Artist of the Year
|
|-
| 1998
| Paint the Sky with Stars
| Best 3 Albums
|
|-
| 2001
| A Day Without Rain
| International Pop Album of the Year
|
|-
| 2002
| Themes from Calmi Cuori Appassionati
| Best 3 Albums
|
|-
| 2006
| Amarantine
| International Album of the Year
|
World Music Awards
|-
| rowspan="2"|2001
| rowspan="7"| Enya
| World's Best Selling Irish Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=2|World's Best Selling New Age Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=3|2002
|
|-
| World's Best Selling Female Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=3|World's Best Selling Irish Artist
|
|-
| 2003
|
|-
| 2006
|
Žebřík Music Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1993
| rowspan=3|Enya
| rowspan=3|Best International Female
|
|
|-
| 1997
|
|
|-
| 2005
|
|
Other Awards
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|1989
|rowspan="3"|Enya
| Brit Award for Best International Artist
|
|-
| Brit Award for Best International Female
|
|-
| IRMA Award for Best Female Irish Artist
|
|-
!scope="row"|1990
| "Orinoco Flow"
| BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row"|1992
|rowspan="3"|Enya
|rowspan="2"|Brit Award for Best International Solo Artist
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|1993
|
|-
| IRMA Award for Best Female Irish Artist
|
|-
| "Book of Days"
| Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan=1|1998
| Enya, Nicky Ryan, and Roma Ryan
| Ivor Novello Award for International Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row"|2001
| rowspan="4"| "May It Be"
| Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Song
|
|-
!scope="row"|2001
| Broadcast Film Critics Association for Best Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row"|2002
| Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row"|2002
| Academy Award for Best Original Song
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="4"|2002
| rowspan="2"| Enya
| American Music Award for Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist
|
|-
| Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
|
|-
| rowspan=3|"Only Time"
| ECHO Award for Best Single of the Year (International)
|
|-
| BDSCertified Spin Awards – 300,000 Spins
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="1"|2003
| rowspan="1"|BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|2004
| rowspan=4|"I Don't Wanna Know"
| Vibe Award for R&B Song of the Year
|
|-
| MOBO Award for Best Single
|
|-
| MOBO Award for Best Ringtone
|
|-
!scope="row"|2005
| BMI Award for Citation of Achievement
|
|-
!scope="row"|2016
| Dark Sky Island
| ECHO Award for Best Female of the Year (International)
|
|-
|}
Discography
Studio albums
Enya (1987) (reissued in 1992 as The Celts)
Watermark (1988)
Shepherd Moons (1991)
The Memory of Trees (1995)
A Day Without Rain (2000)
Amarantine (2005)
And Winter Came... (2008)
Dark Sky Island (2015)
See also
Honorific nicknames in popular music
List of ambient music artists
List of artists who reached number one on the UK Singles Chart
List of best-selling music artists
List of highest-certified music artists in the United States
References
Sources
External links
1961 births
20th-century Irish women singers
21st-century Irish women singers
Celtic fusion musicians
Clannad members
Grammy Award winners
Irish women composers
Irish folk singers
Irish-language singers
Irish mezzo-sopranos
Irish pianists
Irish pop singers
Irish women singer-songwriters
Ivor Novello Award winners
Latin-language singers
Living people
Musicians from County Donegal
New-age musicians
People from Dalkey
People from Gweedore
Warner Music Group artists
Women in electronic music
World Music Awards winners
People from Killiney
20th-century women composers
21st-century women composers | true | [
"Ebba Wieder (born 13 July 1998) is a Swedish footballer who plays as a midfielder.\n\nVittsjö GIK announced on 14 April 2021 that she is taking an indefinite break from football to focus on her mental health.\n\nHonours \nRosengård\nWinner\n Damallsvenskan (3): 2013, 2014, 2015\n Svenska Supercupen: 2015/2016, 2016/2017, 2017/2018\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n \n \n (archive)\n \n\n1998 births\nLiving people\nSwedish women's footballers\nFC Rosengård players\nDamallsvenskan players\nWomen's association football midfielders",
"Lil Kim Season is the fourth mixtape by American rapper Lil' Kim, released on March 28, 2016, by I.R.S Records.\n\nBackground \nLil' Kim first announced on Hot 97 at the Hot 4 The Holidays concert that she was releasing an album in 2016 and she had a meeting with her former record label Atlantic Records to Negotiate a deal. A few days later Kim released That Bitch (Remix) a freestyle of Omarion's I'm Up on December 8 as a teaser for new music on the way. News broke in early February that Bryant McKinnie is going to be a part of Kim's 5th album what she still being recorded and act as A&R for the TBA album instead of producing. On February 13 news broke out that Maino and Kim have been in the studio working on a Freestyle of Panda by Desiigner the freestyle was released on the 16 on Lil' Kim SoundCloud page as promo for her single #Mine featuring Kevin Gates. Kim released #Mine on February 18 as a Buzz single for her 5th album. On March 9, 2016, Lil' Kim and Maino released a joint single called I Did it for Brooklyn produced by Don Corleon and Mad Cheeta to pay homage and respect for the 19th anniversary passing of The Notorious B.I.G. Kim's late mentor and her hometown Brooklyn. On March 10, 2016, Lil' Kim previewed a clean version of her Summer Sixteen freestyle by Drake on Funkmaster flex's interview. Lil' Kim released the dirty version of the Summer Sixteen freestyle on March 15. The mixtape was first announced on March 24, 2016, via her Instagram page. Lil' Kim did an interview with Billboard a few hours before her mixtape was released, telling Billboard that she stepped away from recording new songs to tend to her daughter Royal Reign. \"For a long time, my focus was my baby\", she says. \"I wasn't thinking about music at all, and my focus was just raising my baby. Now that she's 19 months and she's going to be two this summer, she's motivating me to do music again.\"\n\nCritical reception \nLil Kim Season received mixed to positive reviews from critics. Jen Yamato a writer from The Daily Beast wrote, \"If anything, Lil Kim Season indicates that Kim's got her sights set on returning in a big way—and that she's collecting collaborators who might help her achieve it.\"\n\nTrack listing \n\nNote\n The mixtape version of \"#Mine\" is shorter than the single version.\n\nCharts \nThe promotional single \"#Mine\" charted at number 20 on the Billboard Rap Digital Songs list and sold over 25,000 copies to date.\n\nReferences \n\n \n \n\n2016 mixtape albums\nLil' Kim albums"
] |
[
"Hillary Clinton",
"Early life and education"
] | C_8b166a2b96a4446b96aec0b2fd24bb06_1 | Where did Clinton grow up? | 1 | Where did Hillary Clinton grow up? | Hillary Clinton | Hillary Diane Rodham was born on October 26, 1947, at Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. Clinton was raised in a United Methodist family that first lived in Chicago. When she was three years old, her family moved to the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge. Her father, Hugh Rodham, was of English and Welsh descent, and managed a small but successful textile business. Her mother, Dorothy Howell, was a homemaker of Dutch, English, French Canadian (from Quebec), Scottish and Welsh descent. Clinton has two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony. As a child, Rodham was a favorite student among her teachers at the public schools that she attended in Park Ridge. She participated swimming and softball and earned numerous badges as a Brownie and a Girl Scout. She has often told a story of being inspired by U.S. efforts during the Space Race and sending a letter to NASA around 1961 asking what she could do to become an astronaut, only to be informed that women were not being accepted into the program. She attended Maine East High School, where she participated in the student council, the school newspaper and was selected for the National Honor Society. She was elected class vice president for her junior year, but then lost the election for class president for her senior year against two boys, one of whom told her that "you are really stupid if you think a girl can be elected president". For her senior year, she and other students were transferred to the then new Maine South High School, where she was a National Merit Finalist and was voted, "most likely to succeed". She graduated in 1965 in the top five percent of her class. Rodham's mother wanted her to have an independent, professional career, and her father, who was otherwise a traditionalist, felt that his daughter's abilities and opportunities should not be limited by gender. Rodham was raised in a politically conservative household, and she helped canvass Chicago's South Side at age 13 after the very close 1960 U.S. presidential election. She saw evidence of electoral fraud (such as voting list entries showing addresses that were empty lots) against Republican candidate Richard Nixon, and later volunteered to campaign for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater in the U.S. presidential election of 1964. Rodham's early political development was shaped most by her high school history teacher (like her father, a fervent anti-communist), who introduced her to Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative and by her Methodist youth minister (like her mother, concerned with issues of social justice), with whom she saw and afterwards briefly met, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. at a 1962 speech in Chicago's Orchestra Hall. CANNOTANSWER | first lived in Chicago. | Hillary Diane Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, lawyer, writer, and public speaker who served as the 67th United States secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, as a United States senator from New York from 2001 to 2009, and as first lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001 as the wife of President Bill Clinton. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the party's nominee for president in the 2016 presidential election, becoming the first woman to win a presidential nomination by a major U.S. political party. Clinton won the popular vote in the election, making her the first woman to do so. However, she lost the Electoral College vote and thereby lost the presidential election.
Raised in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge, Rodham graduated from Wellesley College in 1969 and earned a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1973. After serving as a congressional legal counsel, she moved to Arkansas and married future president Bill Clinton in 1975; the two had met at Yale. In 1977, Clinton co-founded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. She was appointed the first female chair of the Legal Services Corporation in 1978 and became the first female partner at Little Rock's Rose Law Firm the following year. The National Law Journal twice listed her as one of the hundred most influential lawyers in America. Clinton was the first lady of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again from 1983 to 1992. As the first lady of the United States, Clinton advocated for healthcare reform. In 1994, her major initiative—the Clinton health care plan—failed to gain approval from Congress. In 1997 and 1999, Clinton played a leading role in advocating the creation of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, the Adoption and Safe Families Act, and the Foster Care Independence Act. Clinton advocated for gender equality at the 1995 UN conference on women. Her marital relationship came under public scrutiny during the Lewinsky scandal, which led her to issue a statement that reaffirmed her commitment to the marriage.
In 2000, Clinton was elected as the first female senator from New York and became the first First lady to simultaneously hold elected office, and then the first former First lady to serve in the Senate. She was re-elected in 2006 and chaired the Senate Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee from 2003 to 2007. During her Senate tenure, Clinton advocated for medical benefits for first responders whose health was damaged in the September 11 attacks. She supported the resolution authorizing the Iraq War in 2002 but opposed the surge of U.S. troops in 2007. In 2008, Clinton ran for president but was defeated by eventual winner Barack Obama in the Democratic primaries. Clinton was U.S. secretary of state in the first term of the Obama administration from 2009 to 2013. During her tenure, Clinton established the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. She responded to the Arab Spring by advocating military intervention in Libya but was harshly criticized by Republicans for the failure to prevent or adequately respond to the 2012 Benghazi attack. Clinton helped to organize a diplomatic isolation and a regime of international sanctions against Iran in an effort to force it to curtail its nuclear program; this effort eventually led to the multinational JCPOA nuclear agreement in 2015. Her use of a private email server when she was Secretary of State was the subject of intense scrutiny; while no charges were filed against Clinton, the email controversy was the single most covered topic during the 2016 presidential election.
Clinton made a second presidential run in 2016. After winning the Democratic nomination, she ran in the general election with Virginia senator Tim Kaine as her running mate. Clinton lost the presidential election to Republican opponent Donald Trump in the Electoral College despite winning a plurality of the popular vote. Following her loss, she wrote her third memoir, What Happened, and launched Onward Together, a political action organization dedicated to fundraising for progressive political groups. Since January 2020, she has been the chancellor of Queen's University Belfast in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Early life and education
Early life
Hillary Diane Rodham was born on October 26, 1947, at Edgewater Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. She was raised in a United Methodist family who first lived in Chicago. When she was three years old, her family moved to the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge. Her father, Hugh Rodham, was of English and Welsh descent, and managed a small but successful textile business, which he had founded. Her mother, Dorothy Howell, was a homemaker of Dutch, English, French Canadian (from Quebec), Scottish, and Welsh descent. She had two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony.
As a child, Rodham was a favorite student among her teachers at the public schools she attended in Park Ridge. She participated in swimming and softball and earned numerous badges as a Brownie and a Girl Scout. She has often told the story of being inspired by U.S. efforts during the Space Race and sending a letter to NASA around 1961 asking what she could do to become an astronaut, only to be informed that women were not being accepted into the program. She attended Maine East High School, where she participated in the student council and school newspaper and was selected for the National Honor Society. She was elected class vice president for her junior year but then lost the election for class president for her senior year against two boys, one of whom told her that "you are really stupid if you think a girl can be elected president". For her senior year, she and other students were transferred to the then-new Maine South High School. There she was a National Merit Finalist and was voted "most likely to succeed." She graduated in 1965 in the top five percent of her class.
Rodham's mother wanted her to have an independent, professional career. Her father, who was otherwise a traditionalist, felt that his daughter's abilities and opportunities should not be limited by gender. She was raised in a politically conservative household, and she helped canvass Chicago's South Side at age 13 after the very close 1960 U.S. presidential election. She saw evidence of electoral fraud (such as voting list entries showing addresses that were empty lots) against Republican candidate Richard Nixon, and later volunteered to campaign for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater in the 1964 election.
Rodham's early political development was shaped mostly by her high school history teacher (like her father, a fervent anti-communist), who introduced her to Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative and by her Methodist youth minister (like her mother, concerned with issues of social justice), with whom she saw and afterwards briefly met, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. at a 1962 speech in Chicago's Orchestra Hall.
Wellesley College years
In 1965, Rodham enrolled at Wellesley College, where she majored in political science. During her first year, she was president of the Wellesley Young Republicans. As the leader of this "Rockefeller Republican"-oriented group, she supported the elections of moderate Republicans John Lindsay to mayor of New York City and Massachusetts attorney general Edward Brooke to the United States Senate. She later stepped down from this position. In 2003, Clinton would write that her views concerning the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War were changing in her early college years. In a letter to her youth minister at that time, she described herself as "a mind conservative and a heart liberal". In contrast to the factions in the 1960s that advocated radical actions against the political system, she sought to work for change within it.
By her junior year, Rodham became a supporter of the antiwar presidential nomination campaign of Democrat Eugene McCarthy. In early 1968, she was elected president of the Wellesley College Government Association, a position she held until early 1969. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Rodham organized a two-day student strike and worked with Wellesley's black students to recruit more black students and faculty. In her student government role, she played a role in keeping Wellesley from being embroiled in the student disruptions common to other colleges. A number of her fellow students thought she might some day become the first female president of the United States.
To help her better understand her changing political views, Professor Alan Schechter assigned Rodham to intern at the House Republican Conference, and she attended the "Wellesley in Washington" summer program. Rodham was invited by moderate New York Republican representative Charles Goodell to help Governor Nelson Rockefeller's late-entry campaign for the Republican nomination. Rodham attended the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami Beach. However, she was upset by the way Richard Nixon's campaign portrayed Rockefeller and by what she perceived as the convention's "veiled" racist messages, and she left the Republican Party for good.
Rodham wrote her senior thesis, a critique of the tactics of radical community organizer Saul Alinsky, under Professor Schechter. Years later, while she was the first lady, access to her thesis was restricted at the request of the White House and it became the subject of some speculation. The thesis was later released.
In 1969, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, with departmental honors in political science. After some fellow seniors requested that the college administration allow a student speaker at commencement, she became the first student in Wellesley College history to speak at the event. Her address followed that of the commencement speaker, Senator Edward Brooke. After her speech, she received a standing ovation that lasted seven minutes. She was featured in an article published in Life magazine, because of the response to a part of her speech that criticized Senator Brooke. She also appeared on Irv Kupcinet's nationally syndicated television talk show as well as in Illinois and New England newspapers. She was asked to speak at the 50th anniversary convention of the League of Women Voters in Washington, D.C., the next year. That summer, she worked her way across Alaska, washing dishes in Mount McKinley National Park and sliming salmon in a fish processing cannery in Valdez (which fired her and shut down overnight when she complained about unhealthy conditions).
Yale Law School and postgraduate studies
Rodham then entered Yale Law School, where she was on the editorial board of the Yale Review of Law and Social Action. During her second year, she worked at the Yale Child Study Center, learning about new research on early childhood brain development and working as a research assistant on the seminal work, Beyond the Best Interests of the Child (1973). She also took on cases of child abuse at Yale–New Haven Hospital, and volunteered at New Haven Legal Services to provide free legal advice for the poor. In the summer of 1970, she was awarded a grant to work at Marian Wright Edelman's Washington Research Project, where she was assigned to Senator Walter Mondale's Subcommittee on Migratory Labor. There she researched various migrant workers' issues including education, health and housing. Edelman later became a significant mentor. Rodham was recruited by political advisor Anne Wexler to work on the 1970 campaign of Connecticut U.S. Senate candidate Joseph Duffey. Rodham later crediting Wexler with providing her first job in politics.
In the spring of 1971, she began dating fellow law student Bill Clinton. During the summer, she interned at the Oakland, California, law firm of Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein. The firm was well known for its support of constitutional rights, civil liberties and radical causes (two of its four partners were current or former Communist Party members); Rodham worked on child custody and other cases. Clinton canceled his original summer plans and moved to live with her in California; the couple continued living together in New Haven when they returned to law school. The following summer, Rodham and Clinton campaigned in Texas for unsuccessful 1972 Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern. She received a Juris Doctor degree from Yale in 1973, having stayed on an extra year to be with Clinton. He first proposed marriage to her following graduation, but she declined, uncertain if she wanted to tie her future to his.
Rodham began a year of postgraduate study on children and medicine at the Yale Child Study Center. In late 1973, her first scholarly article, "Children Under the Law", was published in the Harvard Educational Review. Discussing the new children's rights movement, the article stated that "child citizens" were "powerless individuals" and argued that children should not be considered equally incompetent from birth to attaining legal age, but instead that courts should presume competence on a case-by-case basis, except when there is evidence otherwise. The article became frequently cited in the field.
Marriage, family, legal career and first ladyship of Arkansas
From the East Coast to Arkansas
During her postgraduate studies, Rodham was staff attorney for Edelman's newly founded Children's Defense Fund in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and as a consultant to the Carnegie Council on Children. In 1974, she was a member of the impeachment inquiry staff in Washington, D.C., and advised the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate scandal. Under the guidance of Chief Counsel John Doar and senior member Bernard W. Nussbaum, Rodham helped research procedures of impeachment and the historical grounds and standards for it. The committee's work culminated with the resignation of President Richard Nixon in August 1974.
By then, Rodham was viewed as someone with a bright political future. Democratic political organizer and consultant Betsey Wright moved from Texas to Washington the previous year to help guide Rodham's career. Wright thought Rodham had the potential to become a future senator or president. Meanwhile, boyfriend Bill Clinton had repeatedly asked Rodham to marry him, but she continued to demur. After failing the District of Columbia bar exam and passing the Arkansas exam, Rodham came to a key decision. As she later wrote, "I chose to follow my heart instead of my head". She thus followed Clinton to Arkansas, rather than staying in Washington, where career prospects were brighter. He was then teaching law and running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in his home state. In August 1974, Rodham moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, and became one of only two female faculty members in the School of Law at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
Early Arkansas years
At the university, Rodham taught classes in criminal law. She was considered a rigorous teacher who was tough with her grades. Rodham became the first director of a new legal aid clinic at the school, where she secured support from the local bar association and gained federal funding. As a court-appointed lawyer, Rodham was required to act as defense counsel to a man accused of raping a 12-year-old girl; after her request to be relieved of the assignment failed, Rodham used an effective defense and counseled her client to plead guilty to a lesser charge. She has called the trial a "terrible case". During her time in Fayetteville, Rodham and several other women founded the city's first rape crisis center.
In 1974, Bill Clinton lost an Arkansas congressional race, facing incumbent Republican John Paul Hammerschmidt. Rodham and Bill Clinton bought a house in Fayetteville in the summer of 1975 and she agreed to marry him. The wedding took place on October 11, 1975, in a Methodist ceremony in their living room. A story about the marriage in the Arkansas Gazette indicated that she decided to retain the name Hillary Rodham. Her motivation was threefold. She wanted to keep the couple's professional lives separate, avoid apparent conflicts of interest, and as she told a friend at the time, "it showed that I was still me". The decision upset both mothers, who were more traditional.
In 1976, Rodham temporarily relocated to Indianapolis to work as an Indiana state campaign organizer for the presidential campaign of Jimmy Carter. In November 1976, Bill Clinton was elected Arkansas attorney general, and the couple moved to the state capital of Little Rock. In February 1977, Rodham joined the venerable Rose Law Firm, a bastion of Arkansan political and economic influence. She specialized in patent infringement and intellectual property law while working pro bono in child advocacy; she rarely performed litigation work in court.
Rodham maintained her interest in children's law and family policy, publishing the scholarly articles "Children's Policies: Abandonment and Neglect" in 1977 and "Children's Rights: A Legal Perspective" in 1979. The latter continued her argument that children's legal competence depended upon their age and other circumstances and that in serious medical rights cases, judicial intervention was sometimes warranted. An American Bar Association chair later said, "Her articles were important, not because they were radically new but because they helped formulate something that had been inchoate." Historian Garry Wills would later describe her as "one of the more important scholar-activists of the last two decades". Conservatives said her theories would usurp traditional parental authority, would allow children to file frivolous lawsuits against their parents, and exemplified critical legal studies run amok.
In 1977, Rodham cofounded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, a state-level alliance with the Children's Defense Fund. Later that year, President Jimmy Carter (for whom Rodham had been the 1976 campaign director of field operations in Indiana) appointed her to the board of directors of the Legal Services Corporation. She held that position from 1978 until the end of 1981. From mid-1978 to mid-1980, she was the chair of that board, the first woman to hold the job. During her time as chair, funding for the corporation was expanded from $90 million to $300 million; subsequently, she successfully fought President Ronald Reagan's attempts to reduce the funding and change the nature of the organization.
Following her husband's November 1978 election as governor of Arkansas, Rodham became that state's first lady in January 1979. She would hold that title for twelve nonconsecutive years (1979–81, 1983–92). Clinton appointed his wife to be the chair of the Rural Health Advisory Committee the same year, where she secured federal funds to expand medical facilities in Arkansas's poorest areas without affecting doctors' fees.
In 1979, Rodham became the first woman to be made a full partner in Rose Law Firm. From 1978 until they entered the White House, she had a higher salary than her husband. During 1978 and 1979, while looking to supplement their income, Rodham engaged in the trading of cattle futures contracts; an initial $1,000 investment generated nearly $100,000 when she stopped trading after ten months. At this time, the couple began their ill-fated investment in the Whitewater Development Corporation real estate venture with Jim and Susan McDougal. Both of these became subjects of controversy in the 1990s.
On February 27, 1980, Rodham gave birth to the couple's only child, a daughter whom they named Chelsea. In November 1980, Bill Clinton was defeated in his bid for re-election.
Later Arkansas years
Two years after leaving office, Bill Clinton returned to his job as governor of Arkansas after winning the election of 1982. During her husband's campaign, Hillary began to use the name "Hillary Clinton", or sometimes "Mrs. Bill Clinton", to assuage the concerns of Arkansas voters; she also took a leave of absence from Rose Law to campaign for him full-time. During her second stint as the first lady of Arkansas, she made a point of using Hillary Rodham Clinton as her name. She was named chair of the Arkansas Education Standards Committee in 1983, where she sought to reform the state's court-sanctioned public education system. In one of the Clinton governorship's most important initiatives, she fought a prolonged but ultimately successful battle against the Arkansas Education Association to establish mandatory teacher testing and state standards for curriculum and classroom size. It became her introduction into the politics of a highly visible public policy effort. In 1985, she introduced Arkansas's Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youth, a program that helps parents work with their children in preschool preparedness and literacy. She was named Arkansas Woman of the Year in 1983 and Arkansas Mother of the Year in 1984.
Clinton continued to practice law with the Rose Law Firm while she was the first lady of Arkansas. She earned less than the other partners, as she billed fewer hours but still made more than $200,000 in her final year there. The firm considered her a "rainmaker" because she brought in clients, partly thanks to the prestige she lent it and to her corporate board connections. She was also very influential in the appointment of state judges. Bill Clinton's Republican opponent in his 1986 gubernatorial re-election campaign accused the Clintons of conflict of interest because Rose Law did state business; the Clintons countered the charge by saying that state fees were walled off by the firm before her profits were calculated.
From 1982 to 1988, Clinton was on the board of directors, sometimes as chair, of the New World Foundation, which funded a variety of New Left interest groups. From 1987 to 1991, she was the first chair of the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession, created to address gender bias in the legal profession and induce the association to adopt measures to combat it. She was twice named by The National Law Journal as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America—in 1988 and 1991. When Bill Clinton thought about not running again for governor in 1990, Hillary Clinton considered running. Private polls were unfavorable, however, and in the end he ran and was re-elected for the final time.
Clinton was chairman of the board of the Children's Defense Fund and on the board of the Arkansas Children's Hospital's Legal Services (1988–92) In addition to her positions with nonprofit organizations, she also held positions on the corporate board of directors of TCBY (1985–92), Wal-Mart Stores (1986–92) and Lafarge (1990–92). TCBY and Wal-Mart were Arkansas-based companies that were also clients of Rose Law. Clinton was the first female member on Wal-Mart's board, added following pressure on chairman Sam Walton to name a woman to it. Once there, she pushed successfully for Wal-Mart to adopt more environmentally friendly practices. She was largely unsuccessful in her campaign for more women to be added to the company's management and was silent about the company's famously anti-labor union practices. According to Dan Kaufman, awareness of this later became a factor in her loss of credibility with organized labor, helping contribute to her loss in the 2016 election, where slightly less than half of union members voted for Donald Trump.
Bill Clinton presidential campaign of 1992
Clinton received sustained national attention for the first time when her husband became a candidate for the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination. Before the New Hampshire primary, tabloid publications printed allegations that Bill Clinton had engaged in an extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers. In response, the Clintons appeared together on 60 Minutes, where Bill denied the affair, but acknowledged "causing pain in my marriage". This joint appearance was credited with rescuing his campaign. During the campaign, Hillary made culturally disparaging remarks about Tammy Wynette's outlook on marriage as described in her classic song "Stand by Your Man". Later in the campaign, she commented she could have chosen to be like women staying home and baking cookies and having teas, but wanted to pursue her career instead. The remarks were widely criticized, particularly by those who were, or defended, stay-at-home mothers. In retrospect, she admitted they were ill-considered. Bill said that in electing him, the nation would "get two for the price of one", referring to the prominent role his wife would assume. Beginning with Daniel Wattenberg's August 1992 The American Spectator article "The Lady Macbeth of Little Rock", Hillary's own past ideological and ethical record came under attack from conservatives. At least twenty other articles in major publications also drew comparisons between her and Lady Macbeth.
First Lady of the United States (1993–2001)
When Bill Clinton took office as president in January 1993, Hillary Rodham Clinton became the first lady. Her press secretary reiterated she would be using that form of her name. She was the first in this role to have a postgraduate degree and her own professional career up to the time of entering the White House. She was also the first to have an office in the West Wing of the White House in addition to the usual first lady offices in the East Wing. She was part of the innermost circle vetting appointments to the new administration. Her choices filled at least eleven top-level positions and dozens more lower-level ones. After Eleanor Roosevelt, Clinton was regarded as the most openly empowered presidential wife in American history.
Some critics called it inappropriate for the first lady to play a central role in public policy matters. Supporters pointed out that Clinton's role in policy was no different from that of other White House advisors, and that voters had been well aware she would play an active role in her husband's presidency. Bill Clinton's campaign promise of "two for the price of one" led opponents to refer derisively to the Clintons as "co-presidents" or sometimes use the Arkansas label "Billary". The pressures of conflicting ideas about the role of a first lady were enough to send Hillary Clinton into "imaginary discussions" with the also-politically active Eleanor Roosevelt. From the time she came to Washington, Hillary also found refuge in a prayer group of the Fellowship that featured many wives of conservative Washington figures. Triggered in part by the death of her father in April 1993, she publicly sought to find a synthesis of Methodist teachings, liberal religious political philosophy and Tikkun editor Michael Lerner's "politics of meaning" to overcome what she saw as America's "sleeping sickness of the soul"; that would lead to a willingness "to remold society by redefining what it means to be a human being in the twentieth century, moving into a new millennium".
Health care and other policy initiatives
In January 1993, President Clinton named Hillary to chair a task force on National Health Care Reform, hoping to replicate the success she had in leading the effort for Arkansas education reform. Unconvinced regarding the merits of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), she privately urged that passage of health care reform be given higher priority. The recommendation of the task force became known as the Clinton health care plan. This was a comprehensive proposal that would require employers to provide health coverage to their employees through individual health maintenance organizations. Its opponents quickly derided the plan as "Hillarycare" and it even faced opposition from some Democrats in Congress. Some protesters against the proposed plan became vitriolic and during a July 1994 bus tour to rally support for the plan, Clinton wore a bulletproof vest at times.
Failing to gather enough support for a floor vote in either the House or the Senate (although Democrats controlled both chambers), the proposal was abandoned in September 1994. Clinton later acknowledged in her memoir that her political inexperience partly contributed to the defeat but cited many other factors. The first lady's approval ratings, which had generally been in the high-50 percent range during her first year, fell to 44 percent in April 1994 and 35 percent by September 1994.
Republicans made the Clinton health care plan a major campaign issue of the 1994 midterm elections. They saw a net gain of 54 seats in the House election and eight in the Senate election, winning control of both; many analysts and pollsters found the plan to be a major factor in the Democrats' defeat, especially among independent voters. The White House subsequently sought to downplay Clinton's role in shaping policy. Opponents of universal health care would continue to use "Hillarycare" as a pejorative label for similar plans by others.
Along with senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, Clinton was a force behind the passage of the State Children's Health Insurance Program in 1997. This federal bill gave state support to children whose parents could not provide them health coverage. She conducted outreach efforts on behalf of enrolling children in the program once it became law. She promoted nationwide immunization against childhood diseases and encouraged older women to get a mammogram for breast cancer screening, with coverage provided by Medicare. She successfully sought to increase research funding for prostate cancer and childhood asthma at the National Institutes of Health. She worked to investigate reports of an illness that affected veterans of the Gulf War, which became known as the Gulf War syndrome.
Enactment of welfare reform was a major goal of Bill Clinton's presidency. When the first two bills on the issue came from a Republican-controlled Congress lacking protections for people coming off welfare, however, Hillary urged him to veto the bills, which he did. A third version came up during his 1996 general election campaign that restored some of the protections but cut the scope of benefits in other areas; critics, including her past mentor Edelman, urged her to get the president to veto it again. But she decided to support the bill, which became the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, as the best political compromise available. This caused a rift with Edelman that Hillary later called "sad and painful".
Together with Attorney General Janet Reno, Clinton helped create the Office on Violence Against Women at the Department of Justice.
In 1997, she initiated and shepherded the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which she regarded as her greatest accomplishment as the first lady. In 1999, she was instrumental in the passage of the Foster Care Independence Act, which doubled federal monies for teenagers aging out of foster care.
As First Lady of the United States, Clinton was the host for various White House conferences. These included one on Child Care (1997), on Early Childhood Development and Learning (1997), and on Children and Adolescents (2000). She also hosted the first-ever White House Conference on Teenagers (2000), and the first-ever White House Conference on Philanthropy (1999).
Clinton traveled to 79 countries during this time, breaking the record for most-traveled first lady previously held by Pat Nixon. She did not hold a security clearance or attend National Security Council meetings, but played a role in U.S. diplomacy attaining its objectives. A March 1995 five-nation trip to South Asia, on behest of the U.S. State Department, without her husband, sought to improve relations with India and Pakistan. Clinton was troubled by the plight of women she encountered, but found a warm response from the people of the countries she visited, and gained a better relationship with the American press corps. The trip was a transformative experience for her and presaged her eventual career in diplomacy.
In a September 1995 speech before the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, Clinton argued forcefully against practices that abused women around the world and in the People's Republic of China itself. She declared, "it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights". Delegates from over 180 countries heard her say: "If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights, once and for all." In doing so, she resisted both internal administration and Chinese pressure to soften her remarks. The speech became a key moment in the empowerment of women and years later women around the world would recite Clinton's key phrases. During the late 1990s, she was one of the most prominent international figures to speak out against the treatment of Afghan women by the Taliban. She helped create Vital Voices, an international initiative sponsored by the U.S. to encourage the participation of women in the political processes of their countries. It and Clinton's own visits encouraged women to make themselves heard in the Northern Ireland peace process. In 1997, Clinton returned to Northern Ireland to deliver the inaugural Joyce McCartan lecture at the University of Ulster in honour of the community campaigner she had met during her visit in Belfast in 1995.
Whitewater and other investigations
Clinton was a subject of several investigations by the United States Office of the Independent Counsel, committees of the U.S. Congress, and the press.
The Whitewater controversy was the focus of media attention from its publication in a New York Times report during the 1992 presidential campaign and throughout her time as the first lady. The Clintons had lost their late-1970s investment in the Whitewater Development Corporation; at the same time, their partners in that investment, Jim and Susan McDougal operated Madison Guaranty, a savings and loan institution that retained the legal services of Rose Law Firm and may have been improperly subsidizing Whitewater losses. Madison Guaranty later failed, and Clinton's work at Rose was scrutinized for a possible conflict of interest in representing the bank before state regulators her husband had appointed. She said she had done minimal work for the bank. Independent counsels Robert Fiske and Kenneth Starr subpoenaed Clinton's legal billing records; she said she did not know where they were. After a two-year search, the records were found in the first lady's White House book room and delivered to investigators in early 1996. The delayed appearance of the records sparked intense interest and another investigation concerning how they surfaced and where they had been. Clinton's staff attributed the problem to continual changes in White House storage areas since the move from the Arkansas Governor's Mansion. On January 26, 1996, Clinton became the first spouse of a U.S. president to be subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury. After several Independent Counsels had investigated, a final report was issued in 2000 that stated there was insufficient evidence that either Clinton had engaged in criminal wrongdoing.
Scrutiny of the May 1993 firings of the White House Travel Office employees, an action that became known as "Travelgate", began with charges that the White House had used audited financial irregularities in the Travel Office operation as an excuse to replace the staff with friends from Arkansas. The 1996 discovery of a two-year-old White House memo led to the investigation being focused on whether Clinton had orchestrated the firings and whether the statements she made to investigators about her role in the firings were true. The 2000 final Independent Counsel report concluded she was involved in the firings and that she had made "factually false" statements, but that there was insufficient evidence that she knew the statements were false or knew that her actions would lead to firings, to prosecute her.
In March 1994, newspaper reports revealed that Clinton had earned spectacular profits from cattle futures trading in 1978–79. The press made allegations that Clinton had engaged in a conflict of interest and disguised a bribery. Several individuals analyzed her trading records, but no formal investigation was made and she was never charged with any wrongdoing.
An outgrowth of the "Travelgate" investigation was the June 1996 discovery of improper White House access to hundreds of FBI background reports on former Republican White House employees, an affair that some called "Filegate". Accusations were made that Clinton had requested these files and she had recommended hiring an unqualified individual to head the White House Security Office. The 2000 final Independent Counsel report found no substantial or credible evidence that Clinton had any role or showed any misconduct in the matter.
In early 2001, a controversy arose over gifts that were sent to the White House; there was a question whether the furnishings were White House property or the Clintons' personal property. During the last year of Bill Clinton's time in office, those gifts were shipped to the Clintons' private residence.
It Takes a Village release and tour
In 1996, Clinton presented a vision for American children in the book It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us. In January 1996, she went on a ten-city book tour and made numerous television appearances to promote the book, although she was frequently hit with questions about her involvement in the Whitewater and Travelgate controversies.
The book spent 18 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List that year, including three weeks at number one. By 2000, it had sold 450,000 copies in hardcover and another 200,000 in paperback.
Clinton received the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 1997 for the book's audio recording.
Response to Lewinsky scandal
In 1998, the Clintons' private concerns became the subject of much speculation when investigations revealed the president had engaged in an extramarital affair with 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Events surrounding the Lewinsky scandal eventually led to the impeachment of the president by the House of Representatives; he was later acquitted by the senate. When the allegations against her husband were first made public, Hillary Clinton stated that the allegations were part of a "vast right-wing conspiracy". She characterized the Lewinsky charges as the latest in a long, organized, collaborative series of charges by Bill's political enemies rather than any wrongdoing by her husband. She later said she had been misled by her husband's initial claims that no affair had taken place. After the evidence of President Clinton's encounters with Lewinsky became incontrovertible, she issued a public statement reaffirming her commitment to their marriage. Privately, she was reported to be furious at him and was unsure if she wanted to remain in the marriage. The White House residence staff noticed a pronounced level of tension between the couple during this period.
Public reaction varied. Women variously admired her strength and poise in private matters that were made public. They sympathized with her as a victim of her husband's insensitive behavior and criticized her as being an enabler to her husband's indiscretions. They also accused her of cynically staying in a failed marriage as a way of keeping or even fostering her own political influence. In the wake of the revelations, her public approval ratings shot upward to around 70 percent, the highest they had ever been. In her 2003 memoir, she would attribute her decision to stay married to "a love that has persisted for decades" and add: "No one understands me better and no one can make me laugh the way Bill does. Even after all these years, he is still the most interesting, energizing, and fully alive person I have ever met."
Issues that surrounded the Lewinsky scandal left Bill Clinton with substantial legal bills. In 2014, Hillary said that she and Bill had left the White House "not only dead broke, but in debt". The statement may have been literally accurate but ignored the potentially enormous earning power of ex-presidents who give paid speeches after leaving office. The couple would also have the ability to secure loans from banks.
In October 2018, Hillary stated in an interview on CBS News Sunday Morning that Bill was right to not resign from office, and that Bill's affair with Lewinsky did not constitute an abuse of power because Lewinsky "was an adult".
Other books and initiatives
Other books published by Clinton when she was the first lady include Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids' Letters to the First Pets (1998) and An Invitation to the White House: At Home with History (2000). In 2001, she wrote an afterword to the children's book Beatrice's Goat.
She was the founding chair of Save America's Treasures, a nationwide effort matching federal funds with private donations to preserve and restore historic items and sites. This included the flag that inspired "The Star-Spangled Banner" and the First Ladies National Historic Site in Canton, Ohio. She also published a weekly syndicated newspaper column titled "Talking It Over" from 1995 to 2000. It focused on her experiences and those of women, children and families she met during her travels around the world.
Traditional duties
She was head of the White House Millennium Council and hosted Millennium Evenings, a series of lectures that discussed futures studies, one of which became the first live simultaneous webcast from the White House. Clinton also created the first White House Sculpture Garden, located in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, which displayed large contemporary American works of art loaned by museums.
In the White House, Clinton placed donated handicrafts of contemporary American artisans, such as pottery and glassware, on rotating display in the state rooms. She oversaw the restoration of the Blue Room to be historically authentic to the period of James Monroe, and the Map Room to how it looked during World War II. Working with Arkansas interior decorator Kaki Hockersmith over an eight-year period, she oversaw extensive, privately funded redecoration efforts around the building, often trying to make it look brighter. These included changing of the Treaty Room and a presidential study to have a 19th-century look. Overall the redecoration brought mixed notices, with Victorian furnishings for the Lincoln Sitting Room being criticized the most. Clinton hosted many large-scale events at the White House, including a state dinner for visiting Chinese dignitaries, a New Year's Eve celebration at the turn of the 21st century, and a state dinner honoring the bicentennial of the White House in November 2000.
U.S. Senate (2001–2009)
2000 U.S. Senate election
When New York's long-serving U.S. senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan announced his retirement in November 1998, several prominent Democratic figures, including Representative Charles Rangel of New York, urged Clinton to run for his open seat in the Senate election of 2000. Once she decided to run, the Clintons purchased a home at 15 Old House Lane in Chappaqua, New York, north of New York City, in September 1999. She became the first wife of the president of the United States to be a candidate for elected office. Initially, Clinton expected to face Rudy Giuliani—the mayor of New York City—as her Republican opponent in the election. Giuliani withdrew from the race in May 2000 after being diagnosed with prostate cancer and matters related to his failing marriage became public. Clinton then faced Rick Lazio, a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives who represented New York's 2nd congressional district. Throughout the campaign, opponents accused Clinton of carpetbagging, because she had never resided in New York State or participated in the state's politics before the 2000 Senate race.
Bill de Blasio was Clinton's campaign manager. She began her drive to the U.S. Senate by visiting all 62 counties in the state, in a "listening tour" of small-group settings. She devoted considerable time in traditionally Republican Upstate New York regions. Clinton vowed to improve the economic situation in those areas, promising to deliver 200,000 jobs to the state over her term. Her plan included tax credits to reward job creation and encourage business investment, especially in the high-tech sector. She called for personal tax cuts for college tuition and long-term care.
The contest drew national attention. During a September debate, Lazio blundered when he seemed to invade Clinton's personal space by trying to get her to sign a fundraising agreement. Their campaigns, along with Giuliani's initial effort, spent a record combined $90 million. Clinton won the election on November 7, 2000, with 55 percent of the vote to Lazio's 43 percent. She was sworn in as U.S. senator on January 3, 2001, and as George W. Bush was still 17 days away from being inaugurated as president after winning the 2000 presidential election, that meant from January 3–20, she simultaneously held the titles of First Lady and Senator – a first in U.S. history.
Publisher Simon & Schuster paid Clinton a near-record advance of $8 million in December 2000 for her autobiography, released in 2003, as Living History.
First term
Because Bill Clinton's term as president did not end until 17 days after she was sworn in, upon entering the Senate, Clinton became the first and so far only first lady to serve as a senator and first lady concurrently. Clinton maintained a low public profile and built relationships with senators from both parties when she started her term. She forged alliances with religiously inclined senators by becoming a regular participant in the Senate Prayer Breakfast. She sat on five Senate committees: Committee on Budget (2001–02), Committee on Armed Services (2003–09), Committee on Environment and Public Works (2001–09), Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (2001–09) and Special Committee on Aging.
She was also a member of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (2001–09).
Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, Clinton sought to obtain funding for the recovery efforts in New York City and security improvements in her state. Working with New York's senior senator, Chuck Schumer, she was instrumental in securing $21 billion in funding for the World Trade Center site's redevelopment. She subsequently took a leading role in investigating the health issues faced by 9/11 first responders. Clinton voted for the USA Patriot Act in October 2001. In 2005, when the act was up for renewal, she expressed concerns with the USA Patriot Act Reauthorization Conference Report regarding civil liberties. In March 2006, she voted in favor of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 that had gained large majority support.
Clinton strongly supported the 2001 U.S. military action in Afghanistan, saying it was a chance to combat terrorism while improving the lives of Afghan women who suffered under the Taliban government. Clinton voted in favor of the October 2002 Iraq War Resolution, which authorized President George W. Bush to use military force against Iraq.
After the Iraq War began, Clinton made trips to Iraq and Afghanistan to visit American troops stationed there. On a visit to Iraq in February 2005, Clinton noted that the insurgency had failed to disrupt the democratic elections held earlier and that parts of the country were functioning well. Observing that war deployments were draining regular and reserve forces, she co-introduced legislation to increase the size of the regular U.S. Army by 80,000 soldiers to ease the strain. In late 2005, Clinton said that while immediate withdrawal from Iraq would be a mistake, Bush's pledge to stay "until the job is done" was also misguided, as it gave Iraqis "an open-ended invitation not to take care of themselves". Her stance caused frustration among those in the Democratic Party who favored quick withdrawal. Clinton supported retaining and improving health benefits for reservists and lobbied against the closure of several military bases, especially those in New York. She used her position on the Armed Services Committee to forge close relationships with a number of high-ranking military officers. By 2014 and 2015 Clinton had fully reversed herself on the Iraq War Resolution, saying she "got it wrong" and the vote in support had been a "mistake".
Clinton voted against President Bush's two major tax cut packages, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. Simon & Schuster released Living History: The book set a first-week sales record for a nonfiction work, went on to sell more than one million copies in the first month following publication, and was translated into twelve foreign languages. Clinton's audio recording of the book earned her a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album.
Clinton voted against the 2005 confirmation of John Roberts as chief justice of the United States and the 2006 confirmation of Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court, filibustering the latter.
In 2005, Clinton called for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate how hidden sex scenes showed up in the controversial video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Along with senators Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh, she introduced the Family Entertainment Protection Act, intended to protect children from inappropriate content found in video games. In 2004 and 2006, Clinton voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment that sought to prohibit same-sex marriage.
Looking to establish a "progressive infrastructure" to rival that of American conservatism, Clinton played a formative role in conversations that led to the 2003 founding of former Clinton administration chief of staff John Podesta's Center for American Progress, shared aides with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, founded in 2003 and advised the Clintons' former antagonist David Brock's Media Matters for America, created in 2004. Following the 2004 Senate elections, she successfully pushed new Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid to create a Senate war room to handle daily political messaging.
2006 reelection campaign
In November 2004, Clinton announced she would seek a second Senate term. She easily won the Democratic nomination over opposition from antiwar activist Jonathan Tasini. The early frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, withdrew from the contest after several months of poor campaign performance. Clinton's eventual opponent in the general election was Republican candidate John Spencer, a former mayor of Yonkers. Clinton won the election on November 7, 2006, with 67 percent of the vote to Spencer's 31 percent, carrying all but four of New York's sixty-two counties. Her campaign spent $36 million for her reelection, more than any other candidate for Senate in the 2006 elections. Some Democrats criticized her for spending too much in a one-sided contest, while some supporters were concerned she did not leave more funds for a potential presidential bid in 2008. In the following months, she transferred $10 million of her Senate funds toward her presidential campaign.
Second term
Clinton opposed the Iraq War troop surge of 2007, for both military and domestic political reasons (by the following year, she was privately acknowledging the surge had been successful). In March of that year, she voted in favor of a war-spending bill that required President Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq by a deadline; it passed almost completely along party lines but was subsequently vetoed by Bush. In May, a compromise war funding bill that removed withdrawal deadlines but tied funding to progress benchmarks for the Iraqi government passed the Senate by a vote of 80–14 and would be signed by Bush; Clinton was one of those who voted against it. She responded to General David Petraeus's September 2007 Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq by saying, "I think that the reports that you provide to us really require a willing suspension of disbelief."
In March 2007, in response to the dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy, Clinton called on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign. Regarding the high-profile, hotly debated immigration reform bill known as the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, Clinton cast several votes in support of the bill, which eventually failed to gain cloture.
As the financial crisis of 2007–08 reached a peak with the liquidity crisis of September 2008, Clinton supported the proposed bailout of the U.S. financial system, voting in favor of the $700 billion law that created the Troubled Asset Relief Program, saying it represented the interests of the American people. It passed the Senate 74–25.
In 2007, Clinton and Virginia senator Jim Webb called for an investigation into whether the body armor issued to soldiers in Iraq was adequate.
2008 presidential campaign
Clinton had been preparing for a potential candidacy for U.S. president since at least early 2003. On January 20, 2007, she announced via her website the formation of a presidential exploratory committee for the United States presidential election of 2008, stating: "I'm in and I'm in to win." No woman had ever been nominated by a major party for the presidency, and no first lady had ever run for president.
When Bill Clinton became president in 1993, a blind trust was established; in April 2007, the Clintons liquidated the blind trust to avoid the possibility of ethical conflicts or political embarrassments as Hillary undertook her presidential race. Later disclosure statements revealed the couple's worth was now upwards of $50 million. They had earned over $100 million since 2000—most of it coming from Bill's books, speaking engagements and other activities.
Throughout the first half of 2007, Clinton led candidates competing for the Democratic presidential nomination in opinion polls for the election. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former senator John Edwards of North Carolina were her strongest competitors. The biggest threat to her campaign was her past support of the Iraq War, which Obama had opposed from the beginning. Clinton and Obama both set records for early fundraising, swapping the money lead each quarter.
At the end of October, Clinton fared poorly in her debate performance against Obama, Edwards, and her other opponents. Obama's message of change began to resonate with the Democratic electorate better than Clinton's message of experience.
In the first vote of 2008, she placed third in the January3 Iowa Democratic caucus behind Obama and Edwards. Obama gained ground in national polling in the next few days, with all polls predicting a victory for him in the New Hampshire primary. Clinton gained a surprise win there on January 8, narrowly defeating Obama. It was the first time a woman had won a major American party's presidential primary for the purposes of delegate selection. Explanations for Clinton's New Hampshire comeback varied but often centered on her being seen more sympathetically, especially by women, after her eyes welled with tears and her voice broke while responding to a voter's question the day before the election.
The nature of the contest fractured in the next few days. Several remarks by Bill Clinton and other surrogates, and a remark by Hillary Clinton concerning Martin Luther King Jr. and Lyndon B. Johnson, were perceived by many as, accidentally or intentionally, limiting Obama as a racially oriented candidate or otherwise denying the post-racial significance and accomplishments of his campaign. Despite attempts by both Hillary and Obama to downplay the issue, Democratic voting became more polarized as a result, with Clinton losing much of her support among African Americans. She lost by a two-to-one margin to Obama in the January 26, South Carolina primary, setting up, with Edwards soon dropping out, an intense two-person contest for the twenty-two February5 Super Tuesday states. Bill Clinton had made more statements attracting criticism for their perceived racial implications late in the South Carolina campaign, and his role was seen as damaging enough to her that a wave of supporters within and outside of the campaign said the former president "needs to stop". The South Carolina campaign had done lasting damage to Clinton, eroding her support among the Democratic establishment and leading to the prized endorsement of Obama by Ted Kennedy.
On Super Tuesday, Clinton won the largest states, such as California, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, while Obama won more states; they almost evenly split the total popular vote. But Obama was gaining more pledged delegates for his share of the popular vote due to better exploitation of the Democratic proportional allocation rules.
The Clinton campaign had counted on winning the nomination by Super Tuesday and was unprepared financially and logistically for a prolonged effort; lagging in Internet fundraising as Clinton began loaning money to her campaign. There was continuous turmoil within the campaign staff, and she made several top-level personnel changes. Obama won the next eleven February contests across the country, often by large margins and took a significant pledged delegate lead over Clinton. On March 4, Clinton broke the string of losses by winning in Ohio among other places, where her criticism of NAFTA, a major legacy of her husband's presidency, helped in a state where the trade agreement was unpopular. Throughout the campaign, Obama dominated caucuses, for which the Clinton campaign largely ignored and failed to prepare. Obama did well in primaries where African Americans or younger, college-educated, or more affluent voters were heavily represented; Clinton did well in primaries where Hispanics or older, non-college-educated, or working-class white voters predominated. Behind in delegates, Clinton's best hope of winning the nomination came in persuading uncommitted, party-appointed superdelegates.
Following the final primaries on June 3, 2008, Obama had gained enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee. In a speech before her supporters on June 7, Clinton ended her campaign and endorsed Obama. By campaign's end, Clinton had won 1,640 pledged delegates to Obama's 1,763; at the time of the clinching, Clinton had 286 superdelegates to Obama's 395, with those numbers widening to 256 versus 438 once Obama was acknowledged the winner. Clinton and Obama each received over 17 million votes during the nomination process with both breaking the previous record. Clinton was the first woman to run in the primary or caucus of every state and she eclipsed, by a very wide margin, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm's 1972 marks for most votes garnered and delegates won by a woman. Clinton gave a passionate speech supporting Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention and campaigned frequently for him in fall 2008, which concluded with his victory over McCain in the general election on November 4. Clinton's campaign ended up severely in debt; she owed millions of dollars to outside vendors and wrote off the $13 million that she lent it herself. The debt was eventually paid off by the beginning of 2013.
Secretary of State (2009–2013)
Nomination and confirmation
In mid-November 2008, President-elect Obama and Clinton discussed the possibility of her serving as secretary of state in his administration. She was initially quite reluctant, but on November 20 she told Obama she would accept the position. On December 1, President-elect Obama formally announced that Clinton would be his nominee for secretary of state. Clinton said she did not want to leave the Senate, but that the new position represented a "difficult and exciting adventure". As part of the nomination and to relieve concerns of conflict of interest, Bill Clinton agreed to accept several conditions and restrictions regarding his ongoing activities and fundraising efforts for the William J. Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative.
The appointment required a Saxbe fix, passed and signed into law in December 2008. Confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee began on January 13, 2009, a week before the Obama inauguration; two days later, the committee voted 16–1 to approve Clinton. By this time, her public approval rating had reached 65 percent, the highest point since the Lewinsky scandal. On January 21, 2009, Clinton was confirmed in the full Senate by a vote of 94–2. Clinton took the oath of office of secretary of state, resigning from the Senate later that day. She became the first former first lady to be a member of the United States Cabinet.
First half of tenure
Clinton spent her initial days as secretary of state telephoning dozens of world leaders and indicating that U.S. foreign policy would change direction: "We have a lot of damage to repair." She advocated an expanded role in global economic issues for the State Department, and cited the need for an increased U.S. diplomatic presence, especially in Iraq where the Defense Department had conducted diplomatic missions. Clinton announced the most ambitious of her departmental reforms, the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, which establishes specific objectives for the State Department's diplomatic missions abroad; it was modeled after a similar process in the Defense Department that she was familiar with from her time on the Senate Armed Services Committee. The first such review was issued in late 2010. It called for the U.S. leading through "civilian power" as a cost-effective way of responding to international challenges and defusing crises. It also sought to institutionalize goals of empowering women throughout the world. A cause Clinton advocated throughout her tenure was the adoption of cookstoves in the developing world, to foster cleaner and more environmentally sound food preparation and reduce smoke dangers to women.
In a 2009 internal debate regarding the War in Afghanistan, Clinton sided with the military's recommendations for a maximal "Afghanistan surge", recommending 40,000 troops and no public deadline for withdrawal. She prevailed over Vice President Joe Biden's opposition but eventually supported Obama's compromise plan to send an additional 30,000 troops and tie the surge to a timetable for eventual withdrawal.
In March 2009, Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a "reset button" symbolizing U.S. attempts to rebuild ties with that country under its new president, Dmitry Medvedev. The photo op was remembered for a mistranslation into Russian. The policy, which became known as the Russian reset, led to improved cooperation in several areas during Medvedev's time in office. Relations would worsen considerably, however, following Vladimir Putin's return to the position in 2012. In October 2009, on a trip to Switzerland, Clinton's intervention overcame last-minute snags and saved the signing of an historic Turkish–Armenian accord that established diplomatic relations and opened the border between the two long-hostile nations. In Pakistan, she engaged in several unusually blunt discussions with students, talk show hosts and tribal elders, in an attempt to repair the Pakistani image of the U.S. Beginning in 2010, she helped organize a diplomatic isolation and international sanctions regime against Iran, in an effort to force curtailment of that country's nuclear program; this would eventually lead to the multinational Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action being agreed to in 2015.
Clinton and Obama forged a good working relationship without power struggles; she was a team player within the administration and a defender of it to the outside and was careful that neither she nor her husband would upstage the president. Clinton formed an alliance with Secretary of Defense Gates as they shared similar strategic outlooks. Obama and Clinton both approached foreign policy as a largely non-ideological, pragmatic exercise. She met with him weekly but did not have the close, daily relationship that some of her predecessors had had with their presidents; moreover, certain key areas of policymaking were kept inside the White House or Pentagon. Nevertheless, the president had trust in her actions.
In a prepared speech in January 2010, Clinton drew analogies between the Iron Curtain and the free and unfree Internet. Chinese officials reacted negatively towards it. The speech garnered attention as the first time a senior American official had clearly defined the Internet as a key element of American foreign policy.
In July 2010, she visited South Korea, where she and Cheryl Mills worked to convince SAE-A, a large apparel subcontractor, to invest in Haiti despite the company's deep concerns about plans to raise the minimum wage. In the summer of 2010, the South Korean company signed a contract at the US State Department, ensuring that the Caracol Industrial Park would have a key tenant. This was part of the "build back better" program initiated by her husband, named UN Special Envoy to Haiti in 2009 after a tropical storm season caused $1 billion in damages to the island. In January 2011, Clinton traveled to Haiti in order to help pave the way for the election of Michel Martelly.
Second half of tenure
The 2011 Egyptian protests posed the most challenging foreign policy crisis yet for the Obama administration. Clinton's public response quickly evolved from an early assessment that the government of Hosni Mubarak was "stable", to a stance that there needed to be an "orderly transition [to] a democratic participatory government", to a condemnation of violence against the protesters. Obama came to rely upon Clinton's advice, organization and personal connections in the behind-the-scenes response to developments. As Arab Spring protests spread throughout the region, Clinton was at the forefront of a U.S. response that she recognized was sometimes contradictory, backing some regimes while supporting protesters against others.
As the Libyan Civil War took place, Clinton's shift in favor of military intervention aligned her with Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice and National Security Council figure Samantha Power. This was a key turning point in overcoming internal administration opposition from Defense Secretary Gates, security advisor Thomas E. Donilon and counterterrorism advisor John Brennan in gaining the backing for, and Arab and U.N. approval of, the 2011 military intervention in Libya. Secretary Clinton testified to Congress that the administration did not need congressional authorization for its military intervention in Libya, despite objections from some members of both parties that the administration was violating the War Powers Resolution. The State Department's legal advisor argued the same point when the Resolution's 60-day limit for unauthorized wars was passed (a view that prevailed in a legal debate within the Obama administration). Clinton later used U.S. allies and what she called "convening power" to promote unity among the Libyan rebels as they eventually overthrew the Gaddafi regime. The aftermath of the Libyan Civil War saw the country becoming a failed state. The wisdom of the intervention and interpretation of what happened afterward would become the subject of considerable debate.
During April 2011, internal deliberations of the president's innermost circle of advisors over whether to order U.S. special forces to conduct a raid into Pakistan against Osama bin Laden, Clinton was among those who argued in favor, saying the importance of getting bin Laden outweighed the risks to the U.S. relationship with Pakistan. Following the completion of the mission on May2 resulting in bin Laden's death, Clinton played a key role in the administration's decision not to release photographs of the dead al-Qaeda leader. During internal discussions regarding Iraq in 2011, Clinton argued for keeping a residual force of up to 10,000–20,000 U.S. troops there. (All of them ended up being withdrawn after negotiations for a revised U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement failed.)
In a speech before the United Nations Human Rights Council in December 2011, Clinton said that, "Gay rights are human rights", and that the U.S. would advocate for gay rights and legal protections of gay people abroad. The same period saw her overcome internal administration opposition with a direct appeal to Obama and stage the first visit to Burma by a U.S. secretary of state since 1955. She met with Burmese leaders as well as opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and sought to support the 2011 Burmese democratic reforms. She also said the 21st century would be "America's Pacific century", a declaration that was part of the Obama administration's "pivot to Asia".
During the Syrian Civil War, Clinton and the Obama administration initially sought to persuade Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to engage popular demonstrations with reform. As government violence allegedly rose in August 2011, they called for him to resign from the presidency. The administration joined several countries in delivering non-lethal assistance to so-called rebels opposed to the Assad government and humanitarian groups working in Syria. During mid-2012, Clinton formed a plan with CIA Director David Petraeus to further strengthen the opposition by arming and training vetted groups of Syrian rebels. The proposal was rejected by White House officials who were reluctant to become entangled in the conflict, fearing that extremists hidden among the rebels might turn the weapons against other targets.
In December 2012, Clinton was hospitalized for a few days for treatment of a blood clot in her right transverse venous sinus. Her doctors had discovered the clot during a follow-up examination for a concussion she had sustained when she fainted and fell nearly three weeks earlier, as a result of severe dehydration from a viral intestinal ailment acquired during a trip to Europe. The clot, which caused no immediate neurological injury, was treated with anticoagulant medication, and her doctors have said she has made a full recovery.
Overall themes
Throughout her time in office (and mentioned in her final speech concluding it), Clinton viewed "smart power" as the strategy for asserting U.S. leadership and values. In a world of varied threats, weakened central governments and increasingly important nongovernmental entities, smart power combined military hard power with diplomacy and U.S. soft power capacities in global economics, development aid, technology, creativity and human rights advocacy. As such, she became the first secretary of state to methodically implement the smart power approach. In debates over use of military force, she was generally one of the more hawkish voices in the administration. In August 2011 she hailed the ongoing multinational military intervention in Libya and the initial U.S. response towards the Syrian Civil War as examples of smart power in action.
Clinton greatly expanded the State Department's use of social media, including Facebook and Twitter, to get its message out and to help empower citizens of foreign countries vis-à-vis their governments.
And in the Mideast turmoil, Clinton particularly saw an opportunity to advance one of the central themes of her tenure, the empowerment and welfare of women and girls worldwide. Moreover, in a formulation that became known as the "Hillary Doctrine", she viewed women's rights as critical for U.S. security interests, due to a link between the level of violence against women and gender inequality within a state, and the instability and challenge to international security of that state. In turn, there was a trend of women around the world finding more opportunities, and in some cases feeling safer, as the result of her actions and visibility.
Clinton visited 112 countries during her tenure, making her the most widely traveled secretary of state (Time magazine wrote that "Clinton's endurance is legendary".) The first secretary of state to visit countries like Togo and East Timor, she believed that in-person visits were more important than ever in the virtual age. As early as March 2011, she indicated she was not interested in serving a second term as secretary of state should Obama be re-elected in 2012; in December 2012, following that re-election, Obama nominated Senator John Kerry to be Clinton's successor. Her last day as secretary of state was February 1, 2013. Upon her departure, analysts commented that Clinton's tenure did not bring any signature diplomatic breakthroughs as some other secretaries of state had accomplished, and highlighted her focus on goals she thought were less tangible but would have more lasting effect. She has also been criticized for accepting millions in dollars in donations from foreign governments to the Clinton Foundation during her tenure as Secretary of State.
Benghazi attack and subsequent hearings
On September 11, 2012, the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked, resulting in the deaths of the U.S. Ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. The attack, questions surrounding the security of the U.S. consulate, and the varying explanations given afterward by administration officials for what had happened became politically controversial in the U.S. On October 15, Clinton took responsibility for the question of security lapses saying the differing explanations were due to the inevitable fog of war confusion after such events.
On December 19, a panel led by Thomas R. Pickering and Michael Mullen issued its report on the matter. It was sharply critical of State Department officials in Washington for ignoring requests for more guards and safety upgrades and for failing to adapt security procedures to a deteriorating security environment. It focused its criticism on the department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security and Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs; four State Department officials at the assistant secretary level and below were removed from their posts as a consequence. Clinton said she accepted the conclusions of the report and that changes were underway to implement its suggested recommendations.
Clinton gave testimony to two congressional foreign affairs committees on January 23, 2013, regarding the Benghazi attack. She defended her actions in response to the incident, and while still accepting formal responsibility, said she had had no direct role in specific discussions beforehand regarding consulate security. Congressional Republicans challenged her on several points, to which she responded. In particular, after persistent questioning about whether or not the administration had issued inaccurate "talking points" after the attack, Clinton responded with the much-quoted rejoinder, "With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they'd they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator."
In November 2014, the House Intelligence Committee issued a report that concluded there had been no wrongdoing in the administration's response to the attack.
The House Select Committee on Benghazi was created in May 2014 and conducted a two-year investigation related to the 2012 attack. Its actions were often seen through the prism of domestic politics. This was especially the case in September 2015, when House majority leader Kevin McCarthy credited the Benghazi hearings with lowering Clinton's poll numbers, thereby contradicting the Republicans' previous talking points on the investigation. On October 22, 2015, Clinton testified at an all-day and nighttime session before the committee. The hearing included many heated exchanges between committee members and Clinton and among the committee members themselves. Clinton was widely seen as emerging largely unscathed from the hearing, because of what the media perceived as a calm and unfazed demeanor and a lengthy, meandering, repetitive line of questioning from the committee. The committee issued competing final reports in June 2016 that broke along partisan lines. The Republican report offered some new details about the attack but no new evidence of culpability by Clinton.
Email controversy
A controversy arose in March 2015, when the State Department's inspector general revealed that Clinton had used personal email accounts on a non-government, privately maintained server exclusively—instead of email accounts maintained on federal government servers—when conducting official business during her tenure as secretary of state. Some experts, officials, members of Congress and political opponents contended that her use of private messaging system software and a private server violated State Department protocols and procedures, and federal laws and regulations governing recordkeeping requirements. The controversy occurred against the backdrop of Clinton's 2016 presidential election campaign and hearings held by the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
In a joint statement released on July 15, 2015, the inspector general of the State Department and the inspector general of the intelligence community said their review of the emails found information that was classified when sent, remained so at the time of their inspection and "never should have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system". They also stated unequivocally this classified information should never have been stored outside of secure government computer systems. Clinton had said over a period of months that she kept no classified information on the private server that she set up in her house. Government policy, reiterated in the nondisclosure agreement signed by Clinton as part of gaining her security clearance, is that sensitive information can be considered as classified even if not marked as such. After allegations were raised that some of the emails in question fell into the so-called "born classified" category, an FBI probe was initiated regarding how classified information was handled on the Clinton server. The New York Times reported in February 2016 that nearly 2,100 emails stored on Clinton's server were retroactively marked classified by the State Department. Additionally, the intelligence community's inspector general wrote Congress to say that some of the emails "contained classified State Department information when originated". In May 2016, the inspector general of the State Department criticized her use of a private email server while secretary of state, stating that she had not requested permission for this and would not have received it if she had asked.
Clinton maintained she did not send or receive any emails from her personal server that were confidential at the time they were sent. In a Democratic debate with Bernie Sanders on February 4, 2016, Clinton said, "I never sent or received any classified material—they are retroactively classifying it." On July 2, 2016, Clinton stated: "Let me repeat what I have repeated for many months now, I never received nor sent any material that was marked classified."
On July 5, 2016, the FBI concluded its investigation. In a statement, FBI director James Comey said:
110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were "up-classified" to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent.
Out of 30,000, three emails were found to be marked as classified, although they lacked classified headers and were marked only with a small "c" in parentheses, described as "portion markings" by Comey. He also said it was possible Clinton was not "technically sophisticated" enough to understand what the three classified markings meant. The probe found Clinton used her personal email extensively while outside the United States, both sending and receiving work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Comey acknowledged that it was "possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal email account". He added that "[although] we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information". Nevertheless, Comey asserted that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring criminal charges in this case, despite the existence of "potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information". The FBI recommended that the Justice Department decline to prosecute. On July 6, 2016, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch—who had met privately with Bill Clinton on June 27—confirmed that the probe into Clinton's use of private email servers would be closed without criminal charges.
On October 28, 2016, Comey notified Congress that the FBI had begun looking into newly discovered Clinton emails. Law enforcement officials said that while investigating allegedly illicit text messages from Anthony Weiner, husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin, to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina, they discovered emails related to Clinton's private server on a laptop computer belonging to Weiner. On November 6, Comey notified Congress that the FBI had not changed the conclusion it had reached in July. The notification was later cited by Clinton as a factor in her loss in the 2016 presidential election. The emails controversy received more media coverage than any other topic during the 2016 presidential election.
In September 2019, the State Department finished its internal review into 33,000 emails that Clinton had turned over. The investigation that began in 2016 found 588 violations of security procedures and found that Clinton's use of a personal email server increased the risk of compromising State Department information. In 91 cases, the culpability of sending classified information could be attributed to 38 people, but the review concluded there was "no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information".
Clinton Foundation, Hard Choices, and speeches
When Clinton left the State Department, she returned to private life for the first time in thirty years. She and her daughter joined her husband as named members of the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation in 2013. There she focused on early childhood development efforts, including an initiative called Too Small to Fail and a $600 million initiative to encourage the enrollment of girls in secondary schools worldwide, led by former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
In 2014, Clinton published a second memoir, Hard Choices, which focused on her time as secretary of state. , the book has sold about 280,000 copies.
Clinton also led the No Ceilings: The Full Participation Project, a partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to gather and study data on the progress of women and girls around the world since the Beijing conference in 1995; its March 2015 report said that while "There has never been a better time in history to be born a woman ... this data shows just how far we still have to go." The foundation began accepting new donations from foreign governments, which it had stopped doing while she was secretary of state. However, even though the Clinton Foundation had stopped taking donations from foreign governments, they continued to take large donations from foreign citizens who were sometimes linked to their governments.
She began work on another volume of memoirs and made appearances on the paid speaking circuit. There she received $200,000–225,000 per engagement, often appearing before Wall Street firms or at business conventions. She also made some unpaid speeches on behalf of the foundation. For the fifteen months ending in March 2015, Clinton earned over $11 million from her speeches. For the overall period 2007–14, the Clintons earned almost $141 million, paid some $56 million in federal and state taxes and donated about $15 million to charity. , she was estimated to be worth over $30 million on her own, or $45–53 million with her husband.
Clinton resigned from the board of the foundation in April 2015, when she began her presidential campaign. The foundation said it would accept new foreign governmental donations from six Western nations only.
2016 presidential campaign
On April 12, 2015, Clinton formally announced her candidacy for the presidency in the 2016 election. She had a campaign-in-waiting already in place, including a large donor network, experienced operatives and the Ready for Hillary and Priorities USA Action political action committees and other infrastructure. Prior to her campaign, Clinton had claimed in an interview on NDTV in May 2012 that she would not seek the presidency again, but later wrote in her 2014 autobiography Hard Choices that she had not decided. The campaign's headquarters were established in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Her campaign focused on: raising middle class incomes, establishing universal preschool, making college more affordable and improving the Affordable Care Act. Initially considered a prohibitive favorite to win the Democratic nomination, Clinton faced an unexpectedly strong challenge from democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. His longtime stance against the influence of corporations and the wealthy in American politics resonated with a dissatisfied citizenry troubled by the effects of income inequality in the U.S. and contrasted with Clinton's Wall Street ties.
In the initial contest of the primaries season, Clinton only very narrowly won the Iowa Democratic caucuses, held February 1, over an increasingly popular Sanders — the first woman to win them. In the first primary, held in New Hampshire on February 9, she lost to Sanders by a wide margin. Sanders was an increasing threat in the next contest, the Nevada caucuses on February 20, but Clinton managed a five-percentage-point win, aided by final-days campaigning among casino workers. Clinton followed that with a lopsided victory in the South Carolina primary on February 27. These two victories stabilized her campaign and showed an avoidance of the management turmoil that harmed her 2008 effort.
On March 1 Super Tuesday, Clinton won seven of eleven contests, including a string of dominating victories across the South buoyed, as in South Carolina, by African-American voters. She opened up a significant lead in pledged delegates over Sanders. She maintained this delegate lead across subsequent contests during the primary season, with a consistent pattern throughout. Sanders did better among younger, whiter, more rural and more liberal voters and states that held caucuses or where eligibility was open to independents. Clinton did better among older, black and Hispanic voter populations, and in states that held primaries or where eligibility was restricted to registered Democrats.
By June 5, 2016, she had earned enough pledged delegates and supportive superdelegates for the media to consider her the presumptive nominee. On June 7, after winning most of the states in the final major round of primaries, Clinton held a victory rally in Brooklyn becoming the first woman to claim the status of presumptive nominee for a major American political party. By campaign's end, Clinton had won 2,219 pledged delegates to Sanders' 1,832; with an estimated 594 superdelegates compared to Sanders' 47. She received almost 17 million votes during the nominating process, as opposed to Sanders' 13 million.
Clinton was formally nominated at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on July 26, 2016, becoming the first woman to be nominated for president by a major U.S. political party. Her choice of vice presidential running mate, Senator Tim Kaine, was nominated by the convention the following day. Her opponents in the general election included Republican Donald Trump, Libertarian Gary Johnson and Jill Stein of the Green Party. Around the time of the convention, WikiLeaks released emails that suggested the DNC and the Clinton campaign tilted the primary in Clinton's favor.
Clinton held a significant lead in national polls over Trump throughout most of 2016. In early July, Trump and Clinton were tied in major polls following the FBI's conclusion of its investigation into her emails. FBI Director James Comey concluded Clinton had been "extremely careless" in her handling of classified government material. In late July, Trump gained his first lead over Clinton in major polls following a three to four percentage point convention bounce at the Republican National Convention. This was in line with the average bounce in conventions since 2004, although it was toward the low side by historical standards. Following Clinton's seven percentage point convention bounce at the Democratic National Convention, she regained a significant lead in national polls at the start of August. In fall 2016, Clinton and Tim Kaine published Stronger Together, which outlined their vision for the United States.
Clinton was defeated by Donald Trump in the November 8, 2016, presidential election. By the early morning hours of November 9, Trump had received 279 projected electoral college votes, with 270 needed to win; media sources proclaimed him the winner. Clinton then phoned Trump to concede and to congratulate him on his victory, whereupon Trump gave his victory speech. The next morning Clinton made a public concession speech in which she acknowledged the pain of her loss, but called on her supporters to accept Trump as their next president, saying: "We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead." Though Clinton lost the election by capturing only 232 electoral votes to Trump's 306, she won the popular vote by more than 2.8 million votes, or 2.1% of the voter base. She is the fifth presidential candidate in U.S. history to win the popular vote but lose the election. She won the most votes of any candidate who did not take office and the third-most votes of any candidate in history, though she did not have the greatest percentage win of a losing candidate. (Andrew Jackson won the popular vote by 10.4% but lost to John Quincy Adams).
On December 19, 2016, when electors formally voted, Clinton lost five of her initial 232 votes due to faithless electors, with three of her Washington votes being cast instead for Colin Powell, one being cast for Faith Spotted Eagle, and one in Hawaii being cast for Bernie Sanders.
Post-2016 election activities
In their respective roles as a former president and a former first lady, Bill and Hillary Clinton attended the inauguration of Donald Trump with their daughter, Chelsea. The morning of the inauguration Clinton wrote on her Twitter account, "I'm here today to honor our democracy & its enduring values, I will never stop believing in our country & its future."
In October 2017, Clinton was awarded an honorary doctorate from Swansea University, whose College of Law was renamed the Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law in her honor. In October 2018, Hillary and Bill Clinton announced plans for a 13-city speaking tour in various cities in the United States and Canada between November 2018 and May 2019. Hillary was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in law (LLD) at Queen's University Belfast on October 10, 2018, after giving a speech on Northern Ireland and the impacts of Brexit at Whitla Hall, Belfast. In June 2018, Trinity College Dublin awarded her with an honorary doctorate (LLD). In September 2021 she was awarded an honorary doctorate of civil law by the University of Oxford.
A package that contained a pipe bomb was sent to Clinton's home in Washington, D.C., on October 24, 2018. It was intercepted by the Secret Service. Similar packages were sent to several other Democratic leaders and to CNN.
Political actions
Clinton delivered a St. Patrick's Day speech in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on March 17, 2017. In it, alluding to reports that she had being seen taking walks in the woods around Chappaqua following her loss in the presidential election, Clinton indicated her readiness to emerge from "the woods" and become politically active again. However, the following month she confirmed she would not seek public office again. She reiterated her comments in March 2019 and stated she would not run for president in 2020.
In May 2017, Clinton announced the formation of Onward Together, a new political action committee that she wrote is "dedicated to advancing the progressive vision that earned nearly 66 million votes in the last election". During 2017, she spoke out on a number of occasions against Republican plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with the American Health Care Act, which she called "a disastrous bill" and a "shameful failure of policy & morality by GOP". In response to the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack, Clinton said the U.S. should take out Bashar al-Assad's airfields and thereby "prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them".
On April 28, 2020, Clinton endorsed the presumptive Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, for president in the 2020 election and she addressed the 2020 Democratic National Convention in August. On October 28, 2020, Clinton announced that she was on the 2020 Democratic slate of electors for the state of New York. After Biden and Kamala Harris won New York State, thereby electing the Democratic elector slate, Clinton and her husband served as members of the 2020 United States Electoral College and cast the first of the state's electoral votes for Biden and Harris.
Comments on President Trump
On May 2, 2017, Clinton said Trump's use of Twitter "doesn't work" when pursuing important negotiations. "Kim Jong Un ... [is] always interested in trying to get Americans to come to negotiate to elevate their status and their position". Negotiations with North Korea should not take place without "a broader strategic framework to try to get China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, to put the kind of pressure on the regime that will finally bring them to the negotiating table with some kind of realistic prospect for change." While delivering the commencement speech at her alma mater Wellesley College on May 26, Clinton asserted President Trump's 2018 budget proposal was "a con" for underfunding domestic programs. On June 1, when President Trump announced the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, Clinton tweeted that it was a "historic mistake".
On September 29, 2019, in an interview with CBS News Sunday Morning, Clinton described Trump as a "threat" to the country's standing in the world; an "illegitimate president", despite having won the election; and a "corrupt human tornado".
Comments on politics during the Biden administration
In March 2021, Clinton voiced her support for the United States Senate to abolish the Senate filibuster if it proves necessary to do so in order to pass voting rights legislation. Clinton called the Senate filibuster "another Jim Crow relic".
Writing career
Clinton's third memoir, What Happened, an account of her loss in the 2016 election, was released on September 12, 2017. A book tour and a series of interviews and personal appearances were arranged for the launch. What Happened sold 300,000 copies in its first week, less than her 2003 memoir, Living History, but triple the first-week sales of her previous memoir, 2014's Hard Choices. Simon & Schuster announced that What Happened had sold more e-books in its first-week than any nonfiction e-book since 2010. As of December 10, 2017, the book had sold 448,947 hardcover copies.
An announcement was made in February 2017 that efforts were under way to render her 1996 book It Takes a Village as a picture book. Marla Frazee, a two-time winner of the Caldecott Medal, was announced as the illustrator. Clinton had worked on it with Frazee during her 2016 presidential election campaign. The result was published on the same day of publication as What Happened. The book is aimed at preschool-aged children, although a few messages are more likely better understood by adults.
In October 2019, The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience, a book Clinton co-wrote with her daughter Chelsea, was published. In February 2021, Clinton announced that she was co-writing her first fiction book with Louise Penny. The book, a political mystery thriller, is titled State of Terror and was released in October 2021.
Clinton has also written occasional op-eds in the years since her 2016 election defeat. In September 2018, The Atlantic published an article written by Clinton titled "American Democracy Is In Crisis". In April 2019, The Washington Post published an op-ed by Clinton calling for congress to be, "deliberate, fair, and fearless" in responding to the Mueller Report. In their November/December 2020 issue, Foreign Affairs published a piece by Clinton titled "A National Security Reckoning". On January 11, 2021, following the January 6 storming of the United States Capitol, an op-ed by Clinton titled "Trump should be impeached. But that alone won’t remove white supremacy from America." was published in The Washington Post. In July 2021, Democracy Docket published an op-ed by Clinton on Republican efforts to restrict voting following the 2020 presidential election.
Media ventures
Clinton collaborated with director Nanette Burstein on the documentary film Hillary, which was released on Hulu in March 2020.
On September 29, 2020, Clinton launched an interview podcast in collaboration with iHeartRadio titled You and Me Both.
Clinton is slated to be an executive producer of a drama series about the fight for women's suffrage in the United States titled The Woman's Hour. The series, based upon Elaine Weiss' book of the same name, will air on The CW.
Chancellor of Queen's University Belfast
On January 2, 2020, it was announced that Clinton would take up the position of Chancellor at Queen's University Belfast. Clinton became the 11th and first female chancellor of the university, filling the position that had been vacant since 2018 after the death of her predecessor, Thomas J. Moran. Commenting on taking up the position, she said that "the university is making waves internationally for its research and impact and I am proud to be an ambassador and help grow its reputation for excellence". Queen's Pro-Chancellor Stephen Prenter said that Clinton on her appointment "will be an incredible advocate for Queen's" who can act as an "inspirational role model". However, her inauguration was protested by some students.
Political positions
Using her Senate votes, several organizations have attempted to measure Clinton's place on the political spectrum scientifically. National Journals 2004 study of roll-call votes assigned Clinton a rating of 30 on the political spectrum, relative to the Senate at the time, with a rating of1 being most liberal and 100 being most conservative. National Journals subsequent rankings placed her as the 32nd-most liberal senator in 2006 and 16th-most liberal senator in 2007. A 2004 analysis by political scientists Joshua D. Clinton of Princeton University and Simon Jackman and Doug Rivers of Stanford University found her likely to be the sixth-to-eighth-most liberal senator. The Almanac of American Politics, edited by Michael Barone and Richard E. Cohen, rated her votes from 2003 through 2006 as liberal or conservative, with 100 as the highest rating, in three areas: Economic, Social and Foreign. Averaged for the four years, the ratings are: Economic = 75 liberal, 23 conservative; Social = 83 liberal, 6 conservative; Foreign = 66 liberal, 30 conservative. Total average = 75 liberal, 20 conservative. According to FiveThirtyEights measure of political ideology, "Clinton was one of the most liberal members during her time in the Senate."
Organizations have also attempted to provide more recent assessments of Clinton after she reentered elective politics in 2015. Based on her stated positions from the 1990s to the present, On the Issues places her in the "Left Liberal" region on their two-dimensional grid of social and economic ideologies, with a social score of 80 on a scale of zero more-restrictive to 100 less-government stances, with an economic score of ten on a scale of zero more-restrictive to 100 less-government stances. Crowdpac, which does a data aggregation of campaign contributions, votes and speeches, gives her a 6.5L rating on a one-dimensional left-right scale from 10L (most liberal) to 10C (most conservative).
In March 2016, Clinton laid out a detailed economic plan, which The New York Times called "optimistic" and "wide-ranging". Basing her economic philosophy on inclusive capitalism, Clinton proposed a "clawback" that would rescind tax relief and other benefits for companies that move jobs overseas; providing incentives for companies that share profits with employees, communities and the environment, rather than focusing on short-term profits to increase stock value and rewarding shareholders; increasing collective bargaining rights; and placing an "exit tax" on companies that move their headquarters out of America to pay a lower tax rate overseas. Clinton currently opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), though previously described it as "the gold standard" of trade deals. She supports the U.S. Export-Import Bank and holds that "any trade deal has to produce jobs and raise wages and increase prosperity and protect our security". As senator (2001–2009), her record on trade was mixed; she voted in favor of some trade agreements but not others.
Given the climate of unlimited campaign contributions following the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, Clinton called for a constitutional amendment to limit "unaccountable money" in politics. In July 2016, she "committed" to introducing a U.S. constitutional amendment that would result in overturning the 2010 Citizens United decision. On December 7, 2015, Clinton presented her detailed plans for regulating Wall Street financial activities in the New York Times.
Accepting the scientific consensus on climate change, Clinton supports cap-and-trade, and opposed the Keystone XL pipeline. She supported "equal pay for equal work", to address current shortfalls in how much women are paid to do the same jobs men do. Clinton has explicitly focused on family issues and supports universal preschool. These programs would be funded by proposing tax increases on the wealthy, including a "fair share surcharge". Clinton supported the Affordable Care Act and would have added a "public option" that competed with private insurers and enabled people "50 or 55 and up" to buy into Medicare.
On LGBT rights, she supports the right to same-sex marriage, a position that has changed throughout her political career. In 2000, she was against such marriages altogether. In 2006, she said only that she would support a state's decision to permit same-sex marriages, but opposed federally amending the Constitution to permit same-sex marriage. While running for president in 2007, she again reiterated her opposition to same-sex marriage, although expressed her support of civil unions. 2013 marked the first time that Clinton expressed support for a national right to same-sex marriage. In 2000, she was the first spouse of a US president to march in an LGBT pride parade. In 2016, she was the first major-party presidential candidate ever to write an op-ed for an LGBT newspaper (Philadelphia Gay News).
Clinton held that allowing undocumented immigrants to have a path to citizenship "s at its heart a family issue", and expressed support for Obama's Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) program, which would allow up to five million undocumented immigrants to gain deferral of deportation and authorization to legally work in the United States. However, in 2014, Clinton stated that unaccompanied children crossing the border "should be sent back." She opposed and criticized Trump's call to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States.
Expressing support for Common Core she said, "The really unfortunate argument that's been going on around Common Core, it's very painful because the Common Core started off as a bipartisan effort. It was actually nonpartisan. It wasn't politicized ... Iowa has had a testing system based on a core curriculum for a really long time. And you see the value of it, you understand why that helps you organize your whole education system. And a lot of states unfortunately haven't had that and so don't understand the value of a core, in this sense a Common Core."
On foreign affairs, Clinton voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq in October 2002, a vote she later "regretted". She favored arming Syria's rebel fighters in 2012 and has called for the removal of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. She supported the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and the NATO-led military intervention in Libya to oust former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Clinton is in favor of maintaining American influence in the Middle East. She has told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, "America can't ever be neutral when it comes to Israel's security and survival." Clinton expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2006 Lebanon War and 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In a 2017 interview, after a poison gas attack in Syria, Clinton said that she had favored more aggressive action against Bashar al-Assad: "I think we should have been more willing to confront Assad. I really believe we should have and still should take out his air fields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them."
In 2000, Clinton advocated for the elimination of the electoral college. She promised to co-sponsor legislation that would abolish it, resulting in the direct election of the president. She reiterated her position against the Electoral College as she cast her vote as an elector in the electoral college for Joe Biden in 2020.
Religious views
Clinton has been a lifelong Methodist, and has been part of United Methodist Church congregations throughout her life. She has publicly discussed her Christian faith on several occasions, although seldom while campaigning. Professor Paul Kengor, author of God and Hillary Clinton: A Spiritual Life, has suggested that Clinton's political positions are rooted in her faith. She often expresses a maxim often attributed to John Wesley: "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can."
Cultural and political image
Over a hundred books and scholarly works have been written about Clinton. A 2006 survey by the New York Observer found "a virtual cottage industry" of "anti-Clinton literature" put out by Regnery Publishing and other conservative imprints. Some titles include Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House, Hillary's Scheme: Inside the Next Clinton's Ruthless Agenda to Take the White House and Can She Be Stopped?: Hillary Clinton Will Be the Next President of the United States Unless ... Books praising Clinton did not sell nearly as well (other than her memoirs and those of her husband). When she ran for Senate in 2000, several fundraising groups such as Save Our Senate and the Emergency Committee to Stop Hillary Rodham Clinton sprang up to oppose her. Don Van Natta found that Republican and conservative groups viewed her as a reliable "bogeyman" to mention in fundraising letters, on a par with Ted Kennedy, and the equivalent of Democratic and liberal appeals mentioning Newt Gingrich.
Clinton has also been featured in the media and popular culture in a wide spectrum of perspectives. In 1995, writer Todd S. Purdum of The New York Times characterized Clinton as a Rorschach test, an assessment echoed at the time by feminist writer and activist Betty Friedan, who said, "Coverage of Hillary Clinton is a massive Rorschach test of the evolution of women in our society." She has been the subject of many satirical impressions on Saturday Night Live, beginning with her time as the first lady. She has made guest appearances on the show herself, in 2008 and in 2015, to face-off with her doppelgängers. Jonathan Mann wrote songs about her including "The Hillary Shimmy Song", which went viral.
She has often been described in the popular media as a polarizing figure, though some argue otherwise. In the early stages of her 2008 presidential campaign, a Time magazine cover showed a large picture of her with two checkboxes labeled "Love Her", "Hate Her". Mother Jones titled its profile of her "Harpy, Hero, Heretic: Hillary". Following Clinton's "choked up moment" and related incidents in the run-up to the January 2008 New Hampshire primary, both The New York Times and Newsweek found that discussion of gender's role in the campaign had moved into the national political discourse. Newsweek editor Jon Meacham summed up the relationship between Clinton and the American public by saying the New Hampshire events, "brought an odd truth to light: though Hillary Rodham Clinton has been on the periphery or in the middle of national life for decades ... she is one of the most recognizable but least understood figures in American politics".
Once she became secretary of state, Clinton's image seemed to improve dramatically among the American public and become one of a respected world figure. Her favorability ratings dropped, however, after she left office and began to be viewed in the context of partisan politics once more. By September 2015, with her 2016 presidential campaign underway and beset by continued reports regarding her private email usage at the State Department, her ratings had slumped to some of her lowest levels ever. In March 2016, she acknowledged that: "I'm not a natural politician, in case you haven't noticed."
Electoral history
2000 Senate election
2006 Senate election
2008 presidential election
2016 presidential election
Books and recordings
It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us (1996).Clinton received the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 1997 for the book's audio recording.
Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids' Letters to the First Pets (1998)
An Invitation to the White House: At Home with History (2000)
Living History (Simon & Schuster, 2003). The book set a first-week sales record for a nonfiction work, went on to sell more than one million copies in the first month following publication, and was translated into twelve foreign languages.
Hard Choices (2014). The book has sold about 280,000 copies.
With Tim Kaine, Stronger Together (2016)
What Happened (Simon & Schuster, 2017, in print, e-book, and audio read by the author)
With Chelsea Clinton, The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience (Simon & Schuster, 2019, in print, e-book, and audio)
With Louise Penny, State of Terror is set to release on October 12, 2021, and be published by Simon & Schuster & St. Martin's Press.
Ancestry
See also
2016 United States presidential election timeline
List of female United States Cabinet members
Women in the United States Senate
Notes
References
Citations
Sources cited
External links
Official
Clinton Foundation
State Department Biography
Media coverage
Other
Hillary Clinton's file at Politifact
1947 births
Living people
2020 United States presidential electors
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American politicians
20th-century American women lawyers
20th-century American women politicians
20th-century American women writers
20th-century Methodists
21st-century American diplomats
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American politicians
21st-century American women politicians
21st-century American women writers
21st-century Methodists
Activists from New York (state)
American autobiographers
American feminists
American legal writers
American memoirists
American people of Dutch descent
American people of English descent
American people of French-Canadian descent
American people of Scottish descent
American people of Welsh descent
American political writers
American United Methodists
American women activists
American women diplomats
American diplomats
American women non-fiction writers
American women's rights activists
American women academics
Arkansas Democrats
Arkansas lawyers
Articles containing video clips
Candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2016 United States presidential election
Chancellors of Queen's University Belfast
Children's rights activists
Bill Clinton
College Republicans
Democratic Party (United States) presidential nominees
Democratic Party United States senators from New York (state)
Directors of Walmart
Family of Bill and Hillary Clinton
Female candidates for President of the United States
Female foreign ministers
Female United States senators
First Ladies and Gentlemen of Arkansas
First Ladies of the United States
Grammy Award winners
Grand Crosses of the Order of Lakandula
Illinois Republicans
Intellectual property lawyers
New York (state) Democrats
Obama administration cabinet members
People from Park Ridge, Illinois
Politicians from Little Rock, Arkansas
Politicians from Westchester County, New York
Recipients of the Four Freedoms Award
Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 1st Class
Rodham family
United States Secretaries of State
United States senators from New York (state)
University of Arkansas School of Law faculty
Wellesley College alumni
Women autobiographers
Women heads of universities and colleges
Women in New York (state) politics
Women members of the Cabinet of the United States
Writers from New York (state)
Yale Law School alumni | true | [
"Standing Up for Love is a 1977 studio album released by the American female vocal group The Three Degrees. Having enjoyed a successful three year streak with Philadelphia International Records (PIR), the group signed a one-album contract with Epic Records (a subsidiary of CBS Records) in late 1976. The resulting album coincided with the departure of founding group member Fayette Pinkney, and the return of former member Helen Scott.\n\nThe album received its first issue onto CD, with an expanded edition in April 2012 by Funky Town Grooves USA\n\nTrack listing\n\nSide A:\n \"Standing Up for Love\" (George Clinton) - 5.15\n \"What I Did for Love\" (from the musical A Chorus Line) (Ed Kleban, Marvin Hamlisch) - 3.41\n \"Just Leave Me Alone\" (Robert Galbraith) - 5.41\n \"Macaroni Man\" (Jimmy Jules) - 3.42 \n \"Gee Baby (I'm Sorry)\" (Richard Barrett) - 2.54\n\nSide B:\n \"People with Feeling\" (T. Rakes, Russ Faith) - 4.41\n \"In Love We Grow\" (Dennis Belfield) - 3.57\n \"We're All Alone\" (William Royce Scaggs) - 3.41\n \"Standing Up for Love (Reprise)\" (George Clinton) - 2.29\n\nCD Track Listing Expanded Edition 2012\n\n \"Standing Up For Love\"\n \"What I Did For Love\" (from the musical A Chorus Line)* \n \"Just Leave Me Alone\" \n \"Macaroni Man\"* \n \"Gee Baby (I'm Sorry)\"*\n \"People With Feeling\" \n \"In Love We Grow\" \n \"We're All Alone\" \n \"Standing Up For Love\" (Reprise)\n\nBonus Tracks\n\n \"Toast of Love\" - Single Version - Non Album* \n \"Do It (Use Your Mind)\" - Single Version* \n \"Standing Up For Love\" - Single Version\n\nPersonnel\n Sheila Ferguson - vocals\n Valerie Holiday - vocals\n Helen Scott - vocals\n Fayette Pinkney - vocals*\n\n1977 albums\nThe Three Degrees albums\nAlbums produced by Brad Shapiro\nAlbums recorded at Sigma Sound Studios\nEpic Records albums",
"Clinton Moore (born 24 April 1988 in Bundaberg, Queensland) is a freestyle motocross rider from Australia. He is the current Red Bull X Fighters World Tour Champion winning the last event of the year in Abu Dhabi.\n\nPersonal life and career\nClinton Moore first started riding a dirt bike when he was a little kid, using the acres around the farm to develop his bike skills. This was when he realized he wanted to grow up to be a FMX rider. Moore originally got into the sport when his older sister's boyfriend lent him tapes of Freestyle Motocross riders.\nMoore participated in X-Games 2010 in freestyle where he finished in fourth place. Moore also made his Red Bull X-Fighters debut that year in London where he finished in dead last at eighth place. In 2015 Moore made his first career win in Red Bull X Fighters where he won against Levi Sherwood 3-2 in the finals in Mexico City.\n\nReferences \n\n http://www.redbullxfighters.com/en_US/athlete/clinton-moore Retrieved 2015-05-27.\n http://rockstarenergy.com/actionsports/fmx/clinton-moore Retrieved 2015-05-27.\n https://web.archive.org/web/20150528015622/http://nitrocircus.com/riders/clinton-moore/ Retrieved 2015-05-27.\n\nExternal links \n \n \n\n1988 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Bundaberg\nAustralian motocross riders\nX Games athletes\nFreestyle motocross riders"
] |
[
"Hillary Clinton",
"Early life and education",
"Where did Clinton grow up?",
"first lived in Chicago."
] | C_8b166a2b96a4446b96aec0b2fd24bb06_1 | Where did she live after Chicago? | 2 | Where did Hillary Clinton live after Chicago? | Hillary Clinton | Hillary Diane Rodham was born on October 26, 1947, at Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. Clinton was raised in a United Methodist family that first lived in Chicago. When she was three years old, her family moved to the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge. Her father, Hugh Rodham, was of English and Welsh descent, and managed a small but successful textile business. Her mother, Dorothy Howell, was a homemaker of Dutch, English, French Canadian (from Quebec), Scottish and Welsh descent. Clinton has two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony. As a child, Rodham was a favorite student among her teachers at the public schools that she attended in Park Ridge. She participated swimming and softball and earned numerous badges as a Brownie and a Girl Scout. She has often told a story of being inspired by U.S. efforts during the Space Race and sending a letter to NASA around 1961 asking what she could do to become an astronaut, only to be informed that women were not being accepted into the program. She attended Maine East High School, where she participated in the student council, the school newspaper and was selected for the National Honor Society. She was elected class vice president for her junior year, but then lost the election for class president for her senior year against two boys, one of whom told her that "you are really stupid if you think a girl can be elected president". For her senior year, she and other students were transferred to the then new Maine South High School, where she was a National Merit Finalist and was voted, "most likely to succeed". She graduated in 1965 in the top five percent of her class. Rodham's mother wanted her to have an independent, professional career, and her father, who was otherwise a traditionalist, felt that his daughter's abilities and opportunities should not be limited by gender. Rodham was raised in a politically conservative household, and she helped canvass Chicago's South Side at age 13 after the very close 1960 U.S. presidential election. She saw evidence of electoral fraud (such as voting list entries showing addresses that were empty lots) against Republican candidate Richard Nixon, and later volunteered to campaign for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater in the U.S. presidential election of 1964. Rodham's early political development was shaped most by her high school history teacher (like her father, a fervent anti-communist), who introduced her to Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative and by her Methodist youth minister (like her mother, concerned with issues of social justice), with whom she saw and afterwards briefly met, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. at a 1962 speech in Chicago's Orchestra Hall. CANNOTANSWER | Chicago suburb of Park Ridge. | Hillary Diane Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, lawyer, writer, and public speaker who served as the 67th United States secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, as a United States senator from New York from 2001 to 2009, and as first lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001 as the wife of President Bill Clinton. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the party's nominee for president in the 2016 presidential election, becoming the first woman to win a presidential nomination by a major U.S. political party. Clinton won the popular vote in the election, making her the first woman to do so. However, she lost the Electoral College vote and thereby lost the presidential election.
Raised in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge, Rodham graduated from Wellesley College in 1969 and earned a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1973. After serving as a congressional legal counsel, she moved to Arkansas and married future president Bill Clinton in 1975; the two had met at Yale. In 1977, Clinton co-founded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. She was appointed the first female chair of the Legal Services Corporation in 1978 and became the first female partner at Little Rock's Rose Law Firm the following year. The National Law Journal twice listed her as one of the hundred most influential lawyers in America. Clinton was the first lady of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again from 1983 to 1992. As the first lady of the United States, Clinton advocated for healthcare reform. In 1994, her major initiative—the Clinton health care plan—failed to gain approval from Congress. In 1997 and 1999, Clinton played a leading role in advocating the creation of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, the Adoption and Safe Families Act, and the Foster Care Independence Act. Clinton advocated for gender equality at the 1995 UN conference on women. Her marital relationship came under public scrutiny during the Lewinsky scandal, which led her to issue a statement that reaffirmed her commitment to the marriage.
In 2000, Clinton was elected as the first female senator from New York and became the first First lady to simultaneously hold elected office, and then the first former First lady to serve in the Senate. She was re-elected in 2006 and chaired the Senate Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee from 2003 to 2007. During her Senate tenure, Clinton advocated for medical benefits for first responders whose health was damaged in the September 11 attacks. She supported the resolution authorizing the Iraq War in 2002 but opposed the surge of U.S. troops in 2007. In 2008, Clinton ran for president but was defeated by eventual winner Barack Obama in the Democratic primaries. Clinton was U.S. secretary of state in the first term of the Obama administration from 2009 to 2013. During her tenure, Clinton established the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. She responded to the Arab Spring by advocating military intervention in Libya but was harshly criticized by Republicans for the failure to prevent or adequately respond to the 2012 Benghazi attack. Clinton helped to organize a diplomatic isolation and a regime of international sanctions against Iran in an effort to force it to curtail its nuclear program; this effort eventually led to the multinational JCPOA nuclear agreement in 2015. Her use of a private email server when she was Secretary of State was the subject of intense scrutiny; while no charges were filed against Clinton, the email controversy was the single most covered topic during the 2016 presidential election.
Clinton made a second presidential run in 2016. After winning the Democratic nomination, she ran in the general election with Virginia senator Tim Kaine as her running mate. Clinton lost the presidential election to Republican opponent Donald Trump in the Electoral College despite winning a plurality of the popular vote. Following her loss, she wrote her third memoir, What Happened, and launched Onward Together, a political action organization dedicated to fundraising for progressive political groups. Since January 2020, she has been the chancellor of Queen's University Belfast in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Early life and education
Early life
Hillary Diane Rodham was born on October 26, 1947, at Edgewater Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. She was raised in a United Methodist family who first lived in Chicago. When she was three years old, her family moved to the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge. Her father, Hugh Rodham, was of English and Welsh descent, and managed a small but successful textile business, which he had founded. Her mother, Dorothy Howell, was a homemaker of Dutch, English, French Canadian (from Quebec), Scottish, and Welsh descent. She had two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony.
As a child, Rodham was a favorite student among her teachers at the public schools she attended in Park Ridge. She participated in swimming and softball and earned numerous badges as a Brownie and a Girl Scout. She has often told the story of being inspired by U.S. efforts during the Space Race and sending a letter to NASA around 1961 asking what she could do to become an astronaut, only to be informed that women were not being accepted into the program. She attended Maine East High School, where she participated in the student council and school newspaper and was selected for the National Honor Society. She was elected class vice president for her junior year but then lost the election for class president for her senior year against two boys, one of whom told her that "you are really stupid if you think a girl can be elected president". For her senior year, she and other students were transferred to the then-new Maine South High School. There she was a National Merit Finalist and was voted "most likely to succeed." She graduated in 1965 in the top five percent of her class.
Rodham's mother wanted her to have an independent, professional career. Her father, who was otherwise a traditionalist, felt that his daughter's abilities and opportunities should not be limited by gender. She was raised in a politically conservative household, and she helped canvass Chicago's South Side at age 13 after the very close 1960 U.S. presidential election. She saw evidence of electoral fraud (such as voting list entries showing addresses that were empty lots) against Republican candidate Richard Nixon, and later volunteered to campaign for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater in the 1964 election.
Rodham's early political development was shaped mostly by her high school history teacher (like her father, a fervent anti-communist), who introduced her to Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative and by her Methodist youth minister (like her mother, concerned with issues of social justice), with whom she saw and afterwards briefly met, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. at a 1962 speech in Chicago's Orchestra Hall.
Wellesley College years
In 1965, Rodham enrolled at Wellesley College, where she majored in political science. During her first year, she was president of the Wellesley Young Republicans. As the leader of this "Rockefeller Republican"-oriented group, she supported the elections of moderate Republicans John Lindsay to mayor of New York City and Massachusetts attorney general Edward Brooke to the United States Senate. She later stepped down from this position. In 2003, Clinton would write that her views concerning the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War were changing in her early college years. In a letter to her youth minister at that time, she described herself as "a mind conservative and a heart liberal". In contrast to the factions in the 1960s that advocated radical actions against the political system, she sought to work for change within it.
By her junior year, Rodham became a supporter of the antiwar presidential nomination campaign of Democrat Eugene McCarthy. In early 1968, she was elected president of the Wellesley College Government Association, a position she held until early 1969. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Rodham organized a two-day student strike and worked with Wellesley's black students to recruit more black students and faculty. In her student government role, she played a role in keeping Wellesley from being embroiled in the student disruptions common to other colleges. A number of her fellow students thought she might some day become the first female president of the United States.
To help her better understand her changing political views, Professor Alan Schechter assigned Rodham to intern at the House Republican Conference, and she attended the "Wellesley in Washington" summer program. Rodham was invited by moderate New York Republican representative Charles Goodell to help Governor Nelson Rockefeller's late-entry campaign for the Republican nomination. Rodham attended the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami Beach. However, she was upset by the way Richard Nixon's campaign portrayed Rockefeller and by what she perceived as the convention's "veiled" racist messages, and she left the Republican Party for good.
Rodham wrote her senior thesis, a critique of the tactics of radical community organizer Saul Alinsky, under Professor Schechter. Years later, while she was the first lady, access to her thesis was restricted at the request of the White House and it became the subject of some speculation. The thesis was later released.
In 1969, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, with departmental honors in political science. After some fellow seniors requested that the college administration allow a student speaker at commencement, she became the first student in Wellesley College history to speak at the event. Her address followed that of the commencement speaker, Senator Edward Brooke. After her speech, she received a standing ovation that lasted seven minutes. She was featured in an article published in Life magazine, because of the response to a part of her speech that criticized Senator Brooke. She also appeared on Irv Kupcinet's nationally syndicated television talk show as well as in Illinois and New England newspapers. She was asked to speak at the 50th anniversary convention of the League of Women Voters in Washington, D.C., the next year. That summer, she worked her way across Alaska, washing dishes in Mount McKinley National Park and sliming salmon in a fish processing cannery in Valdez (which fired her and shut down overnight when she complained about unhealthy conditions).
Yale Law School and postgraduate studies
Rodham then entered Yale Law School, where she was on the editorial board of the Yale Review of Law and Social Action. During her second year, she worked at the Yale Child Study Center, learning about new research on early childhood brain development and working as a research assistant on the seminal work, Beyond the Best Interests of the Child (1973). She also took on cases of child abuse at Yale–New Haven Hospital, and volunteered at New Haven Legal Services to provide free legal advice for the poor. In the summer of 1970, she was awarded a grant to work at Marian Wright Edelman's Washington Research Project, where she was assigned to Senator Walter Mondale's Subcommittee on Migratory Labor. There she researched various migrant workers' issues including education, health and housing. Edelman later became a significant mentor. Rodham was recruited by political advisor Anne Wexler to work on the 1970 campaign of Connecticut U.S. Senate candidate Joseph Duffey. Rodham later crediting Wexler with providing her first job in politics.
In the spring of 1971, she began dating fellow law student Bill Clinton. During the summer, she interned at the Oakland, California, law firm of Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein. The firm was well known for its support of constitutional rights, civil liberties and radical causes (two of its four partners were current or former Communist Party members); Rodham worked on child custody and other cases. Clinton canceled his original summer plans and moved to live with her in California; the couple continued living together in New Haven when they returned to law school. The following summer, Rodham and Clinton campaigned in Texas for unsuccessful 1972 Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern. She received a Juris Doctor degree from Yale in 1973, having stayed on an extra year to be with Clinton. He first proposed marriage to her following graduation, but she declined, uncertain if she wanted to tie her future to his.
Rodham began a year of postgraduate study on children and medicine at the Yale Child Study Center. In late 1973, her first scholarly article, "Children Under the Law", was published in the Harvard Educational Review. Discussing the new children's rights movement, the article stated that "child citizens" were "powerless individuals" and argued that children should not be considered equally incompetent from birth to attaining legal age, but instead that courts should presume competence on a case-by-case basis, except when there is evidence otherwise. The article became frequently cited in the field.
Marriage, family, legal career and first ladyship of Arkansas
From the East Coast to Arkansas
During her postgraduate studies, Rodham was staff attorney for Edelman's newly founded Children's Defense Fund in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and as a consultant to the Carnegie Council on Children. In 1974, she was a member of the impeachment inquiry staff in Washington, D.C., and advised the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate scandal. Under the guidance of Chief Counsel John Doar and senior member Bernard W. Nussbaum, Rodham helped research procedures of impeachment and the historical grounds and standards for it. The committee's work culminated with the resignation of President Richard Nixon in August 1974.
By then, Rodham was viewed as someone with a bright political future. Democratic political organizer and consultant Betsey Wright moved from Texas to Washington the previous year to help guide Rodham's career. Wright thought Rodham had the potential to become a future senator or president. Meanwhile, boyfriend Bill Clinton had repeatedly asked Rodham to marry him, but she continued to demur. After failing the District of Columbia bar exam and passing the Arkansas exam, Rodham came to a key decision. As she later wrote, "I chose to follow my heart instead of my head". She thus followed Clinton to Arkansas, rather than staying in Washington, where career prospects were brighter. He was then teaching law and running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in his home state. In August 1974, Rodham moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, and became one of only two female faculty members in the School of Law at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
Early Arkansas years
At the university, Rodham taught classes in criminal law. She was considered a rigorous teacher who was tough with her grades. Rodham became the first director of a new legal aid clinic at the school, where she secured support from the local bar association and gained federal funding. As a court-appointed lawyer, Rodham was required to act as defense counsel to a man accused of raping a 12-year-old girl; after her request to be relieved of the assignment failed, Rodham used an effective defense and counseled her client to plead guilty to a lesser charge. She has called the trial a "terrible case". During her time in Fayetteville, Rodham and several other women founded the city's first rape crisis center.
In 1974, Bill Clinton lost an Arkansas congressional race, facing incumbent Republican John Paul Hammerschmidt. Rodham and Bill Clinton bought a house in Fayetteville in the summer of 1975 and she agreed to marry him. The wedding took place on October 11, 1975, in a Methodist ceremony in their living room. A story about the marriage in the Arkansas Gazette indicated that she decided to retain the name Hillary Rodham. Her motivation was threefold. She wanted to keep the couple's professional lives separate, avoid apparent conflicts of interest, and as she told a friend at the time, "it showed that I was still me". The decision upset both mothers, who were more traditional.
In 1976, Rodham temporarily relocated to Indianapolis to work as an Indiana state campaign organizer for the presidential campaign of Jimmy Carter. In November 1976, Bill Clinton was elected Arkansas attorney general, and the couple moved to the state capital of Little Rock. In February 1977, Rodham joined the venerable Rose Law Firm, a bastion of Arkansan political and economic influence. She specialized in patent infringement and intellectual property law while working pro bono in child advocacy; she rarely performed litigation work in court.
Rodham maintained her interest in children's law and family policy, publishing the scholarly articles "Children's Policies: Abandonment and Neglect" in 1977 and "Children's Rights: A Legal Perspective" in 1979. The latter continued her argument that children's legal competence depended upon their age and other circumstances and that in serious medical rights cases, judicial intervention was sometimes warranted. An American Bar Association chair later said, "Her articles were important, not because they were radically new but because they helped formulate something that had been inchoate." Historian Garry Wills would later describe her as "one of the more important scholar-activists of the last two decades". Conservatives said her theories would usurp traditional parental authority, would allow children to file frivolous lawsuits against their parents, and exemplified critical legal studies run amok.
In 1977, Rodham cofounded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, a state-level alliance with the Children's Defense Fund. Later that year, President Jimmy Carter (for whom Rodham had been the 1976 campaign director of field operations in Indiana) appointed her to the board of directors of the Legal Services Corporation. She held that position from 1978 until the end of 1981. From mid-1978 to mid-1980, she was the chair of that board, the first woman to hold the job. During her time as chair, funding for the corporation was expanded from $90 million to $300 million; subsequently, she successfully fought President Ronald Reagan's attempts to reduce the funding and change the nature of the organization.
Following her husband's November 1978 election as governor of Arkansas, Rodham became that state's first lady in January 1979. She would hold that title for twelve nonconsecutive years (1979–81, 1983–92). Clinton appointed his wife to be the chair of the Rural Health Advisory Committee the same year, where she secured federal funds to expand medical facilities in Arkansas's poorest areas without affecting doctors' fees.
In 1979, Rodham became the first woman to be made a full partner in Rose Law Firm. From 1978 until they entered the White House, she had a higher salary than her husband. During 1978 and 1979, while looking to supplement their income, Rodham engaged in the trading of cattle futures contracts; an initial $1,000 investment generated nearly $100,000 when she stopped trading after ten months. At this time, the couple began their ill-fated investment in the Whitewater Development Corporation real estate venture with Jim and Susan McDougal. Both of these became subjects of controversy in the 1990s.
On February 27, 1980, Rodham gave birth to the couple's only child, a daughter whom they named Chelsea. In November 1980, Bill Clinton was defeated in his bid for re-election.
Later Arkansas years
Two years after leaving office, Bill Clinton returned to his job as governor of Arkansas after winning the election of 1982. During her husband's campaign, Hillary began to use the name "Hillary Clinton", or sometimes "Mrs. Bill Clinton", to assuage the concerns of Arkansas voters; she also took a leave of absence from Rose Law to campaign for him full-time. During her second stint as the first lady of Arkansas, she made a point of using Hillary Rodham Clinton as her name. She was named chair of the Arkansas Education Standards Committee in 1983, where she sought to reform the state's court-sanctioned public education system. In one of the Clinton governorship's most important initiatives, she fought a prolonged but ultimately successful battle against the Arkansas Education Association to establish mandatory teacher testing and state standards for curriculum and classroom size. It became her introduction into the politics of a highly visible public policy effort. In 1985, she introduced Arkansas's Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youth, a program that helps parents work with their children in preschool preparedness and literacy. She was named Arkansas Woman of the Year in 1983 and Arkansas Mother of the Year in 1984.
Clinton continued to practice law with the Rose Law Firm while she was the first lady of Arkansas. She earned less than the other partners, as she billed fewer hours but still made more than $200,000 in her final year there. The firm considered her a "rainmaker" because she brought in clients, partly thanks to the prestige she lent it and to her corporate board connections. She was also very influential in the appointment of state judges. Bill Clinton's Republican opponent in his 1986 gubernatorial re-election campaign accused the Clintons of conflict of interest because Rose Law did state business; the Clintons countered the charge by saying that state fees were walled off by the firm before her profits were calculated.
From 1982 to 1988, Clinton was on the board of directors, sometimes as chair, of the New World Foundation, which funded a variety of New Left interest groups. From 1987 to 1991, she was the first chair of the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession, created to address gender bias in the legal profession and induce the association to adopt measures to combat it. She was twice named by The National Law Journal as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America—in 1988 and 1991. When Bill Clinton thought about not running again for governor in 1990, Hillary Clinton considered running. Private polls were unfavorable, however, and in the end he ran and was re-elected for the final time.
Clinton was chairman of the board of the Children's Defense Fund and on the board of the Arkansas Children's Hospital's Legal Services (1988–92) In addition to her positions with nonprofit organizations, she also held positions on the corporate board of directors of TCBY (1985–92), Wal-Mart Stores (1986–92) and Lafarge (1990–92). TCBY and Wal-Mart were Arkansas-based companies that were also clients of Rose Law. Clinton was the first female member on Wal-Mart's board, added following pressure on chairman Sam Walton to name a woman to it. Once there, she pushed successfully for Wal-Mart to adopt more environmentally friendly practices. She was largely unsuccessful in her campaign for more women to be added to the company's management and was silent about the company's famously anti-labor union practices. According to Dan Kaufman, awareness of this later became a factor in her loss of credibility with organized labor, helping contribute to her loss in the 2016 election, where slightly less than half of union members voted for Donald Trump.
Bill Clinton presidential campaign of 1992
Clinton received sustained national attention for the first time when her husband became a candidate for the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination. Before the New Hampshire primary, tabloid publications printed allegations that Bill Clinton had engaged in an extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers. In response, the Clintons appeared together on 60 Minutes, where Bill denied the affair, but acknowledged "causing pain in my marriage". This joint appearance was credited with rescuing his campaign. During the campaign, Hillary made culturally disparaging remarks about Tammy Wynette's outlook on marriage as described in her classic song "Stand by Your Man". Later in the campaign, she commented she could have chosen to be like women staying home and baking cookies and having teas, but wanted to pursue her career instead. The remarks were widely criticized, particularly by those who were, or defended, stay-at-home mothers. In retrospect, she admitted they were ill-considered. Bill said that in electing him, the nation would "get two for the price of one", referring to the prominent role his wife would assume. Beginning with Daniel Wattenberg's August 1992 The American Spectator article "The Lady Macbeth of Little Rock", Hillary's own past ideological and ethical record came under attack from conservatives. At least twenty other articles in major publications also drew comparisons between her and Lady Macbeth.
First Lady of the United States (1993–2001)
When Bill Clinton took office as president in January 1993, Hillary Rodham Clinton became the first lady. Her press secretary reiterated she would be using that form of her name. She was the first in this role to have a postgraduate degree and her own professional career up to the time of entering the White House. She was also the first to have an office in the West Wing of the White House in addition to the usual first lady offices in the East Wing. She was part of the innermost circle vetting appointments to the new administration. Her choices filled at least eleven top-level positions and dozens more lower-level ones. After Eleanor Roosevelt, Clinton was regarded as the most openly empowered presidential wife in American history.
Some critics called it inappropriate for the first lady to play a central role in public policy matters. Supporters pointed out that Clinton's role in policy was no different from that of other White House advisors, and that voters had been well aware she would play an active role in her husband's presidency. Bill Clinton's campaign promise of "two for the price of one" led opponents to refer derisively to the Clintons as "co-presidents" or sometimes use the Arkansas label "Billary". The pressures of conflicting ideas about the role of a first lady were enough to send Hillary Clinton into "imaginary discussions" with the also-politically active Eleanor Roosevelt. From the time she came to Washington, Hillary also found refuge in a prayer group of the Fellowship that featured many wives of conservative Washington figures. Triggered in part by the death of her father in April 1993, she publicly sought to find a synthesis of Methodist teachings, liberal religious political philosophy and Tikkun editor Michael Lerner's "politics of meaning" to overcome what she saw as America's "sleeping sickness of the soul"; that would lead to a willingness "to remold society by redefining what it means to be a human being in the twentieth century, moving into a new millennium".
Health care and other policy initiatives
In January 1993, President Clinton named Hillary to chair a task force on National Health Care Reform, hoping to replicate the success she had in leading the effort for Arkansas education reform. Unconvinced regarding the merits of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), she privately urged that passage of health care reform be given higher priority. The recommendation of the task force became known as the Clinton health care plan. This was a comprehensive proposal that would require employers to provide health coverage to their employees through individual health maintenance organizations. Its opponents quickly derided the plan as "Hillarycare" and it even faced opposition from some Democrats in Congress. Some protesters against the proposed plan became vitriolic and during a July 1994 bus tour to rally support for the plan, Clinton wore a bulletproof vest at times.
Failing to gather enough support for a floor vote in either the House or the Senate (although Democrats controlled both chambers), the proposal was abandoned in September 1994. Clinton later acknowledged in her memoir that her political inexperience partly contributed to the defeat but cited many other factors. The first lady's approval ratings, which had generally been in the high-50 percent range during her first year, fell to 44 percent in April 1994 and 35 percent by September 1994.
Republicans made the Clinton health care plan a major campaign issue of the 1994 midterm elections. They saw a net gain of 54 seats in the House election and eight in the Senate election, winning control of both; many analysts and pollsters found the plan to be a major factor in the Democrats' defeat, especially among independent voters. The White House subsequently sought to downplay Clinton's role in shaping policy. Opponents of universal health care would continue to use "Hillarycare" as a pejorative label for similar plans by others.
Along with senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, Clinton was a force behind the passage of the State Children's Health Insurance Program in 1997. This federal bill gave state support to children whose parents could not provide them health coverage. She conducted outreach efforts on behalf of enrolling children in the program once it became law. She promoted nationwide immunization against childhood diseases and encouraged older women to get a mammogram for breast cancer screening, with coverage provided by Medicare. She successfully sought to increase research funding for prostate cancer and childhood asthma at the National Institutes of Health. She worked to investigate reports of an illness that affected veterans of the Gulf War, which became known as the Gulf War syndrome.
Enactment of welfare reform was a major goal of Bill Clinton's presidency. When the first two bills on the issue came from a Republican-controlled Congress lacking protections for people coming off welfare, however, Hillary urged him to veto the bills, which he did. A third version came up during his 1996 general election campaign that restored some of the protections but cut the scope of benefits in other areas; critics, including her past mentor Edelman, urged her to get the president to veto it again. But she decided to support the bill, which became the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, as the best political compromise available. This caused a rift with Edelman that Hillary later called "sad and painful".
Together with Attorney General Janet Reno, Clinton helped create the Office on Violence Against Women at the Department of Justice.
In 1997, she initiated and shepherded the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which she regarded as her greatest accomplishment as the first lady. In 1999, she was instrumental in the passage of the Foster Care Independence Act, which doubled federal monies for teenagers aging out of foster care.
As First Lady of the United States, Clinton was the host for various White House conferences. These included one on Child Care (1997), on Early Childhood Development and Learning (1997), and on Children and Adolescents (2000). She also hosted the first-ever White House Conference on Teenagers (2000), and the first-ever White House Conference on Philanthropy (1999).
Clinton traveled to 79 countries during this time, breaking the record for most-traveled first lady previously held by Pat Nixon. She did not hold a security clearance or attend National Security Council meetings, but played a role in U.S. diplomacy attaining its objectives. A March 1995 five-nation trip to South Asia, on behest of the U.S. State Department, without her husband, sought to improve relations with India and Pakistan. Clinton was troubled by the plight of women she encountered, but found a warm response from the people of the countries she visited, and gained a better relationship with the American press corps. The trip was a transformative experience for her and presaged her eventual career in diplomacy.
In a September 1995 speech before the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, Clinton argued forcefully against practices that abused women around the world and in the People's Republic of China itself. She declared, "it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights". Delegates from over 180 countries heard her say: "If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights, once and for all." In doing so, she resisted both internal administration and Chinese pressure to soften her remarks. The speech became a key moment in the empowerment of women and years later women around the world would recite Clinton's key phrases. During the late 1990s, she was one of the most prominent international figures to speak out against the treatment of Afghan women by the Taliban. She helped create Vital Voices, an international initiative sponsored by the U.S. to encourage the participation of women in the political processes of their countries. It and Clinton's own visits encouraged women to make themselves heard in the Northern Ireland peace process. In 1997, Clinton returned to Northern Ireland to deliver the inaugural Joyce McCartan lecture at the University of Ulster in honour of the community campaigner she had met during her visit in Belfast in 1995.
Whitewater and other investigations
Clinton was a subject of several investigations by the United States Office of the Independent Counsel, committees of the U.S. Congress, and the press.
The Whitewater controversy was the focus of media attention from its publication in a New York Times report during the 1992 presidential campaign and throughout her time as the first lady. The Clintons had lost their late-1970s investment in the Whitewater Development Corporation; at the same time, their partners in that investment, Jim and Susan McDougal operated Madison Guaranty, a savings and loan institution that retained the legal services of Rose Law Firm and may have been improperly subsidizing Whitewater losses. Madison Guaranty later failed, and Clinton's work at Rose was scrutinized for a possible conflict of interest in representing the bank before state regulators her husband had appointed. She said she had done minimal work for the bank. Independent counsels Robert Fiske and Kenneth Starr subpoenaed Clinton's legal billing records; she said she did not know where they were. After a two-year search, the records were found in the first lady's White House book room and delivered to investigators in early 1996. The delayed appearance of the records sparked intense interest and another investigation concerning how they surfaced and where they had been. Clinton's staff attributed the problem to continual changes in White House storage areas since the move from the Arkansas Governor's Mansion. On January 26, 1996, Clinton became the first spouse of a U.S. president to be subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury. After several Independent Counsels had investigated, a final report was issued in 2000 that stated there was insufficient evidence that either Clinton had engaged in criminal wrongdoing.
Scrutiny of the May 1993 firings of the White House Travel Office employees, an action that became known as "Travelgate", began with charges that the White House had used audited financial irregularities in the Travel Office operation as an excuse to replace the staff with friends from Arkansas. The 1996 discovery of a two-year-old White House memo led to the investigation being focused on whether Clinton had orchestrated the firings and whether the statements she made to investigators about her role in the firings were true. The 2000 final Independent Counsel report concluded she was involved in the firings and that she had made "factually false" statements, but that there was insufficient evidence that she knew the statements were false or knew that her actions would lead to firings, to prosecute her.
In March 1994, newspaper reports revealed that Clinton had earned spectacular profits from cattle futures trading in 1978–79. The press made allegations that Clinton had engaged in a conflict of interest and disguised a bribery. Several individuals analyzed her trading records, but no formal investigation was made and she was never charged with any wrongdoing.
An outgrowth of the "Travelgate" investigation was the June 1996 discovery of improper White House access to hundreds of FBI background reports on former Republican White House employees, an affair that some called "Filegate". Accusations were made that Clinton had requested these files and she had recommended hiring an unqualified individual to head the White House Security Office. The 2000 final Independent Counsel report found no substantial or credible evidence that Clinton had any role or showed any misconduct in the matter.
In early 2001, a controversy arose over gifts that were sent to the White House; there was a question whether the furnishings were White House property or the Clintons' personal property. During the last year of Bill Clinton's time in office, those gifts were shipped to the Clintons' private residence.
It Takes a Village release and tour
In 1996, Clinton presented a vision for American children in the book It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us. In January 1996, she went on a ten-city book tour and made numerous television appearances to promote the book, although she was frequently hit with questions about her involvement in the Whitewater and Travelgate controversies.
The book spent 18 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List that year, including three weeks at number one. By 2000, it had sold 450,000 copies in hardcover and another 200,000 in paperback.
Clinton received the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 1997 for the book's audio recording.
Response to Lewinsky scandal
In 1998, the Clintons' private concerns became the subject of much speculation when investigations revealed the president had engaged in an extramarital affair with 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Events surrounding the Lewinsky scandal eventually led to the impeachment of the president by the House of Representatives; he was later acquitted by the senate. When the allegations against her husband were first made public, Hillary Clinton stated that the allegations were part of a "vast right-wing conspiracy". She characterized the Lewinsky charges as the latest in a long, organized, collaborative series of charges by Bill's political enemies rather than any wrongdoing by her husband. She later said she had been misled by her husband's initial claims that no affair had taken place. After the evidence of President Clinton's encounters with Lewinsky became incontrovertible, she issued a public statement reaffirming her commitment to their marriage. Privately, she was reported to be furious at him and was unsure if she wanted to remain in the marriage. The White House residence staff noticed a pronounced level of tension between the couple during this period.
Public reaction varied. Women variously admired her strength and poise in private matters that were made public. They sympathized with her as a victim of her husband's insensitive behavior and criticized her as being an enabler to her husband's indiscretions. They also accused her of cynically staying in a failed marriage as a way of keeping or even fostering her own political influence. In the wake of the revelations, her public approval ratings shot upward to around 70 percent, the highest they had ever been. In her 2003 memoir, she would attribute her decision to stay married to "a love that has persisted for decades" and add: "No one understands me better and no one can make me laugh the way Bill does. Even after all these years, he is still the most interesting, energizing, and fully alive person I have ever met."
Issues that surrounded the Lewinsky scandal left Bill Clinton with substantial legal bills. In 2014, Hillary said that she and Bill had left the White House "not only dead broke, but in debt". The statement may have been literally accurate but ignored the potentially enormous earning power of ex-presidents who give paid speeches after leaving office. The couple would also have the ability to secure loans from banks.
In October 2018, Hillary stated in an interview on CBS News Sunday Morning that Bill was right to not resign from office, and that Bill's affair with Lewinsky did not constitute an abuse of power because Lewinsky "was an adult".
Other books and initiatives
Other books published by Clinton when she was the first lady include Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids' Letters to the First Pets (1998) and An Invitation to the White House: At Home with History (2000). In 2001, she wrote an afterword to the children's book Beatrice's Goat.
She was the founding chair of Save America's Treasures, a nationwide effort matching federal funds with private donations to preserve and restore historic items and sites. This included the flag that inspired "The Star-Spangled Banner" and the First Ladies National Historic Site in Canton, Ohio. She also published a weekly syndicated newspaper column titled "Talking It Over" from 1995 to 2000. It focused on her experiences and those of women, children and families she met during her travels around the world.
Traditional duties
She was head of the White House Millennium Council and hosted Millennium Evenings, a series of lectures that discussed futures studies, one of which became the first live simultaneous webcast from the White House. Clinton also created the first White House Sculpture Garden, located in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, which displayed large contemporary American works of art loaned by museums.
In the White House, Clinton placed donated handicrafts of contemporary American artisans, such as pottery and glassware, on rotating display in the state rooms. She oversaw the restoration of the Blue Room to be historically authentic to the period of James Monroe, and the Map Room to how it looked during World War II. Working with Arkansas interior decorator Kaki Hockersmith over an eight-year period, she oversaw extensive, privately funded redecoration efforts around the building, often trying to make it look brighter. These included changing of the Treaty Room and a presidential study to have a 19th-century look. Overall the redecoration brought mixed notices, with Victorian furnishings for the Lincoln Sitting Room being criticized the most. Clinton hosted many large-scale events at the White House, including a state dinner for visiting Chinese dignitaries, a New Year's Eve celebration at the turn of the 21st century, and a state dinner honoring the bicentennial of the White House in November 2000.
U.S. Senate (2001–2009)
2000 U.S. Senate election
When New York's long-serving U.S. senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan announced his retirement in November 1998, several prominent Democratic figures, including Representative Charles Rangel of New York, urged Clinton to run for his open seat in the Senate election of 2000. Once she decided to run, the Clintons purchased a home at 15 Old House Lane in Chappaqua, New York, north of New York City, in September 1999. She became the first wife of the president of the United States to be a candidate for elected office. Initially, Clinton expected to face Rudy Giuliani—the mayor of New York City—as her Republican opponent in the election. Giuliani withdrew from the race in May 2000 after being diagnosed with prostate cancer and matters related to his failing marriage became public. Clinton then faced Rick Lazio, a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives who represented New York's 2nd congressional district. Throughout the campaign, opponents accused Clinton of carpetbagging, because she had never resided in New York State or participated in the state's politics before the 2000 Senate race.
Bill de Blasio was Clinton's campaign manager. She began her drive to the U.S. Senate by visiting all 62 counties in the state, in a "listening tour" of small-group settings. She devoted considerable time in traditionally Republican Upstate New York regions. Clinton vowed to improve the economic situation in those areas, promising to deliver 200,000 jobs to the state over her term. Her plan included tax credits to reward job creation and encourage business investment, especially in the high-tech sector. She called for personal tax cuts for college tuition and long-term care.
The contest drew national attention. During a September debate, Lazio blundered when he seemed to invade Clinton's personal space by trying to get her to sign a fundraising agreement. Their campaigns, along with Giuliani's initial effort, spent a record combined $90 million. Clinton won the election on November 7, 2000, with 55 percent of the vote to Lazio's 43 percent. She was sworn in as U.S. senator on January 3, 2001, and as George W. Bush was still 17 days away from being inaugurated as president after winning the 2000 presidential election, that meant from January 3–20, she simultaneously held the titles of First Lady and Senator – a first in U.S. history.
Publisher Simon & Schuster paid Clinton a near-record advance of $8 million in December 2000 for her autobiography, released in 2003, as Living History.
First term
Because Bill Clinton's term as president did not end until 17 days after she was sworn in, upon entering the Senate, Clinton became the first and so far only first lady to serve as a senator and first lady concurrently. Clinton maintained a low public profile and built relationships with senators from both parties when she started her term. She forged alliances with religiously inclined senators by becoming a regular participant in the Senate Prayer Breakfast. She sat on five Senate committees: Committee on Budget (2001–02), Committee on Armed Services (2003–09), Committee on Environment and Public Works (2001–09), Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (2001–09) and Special Committee on Aging.
She was also a member of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (2001–09).
Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, Clinton sought to obtain funding for the recovery efforts in New York City and security improvements in her state. Working with New York's senior senator, Chuck Schumer, she was instrumental in securing $21 billion in funding for the World Trade Center site's redevelopment. She subsequently took a leading role in investigating the health issues faced by 9/11 first responders. Clinton voted for the USA Patriot Act in October 2001. In 2005, when the act was up for renewal, she expressed concerns with the USA Patriot Act Reauthorization Conference Report regarding civil liberties. In March 2006, she voted in favor of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 that had gained large majority support.
Clinton strongly supported the 2001 U.S. military action in Afghanistan, saying it was a chance to combat terrorism while improving the lives of Afghan women who suffered under the Taliban government. Clinton voted in favor of the October 2002 Iraq War Resolution, which authorized President George W. Bush to use military force against Iraq.
After the Iraq War began, Clinton made trips to Iraq and Afghanistan to visit American troops stationed there. On a visit to Iraq in February 2005, Clinton noted that the insurgency had failed to disrupt the democratic elections held earlier and that parts of the country were functioning well. Observing that war deployments were draining regular and reserve forces, she co-introduced legislation to increase the size of the regular U.S. Army by 80,000 soldiers to ease the strain. In late 2005, Clinton said that while immediate withdrawal from Iraq would be a mistake, Bush's pledge to stay "until the job is done" was also misguided, as it gave Iraqis "an open-ended invitation not to take care of themselves". Her stance caused frustration among those in the Democratic Party who favored quick withdrawal. Clinton supported retaining and improving health benefits for reservists and lobbied against the closure of several military bases, especially those in New York. She used her position on the Armed Services Committee to forge close relationships with a number of high-ranking military officers. By 2014 and 2015 Clinton had fully reversed herself on the Iraq War Resolution, saying she "got it wrong" and the vote in support had been a "mistake".
Clinton voted against President Bush's two major tax cut packages, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. Simon & Schuster released Living History: The book set a first-week sales record for a nonfiction work, went on to sell more than one million copies in the first month following publication, and was translated into twelve foreign languages. Clinton's audio recording of the book earned her a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album.
Clinton voted against the 2005 confirmation of John Roberts as chief justice of the United States and the 2006 confirmation of Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court, filibustering the latter.
In 2005, Clinton called for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate how hidden sex scenes showed up in the controversial video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Along with senators Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh, she introduced the Family Entertainment Protection Act, intended to protect children from inappropriate content found in video games. In 2004 and 2006, Clinton voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment that sought to prohibit same-sex marriage.
Looking to establish a "progressive infrastructure" to rival that of American conservatism, Clinton played a formative role in conversations that led to the 2003 founding of former Clinton administration chief of staff John Podesta's Center for American Progress, shared aides with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, founded in 2003 and advised the Clintons' former antagonist David Brock's Media Matters for America, created in 2004. Following the 2004 Senate elections, she successfully pushed new Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid to create a Senate war room to handle daily political messaging.
2006 reelection campaign
In November 2004, Clinton announced she would seek a second Senate term. She easily won the Democratic nomination over opposition from antiwar activist Jonathan Tasini. The early frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, withdrew from the contest after several months of poor campaign performance. Clinton's eventual opponent in the general election was Republican candidate John Spencer, a former mayor of Yonkers. Clinton won the election on November 7, 2006, with 67 percent of the vote to Spencer's 31 percent, carrying all but four of New York's sixty-two counties. Her campaign spent $36 million for her reelection, more than any other candidate for Senate in the 2006 elections. Some Democrats criticized her for spending too much in a one-sided contest, while some supporters were concerned she did not leave more funds for a potential presidential bid in 2008. In the following months, she transferred $10 million of her Senate funds toward her presidential campaign.
Second term
Clinton opposed the Iraq War troop surge of 2007, for both military and domestic political reasons (by the following year, she was privately acknowledging the surge had been successful). In March of that year, she voted in favor of a war-spending bill that required President Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq by a deadline; it passed almost completely along party lines but was subsequently vetoed by Bush. In May, a compromise war funding bill that removed withdrawal deadlines but tied funding to progress benchmarks for the Iraqi government passed the Senate by a vote of 80–14 and would be signed by Bush; Clinton was one of those who voted against it. She responded to General David Petraeus's September 2007 Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq by saying, "I think that the reports that you provide to us really require a willing suspension of disbelief."
In March 2007, in response to the dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy, Clinton called on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign. Regarding the high-profile, hotly debated immigration reform bill known as the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, Clinton cast several votes in support of the bill, which eventually failed to gain cloture.
As the financial crisis of 2007–08 reached a peak with the liquidity crisis of September 2008, Clinton supported the proposed bailout of the U.S. financial system, voting in favor of the $700 billion law that created the Troubled Asset Relief Program, saying it represented the interests of the American people. It passed the Senate 74–25.
In 2007, Clinton and Virginia senator Jim Webb called for an investigation into whether the body armor issued to soldiers in Iraq was adequate.
2008 presidential campaign
Clinton had been preparing for a potential candidacy for U.S. president since at least early 2003. On January 20, 2007, she announced via her website the formation of a presidential exploratory committee for the United States presidential election of 2008, stating: "I'm in and I'm in to win." No woman had ever been nominated by a major party for the presidency, and no first lady had ever run for president.
When Bill Clinton became president in 1993, a blind trust was established; in April 2007, the Clintons liquidated the blind trust to avoid the possibility of ethical conflicts or political embarrassments as Hillary undertook her presidential race. Later disclosure statements revealed the couple's worth was now upwards of $50 million. They had earned over $100 million since 2000—most of it coming from Bill's books, speaking engagements and other activities.
Throughout the first half of 2007, Clinton led candidates competing for the Democratic presidential nomination in opinion polls for the election. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former senator John Edwards of North Carolina were her strongest competitors. The biggest threat to her campaign was her past support of the Iraq War, which Obama had opposed from the beginning. Clinton and Obama both set records for early fundraising, swapping the money lead each quarter.
At the end of October, Clinton fared poorly in her debate performance against Obama, Edwards, and her other opponents. Obama's message of change began to resonate with the Democratic electorate better than Clinton's message of experience.
In the first vote of 2008, she placed third in the January3 Iowa Democratic caucus behind Obama and Edwards. Obama gained ground in national polling in the next few days, with all polls predicting a victory for him in the New Hampshire primary. Clinton gained a surprise win there on January 8, narrowly defeating Obama. It was the first time a woman had won a major American party's presidential primary for the purposes of delegate selection. Explanations for Clinton's New Hampshire comeback varied but often centered on her being seen more sympathetically, especially by women, after her eyes welled with tears and her voice broke while responding to a voter's question the day before the election.
The nature of the contest fractured in the next few days. Several remarks by Bill Clinton and other surrogates, and a remark by Hillary Clinton concerning Martin Luther King Jr. and Lyndon B. Johnson, were perceived by many as, accidentally or intentionally, limiting Obama as a racially oriented candidate or otherwise denying the post-racial significance and accomplishments of his campaign. Despite attempts by both Hillary and Obama to downplay the issue, Democratic voting became more polarized as a result, with Clinton losing much of her support among African Americans. She lost by a two-to-one margin to Obama in the January 26, South Carolina primary, setting up, with Edwards soon dropping out, an intense two-person contest for the twenty-two February5 Super Tuesday states. Bill Clinton had made more statements attracting criticism for their perceived racial implications late in the South Carolina campaign, and his role was seen as damaging enough to her that a wave of supporters within and outside of the campaign said the former president "needs to stop". The South Carolina campaign had done lasting damage to Clinton, eroding her support among the Democratic establishment and leading to the prized endorsement of Obama by Ted Kennedy.
On Super Tuesday, Clinton won the largest states, such as California, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, while Obama won more states; they almost evenly split the total popular vote. But Obama was gaining more pledged delegates for his share of the popular vote due to better exploitation of the Democratic proportional allocation rules.
The Clinton campaign had counted on winning the nomination by Super Tuesday and was unprepared financially and logistically for a prolonged effort; lagging in Internet fundraising as Clinton began loaning money to her campaign. There was continuous turmoil within the campaign staff, and she made several top-level personnel changes. Obama won the next eleven February contests across the country, often by large margins and took a significant pledged delegate lead over Clinton. On March 4, Clinton broke the string of losses by winning in Ohio among other places, where her criticism of NAFTA, a major legacy of her husband's presidency, helped in a state where the trade agreement was unpopular. Throughout the campaign, Obama dominated caucuses, for which the Clinton campaign largely ignored and failed to prepare. Obama did well in primaries where African Americans or younger, college-educated, or more affluent voters were heavily represented; Clinton did well in primaries where Hispanics or older, non-college-educated, or working-class white voters predominated. Behind in delegates, Clinton's best hope of winning the nomination came in persuading uncommitted, party-appointed superdelegates.
Following the final primaries on June 3, 2008, Obama had gained enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee. In a speech before her supporters on June 7, Clinton ended her campaign and endorsed Obama. By campaign's end, Clinton had won 1,640 pledged delegates to Obama's 1,763; at the time of the clinching, Clinton had 286 superdelegates to Obama's 395, with those numbers widening to 256 versus 438 once Obama was acknowledged the winner. Clinton and Obama each received over 17 million votes during the nomination process with both breaking the previous record. Clinton was the first woman to run in the primary or caucus of every state and she eclipsed, by a very wide margin, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm's 1972 marks for most votes garnered and delegates won by a woman. Clinton gave a passionate speech supporting Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention and campaigned frequently for him in fall 2008, which concluded with his victory over McCain in the general election on November 4. Clinton's campaign ended up severely in debt; she owed millions of dollars to outside vendors and wrote off the $13 million that she lent it herself. The debt was eventually paid off by the beginning of 2013.
Secretary of State (2009–2013)
Nomination and confirmation
In mid-November 2008, President-elect Obama and Clinton discussed the possibility of her serving as secretary of state in his administration. She was initially quite reluctant, but on November 20 she told Obama she would accept the position. On December 1, President-elect Obama formally announced that Clinton would be his nominee for secretary of state. Clinton said she did not want to leave the Senate, but that the new position represented a "difficult and exciting adventure". As part of the nomination and to relieve concerns of conflict of interest, Bill Clinton agreed to accept several conditions and restrictions regarding his ongoing activities and fundraising efforts for the William J. Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative.
The appointment required a Saxbe fix, passed and signed into law in December 2008. Confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee began on January 13, 2009, a week before the Obama inauguration; two days later, the committee voted 16–1 to approve Clinton. By this time, her public approval rating had reached 65 percent, the highest point since the Lewinsky scandal. On January 21, 2009, Clinton was confirmed in the full Senate by a vote of 94–2. Clinton took the oath of office of secretary of state, resigning from the Senate later that day. She became the first former first lady to be a member of the United States Cabinet.
First half of tenure
Clinton spent her initial days as secretary of state telephoning dozens of world leaders and indicating that U.S. foreign policy would change direction: "We have a lot of damage to repair." She advocated an expanded role in global economic issues for the State Department, and cited the need for an increased U.S. diplomatic presence, especially in Iraq where the Defense Department had conducted diplomatic missions. Clinton announced the most ambitious of her departmental reforms, the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, which establishes specific objectives for the State Department's diplomatic missions abroad; it was modeled after a similar process in the Defense Department that she was familiar with from her time on the Senate Armed Services Committee. The first such review was issued in late 2010. It called for the U.S. leading through "civilian power" as a cost-effective way of responding to international challenges and defusing crises. It also sought to institutionalize goals of empowering women throughout the world. A cause Clinton advocated throughout her tenure was the adoption of cookstoves in the developing world, to foster cleaner and more environmentally sound food preparation and reduce smoke dangers to women.
In a 2009 internal debate regarding the War in Afghanistan, Clinton sided with the military's recommendations for a maximal "Afghanistan surge", recommending 40,000 troops and no public deadline for withdrawal. She prevailed over Vice President Joe Biden's opposition but eventually supported Obama's compromise plan to send an additional 30,000 troops and tie the surge to a timetable for eventual withdrawal.
In March 2009, Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a "reset button" symbolizing U.S. attempts to rebuild ties with that country under its new president, Dmitry Medvedev. The photo op was remembered for a mistranslation into Russian. The policy, which became known as the Russian reset, led to improved cooperation in several areas during Medvedev's time in office. Relations would worsen considerably, however, following Vladimir Putin's return to the position in 2012. In October 2009, on a trip to Switzerland, Clinton's intervention overcame last-minute snags and saved the signing of an historic Turkish–Armenian accord that established diplomatic relations and opened the border between the two long-hostile nations. In Pakistan, she engaged in several unusually blunt discussions with students, talk show hosts and tribal elders, in an attempt to repair the Pakistani image of the U.S. Beginning in 2010, she helped organize a diplomatic isolation and international sanctions regime against Iran, in an effort to force curtailment of that country's nuclear program; this would eventually lead to the multinational Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action being agreed to in 2015.
Clinton and Obama forged a good working relationship without power struggles; she was a team player within the administration and a defender of it to the outside and was careful that neither she nor her husband would upstage the president. Clinton formed an alliance with Secretary of Defense Gates as they shared similar strategic outlooks. Obama and Clinton both approached foreign policy as a largely non-ideological, pragmatic exercise. She met with him weekly but did not have the close, daily relationship that some of her predecessors had had with their presidents; moreover, certain key areas of policymaking were kept inside the White House or Pentagon. Nevertheless, the president had trust in her actions.
In a prepared speech in January 2010, Clinton drew analogies between the Iron Curtain and the free and unfree Internet. Chinese officials reacted negatively towards it. The speech garnered attention as the first time a senior American official had clearly defined the Internet as a key element of American foreign policy.
In July 2010, she visited South Korea, where she and Cheryl Mills worked to convince SAE-A, a large apparel subcontractor, to invest in Haiti despite the company's deep concerns about plans to raise the minimum wage. In the summer of 2010, the South Korean company signed a contract at the US State Department, ensuring that the Caracol Industrial Park would have a key tenant. This was part of the "build back better" program initiated by her husband, named UN Special Envoy to Haiti in 2009 after a tropical storm season caused $1 billion in damages to the island. In January 2011, Clinton traveled to Haiti in order to help pave the way for the election of Michel Martelly.
Second half of tenure
The 2011 Egyptian protests posed the most challenging foreign policy crisis yet for the Obama administration. Clinton's public response quickly evolved from an early assessment that the government of Hosni Mubarak was "stable", to a stance that there needed to be an "orderly transition [to] a democratic participatory government", to a condemnation of violence against the protesters. Obama came to rely upon Clinton's advice, organization and personal connections in the behind-the-scenes response to developments. As Arab Spring protests spread throughout the region, Clinton was at the forefront of a U.S. response that she recognized was sometimes contradictory, backing some regimes while supporting protesters against others.
As the Libyan Civil War took place, Clinton's shift in favor of military intervention aligned her with Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice and National Security Council figure Samantha Power. This was a key turning point in overcoming internal administration opposition from Defense Secretary Gates, security advisor Thomas E. Donilon and counterterrorism advisor John Brennan in gaining the backing for, and Arab and U.N. approval of, the 2011 military intervention in Libya. Secretary Clinton testified to Congress that the administration did not need congressional authorization for its military intervention in Libya, despite objections from some members of both parties that the administration was violating the War Powers Resolution. The State Department's legal advisor argued the same point when the Resolution's 60-day limit for unauthorized wars was passed (a view that prevailed in a legal debate within the Obama administration). Clinton later used U.S. allies and what she called "convening power" to promote unity among the Libyan rebels as they eventually overthrew the Gaddafi regime. The aftermath of the Libyan Civil War saw the country becoming a failed state. The wisdom of the intervention and interpretation of what happened afterward would become the subject of considerable debate.
During April 2011, internal deliberations of the president's innermost circle of advisors over whether to order U.S. special forces to conduct a raid into Pakistan against Osama bin Laden, Clinton was among those who argued in favor, saying the importance of getting bin Laden outweighed the risks to the U.S. relationship with Pakistan. Following the completion of the mission on May2 resulting in bin Laden's death, Clinton played a key role in the administration's decision not to release photographs of the dead al-Qaeda leader. During internal discussions regarding Iraq in 2011, Clinton argued for keeping a residual force of up to 10,000–20,000 U.S. troops there. (All of them ended up being withdrawn after negotiations for a revised U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement failed.)
In a speech before the United Nations Human Rights Council in December 2011, Clinton said that, "Gay rights are human rights", and that the U.S. would advocate for gay rights and legal protections of gay people abroad. The same period saw her overcome internal administration opposition with a direct appeal to Obama and stage the first visit to Burma by a U.S. secretary of state since 1955. She met with Burmese leaders as well as opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and sought to support the 2011 Burmese democratic reforms. She also said the 21st century would be "America's Pacific century", a declaration that was part of the Obama administration's "pivot to Asia".
During the Syrian Civil War, Clinton and the Obama administration initially sought to persuade Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to engage popular demonstrations with reform. As government violence allegedly rose in August 2011, they called for him to resign from the presidency. The administration joined several countries in delivering non-lethal assistance to so-called rebels opposed to the Assad government and humanitarian groups working in Syria. During mid-2012, Clinton formed a plan with CIA Director David Petraeus to further strengthen the opposition by arming and training vetted groups of Syrian rebels. The proposal was rejected by White House officials who were reluctant to become entangled in the conflict, fearing that extremists hidden among the rebels might turn the weapons against other targets.
In December 2012, Clinton was hospitalized for a few days for treatment of a blood clot in her right transverse venous sinus. Her doctors had discovered the clot during a follow-up examination for a concussion she had sustained when she fainted and fell nearly three weeks earlier, as a result of severe dehydration from a viral intestinal ailment acquired during a trip to Europe. The clot, which caused no immediate neurological injury, was treated with anticoagulant medication, and her doctors have said she has made a full recovery.
Overall themes
Throughout her time in office (and mentioned in her final speech concluding it), Clinton viewed "smart power" as the strategy for asserting U.S. leadership and values. In a world of varied threats, weakened central governments and increasingly important nongovernmental entities, smart power combined military hard power with diplomacy and U.S. soft power capacities in global economics, development aid, technology, creativity and human rights advocacy. As such, she became the first secretary of state to methodically implement the smart power approach. In debates over use of military force, she was generally one of the more hawkish voices in the administration. In August 2011 she hailed the ongoing multinational military intervention in Libya and the initial U.S. response towards the Syrian Civil War as examples of smart power in action.
Clinton greatly expanded the State Department's use of social media, including Facebook and Twitter, to get its message out and to help empower citizens of foreign countries vis-à-vis their governments.
And in the Mideast turmoil, Clinton particularly saw an opportunity to advance one of the central themes of her tenure, the empowerment and welfare of women and girls worldwide. Moreover, in a formulation that became known as the "Hillary Doctrine", she viewed women's rights as critical for U.S. security interests, due to a link between the level of violence against women and gender inequality within a state, and the instability and challenge to international security of that state. In turn, there was a trend of women around the world finding more opportunities, and in some cases feeling safer, as the result of her actions and visibility.
Clinton visited 112 countries during her tenure, making her the most widely traveled secretary of state (Time magazine wrote that "Clinton's endurance is legendary".) The first secretary of state to visit countries like Togo and East Timor, she believed that in-person visits were more important than ever in the virtual age. As early as March 2011, she indicated she was not interested in serving a second term as secretary of state should Obama be re-elected in 2012; in December 2012, following that re-election, Obama nominated Senator John Kerry to be Clinton's successor. Her last day as secretary of state was February 1, 2013. Upon her departure, analysts commented that Clinton's tenure did not bring any signature diplomatic breakthroughs as some other secretaries of state had accomplished, and highlighted her focus on goals she thought were less tangible but would have more lasting effect. She has also been criticized for accepting millions in dollars in donations from foreign governments to the Clinton Foundation during her tenure as Secretary of State.
Benghazi attack and subsequent hearings
On September 11, 2012, the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked, resulting in the deaths of the U.S. Ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. The attack, questions surrounding the security of the U.S. consulate, and the varying explanations given afterward by administration officials for what had happened became politically controversial in the U.S. On October 15, Clinton took responsibility for the question of security lapses saying the differing explanations were due to the inevitable fog of war confusion after such events.
On December 19, a panel led by Thomas R. Pickering and Michael Mullen issued its report on the matter. It was sharply critical of State Department officials in Washington for ignoring requests for more guards and safety upgrades and for failing to adapt security procedures to a deteriorating security environment. It focused its criticism on the department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security and Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs; four State Department officials at the assistant secretary level and below were removed from their posts as a consequence. Clinton said she accepted the conclusions of the report and that changes were underway to implement its suggested recommendations.
Clinton gave testimony to two congressional foreign affairs committees on January 23, 2013, regarding the Benghazi attack. She defended her actions in response to the incident, and while still accepting formal responsibility, said she had had no direct role in specific discussions beforehand regarding consulate security. Congressional Republicans challenged her on several points, to which she responded. In particular, after persistent questioning about whether or not the administration had issued inaccurate "talking points" after the attack, Clinton responded with the much-quoted rejoinder, "With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they'd they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator."
In November 2014, the House Intelligence Committee issued a report that concluded there had been no wrongdoing in the administration's response to the attack.
The House Select Committee on Benghazi was created in May 2014 and conducted a two-year investigation related to the 2012 attack. Its actions were often seen through the prism of domestic politics. This was especially the case in September 2015, when House majority leader Kevin McCarthy credited the Benghazi hearings with lowering Clinton's poll numbers, thereby contradicting the Republicans' previous talking points on the investigation. On October 22, 2015, Clinton testified at an all-day and nighttime session before the committee. The hearing included many heated exchanges between committee members and Clinton and among the committee members themselves. Clinton was widely seen as emerging largely unscathed from the hearing, because of what the media perceived as a calm and unfazed demeanor and a lengthy, meandering, repetitive line of questioning from the committee. The committee issued competing final reports in June 2016 that broke along partisan lines. The Republican report offered some new details about the attack but no new evidence of culpability by Clinton.
Email controversy
A controversy arose in March 2015, when the State Department's inspector general revealed that Clinton had used personal email accounts on a non-government, privately maintained server exclusively—instead of email accounts maintained on federal government servers—when conducting official business during her tenure as secretary of state. Some experts, officials, members of Congress and political opponents contended that her use of private messaging system software and a private server violated State Department protocols and procedures, and federal laws and regulations governing recordkeeping requirements. The controversy occurred against the backdrop of Clinton's 2016 presidential election campaign and hearings held by the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
In a joint statement released on July 15, 2015, the inspector general of the State Department and the inspector general of the intelligence community said their review of the emails found information that was classified when sent, remained so at the time of their inspection and "never should have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system". They also stated unequivocally this classified information should never have been stored outside of secure government computer systems. Clinton had said over a period of months that she kept no classified information on the private server that she set up in her house. Government policy, reiterated in the nondisclosure agreement signed by Clinton as part of gaining her security clearance, is that sensitive information can be considered as classified even if not marked as such. After allegations were raised that some of the emails in question fell into the so-called "born classified" category, an FBI probe was initiated regarding how classified information was handled on the Clinton server. The New York Times reported in February 2016 that nearly 2,100 emails stored on Clinton's server were retroactively marked classified by the State Department. Additionally, the intelligence community's inspector general wrote Congress to say that some of the emails "contained classified State Department information when originated". In May 2016, the inspector general of the State Department criticized her use of a private email server while secretary of state, stating that she had not requested permission for this and would not have received it if she had asked.
Clinton maintained she did not send or receive any emails from her personal server that were confidential at the time they were sent. In a Democratic debate with Bernie Sanders on February 4, 2016, Clinton said, "I never sent or received any classified material—they are retroactively classifying it." On July 2, 2016, Clinton stated: "Let me repeat what I have repeated for many months now, I never received nor sent any material that was marked classified."
On July 5, 2016, the FBI concluded its investigation. In a statement, FBI director James Comey said:
110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were "up-classified" to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent.
Out of 30,000, three emails were found to be marked as classified, although they lacked classified headers and were marked only with a small "c" in parentheses, described as "portion markings" by Comey. He also said it was possible Clinton was not "technically sophisticated" enough to understand what the three classified markings meant. The probe found Clinton used her personal email extensively while outside the United States, both sending and receiving work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Comey acknowledged that it was "possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal email account". He added that "[although] we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information". Nevertheless, Comey asserted that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring criminal charges in this case, despite the existence of "potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information". The FBI recommended that the Justice Department decline to prosecute. On July 6, 2016, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch—who had met privately with Bill Clinton on June 27—confirmed that the probe into Clinton's use of private email servers would be closed without criminal charges.
On October 28, 2016, Comey notified Congress that the FBI had begun looking into newly discovered Clinton emails. Law enforcement officials said that while investigating allegedly illicit text messages from Anthony Weiner, husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin, to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina, they discovered emails related to Clinton's private server on a laptop computer belonging to Weiner. On November 6, Comey notified Congress that the FBI had not changed the conclusion it had reached in July. The notification was later cited by Clinton as a factor in her loss in the 2016 presidential election. The emails controversy received more media coverage than any other topic during the 2016 presidential election.
In September 2019, the State Department finished its internal review into 33,000 emails that Clinton had turned over. The investigation that began in 2016 found 588 violations of security procedures and found that Clinton's use of a personal email server increased the risk of compromising State Department information. In 91 cases, the culpability of sending classified information could be attributed to 38 people, but the review concluded there was "no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information".
Clinton Foundation, Hard Choices, and speeches
When Clinton left the State Department, she returned to private life for the first time in thirty years. She and her daughter joined her husband as named members of the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation in 2013. There she focused on early childhood development efforts, including an initiative called Too Small to Fail and a $600 million initiative to encourage the enrollment of girls in secondary schools worldwide, led by former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
In 2014, Clinton published a second memoir, Hard Choices, which focused on her time as secretary of state. , the book has sold about 280,000 copies.
Clinton also led the No Ceilings: The Full Participation Project, a partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to gather and study data on the progress of women and girls around the world since the Beijing conference in 1995; its March 2015 report said that while "There has never been a better time in history to be born a woman ... this data shows just how far we still have to go." The foundation began accepting new donations from foreign governments, which it had stopped doing while she was secretary of state. However, even though the Clinton Foundation had stopped taking donations from foreign governments, they continued to take large donations from foreign citizens who were sometimes linked to their governments.
She began work on another volume of memoirs and made appearances on the paid speaking circuit. There she received $200,000–225,000 per engagement, often appearing before Wall Street firms or at business conventions. She also made some unpaid speeches on behalf of the foundation. For the fifteen months ending in March 2015, Clinton earned over $11 million from her speeches. For the overall period 2007–14, the Clintons earned almost $141 million, paid some $56 million in federal and state taxes and donated about $15 million to charity. , she was estimated to be worth over $30 million on her own, or $45–53 million with her husband.
Clinton resigned from the board of the foundation in April 2015, when she began her presidential campaign. The foundation said it would accept new foreign governmental donations from six Western nations only.
2016 presidential campaign
On April 12, 2015, Clinton formally announced her candidacy for the presidency in the 2016 election. She had a campaign-in-waiting already in place, including a large donor network, experienced operatives and the Ready for Hillary and Priorities USA Action political action committees and other infrastructure. Prior to her campaign, Clinton had claimed in an interview on NDTV in May 2012 that she would not seek the presidency again, but later wrote in her 2014 autobiography Hard Choices that she had not decided. The campaign's headquarters were established in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Her campaign focused on: raising middle class incomes, establishing universal preschool, making college more affordable and improving the Affordable Care Act. Initially considered a prohibitive favorite to win the Democratic nomination, Clinton faced an unexpectedly strong challenge from democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. His longtime stance against the influence of corporations and the wealthy in American politics resonated with a dissatisfied citizenry troubled by the effects of income inequality in the U.S. and contrasted with Clinton's Wall Street ties.
In the initial contest of the primaries season, Clinton only very narrowly won the Iowa Democratic caucuses, held February 1, over an increasingly popular Sanders — the first woman to win them. In the first primary, held in New Hampshire on February 9, she lost to Sanders by a wide margin. Sanders was an increasing threat in the next contest, the Nevada caucuses on February 20, but Clinton managed a five-percentage-point win, aided by final-days campaigning among casino workers. Clinton followed that with a lopsided victory in the South Carolina primary on February 27. These two victories stabilized her campaign and showed an avoidance of the management turmoil that harmed her 2008 effort.
On March 1 Super Tuesday, Clinton won seven of eleven contests, including a string of dominating victories across the South buoyed, as in South Carolina, by African-American voters. She opened up a significant lead in pledged delegates over Sanders. She maintained this delegate lead across subsequent contests during the primary season, with a consistent pattern throughout. Sanders did better among younger, whiter, more rural and more liberal voters and states that held caucuses or where eligibility was open to independents. Clinton did better among older, black and Hispanic voter populations, and in states that held primaries or where eligibility was restricted to registered Democrats.
By June 5, 2016, she had earned enough pledged delegates and supportive superdelegates for the media to consider her the presumptive nominee. On June 7, after winning most of the states in the final major round of primaries, Clinton held a victory rally in Brooklyn becoming the first woman to claim the status of presumptive nominee for a major American political party. By campaign's end, Clinton had won 2,219 pledged delegates to Sanders' 1,832; with an estimated 594 superdelegates compared to Sanders' 47. She received almost 17 million votes during the nominating process, as opposed to Sanders' 13 million.
Clinton was formally nominated at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on July 26, 2016, becoming the first woman to be nominated for president by a major U.S. political party. Her choice of vice presidential running mate, Senator Tim Kaine, was nominated by the convention the following day. Her opponents in the general election included Republican Donald Trump, Libertarian Gary Johnson and Jill Stein of the Green Party. Around the time of the convention, WikiLeaks released emails that suggested the DNC and the Clinton campaign tilted the primary in Clinton's favor.
Clinton held a significant lead in national polls over Trump throughout most of 2016. In early July, Trump and Clinton were tied in major polls following the FBI's conclusion of its investigation into her emails. FBI Director James Comey concluded Clinton had been "extremely careless" in her handling of classified government material. In late July, Trump gained his first lead over Clinton in major polls following a three to four percentage point convention bounce at the Republican National Convention. This was in line with the average bounce in conventions since 2004, although it was toward the low side by historical standards. Following Clinton's seven percentage point convention bounce at the Democratic National Convention, she regained a significant lead in national polls at the start of August. In fall 2016, Clinton and Tim Kaine published Stronger Together, which outlined their vision for the United States.
Clinton was defeated by Donald Trump in the November 8, 2016, presidential election. By the early morning hours of November 9, Trump had received 279 projected electoral college votes, with 270 needed to win; media sources proclaimed him the winner. Clinton then phoned Trump to concede and to congratulate him on his victory, whereupon Trump gave his victory speech. The next morning Clinton made a public concession speech in which she acknowledged the pain of her loss, but called on her supporters to accept Trump as their next president, saying: "We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead." Though Clinton lost the election by capturing only 232 electoral votes to Trump's 306, she won the popular vote by more than 2.8 million votes, or 2.1% of the voter base. She is the fifth presidential candidate in U.S. history to win the popular vote but lose the election. She won the most votes of any candidate who did not take office and the third-most votes of any candidate in history, though she did not have the greatest percentage win of a losing candidate. (Andrew Jackson won the popular vote by 10.4% but lost to John Quincy Adams).
On December 19, 2016, when electors formally voted, Clinton lost five of her initial 232 votes due to faithless electors, with three of her Washington votes being cast instead for Colin Powell, one being cast for Faith Spotted Eagle, and one in Hawaii being cast for Bernie Sanders.
Post-2016 election activities
In their respective roles as a former president and a former first lady, Bill and Hillary Clinton attended the inauguration of Donald Trump with their daughter, Chelsea. The morning of the inauguration Clinton wrote on her Twitter account, "I'm here today to honor our democracy & its enduring values, I will never stop believing in our country & its future."
In October 2017, Clinton was awarded an honorary doctorate from Swansea University, whose College of Law was renamed the Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law in her honor. In October 2018, Hillary and Bill Clinton announced plans for a 13-city speaking tour in various cities in the United States and Canada between November 2018 and May 2019. Hillary was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in law (LLD) at Queen's University Belfast on October 10, 2018, after giving a speech on Northern Ireland and the impacts of Brexit at Whitla Hall, Belfast. In June 2018, Trinity College Dublin awarded her with an honorary doctorate (LLD). In September 2021 she was awarded an honorary doctorate of civil law by the University of Oxford.
A package that contained a pipe bomb was sent to Clinton's home in Washington, D.C., on October 24, 2018. It was intercepted by the Secret Service. Similar packages were sent to several other Democratic leaders and to CNN.
Political actions
Clinton delivered a St. Patrick's Day speech in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on March 17, 2017. In it, alluding to reports that she had being seen taking walks in the woods around Chappaqua following her loss in the presidential election, Clinton indicated her readiness to emerge from "the woods" and become politically active again. However, the following month she confirmed she would not seek public office again. She reiterated her comments in March 2019 and stated she would not run for president in 2020.
In May 2017, Clinton announced the formation of Onward Together, a new political action committee that she wrote is "dedicated to advancing the progressive vision that earned nearly 66 million votes in the last election". During 2017, she spoke out on a number of occasions against Republican plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with the American Health Care Act, which she called "a disastrous bill" and a "shameful failure of policy & morality by GOP". In response to the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack, Clinton said the U.S. should take out Bashar al-Assad's airfields and thereby "prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them".
On April 28, 2020, Clinton endorsed the presumptive Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, for president in the 2020 election and she addressed the 2020 Democratic National Convention in August. On October 28, 2020, Clinton announced that she was on the 2020 Democratic slate of electors for the state of New York. After Biden and Kamala Harris won New York State, thereby electing the Democratic elector slate, Clinton and her husband served as members of the 2020 United States Electoral College and cast the first of the state's electoral votes for Biden and Harris.
Comments on President Trump
On May 2, 2017, Clinton said Trump's use of Twitter "doesn't work" when pursuing important negotiations. "Kim Jong Un ... [is] always interested in trying to get Americans to come to negotiate to elevate their status and their position". Negotiations with North Korea should not take place without "a broader strategic framework to try to get China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, to put the kind of pressure on the regime that will finally bring them to the negotiating table with some kind of realistic prospect for change." While delivering the commencement speech at her alma mater Wellesley College on May 26, Clinton asserted President Trump's 2018 budget proposal was "a con" for underfunding domestic programs. On June 1, when President Trump announced the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, Clinton tweeted that it was a "historic mistake".
On September 29, 2019, in an interview with CBS News Sunday Morning, Clinton described Trump as a "threat" to the country's standing in the world; an "illegitimate president", despite having won the election; and a "corrupt human tornado".
Comments on politics during the Biden administration
In March 2021, Clinton voiced her support for the United States Senate to abolish the Senate filibuster if it proves necessary to do so in order to pass voting rights legislation. Clinton called the Senate filibuster "another Jim Crow relic".
Writing career
Clinton's third memoir, What Happened, an account of her loss in the 2016 election, was released on September 12, 2017. A book tour and a series of interviews and personal appearances were arranged for the launch. What Happened sold 300,000 copies in its first week, less than her 2003 memoir, Living History, but triple the first-week sales of her previous memoir, 2014's Hard Choices. Simon & Schuster announced that What Happened had sold more e-books in its first-week than any nonfiction e-book since 2010. As of December 10, 2017, the book had sold 448,947 hardcover copies.
An announcement was made in February 2017 that efforts were under way to render her 1996 book It Takes a Village as a picture book. Marla Frazee, a two-time winner of the Caldecott Medal, was announced as the illustrator. Clinton had worked on it with Frazee during her 2016 presidential election campaign. The result was published on the same day of publication as What Happened. The book is aimed at preschool-aged children, although a few messages are more likely better understood by adults.
In October 2019, The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience, a book Clinton co-wrote with her daughter Chelsea, was published. In February 2021, Clinton announced that she was co-writing her first fiction book with Louise Penny. The book, a political mystery thriller, is titled State of Terror and was released in October 2021.
Clinton has also written occasional op-eds in the years since her 2016 election defeat. In September 2018, The Atlantic published an article written by Clinton titled "American Democracy Is In Crisis". In April 2019, The Washington Post published an op-ed by Clinton calling for congress to be, "deliberate, fair, and fearless" in responding to the Mueller Report. In their November/December 2020 issue, Foreign Affairs published a piece by Clinton titled "A National Security Reckoning". On January 11, 2021, following the January 6 storming of the United States Capitol, an op-ed by Clinton titled "Trump should be impeached. But that alone won’t remove white supremacy from America." was published in The Washington Post. In July 2021, Democracy Docket published an op-ed by Clinton on Republican efforts to restrict voting following the 2020 presidential election.
Media ventures
Clinton collaborated with director Nanette Burstein on the documentary film Hillary, which was released on Hulu in March 2020.
On September 29, 2020, Clinton launched an interview podcast in collaboration with iHeartRadio titled You and Me Both.
Clinton is slated to be an executive producer of a drama series about the fight for women's suffrage in the United States titled The Woman's Hour. The series, based upon Elaine Weiss' book of the same name, will air on The CW.
Chancellor of Queen's University Belfast
On January 2, 2020, it was announced that Clinton would take up the position of Chancellor at Queen's University Belfast. Clinton became the 11th and first female chancellor of the university, filling the position that had been vacant since 2018 after the death of her predecessor, Thomas J. Moran. Commenting on taking up the position, she said that "the university is making waves internationally for its research and impact and I am proud to be an ambassador and help grow its reputation for excellence". Queen's Pro-Chancellor Stephen Prenter said that Clinton on her appointment "will be an incredible advocate for Queen's" who can act as an "inspirational role model". However, her inauguration was protested by some students.
Political positions
Using her Senate votes, several organizations have attempted to measure Clinton's place on the political spectrum scientifically. National Journals 2004 study of roll-call votes assigned Clinton a rating of 30 on the political spectrum, relative to the Senate at the time, with a rating of1 being most liberal and 100 being most conservative. National Journals subsequent rankings placed her as the 32nd-most liberal senator in 2006 and 16th-most liberal senator in 2007. A 2004 analysis by political scientists Joshua D. Clinton of Princeton University and Simon Jackman and Doug Rivers of Stanford University found her likely to be the sixth-to-eighth-most liberal senator. The Almanac of American Politics, edited by Michael Barone and Richard E. Cohen, rated her votes from 2003 through 2006 as liberal or conservative, with 100 as the highest rating, in three areas: Economic, Social and Foreign. Averaged for the four years, the ratings are: Economic = 75 liberal, 23 conservative; Social = 83 liberal, 6 conservative; Foreign = 66 liberal, 30 conservative. Total average = 75 liberal, 20 conservative. According to FiveThirtyEights measure of political ideology, "Clinton was one of the most liberal members during her time in the Senate."
Organizations have also attempted to provide more recent assessments of Clinton after she reentered elective politics in 2015. Based on her stated positions from the 1990s to the present, On the Issues places her in the "Left Liberal" region on their two-dimensional grid of social and economic ideologies, with a social score of 80 on a scale of zero more-restrictive to 100 less-government stances, with an economic score of ten on a scale of zero more-restrictive to 100 less-government stances. Crowdpac, which does a data aggregation of campaign contributions, votes and speeches, gives her a 6.5L rating on a one-dimensional left-right scale from 10L (most liberal) to 10C (most conservative).
In March 2016, Clinton laid out a detailed economic plan, which The New York Times called "optimistic" and "wide-ranging". Basing her economic philosophy on inclusive capitalism, Clinton proposed a "clawback" that would rescind tax relief and other benefits for companies that move jobs overseas; providing incentives for companies that share profits with employees, communities and the environment, rather than focusing on short-term profits to increase stock value and rewarding shareholders; increasing collective bargaining rights; and placing an "exit tax" on companies that move their headquarters out of America to pay a lower tax rate overseas. Clinton currently opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), though previously described it as "the gold standard" of trade deals. She supports the U.S. Export-Import Bank and holds that "any trade deal has to produce jobs and raise wages and increase prosperity and protect our security". As senator (2001–2009), her record on trade was mixed; she voted in favor of some trade agreements but not others.
Given the climate of unlimited campaign contributions following the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, Clinton called for a constitutional amendment to limit "unaccountable money" in politics. In July 2016, she "committed" to introducing a U.S. constitutional amendment that would result in overturning the 2010 Citizens United decision. On December 7, 2015, Clinton presented her detailed plans for regulating Wall Street financial activities in the New York Times.
Accepting the scientific consensus on climate change, Clinton supports cap-and-trade, and opposed the Keystone XL pipeline. She supported "equal pay for equal work", to address current shortfalls in how much women are paid to do the same jobs men do. Clinton has explicitly focused on family issues and supports universal preschool. These programs would be funded by proposing tax increases on the wealthy, including a "fair share surcharge". Clinton supported the Affordable Care Act and would have added a "public option" that competed with private insurers and enabled people "50 or 55 and up" to buy into Medicare.
On LGBT rights, she supports the right to same-sex marriage, a position that has changed throughout her political career. In 2000, she was against such marriages altogether. In 2006, she said only that she would support a state's decision to permit same-sex marriages, but opposed federally amending the Constitution to permit same-sex marriage. While running for president in 2007, she again reiterated her opposition to same-sex marriage, although expressed her support of civil unions. 2013 marked the first time that Clinton expressed support for a national right to same-sex marriage. In 2000, she was the first spouse of a US president to march in an LGBT pride parade. In 2016, she was the first major-party presidential candidate ever to write an op-ed for an LGBT newspaper (Philadelphia Gay News).
Clinton held that allowing undocumented immigrants to have a path to citizenship "s at its heart a family issue", and expressed support for Obama's Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) program, which would allow up to five million undocumented immigrants to gain deferral of deportation and authorization to legally work in the United States. However, in 2014, Clinton stated that unaccompanied children crossing the border "should be sent back." She opposed and criticized Trump's call to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States.
Expressing support for Common Core she said, "The really unfortunate argument that's been going on around Common Core, it's very painful because the Common Core started off as a bipartisan effort. It was actually nonpartisan. It wasn't politicized ... Iowa has had a testing system based on a core curriculum for a really long time. And you see the value of it, you understand why that helps you organize your whole education system. And a lot of states unfortunately haven't had that and so don't understand the value of a core, in this sense a Common Core."
On foreign affairs, Clinton voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq in October 2002, a vote she later "regretted". She favored arming Syria's rebel fighters in 2012 and has called for the removal of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. She supported the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and the NATO-led military intervention in Libya to oust former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Clinton is in favor of maintaining American influence in the Middle East. She has told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, "America can't ever be neutral when it comes to Israel's security and survival." Clinton expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2006 Lebanon War and 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In a 2017 interview, after a poison gas attack in Syria, Clinton said that she had favored more aggressive action against Bashar al-Assad: "I think we should have been more willing to confront Assad. I really believe we should have and still should take out his air fields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them."
In 2000, Clinton advocated for the elimination of the electoral college. She promised to co-sponsor legislation that would abolish it, resulting in the direct election of the president. She reiterated her position against the Electoral College as she cast her vote as an elector in the electoral college for Joe Biden in 2020.
Religious views
Clinton has been a lifelong Methodist, and has been part of United Methodist Church congregations throughout her life. She has publicly discussed her Christian faith on several occasions, although seldom while campaigning. Professor Paul Kengor, author of God and Hillary Clinton: A Spiritual Life, has suggested that Clinton's political positions are rooted in her faith. She often expresses a maxim often attributed to John Wesley: "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can."
Cultural and political image
Over a hundred books and scholarly works have been written about Clinton. A 2006 survey by the New York Observer found "a virtual cottage industry" of "anti-Clinton literature" put out by Regnery Publishing and other conservative imprints. Some titles include Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House, Hillary's Scheme: Inside the Next Clinton's Ruthless Agenda to Take the White House and Can She Be Stopped?: Hillary Clinton Will Be the Next President of the United States Unless ... Books praising Clinton did not sell nearly as well (other than her memoirs and those of her husband). When she ran for Senate in 2000, several fundraising groups such as Save Our Senate and the Emergency Committee to Stop Hillary Rodham Clinton sprang up to oppose her. Don Van Natta found that Republican and conservative groups viewed her as a reliable "bogeyman" to mention in fundraising letters, on a par with Ted Kennedy, and the equivalent of Democratic and liberal appeals mentioning Newt Gingrich.
Clinton has also been featured in the media and popular culture in a wide spectrum of perspectives. In 1995, writer Todd S. Purdum of The New York Times characterized Clinton as a Rorschach test, an assessment echoed at the time by feminist writer and activist Betty Friedan, who said, "Coverage of Hillary Clinton is a massive Rorschach test of the evolution of women in our society." She has been the subject of many satirical impressions on Saturday Night Live, beginning with her time as the first lady. She has made guest appearances on the show herself, in 2008 and in 2015, to face-off with her doppelgängers. Jonathan Mann wrote songs about her including "The Hillary Shimmy Song", which went viral.
She has often been described in the popular media as a polarizing figure, though some argue otherwise. In the early stages of her 2008 presidential campaign, a Time magazine cover showed a large picture of her with two checkboxes labeled "Love Her", "Hate Her". Mother Jones titled its profile of her "Harpy, Hero, Heretic: Hillary". Following Clinton's "choked up moment" and related incidents in the run-up to the January 2008 New Hampshire primary, both The New York Times and Newsweek found that discussion of gender's role in the campaign had moved into the national political discourse. Newsweek editor Jon Meacham summed up the relationship between Clinton and the American public by saying the New Hampshire events, "brought an odd truth to light: though Hillary Rodham Clinton has been on the periphery or in the middle of national life for decades ... she is one of the most recognizable but least understood figures in American politics".
Once she became secretary of state, Clinton's image seemed to improve dramatically among the American public and become one of a respected world figure. Her favorability ratings dropped, however, after she left office and began to be viewed in the context of partisan politics once more. By September 2015, with her 2016 presidential campaign underway and beset by continued reports regarding her private email usage at the State Department, her ratings had slumped to some of her lowest levels ever. In March 2016, she acknowledged that: "I'm not a natural politician, in case you haven't noticed."
Electoral history
2000 Senate election
2006 Senate election
2008 presidential election
2016 presidential election
Books and recordings
It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us (1996).Clinton received the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 1997 for the book's audio recording.
Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids' Letters to the First Pets (1998)
An Invitation to the White House: At Home with History (2000)
Living History (Simon & Schuster, 2003). The book set a first-week sales record for a nonfiction work, went on to sell more than one million copies in the first month following publication, and was translated into twelve foreign languages.
Hard Choices (2014). The book has sold about 280,000 copies.
With Tim Kaine, Stronger Together (2016)
What Happened (Simon & Schuster, 2017, in print, e-book, and audio read by the author)
With Chelsea Clinton, The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience (Simon & Schuster, 2019, in print, e-book, and audio)
With Louise Penny, State of Terror is set to release on October 12, 2021, and be published by Simon & Schuster & St. Martin's Press.
Ancestry
See also
2016 United States presidential election timeline
List of female United States Cabinet members
Women in the United States Senate
Notes
References
Citations
Sources cited
External links
Official
Clinton Foundation
State Department Biography
Media coverage
Other
Hillary Clinton's file at Politifact
1947 births
Living people
2020 United States presidential electors
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American politicians
20th-century American women lawyers
20th-century American women politicians
20th-century American women writers
20th-century Methodists
21st-century American diplomats
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American politicians
21st-century American women politicians
21st-century American women writers
21st-century Methodists
Activists from New York (state)
American autobiographers
American feminists
American legal writers
American memoirists
American people of Dutch descent
American people of English descent
American people of French-Canadian descent
American people of Scottish descent
American people of Welsh descent
American political writers
American United Methodists
American women activists
American women diplomats
American diplomats
American women non-fiction writers
American women's rights activists
American women academics
Arkansas Democrats
Arkansas lawyers
Articles containing video clips
Candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2016 United States presidential election
Chancellors of Queen's University Belfast
Children's rights activists
Bill Clinton
College Republicans
Democratic Party (United States) presidential nominees
Democratic Party United States senators from New York (state)
Directors of Walmart
Family of Bill and Hillary Clinton
Female candidates for President of the United States
Female foreign ministers
Female United States senators
First Ladies and Gentlemen of Arkansas
First Ladies of the United States
Grammy Award winners
Grand Crosses of the Order of Lakandula
Illinois Republicans
Intellectual property lawyers
New York (state) Democrats
Obama administration cabinet members
People from Park Ridge, Illinois
Politicians from Little Rock, Arkansas
Politicians from Westchester County, New York
Recipients of the Four Freedoms Award
Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 1st Class
Rodham family
United States Secretaries of State
United States senators from New York (state)
University of Arkansas School of Law faculty
Wellesley College alumni
Women autobiographers
Women heads of universities and colleges
Women in New York (state) politics
Women members of the Cabinet of the United States
Writers from New York (state)
Yale Law School alumni | true | [
"\"She's Not Just a Pretty Face\" is a song recorded by Canadian country-pop singer Shania Twain. It was the fourth country single, and sixth overall, from her fourth studio album Up!. The song was written by Twain And her then-husband Robert John \"Mutt\" Lange. Twain had announced that \"Nah!\" would be the next single after \"Forever and for Always\", but \"She's Not Just a Pretty Face\" was released instead. It became Twain's 15th top ten single on Billboard Country. The song was originally to be released to the UK as a pop single on March 24, 2004, but that plan was cancelled. It was, however, released to Eastern Europe as the fourth single, where it did reasonably well in some countries. The song debuted in North America on October 6, 2003. Despite reaching the top ten, the song was excluded from Twain's 2004 Greatest Hits album. It was nominated for Best Female Country Vocal Performance at the 2005 Grammy Awards. The song was performed on highly rated TV shows, such as The Oprah Winfrey Show, the 2003 Country Music Awards, and the 2003 Billboard Music Awards, all helping it land in the top ten. Twain also performed \"She's Not Just a Pretty Face\" on her Up! Tour.\n\nComposition \nThe song is performed in the key of E major in common time with a tempo of 100 beats per minute. Twain's vocals span from B3 to C5 in the song.\n\nCritical reception\nBillboard magazine called the song an \"ultra-lightweight country-girl power anthem\" and said that it's \"exquisite country pop\".\n\nMusic video\nThe music video for \"She's Not Just a Pretty Face\" was taken directly from Twain's 2003 Up! Live in Chicago special. It was filmed on July 27, 2003 and released on October 24, 2003. Directing credit is given to Beth McCarthy Miller. The video is the first of two live videos taken from the special, the next one is \"It Only Hurts When I'm Breathing\". It is generally believed a live video was issued to promote the release of the DVD, a few weeks later. The video is available on select CD singles, and the performance can be seen on the Up! Live in Chicago DVD.\n\nChart performance \n\"She's Not Just a Pretty Face\" debuted on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart the week of October 11, 2003 at number 55. The single spent 20 weeks on the chart and climbed to a peak position of number nine on January 10, 2004, where it remained for one week. \"She's Not Just a Pretty Face\" became Twain's 15th top ten single and 20th (fifth consecutive) top 20 single. It also peaked at number 56 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot 100 Airplay chart.\n\nTrack listings\nThese are the formats for major releases.\n\nEurope CD Maxi\n\"She's Not Just a Pretty Face\" (Red) - 3:49\n\"Thank You Baby!\" (Live in Chicago) - 4:01\n\"When You Kiss Me\" (Live in Chicago) - 4:08\nEnhanced: \"She's Not Just a Pretty Face\" (Live in Chicago) - Music Video\n\nEurope CD Single\n\"She's Not Just a Pretty Face\" (Red) - 3:49\n\"Forever And For Always\" (Live in Chicago) - 4:03\n\nAudio versions\nRed Album Version (3:48)\nGreen Album Version (3:48)\nBlue Album Version (3:39)\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2003 singles\n2002 songs\nShania Twain songs\nSongs written by Robert John \"Mutt\" Lange\nSong recordings produced by Robert John \"Mutt\" Lange\nSongs written by Shania Twain\nMercury Records singles\nMercury Nashville singles",
"Sylvia E. Perez (born November 17, 1961) is an American news anchor. Based in Chicago, Perez currently anchors the weekday editions and special segments of Good Day Chicago on WFLD-TV (FOX 32) since October 2016. From 1989 until 2013, Perez co–anchored the 11AM newscast on Chicago's WLS-TV (ABC 7) alongside Linda Yu. Perez was also the station's \"Healthbeat\" reporter covering daily health and medical investigative stories for the 4PM and 10PM newscasts.\n\nCareer\nA graduate of the University of Oklahoma School of Journalism, Perez began her career in 1983. Prior to joining ABC7, Sylvia worked in Houston and Amarillo, Texas. She also worked in Oklahoma where she won several awards for her reporting. Sylvia's interest in medical reporting came when she worked at KPRC-TV in Houston, where she also became the weekend co-anchor. She still does that while in Chicago. Ms Perez is the youngest of five children, and an \"army brat,\" the highlight of her career came when covering the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. There she followed an Illinois veteran back to Hawaii to visit the where his brother and many other American war heroes died.\n\nPerez first joined ABC 7 in June 1989. On June 20, 2013, Sylvia was released from WLS-TV after 24 years with the station because they decided to cancel the 11am newscast. The 11am news she anchored with Linda Yu was cancelled in September in favor of Windy City Live (WCL), which moved to the timeslot after Live with Kelly and Michael moved to the 9am slot from WGN-TV. In September 2016, media critic Robert Feder announced on his blog that Perez had been hired to anchor the weekend morning newscasts on WFLD-TV. Perez also reports for the daily 9 p.m. newscast.\n\nOther ventures and personal\nAfter leaving ABC7, Perez formed her own production company, Sylvia Perez Productions, where she offers video training, media coaching and other media services to non-profits around the Chicago area. Perez currently resides in the suburbs of Chicago with her husband Daniel Blasdell. In March 2016, Perez put her Hinsdale, Illinois mansion back on the market for $1.95 million dollars, previously selling the property for $2.4 million in 2013. Perez purchased the home in 2006.\n\nReferences\n\nTelevision anchors from Chicago\nTelevision anchors from Houston\n1961 births\nLiving people"
] |
[
"Hillary Clinton",
"Early life and education",
"Where did Clinton grow up?",
"first lived in Chicago.",
"Where did she live after Chicago?",
"Chicago suburb of Park Ridge."
] | C_8b166a2b96a4446b96aec0b2fd24bb06_1 | What did her parents do for a living? | 3 | What did Hillary Clinton's parents do for a living? | Hillary Clinton | Hillary Diane Rodham was born on October 26, 1947, at Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. Clinton was raised in a United Methodist family that first lived in Chicago. When she was three years old, her family moved to the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge. Her father, Hugh Rodham, was of English and Welsh descent, and managed a small but successful textile business. Her mother, Dorothy Howell, was a homemaker of Dutch, English, French Canadian (from Quebec), Scottish and Welsh descent. Clinton has two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony. As a child, Rodham was a favorite student among her teachers at the public schools that she attended in Park Ridge. She participated swimming and softball and earned numerous badges as a Brownie and a Girl Scout. She has often told a story of being inspired by U.S. efforts during the Space Race and sending a letter to NASA around 1961 asking what she could do to become an astronaut, only to be informed that women were not being accepted into the program. She attended Maine East High School, where she participated in the student council, the school newspaper and was selected for the National Honor Society. She was elected class vice president for her junior year, but then lost the election for class president for her senior year against two boys, one of whom told her that "you are really stupid if you think a girl can be elected president". For her senior year, she and other students were transferred to the then new Maine South High School, where she was a National Merit Finalist and was voted, "most likely to succeed". She graduated in 1965 in the top five percent of her class. Rodham's mother wanted her to have an independent, professional career, and her father, who was otherwise a traditionalist, felt that his daughter's abilities and opportunities should not be limited by gender. Rodham was raised in a politically conservative household, and she helped canvass Chicago's South Side at age 13 after the very close 1960 U.S. presidential election. She saw evidence of electoral fraud (such as voting list entries showing addresses that were empty lots) against Republican candidate Richard Nixon, and later volunteered to campaign for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater in the U.S. presidential election of 1964. Rodham's early political development was shaped most by her high school history teacher (like her father, a fervent anti-communist), who introduced her to Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative and by her Methodist youth minister (like her mother, concerned with issues of social justice), with whom she saw and afterwards briefly met, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. at a 1962 speech in Chicago's Orchestra Hall. CANNOTANSWER | managed a small but successful textile business. | Hillary Diane Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, lawyer, writer, and public speaker who served as the 67th United States secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, as a United States senator from New York from 2001 to 2009, and as first lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001 as the wife of President Bill Clinton. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the party's nominee for president in the 2016 presidential election, becoming the first woman to win a presidential nomination by a major U.S. political party. Clinton won the popular vote in the election, making her the first woman to do so. However, she lost the Electoral College vote and thereby lost the presidential election.
Raised in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge, Rodham graduated from Wellesley College in 1969 and earned a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1973. After serving as a congressional legal counsel, she moved to Arkansas and married future president Bill Clinton in 1975; the two had met at Yale. In 1977, Clinton co-founded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. She was appointed the first female chair of the Legal Services Corporation in 1978 and became the first female partner at Little Rock's Rose Law Firm the following year. The National Law Journal twice listed her as one of the hundred most influential lawyers in America. Clinton was the first lady of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again from 1983 to 1992. As the first lady of the United States, Clinton advocated for healthcare reform. In 1994, her major initiative—the Clinton health care plan—failed to gain approval from Congress. In 1997 and 1999, Clinton played a leading role in advocating the creation of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, the Adoption and Safe Families Act, and the Foster Care Independence Act. Clinton advocated for gender equality at the 1995 UN conference on women. Her marital relationship came under public scrutiny during the Lewinsky scandal, which led her to issue a statement that reaffirmed her commitment to the marriage.
In 2000, Clinton was elected as the first female senator from New York and became the first First lady to simultaneously hold elected office, and then the first former First lady to serve in the Senate. She was re-elected in 2006 and chaired the Senate Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee from 2003 to 2007. During her Senate tenure, Clinton advocated for medical benefits for first responders whose health was damaged in the September 11 attacks. She supported the resolution authorizing the Iraq War in 2002 but opposed the surge of U.S. troops in 2007. In 2008, Clinton ran for president but was defeated by eventual winner Barack Obama in the Democratic primaries. Clinton was U.S. secretary of state in the first term of the Obama administration from 2009 to 2013. During her tenure, Clinton established the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. She responded to the Arab Spring by advocating military intervention in Libya but was harshly criticized by Republicans for the failure to prevent or adequately respond to the 2012 Benghazi attack. Clinton helped to organize a diplomatic isolation and a regime of international sanctions against Iran in an effort to force it to curtail its nuclear program; this effort eventually led to the multinational JCPOA nuclear agreement in 2015. Her use of a private email server when she was Secretary of State was the subject of intense scrutiny; while no charges were filed against Clinton, the email controversy was the single most covered topic during the 2016 presidential election.
Clinton made a second presidential run in 2016. After winning the Democratic nomination, she ran in the general election with Virginia senator Tim Kaine as her running mate. Clinton lost the presidential election to Republican opponent Donald Trump in the Electoral College despite winning a plurality of the popular vote. Following her loss, she wrote her third memoir, What Happened, and launched Onward Together, a political action organization dedicated to fundraising for progressive political groups. Since January 2020, she has been the chancellor of Queen's University Belfast in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Early life and education
Early life
Hillary Diane Rodham was born on October 26, 1947, at Edgewater Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. She was raised in a United Methodist family who first lived in Chicago. When she was three years old, her family moved to the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge. Her father, Hugh Rodham, was of English and Welsh descent, and managed a small but successful textile business, which he had founded. Her mother, Dorothy Howell, was a homemaker of Dutch, English, French Canadian (from Quebec), Scottish, and Welsh descent. She had two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony.
As a child, Rodham was a favorite student among her teachers at the public schools she attended in Park Ridge. She participated in swimming and softball and earned numerous badges as a Brownie and a Girl Scout. She has often told the story of being inspired by U.S. efforts during the Space Race and sending a letter to NASA around 1961 asking what she could do to become an astronaut, only to be informed that women were not being accepted into the program. She attended Maine East High School, where she participated in the student council and school newspaper and was selected for the National Honor Society. She was elected class vice president for her junior year but then lost the election for class president for her senior year against two boys, one of whom told her that "you are really stupid if you think a girl can be elected president". For her senior year, she and other students were transferred to the then-new Maine South High School. There she was a National Merit Finalist and was voted "most likely to succeed." She graduated in 1965 in the top five percent of her class.
Rodham's mother wanted her to have an independent, professional career. Her father, who was otherwise a traditionalist, felt that his daughter's abilities and opportunities should not be limited by gender. She was raised in a politically conservative household, and she helped canvass Chicago's South Side at age 13 after the very close 1960 U.S. presidential election. She saw evidence of electoral fraud (such as voting list entries showing addresses that were empty lots) against Republican candidate Richard Nixon, and later volunteered to campaign for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater in the 1964 election.
Rodham's early political development was shaped mostly by her high school history teacher (like her father, a fervent anti-communist), who introduced her to Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative and by her Methodist youth minister (like her mother, concerned with issues of social justice), with whom she saw and afterwards briefly met, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. at a 1962 speech in Chicago's Orchestra Hall.
Wellesley College years
In 1965, Rodham enrolled at Wellesley College, where she majored in political science. During her first year, she was president of the Wellesley Young Republicans. As the leader of this "Rockefeller Republican"-oriented group, she supported the elections of moderate Republicans John Lindsay to mayor of New York City and Massachusetts attorney general Edward Brooke to the United States Senate. She later stepped down from this position. In 2003, Clinton would write that her views concerning the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War were changing in her early college years. In a letter to her youth minister at that time, she described herself as "a mind conservative and a heart liberal". In contrast to the factions in the 1960s that advocated radical actions against the political system, she sought to work for change within it.
By her junior year, Rodham became a supporter of the antiwar presidential nomination campaign of Democrat Eugene McCarthy. In early 1968, she was elected president of the Wellesley College Government Association, a position she held until early 1969. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Rodham organized a two-day student strike and worked with Wellesley's black students to recruit more black students and faculty. In her student government role, she played a role in keeping Wellesley from being embroiled in the student disruptions common to other colleges. A number of her fellow students thought she might some day become the first female president of the United States.
To help her better understand her changing political views, Professor Alan Schechter assigned Rodham to intern at the House Republican Conference, and she attended the "Wellesley in Washington" summer program. Rodham was invited by moderate New York Republican representative Charles Goodell to help Governor Nelson Rockefeller's late-entry campaign for the Republican nomination. Rodham attended the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami Beach. However, she was upset by the way Richard Nixon's campaign portrayed Rockefeller and by what she perceived as the convention's "veiled" racist messages, and she left the Republican Party for good.
Rodham wrote her senior thesis, a critique of the tactics of radical community organizer Saul Alinsky, under Professor Schechter. Years later, while she was the first lady, access to her thesis was restricted at the request of the White House and it became the subject of some speculation. The thesis was later released.
In 1969, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, with departmental honors in political science. After some fellow seniors requested that the college administration allow a student speaker at commencement, she became the first student in Wellesley College history to speak at the event. Her address followed that of the commencement speaker, Senator Edward Brooke. After her speech, she received a standing ovation that lasted seven minutes. She was featured in an article published in Life magazine, because of the response to a part of her speech that criticized Senator Brooke. She also appeared on Irv Kupcinet's nationally syndicated television talk show as well as in Illinois and New England newspapers. She was asked to speak at the 50th anniversary convention of the League of Women Voters in Washington, D.C., the next year. That summer, she worked her way across Alaska, washing dishes in Mount McKinley National Park and sliming salmon in a fish processing cannery in Valdez (which fired her and shut down overnight when she complained about unhealthy conditions).
Yale Law School and postgraduate studies
Rodham then entered Yale Law School, where she was on the editorial board of the Yale Review of Law and Social Action. During her second year, she worked at the Yale Child Study Center, learning about new research on early childhood brain development and working as a research assistant on the seminal work, Beyond the Best Interests of the Child (1973). She also took on cases of child abuse at Yale–New Haven Hospital, and volunteered at New Haven Legal Services to provide free legal advice for the poor. In the summer of 1970, she was awarded a grant to work at Marian Wright Edelman's Washington Research Project, where she was assigned to Senator Walter Mondale's Subcommittee on Migratory Labor. There she researched various migrant workers' issues including education, health and housing. Edelman later became a significant mentor. Rodham was recruited by political advisor Anne Wexler to work on the 1970 campaign of Connecticut U.S. Senate candidate Joseph Duffey. Rodham later crediting Wexler with providing her first job in politics.
In the spring of 1971, she began dating fellow law student Bill Clinton. During the summer, she interned at the Oakland, California, law firm of Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein. The firm was well known for its support of constitutional rights, civil liberties and radical causes (two of its four partners were current or former Communist Party members); Rodham worked on child custody and other cases. Clinton canceled his original summer plans and moved to live with her in California; the couple continued living together in New Haven when they returned to law school. The following summer, Rodham and Clinton campaigned in Texas for unsuccessful 1972 Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern. She received a Juris Doctor degree from Yale in 1973, having stayed on an extra year to be with Clinton. He first proposed marriage to her following graduation, but she declined, uncertain if she wanted to tie her future to his.
Rodham began a year of postgraduate study on children and medicine at the Yale Child Study Center. In late 1973, her first scholarly article, "Children Under the Law", was published in the Harvard Educational Review. Discussing the new children's rights movement, the article stated that "child citizens" were "powerless individuals" and argued that children should not be considered equally incompetent from birth to attaining legal age, but instead that courts should presume competence on a case-by-case basis, except when there is evidence otherwise. The article became frequently cited in the field.
Marriage, family, legal career and first ladyship of Arkansas
From the East Coast to Arkansas
During her postgraduate studies, Rodham was staff attorney for Edelman's newly founded Children's Defense Fund in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and as a consultant to the Carnegie Council on Children. In 1974, she was a member of the impeachment inquiry staff in Washington, D.C., and advised the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate scandal. Under the guidance of Chief Counsel John Doar and senior member Bernard W. Nussbaum, Rodham helped research procedures of impeachment and the historical grounds and standards for it. The committee's work culminated with the resignation of President Richard Nixon in August 1974.
By then, Rodham was viewed as someone with a bright political future. Democratic political organizer and consultant Betsey Wright moved from Texas to Washington the previous year to help guide Rodham's career. Wright thought Rodham had the potential to become a future senator or president. Meanwhile, boyfriend Bill Clinton had repeatedly asked Rodham to marry him, but she continued to demur. After failing the District of Columbia bar exam and passing the Arkansas exam, Rodham came to a key decision. As she later wrote, "I chose to follow my heart instead of my head". She thus followed Clinton to Arkansas, rather than staying in Washington, where career prospects were brighter. He was then teaching law and running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in his home state. In August 1974, Rodham moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, and became one of only two female faculty members in the School of Law at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
Early Arkansas years
At the university, Rodham taught classes in criminal law. She was considered a rigorous teacher who was tough with her grades. Rodham became the first director of a new legal aid clinic at the school, where she secured support from the local bar association and gained federal funding. As a court-appointed lawyer, Rodham was required to act as defense counsel to a man accused of raping a 12-year-old girl; after her request to be relieved of the assignment failed, Rodham used an effective defense and counseled her client to plead guilty to a lesser charge. She has called the trial a "terrible case". During her time in Fayetteville, Rodham and several other women founded the city's first rape crisis center.
In 1974, Bill Clinton lost an Arkansas congressional race, facing incumbent Republican John Paul Hammerschmidt. Rodham and Bill Clinton bought a house in Fayetteville in the summer of 1975 and she agreed to marry him. The wedding took place on October 11, 1975, in a Methodist ceremony in their living room. A story about the marriage in the Arkansas Gazette indicated that she decided to retain the name Hillary Rodham. Her motivation was threefold. She wanted to keep the couple's professional lives separate, avoid apparent conflicts of interest, and as she told a friend at the time, "it showed that I was still me". The decision upset both mothers, who were more traditional.
In 1976, Rodham temporarily relocated to Indianapolis to work as an Indiana state campaign organizer for the presidential campaign of Jimmy Carter. In November 1976, Bill Clinton was elected Arkansas attorney general, and the couple moved to the state capital of Little Rock. In February 1977, Rodham joined the venerable Rose Law Firm, a bastion of Arkansan political and economic influence. She specialized in patent infringement and intellectual property law while working pro bono in child advocacy; she rarely performed litigation work in court.
Rodham maintained her interest in children's law and family policy, publishing the scholarly articles "Children's Policies: Abandonment and Neglect" in 1977 and "Children's Rights: A Legal Perspective" in 1979. The latter continued her argument that children's legal competence depended upon their age and other circumstances and that in serious medical rights cases, judicial intervention was sometimes warranted. An American Bar Association chair later said, "Her articles were important, not because they were radically new but because they helped formulate something that had been inchoate." Historian Garry Wills would later describe her as "one of the more important scholar-activists of the last two decades". Conservatives said her theories would usurp traditional parental authority, would allow children to file frivolous lawsuits against their parents, and exemplified critical legal studies run amok.
In 1977, Rodham cofounded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, a state-level alliance with the Children's Defense Fund. Later that year, President Jimmy Carter (for whom Rodham had been the 1976 campaign director of field operations in Indiana) appointed her to the board of directors of the Legal Services Corporation. She held that position from 1978 until the end of 1981. From mid-1978 to mid-1980, she was the chair of that board, the first woman to hold the job. During her time as chair, funding for the corporation was expanded from $90 million to $300 million; subsequently, she successfully fought President Ronald Reagan's attempts to reduce the funding and change the nature of the organization.
Following her husband's November 1978 election as governor of Arkansas, Rodham became that state's first lady in January 1979. She would hold that title for twelve nonconsecutive years (1979–81, 1983–92). Clinton appointed his wife to be the chair of the Rural Health Advisory Committee the same year, where she secured federal funds to expand medical facilities in Arkansas's poorest areas without affecting doctors' fees.
In 1979, Rodham became the first woman to be made a full partner in Rose Law Firm. From 1978 until they entered the White House, she had a higher salary than her husband. During 1978 and 1979, while looking to supplement their income, Rodham engaged in the trading of cattle futures contracts; an initial $1,000 investment generated nearly $100,000 when she stopped trading after ten months. At this time, the couple began their ill-fated investment in the Whitewater Development Corporation real estate venture with Jim and Susan McDougal. Both of these became subjects of controversy in the 1990s.
On February 27, 1980, Rodham gave birth to the couple's only child, a daughter whom they named Chelsea. In November 1980, Bill Clinton was defeated in his bid for re-election.
Later Arkansas years
Two years after leaving office, Bill Clinton returned to his job as governor of Arkansas after winning the election of 1982. During her husband's campaign, Hillary began to use the name "Hillary Clinton", or sometimes "Mrs. Bill Clinton", to assuage the concerns of Arkansas voters; she also took a leave of absence from Rose Law to campaign for him full-time. During her second stint as the first lady of Arkansas, she made a point of using Hillary Rodham Clinton as her name. She was named chair of the Arkansas Education Standards Committee in 1983, where she sought to reform the state's court-sanctioned public education system. In one of the Clinton governorship's most important initiatives, she fought a prolonged but ultimately successful battle against the Arkansas Education Association to establish mandatory teacher testing and state standards for curriculum and classroom size. It became her introduction into the politics of a highly visible public policy effort. In 1985, she introduced Arkansas's Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youth, a program that helps parents work with their children in preschool preparedness and literacy. She was named Arkansas Woman of the Year in 1983 and Arkansas Mother of the Year in 1984.
Clinton continued to practice law with the Rose Law Firm while she was the first lady of Arkansas. She earned less than the other partners, as she billed fewer hours but still made more than $200,000 in her final year there. The firm considered her a "rainmaker" because she brought in clients, partly thanks to the prestige she lent it and to her corporate board connections. She was also very influential in the appointment of state judges. Bill Clinton's Republican opponent in his 1986 gubernatorial re-election campaign accused the Clintons of conflict of interest because Rose Law did state business; the Clintons countered the charge by saying that state fees were walled off by the firm before her profits were calculated.
From 1982 to 1988, Clinton was on the board of directors, sometimes as chair, of the New World Foundation, which funded a variety of New Left interest groups. From 1987 to 1991, she was the first chair of the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession, created to address gender bias in the legal profession and induce the association to adopt measures to combat it. She was twice named by The National Law Journal as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America—in 1988 and 1991. When Bill Clinton thought about not running again for governor in 1990, Hillary Clinton considered running. Private polls were unfavorable, however, and in the end he ran and was re-elected for the final time.
Clinton was chairman of the board of the Children's Defense Fund and on the board of the Arkansas Children's Hospital's Legal Services (1988–92) In addition to her positions with nonprofit organizations, she also held positions on the corporate board of directors of TCBY (1985–92), Wal-Mart Stores (1986–92) and Lafarge (1990–92). TCBY and Wal-Mart were Arkansas-based companies that were also clients of Rose Law. Clinton was the first female member on Wal-Mart's board, added following pressure on chairman Sam Walton to name a woman to it. Once there, she pushed successfully for Wal-Mart to adopt more environmentally friendly practices. She was largely unsuccessful in her campaign for more women to be added to the company's management and was silent about the company's famously anti-labor union practices. According to Dan Kaufman, awareness of this later became a factor in her loss of credibility with organized labor, helping contribute to her loss in the 2016 election, where slightly less than half of union members voted for Donald Trump.
Bill Clinton presidential campaign of 1992
Clinton received sustained national attention for the first time when her husband became a candidate for the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination. Before the New Hampshire primary, tabloid publications printed allegations that Bill Clinton had engaged in an extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers. In response, the Clintons appeared together on 60 Minutes, where Bill denied the affair, but acknowledged "causing pain in my marriage". This joint appearance was credited with rescuing his campaign. During the campaign, Hillary made culturally disparaging remarks about Tammy Wynette's outlook on marriage as described in her classic song "Stand by Your Man". Later in the campaign, she commented she could have chosen to be like women staying home and baking cookies and having teas, but wanted to pursue her career instead. The remarks were widely criticized, particularly by those who were, or defended, stay-at-home mothers. In retrospect, she admitted they were ill-considered. Bill said that in electing him, the nation would "get two for the price of one", referring to the prominent role his wife would assume. Beginning with Daniel Wattenberg's August 1992 The American Spectator article "The Lady Macbeth of Little Rock", Hillary's own past ideological and ethical record came under attack from conservatives. At least twenty other articles in major publications also drew comparisons between her and Lady Macbeth.
First Lady of the United States (1993–2001)
When Bill Clinton took office as president in January 1993, Hillary Rodham Clinton became the first lady. Her press secretary reiterated she would be using that form of her name. She was the first in this role to have a postgraduate degree and her own professional career up to the time of entering the White House. She was also the first to have an office in the West Wing of the White House in addition to the usual first lady offices in the East Wing. She was part of the innermost circle vetting appointments to the new administration. Her choices filled at least eleven top-level positions and dozens more lower-level ones. After Eleanor Roosevelt, Clinton was regarded as the most openly empowered presidential wife in American history.
Some critics called it inappropriate for the first lady to play a central role in public policy matters. Supporters pointed out that Clinton's role in policy was no different from that of other White House advisors, and that voters had been well aware she would play an active role in her husband's presidency. Bill Clinton's campaign promise of "two for the price of one" led opponents to refer derisively to the Clintons as "co-presidents" or sometimes use the Arkansas label "Billary". The pressures of conflicting ideas about the role of a first lady were enough to send Hillary Clinton into "imaginary discussions" with the also-politically active Eleanor Roosevelt. From the time she came to Washington, Hillary also found refuge in a prayer group of the Fellowship that featured many wives of conservative Washington figures. Triggered in part by the death of her father in April 1993, she publicly sought to find a synthesis of Methodist teachings, liberal religious political philosophy and Tikkun editor Michael Lerner's "politics of meaning" to overcome what she saw as America's "sleeping sickness of the soul"; that would lead to a willingness "to remold society by redefining what it means to be a human being in the twentieth century, moving into a new millennium".
Health care and other policy initiatives
In January 1993, President Clinton named Hillary to chair a task force on National Health Care Reform, hoping to replicate the success she had in leading the effort for Arkansas education reform. Unconvinced regarding the merits of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), she privately urged that passage of health care reform be given higher priority. The recommendation of the task force became known as the Clinton health care plan. This was a comprehensive proposal that would require employers to provide health coverage to their employees through individual health maintenance organizations. Its opponents quickly derided the plan as "Hillarycare" and it even faced opposition from some Democrats in Congress. Some protesters against the proposed plan became vitriolic and during a July 1994 bus tour to rally support for the plan, Clinton wore a bulletproof vest at times.
Failing to gather enough support for a floor vote in either the House or the Senate (although Democrats controlled both chambers), the proposal was abandoned in September 1994. Clinton later acknowledged in her memoir that her political inexperience partly contributed to the defeat but cited many other factors. The first lady's approval ratings, which had generally been in the high-50 percent range during her first year, fell to 44 percent in April 1994 and 35 percent by September 1994.
Republicans made the Clinton health care plan a major campaign issue of the 1994 midterm elections. They saw a net gain of 54 seats in the House election and eight in the Senate election, winning control of both; many analysts and pollsters found the plan to be a major factor in the Democrats' defeat, especially among independent voters. The White House subsequently sought to downplay Clinton's role in shaping policy. Opponents of universal health care would continue to use "Hillarycare" as a pejorative label for similar plans by others.
Along with senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, Clinton was a force behind the passage of the State Children's Health Insurance Program in 1997. This federal bill gave state support to children whose parents could not provide them health coverage. She conducted outreach efforts on behalf of enrolling children in the program once it became law. She promoted nationwide immunization against childhood diseases and encouraged older women to get a mammogram for breast cancer screening, with coverage provided by Medicare. She successfully sought to increase research funding for prostate cancer and childhood asthma at the National Institutes of Health. She worked to investigate reports of an illness that affected veterans of the Gulf War, which became known as the Gulf War syndrome.
Enactment of welfare reform was a major goal of Bill Clinton's presidency. When the first two bills on the issue came from a Republican-controlled Congress lacking protections for people coming off welfare, however, Hillary urged him to veto the bills, which he did. A third version came up during his 1996 general election campaign that restored some of the protections but cut the scope of benefits in other areas; critics, including her past mentor Edelman, urged her to get the president to veto it again. But she decided to support the bill, which became the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, as the best political compromise available. This caused a rift with Edelman that Hillary later called "sad and painful".
Together with Attorney General Janet Reno, Clinton helped create the Office on Violence Against Women at the Department of Justice.
In 1997, she initiated and shepherded the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which she regarded as her greatest accomplishment as the first lady. In 1999, she was instrumental in the passage of the Foster Care Independence Act, which doubled federal monies for teenagers aging out of foster care.
As First Lady of the United States, Clinton was the host for various White House conferences. These included one on Child Care (1997), on Early Childhood Development and Learning (1997), and on Children and Adolescents (2000). She also hosted the first-ever White House Conference on Teenagers (2000), and the first-ever White House Conference on Philanthropy (1999).
Clinton traveled to 79 countries during this time, breaking the record for most-traveled first lady previously held by Pat Nixon. She did not hold a security clearance or attend National Security Council meetings, but played a role in U.S. diplomacy attaining its objectives. A March 1995 five-nation trip to South Asia, on behest of the U.S. State Department, without her husband, sought to improve relations with India and Pakistan. Clinton was troubled by the plight of women she encountered, but found a warm response from the people of the countries she visited, and gained a better relationship with the American press corps. The trip was a transformative experience for her and presaged her eventual career in diplomacy.
In a September 1995 speech before the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, Clinton argued forcefully against practices that abused women around the world and in the People's Republic of China itself. She declared, "it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights". Delegates from over 180 countries heard her say: "If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights, once and for all." In doing so, she resisted both internal administration and Chinese pressure to soften her remarks. The speech became a key moment in the empowerment of women and years later women around the world would recite Clinton's key phrases. During the late 1990s, she was one of the most prominent international figures to speak out against the treatment of Afghan women by the Taliban. She helped create Vital Voices, an international initiative sponsored by the U.S. to encourage the participation of women in the political processes of their countries. It and Clinton's own visits encouraged women to make themselves heard in the Northern Ireland peace process. In 1997, Clinton returned to Northern Ireland to deliver the inaugural Joyce McCartan lecture at the University of Ulster in honour of the community campaigner she had met during her visit in Belfast in 1995.
Whitewater and other investigations
Clinton was a subject of several investigations by the United States Office of the Independent Counsel, committees of the U.S. Congress, and the press.
The Whitewater controversy was the focus of media attention from its publication in a New York Times report during the 1992 presidential campaign and throughout her time as the first lady. The Clintons had lost their late-1970s investment in the Whitewater Development Corporation; at the same time, their partners in that investment, Jim and Susan McDougal operated Madison Guaranty, a savings and loan institution that retained the legal services of Rose Law Firm and may have been improperly subsidizing Whitewater losses. Madison Guaranty later failed, and Clinton's work at Rose was scrutinized for a possible conflict of interest in representing the bank before state regulators her husband had appointed. She said she had done minimal work for the bank. Independent counsels Robert Fiske and Kenneth Starr subpoenaed Clinton's legal billing records; she said she did not know where they were. After a two-year search, the records were found in the first lady's White House book room and delivered to investigators in early 1996. The delayed appearance of the records sparked intense interest and another investigation concerning how they surfaced and where they had been. Clinton's staff attributed the problem to continual changes in White House storage areas since the move from the Arkansas Governor's Mansion. On January 26, 1996, Clinton became the first spouse of a U.S. president to be subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury. After several Independent Counsels had investigated, a final report was issued in 2000 that stated there was insufficient evidence that either Clinton had engaged in criminal wrongdoing.
Scrutiny of the May 1993 firings of the White House Travel Office employees, an action that became known as "Travelgate", began with charges that the White House had used audited financial irregularities in the Travel Office operation as an excuse to replace the staff with friends from Arkansas. The 1996 discovery of a two-year-old White House memo led to the investigation being focused on whether Clinton had orchestrated the firings and whether the statements she made to investigators about her role in the firings were true. The 2000 final Independent Counsel report concluded she was involved in the firings and that she had made "factually false" statements, but that there was insufficient evidence that she knew the statements were false or knew that her actions would lead to firings, to prosecute her.
In March 1994, newspaper reports revealed that Clinton had earned spectacular profits from cattle futures trading in 1978–79. The press made allegations that Clinton had engaged in a conflict of interest and disguised a bribery. Several individuals analyzed her trading records, but no formal investigation was made and she was never charged with any wrongdoing.
An outgrowth of the "Travelgate" investigation was the June 1996 discovery of improper White House access to hundreds of FBI background reports on former Republican White House employees, an affair that some called "Filegate". Accusations were made that Clinton had requested these files and she had recommended hiring an unqualified individual to head the White House Security Office. The 2000 final Independent Counsel report found no substantial or credible evidence that Clinton had any role or showed any misconduct in the matter.
In early 2001, a controversy arose over gifts that were sent to the White House; there was a question whether the furnishings were White House property or the Clintons' personal property. During the last year of Bill Clinton's time in office, those gifts were shipped to the Clintons' private residence.
It Takes a Village release and tour
In 1996, Clinton presented a vision for American children in the book It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us. In January 1996, she went on a ten-city book tour and made numerous television appearances to promote the book, although she was frequently hit with questions about her involvement in the Whitewater and Travelgate controversies.
The book spent 18 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List that year, including three weeks at number one. By 2000, it had sold 450,000 copies in hardcover and another 200,000 in paperback.
Clinton received the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 1997 for the book's audio recording.
Response to Lewinsky scandal
In 1998, the Clintons' private concerns became the subject of much speculation when investigations revealed the president had engaged in an extramarital affair with 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Events surrounding the Lewinsky scandal eventually led to the impeachment of the president by the House of Representatives; he was later acquitted by the senate. When the allegations against her husband were first made public, Hillary Clinton stated that the allegations were part of a "vast right-wing conspiracy". She characterized the Lewinsky charges as the latest in a long, organized, collaborative series of charges by Bill's political enemies rather than any wrongdoing by her husband. She later said she had been misled by her husband's initial claims that no affair had taken place. After the evidence of President Clinton's encounters with Lewinsky became incontrovertible, she issued a public statement reaffirming her commitment to their marriage. Privately, she was reported to be furious at him and was unsure if she wanted to remain in the marriage. The White House residence staff noticed a pronounced level of tension between the couple during this period.
Public reaction varied. Women variously admired her strength and poise in private matters that were made public. They sympathized with her as a victim of her husband's insensitive behavior and criticized her as being an enabler to her husband's indiscretions. They also accused her of cynically staying in a failed marriage as a way of keeping or even fostering her own political influence. In the wake of the revelations, her public approval ratings shot upward to around 70 percent, the highest they had ever been. In her 2003 memoir, she would attribute her decision to stay married to "a love that has persisted for decades" and add: "No one understands me better and no one can make me laugh the way Bill does. Even after all these years, he is still the most interesting, energizing, and fully alive person I have ever met."
Issues that surrounded the Lewinsky scandal left Bill Clinton with substantial legal bills. In 2014, Hillary said that she and Bill had left the White House "not only dead broke, but in debt". The statement may have been literally accurate but ignored the potentially enormous earning power of ex-presidents who give paid speeches after leaving office. The couple would also have the ability to secure loans from banks.
In October 2018, Hillary stated in an interview on CBS News Sunday Morning that Bill was right to not resign from office, and that Bill's affair with Lewinsky did not constitute an abuse of power because Lewinsky "was an adult".
Other books and initiatives
Other books published by Clinton when she was the first lady include Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids' Letters to the First Pets (1998) and An Invitation to the White House: At Home with History (2000). In 2001, she wrote an afterword to the children's book Beatrice's Goat.
She was the founding chair of Save America's Treasures, a nationwide effort matching federal funds with private donations to preserve and restore historic items and sites. This included the flag that inspired "The Star-Spangled Banner" and the First Ladies National Historic Site in Canton, Ohio. She also published a weekly syndicated newspaper column titled "Talking It Over" from 1995 to 2000. It focused on her experiences and those of women, children and families she met during her travels around the world.
Traditional duties
She was head of the White House Millennium Council and hosted Millennium Evenings, a series of lectures that discussed futures studies, one of which became the first live simultaneous webcast from the White House. Clinton also created the first White House Sculpture Garden, located in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, which displayed large contemporary American works of art loaned by museums.
In the White House, Clinton placed donated handicrafts of contemporary American artisans, such as pottery and glassware, on rotating display in the state rooms. She oversaw the restoration of the Blue Room to be historically authentic to the period of James Monroe, and the Map Room to how it looked during World War II. Working with Arkansas interior decorator Kaki Hockersmith over an eight-year period, she oversaw extensive, privately funded redecoration efforts around the building, often trying to make it look brighter. These included changing of the Treaty Room and a presidential study to have a 19th-century look. Overall the redecoration brought mixed notices, with Victorian furnishings for the Lincoln Sitting Room being criticized the most. Clinton hosted many large-scale events at the White House, including a state dinner for visiting Chinese dignitaries, a New Year's Eve celebration at the turn of the 21st century, and a state dinner honoring the bicentennial of the White House in November 2000.
U.S. Senate (2001–2009)
2000 U.S. Senate election
When New York's long-serving U.S. senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan announced his retirement in November 1998, several prominent Democratic figures, including Representative Charles Rangel of New York, urged Clinton to run for his open seat in the Senate election of 2000. Once she decided to run, the Clintons purchased a home at 15 Old House Lane in Chappaqua, New York, north of New York City, in September 1999. She became the first wife of the president of the United States to be a candidate for elected office. Initially, Clinton expected to face Rudy Giuliani—the mayor of New York City—as her Republican opponent in the election. Giuliani withdrew from the race in May 2000 after being diagnosed with prostate cancer and matters related to his failing marriage became public. Clinton then faced Rick Lazio, a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives who represented New York's 2nd congressional district. Throughout the campaign, opponents accused Clinton of carpetbagging, because she had never resided in New York State or participated in the state's politics before the 2000 Senate race.
Bill de Blasio was Clinton's campaign manager. She began her drive to the U.S. Senate by visiting all 62 counties in the state, in a "listening tour" of small-group settings. She devoted considerable time in traditionally Republican Upstate New York regions. Clinton vowed to improve the economic situation in those areas, promising to deliver 200,000 jobs to the state over her term. Her plan included tax credits to reward job creation and encourage business investment, especially in the high-tech sector. She called for personal tax cuts for college tuition and long-term care.
The contest drew national attention. During a September debate, Lazio blundered when he seemed to invade Clinton's personal space by trying to get her to sign a fundraising agreement. Their campaigns, along with Giuliani's initial effort, spent a record combined $90 million. Clinton won the election on November 7, 2000, with 55 percent of the vote to Lazio's 43 percent. She was sworn in as U.S. senator on January 3, 2001, and as George W. Bush was still 17 days away from being inaugurated as president after winning the 2000 presidential election, that meant from January 3–20, she simultaneously held the titles of First Lady and Senator – a first in U.S. history.
Publisher Simon & Schuster paid Clinton a near-record advance of $8 million in December 2000 for her autobiography, released in 2003, as Living History.
First term
Because Bill Clinton's term as president did not end until 17 days after she was sworn in, upon entering the Senate, Clinton became the first and so far only first lady to serve as a senator and first lady concurrently. Clinton maintained a low public profile and built relationships with senators from both parties when she started her term. She forged alliances with religiously inclined senators by becoming a regular participant in the Senate Prayer Breakfast. She sat on five Senate committees: Committee on Budget (2001–02), Committee on Armed Services (2003–09), Committee on Environment and Public Works (2001–09), Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (2001–09) and Special Committee on Aging.
She was also a member of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (2001–09).
Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, Clinton sought to obtain funding for the recovery efforts in New York City and security improvements in her state. Working with New York's senior senator, Chuck Schumer, she was instrumental in securing $21 billion in funding for the World Trade Center site's redevelopment. She subsequently took a leading role in investigating the health issues faced by 9/11 first responders. Clinton voted for the USA Patriot Act in October 2001. In 2005, when the act was up for renewal, she expressed concerns with the USA Patriot Act Reauthorization Conference Report regarding civil liberties. In March 2006, she voted in favor of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 that had gained large majority support.
Clinton strongly supported the 2001 U.S. military action in Afghanistan, saying it was a chance to combat terrorism while improving the lives of Afghan women who suffered under the Taliban government. Clinton voted in favor of the October 2002 Iraq War Resolution, which authorized President George W. Bush to use military force against Iraq.
After the Iraq War began, Clinton made trips to Iraq and Afghanistan to visit American troops stationed there. On a visit to Iraq in February 2005, Clinton noted that the insurgency had failed to disrupt the democratic elections held earlier and that parts of the country were functioning well. Observing that war deployments were draining regular and reserve forces, she co-introduced legislation to increase the size of the regular U.S. Army by 80,000 soldiers to ease the strain. In late 2005, Clinton said that while immediate withdrawal from Iraq would be a mistake, Bush's pledge to stay "until the job is done" was also misguided, as it gave Iraqis "an open-ended invitation not to take care of themselves". Her stance caused frustration among those in the Democratic Party who favored quick withdrawal. Clinton supported retaining and improving health benefits for reservists and lobbied against the closure of several military bases, especially those in New York. She used her position on the Armed Services Committee to forge close relationships with a number of high-ranking military officers. By 2014 and 2015 Clinton had fully reversed herself on the Iraq War Resolution, saying she "got it wrong" and the vote in support had been a "mistake".
Clinton voted against President Bush's two major tax cut packages, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. Simon & Schuster released Living History: The book set a first-week sales record for a nonfiction work, went on to sell more than one million copies in the first month following publication, and was translated into twelve foreign languages. Clinton's audio recording of the book earned her a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album.
Clinton voted against the 2005 confirmation of John Roberts as chief justice of the United States and the 2006 confirmation of Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court, filibustering the latter.
In 2005, Clinton called for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate how hidden sex scenes showed up in the controversial video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Along with senators Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh, she introduced the Family Entertainment Protection Act, intended to protect children from inappropriate content found in video games. In 2004 and 2006, Clinton voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment that sought to prohibit same-sex marriage.
Looking to establish a "progressive infrastructure" to rival that of American conservatism, Clinton played a formative role in conversations that led to the 2003 founding of former Clinton administration chief of staff John Podesta's Center for American Progress, shared aides with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, founded in 2003 and advised the Clintons' former antagonist David Brock's Media Matters for America, created in 2004. Following the 2004 Senate elections, she successfully pushed new Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid to create a Senate war room to handle daily political messaging.
2006 reelection campaign
In November 2004, Clinton announced she would seek a second Senate term. She easily won the Democratic nomination over opposition from antiwar activist Jonathan Tasini. The early frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, withdrew from the contest after several months of poor campaign performance. Clinton's eventual opponent in the general election was Republican candidate John Spencer, a former mayor of Yonkers. Clinton won the election on November 7, 2006, with 67 percent of the vote to Spencer's 31 percent, carrying all but four of New York's sixty-two counties. Her campaign spent $36 million for her reelection, more than any other candidate for Senate in the 2006 elections. Some Democrats criticized her for spending too much in a one-sided contest, while some supporters were concerned she did not leave more funds for a potential presidential bid in 2008. In the following months, she transferred $10 million of her Senate funds toward her presidential campaign.
Second term
Clinton opposed the Iraq War troop surge of 2007, for both military and domestic political reasons (by the following year, she was privately acknowledging the surge had been successful). In March of that year, she voted in favor of a war-spending bill that required President Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq by a deadline; it passed almost completely along party lines but was subsequently vetoed by Bush. In May, a compromise war funding bill that removed withdrawal deadlines but tied funding to progress benchmarks for the Iraqi government passed the Senate by a vote of 80–14 and would be signed by Bush; Clinton was one of those who voted against it. She responded to General David Petraeus's September 2007 Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq by saying, "I think that the reports that you provide to us really require a willing suspension of disbelief."
In March 2007, in response to the dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy, Clinton called on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign. Regarding the high-profile, hotly debated immigration reform bill known as the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, Clinton cast several votes in support of the bill, which eventually failed to gain cloture.
As the financial crisis of 2007–08 reached a peak with the liquidity crisis of September 2008, Clinton supported the proposed bailout of the U.S. financial system, voting in favor of the $700 billion law that created the Troubled Asset Relief Program, saying it represented the interests of the American people. It passed the Senate 74–25.
In 2007, Clinton and Virginia senator Jim Webb called for an investigation into whether the body armor issued to soldiers in Iraq was adequate.
2008 presidential campaign
Clinton had been preparing for a potential candidacy for U.S. president since at least early 2003. On January 20, 2007, she announced via her website the formation of a presidential exploratory committee for the United States presidential election of 2008, stating: "I'm in and I'm in to win." No woman had ever been nominated by a major party for the presidency, and no first lady had ever run for president.
When Bill Clinton became president in 1993, a blind trust was established; in April 2007, the Clintons liquidated the blind trust to avoid the possibility of ethical conflicts or political embarrassments as Hillary undertook her presidential race. Later disclosure statements revealed the couple's worth was now upwards of $50 million. They had earned over $100 million since 2000—most of it coming from Bill's books, speaking engagements and other activities.
Throughout the first half of 2007, Clinton led candidates competing for the Democratic presidential nomination in opinion polls for the election. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former senator John Edwards of North Carolina were her strongest competitors. The biggest threat to her campaign was her past support of the Iraq War, which Obama had opposed from the beginning. Clinton and Obama both set records for early fundraising, swapping the money lead each quarter.
At the end of October, Clinton fared poorly in her debate performance against Obama, Edwards, and her other opponents. Obama's message of change began to resonate with the Democratic electorate better than Clinton's message of experience.
In the first vote of 2008, she placed third in the January3 Iowa Democratic caucus behind Obama and Edwards. Obama gained ground in national polling in the next few days, with all polls predicting a victory for him in the New Hampshire primary. Clinton gained a surprise win there on January 8, narrowly defeating Obama. It was the first time a woman had won a major American party's presidential primary for the purposes of delegate selection. Explanations for Clinton's New Hampshire comeback varied but often centered on her being seen more sympathetically, especially by women, after her eyes welled with tears and her voice broke while responding to a voter's question the day before the election.
The nature of the contest fractured in the next few days. Several remarks by Bill Clinton and other surrogates, and a remark by Hillary Clinton concerning Martin Luther King Jr. and Lyndon B. Johnson, were perceived by many as, accidentally or intentionally, limiting Obama as a racially oriented candidate or otherwise denying the post-racial significance and accomplishments of his campaign. Despite attempts by both Hillary and Obama to downplay the issue, Democratic voting became more polarized as a result, with Clinton losing much of her support among African Americans. She lost by a two-to-one margin to Obama in the January 26, South Carolina primary, setting up, with Edwards soon dropping out, an intense two-person contest for the twenty-two February5 Super Tuesday states. Bill Clinton had made more statements attracting criticism for their perceived racial implications late in the South Carolina campaign, and his role was seen as damaging enough to her that a wave of supporters within and outside of the campaign said the former president "needs to stop". The South Carolina campaign had done lasting damage to Clinton, eroding her support among the Democratic establishment and leading to the prized endorsement of Obama by Ted Kennedy.
On Super Tuesday, Clinton won the largest states, such as California, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, while Obama won more states; they almost evenly split the total popular vote. But Obama was gaining more pledged delegates for his share of the popular vote due to better exploitation of the Democratic proportional allocation rules.
The Clinton campaign had counted on winning the nomination by Super Tuesday and was unprepared financially and logistically for a prolonged effort; lagging in Internet fundraising as Clinton began loaning money to her campaign. There was continuous turmoil within the campaign staff, and she made several top-level personnel changes. Obama won the next eleven February contests across the country, often by large margins and took a significant pledged delegate lead over Clinton. On March 4, Clinton broke the string of losses by winning in Ohio among other places, where her criticism of NAFTA, a major legacy of her husband's presidency, helped in a state where the trade agreement was unpopular. Throughout the campaign, Obama dominated caucuses, for which the Clinton campaign largely ignored and failed to prepare. Obama did well in primaries where African Americans or younger, college-educated, or more affluent voters were heavily represented; Clinton did well in primaries where Hispanics or older, non-college-educated, or working-class white voters predominated. Behind in delegates, Clinton's best hope of winning the nomination came in persuading uncommitted, party-appointed superdelegates.
Following the final primaries on June 3, 2008, Obama had gained enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee. In a speech before her supporters on June 7, Clinton ended her campaign and endorsed Obama. By campaign's end, Clinton had won 1,640 pledged delegates to Obama's 1,763; at the time of the clinching, Clinton had 286 superdelegates to Obama's 395, with those numbers widening to 256 versus 438 once Obama was acknowledged the winner. Clinton and Obama each received over 17 million votes during the nomination process with both breaking the previous record. Clinton was the first woman to run in the primary or caucus of every state and she eclipsed, by a very wide margin, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm's 1972 marks for most votes garnered and delegates won by a woman. Clinton gave a passionate speech supporting Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention and campaigned frequently for him in fall 2008, which concluded with his victory over McCain in the general election on November 4. Clinton's campaign ended up severely in debt; she owed millions of dollars to outside vendors and wrote off the $13 million that she lent it herself. The debt was eventually paid off by the beginning of 2013.
Secretary of State (2009–2013)
Nomination and confirmation
In mid-November 2008, President-elect Obama and Clinton discussed the possibility of her serving as secretary of state in his administration. She was initially quite reluctant, but on November 20 she told Obama she would accept the position. On December 1, President-elect Obama formally announced that Clinton would be his nominee for secretary of state. Clinton said she did not want to leave the Senate, but that the new position represented a "difficult and exciting adventure". As part of the nomination and to relieve concerns of conflict of interest, Bill Clinton agreed to accept several conditions and restrictions regarding his ongoing activities and fundraising efforts for the William J. Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative.
The appointment required a Saxbe fix, passed and signed into law in December 2008. Confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee began on January 13, 2009, a week before the Obama inauguration; two days later, the committee voted 16–1 to approve Clinton. By this time, her public approval rating had reached 65 percent, the highest point since the Lewinsky scandal. On January 21, 2009, Clinton was confirmed in the full Senate by a vote of 94–2. Clinton took the oath of office of secretary of state, resigning from the Senate later that day. She became the first former first lady to be a member of the United States Cabinet.
First half of tenure
Clinton spent her initial days as secretary of state telephoning dozens of world leaders and indicating that U.S. foreign policy would change direction: "We have a lot of damage to repair." She advocated an expanded role in global economic issues for the State Department, and cited the need for an increased U.S. diplomatic presence, especially in Iraq where the Defense Department had conducted diplomatic missions. Clinton announced the most ambitious of her departmental reforms, the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, which establishes specific objectives for the State Department's diplomatic missions abroad; it was modeled after a similar process in the Defense Department that she was familiar with from her time on the Senate Armed Services Committee. The first such review was issued in late 2010. It called for the U.S. leading through "civilian power" as a cost-effective way of responding to international challenges and defusing crises. It also sought to institutionalize goals of empowering women throughout the world. A cause Clinton advocated throughout her tenure was the adoption of cookstoves in the developing world, to foster cleaner and more environmentally sound food preparation and reduce smoke dangers to women.
In a 2009 internal debate regarding the War in Afghanistan, Clinton sided with the military's recommendations for a maximal "Afghanistan surge", recommending 40,000 troops and no public deadline for withdrawal. She prevailed over Vice President Joe Biden's opposition but eventually supported Obama's compromise plan to send an additional 30,000 troops and tie the surge to a timetable for eventual withdrawal.
In March 2009, Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a "reset button" symbolizing U.S. attempts to rebuild ties with that country under its new president, Dmitry Medvedev. The photo op was remembered for a mistranslation into Russian. The policy, which became known as the Russian reset, led to improved cooperation in several areas during Medvedev's time in office. Relations would worsen considerably, however, following Vladimir Putin's return to the position in 2012. In October 2009, on a trip to Switzerland, Clinton's intervention overcame last-minute snags and saved the signing of an historic Turkish–Armenian accord that established diplomatic relations and opened the border between the two long-hostile nations. In Pakistan, she engaged in several unusually blunt discussions with students, talk show hosts and tribal elders, in an attempt to repair the Pakistani image of the U.S. Beginning in 2010, she helped organize a diplomatic isolation and international sanctions regime against Iran, in an effort to force curtailment of that country's nuclear program; this would eventually lead to the multinational Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action being agreed to in 2015.
Clinton and Obama forged a good working relationship without power struggles; she was a team player within the administration and a defender of it to the outside and was careful that neither she nor her husband would upstage the president. Clinton formed an alliance with Secretary of Defense Gates as they shared similar strategic outlooks. Obama and Clinton both approached foreign policy as a largely non-ideological, pragmatic exercise. She met with him weekly but did not have the close, daily relationship that some of her predecessors had had with their presidents; moreover, certain key areas of policymaking were kept inside the White House or Pentagon. Nevertheless, the president had trust in her actions.
In a prepared speech in January 2010, Clinton drew analogies between the Iron Curtain and the free and unfree Internet. Chinese officials reacted negatively towards it. The speech garnered attention as the first time a senior American official had clearly defined the Internet as a key element of American foreign policy.
In July 2010, she visited South Korea, where she and Cheryl Mills worked to convince SAE-A, a large apparel subcontractor, to invest in Haiti despite the company's deep concerns about plans to raise the minimum wage. In the summer of 2010, the South Korean company signed a contract at the US State Department, ensuring that the Caracol Industrial Park would have a key tenant. This was part of the "build back better" program initiated by her husband, named UN Special Envoy to Haiti in 2009 after a tropical storm season caused $1 billion in damages to the island. In January 2011, Clinton traveled to Haiti in order to help pave the way for the election of Michel Martelly.
Second half of tenure
The 2011 Egyptian protests posed the most challenging foreign policy crisis yet for the Obama administration. Clinton's public response quickly evolved from an early assessment that the government of Hosni Mubarak was "stable", to a stance that there needed to be an "orderly transition [to] a democratic participatory government", to a condemnation of violence against the protesters. Obama came to rely upon Clinton's advice, organization and personal connections in the behind-the-scenes response to developments. As Arab Spring protests spread throughout the region, Clinton was at the forefront of a U.S. response that she recognized was sometimes contradictory, backing some regimes while supporting protesters against others.
As the Libyan Civil War took place, Clinton's shift in favor of military intervention aligned her with Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice and National Security Council figure Samantha Power. This was a key turning point in overcoming internal administration opposition from Defense Secretary Gates, security advisor Thomas E. Donilon and counterterrorism advisor John Brennan in gaining the backing for, and Arab and U.N. approval of, the 2011 military intervention in Libya. Secretary Clinton testified to Congress that the administration did not need congressional authorization for its military intervention in Libya, despite objections from some members of both parties that the administration was violating the War Powers Resolution. The State Department's legal advisor argued the same point when the Resolution's 60-day limit for unauthorized wars was passed (a view that prevailed in a legal debate within the Obama administration). Clinton later used U.S. allies and what she called "convening power" to promote unity among the Libyan rebels as they eventually overthrew the Gaddafi regime. The aftermath of the Libyan Civil War saw the country becoming a failed state. The wisdom of the intervention and interpretation of what happened afterward would become the subject of considerable debate.
During April 2011, internal deliberations of the president's innermost circle of advisors over whether to order U.S. special forces to conduct a raid into Pakistan against Osama bin Laden, Clinton was among those who argued in favor, saying the importance of getting bin Laden outweighed the risks to the U.S. relationship with Pakistan. Following the completion of the mission on May2 resulting in bin Laden's death, Clinton played a key role in the administration's decision not to release photographs of the dead al-Qaeda leader. During internal discussions regarding Iraq in 2011, Clinton argued for keeping a residual force of up to 10,000–20,000 U.S. troops there. (All of them ended up being withdrawn after negotiations for a revised U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement failed.)
In a speech before the United Nations Human Rights Council in December 2011, Clinton said that, "Gay rights are human rights", and that the U.S. would advocate for gay rights and legal protections of gay people abroad. The same period saw her overcome internal administration opposition with a direct appeal to Obama and stage the first visit to Burma by a U.S. secretary of state since 1955. She met with Burmese leaders as well as opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and sought to support the 2011 Burmese democratic reforms. She also said the 21st century would be "America's Pacific century", a declaration that was part of the Obama administration's "pivot to Asia".
During the Syrian Civil War, Clinton and the Obama administration initially sought to persuade Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to engage popular demonstrations with reform. As government violence allegedly rose in August 2011, they called for him to resign from the presidency. The administration joined several countries in delivering non-lethal assistance to so-called rebels opposed to the Assad government and humanitarian groups working in Syria. During mid-2012, Clinton formed a plan with CIA Director David Petraeus to further strengthen the opposition by arming and training vetted groups of Syrian rebels. The proposal was rejected by White House officials who were reluctant to become entangled in the conflict, fearing that extremists hidden among the rebels might turn the weapons against other targets.
In December 2012, Clinton was hospitalized for a few days for treatment of a blood clot in her right transverse venous sinus. Her doctors had discovered the clot during a follow-up examination for a concussion she had sustained when she fainted and fell nearly three weeks earlier, as a result of severe dehydration from a viral intestinal ailment acquired during a trip to Europe. The clot, which caused no immediate neurological injury, was treated with anticoagulant medication, and her doctors have said she has made a full recovery.
Overall themes
Throughout her time in office (and mentioned in her final speech concluding it), Clinton viewed "smart power" as the strategy for asserting U.S. leadership and values. In a world of varied threats, weakened central governments and increasingly important nongovernmental entities, smart power combined military hard power with diplomacy and U.S. soft power capacities in global economics, development aid, technology, creativity and human rights advocacy. As such, she became the first secretary of state to methodically implement the smart power approach. In debates over use of military force, she was generally one of the more hawkish voices in the administration. In August 2011 she hailed the ongoing multinational military intervention in Libya and the initial U.S. response towards the Syrian Civil War as examples of smart power in action.
Clinton greatly expanded the State Department's use of social media, including Facebook and Twitter, to get its message out and to help empower citizens of foreign countries vis-à-vis their governments.
And in the Mideast turmoil, Clinton particularly saw an opportunity to advance one of the central themes of her tenure, the empowerment and welfare of women and girls worldwide. Moreover, in a formulation that became known as the "Hillary Doctrine", she viewed women's rights as critical for U.S. security interests, due to a link between the level of violence against women and gender inequality within a state, and the instability and challenge to international security of that state. In turn, there was a trend of women around the world finding more opportunities, and in some cases feeling safer, as the result of her actions and visibility.
Clinton visited 112 countries during her tenure, making her the most widely traveled secretary of state (Time magazine wrote that "Clinton's endurance is legendary".) The first secretary of state to visit countries like Togo and East Timor, she believed that in-person visits were more important than ever in the virtual age. As early as March 2011, she indicated she was not interested in serving a second term as secretary of state should Obama be re-elected in 2012; in December 2012, following that re-election, Obama nominated Senator John Kerry to be Clinton's successor. Her last day as secretary of state was February 1, 2013. Upon her departure, analysts commented that Clinton's tenure did not bring any signature diplomatic breakthroughs as some other secretaries of state had accomplished, and highlighted her focus on goals she thought were less tangible but would have more lasting effect. She has also been criticized for accepting millions in dollars in donations from foreign governments to the Clinton Foundation during her tenure as Secretary of State.
Benghazi attack and subsequent hearings
On September 11, 2012, the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked, resulting in the deaths of the U.S. Ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. The attack, questions surrounding the security of the U.S. consulate, and the varying explanations given afterward by administration officials for what had happened became politically controversial in the U.S. On October 15, Clinton took responsibility for the question of security lapses saying the differing explanations were due to the inevitable fog of war confusion after such events.
On December 19, a panel led by Thomas R. Pickering and Michael Mullen issued its report on the matter. It was sharply critical of State Department officials in Washington for ignoring requests for more guards and safety upgrades and for failing to adapt security procedures to a deteriorating security environment. It focused its criticism on the department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security and Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs; four State Department officials at the assistant secretary level and below were removed from their posts as a consequence. Clinton said she accepted the conclusions of the report and that changes were underway to implement its suggested recommendations.
Clinton gave testimony to two congressional foreign affairs committees on January 23, 2013, regarding the Benghazi attack. She defended her actions in response to the incident, and while still accepting formal responsibility, said she had had no direct role in specific discussions beforehand regarding consulate security. Congressional Republicans challenged her on several points, to which she responded. In particular, after persistent questioning about whether or not the administration had issued inaccurate "talking points" after the attack, Clinton responded with the much-quoted rejoinder, "With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they'd they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator."
In November 2014, the House Intelligence Committee issued a report that concluded there had been no wrongdoing in the administration's response to the attack.
The House Select Committee on Benghazi was created in May 2014 and conducted a two-year investigation related to the 2012 attack. Its actions were often seen through the prism of domestic politics. This was especially the case in September 2015, when House majority leader Kevin McCarthy credited the Benghazi hearings with lowering Clinton's poll numbers, thereby contradicting the Republicans' previous talking points on the investigation. On October 22, 2015, Clinton testified at an all-day and nighttime session before the committee. The hearing included many heated exchanges between committee members and Clinton and among the committee members themselves. Clinton was widely seen as emerging largely unscathed from the hearing, because of what the media perceived as a calm and unfazed demeanor and a lengthy, meandering, repetitive line of questioning from the committee. The committee issued competing final reports in June 2016 that broke along partisan lines. The Republican report offered some new details about the attack but no new evidence of culpability by Clinton.
Email controversy
A controversy arose in March 2015, when the State Department's inspector general revealed that Clinton had used personal email accounts on a non-government, privately maintained server exclusively—instead of email accounts maintained on federal government servers—when conducting official business during her tenure as secretary of state. Some experts, officials, members of Congress and political opponents contended that her use of private messaging system software and a private server violated State Department protocols and procedures, and federal laws and regulations governing recordkeeping requirements. The controversy occurred against the backdrop of Clinton's 2016 presidential election campaign and hearings held by the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
In a joint statement released on July 15, 2015, the inspector general of the State Department and the inspector general of the intelligence community said their review of the emails found information that was classified when sent, remained so at the time of their inspection and "never should have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system". They also stated unequivocally this classified information should never have been stored outside of secure government computer systems. Clinton had said over a period of months that she kept no classified information on the private server that she set up in her house. Government policy, reiterated in the nondisclosure agreement signed by Clinton as part of gaining her security clearance, is that sensitive information can be considered as classified even if not marked as such. After allegations were raised that some of the emails in question fell into the so-called "born classified" category, an FBI probe was initiated regarding how classified information was handled on the Clinton server. The New York Times reported in February 2016 that nearly 2,100 emails stored on Clinton's server were retroactively marked classified by the State Department. Additionally, the intelligence community's inspector general wrote Congress to say that some of the emails "contained classified State Department information when originated". In May 2016, the inspector general of the State Department criticized her use of a private email server while secretary of state, stating that she had not requested permission for this and would not have received it if she had asked.
Clinton maintained she did not send or receive any emails from her personal server that were confidential at the time they were sent. In a Democratic debate with Bernie Sanders on February 4, 2016, Clinton said, "I never sent or received any classified material—they are retroactively classifying it." On July 2, 2016, Clinton stated: "Let me repeat what I have repeated for many months now, I never received nor sent any material that was marked classified."
On July 5, 2016, the FBI concluded its investigation. In a statement, FBI director James Comey said:
110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were "up-classified" to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent.
Out of 30,000, three emails were found to be marked as classified, although they lacked classified headers and were marked only with a small "c" in parentheses, described as "portion markings" by Comey. He also said it was possible Clinton was not "technically sophisticated" enough to understand what the three classified markings meant. The probe found Clinton used her personal email extensively while outside the United States, both sending and receiving work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Comey acknowledged that it was "possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal email account". He added that "[although] we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information". Nevertheless, Comey asserted that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring criminal charges in this case, despite the existence of "potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information". The FBI recommended that the Justice Department decline to prosecute. On July 6, 2016, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch—who had met privately with Bill Clinton on June 27—confirmed that the probe into Clinton's use of private email servers would be closed without criminal charges.
On October 28, 2016, Comey notified Congress that the FBI had begun looking into newly discovered Clinton emails. Law enforcement officials said that while investigating allegedly illicit text messages from Anthony Weiner, husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin, to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina, they discovered emails related to Clinton's private server on a laptop computer belonging to Weiner. On November 6, Comey notified Congress that the FBI had not changed the conclusion it had reached in July. The notification was later cited by Clinton as a factor in her loss in the 2016 presidential election. The emails controversy received more media coverage than any other topic during the 2016 presidential election.
In September 2019, the State Department finished its internal review into 33,000 emails that Clinton had turned over. The investigation that began in 2016 found 588 violations of security procedures and found that Clinton's use of a personal email server increased the risk of compromising State Department information. In 91 cases, the culpability of sending classified information could be attributed to 38 people, but the review concluded there was "no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information".
Clinton Foundation, Hard Choices, and speeches
When Clinton left the State Department, she returned to private life for the first time in thirty years. She and her daughter joined her husband as named members of the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation in 2013. There she focused on early childhood development efforts, including an initiative called Too Small to Fail and a $600 million initiative to encourage the enrollment of girls in secondary schools worldwide, led by former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
In 2014, Clinton published a second memoir, Hard Choices, which focused on her time as secretary of state. , the book has sold about 280,000 copies.
Clinton also led the No Ceilings: The Full Participation Project, a partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to gather and study data on the progress of women and girls around the world since the Beijing conference in 1995; its March 2015 report said that while "There has never been a better time in history to be born a woman ... this data shows just how far we still have to go." The foundation began accepting new donations from foreign governments, which it had stopped doing while she was secretary of state. However, even though the Clinton Foundation had stopped taking donations from foreign governments, they continued to take large donations from foreign citizens who were sometimes linked to their governments.
She began work on another volume of memoirs and made appearances on the paid speaking circuit. There she received $200,000–225,000 per engagement, often appearing before Wall Street firms or at business conventions. She also made some unpaid speeches on behalf of the foundation. For the fifteen months ending in March 2015, Clinton earned over $11 million from her speeches. For the overall period 2007–14, the Clintons earned almost $141 million, paid some $56 million in federal and state taxes and donated about $15 million to charity. , she was estimated to be worth over $30 million on her own, or $45–53 million with her husband.
Clinton resigned from the board of the foundation in April 2015, when she began her presidential campaign. The foundation said it would accept new foreign governmental donations from six Western nations only.
2016 presidential campaign
On April 12, 2015, Clinton formally announced her candidacy for the presidency in the 2016 election. She had a campaign-in-waiting already in place, including a large donor network, experienced operatives and the Ready for Hillary and Priorities USA Action political action committees and other infrastructure. Prior to her campaign, Clinton had claimed in an interview on NDTV in May 2012 that she would not seek the presidency again, but later wrote in her 2014 autobiography Hard Choices that she had not decided. The campaign's headquarters were established in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Her campaign focused on: raising middle class incomes, establishing universal preschool, making college more affordable and improving the Affordable Care Act. Initially considered a prohibitive favorite to win the Democratic nomination, Clinton faced an unexpectedly strong challenge from democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. His longtime stance against the influence of corporations and the wealthy in American politics resonated with a dissatisfied citizenry troubled by the effects of income inequality in the U.S. and contrasted with Clinton's Wall Street ties.
In the initial contest of the primaries season, Clinton only very narrowly won the Iowa Democratic caucuses, held February 1, over an increasingly popular Sanders — the first woman to win them. In the first primary, held in New Hampshire on February 9, she lost to Sanders by a wide margin. Sanders was an increasing threat in the next contest, the Nevada caucuses on February 20, but Clinton managed a five-percentage-point win, aided by final-days campaigning among casino workers. Clinton followed that with a lopsided victory in the South Carolina primary on February 27. These two victories stabilized her campaign and showed an avoidance of the management turmoil that harmed her 2008 effort.
On March 1 Super Tuesday, Clinton won seven of eleven contests, including a string of dominating victories across the South buoyed, as in South Carolina, by African-American voters. She opened up a significant lead in pledged delegates over Sanders. She maintained this delegate lead across subsequent contests during the primary season, with a consistent pattern throughout. Sanders did better among younger, whiter, more rural and more liberal voters and states that held caucuses or where eligibility was open to independents. Clinton did better among older, black and Hispanic voter populations, and in states that held primaries or where eligibility was restricted to registered Democrats.
By June 5, 2016, she had earned enough pledged delegates and supportive superdelegates for the media to consider her the presumptive nominee. On June 7, after winning most of the states in the final major round of primaries, Clinton held a victory rally in Brooklyn becoming the first woman to claim the status of presumptive nominee for a major American political party. By campaign's end, Clinton had won 2,219 pledged delegates to Sanders' 1,832; with an estimated 594 superdelegates compared to Sanders' 47. She received almost 17 million votes during the nominating process, as opposed to Sanders' 13 million.
Clinton was formally nominated at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on July 26, 2016, becoming the first woman to be nominated for president by a major U.S. political party. Her choice of vice presidential running mate, Senator Tim Kaine, was nominated by the convention the following day. Her opponents in the general election included Republican Donald Trump, Libertarian Gary Johnson and Jill Stein of the Green Party. Around the time of the convention, WikiLeaks released emails that suggested the DNC and the Clinton campaign tilted the primary in Clinton's favor.
Clinton held a significant lead in national polls over Trump throughout most of 2016. In early July, Trump and Clinton were tied in major polls following the FBI's conclusion of its investigation into her emails. FBI Director James Comey concluded Clinton had been "extremely careless" in her handling of classified government material. In late July, Trump gained his first lead over Clinton in major polls following a three to four percentage point convention bounce at the Republican National Convention. This was in line with the average bounce in conventions since 2004, although it was toward the low side by historical standards. Following Clinton's seven percentage point convention bounce at the Democratic National Convention, she regained a significant lead in national polls at the start of August. In fall 2016, Clinton and Tim Kaine published Stronger Together, which outlined their vision for the United States.
Clinton was defeated by Donald Trump in the November 8, 2016, presidential election. By the early morning hours of November 9, Trump had received 279 projected electoral college votes, with 270 needed to win; media sources proclaimed him the winner. Clinton then phoned Trump to concede and to congratulate him on his victory, whereupon Trump gave his victory speech. The next morning Clinton made a public concession speech in which she acknowledged the pain of her loss, but called on her supporters to accept Trump as their next president, saying: "We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead." Though Clinton lost the election by capturing only 232 electoral votes to Trump's 306, she won the popular vote by more than 2.8 million votes, or 2.1% of the voter base. She is the fifth presidential candidate in U.S. history to win the popular vote but lose the election. She won the most votes of any candidate who did not take office and the third-most votes of any candidate in history, though she did not have the greatest percentage win of a losing candidate. (Andrew Jackson won the popular vote by 10.4% but lost to John Quincy Adams).
On December 19, 2016, when electors formally voted, Clinton lost five of her initial 232 votes due to faithless electors, with three of her Washington votes being cast instead for Colin Powell, one being cast for Faith Spotted Eagle, and one in Hawaii being cast for Bernie Sanders.
Post-2016 election activities
In their respective roles as a former president and a former first lady, Bill and Hillary Clinton attended the inauguration of Donald Trump with their daughter, Chelsea. The morning of the inauguration Clinton wrote on her Twitter account, "I'm here today to honor our democracy & its enduring values, I will never stop believing in our country & its future."
In October 2017, Clinton was awarded an honorary doctorate from Swansea University, whose College of Law was renamed the Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law in her honor. In October 2018, Hillary and Bill Clinton announced plans for a 13-city speaking tour in various cities in the United States and Canada between November 2018 and May 2019. Hillary was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in law (LLD) at Queen's University Belfast on October 10, 2018, after giving a speech on Northern Ireland and the impacts of Brexit at Whitla Hall, Belfast. In June 2018, Trinity College Dublin awarded her with an honorary doctorate (LLD). In September 2021 she was awarded an honorary doctorate of civil law by the University of Oxford.
A package that contained a pipe bomb was sent to Clinton's home in Washington, D.C., on October 24, 2018. It was intercepted by the Secret Service. Similar packages were sent to several other Democratic leaders and to CNN.
Political actions
Clinton delivered a St. Patrick's Day speech in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on March 17, 2017. In it, alluding to reports that she had being seen taking walks in the woods around Chappaqua following her loss in the presidential election, Clinton indicated her readiness to emerge from "the woods" and become politically active again. However, the following month she confirmed she would not seek public office again. She reiterated her comments in March 2019 and stated she would not run for president in 2020.
In May 2017, Clinton announced the formation of Onward Together, a new political action committee that she wrote is "dedicated to advancing the progressive vision that earned nearly 66 million votes in the last election". During 2017, she spoke out on a number of occasions against Republican plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with the American Health Care Act, which she called "a disastrous bill" and a "shameful failure of policy & morality by GOP". In response to the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack, Clinton said the U.S. should take out Bashar al-Assad's airfields and thereby "prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them".
On April 28, 2020, Clinton endorsed the presumptive Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, for president in the 2020 election and she addressed the 2020 Democratic National Convention in August. On October 28, 2020, Clinton announced that she was on the 2020 Democratic slate of electors for the state of New York. After Biden and Kamala Harris won New York State, thereby electing the Democratic elector slate, Clinton and her husband served as members of the 2020 United States Electoral College and cast the first of the state's electoral votes for Biden and Harris.
Comments on President Trump
On May 2, 2017, Clinton said Trump's use of Twitter "doesn't work" when pursuing important negotiations. "Kim Jong Un ... [is] always interested in trying to get Americans to come to negotiate to elevate their status and their position". Negotiations with North Korea should not take place without "a broader strategic framework to try to get China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, to put the kind of pressure on the regime that will finally bring them to the negotiating table with some kind of realistic prospect for change." While delivering the commencement speech at her alma mater Wellesley College on May 26, Clinton asserted President Trump's 2018 budget proposal was "a con" for underfunding domestic programs. On June 1, when President Trump announced the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, Clinton tweeted that it was a "historic mistake".
On September 29, 2019, in an interview with CBS News Sunday Morning, Clinton described Trump as a "threat" to the country's standing in the world; an "illegitimate president", despite having won the election; and a "corrupt human tornado".
Comments on politics during the Biden administration
In March 2021, Clinton voiced her support for the United States Senate to abolish the Senate filibuster if it proves necessary to do so in order to pass voting rights legislation. Clinton called the Senate filibuster "another Jim Crow relic".
Writing career
Clinton's third memoir, What Happened, an account of her loss in the 2016 election, was released on September 12, 2017. A book tour and a series of interviews and personal appearances were arranged for the launch. What Happened sold 300,000 copies in its first week, less than her 2003 memoir, Living History, but triple the first-week sales of her previous memoir, 2014's Hard Choices. Simon & Schuster announced that What Happened had sold more e-books in its first-week than any nonfiction e-book since 2010. As of December 10, 2017, the book had sold 448,947 hardcover copies.
An announcement was made in February 2017 that efforts were under way to render her 1996 book It Takes a Village as a picture book. Marla Frazee, a two-time winner of the Caldecott Medal, was announced as the illustrator. Clinton had worked on it with Frazee during her 2016 presidential election campaign. The result was published on the same day of publication as What Happened. The book is aimed at preschool-aged children, although a few messages are more likely better understood by adults.
In October 2019, The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience, a book Clinton co-wrote with her daughter Chelsea, was published. In February 2021, Clinton announced that she was co-writing her first fiction book with Louise Penny. The book, a political mystery thriller, is titled State of Terror and was released in October 2021.
Clinton has also written occasional op-eds in the years since her 2016 election defeat. In September 2018, The Atlantic published an article written by Clinton titled "American Democracy Is In Crisis". In April 2019, The Washington Post published an op-ed by Clinton calling for congress to be, "deliberate, fair, and fearless" in responding to the Mueller Report. In their November/December 2020 issue, Foreign Affairs published a piece by Clinton titled "A National Security Reckoning". On January 11, 2021, following the January 6 storming of the United States Capitol, an op-ed by Clinton titled "Trump should be impeached. But that alone won’t remove white supremacy from America." was published in The Washington Post. In July 2021, Democracy Docket published an op-ed by Clinton on Republican efforts to restrict voting following the 2020 presidential election.
Media ventures
Clinton collaborated with director Nanette Burstein on the documentary film Hillary, which was released on Hulu in March 2020.
On September 29, 2020, Clinton launched an interview podcast in collaboration with iHeartRadio titled You and Me Both.
Clinton is slated to be an executive producer of a drama series about the fight for women's suffrage in the United States titled The Woman's Hour. The series, based upon Elaine Weiss' book of the same name, will air on The CW.
Chancellor of Queen's University Belfast
On January 2, 2020, it was announced that Clinton would take up the position of Chancellor at Queen's University Belfast. Clinton became the 11th and first female chancellor of the university, filling the position that had been vacant since 2018 after the death of her predecessor, Thomas J. Moran. Commenting on taking up the position, she said that "the university is making waves internationally for its research and impact and I am proud to be an ambassador and help grow its reputation for excellence". Queen's Pro-Chancellor Stephen Prenter said that Clinton on her appointment "will be an incredible advocate for Queen's" who can act as an "inspirational role model". However, her inauguration was protested by some students.
Political positions
Using her Senate votes, several organizations have attempted to measure Clinton's place on the political spectrum scientifically. National Journals 2004 study of roll-call votes assigned Clinton a rating of 30 on the political spectrum, relative to the Senate at the time, with a rating of1 being most liberal and 100 being most conservative. National Journals subsequent rankings placed her as the 32nd-most liberal senator in 2006 and 16th-most liberal senator in 2007. A 2004 analysis by political scientists Joshua D. Clinton of Princeton University and Simon Jackman and Doug Rivers of Stanford University found her likely to be the sixth-to-eighth-most liberal senator. The Almanac of American Politics, edited by Michael Barone and Richard E. Cohen, rated her votes from 2003 through 2006 as liberal or conservative, with 100 as the highest rating, in three areas: Economic, Social and Foreign. Averaged for the four years, the ratings are: Economic = 75 liberal, 23 conservative; Social = 83 liberal, 6 conservative; Foreign = 66 liberal, 30 conservative. Total average = 75 liberal, 20 conservative. According to FiveThirtyEights measure of political ideology, "Clinton was one of the most liberal members during her time in the Senate."
Organizations have also attempted to provide more recent assessments of Clinton after she reentered elective politics in 2015. Based on her stated positions from the 1990s to the present, On the Issues places her in the "Left Liberal" region on their two-dimensional grid of social and economic ideologies, with a social score of 80 on a scale of zero more-restrictive to 100 less-government stances, with an economic score of ten on a scale of zero more-restrictive to 100 less-government stances. Crowdpac, which does a data aggregation of campaign contributions, votes and speeches, gives her a 6.5L rating on a one-dimensional left-right scale from 10L (most liberal) to 10C (most conservative).
In March 2016, Clinton laid out a detailed economic plan, which The New York Times called "optimistic" and "wide-ranging". Basing her economic philosophy on inclusive capitalism, Clinton proposed a "clawback" that would rescind tax relief and other benefits for companies that move jobs overseas; providing incentives for companies that share profits with employees, communities and the environment, rather than focusing on short-term profits to increase stock value and rewarding shareholders; increasing collective bargaining rights; and placing an "exit tax" on companies that move their headquarters out of America to pay a lower tax rate overseas. Clinton currently opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), though previously described it as "the gold standard" of trade deals. She supports the U.S. Export-Import Bank and holds that "any trade deal has to produce jobs and raise wages and increase prosperity and protect our security". As senator (2001–2009), her record on trade was mixed; she voted in favor of some trade agreements but not others.
Given the climate of unlimited campaign contributions following the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, Clinton called for a constitutional amendment to limit "unaccountable money" in politics. In July 2016, she "committed" to introducing a U.S. constitutional amendment that would result in overturning the 2010 Citizens United decision. On December 7, 2015, Clinton presented her detailed plans for regulating Wall Street financial activities in the New York Times.
Accepting the scientific consensus on climate change, Clinton supports cap-and-trade, and opposed the Keystone XL pipeline. She supported "equal pay for equal work", to address current shortfalls in how much women are paid to do the same jobs men do. Clinton has explicitly focused on family issues and supports universal preschool. These programs would be funded by proposing tax increases on the wealthy, including a "fair share surcharge". Clinton supported the Affordable Care Act and would have added a "public option" that competed with private insurers and enabled people "50 or 55 and up" to buy into Medicare.
On LGBT rights, she supports the right to same-sex marriage, a position that has changed throughout her political career. In 2000, she was against such marriages altogether. In 2006, she said only that she would support a state's decision to permit same-sex marriages, but opposed federally amending the Constitution to permit same-sex marriage. While running for president in 2007, she again reiterated her opposition to same-sex marriage, although expressed her support of civil unions. 2013 marked the first time that Clinton expressed support for a national right to same-sex marriage. In 2000, she was the first spouse of a US president to march in an LGBT pride parade. In 2016, she was the first major-party presidential candidate ever to write an op-ed for an LGBT newspaper (Philadelphia Gay News).
Clinton held that allowing undocumented immigrants to have a path to citizenship "s at its heart a family issue", and expressed support for Obama's Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) program, which would allow up to five million undocumented immigrants to gain deferral of deportation and authorization to legally work in the United States. However, in 2014, Clinton stated that unaccompanied children crossing the border "should be sent back." She opposed and criticized Trump's call to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States.
Expressing support for Common Core she said, "The really unfortunate argument that's been going on around Common Core, it's very painful because the Common Core started off as a bipartisan effort. It was actually nonpartisan. It wasn't politicized ... Iowa has had a testing system based on a core curriculum for a really long time. And you see the value of it, you understand why that helps you organize your whole education system. And a lot of states unfortunately haven't had that and so don't understand the value of a core, in this sense a Common Core."
On foreign affairs, Clinton voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq in October 2002, a vote she later "regretted". She favored arming Syria's rebel fighters in 2012 and has called for the removal of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. She supported the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and the NATO-led military intervention in Libya to oust former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Clinton is in favor of maintaining American influence in the Middle East. She has told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, "America can't ever be neutral when it comes to Israel's security and survival." Clinton expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2006 Lebanon War and 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In a 2017 interview, after a poison gas attack in Syria, Clinton said that she had favored more aggressive action against Bashar al-Assad: "I think we should have been more willing to confront Assad. I really believe we should have and still should take out his air fields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them."
In 2000, Clinton advocated for the elimination of the electoral college. She promised to co-sponsor legislation that would abolish it, resulting in the direct election of the president. She reiterated her position against the Electoral College as she cast her vote as an elector in the electoral college for Joe Biden in 2020.
Religious views
Clinton has been a lifelong Methodist, and has been part of United Methodist Church congregations throughout her life. She has publicly discussed her Christian faith on several occasions, although seldom while campaigning. Professor Paul Kengor, author of God and Hillary Clinton: A Spiritual Life, has suggested that Clinton's political positions are rooted in her faith. She often expresses a maxim often attributed to John Wesley: "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can."
Cultural and political image
Over a hundred books and scholarly works have been written about Clinton. A 2006 survey by the New York Observer found "a virtual cottage industry" of "anti-Clinton literature" put out by Regnery Publishing and other conservative imprints. Some titles include Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House, Hillary's Scheme: Inside the Next Clinton's Ruthless Agenda to Take the White House and Can She Be Stopped?: Hillary Clinton Will Be the Next President of the United States Unless ... Books praising Clinton did not sell nearly as well (other than her memoirs and those of her husband). When she ran for Senate in 2000, several fundraising groups such as Save Our Senate and the Emergency Committee to Stop Hillary Rodham Clinton sprang up to oppose her. Don Van Natta found that Republican and conservative groups viewed her as a reliable "bogeyman" to mention in fundraising letters, on a par with Ted Kennedy, and the equivalent of Democratic and liberal appeals mentioning Newt Gingrich.
Clinton has also been featured in the media and popular culture in a wide spectrum of perspectives. In 1995, writer Todd S. Purdum of The New York Times characterized Clinton as a Rorschach test, an assessment echoed at the time by feminist writer and activist Betty Friedan, who said, "Coverage of Hillary Clinton is a massive Rorschach test of the evolution of women in our society." She has been the subject of many satirical impressions on Saturday Night Live, beginning with her time as the first lady. She has made guest appearances on the show herself, in 2008 and in 2015, to face-off with her doppelgängers. Jonathan Mann wrote songs about her including "The Hillary Shimmy Song", which went viral.
She has often been described in the popular media as a polarizing figure, though some argue otherwise. In the early stages of her 2008 presidential campaign, a Time magazine cover showed a large picture of her with two checkboxes labeled "Love Her", "Hate Her". Mother Jones titled its profile of her "Harpy, Hero, Heretic: Hillary". Following Clinton's "choked up moment" and related incidents in the run-up to the January 2008 New Hampshire primary, both The New York Times and Newsweek found that discussion of gender's role in the campaign had moved into the national political discourse. Newsweek editor Jon Meacham summed up the relationship between Clinton and the American public by saying the New Hampshire events, "brought an odd truth to light: though Hillary Rodham Clinton has been on the periphery or in the middle of national life for decades ... she is one of the most recognizable but least understood figures in American politics".
Once she became secretary of state, Clinton's image seemed to improve dramatically among the American public and become one of a respected world figure. Her favorability ratings dropped, however, after she left office and began to be viewed in the context of partisan politics once more. By September 2015, with her 2016 presidential campaign underway and beset by continued reports regarding her private email usage at the State Department, her ratings had slumped to some of her lowest levels ever. In March 2016, she acknowledged that: "I'm not a natural politician, in case you haven't noticed."
Electoral history
2000 Senate election
2006 Senate election
2008 presidential election
2016 presidential election
Books and recordings
It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us (1996).Clinton received the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 1997 for the book's audio recording.
Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids' Letters to the First Pets (1998)
An Invitation to the White House: At Home with History (2000)
Living History (Simon & Schuster, 2003). The book set a first-week sales record for a nonfiction work, went on to sell more than one million copies in the first month following publication, and was translated into twelve foreign languages.
Hard Choices (2014). The book has sold about 280,000 copies.
With Tim Kaine, Stronger Together (2016)
What Happened (Simon & Schuster, 2017, in print, e-book, and audio read by the author)
With Chelsea Clinton, The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience (Simon & Schuster, 2019, in print, e-book, and audio)
With Louise Penny, State of Terror is set to release on October 12, 2021, and be published by Simon & Schuster & St. Martin's Press.
Ancestry
See also
2016 United States presidential election timeline
List of female United States Cabinet members
Women in the United States Senate
Notes
References
Citations
Sources cited
External links
Official
Clinton Foundation
State Department Biography
Media coverage
Other
Hillary Clinton's file at Politifact
1947 births
Living people
2020 United States presidential electors
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American politicians
20th-century American women lawyers
20th-century American women politicians
20th-century American women writers
20th-century Methodists
21st-century American diplomats
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American politicians
21st-century American women politicians
21st-century American women writers
21st-century Methodists
Activists from New York (state)
American autobiographers
American feminists
American legal writers
American memoirists
American people of Dutch descent
American people of English descent
American people of French-Canadian descent
American people of Scottish descent
American people of Welsh descent
American political writers
American United Methodists
American women activists
American women diplomats
American diplomats
American women non-fiction writers
American women's rights activists
American women academics
Arkansas Democrats
Arkansas lawyers
Articles containing video clips
Candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 2016 United States presidential election
Chancellors of Queen's University Belfast
Children's rights activists
Bill Clinton
College Republicans
Democratic Party (United States) presidential nominees
Democratic Party United States senators from New York (state)
Directors of Walmart
Family of Bill and Hillary Clinton
Female candidates for President of the United States
Female foreign ministers
Female United States senators
First Ladies and Gentlemen of Arkansas
First Ladies of the United States
Grammy Award winners
Grand Crosses of the Order of Lakandula
Illinois Republicans
Intellectual property lawyers
New York (state) Democrats
Obama administration cabinet members
People from Park Ridge, Illinois
Politicians from Little Rock, Arkansas
Politicians from Westchester County, New York
Recipients of the Four Freedoms Award
Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 1st Class
Rodham family
United States Secretaries of State
United States senators from New York (state)
University of Arkansas School of Law faculty
Wellesley College alumni
Women autobiographers
Women heads of universities and colleges
Women in New York (state) politics
Women members of the Cabinet of the United States
Writers from New York (state)
Yale Law School alumni | false | [
"Eileen Kennedy-Moore is a Princeton, New Jersey-based clinical psychologist and the author or co-author of books for parents, children, and mental health professionals. She serves on the advisory board for Parents magazine and blogs about children's feelings and friendships on PsychologyToday.com. She has also blogged for PBS Parents and U.S. News & World Report. She is the creator of Dr. Friendtastic, a cartoon superhero offering friendship advice for kids.\n\nEducation\nKennedy-Moore earned her bachelor's degree at Northwestern University and her masters and doctorate at Stony Brook University (State University of New York at Stony Brook). Her academic publications include articles in Review of General Psychology, Motivation and Emotion, and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.\n\nBooks and videos\nExpressing Emotion: Myths, Realities and Therapeutic Strategies, . Kennedy-Moore, E. & Watson, J. C. (1999). Guilford Press (for mental health professionals)\nThe Unwritten Rules of Friendship: Simple Strategies to Help Your Children Make Friends, . Elman, N. M. & Kennedy-Moore, E. (2003), Little, Brown (for parents)\nWhat About Me? 12 Ways to Get Your Parents' Attention (Without Hitting Your Sister), . Kennedy-Moore, E. & Katayama, M. (illus.) (2005), Parenting Press (for children ages 4–6)\nSmart Parenting for Smart Kids: Nurturing Your Child's True Potential, . Kennedy-Moore, E. & Lowenthal, M. (2011). Jossey-Bass/Wiley (for parents)\nRaising Emotionally and Socially Healthy Kids, , . Kennedy-Moore, E. (2014)\nGrowing Friendships: A Kid's Guide to Making and Keeping Friends Kennedy-Moore, E. & McLaughlin, C. (2017), Beyond Words/Aladdin/Simon & Schuster (for elementary school children)\nWhat's My Child Thinking? Practical Psychology for Modern Parents, For Ages 2-7 Kennedy-Moore, E. (contributing editor) & Carey, T. (2019), Dorling Kindersley (for parents)\nKid Confidence: Help Your Child Make Friends, Build Resilience, and Develop Real Self-Esteem Kennedy-Moore, E. (2019), New Harbinger (for parents). The book received a starred review from Kirkus and was selected as a \"favorite\" book of 2019 by Berkeley's Greater Good. \nGrowing Friendships During the Coronavirus Pandemic: A Kids' Guide to Staying Close to Friends While Being Apart Kennedy-Moore, E. & McLaughlin, C. (2020), Beyond Words (for elementary school children)\n\nReferences \n\nAmerican psychologists\nAmerican women psychologists\nNorthwestern University alumni\nStony Brook University alumni\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people\n21st-century American women",
"Sreedhanya Suresh is the First Tribal Woman from Kerala to have cleared Civil Services Examination conducted by Union Public Service Commission, India. She secured an all India Rank of 410 in the 2018 UPSC Civil Services Examination.\n\nBackground\nSreedhanya Suresh belong to Kurichiya tribal family in Wayanad, Kerala. Her parents, Suresh and Kamala are daily wage labourers who trade in bows and arrows in the local market. As a child growing up in an unfinished house, she did not have access to the basic amenities of life. She grew up in the Ambalkkolly tribal settlement in Wayanad district. A leaking roof and even clothes lined up to make do for walls in the house do not deter Sreedhanya from her being a good student during her schooldays. In spite of all the difficulties and poverty, education remained a priority and this proved fruitful for the whole family.\n\nMotivation\nDignatories like P. Sathasivam, Pinarai Vijayan, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, and many others around the country congratulated her for her success in the examination.\n\nReferences\n\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people\nIndian civil servants\nIndian Administrative Service officers\nDistrict magistrate\nCivil Servants from Kerala"
] |
[
"Hillary Clinton",
"Early life and education",
"Where did Clinton grow up?",
"first lived in Chicago.",
"Where did she live after Chicago?",
"Chicago suburb of Park Ridge.",
"What did her parents do for a living?",
"managed a small but successful textile business."
] | C_8b166a2b96a4446b96aec0b2fd24bb06_1 | Did she have siblings? | 4 | Did Hillary Clinton have siblings? | Hillary Clinton | Hillary Diane Rodham was born on October 26, 1947, at Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. Clinton was raised in a United Methodist family that first lived in Chicago. When she was three years old, her family moved to the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge. Her father, Hugh Rodham, was of English and Welsh descent, and managed a small but successful textile business. Her mother, Dorothy Howell, was a homemaker of Dutch, English, French Canadian (from Quebec), Scottish and Welsh descent. Clinton has two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony. As a child, Rodham was a favorite student among her teachers at the public schools that she attended in Park Ridge. She participated swimming and softball and earned numerous badges as a Brownie and a Girl Scout. She has often told a story of being inspired by U.S. efforts during the Space Race and sending a letter to NASA around 1961 asking what she could do to become an astronaut, only to be informed that women were not being accepted into the program. She attended Maine East High School, where she participated in the student council, the school newspaper and was selected for the National Honor Society. She was elected class vice president for her junior year, but then lost the election for class president for her senior year against two boys, one of whom told her that "you are really stupid if you think a girl can be elected president". For her senior year, she and other students were transferred to the then new Maine South High School, where she was a National Merit Finalist and was voted, "most likely to succeed". She graduated in 1965 in the top five percent of her class. Rodham's mother wanted her to have an independent, professional career, and her father, who was otherwise a traditionalist, felt that his daughter's abilities and opportunities should not be limited by gender. Rodham was raised in a politically conservative household, and she helped canvass Chicago's South Side at age 13 after the very close 1960 U.S. presidential election. She saw evidence of electoral fraud (such as voting list entries showing addresses that were empty lots) against Republican candidate Richard Nixon, and later volunteered to campaign for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater in the U.S. presidential election of 1964. Rodham's early political development was shaped most by her high school history teacher (like her father, a fervent anti-communist), who introduced her to Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative and by her Methodist youth minister (like her mother, concerned with issues of social justice), with whom she saw and afterwards briefly met, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. at a 1962 speech in Chicago's Orchestra Hall. CANNOTANSWER | Clinton has two younger brothers, | Hillary Diane Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, lawyer, writer, and public speaker who served as the 67th United States secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, as a United States senator from New York from 2001 to 2009, and as first lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001 as the wife of President Bill Clinton. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the party's nominee for president in the 2016 presidential election, becoming the first woman to win a presidential nomination by a major U.S. political party. Clinton won the popular vote in the election, making her the first woman to do so. However, she lost the Electoral College vote and thereby lost the presidential election.
Raised in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge, Rodham graduated from Wellesley College in 1969 and earned a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1973. After serving as a congressional legal counsel, she moved to Arkansas and married future president Bill Clinton in 1975; the two had met at Yale. In 1977, Clinton co-founded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. She was appointed the first female chair of the Legal Services Corporation in 1978 and became the first female partner at Little Rock's Rose Law Firm the following year. The National Law Journal twice listed her as one of the hundred most influential lawyers in America. Clinton was the first lady of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again from 1983 to 1992. As the first lady of the United States, Clinton advocated for healthcare reform. In 1994, her major initiative—the Clinton health care plan—failed to gain approval from Congress. In 1997 and 1999, Clinton played a leading role in advocating the creation of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, the Adoption and Safe Families Act, and the Foster Care Independence Act. Clinton advocated for gender equality at the 1995 UN conference on women. Her marital relationship came under public scrutiny during the Lewinsky scandal, which led her to issue a statement that reaffirmed her commitment to the marriage.
In 2000, Clinton was elected as the first female senator from New York and became the first First lady to simultaneously hold elected office, and then the first former First lady to serve in the Senate. She was re-elected in 2006 and chaired the Senate Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee from 2003 to 2007. During her Senate tenure, Clinton advocated for medical benefits for first responders whose health was damaged in the September 11 attacks. She supported the resolution authorizing the Iraq War in 2002 but opposed the surge of U.S. troops in 2007. In 2008, Clinton ran for president but was defeated by eventual winner Barack Obama in the Democratic primaries. Clinton was U.S. secretary of state in the first term of the Obama administration from 2009 to 2013. During her tenure, Clinton established the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. She responded to the Arab Spring by advocating military intervention in Libya but was harshly criticized by Republicans for the failure to prevent or adequately respond to the 2012 Benghazi attack. Clinton helped to organize a diplomatic isolation and a regime of international sanctions against Iran in an effort to force it to curtail its nuclear program; this effort eventually led to the multinational JCPOA nuclear agreement in 2015. Her use of a private email server when she was Secretary of State was the subject of intense scrutiny; while no charges were filed against Clinton, the email controversy was the single most covered topic during the 2016 presidential election.
Clinton made a second presidential run in 2016. After winning the Democratic nomination, she ran in the general election with Virginia senator Tim Kaine as her running mate. Clinton lost the presidential election to Republican opponent Donald Trump in the Electoral College despite winning a plurality of the popular vote. Following her loss, she wrote her third memoir, What Happened, and launched Onward Together, a political action organization dedicated to fundraising for progressive political groups. Since January 2020, she has been the chancellor of Queen's University Belfast in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Early life and education
Early life
Hillary Diane Rodham was born on October 26, 1947, at Edgewater Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. She was raised in a United Methodist family who first lived in Chicago. When she was three years old, her family moved to the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge. Her father, Hugh Rodham, was of English and Welsh descent, and managed a small but successful textile business, which he had founded. Her mother, Dorothy Howell, was a homemaker of Dutch, English, French Canadian (from Quebec), Scottish, and Welsh descent. She had two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony.
As a child, Rodham was a favorite student among her teachers at the public schools she attended in Park Ridge. She participated in swimming and softball and earned numerous badges as a Brownie and a Girl Scout. She has often told the story of being inspired by U.S. efforts during the Space Race and sending a letter to NASA around 1961 asking what she could do to become an astronaut, only to be informed that women were not being accepted into the program. She attended Maine East High School, where she participated in the student council and school newspaper and was selected for the National Honor Society. She was elected class vice president for her junior year but then lost the election for class president for her senior year against two boys, one of whom told her that "you are really stupid if you think a girl can be elected president". For her senior year, she and other students were transferred to the then-new Maine South High School. There she was a National Merit Finalist and was voted "most likely to succeed." She graduated in 1965 in the top five percent of her class.
Rodham's mother wanted her to have an independent, professional career. Her father, who was otherwise a traditionalist, felt that his daughter's abilities and opportunities should not be limited by gender. She was raised in a politically conservative household, and she helped canvass Chicago's South Side at age 13 after the very close 1960 U.S. presidential election. She saw evidence of electoral fraud (such as voting list entries showing addresses that were empty lots) against Republican candidate Richard Nixon, and later volunteered to campaign for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater in the 1964 election.
Rodham's early political development was shaped mostly by her high school history teacher (like her father, a fervent anti-communist), who introduced her to Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative and by her Methodist youth minister (like her mother, concerned with issues of social justice), with whom she saw and afterwards briefly met, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. at a 1962 speech in Chicago's Orchestra Hall.
Wellesley College years
In 1965, Rodham enrolled at Wellesley College, where she majored in political science. During her first year, she was president of the Wellesley Young Republicans. As the leader of this "Rockefeller Republican"-oriented group, she supported the elections of moderate Republicans John Lindsay to mayor of New York City and Massachusetts attorney general Edward Brooke to the United States Senate. She later stepped down from this position. In 2003, Clinton would write that her views concerning the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War were changing in her early college years. In a letter to her youth minister at that time, she described herself as "a mind conservative and a heart liberal". In contrast to the factions in the 1960s that advocated radical actions against the political system, she sought to work for change within it.
By her junior year, Rodham became a supporter of the antiwar presidential nomination campaign of Democrat Eugene McCarthy. In early 1968, she was elected president of the Wellesley College Government Association, a position she held until early 1969. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Rodham organized a two-day student strike and worked with Wellesley's black students to recruit more black students and faculty. In her student government role, she played a role in keeping Wellesley from being embroiled in the student disruptions common to other colleges. A number of her fellow students thought she might some day become the first female president of the United States.
To help her better understand her changing political views, Professor Alan Schechter assigned Rodham to intern at the House Republican Conference, and she attended the "Wellesley in Washington" summer program. Rodham was invited by moderate New York Republican representative Charles Goodell to help Governor Nelson Rockefeller's late-entry campaign for the Republican nomination. Rodham attended the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami Beach. However, she was upset by the way Richard Nixon's campaign portrayed Rockefeller and by what she perceived as the convention's "veiled" racist messages, and she left the Republican Party for good.
Rodham wrote her senior thesis, a critique of the tactics of radical community organizer Saul Alinsky, under Professor Schechter. Years later, while she was the first lady, access to her thesis was restricted at the request of the White House and it became the subject of some speculation. The thesis was later released.
In 1969, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, with departmental honors in political science. After some fellow seniors requested that the college administration allow a student speaker at commencement, she became the first student in Wellesley College history to speak at the event. Her address followed that of the commencement speaker, Senator Edward Brooke. After her speech, she received a standing ovation that lasted seven minutes. She was featured in an article published in Life magazine, because of the response to a part of her speech that criticized Senator Brooke. She also appeared on Irv Kupcinet's nationally syndicated television talk show as well as in Illinois and New England newspapers. She was asked to speak at the 50th anniversary convention of the League of Women Voters in Washington, D.C., the next year. That summer, she worked her way across Alaska, washing dishes in Mount McKinley National Park and sliming salmon in a fish processing cannery in Valdez (which fired her and shut down overnight when she complained about unhealthy conditions).
Yale Law School and postgraduate studies
Rodham then entered Yale Law School, where she was on the editorial board of the Yale Review of Law and Social Action. During her second year, she worked at the Yale Child Study Center, learning about new research on early childhood brain development and working as a research assistant on the seminal work, Beyond the Best Interests of the Child (1973). She also took on cases of child abuse at Yale–New Haven Hospital, and volunteered at New Haven Legal Services to provide free legal advice for the poor. In the summer of 1970, she was awarded a grant to work at Marian Wright Edelman's Washington Research Project, where she was assigned to Senator Walter Mondale's Subcommittee on Migratory Labor. There she researched various migrant workers' issues including education, health and housing. Edelman later became a significant mentor. Rodham was recruited by political advisor Anne Wexler to work on the 1970 campaign of Connecticut U.S. Senate candidate Joseph Duffey. Rodham later crediting Wexler with providing her first job in politics.
In the spring of 1971, she began dating fellow law student Bill Clinton. During the summer, she interned at the Oakland, California, law firm of Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein. The firm was well known for its support of constitutional rights, civil liberties and radical causes (two of its four partners were current or former Communist Party members); Rodham worked on child custody and other cases. Clinton canceled his original summer plans and moved to live with her in California; the couple continued living together in New Haven when they returned to law school. The following summer, Rodham and Clinton campaigned in Texas for unsuccessful 1972 Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern. She received a Juris Doctor degree from Yale in 1973, having stayed on an extra year to be with Clinton. He first proposed marriage to her following graduation, but she declined, uncertain if she wanted to tie her future to his.
Rodham began a year of postgraduate study on children and medicine at the Yale Child Study Center. In late 1973, her first scholarly article, "Children Under the Law", was published in the Harvard Educational Review. Discussing the new children's rights movement, the article stated that "child citizens" were "powerless individuals" and argued that children should not be considered equally incompetent from birth to attaining legal age, but instead that courts should presume competence on a case-by-case basis, except when there is evidence otherwise. The article became frequently cited in the field.
Marriage, family, legal career and first ladyship of Arkansas
From the East Coast to Arkansas
During her postgraduate studies, Rodham was staff attorney for Edelman's newly founded Children's Defense Fund in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and as a consultant to the Carnegie Council on Children. In 1974, she was a member of the impeachment inquiry staff in Washington, D.C., and advised the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate scandal. Under the guidance of Chief Counsel John Doar and senior member Bernard W. Nussbaum, Rodham helped research procedures of impeachment and the historical grounds and standards for it. The committee's work culminated with the resignation of President Richard Nixon in August 1974.
By then, Rodham was viewed as someone with a bright political future. Democratic political organizer and consultant Betsey Wright moved from Texas to Washington the previous year to help guide Rodham's career. Wright thought Rodham had the potential to become a future senator or president. Meanwhile, boyfriend Bill Clinton had repeatedly asked Rodham to marry him, but she continued to demur. After failing the District of Columbia bar exam and passing the Arkansas exam, Rodham came to a key decision. As she later wrote, "I chose to follow my heart instead of my head". She thus followed Clinton to Arkansas, rather than staying in Washington, where career prospects were brighter. He was then teaching law and running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in his home state. In August 1974, Rodham moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, and became one of only two female faculty members in the School of Law at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
Early Arkansas years
At the university, Rodham taught classes in criminal law. She was considered a rigorous teacher who was tough with her grades. Rodham became the first director of a new legal aid clinic at the school, where she secured support from the local bar association and gained federal funding. As a court-appointed lawyer, Rodham was required to act as defense counsel to a man accused of raping a 12-year-old girl; after her request to be relieved of the assignment failed, Rodham used an effective defense and counseled her client to plead guilty to a lesser charge. She has called the trial a "terrible case". During her time in Fayetteville, Rodham and several other women founded the city's first rape crisis center.
In 1974, Bill Clinton lost an Arkansas congressional race, facing incumbent Republican John Paul Hammerschmidt. Rodham and Bill Clinton bought a house in Fayetteville in the summer of 1975 and she agreed to marry him. The wedding took place on October 11, 1975, in a Methodist ceremony in their living room. A story about the marriage in the Arkansas Gazette indicated that she decided to retain the name Hillary Rodham. Her motivation was threefold. She wanted to keep the couple's professional lives separate, avoid apparent conflicts of interest, and as she told a friend at the time, "it showed that I was still me". The decision upset both mothers, who were more traditional.
In 1976, Rodham temporarily relocated to Indianapolis to work as an Indiana state campaign organizer for the presidential campaign of Jimmy Carter. In November 1976, Bill Clinton was elected Arkansas attorney general, and the couple moved to the state capital of Little Rock. In February 1977, Rodham joined the venerable Rose Law Firm, a bastion of Arkansan political and economic influence. She specialized in patent infringement and intellectual property law while working pro bono in child advocacy; she rarely performed litigation work in court.
Rodham maintained her interest in children's law and family policy, publishing the scholarly articles "Children's Policies: Abandonment and Neglect" in 1977 and "Children's Rights: A Legal Perspective" in 1979. The latter continued her argument that children's legal competence depended upon their age and other circumstances and that in serious medical rights cases, judicial intervention was sometimes warranted. An American Bar Association chair later said, "Her articles were important, not because they were radically new but because they helped formulate something that had been inchoate." Historian Garry Wills would later describe her as "one of the more important scholar-activists of the last two decades". Conservatives said her theories would usurp traditional parental authority, would allow children to file frivolous lawsuits against their parents, and exemplified critical legal studies run amok.
In 1977, Rodham cofounded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, a state-level alliance with the Children's Defense Fund. Later that year, President Jimmy Carter (for whom Rodham had been the 1976 campaign director of field operations in Indiana) appointed her to the board of directors of the Legal Services Corporation. She held that position from 1978 until the end of 1981. From mid-1978 to mid-1980, she was the chair of that board, the first woman to hold the job. During her time as chair, funding for the corporation was expanded from $90 million to $300 million; subsequently, she successfully fought President Ronald Reagan's attempts to reduce the funding and change the nature of the organization.
Following her husband's November 1978 election as governor of Arkansas, Rodham became that state's first lady in January 1979. She would hold that title for twelve nonconsecutive years (1979–81, 1983–92). Clinton appointed his wife to be the chair of the Rural Health Advisory Committee the same year, where she secured federal funds to expand medical facilities in Arkansas's poorest areas without affecting doctors' fees.
In 1979, Rodham became the first woman to be made a full partner in Rose Law Firm. From 1978 until they entered the White House, she had a higher salary than her husband. During 1978 and 1979, while looking to supplement their income, Rodham engaged in the trading of cattle futures contracts; an initial $1,000 investment generated nearly $100,000 when she stopped trading after ten months. At this time, the couple began their ill-fated investment in the Whitewater Development Corporation real estate venture with Jim and Susan McDougal. Both of these became subjects of controversy in the 1990s.
On February 27, 1980, Rodham gave birth to the couple's only child, a daughter whom they named Chelsea. In November 1980, Bill Clinton was defeated in his bid for re-election.
Later Arkansas years
Two years after leaving office, Bill Clinton returned to his job as governor of Arkansas after winning the election of 1982. During her husband's campaign, Hillary began to use the name "Hillary Clinton", or sometimes "Mrs. Bill Clinton", to assuage the concerns of Arkansas voters; she also took a leave of absence from Rose Law to campaign for him full-time. During her second stint as the first lady of Arkansas, she made a point of using Hillary Rodham Clinton as her name. She was named chair of the Arkansas Education Standards Committee in 1983, where she sought to reform the state's court-sanctioned public education system. In one of the Clinton governorship's most important initiatives, she fought a prolonged but ultimately successful battle against the Arkansas Education Association to establish mandatory teacher testing and state standards for curriculum and classroom size. It became her introduction into the politics of a highly visible public policy effort. In 1985, she introduced Arkansas's Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youth, a program that helps parents work with their children in preschool preparedness and literacy. She was named Arkansas Woman of the Year in 1983 and Arkansas Mother of the Year in 1984.
Clinton continued to practice law with the Rose Law Firm while she was the first lady of Arkansas. She earned less than the other partners, as she billed fewer hours but still made more than $200,000 in her final year there. The firm considered her a "rainmaker" because she brought in clients, partly thanks to the prestige she lent it and to her corporate board connections. She was also very influential in the appointment of state judges. Bill Clinton's Republican opponent in his 1986 gubernatorial re-election campaign accused the Clintons of conflict of interest because Rose Law did state business; the Clintons countered the charge by saying that state fees were walled off by the firm before her profits were calculated.
From 1982 to 1988, Clinton was on the board of directors, sometimes as chair, of the New World Foundation, which funded a variety of New Left interest groups. From 1987 to 1991, she was the first chair of the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession, created to address gender bias in the legal profession and induce the association to adopt measures to combat it. She was twice named by The National Law Journal as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America—in 1988 and 1991. When Bill Clinton thought about not running again for governor in 1990, Hillary Clinton considered running. Private polls were unfavorable, however, and in the end he ran and was re-elected for the final time.
Clinton was chairman of the board of the Children's Defense Fund and on the board of the Arkansas Children's Hospital's Legal Services (1988–92) In addition to her positions with nonprofit organizations, she also held positions on the corporate board of directors of TCBY (1985–92), Wal-Mart Stores (1986–92) and Lafarge (1990–92). TCBY and Wal-Mart were Arkansas-based companies that were also clients of Rose Law. Clinton was the first female member on Wal-Mart's board, added following pressure on chairman Sam Walton to name a woman to it. Once there, she pushed successfully for Wal-Mart to adopt more environmentally friendly practices. She was largely unsuccessful in her campaign for more women to be added to the company's management and was silent about the company's famously anti-labor union practices. According to Dan Kaufman, awareness of this later became a factor in her loss of credibility with organized labor, helping contribute to her loss in the 2016 election, where slightly less than half of union members voted for Donald Trump.
Bill Clinton presidential campaign of 1992
Clinton received sustained national attention for the first time when her husband became a candidate for the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination. Before the New Hampshire primary, tabloid publications printed allegations that Bill Clinton had engaged in an extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers. In response, the Clintons appeared together on 60 Minutes, where Bill denied the affair, but acknowledged "causing pain in my marriage". This joint appearance was credited with rescuing his campaign. During the campaign, Hillary made culturally disparaging remarks about Tammy Wynette's outlook on marriage as described in her classic song "Stand by Your Man". Later in the campaign, she commented she could have chosen to be like women staying home and baking cookies and having teas, but wanted to pursue her career instead. The remarks were widely criticized, particularly by those who were, or defended, stay-at-home mothers. In retrospect, she admitted they were ill-considered. Bill said that in electing him, the nation would "get two for the price of one", referring to the prominent role his wife would assume. Beginning with Daniel Wattenberg's August 1992 The American Spectator article "The Lady Macbeth of Little Rock", Hillary's own past ideological and ethical record came under attack from conservatives. At least twenty other articles in major publications also drew comparisons between her and Lady Macbeth.
First Lady of the United States (1993–2001)
When Bill Clinton took office as president in January 1993, Hillary Rodham Clinton became the first lady. Her press secretary reiterated she would be using that form of her name. She was the first in this role to have a postgraduate degree and her own professional career up to the time of entering the White House. She was also the first to have an office in the West Wing of the White House in addition to the usual first lady offices in the East Wing. She was part of the innermost circle vetting appointments to the new administration. Her choices filled at least eleven top-level positions and dozens more lower-level ones. After Eleanor Roosevelt, Clinton was regarded as the most openly empowered presidential wife in American history.
Some critics called it inappropriate for the first lady to play a central role in public policy matters. Supporters pointed out that Clinton's role in policy was no different from that of other White House advisors, and that voters had been well aware she would play an active role in her husband's presidency. Bill Clinton's campaign promise of "two for the price of one" led opponents to refer derisively to the Clintons as "co-presidents" or sometimes use the Arkansas label "Billary". The pressures of conflicting ideas about the role of a first lady were enough to send Hillary Clinton into "imaginary discussions" with the also-politically active Eleanor Roosevelt. From the time she came to Washington, Hillary also found refuge in a prayer group of the Fellowship that featured many wives of conservative Washington figures. Triggered in part by the death of her father in April 1993, she publicly sought to find a synthesis of Methodist teachings, liberal religious political philosophy and Tikkun editor Michael Lerner's "politics of meaning" to overcome what she saw as America's "sleeping sickness of the soul"; that would lead to a willingness "to remold society by redefining what it means to be a human being in the twentieth century, moving into a new millennium".
Health care and other policy initiatives
In January 1993, President Clinton named Hillary to chair a task force on National Health Care Reform, hoping to replicate the success she had in leading the effort for Arkansas education reform. Unconvinced regarding the merits of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), she privately urged that passage of health care reform be given higher priority. The recommendation of the task force became known as the Clinton health care plan. This was a comprehensive proposal that would require employers to provide health coverage to their employees through individual health maintenance organizations. Its opponents quickly derided the plan as "Hillarycare" and it even faced opposition from some Democrats in Congress. Some protesters against the proposed plan became vitriolic and during a July 1994 bus tour to rally support for the plan, Clinton wore a bulletproof vest at times.
Failing to gather enough support for a floor vote in either the House or the Senate (although Democrats controlled both chambers), the proposal was abandoned in September 1994. Clinton later acknowledged in her memoir that her political inexperience partly contributed to the defeat but cited many other factors. The first lady's approval ratings, which had generally been in the high-50 percent range during her first year, fell to 44 percent in April 1994 and 35 percent by September 1994.
Republicans made the Clinton health care plan a major campaign issue of the 1994 midterm elections. They saw a net gain of 54 seats in the House election and eight in the Senate election, winning control of both; many analysts and pollsters found the plan to be a major factor in the Democrats' defeat, especially among independent voters. The White House subsequently sought to downplay Clinton's role in shaping policy. Opponents of universal health care would continue to use "Hillarycare" as a pejorative label for similar plans by others.
Along with senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, Clinton was a force behind the passage of the State Children's Health Insurance Program in 1997. This federal bill gave state support to children whose parents could not provide them health coverage. She conducted outreach efforts on behalf of enrolling children in the program once it became law. She promoted nationwide immunization against childhood diseases and encouraged older women to get a mammogram for breast cancer screening, with coverage provided by Medicare. She successfully sought to increase research funding for prostate cancer and childhood asthma at the National Institutes of Health. She worked to investigate reports of an illness that affected veterans of the Gulf War, which became known as the Gulf War syndrome.
Enactment of welfare reform was a major goal of Bill Clinton's presidency. When the first two bills on the issue came from a Republican-controlled Congress lacking protections for people coming off welfare, however, Hillary urged him to veto the bills, which he did. A third version came up during his 1996 general election campaign that restored some of the protections but cut the scope of benefits in other areas; critics, including her past mentor Edelman, urged her to get the president to veto it again. But she decided to support the bill, which became the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, as the best political compromise available. This caused a rift with Edelman that Hillary later called "sad and painful".
Together with Attorney General Janet Reno, Clinton helped create the Office on Violence Against Women at the Department of Justice.
In 1997, she initiated and shepherded the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which she regarded as her greatest accomplishment as the first lady. In 1999, she was instrumental in the passage of the Foster Care Independence Act, which doubled federal monies for teenagers aging out of foster care.
As First Lady of the United States, Clinton was the host for various White House conferences. These included one on Child Care (1997), on Early Childhood Development and Learning (1997), and on Children and Adolescents (2000). She also hosted the first-ever White House Conference on Teenagers (2000), and the first-ever White House Conference on Philanthropy (1999).
Clinton traveled to 79 countries during this time, breaking the record for most-traveled first lady previously held by Pat Nixon. She did not hold a security clearance or attend National Security Council meetings, but played a role in U.S. diplomacy attaining its objectives. A March 1995 five-nation trip to South Asia, on behest of the U.S. State Department, without her husband, sought to improve relations with India and Pakistan. Clinton was troubled by the plight of women she encountered, but found a warm response from the people of the countries she visited, and gained a better relationship with the American press corps. The trip was a transformative experience for her and presaged her eventual career in diplomacy.
In a September 1995 speech before the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, Clinton argued forcefully against practices that abused women around the world and in the People's Republic of China itself. She declared, "it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights". Delegates from over 180 countries heard her say: "If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights, once and for all." In doing so, she resisted both internal administration and Chinese pressure to soften her remarks. The speech became a key moment in the empowerment of women and years later women around the world would recite Clinton's key phrases. During the late 1990s, she was one of the most prominent international figures to speak out against the treatment of Afghan women by the Taliban. She helped create Vital Voices, an international initiative sponsored by the U.S. to encourage the participation of women in the political processes of their countries. It and Clinton's own visits encouraged women to make themselves heard in the Northern Ireland peace process. In 1997, Clinton returned to Northern Ireland to deliver the inaugural Joyce McCartan lecture at the University of Ulster in honour of the community campaigner she had met during her visit in Belfast in 1995.
Whitewater and other investigations
Clinton was a subject of several investigations by the United States Office of the Independent Counsel, committees of the U.S. Congress, and the press.
The Whitewater controversy was the focus of media attention from its publication in a New York Times report during the 1992 presidential campaign and throughout her time as the first lady. The Clintons had lost their late-1970s investment in the Whitewater Development Corporation; at the same time, their partners in that investment, Jim and Susan McDougal operated Madison Guaranty, a savings and loan institution that retained the legal services of Rose Law Firm and may have been improperly subsidizing Whitewater losses. Madison Guaranty later failed, and Clinton's work at Rose was scrutinized for a possible conflict of interest in representing the bank before state regulators her husband had appointed. She said she had done minimal work for the bank. Independent counsels Robert Fiske and Kenneth Starr subpoenaed Clinton's legal billing records; she said she did not know where they were. After a two-year search, the records were found in the first lady's White House book room and delivered to investigators in early 1996. The delayed appearance of the records sparked intense interest and another investigation concerning how they surfaced and where they had been. Clinton's staff attributed the problem to continual changes in White House storage areas since the move from the Arkansas Governor's Mansion. On January 26, 1996, Clinton became the first spouse of a U.S. president to be subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury. After several Independent Counsels had investigated, a final report was issued in 2000 that stated there was insufficient evidence that either Clinton had engaged in criminal wrongdoing.
Scrutiny of the May 1993 firings of the White House Travel Office employees, an action that became known as "Travelgate", began with charges that the White House had used audited financial irregularities in the Travel Office operation as an excuse to replace the staff with friends from Arkansas. The 1996 discovery of a two-year-old White House memo led to the investigation being focused on whether Clinton had orchestrated the firings and whether the statements she made to investigators about her role in the firings were true. The 2000 final Independent Counsel report concluded she was involved in the firings and that she had made "factually false" statements, but that there was insufficient evidence that she knew the statements were false or knew that her actions would lead to firings, to prosecute her.
In March 1994, newspaper reports revealed that Clinton had earned spectacular profits from cattle futures trading in 1978–79. The press made allegations that Clinton had engaged in a conflict of interest and disguised a bribery. Several individuals analyzed her trading records, but no formal investigation was made and she was never charged with any wrongdoing.
An outgrowth of the "Travelgate" investigation was the June 1996 discovery of improper White House access to hundreds of FBI background reports on former Republican White House employees, an affair that some called "Filegate". Accusations were made that Clinton had requested these files and she had recommended hiring an unqualified individual to head the White House Security Office. The 2000 final Independent Counsel report found no substantial or credible evidence that Clinton had any role or showed any misconduct in the matter.
In early 2001, a controversy arose over gifts that were sent to the White House; there was a question whether the furnishings were White House property or the Clintons' personal property. During the last year of Bill Clinton's time in office, those gifts were shipped to the Clintons' private residence.
It Takes a Village release and tour
In 1996, Clinton presented a vision for American children in the book It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us. In January 1996, she went on a ten-city book tour and made numerous television appearances to promote the book, although she was frequently hit with questions about her involvement in the Whitewater and Travelgate controversies.
The book spent 18 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List that year, including three weeks at number one. By 2000, it had sold 450,000 copies in hardcover and another 200,000 in paperback.
Clinton received the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 1997 for the book's audio recording.
Response to Lewinsky scandal
In 1998, the Clintons' private concerns became the subject of much speculation when investigations revealed the president had engaged in an extramarital affair with 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Events surrounding the Lewinsky scandal eventually led to the impeachment of the president by the House of Representatives; he was later acquitted by the senate. When the allegations against her husband were first made public, Hillary Clinton stated that the allegations were part of a "vast right-wing conspiracy". She characterized the Lewinsky charges as the latest in a long, organized, collaborative series of charges by Bill's political enemies rather than any wrongdoing by her husband. She later said she had been misled by her husband's initial claims that no affair had taken place. After the evidence of President Clinton's encounters with Lewinsky became incontrovertible, she issued a public statement reaffirming her commitment to their marriage. Privately, she was reported to be furious at him and was unsure if she wanted to remain in the marriage. The White House residence staff noticed a pronounced level of tension between the couple during this period.
Public reaction varied. Women variously admired her strength and poise in private matters that were made public. They sympathized with her as a victim of her husband's insensitive behavior and criticized her as being an enabler to her husband's indiscretions. They also accused her of cynically staying in a failed marriage as a way of keeping or even fostering her own political influence. In the wake of the revelations, her public approval ratings shot upward to around 70 percent, the highest they had ever been. In her 2003 memoir, she would attribute her decision to stay married to "a love that has persisted for decades" and add: "No one understands me better and no one can make me laugh the way Bill does. Even after all these years, he is still the most interesting, energizing, and fully alive person I have ever met."
Issues that surrounded the Lewinsky scandal left Bill Clinton with substantial legal bills. In 2014, Hillary said that she and Bill had left the White House "not only dead broke, but in debt". The statement may have been literally accurate but ignored the potentially enormous earning power of ex-presidents who give paid speeches after leaving office. The couple would also have the ability to secure loans from banks.
In October 2018, Hillary stated in an interview on CBS News Sunday Morning that Bill was right to not resign from office, and that Bill's affair with Lewinsky did not constitute an abuse of power because Lewinsky "was an adult".
Other books and initiatives
Other books published by Clinton when she was the first lady include Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids' Letters to the First Pets (1998) and An Invitation to the White House: At Home with History (2000). In 2001, she wrote an afterword to the children's book Beatrice's Goat.
She was the founding chair of Save America's Treasures, a nationwide effort matching federal funds with private donations to preserve and restore historic items and sites. This included the flag that inspired "The Star-Spangled Banner" and the First Ladies National Historic Site in Canton, Ohio. She also published a weekly syndicated newspaper column titled "Talking It Over" from 1995 to 2000. It focused on her experiences and those of women, children and families she met during her travels around the world.
Traditional duties
She was head of the White House Millennium Council and hosted Millennium Evenings, a series of lectures that discussed futures studies, one of which became the first live simultaneous webcast from the White House. Clinton also created the first White House Sculpture Garden, located in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, which displayed large contemporary American works of art loaned by museums.
In the White House, Clinton placed donated handicrafts of contemporary American artisans, such as pottery and glassware, on rotating display in the state rooms. She oversaw the restoration of the Blue Room to be historically authentic to the period of James Monroe, and the Map Room to how it looked during World War II. Working with Arkansas interior decorator Kaki Hockersmith over an eight-year period, she oversaw extensive, privately funded redecoration efforts around the building, often trying to make it look brighter. These included changing of the Treaty Room and a presidential study to have a 19th-century look. Overall the redecoration brought mixed notices, with Victorian furnishings for the Lincoln Sitting Room being criticized the most. Clinton hosted many large-scale events at the White House, including a state dinner for visiting Chinese dignitaries, a New Year's Eve celebration at the turn of the 21st century, and a state dinner honoring the bicentennial of the White House in November 2000.
U.S. Senate (2001–2009)
2000 U.S. Senate election
When New York's long-serving U.S. senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan announced his retirement in November 1998, several prominent Democratic figures, including Representative Charles Rangel of New York, urged Clinton to run for his open seat in the Senate election of 2000. Once she decided to run, the Clintons purchased a home at 15 Old House Lane in Chappaqua, New York, north of New York City, in September 1999. She became the first wife of the president of the United States to be a candidate for elected office. Initially, Clinton expected to face Rudy Giuliani—the mayor of New York City—as her Republican opponent in the election. Giuliani withdrew from the race in May 2000 after being diagnosed with prostate cancer and matters related to his failing marriage became public. Clinton then faced Rick Lazio, a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives who represented New York's 2nd congressional district. Throughout the campaign, opponents accused Clinton of carpetbagging, because she had never resided in New York State or participated in the state's politics before the 2000 Senate race.
Bill de Blasio was Clinton's campaign manager. She began her drive to the U.S. Senate by visiting all 62 counties in the state, in a "listening tour" of small-group settings. She devoted considerable time in traditionally Republican Upstate New York regions. Clinton vowed to improve the economic situation in those areas, promising to deliver 200,000 jobs to the state over her term. Her plan included tax credits to reward job creation and encourage business investment, especially in the high-tech sector. She called for personal tax cuts for college tuition and long-term care.
The contest drew national attention. During a September debate, Lazio blundered when he seemed to invade Clinton's personal space by trying to get her to sign a fundraising agreement. Their campaigns, along with Giuliani's initial effort, spent a record combined $90 million. Clinton won the election on November 7, 2000, with 55 percent of the vote to Lazio's 43 percent. She was sworn in as U.S. senator on January 3, 2001, and as George W. Bush was still 17 days away from being inaugurated as president after winning the 2000 presidential election, that meant from January 3–20, she simultaneously held the titles of First Lady and Senator – a first in U.S. history.
Publisher Simon & Schuster paid Clinton a near-record advance of $8 million in December 2000 for her autobiography, released in 2003, as Living History.
First term
Because Bill Clinton's term as president did not end until 17 days after she was sworn in, upon entering the Senate, Clinton became the first and so far only first lady to serve as a senator and first lady concurrently. Clinton maintained a low public profile and built relationships with senators from both parties when she started her term. She forged alliances with religiously inclined senators by becoming a regular participant in the Senate Prayer Breakfast. She sat on five Senate committees: Committee on Budget (2001–02), Committee on Armed Services (2003–09), Committee on Environment and Public Works (2001–09), Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (2001–09) and Special Committee on Aging.
She was also a member of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (2001–09).
Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, Clinton sought to obtain funding for the recovery efforts in New York City and security improvements in her state. Working with New York's senior senator, Chuck Schumer, she was instrumental in securing $21 billion in funding for the World Trade Center site's redevelopment. She subsequently took a leading role in investigating the health issues faced by 9/11 first responders. Clinton voted for the USA Patriot Act in October 2001. In 2005, when the act was up for renewal, she expressed concerns with the USA Patriot Act Reauthorization Conference Report regarding civil liberties. In March 2006, she voted in favor of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 that had gained large majority support.
Clinton strongly supported the 2001 U.S. military action in Afghanistan, saying it was a chance to combat terrorism while improving the lives of Afghan women who suffered under the Taliban government. Clinton voted in favor of the October 2002 Iraq War Resolution, which authorized President George W. Bush to use military force against Iraq.
After the Iraq War began, Clinton made trips to Iraq and Afghanistan to visit American troops stationed there. On a visit to Iraq in February 2005, Clinton noted that the insurgency had failed to disrupt the democratic elections held earlier and that parts of the country were functioning well. Observing that war deployments were draining regular and reserve forces, she co-introduced legislation to increase the size of the regular U.S. Army by 80,000 soldiers to ease the strain. In late 2005, Clinton said that while immediate withdrawal from Iraq would be a mistake, Bush's pledge to stay "until the job is done" was also misguided, as it gave Iraqis "an open-ended invitation not to take care of themselves". Her stance caused frustration among those in the Democratic Party who favored quick withdrawal. Clinton supported retaining and improving health benefits for reservists and lobbied against the closure of several military bases, especially those in New York. She used her position on the Armed Services Committee to forge close relationships with a number of high-ranking military officers. By 2014 and 2015 Clinton had fully reversed herself on the Iraq War Resolution, saying she "got it wrong" and the vote in support had been a "mistake".
Clinton voted against President Bush's two major tax cut packages, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. Simon & Schuster released Living History: The book set a first-week sales record for a nonfiction work, went on to sell more than one million copies in the first month following publication, and was translated into twelve foreign languages. Clinton's audio recording of the book earned her a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album.
Clinton voted against the 2005 confirmation of John Roberts as chief justice of the United States and the 2006 confirmation of Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court, filibustering the latter.
In 2005, Clinton called for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate how hidden sex scenes showed up in the controversial video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Along with senators Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh, she introduced the Family Entertainment Protection Act, intended to protect children from inappropriate content found in video games. In 2004 and 2006, Clinton voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment that sought to prohibit same-sex marriage.
Looking to establish a "progressive infrastructure" to rival that of American conservatism, Clinton played a formative role in conversations that led to the 2003 founding of former Clinton administration chief of staff John Podesta's Center for American Progress, shared aides with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, founded in 2003 and advised the Clintons' former antagonist David Brock's Media Matters for America, created in 2004. Following the 2004 Senate elections, she successfully pushed new Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid to create a Senate war room to handle daily political messaging.
2006 reelection campaign
In November 2004, Clinton announced she would seek a second Senate term. She easily won the Democratic nomination over opposition from antiwar activist Jonathan Tasini. The early frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, withdrew from the contest after several months of poor campaign performance. Clinton's eventual opponent in the general election was Republican candidate John Spencer, a former mayor of Yonkers. Clinton won the election on November 7, 2006, with 67 percent of the vote to Spencer's 31 percent, carrying all but four of New York's sixty-two counties. Her campaign spent $36 million for her reelection, more than any other candidate for Senate in the 2006 elections. Some Democrats criticized her for spending too much in a one-sided contest, while some supporters were concerned she did not leave more funds for a potential presidential bid in 2008. In the following months, she transferred $10 million of her Senate funds toward her presidential campaign.
Second term
Clinton opposed the Iraq War troop surge of 2007, for both military and domestic political reasons (by the following year, she was privately acknowledging the surge had been successful). In March of that year, she voted in favor of a war-spending bill that required President Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq by a deadline; it passed almost completely along party lines but was subsequently vetoed by Bush. In May, a compromise war funding bill that removed withdrawal deadlines but tied funding to progress benchmarks for the Iraqi government passed the Senate by a vote of 80–14 and would be signed by Bush; Clinton was one of those who voted against it. She responded to General David Petraeus's September 2007 Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq by saying, "I think that the reports that you provide to us really require a willing suspension of disbelief."
In March 2007, in response to the dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy, Clinton called on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign. Regarding the high-profile, hotly debated immigration reform bill known as the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, Clinton cast several votes in support of the bill, which eventually failed to gain cloture.
As the financial crisis of 2007–08 reached a peak with the liquidity crisis of September 2008, Clinton supported the proposed bailout of the U.S. financial system, voting in favor of the $700 billion law that created the Troubled Asset Relief Program, saying it represented the interests of the American people. It passed the Senate 74–25.
In 2007, Clinton and Virginia senator Jim Webb called for an investigation into whether the body armor issued to soldiers in Iraq was adequate.
2008 presidential campaign
Clinton had been preparing for a potential candidacy for U.S. president since at least early 2003. On January 20, 2007, she announced via her website the formation of a presidential exploratory committee for the United States presidential election of 2008, stating: "I'm in and I'm in to win." No woman had ever been nominated by a major party for the presidency, and no first lady had ever run for president.
When Bill Clinton became president in 1993, a blind trust was established; in April 2007, the Clintons liquidated the blind trust to avoid the possibility of ethical conflicts or political embarrassments as Hillary undertook her presidential race. Later disclosure statements revealed the couple's worth was now upwards of $50 million. They had earned over $100 million since 2000—most of it coming from Bill's books, speaking engagements and other activities.
Throughout the first half of 2007, Clinton led candidates competing for the Democratic presidential nomination in opinion polls for the election. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former senator John Edwards of North Carolina were her strongest competitors. The biggest threat to her campaign was her past support of the Iraq War, which Obama had opposed from the beginning. Clinton and Obama both set records for early fundraising, swapping the money lead each quarter.
At the end of October, Clinton fared poorly in her debate performance against Obama, Edwards, and her other opponents. Obama's message of change began to resonate with the Democratic electorate better than Clinton's message of experience.
In the first vote of 2008, she placed third in the January3 Iowa Democratic caucus behind Obama and Edwards. Obama gained ground in national polling in the next few days, with all polls predicting a victory for him in the New Hampshire primary. Clinton gained a surprise win there on January 8, narrowly defeating Obama. It was the first time a woman had won a major American party's presidential primary for the purposes of delegate selection. Explanations for Clinton's New Hampshire comeback varied but often centered on her being seen more sympathetically, especially by women, after her eyes welled with tears and her voice broke while responding to a voter's question the day before the election.
The nature of the contest fractured in the next few days. Several remarks by Bill Clinton and other surrogates, and a remark by Hillary Clinton concerning Martin Luther King Jr. and Lyndon B. Johnson, were perceived by many as, accidentally or intentionally, limiting Obama as a racially oriented candidate or otherwise denying the post-racial significance and accomplishments of his campaign. Despite attempts by both Hillary and Obama to downplay the issue, Democratic voting became more polarized as a result, with Clinton losing much of her support among African Americans. She lost by a two-to-one margin to Obama in the January 26, South Carolina primary, setting up, with Edwards soon dropping out, an intense two-person contest for the twenty-two February5 Super Tuesday states. Bill Clinton had made more statements attracting criticism for their perceived racial implications late in the South Carolina campaign, and his role was seen as damaging enough to her that a wave of supporters within and outside of the campaign said the former president "needs to stop". The South Carolina campaign had done lasting damage to Clinton, eroding her support among the Democratic establishment and leading to the prized endorsement of Obama by Ted Kennedy.
On Super Tuesday, Clinton won the largest states, such as California, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, while Obama won more states; they almost evenly split the total popular vote. But Obama was gaining more pledged delegates for his share of the popular vote due to better exploitation of the Democratic proportional allocation rules.
The Clinton campaign had counted on winning the nomination by Super Tuesday and was unprepared financially and logistically for a prolonged effort; lagging in Internet fundraising as Clinton began loaning money to her campaign. There was continuous turmoil within the campaign staff, and she made several top-level personnel changes. Obama won the next eleven February contests across the country, often by large margins and took a significant pledged delegate lead over Clinton. On March 4, Clinton broke the string of losses by winning in Ohio among other places, where her criticism of NAFTA, a major legacy of her husband's presidency, helped in a state where the trade agreement was unpopular. Throughout the campaign, Obama dominated caucuses, for which the Clinton campaign largely ignored and failed to prepare. Obama did well in primaries where African Americans or younger, college-educated, or more affluent voters were heavily represented; Clinton did well in primaries where Hispanics or older, non-college-educated, or working-class white voters predominated. Behind in delegates, Clinton's best hope of winning the nomination came in persuading uncommitted, party-appointed superdelegates.
Following the final primaries on June 3, 2008, Obama had gained enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee. In a speech before her supporters on June 7, Clinton ended her campaign and endorsed Obama. By campaign's end, Clinton had won 1,640 pledged delegates to Obama's 1,763; at the time of the clinching, Clinton had 286 superdelegates to Obama's 395, with those numbers widening to 256 versus 438 once Obama was acknowledged the winner. Clinton and Obama each received over 17 million votes during the nomination process with both breaking the previous record. Clinton was the first woman to run in the primary or caucus of every state and she eclipsed, by a very wide margin, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm's 1972 marks for most votes garnered and delegates won by a woman. Clinton gave a passionate speech supporting Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention and campaigned frequently for him in fall 2008, which concluded with his victory over McCain in the general election on November 4. Clinton's campaign ended up severely in debt; she owed millions of dollars to outside vendors and wrote off the $13 million that she lent it herself. The debt was eventually paid off by the beginning of 2013.
Secretary of State (2009–2013)
Nomination and confirmation
In mid-November 2008, President-elect Obama and Clinton discussed the possibility of her serving as secretary of state in his administration. She was initially quite reluctant, but on November 20 she told Obama she would accept the position. On December 1, President-elect Obama formally announced that Clinton would be his nominee for secretary of state. Clinton said she did not want to leave the Senate, but that the new position represented a "difficult and exciting adventure". As part of the nomination and to relieve concerns of conflict of interest, Bill Clinton agreed to accept several conditions and restrictions regarding his ongoing activities and fundraising efforts for the William J. Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative.
The appointment required a Saxbe fix, passed and signed into law in December 2008. Confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee began on January 13, 2009, a week before the Obama inauguration; two days later, the committee voted 16–1 to approve Clinton. By this time, her public approval rating had reached 65 percent, the highest point since the Lewinsky scandal. On January 21, 2009, Clinton was confirmed in the full Senate by a vote of 94–2. Clinton took the oath of office of secretary of state, resigning from the Senate later that day. She became the first former first lady to be a member of the United States Cabinet.
First half of tenure
Clinton spent her initial days as secretary of state telephoning dozens of world leaders and indicating that U.S. foreign policy would change direction: "We have a lot of damage to repair." She advocated an expanded role in global economic issues for the State Department, and cited the need for an increased U.S. diplomatic presence, especially in Iraq where the Defense Department had conducted diplomatic missions. Clinton announced the most ambitious of her departmental reforms, the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, which establishes specific objectives for the State Department's diplomatic missions abroad; it was modeled after a similar process in the Defense Department that she was familiar with from her time on the Senate Armed Services Committee. The first such review was issued in late 2010. It called for the U.S. leading through "civilian power" as a cost-effective way of responding to international challenges and defusing crises. It also sought to institutionalize goals of empowering women throughout the world. A cause Clinton advocated throughout her tenure was the adoption of cookstoves in the developing world, to foster cleaner and more environmentally sound food preparation and reduce smoke dangers to women.
In a 2009 internal debate regarding the War in Afghanistan, Clinton sided with the military's recommendations for a maximal "Afghanistan surge", recommending 40,000 troops and no public deadline for withdrawal. She prevailed over Vice President Joe Biden's opposition but eventually supported Obama's compromise plan to send an additional 30,000 troops and tie the surge to a timetable for eventual withdrawal.
In March 2009, Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a "reset button" symbolizing U.S. attempts to rebuild ties with that country under its new president, Dmitry Medvedev. The photo op was remembered for a mistranslation into Russian. The policy, which became known as the Russian reset, led to improved cooperation in several areas during Medvedev's time in office. Relations would worsen considerably, however, following Vladimir Putin's return to the position in 2012. In October 2009, on a trip to Switzerland, Clinton's intervention overcame last-minute snags and saved the signing of an historic Turkish–Armenian accord that established diplomatic relations and opened the border between the two long-hostile nations. In Pakistan, she engaged in several unusually blunt discussions with students, talk show hosts and tribal elders, in an attempt to repair the Pakistani image of the U.S. Beginning in 2010, she helped organize a diplomatic isolation and international sanctions regime against Iran, in an effort to force curtailment of that country's nuclear program; this would eventually lead to the multinational Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action being agreed to in 2015.
Clinton and Obama forged a good working relationship without power struggles; she was a team player within the administration and a defender of it to the outside and was careful that neither she nor her husband would upstage the president. Clinton formed an alliance with Secretary of Defense Gates as they shared similar strategic outlooks. Obama and Clinton both approached foreign policy as a largely non-ideological, pragmatic exercise. She met with him weekly but did not have the close, daily relationship that some of her predecessors had had with their presidents; moreover, certain key areas of policymaking were kept inside the White House or Pentagon. Nevertheless, the president had trust in her actions.
In a prepared speech in January 2010, Clinton drew analogies between the Iron Curtain and the free and unfree Internet. Chinese officials reacted negatively towards it. The speech garnered attention as the first time a senior American official had clearly defined the Internet as a key element of American foreign policy.
In July 2010, she visited South Korea, where she and Cheryl Mills worked to convince SAE-A, a large apparel subcontractor, to invest in Haiti despite the company's deep concerns about plans to raise the minimum wage. In the summer of 2010, the South Korean company signed a contract at the US State Department, ensuring that the Caracol Industrial Park would have a key tenant. This was part of the "build back better" program initiated by her husband, named UN Special Envoy to Haiti in 2009 after a tropical storm season caused $1 billion in damages to the island. In January 2011, Clinton traveled to Haiti in order to help pave the way for the election of Michel Martelly.
Second half of tenure
The 2011 Egyptian protests posed the most challenging foreign policy crisis yet for the Obama administration. Clinton's public response quickly evolved from an early assessment that the government of Hosni Mubarak was "stable", to a stance that there needed to be an "orderly transition [to] a democratic participatory government", to a condemnation of violence against the protesters. Obama came to rely upon Clinton's advice, organization and personal connections in the behind-the-scenes response to developments. As Arab Spring protests spread throughout the region, Clinton was at the forefront of a U.S. response that she recognized was sometimes contradictory, backing some regimes while supporting protesters against others.
As the Libyan Civil War took place, Clinton's shift in favor of military intervention aligned her with Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice and National Security Council figure Samantha Power. This was a key turning point in overcoming internal administration opposition from Defense Secretary Gates, security advisor Thomas E. Donilon and counterterrorism advisor John Brennan in gaining the backing for, and Arab and U.N. approval of, the 2011 military intervention in Libya. Secretary Clinton testified to Congress that the administration did not need congressional authorization for its military intervention in Libya, despite objections from some members of both parties that the administration was violating the War Powers Resolution. The State Department's legal advisor argued the same point when the Resolution's 60-day limit for unauthorized wars was passed (a view that prevailed in a legal debate within the Obama administration). Clinton later used U.S. allies and what she called "convening power" to promote unity among the Libyan rebels as they eventually overthrew the Gaddafi regime. The aftermath of the Libyan Civil War saw the country becoming a failed state. The wisdom of the intervention and interpretation of what happened afterward would become the subject of considerable debate.
During April 2011, internal deliberations of the president's innermost circle of advisors over whether to order U.S. special forces to conduct a raid into Pakistan against Osama bin Laden, Clinton was among those who argued in favor, saying the importance of getting bin Laden outweighed the risks to the U.S. relationship with Pakistan. Following the completion of the mission on May2 resulting in bin Laden's death, Clinton played a key role in the administration's decision not to release photographs of the dead al-Qaeda leader. During internal discussions regarding Iraq in 2011, Clinton argued for keeping a residual force of up to 10,000–20,000 U.S. troops there. (All of them ended up being withdrawn after negotiations for a revised U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement failed.)
In a speech before the United Nations Human Rights Council in December 2011, Clinton said that, "Gay rights are human rights", and that the U.S. would advocate for gay rights and legal protections of gay people abroad. The same period saw her overcome internal administration opposition with a direct appeal to Obama and stage the first visit to Burma by a U.S. secretary of state since 1955. She met with Burmese leaders as well as opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and sought to support the 2011 Burmese democratic reforms. She also said the 21st century would be "America's Pacific century", a declaration that was part of the Obama administration's "pivot to Asia".
During the Syrian Civil War, Clinton and the Obama administration initially sought to persuade Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to engage popular demonstrations with reform. As government violence allegedly rose in August 2011, they called for him to resign from the presidency. The administration joined several countries in delivering non-lethal assistance to so-called rebels opposed to the Assad government and humanitarian groups working in Syria. During mid-2012, Clinton formed a plan with CIA Director David Petraeus to further strengthen the opposition by arming and training vetted groups of Syrian rebels. The proposal was rejected by White House officials who were reluctant to become entangled in the conflict, fearing that extremists hidden among the rebels might turn the weapons against other targets.
In December 2012, Clinton was hospitalized for a few days for treatment of a blood clot in her right transverse venous sinus. Her doctors had discovered the clot during a follow-up examination for a concussion she had sustained when she fainted and fell nearly three weeks earlier, as a result of severe dehydration from a viral intestinal ailment acquired during a trip to Europe. The clot, which caused no immediate neurological injury, was treated with anticoagulant medication, and her doctors have said she has made a full recovery.
Overall themes
Throughout her time in office (and mentioned in her final speech concluding it), Clinton viewed "smart power" as the strategy for asserting U.S. leadership and values. In a world of varied threats, weakened central governments and increasingly important nongovernmental entities, smart power combined military hard power with diplomacy and U.S. soft power capacities in global economics, development aid, technology, creativity and human rights advocacy. As such, she became the first secretary of state to methodically implement the smart power approach. In debates over use of military force, she was generally one of the more hawkish voices in the administration. In August 2011 she hailed the ongoing multinational military intervention in Libya and the initial U.S. response towards the Syrian Civil War as examples of smart power in action.
Clinton greatly expanded the State Department's use of social media, including Facebook and Twitter, to get its message out and to help empower citizens of foreign countries vis-à-vis their governments.
And in the Mideast turmoil, Clinton particularly saw an opportunity to advance one of the central themes of her tenure, the empowerment and welfare of women and girls worldwide. Moreover, in a formulation that became known as the "Hillary Doctrine", she viewed women's rights as critical for U.S. security interests, due to a link between the level of violence against women and gender inequality within a state, and the instability and challenge to international security of that state. In turn, there was a trend of women around the world finding more opportunities, and in some cases feeling safer, as the result of her actions and visibility.
Clinton visited 112 countries during her tenure, making her the most widely traveled secretary of state (Time magazine wrote that "Clinton's endurance is legendary".) The first secretary of state to visit countries like Togo and East Timor, she believed that in-person visits were more important than ever in the virtual age. As early as March 2011, she indicated she was not interested in serving a second term as secretary of state should Obama be re-elected in 2012; in December 2012, following that re-election, Obama nominated Senator John Kerry to be Clinton's successor. Her last day as secretary of state was February 1, 2013. Upon her departure, analysts commented that Clinton's tenure did not bring any signature diplomatic breakthroughs as some other secretaries of state had accomplished, and highlighted her focus on goals she thought were less tangible but would have more lasting effect. She has also been criticized for accepting millions in dollars in donations from foreign governments to the Clinton Foundation during her tenure as Secretary of State.
Benghazi attack and subsequent hearings
On September 11, 2012, the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked, resulting in the deaths of the U.S. Ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. The attack, questions surrounding the security of the U.S. consulate, and the varying explanations given afterward by administration officials for what had happened became politically controversial in the U.S. On October 15, Clinton took responsibility for the question of security lapses saying the differing explanations were due to the inevitable fog of war confusion after such events.
On December 19, a panel led by Thomas R. Pickering and Michael Mullen issued its report on the matter. It was sharply critical of State Department officials in Washington for ignoring requests for more guards and safety upgrades and for failing to adapt security procedures to a deteriorating security environment. It focused its criticism on the department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security and Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs; four State Department officials at the assistant secretary level and below were removed from their posts as a consequence. Clinton said she accepted the conclusions of the report and that changes were underway to implement its suggested recommendations.
Clinton gave testimony to two congressional foreign affairs committees on January 23, 2013, regarding the Benghazi attack. She defended her actions in response to the incident, and while still accepting formal responsibility, said she had had no direct role in specific discussions beforehand regarding consulate security. Congressional Republicans challenged her on several points, to which she responded. In particular, after persistent questioning about whether or not the administration had issued inaccurate "talking points" after the attack, Clinton responded with the much-quoted rejoinder, "With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they'd they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator."
In November 2014, the House Intelligence Committee issued a report that concluded there had been no wrongdoing in the administration's response to the attack.
The House Select Committee on Benghazi was created in May 2014 and conducted a two-year investigation related to the 2012 attack. Its actions were often seen through the prism of domestic politics. This was especially the case in September 2015, when House majority leader Kevin McCarthy credited the Benghazi hearings with lowering Clinton's poll numbers, thereby contradicting the Republicans' previous talking points on the investigation. On October 22, 2015, Clinton testified at an all-day and nighttime session before the committee. The hearing included many heated exchanges between committee members and Clinton and among the committee members themselves. Clinton was widely seen as emerging largely unscathed from the hearing, because of what the media perceived as a calm and unfazed demeanor and a lengthy, meandering, repetitive line of questioning from the committee. The committee issued competing final reports in June 2016 that broke along partisan lines. The Republican report offered some new details about the attack but no new evidence of culpability by Clinton.
Email controversy
A controversy arose in March 2015, when the State Department's inspector general revealed that Clinton had used personal email accounts on a non-government, privately maintained server exclusively—instead of email accounts maintained on federal government servers—when conducting official business during her tenure as secretary of state. Some experts, officials, members of Congress and political opponents contended that her use of private messaging system software and a private server violated State Department protocols and procedures, and federal laws and regulations governing recordkeeping requirements. The controversy occurred against the backdrop of Clinton's 2016 presidential election campaign and hearings held by the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
In a joint statement released on July 15, 2015, the inspector general of the State Department and the inspector general of the intelligence community said their review of the emails found information that was classified when sent, remained so at the time of their inspection and "never should have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system". They also stated unequivocally this classified information should never have been stored outside of secure government computer systems. Clinton had said over a period of months that she kept no classified information on the private server that she set up in her house. Government policy, reiterated in the nondisclosure agreement signed by Clinton as part of gaining her security clearance, is that sensitive information can be considered as classified even if not marked as such. After allegations were raised that some of the emails in question fell into the so-called "born classified" category, an FBI probe was initiated regarding how classified information was handled on the Clinton server. The New York Times reported in February 2016 that nearly 2,100 emails stored on Clinton's server were retroactively marked classified by the State Department. Additionally, the intelligence community's inspector general wrote Congress to say that some of the emails "contained classified State Department information when originated". In May 2016, the inspector general of the State Department criticized her use of a private email server while secretary of state, stating that she had not requested permission for this and would not have received it if she had asked.
Clinton maintained she did not send or receive any emails from her personal server that were confidential at the time they were sent. In a Democratic debate with Bernie Sanders on February 4, 2016, Clinton said, "I never sent or received any classified material—they are retroactively classifying it." On July 2, 2016, Clinton stated: "Let me repeat what I have repeated for many months now, I never received nor sent any material that was marked classified."
On July 5, 2016, the FBI concluded its investigation. In a statement, FBI director James Comey said:
110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were "up-classified" to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent.
Out of 30,000, three emails were found to be marked as classified, although they lacked classified headers and were marked only with a small "c" in parentheses, described as "portion markings" by Comey. He also said it was possible Clinton was not "technically sophisticated" enough to understand what the three classified markings meant. The probe found Clinton used her personal email extensively while outside the United States, both sending and receiving work-related emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Comey acknowledged that it was "possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal email account". He added that "[although] we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information". Nevertheless, Comey asserted that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring criminal charges in this case, despite the existence of "potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information". The FBI recommended that the Justice Department decline to prosecute. On July 6, 2016, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch—who had met privately with Bill Clinton on June 27—confirmed that the probe into Clinton's use of private email servers would be closed without criminal charges.
On October 28, 2016, Comey notified Congress that the FBI had begun looking into newly discovered Clinton emails. Law enforcement officials said that while investigating allegedly illicit text messages from Anthony Weiner, husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin, to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina, they discovered emails related to Clinton's private server on a laptop computer belonging to Weiner. On November 6, Comey notified Congress that the FBI had not changed the conclusion it had reached in July. The notification was later cited by Clinton as a factor in her loss in the 2016 presidential election. The emails controversy received more media coverage than any other topic during the 2016 presidential election.
In September 2019, the State Department finished its internal review into 33,000 emails that Clinton had turned over. The investigation that began in 2016 found 588 violations of security procedures and found that Clinton's use of a personal email server increased the risk of compromising State Department information. In 91 cases, the culpability of sending classified information could be attributed to 38 people, but the review concluded there was "no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information".
Clinton Foundation, Hard Choices, and speeches
When Clinton left the State Department, she returned to private life for the first time in thirty years. She and her daughter joined her husband as named members of the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation in 2013. There she focused on early childhood development efforts, including an initiative called Too Small to Fail and a $600 million initiative to encourage the enrollment of girls in secondary schools worldwide, led by former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
In 2014, Clinton published a second memoir, Hard Choices, which focused on her time as secretary of state. , the book has sold about 280,000 copies.
Clinton also led the No Ceilings: The Full Participation Project, a partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to gather and study data on the progress of women and girls around the world since the Beijing conference in 1995; its March 2015 report said that while "There has never been a better time in history to be born a woman ... this data shows just how far we still have to go." The foundation began accepting new donations from foreign governments, which it had stopped doing while she was secretary of state. However, even though the Clinton Foundation had stopped taking donations from foreign governments, they continued to take large donations from foreign citizens who were sometimes linked to their governments.
She began work on another volume of memoirs and made appearances on the paid speaking circuit. There she received $200,000–225,000 per engagement, often appearing before Wall Street firms or at business conventions. She also made some unpaid speeches on behalf of the foundation. For the fifteen months ending in March 2015, Clinton earned over $11 million from her speeches. For the overall period 2007–14, the Clintons earned almost $141 million, paid some $56 million in federal and state taxes and donated about $15 million to charity. , she was estimated to be worth over $30 million on her own, or $45–53 million with her husband.
Clinton resigned from the board of the foundation in April 2015, when she began her presidential campaign. The foundation said it would accept new foreign governmental donations from six Western nations only.
2016 presidential campaign
On April 12, 2015, Clinton formally announced her candidacy for the presidency in the 2016 election. She had a campaign-in-waiting already in place, including a large donor network, experienced operatives and the Ready for Hillary and Priorities USA Action political action committees and other infrastructure. Prior to her campaign, Clinton had claimed in an interview on NDTV in May 2012 that she would not seek the presidency again, but later wrote in her 2014 autobiography Hard Choices that she had not decided. The campaign's headquarters were established in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Her campaign focused on: raising middle class incomes, establishing universal preschool, making college more affordable and improving the Affordable Care Act. Initially considered a prohibitive favorite to win the Democratic nomination, Clinton faced an unexpectedly strong challenge from democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. His longtime stance against the influence of corporations and the wealthy in American politics resonated with a dissatisfied citizenry troubled by the effects of income inequality in the U.S. and contrasted with Clinton's Wall Street ties.
In the initial contest of the primaries season, Clinton only very narrowly won the Iowa Democratic caucuses, held February 1, over an increasingly popular Sanders — the first woman to win them. In the first primary, held in New Hampshire on February 9, she lost to Sanders by a wide margin. Sanders was an increasing threat in the next contest, the Nevada caucuses on February 20, but Clinton managed a five-percentage-point win, aided by final-days campaigning among casino workers. Clinton followed that with a lopsided victory in the South Carolina primary on February 27. These two victories stabilized her campaign and showed an avoidance of the management turmoil that harmed her 2008 effort.
On March 1 Super Tuesday, Clinton won seven of eleven contests, including a string of dominating victories across the South buoyed, as in South Carolina, by African-American voters. She opened up a significant lead in pledged delegates over Sanders. She maintained this delegate lead across subsequent contests during the primary season, with a consistent pattern throughout. Sanders did better among younger, whiter, more rural and more liberal voters and states that held caucuses or where eligibility was open to independents. Clinton did better among older, black and Hispanic voter populations, and in states that held primaries or where eligibility was restricted to registered Democrats.
By June 5, 2016, she had earned enough pledged delegates and supportive superdelegates for the media to consider her the presumptive nominee. On June 7, after winning most of the states in the final major round of primaries, Clinton held a victory rally in Brooklyn becoming the first woman to claim the status of presumptive nominee for a major American political party. By campaign's end, Clinton had won 2,219 pledged delegates to Sanders' 1,832; with an estimated 594 superdelegates compared to Sanders' 47. She received almost 17 million votes during the nominating process, as opposed to Sanders' 13 million.
Clinton was formally nominated at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on July 26, 2016, becoming the first woman to be nominated for president by a major U.S. political party. Her choice of vice presidential running mate, Senator Tim Kaine, was nominated by the convention the following day. Her opponents in the general election included Republican Donald Trump, Libertarian Gary Johnson and Jill Stein of the Green Party. Around the time of the convention, WikiLeaks released emails that suggested the DNC and the Clinton campaign tilted the primary in Clinton's favor.
Clinton held a significant lead in national polls over Trump throughout most of 2016. In early July, Trump and Clinton were tied in major polls following the FBI's conclusion of its investigation into her emails. FBI Director James Comey concluded Clinton had been "extremely careless" in her handling of classified government material. In late July, Trump gained his first lead over Clinton in major polls following a three to four percentage point convention bounce at the Republican National Convention. This was in line with the average bounce in conventions since 2004, although it was toward the low side by historical standards. Following Clinton's seven percentage point convention bounce at the Democratic National Convention, she regained a significant lead in national polls at the start of August. In fall 2016, Clinton and Tim Kaine published Stronger Together, which outlined their vision for the United States.
Clinton was defeated by Donald Trump in the November 8, 2016, presidential election. By the early morning hours of November 9, Trump had received 279 projected electoral college votes, with 270 needed to win; media sources proclaimed him the winner. Clinton then phoned Trump to concede and to congratulate him on his victory, whereupon Trump gave his victory speech. The next morning Clinton made a public concession speech in which she acknowledged the pain of her loss, but called on her supporters to accept Trump as their next president, saying: "We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead." Though Clinton lost the election by capturing only 232 electoral votes to Trump's 306, she won the popular vote by more than 2.8 million votes, or 2.1% of the voter base. She is the fifth presidential candidate in U.S. history to win the popular vote but lose the election. She won the most votes of any candidate who did not take office and the third-most votes of any candidate in history, though she did not have the greatest percentage win of a losing candidate. (Andrew Jackson won the popular vote by 10.4% but lost to John Quincy Adams).
On December 19, 2016, when electors formally voted, Clinton lost five of her initial 232 votes due to faithless electors, with three of her Washington votes being cast instead for Colin Powell, one being cast for Faith Spotted Eagle, and one in Hawaii being cast for Bernie Sanders.
Post-2016 election activities
In their respective roles as a former president and a former first lady, Bill and Hillary Clinton attended the inauguration of Donald Trump with their daughter, Chelsea. The morning of the inauguration Clinton wrote on her Twitter account, "I'm here today to honor our democracy & its enduring values, I will never stop believing in our country & its future."
In October 2017, Clinton was awarded an honorary doctorate from Swansea University, whose College of Law was renamed the Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law in her honor. In October 2018, Hillary and Bill Clinton announced plans for a 13-city speaking tour in various cities in the United States and Canada between November 2018 and May 2019. Hillary was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in law (LLD) at Queen's University Belfast on October 10, 2018, after giving a speech on Northern Ireland and the impacts of Brexit at Whitla Hall, Belfast. In June 2018, Trinity College Dublin awarded her with an honorary doctorate (LLD). In September 2021 she was awarded an honorary doctorate of civil law by the University of Oxford.
A package that contained a pipe bomb was sent to Clinton's home in Washington, D.C., on October 24, 2018. It was intercepted by the Secret Service. Similar packages were sent to several other Democratic leaders and to CNN.
Political actions
Clinton delivered a St. Patrick's Day speech in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on March 17, 2017. In it, alluding to reports that she had being seen taking walks in the woods around Chappaqua following her loss in the presidential election, Clinton indicated her readiness to emerge from "the woods" and become politically active again. However, the following month she confirmed she would not seek public office again. She reiterated her comments in March 2019 and stated she would not run for president in 2020.
In May 2017, Clinton announced the formation of Onward Together, a new political action committee that she wrote is "dedicated to advancing the progressive vision that earned nearly 66 million votes in the last election". During 2017, she spoke out on a number of occasions against Republican plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with the American Health Care Act, which she called "a disastrous bill" and a "shameful failure of policy & morality by GOP". In response to the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack, Clinton said the U.S. should take out Bashar al-Assad's airfields and thereby "prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them".
On April 28, 2020, Clinton endorsed the presumptive Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, for president in the 2020 election and she addressed the 2020 Democratic National Convention in August. On October 28, 2020, Clinton announced that she was on the 2020 Democratic slate of electors for the state of New York. After Biden and Kamala Harris won New York State, thereby electing the Democratic elector slate, Clinton and her husband served as members of the 2020 United States Electoral College and cast the first of the state's electoral votes for Biden and Harris.
Comments on President Trump
On May 2, 2017, Clinton said Trump's use of Twitter "doesn't work" when pursuing important negotiations. "Kim Jong Un ... [is] always interested in trying to get Americans to come to negotiate to elevate their status and their position". Negotiations with North Korea should not take place without "a broader strategic framework to try to get China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, to put the kind of pressure on the regime that will finally bring them to the negotiating table with some kind of realistic prospect for change." While delivering the commencement speech at her alma mater Wellesley College on May 26, Clinton asserted President Trump's 2018 budget proposal was "a con" for underfunding domestic programs. On June 1, when President Trump announced the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, Clinton tweeted that it was a "historic mistake".
On September 29, 2019, in an interview with CBS News Sunday Morning, Clinton described Trump as a "threat" to the country's standing in the world; an "illegitimate president", despite having won the election; and a "corrupt human tornado".
Comments on politics during the Biden administration
In March 2021, Clinton voiced her support for the United States Senate to abolish the Senate filibuster if it proves necessary to do so in order to pass voting rights legislation. Clinton called the Senate filibuster "another Jim Crow relic".
Writing career
Clinton's third memoir, What Happened, an account of her loss in the 2016 election, was released on September 12, 2017. A book tour and a series of interviews and personal appearances were arranged for the launch. What Happened sold 300,000 copies in its first week, less than her 2003 memoir, Living History, but triple the first-week sales of her previous memoir, 2014's Hard Choices. Simon & Schuster announced that What Happened had sold more e-books in its first-week than any nonfiction e-book since 2010. As of December 10, 2017, the book had sold 448,947 hardcover copies.
An announcement was made in February 2017 that efforts were under way to render her 1996 book It Takes a Village as a picture book. Marla Frazee, a two-time winner of the Caldecott Medal, was announced as the illustrator. Clinton had worked on it with Frazee during her 2016 presidential election campaign. The result was published on the same day of publication as What Happened. The book is aimed at preschool-aged children, although a few messages are more likely better understood by adults.
In October 2019, The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience, a book Clinton co-wrote with her daughter Chelsea, was published. In February 2021, Clinton announced that she was co-writing her first fiction book with Louise Penny. The book, a political mystery thriller, is titled State of Terror and was released in October 2021.
Clinton has also written occasional op-eds in the years since her 2016 election defeat. In September 2018, The Atlantic published an article written by Clinton titled "American Democracy Is In Crisis". In April 2019, The Washington Post published an op-ed by Clinton calling for congress to be, "deliberate, fair, and fearless" in responding to the Mueller Report. In their November/December 2020 issue, Foreign Affairs published a piece by Clinton titled "A National Security Reckoning". On January 11, 2021, following the January 6 storming of the United States Capitol, an op-ed by Clinton titled "Trump should be impeached. But that alone won’t remove white supremacy from America." was published in The Washington Post. In July 2021, Democracy Docket published an op-ed by Clinton on Republican efforts to restrict voting following the 2020 presidential election.
Media ventures
Clinton collaborated with director Nanette Burstein on the documentary film Hillary, which was released on Hulu in March 2020.
On September 29, 2020, Clinton launched an interview podcast in collaboration with iHeartRadio titled You and Me Both.
Clinton is slated to be an executive producer of a drama series about the fight for women's suffrage in the United States titled The Woman's Hour. The series, based upon Elaine Weiss' book of the same name, will air on The CW.
Chancellor of Queen's University Belfast
On January 2, 2020, it was announced that Clinton would take up the position of Chancellor at Queen's University Belfast. Clinton became the 11th and first female chancellor of the university, filling the position that had been vacant since 2018 after the death of her predecessor, Thomas J. Moran. Commenting on taking up the position, she said that "the university is making waves internationally for its research and impact and I am proud to be an ambassador and help grow its reputation for excellence". Queen's Pro-Chancellor Stephen Prenter said that Clinton on her appointment "will be an incredible advocate for Queen's" who can act as an "inspirational role model". However, her inauguration was protested by some students.
Political positions
Using her Senate votes, several organizations have attempted to measure Clinton's place on the political spectrum scientifically. National Journals 2004 study of roll-call votes assigned Clinton a rating of 30 on the political spectrum, relative to the Senate at the time, with a rating of1 being most liberal and 100 being most conservative. National Journals subsequent rankings placed her as the 32nd-most liberal senator in 2006 and 16th-most liberal senator in 2007. A 2004 analysis by political scientists Joshua D. Clinton of Princeton University and Simon Jackman and Doug Rivers of Stanford University found her likely to be the sixth-to-eighth-most liberal senator. The Almanac of American Politics, edited by Michael Barone and Richard E. Cohen, rated her votes from 2003 through 2006 as liberal or conservative, with 100 as the highest rating, in three areas: Economic, Social and Foreign. Averaged for the four years, the ratings are: Economic = 75 liberal, 23 conservative; Social = 83 liberal, 6 conservative; Foreign = 66 liberal, 30 conservative. Total average = 75 liberal, 20 conservative. According to FiveThirtyEights measure of political ideology, "Clinton was one of the most liberal members during her time in the Senate."
Organizations have also attempted to provide more recent assessments of Clinton after she reentered elective politics in 2015. Based on her stated positions from the 1990s to the present, On the Issues places her in the "Left Liberal" region on their two-dimensional grid of social and economic ideologies, with a social score of 80 on a scale of zero more-restrictive to 100 less-government stances, with an economic score of ten on a scale of zero more-restrictive to 100 less-government stances. Crowdpac, which does a data aggregation of campaign contributions, votes and speeches, gives her a 6.5L rating on a one-dimensional left-right scale from 10L (most liberal) to 10C (most conservative).
In March 2016, Clinton laid out a detailed economic plan, which The New York Times called "optimistic" and "wide-ranging". Basing her economic philosophy on inclusive capitalism, Clinton proposed a "clawback" that would rescind tax relief and other benefits for companies that move jobs overseas; providing incentives for companies that share profits with employees, communities and the environment, rather than focusing on short-term profits to increase stock value and rewarding shareholders; increasing collective bargaining rights; and placing an "exit tax" on companies that move their headquarters out of America to pay a lower tax rate overseas. Clinton currently opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), though previously described it as "the gold standard" of trade deals. She supports the U.S. Export-Import Bank and holds that "any trade deal has to produce jobs and raise wages and increase prosperity and protect our security". As senator (2001–2009), her record on trade was mixed; she voted in favor of some trade agreements but not others.
Given the climate of unlimited campaign contributions following the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, Clinton called for a constitutional amendment to limit "unaccountable money" in politics. In July 2016, she "committed" to introducing a U.S. constitutional amendment that would result in overturning the 2010 Citizens United decision. On December 7, 2015, Clinton presented her detailed plans for regulating Wall Street financial activities in the New York Times.
Accepting the scientific consensus on climate change, Clinton supports cap-and-trade, and opposed the Keystone XL pipeline. She supported "equal pay for equal work", to address current shortfalls in how much women are paid to do the same jobs men do. Clinton has explicitly focused on family issues and supports universal preschool. These programs would be funded by proposing tax increases on the wealthy, including a "fair share surcharge". Clinton supported the Affordable Care Act and would have added a "public option" that competed with private insurers and enabled people "50 or 55 and up" to buy into Medicare.
On LGBT rights, she supports the right to same-sex marriage, a position that has changed throughout her political career. In 2000, she was against such marriages altogether. In 2006, she said only that she would support a state's decision to permit same-sex marriages, but opposed federally amending the Constitution to permit same-sex marriage. While running for president in 2007, she again reiterated her opposition to same-sex marriage, although expressed her support of civil unions. 2013 marked the first time that Clinton expressed support for a national right to same-sex marriage. In 2000, she was the first spouse of a US president to march in an LGBT pride parade. In 2016, she was the first major-party presidential candidate ever to write an op-ed for an LGBT newspaper (Philadelphia Gay News).
Clinton held that allowing undocumented immigrants to have a path to citizenship "s at its heart a family issue", and expressed support for Obama's Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) program, which would allow up to five million undocumented immigrants to gain deferral of deportation and authorization to legally work in the United States. However, in 2014, Clinton stated that unaccompanied children crossing the border "should be sent back." She opposed and criticized Trump's call to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States.
Expressing support for Common Core she said, "The really unfortunate argument that's been going on around Common Core, it's very painful because the Common Core started off as a bipartisan effort. It was actually nonpartisan. It wasn't politicized ... Iowa has had a testing system based on a core curriculum for a really long time. And you see the value of it, you understand why that helps you organize your whole education system. And a lot of states unfortunately haven't had that and so don't understand the value of a core, in this sense a Common Core."
On foreign affairs, Clinton voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq in October 2002, a vote she later "regretted". She favored arming Syria's rebel fighters in 2012 and has called for the removal of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. She supported the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and the NATO-led military intervention in Libya to oust former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Clinton is in favor of maintaining American influence in the Middle East. She has told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, "America can't ever be neutral when it comes to Israel's security and survival." Clinton expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2006 Lebanon War and 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. In a 2017 interview, after a poison gas attack in Syria, Clinton said that she had favored more aggressive action against Bashar al-Assad: "I think we should have been more willing to confront Assad. I really believe we should have and still should take out his air fields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them."
In 2000, Clinton advocated for the elimination of the electoral college. She promised to co-sponsor legislation that would abolish it, resulting in the direct election of the president. She reiterated her position against the Electoral College as she cast her vote as an elector in the electoral college for Joe Biden in 2020.
Religious views
Clinton has been a lifelong Methodist, and has been part of United Methodist Church congregations throughout her life. She has publicly discussed her Christian faith on several occasions, although seldom while campaigning. Professor Paul Kengor, author of God and Hillary Clinton: A Spiritual Life, has suggested that Clinton's political positions are rooted in her faith. She often expresses a maxim often attributed to John Wesley: "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can."
Cultural and political image
Over a hundred books and scholarly works have been written about Clinton. A 2006 survey by the New York Observer found "a virtual cottage industry" of "anti-Clinton literature" put out by Regnery Publishing and other conservative imprints. Some titles include Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House, Hillary's Scheme: Inside the Next Clinton's Ruthless Agenda to Take the White House and Can She Be Stopped?: Hillary Clinton Will Be the Next President of the United States Unless ... Books praising Clinton did not sell nearly as well (other than her memoirs and those of her husband). When she ran for Senate in 2000, several fundraising groups such as Save Our Senate and the Emergency Committee to Stop Hillary Rodham Clinton sprang up to oppose her. Don Van Natta found that Republican and conservative groups viewed her as a reliable "bogeyman" to mention in fundraising letters, on a par with Ted Kennedy, and the equivalent of Democratic and liberal appeals mentioning Newt Gingrich.
Clinton has also been featured in the media and popular culture in a wide spectrum of perspectives. In 1995, writer Todd S. Purdum of The New York Times characterized Clinton as a Rorschach test, an assessment echoed at the time by feminist writer and activist Betty Friedan, who said, "Coverage of Hillary Clinton is a massive Rorschach test of the evolution of women in our society." She has been the subject of many satirical impressions on Saturday Night Live, beginning with her time as the first lady. She has made guest appearances on the show herself, in 2008 and in 2015, to face-off with her doppelgängers. Jonathan Mann wrote songs about her including "The Hillary Shimmy Song", which went viral.
She has often been described in the popular media as a polarizing figure, though some argue otherwise. In the early stages of her 2008 presidential campaign, a Time magazine cover showed a large picture of her with two checkboxes labeled "Love Her", "Hate Her". Mother Jones titled its profile of her "Harpy, Hero, Heretic: Hillary". Following Clinton's "choked up moment" and related incidents in the run-up to the January 2008 New Hampshire primary, both The New York Times and Newsweek found that discussion of gender's role in the campaign had moved into the national political discourse. Newsweek editor Jon Meacham summed up the relationship between Clinton and the American public by saying the New Hampshire events, "brought an odd truth to light: though Hillary Rodham Clinton has been on the periphery or in the middle of national life for decades ... she is one of the most recognizable but least understood figures in American politics".
Once she became secretary of state, Clinton's image seemed to improve dramatically among the American public and become one of a respected world figure. Her favorability ratings dropped, however, after she left office and began to be viewed in the context of partisan politics once more. By September 2015, with her 2016 presidential campaign underway and beset by continued reports regarding her private email usage at the State Department, her ratings had slumped to some of her lowest levels ever. In March 2016, she acknowledged that: "I'm not a natural politician, in case you haven't noticed."
Electoral history
2000 Senate election
2006 Senate election
2008 presidential election
2016 presidential election
Books and recordings
It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us (1996).Clinton received the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 1997 for the book's audio recording.
Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids' Letters to the First Pets (1998)
An Invitation to the White House: At Home with History (2000)
Living History (Simon & Schuster, 2003). The book set a first-week sales record for a nonfiction work, went on to sell more than one million copies in the first month following publication, and was translated into twelve foreign languages.
Hard Choices (2014). The book has sold about 280,000 copies.
With Tim Kaine, Stronger Together (2016)
What Happened (Simon & Schuster, 2017, in print, e-book, and audio read by the author)
With Chelsea Clinton, The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience (Simon & Schuster, 2019, in print, e-book, and audio)
With Louise Penny, State of Terror is set to release on October 12, 2021, and be published by Simon & Schuster & St. Martin's Press.
Ancestry
See also
2016 United States presidential election timeline
List of female United States Cabinet members
Women in the United States Senate
Notes
References
Citations
Sources cited
External links
Official
Clinton Foundation
State Department Biography
Media coverage
Other
Hillary Clinton's file at Politifact
1947 births
Living people
2020 United States presidential electors
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American politicians
20th-century American women lawyers
20th-century American women politicians
20th-century American women writers
20th-century Methodists
21st-century American diplomats
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American politicians
21st-century American women politicians
21st-century American women writers
21st-century Methodists
Activists from New York (state)
American autobiographers
American feminists
American legal writers
American memoirists
American people of Dutch descent
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American political writers
American United Methodists
American women activists
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American diplomats
American women non-fiction writers
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American women academics
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Articles containing video clips
Candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election
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Family of Bill and Hillary Clinton
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Writers from New York (state)
Yale Law School alumni | false | [
"Elisabeth Augusta of Schleswig-Holstein (28 December 1623 – 9 August 1677) was the daughter of king Christian IV of Denmark and Kirsten Munk. She shared the title Countess of Schleswig-Holstein with her mother and siblings.\n\nBiography\nAs her siblings, she was raised by her grandmother Ellen Marsvin and the royal governess Karen Sehested, but spent 1628-29 at the Swedish court. She was married to Hans Lindenov (d. 1659) in 1639, and became the mother of Sophie Amalie Lindenov. She was described as a vulgar, constantly indebted gambler. She did not side with her sister Leonora Christina Ulfeldt during the conflict between Leonora and the king and was not close to her siblings. She was granted a royal pension in 1664, and was also granted many gifts by king Christian V, but continued to be haunted by debts during her life.\n\nAncestry\n\nReferences \n Dansk biografisk Lexikon / IV. Bind. Clemens - Eynden(in Danish)\n\n1623 births\n1677 deaths\n17th-century Danish nobility\n17th-century Danish women\nLindenov family\nChildren of Christian IV of Denmark",
"Katy (2015) is a children's book by author Jacqueline Wilson. It is a modern-day retelling of What Katy Did. The author loved the book What Katy Did, so when she got older and became a mother, she used to read the book to her daughter, but she noticed the moral was not appropriate for today's generation. So she rewrote the whole book, in a modern way.\n\nPlot \nKaty has five younger siblings. She is brilliant with them but she's also a daredevil. She's a fan of skateboarding and adventures. She loves the feeling of soaring upwards and has happy memories of her deceased mum pushing her on a swing. But after a tragic accident her spirit sinks to the lowest point. Katy wonders if she'll ever be able to feel like flying again.\n\nKaty and her siblings often sneak next door to their neighbours back garden, calling it a secret garden. She is grounded by her Step-Mum, Izzy after sneaking out so she takes a rope to the secret garden and builds a swing. She falls out of the tree, breaking her spine and leaving her paralysed from waist down.\n\nDuring her hospital stay, she meets edgy older boy Dexter and the two form a friendship quickly. She also formed a better relationship with her stepmother and stepsister.\n\nAfter Katy leaves hospital, she starts to attend secondary school where her friends have already started. She struggles as she is in a wheelchair, but eventually learns that her disability doesn't define her.\n\nThe book ends with Katy receiving presents from people around her at Christmas, including a new wheelchair.\n\nAdaptation \n\nIn June 2017, CBBC announced they have commissioned a three-part series based on the novel.\n\nThe three-part TV series \"Katy\" began on 14 March 2018.\n\nReferences \n\n2015 British novels\nNovels by Jacqueline Wilson\nBritish children's novels\n2015 children's books"
] |
[
"Havelock Ellis",
"Sexual impulse in youth"
] | C_55326ebad6b0415ea8430f68d8c986f4_1 | What was his view on sexual impulse in the youth? | 1 | What was Havelock Ellis view on sexual impulse in the youth? | Havelock Ellis | Dr. Havelock Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'" he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience. Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded that of girls. Dr. Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children experience are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude." Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable." CANNOTANSWER | book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. | Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and inclinations, as well as on transgender psychology. He is credited with introducing the notions of narcissism and autoeroticism, later adopted by psychoanalysis.
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He supported eugenics and served as one of 16 vice-presidents of the Eugenics Society from 1909 to 1912.
Early life and career
Ellis, son of Edward Peppen Ellis and Susannah Mary Wheatley, was born in Croydon, Surrey (now part of Greater London). He had four sisters, none of whom married. His father was a sea captain, his mother the daughter of a sea captain, and many other relatives lived on or near the sea. When he was seven his father took him on one of his voyages, during which they called at Sydney, Australia; Callao, Peru; and Antwerp, Belgium. After his return, Ellis attended the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterward attended a school in Mitcham.
In April 1875, Ellis sailed on his father's ship for Australia; soon after his arrival in Sydney, he obtained a position as a master at a private school. After the discovery of his lack of training, he was fired and became a tutor for a family living a few miles from Carcoar, New South Wales. He spent a year there and then obtained a position as a master at a grammar school in Grafton, New South Wales. The headmaster had died and Ellis carried on at the school for that year, but was unsuccessful.
At the end of the year, he returned to Sydney and, after three months' training, was given charge of two government part-time elementary schools, one at Sparkes Creek, near Scone, New South Wales, and the other at Junction Creek. He lived at the school house on Sparkes Creek for a year. He wrote in his autobiography, "In Australia, I gained health of body, I attained peace of soul, my life task was revealed to me, I was able to decide on a professional vocation, I became an artist in literature; these five points covered the whole activity of my life in the world. Some of them I should doubtless have reached without the aid of the Australian environment, scarcely all, and most of them I could never have achieved so completely if chance had not cast me into the solitude of the Liverpool Range."
Medicine and psychology
Ellis returned to England in April 1879. He had decided to take up the study of sex and felt his first step must be to qualify as a physician. He studied at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, now part of King's College London, but never had a regular medical practice. His training was aided by a small legacy and also income earned from editing works in the Mermaid Series of lesser known Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He joined The Fellowship of the New Life in 1883, meeting other social reformers Eleanor Marx, Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw.
The 1897 English translation of Ellis's book Sexual Inversion, co-authored with John Addington Symonds and originally published in German in 1896, was the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. It describes male homosexual relations as well as adolescent rape. Ellis wrote the first objective study of homosexuality, as he did not characterise it as a disease, immoral, or a crime. The work assumes that same-sex love transcended age taboos as well as gender taboos. The first edition of the book was bought-out by the executor of Symond's estate, who forbade any mention of Symonds in the second edition.
In 1897 a bookseller was prosecuted for stocking Ellis's book. Although the term homosexual is attributed to Ellis, he wrote in 1897, "'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it." In fact, the word homosexual was coined in 1868 by the Hungarian author Karl-Maria Kertbeny.
Ellis may have developed psychological concepts of autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later developed further by Sigmund Freud. Ellis's influence may have reached Radclyffe Hall, who would have been about 17 years old at the time Sexual Inversion was published. She later referred to herself as a sexual invert and wrote of female "sexual inverts" in Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself and The Well of Loneliness. When Ellis bowed out as the star witness in the trial of The Well of Loneliness on 14 May 1928, Norman Haire was set to replace him but no witnesses were called.
Eonism
Ellis studied what today are called transgender phenomena. Together with Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis is considered a major figure in the history of sexology to establish a new category that was separate and distinct from homosexuality. Aware of Hirschfeld's studies of transvestism, but disagreeing with his terminology, in 1913 Ellis proposed the term sexo-aesthetic inversion to describe the phenomenon. In 1920 he coined the term eonism, which he derived from the name of a historical figure, the Chevalier d'Éon. Ellis explained:
Ellis found eonism to be "a remarkably common anomaly", and "next in frequency to homosexuality among sexual deviations", and categorized it as "among the transitional or intermediate forms of sexuality". As in the Freudian tradition, Ellis postulated that a "too close attachment to the mother" may encourage eonism, but also considered that it "probably invokes some defective endocrine balance".
Marriage
In November 1891, at the age of 32, and reportedly still a virgin, Ellis married the English writer and proponent of women's rights Edith Lees. From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional, as Edith Lees was openly lesbian. At the end of the honeymoon, Ellis went back to his bachelor rooms in Paddington. She lived at Fellowship House. Their "open marriage" was the central subject in Ellis's autobiography, My Life. Ellis reportedly had an affair with Margaret Sanger.
According to Ellis in My Life, his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex. Some knew that he reportedly suffered from impotence until the age of 60. He then discovered that he could become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating. Ellis named this "undinism". After his wife died, Ellis formed a relationship with a French woman, Françoise Lafitte.
Eugenics
Ellis was a supporter of eugenics. He served as vice-president to the Eugenics Education Society and wrote on the subject, among others, in The Task of Social Hygiene:
In his early writings, it was clear that Ellis concurred with the notion that there was a system of racial hierarchies, and that non-western cultures were considered to be "lower races". Before explicitly talking about eugenic topics, he used the prevalence of homosexuality in these 'lower races' to indicate the universality of the behavior. In his work, Sexual Inversions, where Ellis presented numerous cases of homosexuality in Britain, he was always careful to mention the race of the subject and the health of the person's 'stock', which included their neuropathic conditions and the health of their parents. However, Ellis was clear to assert that he did not feel that homosexuality was an issue that eugenics needed to actively deal with, as he felt that once the practice was accepted in society, those with homosexual tendencies would comfortably choose not to marry, and thus would cease to pass the 'homosexual heredity' along.
In a debate in the Sociological Society, Ellis corresponded with noted eugenicist Francis Galton, who was presenting a paper in support of marriage restrictions. While Galton analogized eugenics to breeding domesticated animals, Ellis felt that a greater sense of caution was needed before applying the eugenic regulations to populations, as "we have scarcely yet realized how subtle and far-reaching hereditary influences are." Instead, because unlike domesticated animals, humans were in charge of who they mated with, Ellis argued that a greater emphasis was needed on public education about how vital this issue was. Ellis thus held much more moderate views than many contemporary eugenicists. In fact, Ellis also fundamentally disagreed with Galton's leading ideas that procreation restrictions were the same as marriage restrictions. Ellis believed that those who should not procreate should still be able to gain all the other benefits of marriage, and to not allow that was an intolerable burden. This, in his mind, was what led to eugenics being "misunderstood, ridiculed, and regarded as a fad".
Throughout his life, Ellis was both a member and later a council member of the Eugenics Society. Moreover, he played a role on the General Committee of the First International Eugenics Congress.
Sexual impulse in youth
Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse, he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience.
Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references G.V. Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent of girls were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded those of girls.
Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude". Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable".
Auto-eroticism
Ellis' views of auto-eroticism were very comprehensive, including much more than masturbation. Auto-eroticism, according to Ellis, includes a wide range of phenomena. Ellis states in his 1897 book Studies in the Psychology of Sex, that auto-eroticism ranges from erotic day-dreams, marked by a passivity shown by the subject, to "unshamed efforts at sexual self-manipulation witnessed among the insane".
Ellis also argues that auto-erotic impulses can be heightened by bodily processes like menstrual flow. During this time, he says, women, who would otherwise not feel a strong propensity for auto-eroticism, increase their masturbation patterns. This trend is absent, however, in women without a conscious acceptance of their sexual feelings and in a small percentage of women suffering from a sexual or general ailment which result in a significant amount of "sexual anesthesia".
Ellis also raises social concern over how auto-erotic tendencies affect marriages. He goes on to tying auto-eroticism to declining marriage rates. As these rates decline, he concludes that auto-eroticism will only increase in both amount and intensity for both men and women. Therefore, he states, this is an important issue to both the moralist and physician to investigate psychological underpinnings of these experiences and determine an attitude toward them.
Smell
Ellis believed that the sense of smell, although ineffective at long ranges, still contributes to sexual attraction, and therefore, to mate selection. In his 1905 book, Sexual selection in man, Ellis makes a claim for the sense of smell in the role of sexual selection. He asserts that while we have evolved out of a great necessity for the sense of smell, we still rely on our sense of smell with sexual selection. The contributions that smell makes in sexual attraction can even be heightened with certain climates. Ellis states that with warmer climates come a heightened sensitivity to sexual and other positive feelings of smell among normal populations. Because of this, he believes people are often delighted by odors in the East, particularly in India, in "Hebrew and Mohammedan lands". Ellis then continues by describing the distinct odours in various races, noting that the Japanese race has the least intense of bodily odours. Ellis concludes his argument by stating, "On the whole, it may be said that in the usual life of man odours play a not inconsiderable part and raise problems which are not without interest, but that their demonstrable part in actual sexual selection is comparatively small."
Views on women and birth control
Ellis favoured feminism from a eugenic perspective, feeling that the enhanced social, economic, and sexual choices that feminism provided for women would result in women choosing partners who were more eugenically sound. In his view, intelligent women would not choose, nor be forced to marry and procreate with feeble-minded men.
Ellis viewed birth control as merely the continuation of an evolutionary progression, noting that natural progress has always consisted of increasing impediments to reproduction, which lead to a lower quantity of offspring, but a much higher quality of them. From a eugenic perspective, birth control was an invaluable instrument for the elevation of the race. However, Ellis noted that birth control could not be used randomly in a way that could have a detrimental impact by reducing conception, but rather needed to be used in a targeted manner to improve the qualities of certain 'stocks'. He observed that it was unfortunately the 'superior stocks' who had knowledge of and used birth control while the 'inferior stocks' propagated without checks. Ellis' solution to this was a focus on contraceptives in education, as this would disseminate the knowledge in the populations that he felt needed them the most. Ellis argued that birth control was the only available way of making eugenic selection practicable, as the only other option was wide-scale abstention from intercourse for those who were 'unfit'.
Views on sterilization
Ellis was strongly opposed to the idea of castration for eugenic purposes. In 1909, regulations were introduced at the Cantonal Asylum in Bern, which allowed those deemed 'unfit' and with strong sexual inclinations to be mandatorily sterilized. In a particular instance, several men and women, including epileptics and paedophiles, were castrated, some of whom voluntarily requested it. While the results were positive, in that none of the subjects were found guilty of any more sexual offences, Ellis remained staunchly opposed to the practice. His view on the origin of these inclinations was that sexual impulses do not reside in the sexual organs, but rather they persist in the brain. Moreover, he posited that the sexual glands provided an important source of internal secretions vital for the functioning of the organism, and thus their removal could greatly injure the patient.
However, already in his time, Ellis was witness to the rise of vasectomies and ligatures of the Fallopian tubes, which performed the same sterilization without removing the whole organ. In these cases, Ellis was much more favourable, yet still maintaining that "sterilization of the unfit, if it is to be a practical and humane measure commanding general approval, must be voluntary on the part of the person undergoing it, and never compulsory." His opposition to such a system was not only rooted in morality. Rather, Ellis also considered the practicality of the situation, hypothesizing that if an already mentally unfit man is forced to undergo sterilization, he would only become more ill-balanced, and would end up committing more anti-social acts.
Though Ellis was never at ease with the idea of forced sterilizations, he was willing to find ways to circumvent that restriction. His focus was on the social ends of eugenics, and as a means to it, Ellis was in no way against 'persuading' 'volunteers' to undergo sterilization by withdrawing Poor Relief from them. While he preferred to convince those he deemed unfit using education, Ellis supported coercion as a tool. Furthermore, he supported adding ideas about eugenics and birth control to the education system in order to restructure society, and to promote social hygiene. For Ellis, sterilization seemed to be the only eugenic instrument that could be used on the mentally unfit. In fact, in his publication The Sterilization of the Unfit, Ellis argued that even institutionalization could not guarantee the complete prevention of procreation between the unfit, and thus, "the burdens of society, to say nothing of the race, are being multiplied. It is not possible to view sterilization with enthusiasm when applied to any class of people…but what, I ask myself, is the practical alternative?"
Psychedelics
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He consumed a brew made of 3 Echinocacti (peyote) in the afternoon of Good Friday alone in his apartment in Temple, London. During the experience, lasting for about 24 hours, he noted a plethora of extremely vivid, complex, colourful, pleasantly smelling hallucinations, consisting both of abstract geometrical patterns and definite objects such as butterflies and other insects. He published the account of the experience in The Contemporary Review in 1898 (Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise). The title of the article alludes to an earlier work on the effects of mind-altering substances, an 1860 book Les Paradis artificiels by French poet Charles Baudelaire (containing descriptions of experiments with opium and hashish).
Ellis was so impressed with the aesthetic quality of the experience that he gave some specimens of peyote to the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organisation of which another mescaline researcher, Aleister Crowley, was also a member.
Later life and death
Ellis resigned from his position of Fellow of the Eugenics Society over their stance on sterilization in January 1931.
Ellis spent the last year of his life at Hintlesham, Suffolk, where he died in July 1939. He is buried in Golders Green Crematorium, in North London.
Works
The Criminal (1890)
The New Spirit (1890)
The Nationalisation of Health (1892)
Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (1894) (revised 1929)
translator: Germinal (by Zola) (1895) (reissued 1933)
with J.A. Symonds
Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897–1928) six volumes (listed below)
Affirmations (1898)
The Nineteenth Century (1900)
A Study of British Genius (1904)
The Soul of Spain (1908)
The Problem of Race-Regeneration (1911)
The World of Dreams (1911) (new edition 1926)
The Task of Social Hygiene (1912)
The Philosophy of Conflict (1919)
On Life and Sex: Essays of Love and Virtue (1921)
Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922)
Sonnets, with Folk Songs from the Spanish (1925)
Eonism and Other Supplementary Studies (1928)
Studies in the Psychology of Sex Vol. 7 (1928)
The Art of Life (1929) (selected and arranged by Mrs. S. Herbert)
More Essays of Love and Virtue (1931)
ed.: James Hinton: Life in Nature (1931)
ed.: Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, by Walter Savage Landor (1933)
Chapman (1934)
My Confessional (1934)
Questions of Our Day (1934)
From Rousseau to Proust (1935)
Selected Essays (1936)
Poems (1937) (selected by John Gawsworth; pseudonym of T. Fytton Armstrong)
Love and Marriage (1938) (with others)
Sex Compatibility in Marriage (1939)
From Marlowe to Shaw (1950) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Genius of Europe (1950)
Sex and Marriage (1951) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Unpublished Letters of Havelock Ellis to Joseph Ishill (1954)
References
Bibliography
Further reading
(U.S. title)
External links
Havelock Ellis papers (MS 195). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Henry Havelock Ellis papers from the Historic Psychiatry Collection, Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society
1859 births
1939 deaths
19th-century English non-fiction writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Alumni of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
British sexologists
English eugenicists
English psychologists
People from Croydon
Psychedelic drug advocates
British relationships and sexuality writers
Medical writers on LGBT topics
British social reformers
Transgender studies academics
Victorian writers
Translators of Émile Zola | true | [
"The World Association for Sexual Health (WAS) is an international umbrella organization representing sexological societies and sexologists worldwide. Founded in 1978 in Rome, Italy, the WAS main goal is to promote sexual health for all through sexological science. Since its beginning, the WAS has successfully sponsored 19 international congresses, the last one being held in Gothenburg, Sweden, from June 21 to June 25, 2009. The WAS was previously named World Association for Sexology, but changed its name in order to stress that sexology is a tool for achieving sexual health.\n\nMember societies \nFive prominent Regional Continental Federations are members of the WAS: The Asia and Oceania Federation of Sexology (AOFS), the European Federation of Sexology (EFS), the Latin American Federation of Sexology and Sexual Education (FLASSES), the North American Federation of Sexuality Organizations (NAFSO), and the African Federation for Sexual Health and Rights (AFSHR).\n\nWAS members also include more than 100 national and international sexological organizations, institutes and foundations. Among the sexological societies belonging to WAS, we can find: the International Academy of Sex Research, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS), the Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health, South Asia Institute for Human Sexuality (SAIHS), the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, & Therapists (AASECT) and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).\n\nWorld Sexual Health Day \nIn 2010, the WAS instituted September 4 as the World Sexual Health Day in an effort to increase social awareness about the role that sexuality plays in human health, and to promote the fact that sexual health is only attainable through sexual rights.\n\nThe theme of the 2010 World Sexual Health Day was \"Let's talk about it... an intergenerational discussion\", thus, activities around the world had the objective of creating dialogue between youth and adults about sexual health.\n\nMore than 25 countries joined the celebration, among them: Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Sweden, Japan, Italy, Spain, Austria, etc.\n\nThe second World Sexual Health Day took place on September 4, 2011, with the theme \"Youth's sexual health: Shared rights and responsibilities\" in order to celebrate the beginning of the WAS Youth Initiative and the ending of the International Year of Youth.\n\nAnd the third one took place on September 4 (also throughout the month of September) with the theme of \"Celebrating diversity\". More than 40 countries participated.\n\nDeclaration of Sexual Rights \nThe Declaration of Sexual Rights was first proclaimed on the 13th World Congress of Sexology in Valencia 1997 and revised at the 14th World Congress of Sexology in Hong Kong 1999. The current version is from 2014.\n\nThis Declaration gave an influence on The Yogyakarta Principles, especially on the idea of each person's integrity, right to issues of sexuality, including the whole spectrum of sexual and reproductive health and rights.\n\nWork with the Pan American Health Organization \nThe Pan American Health Organization (an office of the World Health Organization) convened a Regional Consultation on sexual health in collaboration with WAS in Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala in May 2000. The consultation resulted in a document entitled: Promotion for Sexual Health. Recommendations for Action, in which a conceptual framework for the promotion of sexual health is developed.\n\nYouth initiative \nThe WAS established its youth initiative in an effort to contribute to youth's sexual health and sexual rights through a fuller participation of Youth in WAS governance, policies and activities. The WAS Youth Initiative was proposed and developed by a 22-year-old Mexican sexual health advocate and sexologist, Antón Castellanos Usigli, mentored by Esther Corona, WAS Executive Coordinator, making it an International Youth Initiative conceived by a young mind.\n\nThe WAS Youth Initiative Committee, was initially co-chaired by Antón Castellanos Usigli and Esther Corona, and composed of ten members belonging to Venezuela, Lebanon, Cuba, Chile, Sweden, Italy, Kenya, Australia and India is the organ within WAS that develops the Initiative. The Second World Sexual Health Day, which took place on September 4, 2011, celebrated young people's sexual health and rights because of the WAS Youth Initiative and the International Year of Youth. In 2020 the Chair of the Committee is Stefano Eleuteri.\n\nJournal\nThe official journal of the World Association for Sexual Health is the International Journal of Sexual Health, is a peer-reviewed academic journal that covers research on sexual health as a state of physical, emotional, mental, and social well-being.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n WAS Universal Declaration of Sexual Rights\n WAS – Declaración de los Derechos Sexuales \n\nInternational medical and health organizations\nSex positivism\nHuman sexuality organizations",
"\"The Impulse Economy: Understanding Mobile Shoppers and What Makes Them Buy\" is a book by Gary Schwartz that analyzes the evolution of mobile shopper behaviour. The book was first released in 2011 in the US and Canadian markets by Simon & Schuster, Atria imprint.\n\nThe Impulse Economy the first of a series of mobile marketing books published by Simon & Schuster. The second in the series FAST SHOPPER. SLOW STORE was published in 2012.\n\nThe Impulse Economy was the first NFC enabled \"smart book\". RFID stickers were placed on the cover of the book to allow book shopper with a NFC enabled phone to tap to instantly link to book information. Simon & Schuster calls this the first contactless book.\n\nThe online book abstract reads, \"We live in a world where our mobile devices have become extensions of ourselves. We depend on them for instant connections to entertainment, social media, news, and deals. The phone has become our ticket, loyalty card, and catchall wallet. Networks are faster, phones are smarter, and the mobile shopper is ready to spend money now. What can a business do to maximize the mobile buying power of the new impulse consumer?\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Book excerpt: The Impulse Economy\n Author's website\n Publisher's website\n Author interview on retail and The Impulse Economy\n MSN interview on The Impulse Economy\n\nMarketing books\nE-commerce\nAtria Publishing Group books\n2011 non-fiction books"
] |
[
"Havelock Ellis",
"Sexual impulse in youth",
"What was his view on sexual impulse in the youth?",
"book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity."
] | C_55326ebad6b0415ea8430f68d8c986f4_1 | How does he feel they experience it differently? | 2 | How does Havelock Ellis feel youth experience sexual impulse differently? | Havelock Ellis | Dr. Havelock Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'" he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience. Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded that of girls. Dr. Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children experience are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude." Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable." CANNOTANSWER | sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse, | Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and inclinations, as well as on transgender psychology. He is credited with introducing the notions of narcissism and autoeroticism, later adopted by psychoanalysis.
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He supported eugenics and served as one of 16 vice-presidents of the Eugenics Society from 1909 to 1912.
Early life and career
Ellis, son of Edward Peppen Ellis and Susannah Mary Wheatley, was born in Croydon, Surrey (now part of Greater London). He had four sisters, none of whom married. His father was a sea captain, his mother the daughter of a sea captain, and many other relatives lived on or near the sea. When he was seven his father took him on one of his voyages, during which they called at Sydney, Australia; Callao, Peru; and Antwerp, Belgium. After his return, Ellis attended the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterward attended a school in Mitcham.
In April 1875, Ellis sailed on his father's ship for Australia; soon after his arrival in Sydney, he obtained a position as a master at a private school. After the discovery of his lack of training, he was fired and became a tutor for a family living a few miles from Carcoar, New South Wales. He spent a year there and then obtained a position as a master at a grammar school in Grafton, New South Wales. The headmaster had died and Ellis carried on at the school for that year, but was unsuccessful.
At the end of the year, he returned to Sydney and, after three months' training, was given charge of two government part-time elementary schools, one at Sparkes Creek, near Scone, New South Wales, and the other at Junction Creek. He lived at the school house on Sparkes Creek for a year. He wrote in his autobiography, "In Australia, I gained health of body, I attained peace of soul, my life task was revealed to me, I was able to decide on a professional vocation, I became an artist in literature; these five points covered the whole activity of my life in the world. Some of them I should doubtless have reached without the aid of the Australian environment, scarcely all, and most of them I could never have achieved so completely if chance had not cast me into the solitude of the Liverpool Range."
Medicine and psychology
Ellis returned to England in April 1879. He had decided to take up the study of sex and felt his first step must be to qualify as a physician. He studied at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, now part of King's College London, but never had a regular medical practice. His training was aided by a small legacy and also income earned from editing works in the Mermaid Series of lesser known Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He joined The Fellowship of the New Life in 1883, meeting other social reformers Eleanor Marx, Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw.
The 1897 English translation of Ellis's book Sexual Inversion, co-authored with John Addington Symonds and originally published in German in 1896, was the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. It describes male homosexual relations as well as adolescent rape. Ellis wrote the first objective study of homosexuality, as he did not characterise it as a disease, immoral, or a crime. The work assumes that same-sex love transcended age taboos as well as gender taboos. The first edition of the book was bought-out by the executor of Symond's estate, who forbade any mention of Symonds in the second edition.
In 1897 a bookseller was prosecuted for stocking Ellis's book. Although the term homosexual is attributed to Ellis, he wrote in 1897, "'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it." In fact, the word homosexual was coined in 1868 by the Hungarian author Karl-Maria Kertbeny.
Ellis may have developed psychological concepts of autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later developed further by Sigmund Freud. Ellis's influence may have reached Radclyffe Hall, who would have been about 17 years old at the time Sexual Inversion was published. She later referred to herself as a sexual invert and wrote of female "sexual inverts" in Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself and The Well of Loneliness. When Ellis bowed out as the star witness in the trial of The Well of Loneliness on 14 May 1928, Norman Haire was set to replace him but no witnesses were called.
Eonism
Ellis studied what today are called transgender phenomena. Together with Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis is considered a major figure in the history of sexology to establish a new category that was separate and distinct from homosexuality. Aware of Hirschfeld's studies of transvestism, but disagreeing with his terminology, in 1913 Ellis proposed the term sexo-aesthetic inversion to describe the phenomenon. In 1920 he coined the term eonism, which he derived from the name of a historical figure, the Chevalier d'Éon. Ellis explained:
Ellis found eonism to be "a remarkably common anomaly", and "next in frequency to homosexuality among sexual deviations", and categorized it as "among the transitional or intermediate forms of sexuality". As in the Freudian tradition, Ellis postulated that a "too close attachment to the mother" may encourage eonism, but also considered that it "probably invokes some defective endocrine balance".
Marriage
In November 1891, at the age of 32, and reportedly still a virgin, Ellis married the English writer and proponent of women's rights Edith Lees. From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional, as Edith Lees was openly lesbian. At the end of the honeymoon, Ellis went back to his bachelor rooms in Paddington. She lived at Fellowship House. Their "open marriage" was the central subject in Ellis's autobiography, My Life. Ellis reportedly had an affair with Margaret Sanger.
According to Ellis in My Life, his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex. Some knew that he reportedly suffered from impotence until the age of 60. He then discovered that he could become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating. Ellis named this "undinism". After his wife died, Ellis formed a relationship with a French woman, Françoise Lafitte.
Eugenics
Ellis was a supporter of eugenics. He served as vice-president to the Eugenics Education Society and wrote on the subject, among others, in The Task of Social Hygiene:
In his early writings, it was clear that Ellis concurred with the notion that there was a system of racial hierarchies, and that non-western cultures were considered to be "lower races". Before explicitly talking about eugenic topics, he used the prevalence of homosexuality in these 'lower races' to indicate the universality of the behavior. In his work, Sexual Inversions, where Ellis presented numerous cases of homosexuality in Britain, he was always careful to mention the race of the subject and the health of the person's 'stock', which included their neuropathic conditions and the health of their parents. However, Ellis was clear to assert that he did not feel that homosexuality was an issue that eugenics needed to actively deal with, as he felt that once the practice was accepted in society, those with homosexual tendencies would comfortably choose not to marry, and thus would cease to pass the 'homosexual heredity' along.
In a debate in the Sociological Society, Ellis corresponded with noted eugenicist Francis Galton, who was presenting a paper in support of marriage restrictions. While Galton analogized eugenics to breeding domesticated animals, Ellis felt that a greater sense of caution was needed before applying the eugenic regulations to populations, as "we have scarcely yet realized how subtle and far-reaching hereditary influences are." Instead, because unlike domesticated animals, humans were in charge of who they mated with, Ellis argued that a greater emphasis was needed on public education about how vital this issue was. Ellis thus held much more moderate views than many contemporary eugenicists. In fact, Ellis also fundamentally disagreed with Galton's leading ideas that procreation restrictions were the same as marriage restrictions. Ellis believed that those who should not procreate should still be able to gain all the other benefits of marriage, and to not allow that was an intolerable burden. This, in his mind, was what led to eugenics being "misunderstood, ridiculed, and regarded as a fad".
Throughout his life, Ellis was both a member and later a council member of the Eugenics Society. Moreover, he played a role on the General Committee of the First International Eugenics Congress.
Sexual impulse in youth
Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse, he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience.
Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references G.V. Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent of girls were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded those of girls.
Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude". Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable".
Auto-eroticism
Ellis' views of auto-eroticism were very comprehensive, including much more than masturbation. Auto-eroticism, according to Ellis, includes a wide range of phenomena. Ellis states in his 1897 book Studies in the Psychology of Sex, that auto-eroticism ranges from erotic day-dreams, marked by a passivity shown by the subject, to "unshamed efforts at sexual self-manipulation witnessed among the insane".
Ellis also argues that auto-erotic impulses can be heightened by bodily processes like menstrual flow. During this time, he says, women, who would otherwise not feel a strong propensity for auto-eroticism, increase their masturbation patterns. This trend is absent, however, in women without a conscious acceptance of their sexual feelings and in a small percentage of women suffering from a sexual or general ailment which result in a significant amount of "sexual anesthesia".
Ellis also raises social concern over how auto-erotic tendencies affect marriages. He goes on to tying auto-eroticism to declining marriage rates. As these rates decline, he concludes that auto-eroticism will only increase in both amount and intensity for both men and women. Therefore, he states, this is an important issue to both the moralist and physician to investigate psychological underpinnings of these experiences and determine an attitude toward them.
Smell
Ellis believed that the sense of smell, although ineffective at long ranges, still contributes to sexual attraction, and therefore, to mate selection. In his 1905 book, Sexual selection in man, Ellis makes a claim for the sense of smell in the role of sexual selection. He asserts that while we have evolved out of a great necessity for the sense of smell, we still rely on our sense of smell with sexual selection. The contributions that smell makes in sexual attraction can even be heightened with certain climates. Ellis states that with warmer climates come a heightened sensitivity to sexual and other positive feelings of smell among normal populations. Because of this, he believes people are often delighted by odors in the East, particularly in India, in "Hebrew and Mohammedan lands". Ellis then continues by describing the distinct odours in various races, noting that the Japanese race has the least intense of bodily odours. Ellis concludes his argument by stating, "On the whole, it may be said that in the usual life of man odours play a not inconsiderable part and raise problems which are not without interest, but that their demonstrable part in actual sexual selection is comparatively small."
Views on women and birth control
Ellis favoured feminism from a eugenic perspective, feeling that the enhanced social, economic, and sexual choices that feminism provided for women would result in women choosing partners who were more eugenically sound. In his view, intelligent women would not choose, nor be forced to marry and procreate with feeble-minded men.
Ellis viewed birth control as merely the continuation of an evolutionary progression, noting that natural progress has always consisted of increasing impediments to reproduction, which lead to a lower quantity of offspring, but a much higher quality of them. From a eugenic perspective, birth control was an invaluable instrument for the elevation of the race. However, Ellis noted that birth control could not be used randomly in a way that could have a detrimental impact by reducing conception, but rather needed to be used in a targeted manner to improve the qualities of certain 'stocks'. He observed that it was unfortunately the 'superior stocks' who had knowledge of and used birth control while the 'inferior stocks' propagated without checks. Ellis' solution to this was a focus on contraceptives in education, as this would disseminate the knowledge in the populations that he felt needed them the most. Ellis argued that birth control was the only available way of making eugenic selection practicable, as the only other option was wide-scale abstention from intercourse for those who were 'unfit'.
Views on sterilization
Ellis was strongly opposed to the idea of castration for eugenic purposes. In 1909, regulations were introduced at the Cantonal Asylum in Bern, which allowed those deemed 'unfit' and with strong sexual inclinations to be mandatorily sterilized. In a particular instance, several men and women, including epileptics and paedophiles, were castrated, some of whom voluntarily requested it. While the results were positive, in that none of the subjects were found guilty of any more sexual offences, Ellis remained staunchly opposed to the practice. His view on the origin of these inclinations was that sexual impulses do not reside in the sexual organs, but rather they persist in the brain. Moreover, he posited that the sexual glands provided an important source of internal secretions vital for the functioning of the organism, and thus their removal could greatly injure the patient.
However, already in his time, Ellis was witness to the rise of vasectomies and ligatures of the Fallopian tubes, which performed the same sterilization without removing the whole organ. In these cases, Ellis was much more favourable, yet still maintaining that "sterilization of the unfit, if it is to be a practical and humane measure commanding general approval, must be voluntary on the part of the person undergoing it, and never compulsory." His opposition to such a system was not only rooted in morality. Rather, Ellis also considered the practicality of the situation, hypothesizing that if an already mentally unfit man is forced to undergo sterilization, he would only become more ill-balanced, and would end up committing more anti-social acts.
Though Ellis was never at ease with the idea of forced sterilizations, he was willing to find ways to circumvent that restriction. His focus was on the social ends of eugenics, and as a means to it, Ellis was in no way against 'persuading' 'volunteers' to undergo sterilization by withdrawing Poor Relief from them. While he preferred to convince those he deemed unfit using education, Ellis supported coercion as a tool. Furthermore, he supported adding ideas about eugenics and birth control to the education system in order to restructure society, and to promote social hygiene. For Ellis, sterilization seemed to be the only eugenic instrument that could be used on the mentally unfit. In fact, in his publication The Sterilization of the Unfit, Ellis argued that even institutionalization could not guarantee the complete prevention of procreation between the unfit, and thus, "the burdens of society, to say nothing of the race, are being multiplied. It is not possible to view sterilization with enthusiasm when applied to any class of people…but what, I ask myself, is the practical alternative?"
Psychedelics
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He consumed a brew made of 3 Echinocacti (peyote) in the afternoon of Good Friday alone in his apartment in Temple, London. During the experience, lasting for about 24 hours, he noted a plethora of extremely vivid, complex, colourful, pleasantly smelling hallucinations, consisting both of abstract geometrical patterns and definite objects such as butterflies and other insects. He published the account of the experience in The Contemporary Review in 1898 (Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise). The title of the article alludes to an earlier work on the effects of mind-altering substances, an 1860 book Les Paradis artificiels by French poet Charles Baudelaire (containing descriptions of experiments with opium and hashish).
Ellis was so impressed with the aesthetic quality of the experience that he gave some specimens of peyote to the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organisation of which another mescaline researcher, Aleister Crowley, was also a member.
Later life and death
Ellis resigned from his position of Fellow of the Eugenics Society over their stance on sterilization in January 1931.
Ellis spent the last year of his life at Hintlesham, Suffolk, where he died in July 1939. He is buried in Golders Green Crematorium, in North London.
Works
The Criminal (1890)
The New Spirit (1890)
The Nationalisation of Health (1892)
Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (1894) (revised 1929)
translator: Germinal (by Zola) (1895) (reissued 1933)
with J.A. Symonds
Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897–1928) six volumes (listed below)
Affirmations (1898)
The Nineteenth Century (1900)
A Study of British Genius (1904)
The Soul of Spain (1908)
The Problem of Race-Regeneration (1911)
The World of Dreams (1911) (new edition 1926)
The Task of Social Hygiene (1912)
The Philosophy of Conflict (1919)
On Life and Sex: Essays of Love and Virtue (1921)
Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922)
Sonnets, with Folk Songs from the Spanish (1925)
Eonism and Other Supplementary Studies (1928)
Studies in the Psychology of Sex Vol. 7 (1928)
The Art of Life (1929) (selected and arranged by Mrs. S. Herbert)
More Essays of Love and Virtue (1931)
ed.: James Hinton: Life in Nature (1931)
ed.: Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, by Walter Savage Landor (1933)
Chapman (1934)
My Confessional (1934)
Questions of Our Day (1934)
From Rousseau to Proust (1935)
Selected Essays (1936)
Poems (1937) (selected by John Gawsworth; pseudonym of T. Fytton Armstrong)
Love and Marriage (1938) (with others)
Sex Compatibility in Marriage (1939)
From Marlowe to Shaw (1950) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Genius of Europe (1950)
Sex and Marriage (1951) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Unpublished Letters of Havelock Ellis to Joseph Ishill (1954)
References
Bibliography
Further reading
(U.S. title)
External links
Havelock Ellis papers (MS 195). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Henry Havelock Ellis papers from the Historic Psychiatry Collection, Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society
1859 births
1939 deaths
19th-century English non-fiction writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Alumni of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
British sexologists
English eugenicists
English psychologists
People from Croydon
Psychedelic drug advocates
British relationships and sexuality writers
Medical writers on LGBT topics
British social reformers
Transgender studies academics
Victorian writers
Translators of Émile Zola | true | [
"How Does It Feel may refer to:\n\nMusic\n\nAlbums\n How Does It Feel, a 1999 album by Nancy Sinatra\n How Does It Feel (MS MR album), a 2015 album by MS MR\n\nSongs\n \"How Does It Feel\" (Anita Baker song)\n \"How Does It Feel\" (Slade song)\n \"How Does It Feel (to be the mother of 1000 dead)?\", a controversial song by Crass\n \"How Does It Feel\", a song by Avril Lavigne from Under My Skin\n \"How Does It Feel\", a song by Candlebox from Into the Sun\n \"How Does It Feel\", a song by Keri Hilson from In a Perfect World...\n \"How Does It Feel\", a song by London Grammar from Californian Soil\n \"How Does It Feel\", a song by Men Without Hats from No Hats Beyond This Point\n \"How Does It Feel\", a song by M-22\n \"How Does It Feel?\", a song by Pharrell Williams from In My Mind\n \"How Does It Feel?\", a song by The Ronettes from Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes Featuring Veronica\n \"How Does It Feel\", a song by Toto from Isolation\n \"How Does It Feel\", a song by Westlife from Unbreakable – The Greatest Hits Vol. 1\n \"Untitled (How Does It Feel)\", a song by D'Angelo from Voodoo\n \"Like a Rolling Stone\", song by Bob Dylan from Highway 61 Revisited, best known for the line \"How does it feel?\"\n \"Blue Monday\" (New Order song), a song whose first line is \"How does it feel\"",
"Hdif or HDIF may refer to:\n\nHow Does It Feel to Be Loved?, a London night club\nHow does it feel to be loved, which has numerous meanings\nHuman Development Innovation Fund, a DFID challenge fund"
] |
[
"Havelock Ellis",
"Sexual impulse in youth",
"What was his view on sexual impulse in the youth?",
"book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity.",
"How does he feel they experience it differently?",
"sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,"
] | C_55326ebad6b0415ea8430f68d8c986f4_1 | Does he think that the youth are more sexually active than older people? | 3 | Does Havelock Ellis think that the youth are more sexually active than older people? | Havelock Ellis | Dr. Havelock Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'" he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience. Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded that of girls. Dr. Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children experience are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude." Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable." CANNOTANSWER | He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. | Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and inclinations, as well as on transgender psychology. He is credited with introducing the notions of narcissism and autoeroticism, later adopted by psychoanalysis.
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He supported eugenics and served as one of 16 vice-presidents of the Eugenics Society from 1909 to 1912.
Early life and career
Ellis, son of Edward Peppen Ellis and Susannah Mary Wheatley, was born in Croydon, Surrey (now part of Greater London). He had four sisters, none of whom married. His father was a sea captain, his mother the daughter of a sea captain, and many other relatives lived on or near the sea. When he was seven his father took him on one of his voyages, during which they called at Sydney, Australia; Callao, Peru; and Antwerp, Belgium. After his return, Ellis attended the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterward attended a school in Mitcham.
In April 1875, Ellis sailed on his father's ship for Australia; soon after his arrival in Sydney, he obtained a position as a master at a private school. After the discovery of his lack of training, he was fired and became a tutor for a family living a few miles from Carcoar, New South Wales. He spent a year there and then obtained a position as a master at a grammar school in Grafton, New South Wales. The headmaster had died and Ellis carried on at the school for that year, but was unsuccessful.
At the end of the year, he returned to Sydney and, after three months' training, was given charge of two government part-time elementary schools, one at Sparkes Creek, near Scone, New South Wales, and the other at Junction Creek. He lived at the school house on Sparkes Creek for a year. He wrote in his autobiography, "In Australia, I gained health of body, I attained peace of soul, my life task was revealed to me, I was able to decide on a professional vocation, I became an artist in literature; these five points covered the whole activity of my life in the world. Some of them I should doubtless have reached without the aid of the Australian environment, scarcely all, and most of them I could never have achieved so completely if chance had not cast me into the solitude of the Liverpool Range."
Medicine and psychology
Ellis returned to England in April 1879. He had decided to take up the study of sex and felt his first step must be to qualify as a physician. He studied at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, now part of King's College London, but never had a regular medical practice. His training was aided by a small legacy and also income earned from editing works in the Mermaid Series of lesser known Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He joined The Fellowship of the New Life in 1883, meeting other social reformers Eleanor Marx, Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw.
The 1897 English translation of Ellis's book Sexual Inversion, co-authored with John Addington Symonds and originally published in German in 1896, was the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. It describes male homosexual relations as well as adolescent rape. Ellis wrote the first objective study of homosexuality, as he did not characterise it as a disease, immoral, or a crime. The work assumes that same-sex love transcended age taboos as well as gender taboos. The first edition of the book was bought-out by the executor of Symond's estate, who forbade any mention of Symonds in the second edition.
In 1897 a bookseller was prosecuted for stocking Ellis's book. Although the term homosexual is attributed to Ellis, he wrote in 1897, "'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it." In fact, the word homosexual was coined in 1868 by the Hungarian author Karl-Maria Kertbeny.
Ellis may have developed psychological concepts of autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later developed further by Sigmund Freud. Ellis's influence may have reached Radclyffe Hall, who would have been about 17 years old at the time Sexual Inversion was published. She later referred to herself as a sexual invert and wrote of female "sexual inverts" in Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself and The Well of Loneliness. When Ellis bowed out as the star witness in the trial of The Well of Loneliness on 14 May 1928, Norman Haire was set to replace him but no witnesses were called.
Eonism
Ellis studied what today are called transgender phenomena. Together with Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis is considered a major figure in the history of sexology to establish a new category that was separate and distinct from homosexuality. Aware of Hirschfeld's studies of transvestism, but disagreeing with his terminology, in 1913 Ellis proposed the term sexo-aesthetic inversion to describe the phenomenon. In 1920 he coined the term eonism, which he derived from the name of a historical figure, the Chevalier d'Éon. Ellis explained:
Ellis found eonism to be "a remarkably common anomaly", and "next in frequency to homosexuality among sexual deviations", and categorized it as "among the transitional or intermediate forms of sexuality". As in the Freudian tradition, Ellis postulated that a "too close attachment to the mother" may encourage eonism, but also considered that it "probably invokes some defective endocrine balance".
Marriage
In November 1891, at the age of 32, and reportedly still a virgin, Ellis married the English writer and proponent of women's rights Edith Lees. From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional, as Edith Lees was openly lesbian. At the end of the honeymoon, Ellis went back to his bachelor rooms in Paddington. She lived at Fellowship House. Their "open marriage" was the central subject in Ellis's autobiography, My Life. Ellis reportedly had an affair with Margaret Sanger.
According to Ellis in My Life, his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex. Some knew that he reportedly suffered from impotence until the age of 60. He then discovered that he could become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating. Ellis named this "undinism". After his wife died, Ellis formed a relationship with a French woman, Françoise Lafitte.
Eugenics
Ellis was a supporter of eugenics. He served as vice-president to the Eugenics Education Society and wrote on the subject, among others, in The Task of Social Hygiene:
In his early writings, it was clear that Ellis concurred with the notion that there was a system of racial hierarchies, and that non-western cultures were considered to be "lower races". Before explicitly talking about eugenic topics, he used the prevalence of homosexuality in these 'lower races' to indicate the universality of the behavior. In his work, Sexual Inversions, where Ellis presented numerous cases of homosexuality in Britain, he was always careful to mention the race of the subject and the health of the person's 'stock', which included their neuropathic conditions and the health of their parents. However, Ellis was clear to assert that he did not feel that homosexuality was an issue that eugenics needed to actively deal with, as he felt that once the practice was accepted in society, those with homosexual tendencies would comfortably choose not to marry, and thus would cease to pass the 'homosexual heredity' along.
In a debate in the Sociological Society, Ellis corresponded with noted eugenicist Francis Galton, who was presenting a paper in support of marriage restrictions. While Galton analogized eugenics to breeding domesticated animals, Ellis felt that a greater sense of caution was needed before applying the eugenic regulations to populations, as "we have scarcely yet realized how subtle and far-reaching hereditary influences are." Instead, because unlike domesticated animals, humans were in charge of who they mated with, Ellis argued that a greater emphasis was needed on public education about how vital this issue was. Ellis thus held much more moderate views than many contemporary eugenicists. In fact, Ellis also fundamentally disagreed with Galton's leading ideas that procreation restrictions were the same as marriage restrictions. Ellis believed that those who should not procreate should still be able to gain all the other benefits of marriage, and to not allow that was an intolerable burden. This, in his mind, was what led to eugenics being "misunderstood, ridiculed, and regarded as a fad".
Throughout his life, Ellis was both a member and later a council member of the Eugenics Society. Moreover, he played a role on the General Committee of the First International Eugenics Congress.
Sexual impulse in youth
Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse, he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience.
Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references G.V. Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent of girls were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded those of girls.
Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude". Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable".
Auto-eroticism
Ellis' views of auto-eroticism were very comprehensive, including much more than masturbation. Auto-eroticism, according to Ellis, includes a wide range of phenomena. Ellis states in his 1897 book Studies in the Psychology of Sex, that auto-eroticism ranges from erotic day-dreams, marked by a passivity shown by the subject, to "unshamed efforts at sexual self-manipulation witnessed among the insane".
Ellis also argues that auto-erotic impulses can be heightened by bodily processes like menstrual flow. During this time, he says, women, who would otherwise not feel a strong propensity for auto-eroticism, increase their masturbation patterns. This trend is absent, however, in women without a conscious acceptance of their sexual feelings and in a small percentage of women suffering from a sexual or general ailment which result in a significant amount of "sexual anesthesia".
Ellis also raises social concern over how auto-erotic tendencies affect marriages. He goes on to tying auto-eroticism to declining marriage rates. As these rates decline, he concludes that auto-eroticism will only increase in both amount and intensity for both men and women. Therefore, he states, this is an important issue to both the moralist and physician to investigate psychological underpinnings of these experiences and determine an attitude toward them.
Smell
Ellis believed that the sense of smell, although ineffective at long ranges, still contributes to sexual attraction, and therefore, to mate selection. In his 1905 book, Sexual selection in man, Ellis makes a claim for the sense of smell in the role of sexual selection. He asserts that while we have evolved out of a great necessity for the sense of smell, we still rely on our sense of smell with sexual selection. The contributions that smell makes in sexual attraction can even be heightened with certain climates. Ellis states that with warmer climates come a heightened sensitivity to sexual and other positive feelings of smell among normal populations. Because of this, he believes people are often delighted by odors in the East, particularly in India, in "Hebrew and Mohammedan lands". Ellis then continues by describing the distinct odours in various races, noting that the Japanese race has the least intense of bodily odours. Ellis concludes his argument by stating, "On the whole, it may be said that in the usual life of man odours play a not inconsiderable part and raise problems which are not without interest, but that their demonstrable part in actual sexual selection is comparatively small."
Views on women and birth control
Ellis favoured feminism from a eugenic perspective, feeling that the enhanced social, economic, and sexual choices that feminism provided for women would result in women choosing partners who were more eugenically sound. In his view, intelligent women would not choose, nor be forced to marry and procreate with feeble-minded men.
Ellis viewed birth control as merely the continuation of an evolutionary progression, noting that natural progress has always consisted of increasing impediments to reproduction, which lead to a lower quantity of offspring, but a much higher quality of them. From a eugenic perspective, birth control was an invaluable instrument for the elevation of the race. However, Ellis noted that birth control could not be used randomly in a way that could have a detrimental impact by reducing conception, but rather needed to be used in a targeted manner to improve the qualities of certain 'stocks'. He observed that it was unfortunately the 'superior stocks' who had knowledge of and used birth control while the 'inferior stocks' propagated without checks. Ellis' solution to this was a focus on contraceptives in education, as this would disseminate the knowledge in the populations that he felt needed them the most. Ellis argued that birth control was the only available way of making eugenic selection practicable, as the only other option was wide-scale abstention from intercourse for those who were 'unfit'.
Views on sterilization
Ellis was strongly opposed to the idea of castration for eugenic purposes. In 1909, regulations were introduced at the Cantonal Asylum in Bern, which allowed those deemed 'unfit' and with strong sexual inclinations to be mandatorily sterilized. In a particular instance, several men and women, including epileptics and paedophiles, were castrated, some of whom voluntarily requested it. While the results were positive, in that none of the subjects were found guilty of any more sexual offences, Ellis remained staunchly opposed to the practice. His view on the origin of these inclinations was that sexual impulses do not reside in the sexual organs, but rather they persist in the brain. Moreover, he posited that the sexual glands provided an important source of internal secretions vital for the functioning of the organism, and thus their removal could greatly injure the patient.
However, already in his time, Ellis was witness to the rise of vasectomies and ligatures of the Fallopian tubes, which performed the same sterilization without removing the whole organ. In these cases, Ellis was much more favourable, yet still maintaining that "sterilization of the unfit, if it is to be a practical and humane measure commanding general approval, must be voluntary on the part of the person undergoing it, and never compulsory." His opposition to such a system was not only rooted in morality. Rather, Ellis also considered the practicality of the situation, hypothesizing that if an already mentally unfit man is forced to undergo sterilization, he would only become more ill-balanced, and would end up committing more anti-social acts.
Though Ellis was never at ease with the idea of forced sterilizations, he was willing to find ways to circumvent that restriction. His focus was on the social ends of eugenics, and as a means to it, Ellis was in no way against 'persuading' 'volunteers' to undergo sterilization by withdrawing Poor Relief from them. While he preferred to convince those he deemed unfit using education, Ellis supported coercion as a tool. Furthermore, he supported adding ideas about eugenics and birth control to the education system in order to restructure society, and to promote social hygiene. For Ellis, sterilization seemed to be the only eugenic instrument that could be used on the mentally unfit. In fact, in his publication The Sterilization of the Unfit, Ellis argued that even institutionalization could not guarantee the complete prevention of procreation between the unfit, and thus, "the burdens of society, to say nothing of the race, are being multiplied. It is not possible to view sterilization with enthusiasm when applied to any class of people…but what, I ask myself, is the practical alternative?"
Psychedelics
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He consumed a brew made of 3 Echinocacti (peyote) in the afternoon of Good Friday alone in his apartment in Temple, London. During the experience, lasting for about 24 hours, he noted a plethora of extremely vivid, complex, colourful, pleasantly smelling hallucinations, consisting both of abstract geometrical patterns and definite objects such as butterflies and other insects. He published the account of the experience in The Contemporary Review in 1898 (Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise). The title of the article alludes to an earlier work on the effects of mind-altering substances, an 1860 book Les Paradis artificiels by French poet Charles Baudelaire (containing descriptions of experiments with opium and hashish).
Ellis was so impressed with the aesthetic quality of the experience that he gave some specimens of peyote to the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organisation of which another mescaline researcher, Aleister Crowley, was also a member.
Later life and death
Ellis resigned from his position of Fellow of the Eugenics Society over their stance on sterilization in January 1931.
Ellis spent the last year of his life at Hintlesham, Suffolk, where he died in July 1939. He is buried in Golders Green Crematorium, in North London.
Works
The Criminal (1890)
The New Spirit (1890)
The Nationalisation of Health (1892)
Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (1894) (revised 1929)
translator: Germinal (by Zola) (1895) (reissued 1933)
with J.A. Symonds
Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897–1928) six volumes (listed below)
Affirmations (1898)
The Nineteenth Century (1900)
A Study of British Genius (1904)
The Soul of Spain (1908)
The Problem of Race-Regeneration (1911)
The World of Dreams (1911) (new edition 1926)
The Task of Social Hygiene (1912)
The Philosophy of Conflict (1919)
On Life and Sex: Essays of Love and Virtue (1921)
Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922)
Sonnets, with Folk Songs from the Spanish (1925)
Eonism and Other Supplementary Studies (1928)
Studies in the Psychology of Sex Vol. 7 (1928)
The Art of Life (1929) (selected and arranged by Mrs. S. Herbert)
More Essays of Love and Virtue (1931)
ed.: James Hinton: Life in Nature (1931)
ed.: Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, by Walter Savage Landor (1933)
Chapman (1934)
My Confessional (1934)
Questions of Our Day (1934)
From Rousseau to Proust (1935)
Selected Essays (1936)
Poems (1937) (selected by John Gawsworth; pseudonym of T. Fytton Armstrong)
Love and Marriage (1938) (with others)
Sex Compatibility in Marriage (1939)
From Marlowe to Shaw (1950) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Genius of Europe (1950)
Sex and Marriage (1951) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Unpublished Letters of Havelock Ellis to Joseph Ishill (1954)
References
Bibliography
Further reading
(U.S. title)
External links
Havelock Ellis papers (MS 195). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Henry Havelock Ellis papers from the Historic Psychiatry Collection, Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society
1859 births
1939 deaths
19th-century English non-fiction writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Alumni of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
British sexologists
English eugenicists
English psychologists
People from Croydon
Psychedelic drug advocates
British relationships and sexuality writers
Medical writers on LGBT topics
British social reformers
Transgender studies academics
Victorian writers
Translators of Émile Zola | true | [
"Sexually active life expectancy is the average number of years remaining for a person to be sexually active. This population-based indicator extends the concept of health expectancy to the measure of sexuality (via sexual activity). Calculation of sexually active life expectancy uses the age-specific prevalence data on sexual activity in conjunction with life table data on survival probabilities to partition the number of person-years into years with and without sexual activity, which is based on the Sullivan method. The Sullivan method's objective is to understand the change of health in a given population over time.\n\nStudies\nThe measure of sexually active life expectancy was introduced by Lindau and Gavrilova. Through their study of two cohorts, researchers Lindau and Gavrilova found that sexual activity, a good quality sex life, and interest in sex were associated with self rated health in a positive way. Their research focused on midlife and later life health. This included ages 27 to 74 years and 57 to 85 years. In their findings they concluded that a gender difference was present with increasing age. Evidence proved that men were more likely than women to be engaging in sexual activity. Men were also more likely to report that they were even interested in having sex and that they were having good quality sex . In addition, the research demonstrated that only 51.8% of women in a later stage of life reported being satisfied by their sexual life compared to 71.1% of men. Furthermore, their research showed that men in good or excellent health participated in regular sexual activity lived an extra five to seven years, and women in substantially good health lived three to six years longer. Even though the gender gap is evident, the research provides a clear association between health and sexual activity.\n\nA study of two large population-based U.S. surveys found that, on average, women expect fewer years of sexual activity, mainly due to prevalent widowhood among older women. This gender disparity is attenuated for people with a spouse or other intimate partner. The study also found that men tend to lose more years of sexually active life due to poor health.\n\nSexually active life expectancy is associated with self-reports of good health in both men and women. Sexuality has been identified as an important attribute to overall health and a marker of quality of life. Sexual desire has also been attributed to good health, good sexual functioning, positive sexual self-esteem, and a skillful partner. Physicians may find that sexually active life expectancy can be used as an incentive for patients to become (and stay) healthy. Institutional settings such as residential care facilities should focus on offering an accepting environment for sexually active older people.\n\nBarriers preventing sex \nAlthough people generalize that older adults do not participate in sex often, research shows that older people enjoy participating in a variety of sexual activities. Barriers, both physically and mentally, is an important factor that influences older adults' sexual activities. These barriers can be seen at the individual, societal, and structural level. Some barriers include: lack of privacy, availability of sexual partner, mental health, and the impact of prescriptions on sexual desires.\n\nAge-related barriers \nAge-related factors can be identified through the decline of health. This can include declining fitness and mobility levels. Biological changes, such as menopause for women, can cause an unpleasant experience during sex. This can include painful intercourse and a lack of sex drive, however, many women have reported that not having to worry about becoming pregnant made them enjoy sexual activity more. The presence of diseases such as arthritis, can also greatly affect a person's sexual activities, however, this is evident for any age range. Factors such as a decrease in self esteem, confidence, and cognitive function can prohibit an older person from participating in sex or romantic partnerships. Having to live in an assisted living home has also created a physical behavior. People are less likely to have the privacy that they want when they are surrounded by other elderly people and nurses.\n\nIntimate relationships within institutional settings (residential care) \nDue to the increasing ageist attitudes towards older people being sexually active, there is not many programs advocating for older people's sexuality. Employers of residential facilities see many problems with allowing older people to participate in sexual activities. Within institutional settings, segregation was found to be the main boundary between older people, assuming they were heterosexual, achieving sexual activities. Many buildings were designed to ensure that males and females were separated, usually by floors or specific wings of the building. Unless they could afford to, married couples were not able to stay with each other in residential care facilities. Creating a \"home\" environment is a key factor in an older person's well-being, especially since this facility may be the last place an older person resides in. Therefore, being open minded about residents' sexual life would be very beneficial to older people.\n\nLegal and ethical issues \nOne of the main reasons residential homes do not care to facilitate intimate relationships is because employees may have a hard time distinguishing a desired sexual partnership from an undesired one. The residential care faces possible issues if a resident is being taken advantage of especially if they are physically or mentally incapable to protect themselves. Facilities usually have a safeguarding and protection policy which monitors any relationship to prevent abuse.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links \n Calculate your sexually active life expectancy\n\nSexuality and age\nGerontology\nSurvival analysis",
"Sexuality in older age concerns the sexual drive, sexual activity, interests, orientation, intimacy, self-esteem, behaviors, and overall sexuality of people in middle age and old age, and the social perceptions concerning sexuality in older age. Older people engage in a variety of sexual acts from time to time for a variety of reasons. Desire for intimacy does not disappear with age, yet there are many restrictions placed on the elderly preventing sexual expressions and discouraging the fulfillment of sexual needs. Sexuality in older age is often considered a taboo, yet it is considered to be quite a healthy practice; however, this stigma can affect how older individuals experience their sexuality. While the human body has some limits on the maximum age for reproduction, sexual activity can be performed or experienced well into the later years of life.\n\nPhysical changes\nBoth male and female libidos tend to decline with increasing age, and women tend to lose their libido faster than men. However, desire for sexual activity is not lost completely. Neither does it decrease for everyone. Menopause, a female biological process, has been linked to a loss of interest in sexual activity and to a desensitization of the genital area. In some cases, vaginal penetration can be painful for older women (see, for example, vaginismus). However, with the advent of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) treatments, the effects of menopause have lessened and women have more opportunities to continue experiencing an active sex life. Similarly, treatments for erectile dysfunction can make it possible for men to enjoy sexual activity again.\n\nHealth benefits\nIt has been suggested that an active sex life can increase longevity among the elderly. Positive sexual health in older age is slowly becoming more of a commonplace idea with the steady increase in the percentage of the older population. This population percentage increase requires placing more attention on the needs of this age group, including their ideas on sexual health, desires, and attitudes. This shift in attitudes and behaviors has combined with medical advances to prolong a sexually active life and change the landscape of aging sexuality.\n\nSexual health and expression reflects a physical, mental, and emotional need that affects individual health and intimacy quality for older couples’ relationships. Dr. Syme found that, \"Having a sexual partnership, with frequent sexual expression, having a good quality sex life, and being interested in sex have been found to be positively associated with health among middle-aged and older adults.\"\n\nThere are a number of associated health benefits with practicing positive sexual health. Positive sexual health often acts as a de-stressor promoting increased relaxation. Researchers also report health benefits detailing decreased pain sensitivity, improved cardiovascular health, lower levels of depression, increased self-esteem, and better relationship satisfaction. The former could also imply the consequences of negative sexual health and lack of sexual activity, such as depression, low self-esteem, increased frustration, and loneliness.\n\nHealth risks and education \nThere are already numerous health concerns linked primarily with aging, but when sex is added into consideration, this opens up discussion for many other related concerns. Sex and aging come with many challenges for the older population as well as their primary care providers. The task for these care providers is to accommodate to the changing needs of this older sexually active generation.\n\nCommon health conditions hindering older adults are illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, degenerative and rheumatoid arthritis, stroke, cancer, kidney disease, and spinal cord injury. These conditions heavily impact individual sex lives. Separate from these are physical concerns related specifically to sexual health and bodily functions. Researchers gathered that, \"the most common concerns for older adult men include erectile dysfunction and premature climax, and older adult women most commonly report lack of desire, problems with vaginal lubrication, sexual pain, and inability to reach orgasm.\" Consideration of these aging-related health problems and sexual-related health problems together require primary care providers and professionals to be updated on the latest health findings and to know patients' needs and possible solutions.\n\nA major problem with improving education and seeking solutions for aging sexual health risks is the lack of verbal discussion on these matters from older individuals. \"Older adults often avoid seeking help for sexual concerns because of a lack of knowledge about their sexual problems, embarrassment or discomfort talking about sex, and stigma-related beliefs about older adults and sexuality in older age being inappropriate.\"\n\nAnother major problem with improving education and seeking solutions for aging sexual health risks was found after researchers looked at the readiness and training of 777 physicians and 452 nurse practitioners from the American Medical Association Masterfile. Researchers noted that amongst their representative sample there were reports of limited training in sexual health as a general topic. From this information, they assumed that \"training that is specific to older patient’s sexual health is limited, if available at all.\"\n\nThe purpose of the study was to test how knowledgeable U.S. primary care providers were on the topics of sexual health and sexuality in older age. The results of the study showcased that U.S. health care providers on average were less knowledgeable than U.S. graduate nursing students on the topics of sexual health and aging sexuality. In a comparison survey, it is also worth noting that they were reported less knowledgeable than Turkish physicians and U.S. Ob/Gyns. However, the group reported to be even less knowledgeable on aging sexuality than U.S. primary care providers consisted of nursing home staffs and older adult care workers. Educated health providers are needed to educate the general public and older adults (active and inactive) on sexual health and healthy expression.\n\nSexually transmitted infections (STDs/STIs) can also be prevalent in later life, despite common misconceptions that STDs only affect younger people and groups. There has been a steady increase in the number of STDs found in elderly individuals in nursing homes and other residential living communities, belying the perception that elderly people do not engage in sexual activity. Many men in older age do not believe they need to use protection, such as condoms, as they age, and their partners often feel likewise, so it can be difficult to stress the importance of continued use of protection for elderly couples. One of the main reasons they develop this opinion is because of the decreased risk of pregnancy, but they often fail to acknowledge that protection is necessary to prevent the circulation of STDs.\n\nSocial attitudes\n\nSex between elderly people is often treated as a taboo by society. Cultural norms dictated social opinions which painted older adults as being asexual creatures. This opinion was supported and replicated in the media by showing sex only being popular among youth. This attitude has gradually changed because a greater number of people are reaching 55 and above, and are remaining sexually active far into their senior years. \n\nBack in 1930, less than 6 percent of the U.S. population was over 65 years old. By 1950, the number was 8 percent. By 2015, that number has risen to almost 15 percent. Population experts at the U.S. Bureau of the Census expect the percentage to continue to rise dramatically during the next 20 years, eventually reaching 21 percent by 2050, which is more than one in five. The number of seniors in the United States and throughout the world continues to increase rapidly.\n\nWhile sexual activity itself is a sensitive topic due to its private nature, sexual activity between seniors is often treated with extra care. This attitude is especially common among younger people and it has been suggested that this may be caused by younger people's belief that the lust and ability to have sex diminishes once a perceived primary reason for sex is no longer present.\n\nEven though the topic may be taboo or denied, sexuality in older age has gained visibility in the media. Some sources promote \"active\" and \"healthy\" sexuality among the elderly, or address issues such as sexuality in retirement homes and assisted living facilities. These representations create in turn social injunctions that position sexual activity as a marker of fulfillment, a discourse already affecting younger people and amplified by various products, pills, and available medical treatments.\n\nResearch conducted in the social sciences changes the miserable depiction often made of elders' sexuality. Quantitative and qualitative studies show that sexual satisfaction can improve with age, and they present data such as the following. Half of women are sexually active into old age. Widows either stop any kind of sexual activity, find a new male partner, or choose not to reproduce the same kind of relationship where they take care of a man, instead entering into a nonresidential relationship with a man or in a relationship with another woman, for example. Women and gay men sustain the most pressure to live up to beauty ideals associated with youth. LGBT people suffer from invisibility in retirement homes and assisted-living facilities.\n\nRepresentation in film and television\nTo many, The Golden Girls was groundbreaking in its depiction of healthy active sexual lifestyles and frank sexual discussion among seniors.\n\nThe concept of active sexual relationships between older people has in recent years become a more mainstream topic. The film Something's Gotta Give, starring Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, explores the relationship that develops between two people in later life.\n\nThe HBO series Tell Me You Love Me has caused controversy by showing several explicit sex scenes involving two senior citizen actors on the show, Jane Alexander and David Selby. Presently old-aged sex is understood and increasingly accepted in society.\n\nOn a related topic, intergenerational relationships, also quite taboo, were the focus of the film Gerontophilia (between a very old and a very young man), and in the last years many TV shows represented \"cougars\" (middle age women with younger men), for example The Cougar and Cougar Town.\n\nThe Netflix original, Grace and Frankie, features Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as two elderly women recently divorced from their husbands seeking guidance through life with the help of each other. Not only does the show highlight their sexual quests and struggles with their new partners, it also mentions their new partnered business-seeking venture to encourage personal, private intimacy for women their age. The \"Ménage à Moi\", as they have it named, is a vibrator targeting elderly women to use for sexual satisfaction, and the show features the struggles surrounding marketing such a product.\n\nReferences\n\nSexuality and age\nOld age"
] |
[
"Havelock Ellis",
"Sexual impulse in youth",
"What was his view on sexual impulse in the youth?",
"book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity.",
"How does he feel they experience it differently?",
"sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,",
"Does he think that the youth are more sexually active than older people?",
"He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as \"reflex signs of irritation\" are typically not vividly remembered."
] | C_55326ebad6b0415ea8430f68d8c986f4_1 | Why did he come to this conclusion? | 4 | Why did Havelock Ellis come to youth are more sexually active than older people conclusion? | Havelock Ellis | Dr. Havelock Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'" he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience. Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded that of girls. Dr. Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children experience are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude." Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable." CANNOTANSWER | However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. | Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and inclinations, as well as on transgender psychology. He is credited with introducing the notions of narcissism and autoeroticism, later adopted by psychoanalysis.
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He supported eugenics and served as one of 16 vice-presidents of the Eugenics Society from 1909 to 1912.
Early life and career
Ellis, son of Edward Peppen Ellis and Susannah Mary Wheatley, was born in Croydon, Surrey (now part of Greater London). He had four sisters, none of whom married. His father was a sea captain, his mother the daughter of a sea captain, and many other relatives lived on or near the sea. When he was seven his father took him on one of his voyages, during which they called at Sydney, Australia; Callao, Peru; and Antwerp, Belgium. After his return, Ellis attended the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterward attended a school in Mitcham.
In April 1875, Ellis sailed on his father's ship for Australia; soon after his arrival in Sydney, he obtained a position as a master at a private school. After the discovery of his lack of training, he was fired and became a tutor for a family living a few miles from Carcoar, New South Wales. He spent a year there and then obtained a position as a master at a grammar school in Grafton, New South Wales. The headmaster had died and Ellis carried on at the school for that year, but was unsuccessful.
At the end of the year, he returned to Sydney and, after three months' training, was given charge of two government part-time elementary schools, one at Sparkes Creek, near Scone, New South Wales, and the other at Junction Creek. He lived at the school house on Sparkes Creek for a year. He wrote in his autobiography, "In Australia, I gained health of body, I attained peace of soul, my life task was revealed to me, I was able to decide on a professional vocation, I became an artist in literature; these five points covered the whole activity of my life in the world. Some of them I should doubtless have reached without the aid of the Australian environment, scarcely all, and most of them I could never have achieved so completely if chance had not cast me into the solitude of the Liverpool Range."
Medicine and psychology
Ellis returned to England in April 1879. He had decided to take up the study of sex and felt his first step must be to qualify as a physician. He studied at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, now part of King's College London, but never had a regular medical practice. His training was aided by a small legacy and also income earned from editing works in the Mermaid Series of lesser known Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He joined The Fellowship of the New Life in 1883, meeting other social reformers Eleanor Marx, Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw.
The 1897 English translation of Ellis's book Sexual Inversion, co-authored with John Addington Symonds and originally published in German in 1896, was the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. It describes male homosexual relations as well as adolescent rape. Ellis wrote the first objective study of homosexuality, as he did not characterise it as a disease, immoral, or a crime. The work assumes that same-sex love transcended age taboos as well as gender taboos. The first edition of the book was bought-out by the executor of Symond's estate, who forbade any mention of Symonds in the second edition.
In 1897 a bookseller was prosecuted for stocking Ellis's book. Although the term homosexual is attributed to Ellis, he wrote in 1897, "'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it." In fact, the word homosexual was coined in 1868 by the Hungarian author Karl-Maria Kertbeny.
Ellis may have developed psychological concepts of autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later developed further by Sigmund Freud. Ellis's influence may have reached Radclyffe Hall, who would have been about 17 years old at the time Sexual Inversion was published. She later referred to herself as a sexual invert and wrote of female "sexual inverts" in Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself and The Well of Loneliness. When Ellis bowed out as the star witness in the trial of The Well of Loneliness on 14 May 1928, Norman Haire was set to replace him but no witnesses were called.
Eonism
Ellis studied what today are called transgender phenomena. Together with Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis is considered a major figure in the history of sexology to establish a new category that was separate and distinct from homosexuality. Aware of Hirschfeld's studies of transvestism, but disagreeing with his terminology, in 1913 Ellis proposed the term sexo-aesthetic inversion to describe the phenomenon. In 1920 he coined the term eonism, which he derived from the name of a historical figure, the Chevalier d'Éon. Ellis explained:
Ellis found eonism to be "a remarkably common anomaly", and "next in frequency to homosexuality among sexual deviations", and categorized it as "among the transitional or intermediate forms of sexuality". As in the Freudian tradition, Ellis postulated that a "too close attachment to the mother" may encourage eonism, but also considered that it "probably invokes some defective endocrine balance".
Marriage
In November 1891, at the age of 32, and reportedly still a virgin, Ellis married the English writer and proponent of women's rights Edith Lees. From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional, as Edith Lees was openly lesbian. At the end of the honeymoon, Ellis went back to his bachelor rooms in Paddington. She lived at Fellowship House. Their "open marriage" was the central subject in Ellis's autobiography, My Life. Ellis reportedly had an affair with Margaret Sanger.
According to Ellis in My Life, his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex. Some knew that he reportedly suffered from impotence until the age of 60. He then discovered that he could become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating. Ellis named this "undinism". After his wife died, Ellis formed a relationship with a French woman, Françoise Lafitte.
Eugenics
Ellis was a supporter of eugenics. He served as vice-president to the Eugenics Education Society and wrote on the subject, among others, in The Task of Social Hygiene:
In his early writings, it was clear that Ellis concurred with the notion that there was a system of racial hierarchies, and that non-western cultures were considered to be "lower races". Before explicitly talking about eugenic topics, he used the prevalence of homosexuality in these 'lower races' to indicate the universality of the behavior. In his work, Sexual Inversions, where Ellis presented numerous cases of homosexuality in Britain, he was always careful to mention the race of the subject and the health of the person's 'stock', which included their neuropathic conditions and the health of their parents. However, Ellis was clear to assert that he did not feel that homosexuality was an issue that eugenics needed to actively deal with, as he felt that once the practice was accepted in society, those with homosexual tendencies would comfortably choose not to marry, and thus would cease to pass the 'homosexual heredity' along.
In a debate in the Sociological Society, Ellis corresponded with noted eugenicist Francis Galton, who was presenting a paper in support of marriage restrictions. While Galton analogized eugenics to breeding domesticated animals, Ellis felt that a greater sense of caution was needed before applying the eugenic regulations to populations, as "we have scarcely yet realized how subtle and far-reaching hereditary influences are." Instead, because unlike domesticated animals, humans were in charge of who they mated with, Ellis argued that a greater emphasis was needed on public education about how vital this issue was. Ellis thus held much more moderate views than many contemporary eugenicists. In fact, Ellis also fundamentally disagreed with Galton's leading ideas that procreation restrictions were the same as marriage restrictions. Ellis believed that those who should not procreate should still be able to gain all the other benefits of marriage, and to not allow that was an intolerable burden. This, in his mind, was what led to eugenics being "misunderstood, ridiculed, and regarded as a fad".
Throughout his life, Ellis was both a member and later a council member of the Eugenics Society. Moreover, he played a role on the General Committee of the First International Eugenics Congress.
Sexual impulse in youth
Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse, he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience.
Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references G.V. Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent of girls were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded those of girls.
Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude". Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable".
Auto-eroticism
Ellis' views of auto-eroticism were very comprehensive, including much more than masturbation. Auto-eroticism, according to Ellis, includes a wide range of phenomena. Ellis states in his 1897 book Studies in the Psychology of Sex, that auto-eroticism ranges from erotic day-dreams, marked by a passivity shown by the subject, to "unshamed efforts at sexual self-manipulation witnessed among the insane".
Ellis also argues that auto-erotic impulses can be heightened by bodily processes like menstrual flow. During this time, he says, women, who would otherwise not feel a strong propensity for auto-eroticism, increase their masturbation patterns. This trend is absent, however, in women without a conscious acceptance of their sexual feelings and in a small percentage of women suffering from a sexual or general ailment which result in a significant amount of "sexual anesthesia".
Ellis also raises social concern over how auto-erotic tendencies affect marriages. He goes on to tying auto-eroticism to declining marriage rates. As these rates decline, he concludes that auto-eroticism will only increase in both amount and intensity for both men and women. Therefore, he states, this is an important issue to both the moralist and physician to investigate psychological underpinnings of these experiences and determine an attitude toward them.
Smell
Ellis believed that the sense of smell, although ineffective at long ranges, still contributes to sexual attraction, and therefore, to mate selection. In his 1905 book, Sexual selection in man, Ellis makes a claim for the sense of smell in the role of sexual selection. He asserts that while we have evolved out of a great necessity for the sense of smell, we still rely on our sense of smell with sexual selection. The contributions that smell makes in sexual attraction can even be heightened with certain climates. Ellis states that with warmer climates come a heightened sensitivity to sexual and other positive feelings of smell among normal populations. Because of this, he believes people are often delighted by odors in the East, particularly in India, in "Hebrew and Mohammedan lands". Ellis then continues by describing the distinct odours in various races, noting that the Japanese race has the least intense of bodily odours. Ellis concludes his argument by stating, "On the whole, it may be said that in the usual life of man odours play a not inconsiderable part and raise problems which are not without interest, but that their demonstrable part in actual sexual selection is comparatively small."
Views on women and birth control
Ellis favoured feminism from a eugenic perspective, feeling that the enhanced social, economic, and sexual choices that feminism provided for women would result in women choosing partners who were more eugenically sound. In his view, intelligent women would not choose, nor be forced to marry and procreate with feeble-minded men.
Ellis viewed birth control as merely the continuation of an evolutionary progression, noting that natural progress has always consisted of increasing impediments to reproduction, which lead to a lower quantity of offspring, but a much higher quality of them. From a eugenic perspective, birth control was an invaluable instrument for the elevation of the race. However, Ellis noted that birth control could not be used randomly in a way that could have a detrimental impact by reducing conception, but rather needed to be used in a targeted manner to improve the qualities of certain 'stocks'. He observed that it was unfortunately the 'superior stocks' who had knowledge of and used birth control while the 'inferior stocks' propagated without checks. Ellis' solution to this was a focus on contraceptives in education, as this would disseminate the knowledge in the populations that he felt needed them the most. Ellis argued that birth control was the only available way of making eugenic selection practicable, as the only other option was wide-scale abstention from intercourse for those who were 'unfit'.
Views on sterilization
Ellis was strongly opposed to the idea of castration for eugenic purposes. In 1909, regulations were introduced at the Cantonal Asylum in Bern, which allowed those deemed 'unfit' and with strong sexual inclinations to be mandatorily sterilized. In a particular instance, several men and women, including epileptics and paedophiles, were castrated, some of whom voluntarily requested it. While the results were positive, in that none of the subjects were found guilty of any more sexual offences, Ellis remained staunchly opposed to the practice. His view on the origin of these inclinations was that sexual impulses do not reside in the sexual organs, but rather they persist in the brain. Moreover, he posited that the sexual glands provided an important source of internal secretions vital for the functioning of the organism, and thus their removal could greatly injure the patient.
However, already in his time, Ellis was witness to the rise of vasectomies and ligatures of the Fallopian tubes, which performed the same sterilization without removing the whole organ. In these cases, Ellis was much more favourable, yet still maintaining that "sterilization of the unfit, if it is to be a practical and humane measure commanding general approval, must be voluntary on the part of the person undergoing it, and never compulsory." His opposition to such a system was not only rooted in morality. Rather, Ellis also considered the practicality of the situation, hypothesizing that if an already mentally unfit man is forced to undergo sterilization, he would only become more ill-balanced, and would end up committing more anti-social acts.
Though Ellis was never at ease with the idea of forced sterilizations, he was willing to find ways to circumvent that restriction. His focus was on the social ends of eugenics, and as a means to it, Ellis was in no way against 'persuading' 'volunteers' to undergo sterilization by withdrawing Poor Relief from them. While he preferred to convince those he deemed unfit using education, Ellis supported coercion as a tool. Furthermore, he supported adding ideas about eugenics and birth control to the education system in order to restructure society, and to promote social hygiene. For Ellis, sterilization seemed to be the only eugenic instrument that could be used on the mentally unfit. In fact, in his publication The Sterilization of the Unfit, Ellis argued that even institutionalization could not guarantee the complete prevention of procreation between the unfit, and thus, "the burdens of society, to say nothing of the race, are being multiplied. It is not possible to view sterilization with enthusiasm when applied to any class of people…but what, I ask myself, is the practical alternative?"
Psychedelics
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He consumed a brew made of 3 Echinocacti (peyote) in the afternoon of Good Friday alone in his apartment in Temple, London. During the experience, lasting for about 24 hours, he noted a plethora of extremely vivid, complex, colourful, pleasantly smelling hallucinations, consisting both of abstract geometrical patterns and definite objects such as butterflies and other insects. He published the account of the experience in The Contemporary Review in 1898 (Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise). The title of the article alludes to an earlier work on the effects of mind-altering substances, an 1860 book Les Paradis artificiels by French poet Charles Baudelaire (containing descriptions of experiments with opium and hashish).
Ellis was so impressed with the aesthetic quality of the experience that he gave some specimens of peyote to the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organisation of which another mescaline researcher, Aleister Crowley, was also a member.
Later life and death
Ellis resigned from his position of Fellow of the Eugenics Society over their stance on sterilization in January 1931.
Ellis spent the last year of his life at Hintlesham, Suffolk, where he died in July 1939. He is buried in Golders Green Crematorium, in North London.
Works
The Criminal (1890)
The New Spirit (1890)
The Nationalisation of Health (1892)
Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (1894) (revised 1929)
translator: Germinal (by Zola) (1895) (reissued 1933)
with J.A. Symonds
Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897–1928) six volumes (listed below)
Affirmations (1898)
The Nineteenth Century (1900)
A Study of British Genius (1904)
The Soul of Spain (1908)
The Problem of Race-Regeneration (1911)
The World of Dreams (1911) (new edition 1926)
The Task of Social Hygiene (1912)
The Philosophy of Conflict (1919)
On Life and Sex: Essays of Love and Virtue (1921)
Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922)
Sonnets, with Folk Songs from the Spanish (1925)
Eonism and Other Supplementary Studies (1928)
Studies in the Psychology of Sex Vol. 7 (1928)
The Art of Life (1929) (selected and arranged by Mrs. S. Herbert)
More Essays of Love and Virtue (1931)
ed.: James Hinton: Life in Nature (1931)
ed.: Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, by Walter Savage Landor (1933)
Chapman (1934)
My Confessional (1934)
Questions of Our Day (1934)
From Rousseau to Proust (1935)
Selected Essays (1936)
Poems (1937) (selected by John Gawsworth; pseudonym of T. Fytton Armstrong)
Love and Marriage (1938) (with others)
Sex Compatibility in Marriage (1939)
From Marlowe to Shaw (1950) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Genius of Europe (1950)
Sex and Marriage (1951) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Unpublished Letters of Havelock Ellis to Joseph Ishill (1954)
References
Bibliography
Further reading
(U.S. title)
External links
Havelock Ellis papers (MS 195). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Henry Havelock Ellis papers from the Historic Psychiatry Collection, Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society
1859 births
1939 deaths
19th-century English non-fiction writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Alumni of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
British sexologists
English eugenicists
English psychologists
People from Croydon
Psychedelic drug advocates
British relationships and sexuality writers
Medical writers on LGBT topics
British social reformers
Transgender studies academics
Victorian writers
Translators of Émile Zola | true | [
"Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action is a book by Simon Sinek.\n\nOverview\nThe book starts with comparing the two main ways to influence human behaviour: manipulation and inspiration. Sinek argues that inspiration is the more powerful and sustainable of the two. The book primarily discusses the significance of leadership and purpose to succeed in life and business. Sinek highlights the importance of taking the risk and going against the status-quo to find solutions to global problems. He believes leadership holds the key to inspiring a nation to come together and advance a common interest to make a nation, or the planet, a more civilised place. He turns to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, John F Kennedy, Steve Jobs and the entire Apple culture as examples of how a purpose can be created to inspire a culture together, away from the manipulative society we live in today.\n\nThe golden circle\n\nSinek says people are inspired by a sense of purpose (or \"Why\"), and that this should come first when communicating, before \"How\" and \"What\". Sinek calls this triad the golden circle, a diagram of a bullseye (or concentric circles or onion diagram) with \"Why\" in the innermost circle (representing people's motives or purposes), surrounded by a ring labelled \"How\" (representing people's processes or methods), enclosed in a ring labelled \"What\" (representing results or outcomes). He speculates about the biological factors behind this structure, such as the limbic system.\n\nReception \nLindsay McGregor and Neel Doshi, co-authors of the book Primed to Perform: How to Build the Highest Performing Cultures Through the Science of Total Motivation, came to a similar conclusion: \"Why we work determines how well we work.\"\n\nKen Krogue, in a blog post for Forbes, argued that it is far more important, especially for salespeople, to find the right person (which Krogue called \"starting with Who\") before \"starting with Why\":\n\nSales \nAccording to NPD BookScan's mid-June 2016 to mid-June 2017 ranking of printed book sales, Start with Why ranked (without disclosing the geographical region) as the \"bestselling leadership book\" of that period, selling 171,000 paperback copies.\n\nSee also\n Five Ws\n Onion model\n In the 1970s Terry Borton popularized the triad \"What?\", \"So what?\", and \"Now what?\"\n The Infinite Game\n\nReferences\n\nBusiness books\n2009 non-fiction books",
"Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence is a 2006 book by South African philosopher David Benatar, best known for being associated with antinatalism and philosophical pessimism. The book was preceded by Benatar's 1997 paper \"Why It Is Better Never to Come into Existence\", where he expounded on what would eventually become the book's major concepts.\n\nSummary \nBetter Never to Have Been directly concerns Benatar's antinatalist philosophy: human beings are hurt by their parents when they are given birth to, and to bring them into existence is to thereby wrong them, meaning all human life is in a prolonged state of pain and harm as a result of being born. He writes towards this conclusion with two concepts: an asymmetry of pleasure and pain, and the concept that human beings have an unreliable assessment of life's quality. These concepts indicate not just what Benatar sees as the conflict ingrained in continued existence that leaves it without justification, but also the pain that is to be avoided by simply not existing. These conflicting factors become increasingly complicated as human beings continue to exist and thrive through generations, and to Benatar, this further serves as an indictment of willing human life: the sheer conflict ingrained in continued human existence, alongside it having no moral justification, leads to his conclusion that \"it would have been better not to have been born.\"\n\nAsymmetry of pleasure and pain \nBenatar writes that there is what he calls an asymmetry of pleasure and pain:\n the absence of pain is good, even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone, whereas\n the absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation.\nHis reason for this concept is that the absence of pleasure is only harmful when pain is still present; to not exist at all and to thereby experience neither pleasure nor pain is the greater good. On the subject of childlessness, he further writes that \"the reason why we do not lament our failure to bring somebody into existence is because absent pleasures are not bad.\" As well as this, if pleasure is to be achieved through pain, it does not eclipse the pain that it came from; it instead further establishes this asymmetry between pleasure and pain, and yet again leads to Benatar's conclusion that it would be better to not give birth at all, which would continue the asymmetry.\n\nCritical reception \nIn his review, philosopher Yujin Nagasawa questioned why Benatar framed Better Never to Have Been as a positive thesis, rather than as a counter-intuitive philosophical puzzle. As a result, Nagasawa felt that he could not recommend the book to everyone. Bioethicist David DeGrazia published a rebuttal to Benatar's arguments in 2010; despite the disagreement with Benatar's position, DeGrazia commended the book, stating: \"I conclude with praise for his work and the intellectual virtues it embodies.\" In 2013, Benatar responded to critics of the book, in the paper \"Still Better Never to Have Been: A Reply to (More of) My Critics\".\n\nIn popular culture \nThe creator of True Detective, Nic Pizzolatto, has cited Better Never to Have Been as an influence on the creation of the character Rust Cohle.\n\nReferences \n\n2006 non-fiction books\nEnglish-language books\nEthics books\nOxford University Press books\nPhilosophy books\nWorks about antinatalism\nWorks about philosophical pessimism"
] |
[
"Havelock Ellis",
"Sexual impulse in youth",
"What was his view on sexual impulse in the youth?",
"book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity.",
"How does he feel they experience it differently?",
"sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,",
"Does he think that the youth are more sexually active than older people?",
"He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as \"reflex signs of irritation\" are typically not vividly remembered.",
"Why did he come to this conclusion?",
"However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child."
] | C_55326ebad6b0415ea8430f68d8c986f4_1 | Were the recalling of sensations more in females or males? | 5 | Were the recalling of sensations more in females or males? | Havelock Ellis | Dr. Havelock Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'" he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience. Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded that of girls. Dr. Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children experience are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude." Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable." CANNOTANSWER | These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. | Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and inclinations, as well as on transgender psychology. He is credited with introducing the notions of narcissism and autoeroticism, later adopted by psychoanalysis.
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He supported eugenics and served as one of 16 vice-presidents of the Eugenics Society from 1909 to 1912.
Early life and career
Ellis, son of Edward Peppen Ellis and Susannah Mary Wheatley, was born in Croydon, Surrey (now part of Greater London). He had four sisters, none of whom married. His father was a sea captain, his mother the daughter of a sea captain, and many other relatives lived on or near the sea. When he was seven his father took him on one of his voyages, during which they called at Sydney, Australia; Callao, Peru; and Antwerp, Belgium. After his return, Ellis attended the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterward attended a school in Mitcham.
In April 1875, Ellis sailed on his father's ship for Australia; soon after his arrival in Sydney, he obtained a position as a master at a private school. After the discovery of his lack of training, he was fired and became a tutor for a family living a few miles from Carcoar, New South Wales. He spent a year there and then obtained a position as a master at a grammar school in Grafton, New South Wales. The headmaster had died and Ellis carried on at the school for that year, but was unsuccessful.
At the end of the year, he returned to Sydney and, after three months' training, was given charge of two government part-time elementary schools, one at Sparkes Creek, near Scone, New South Wales, and the other at Junction Creek. He lived at the school house on Sparkes Creek for a year. He wrote in his autobiography, "In Australia, I gained health of body, I attained peace of soul, my life task was revealed to me, I was able to decide on a professional vocation, I became an artist in literature; these five points covered the whole activity of my life in the world. Some of them I should doubtless have reached without the aid of the Australian environment, scarcely all, and most of them I could never have achieved so completely if chance had not cast me into the solitude of the Liverpool Range."
Medicine and psychology
Ellis returned to England in April 1879. He had decided to take up the study of sex and felt his first step must be to qualify as a physician. He studied at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, now part of King's College London, but never had a regular medical practice. His training was aided by a small legacy and also income earned from editing works in the Mermaid Series of lesser known Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He joined The Fellowship of the New Life in 1883, meeting other social reformers Eleanor Marx, Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw.
The 1897 English translation of Ellis's book Sexual Inversion, co-authored with John Addington Symonds and originally published in German in 1896, was the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. It describes male homosexual relations as well as adolescent rape. Ellis wrote the first objective study of homosexuality, as he did not characterise it as a disease, immoral, or a crime. The work assumes that same-sex love transcended age taboos as well as gender taboos. The first edition of the book was bought-out by the executor of Symond's estate, who forbade any mention of Symonds in the second edition.
In 1897 a bookseller was prosecuted for stocking Ellis's book. Although the term homosexual is attributed to Ellis, he wrote in 1897, "'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it." In fact, the word homosexual was coined in 1868 by the Hungarian author Karl-Maria Kertbeny.
Ellis may have developed psychological concepts of autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later developed further by Sigmund Freud. Ellis's influence may have reached Radclyffe Hall, who would have been about 17 years old at the time Sexual Inversion was published. She later referred to herself as a sexual invert and wrote of female "sexual inverts" in Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself and The Well of Loneliness. When Ellis bowed out as the star witness in the trial of The Well of Loneliness on 14 May 1928, Norman Haire was set to replace him but no witnesses were called.
Eonism
Ellis studied what today are called transgender phenomena. Together with Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis is considered a major figure in the history of sexology to establish a new category that was separate and distinct from homosexuality. Aware of Hirschfeld's studies of transvestism, but disagreeing with his terminology, in 1913 Ellis proposed the term sexo-aesthetic inversion to describe the phenomenon. In 1920 he coined the term eonism, which he derived from the name of a historical figure, the Chevalier d'Éon. Ellis explained:
Ellis found eonism to be "a remarkably common anomaly", and "next in frequency to homosexuality among sexual deviations", and categorized it as "among the transitional or intermediate forms of sexuality". As in the Freudian tradition, Ellis postulated that a "too close attachment to the mother" may encourage eonism, but also considered that it "probably invokes some defective endocrine balance".
Marriage
In November 1891, at the age of 32, and reportedly still a virgin, Ellis married the English writer and proponent of women's rights Edith Lees. From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional, as Edith Lees was openly lesbian. At the end of the honeymoon, Ellis went back to his bachelor rooms in Paddington. She lived at Fellowship House. Their "open marriage" was the central subject in Ellis's autobiography, My Life. Ellis reportedly had an affair with Margaret Sanger.
According to Ellis in My Life, his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex. Some knew that he reportedly suffered from impotence until the age of 60. He then discovered that he could become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating. Ellis named this "undinism". After his wife died, Ellis formed a relationship with a French woman, Françoise Lafitte.
Eugenics
Ellis was a supporter of eugenics. He served as vice-president to the Eugenics Education Society and wrote on the subject, among others, in The Task of Social Hygiene:
In his early writings, it was clear that Ellis concurred with the notion that there was a system of racial hierarchies, and that non-western cultures were considered to be "lower races". Before explicitly talking about eugenic topics, he used the prevalence of homosexuality in these 'lower races' to indicate the universality of the behavior. In his work, Sexual Inversions, where Ellis presented numerous cases of homosexuality in Britain, he was always careful to mention the race of the subject and the health of the person's 'stock', which included their neuropathic conditions and the health of their parents. However, Ellis was clear to assert that he did not feel that homosexuality was an issue that eugenics needed to actively deal with, as he felt that once the practice was accepted in society, those with homosexual tendencies would comfortably choose not to marry, and thus would cease to pass the 'homosexual heredity' along.
In a debate in the Sociological Society, Ellis corresponded with noted eugenicist Francis Galton, who was presenting a paper in support of marriage restrictions. While Galton analogized eugenics to breeding domesticated animals, Ellis felt that a greater sense of caution was needed before applying the eugenic regulations to populations, as "we have scarcely yet realized how subtle and far-reaching hereditary influences are." Instead, because unlike domesticated animals, humans were in charge of who they mated with, Ellis argued that a greater emphasis was needed on public education about how vital this issue was. Ellis thus held much more moderate views than many contemporary eugenicists. In fact, Ellis also fundamentally disagreed with Galton's leading ideas that procreation restrictions were the same as marriage restrictions. Ellis believed that those who should not procreate should still be able to gain all the other benefits of marriage, and to not allow that was an intolerable burden. This, in his mind, was what led to eugenics being "misunderstood, ridiculed, and regarded as a fad".
Throughout his life, Ellis was both a member and later a council member of the Eugenics Society. Moreover, he played a role on the General Committee of the First International Eugenics Congress.
Sexual impulse in youth
Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse, he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience.
Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references G.V. Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent of girls were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded those of girls.
Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude". Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable".
Auto-eroticism
Ellis' views of auto-eroticism were very comprehensive, including much more than masturbation. Auto-eroticism, according to Ellis, includes a wide range of phenomena. Ellis states in his 1897 book Studies in the Psychology of Sex, that auto-eroticism ranges from erotic day-dreams, marked by a passivity shown by the subject, to "unshamed efforts at sexual self-manipulation witnessed among the insane".
Ellis also argues that auto-erotic impulses can be heightened by bodily processes like menstrual flow. During this time, he says, women, who would otherwise not feel a strong propensity for auto-eroticism, increase their masturbation patterns. This trend is absent, however, in women without a conscious acceptance of their sexual feelings and in a small percentage of women suffering from a sexual or general ailment which result in a significant amount of "sexual anesthesia".
Ellis also raises social concern over how auto-erotic tendencies affect marriages. He goes on to tying auto-eroticism to declining marriage rates. As these rates decline, he concludes that auto-eroticism will only increase in both amount and intensity for both men and women. Therefore, he states, this is an important issue to both the moralist and physician to investigate psychological underpinnings of these experiences and determine an attitude toward them.
Smell
Ellis believed that the sense of smell, although ineffective at long ranges, still contributes to sexual attraction, and therefore, to mate selection. In his 1905 book, Sexual selection in man, Ellis makes a claim for the sense of smell in the role of sexual selection. He asserts that while we have evolved out of a great necessity for the sense of smell, we still rely on our sense of smell with sexual selection. The contributions that smell makes in sexual attraction can even be heightened with certain climates. Ellis states that with warmer climates come a heightened sensitivity to sexual and other positive feelings of smell among normal populations. Because of this, he believes people are often delighted by odors in the East, particularly in India, in "Hebrew and Mohammedan lands". Ellis then continues by describing the distinct odours in various races, noting that the Japanese race has the least intense of bodily odours. Ellis concludes his argument by stating, "On the whole, it may be said that in the usual life of man odours play a not inconsiderable part and raise problems which are not without interest, but that their demonstrable part in actual sexual selection is comparatively small."
Views on women and birth control
Ellis favoured feminism from a eugenic perspective, feeling that the enhanced social, economic, and sexual choices that feminism provided for women would result in women choosing partners who were more eugenically sound. In his view, intelligent women would not choose, nor be forced to marry and procreate with feeble-minded men.
Ellis viewed birth control as merely the continuation of an evolutionary progression, noting that natural progress has always consisted of increasing impediments to reproduction, which lead to a lower quantity of offspring, but a much higher quality of them. From a eugenic perspective, birth control was an invaluable instrument for the elevation of the race. However, Ellis noted that birth control could not be used randomly in a way that could have a detrimental impact by reducing conception, but rather needed to be used in a targeted manner to improve the qualities of certain 'stocks'. He observed that it was unfortunately the 'superior stocks' who had knowledge of and used birth control while the 'inferior stocks' propagated without checks. Ellis' solution to this was a focus on contraceptives in education, as this would disseminate the knowledge in the populations that he felt needed them the most. Ellis argued that birth control was the only available way of making eugenic selection practicable, as the only other option was wide-scale abstention from intercourse for those who were 'unfit'.
Views on sterilization
Ellis was strongly opposed to the idea of castration for eugenic purposes. In 1909, regulations were introduced at the Cantonal Asylum in Bern, which allowed those deemed 'unfit' and with strong sexual inclinations to be mandatorily sterilized. In a particular instance, several men and women, including epileptics and paedophiles, were castrated, some of whom voluntarily requested it. While the results were positive, in that none of the subjects were found guilty of any more sexual offences, Ellis remained staunchly opposed to the practice. His view on the origin of these inclinations was that sexual impulses do not reside in the sexual organs, but rather they persist in the brain. Moreover, he posited that the sexual glands provided an important source of internal secretions vital for the functioning of the organism, and thus their removal could greatly injure the patient.
However, already in his time, Ellis was witness to the rise of vasectomies and ligatures of the Fallopian tubes, which performed the same sterilization without removing the whole organ. In these cases, Ellis was much more favourable, yet still maintaining that "sterilization of the unfit, if it is to be a practical and humane measure commanding general approval, must be voluntary on the part of the person undergoing it, and never compulsory." His opposition to such a system was not only rooted in morality. Rather, Ellis also considered the practicality of the situation, hypothesizing that if an already mentally unfit man is forced to undergo sterilization, he would only become more ill-balanced, and would end up committing more anti-social acts.
Though Ellis was never at ease with the idea of forced sterilizations, he was willing to find ways to circumvent that restriction. His focus was on the social ends of eugenics, and as a means to it, Ellis was in no way against 'persuading' 'volunteers' to undergo sterilization by withdrawing Poor Relief from them. While he preferred to convince those he deemed unfit using education, Ellis supported coercion as a tool. Furthermore, he supported adding ideas about eugenics and birth control to the education system in order to restructure society, and to promote social hygiene. For Ellis, sterilization seemed to be the only eugenic instrument that could be used on the mentally unfit. In fact, in his publication The Sterilization of the Unfit, Ellis argued that even institutionalization could not guarantee the complete prevention of procreation between the unfit, and thus, "the burdens of society, to say nothing of the race, are being multiplied. It is not possible to view sterilization with enthusiasm when applied to any class of people…but what, I ask myself, is the practical alternative?"
Psychedelics
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He consumed a brew made of 3 Echinocacti (peyote) in the afternoon of Good Friday alone in his apartment in Temple, London. During the experience, lasting for about 24 hours, he noted a plethora of extremely vivid, complex, colourful, pleasantly smelling hallucinations, consisting both of abstract geometrical patterns and definite objects such as butterflies and other insects. He published the account of the experience in The Contemporary Review in 1898 (Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise). The title of the article alludes to an earlier work on the effects of mind-altering substances, an 1860 book Les Paradis artificiels by French poet Charles Baudelaire (containing descriptions of experiments with opium and hashish).
Ellis was so impressed with the aesthetic quality of the experience that he gave some specimens of peyote to the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organisation of which another mescaline researcher, Aleister Crowley, was also a member.
Later life and death
Ellis resigned from his position of Fellow of the Eugenics Society over their stance on sterilization in January 1931.
Ellis spent the last year of his life at Hintlesham, Suffolk, where he died in July 1939. He is buried in Golders Green Crematorium, in North London.
Works
The Criminal (1890)
The New Spirit (1890)
The Nationalisation of Health (1892)
Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (1894) (revised 1929)
translator: Germinal (by Zola) (1895) (reissued 1933)
with J.A. Symonds
Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897–1928) six volumes (listed below)
Affirmations (1898)
The Nineteenth Century (1900)
A Study of British Genius (1904)
The Soul of Spain (1908)
The Problem of Race-Regeneration (1911)
The World of Dreams (1911) (new edition 1926)
The Task of Social Hygiene (1912)
The Philosophy of Conflict (1919)
On Life and Sex: Essays of Love and Virtue (1921)
Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922)
Sonnets, with Folk Songs from the Spanish (1925)
Eonism and Other Supplementary Studies (1928)
Studies in the Psychology of Sex Vol. 7 (1928)
The Art of Life (1929) (selected and arranged by Mrs. S. Herbert)
More Essays of Love and Virtue (1931)
ed.: James Hinton: Life in Nature (1931)
ed.: Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, by Walter Savage Landor (1933)
Chapman (1934)
My Confessional (1934)
Questions of Our Day (1934)
From Rousseau to Proust (1935)
Selected Essays (1936)
Poems (1937) (selected by John Gawsworth; pseudonym of T. Fytton Armstrong)
Love and Marriage (1938) (with others)
Sex Compatibility in Marriage (1939)
From Marlowe to Shaw (1950) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Genius of Europe (1950)
Sex and Marriage (1951) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Unpublished Letters of Havelock Ellis to Joseph Ishill (1954)
References
Bibliography
Further reading
(U.S. title)
External links
Havelock Ellis papers (MS 195). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Henry Havelock Ellis papers from the Historic Psychiatry Collection, Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society
1859 births
1939 deaths
19th-century English non-fiction writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Alumni of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
British sexologists
English eugenicists
English psychologists
People from Croydon
Psychedelic drug advocates
British relationships and sexuality writers
Medical writers on LGBT topics
British social reformers
Transgender studies academics
Victorian writers
Translators of Émile Zola | true | [
"Sexual selection in insects is about how sexual selection functions in insects. The males of some species have evolved exaggerated adornments and mechanisms for self-defense. These traits play a role in increasing male reproductive expectations by triggering male-male competition or influencing the female mate choice, and can be thought of as functioning on three different levels: individuals, colonies, and populations within an area.\n\nMale mating tactics \n\nThe amount of space accessible and the time both male and female usually determines the site of copulation. Many hymenopteran males constantly fly around specific sites, usually the tops of tall trees, summits, or along hedges, where approachable females are found as they can also be resources visited by females for the purpose of feeding. In honey bee the queens join the mating area alone and are then pursued by a dynamic swarm of males. Those located in the front of the line usually achieve reproduction success. A queen usually mates with twelve males on an average of two mating flights and stores the sperm throughout her entire lifetime. Colonies sustain many males but only a few queens, so only very few males are able to successfully mate with the queen.\n\nRoles \n\nMales can be choosier than females. As an offering, males are capable of providing nuptial gifts secretions, which can be more expensive than female reproductive investment, parental care, where the reproductive costs in males are higher than in females because they invest large quantities of resources and time after egg fertilization, and foraging and nesting sites to the females. Moreover, these factors decrease their subsequent male reproductive opportunities, and the availability of males. An example of male parental care can be found in belostomatid water bugs, where the male, after fertilizing the eggs, allows the female to glue her eggs onto his back. He broods them until the nymphs hatch 2–4 weeks later. The eggs are large and reduce the ability of the male to fertilize other females and catch prey, and increases its predation risk.\n\nFemales are usually in conflict over the acquisition of resources and also tend to compete for male provided resources, thus generating a sex role reversal. Females compete to monopolize parental care, and displace rivals with claspers that appear to be specialized in keeping their hold on males, avoiding takeover attempts by other females.\n\nCharacteristics \n\nMale-to-male competition for access to females and for resources that the females require for themselves and their offspring is common and can explain the morphological phenotypic traits and behaviors, such as large body size, weapons, territoriality, and early sexual maturation that increase their possibilities of gaining access to the females. In many social insects, larger males are more competitive and tend to monopolize females or the resources that they need. In bees, females may choose males who are faster, more agile, or more persistent fliers. Sequestering of females and forced copulation may also favor large male size. Males with longer horns and mandibles can use them to fight, or for take over attempts when rivals are copulating. In beetle species, the male horns can be as long as the male's body. Early sexually mature males can start their reproductive life before the rest of the male population. Under scramble competition to inseminate females, the early matured males are smaller but can be favored in some cases where courtship occurs on the ground and attain the highest reproductive success. Thus, in the fly Drosophila suboscura, smaller males are better than large males at tracking females during the courtship dance.\n\nThe effect of mating on female fitness may vary depending upon the kind of benefit that the females receive from males through of their choices. Direct benefits include nutritional resources to be used by females, donation of foods to mates, males offering prey to the female, seen in scorpion flies and dance flies. Several orthopteran species, butterflies, flies, and beetle males can donate secretions or nutritional substances to the females which are transferred in the ejaculate or produced by male glands which can contribute to increase female fecundity. In the green-veined white (Pieris napi), a virgin male can transfer an ejaculate containing 14% nitrogen by dry mass. Females utilize the nutrients transferred from the male in order to increase their nutrients. These nutrients essentially contribute to ensure successful egg production. A positive relationship between the amount of ejaculate material received and lifetime reproductive output, as male-transferred material increases female longevity. In some insect species, males can donate some body parts to females such as the leg spurs or the fleshy hindwings of jumped-winged crickets, or they may be completely cannibalized, as occurs in mantis and some dipterous, as well as in some Arachnida scorpions and spider species.\n\nSexual pheromones \n\nSexual pheromones are defined as odors and are one of the prevalent ways in which social male insects find females to mate with. They can be produced in either males or females. The central roles of pheromones are to trigger behavioral interactions between the two sexes. Ultimately, this brings the sexes together for mating purposes. In addition, females discriminate against mates by the judgment of their sex pheromones. Courtship pheromones are issued in many cases by males. In the queen butterfly Danaus gilippus and the Arctic moth Utetheisa ornatrix, the chemical stimulation of the female is necessary for male mating success.\n\nAcoustic and visual signals \n\nIn species such as the Coleopteran family Lampyridae, the males fly in the darkness and emit a species-species specific pattern of light flashes, which are answered by perching receptive females. The color and temporal variation of the flash contribute to the success in attracting females. Acoustic signals are produced by many groups including several orthopteran species, neuropterida, cicadas, flies, cave planthroppers, leaf hoppers, and tree hoppers. In crickets and other Orthopeterans, loudness and/or uninterrupted songs often attract more females. In other insects, females may choose a mate in relation to aspects of his songs. In any case, it is possible that females compare the songs of several males before making a choice.\n\nFemale calling syndrome occurs when female social insects emit a typical call to the males in close proximity to their natal nests. Males that are attracted by the callings fly extensively in pursuit of potential mates. Their gasters raise and stings start to protrude. The venom glands are a basis of a chemical male attractant. In Xenomyrmex floridanus, the queen's venom glands and gasters both attracted males and prompted copulation.\n\nReferences \n\nSexual selection\nInsect behavior",
"Polygynandry is a mating system in which both males and females have multiple mating partners during a breeding season. In sexually reproducing diploid animals, different mating strategies are employed by males and females, because the cost of gamete production is lower for males than it is for females. The different mating tactics employed by males and females are thought to be the outcome of stochastic reproductive conflicts both ecologically and socially.\n\nReproductive conflicts in animal societies may arise because individuals are not genetically identical and have different optimal strategies for maximizing their fitness; and often it is found that reproductive conflicts generally arise due to dominance hierarchy in which all or a major part of reproduction is monopolized by only one individual. In the wasp Polistes carolina, the dominant queen amongst female wasps is determined by whoever arrives at the nest first rather than the largest foundress, who is expected to be the best at fighting (wasp). In a study of the bird Prunella collaris, the close proximity and sharing of ranges on the mountain tops of the French Pyrenees led to a polygynandrous mating system, where two to four males would mate with a range of two to four females within the same vicinity.\n\nPolygynandry is another way to describe a multi-male and multi-female polygamous mating system. When females have multiple mating partners, it is known as polyandry, and when males have multiple mating partners, it is known as polygyny; and each sex has their benefits in being promiscuous. Females, especially those with genetically 'inferior' social partners, have the chance to increase the genetic quality of their offspring, while males are able to fertilize the eggs of many other mates. Essentially, the ideal mating behavior for males is to be promiscuous rather than monogamous (when they only have one mating partner), because this leads to multiple offspring, and these males monopolize their female partners by physically preventing them from copulating with other males. On the other hand, females benefit through polyandry, as they have more sired offspring.\n\nBenefits of multiple mating in females \n\nOftentimes females mate voluntarily with more than one male. Mating with several males reduces the risk of females having unfertilized eggs because one male may not have enough sperm to fertilize all her eggs. In dark-eyed juncos, a female mates with more than one male because oftentimes, her social partner is of lower genetic quality than other potential sperm donors. The females voluntarily mate with other males besides their mate because she sees the potential to improve her offspring viability and sexual attractiveness. Females may also mate with several males for genetic benefits such as genetic diversity among her offspring due to the variety of sperm available to her. In song birds, extra-pair matings occur because females are able to sneak away from their home territories to solicit to other males. When female song birds seek extra-male partners, they sexually select males with colorful plumage more elaborate than those of their social partner. Studies show that female song birds that have less plumage partners most actively seek extra-pair matings, furthermore males with the most developed traits—such as longer tails or brighter plumage survive better. Thus, when female song birds have multiple mating partners, they are increasing the genetic quality of their offspring.\n\nTo a female, multiple mating means an increase number of young that a female can produce, and oftentimes this also means an increase number of young they have to take care of. In order to ensure the safety and wellbeing of her offspring, females may have multiple mating partners in order to gain more resources from males for herself and her offspring. In dark-eyed juncos, dunnocks, and Galapagos hawks, mating with multiple males increases the amount of care a female can gain for her offspring. Oftentimes multiple mates allow females to have more sired offspring and the paternity of the offspring typically falls outside of the biological parents—meaning a different male may look after another male's offspring.\n\nBenefits of multiple mating in males \nMales can potentially fertilize eggs at a much faster rate than females can produce them, meaning a male can best increase his reproductive success by finding and fertilizing as many different females as possible. In Drosophila melanogaster, the reproductive success of males increased with the number of matings, but for females there was no direct relationship with number of mates and number of offspring produced. When males have multiple mating partners, they sometimes have to share parentage of the offspring, reducing the genetic value of the offspring to him and thus reduces the relative benefit of staying to help. When paternity is shared between multiple males, males are expected to be less likely to stay in order to help the female care for the offspring because there is little benefit in staying to help raise the other offspring when there are other males present.\n\nAlthough males are able to increase their reproductive success faster than females by being able to fertilize eggs faster than females can produce them, males also at a disadvantage when it comes to mating because of sexual selection. Females usually choose males that are 'charming' and those who display sexual ornaments. In a study of long-tailed widowbirds, males with longer tails were sexually selected over those with shorter and less impressive tails. In birds such as the red-collared widowbird, males who display their sexual ornament during courtship are generally paired up faster and attract more females than males who display shorter tails during courtship. Males are often sexually selected based on their physical characteristics and what they have to 'offer', for example, male peacocks with flamboyant colored tails are sexually selected over those with dull and less elaborate tails. Sexual selection of males by females also leads to male-male competition. Unlike females who invest a lot prior to mating, males do not invest as much when generating their sperm, however this increases competition amongst males for female investment. High mating competition also means a greater variance in male success—the best competitors will have better success in mating than those who fail to mate. The best competitors will less likely be inclined to care for their offspring upon mating because they have the ability to produce offspring elsewhere. Males with the greatest size, strength, or best developed weapons achieve the greatest mating success. In other cases, males may have a higher reproductive success if they have better access to resources than other competitors. For instance, female hanging flies mate with a male only if he provides a large insect for her to eat during copulation and North American bullfrogs protect ponds and small lakes where females come to lay their eggs.\n\nTaxonomic references\n\nAmphibia \nThe various mating tactics are found in a broad number of taxa. In amphibians such as Salamandrina perspicillata, multiple paternity is a consequence of females mating with multiple males. As of now, all species in the suborder Salamandroidea have shown to employ polyandrous mating strategies by females. In a study of a population of Salamandrina perspicillata, multiple paternity occurs as a pervasive reproductive strategy under natural conditions and it is seen that in these species, when males mated with two females, they sired offspring who were inversely related with their genetic similarity to the female. Females in this species practiced polygynandry in order to increase genetic variability among her offspring by choosing mates that were genetically different from themselves. Unlike other studies of polygynandry where the females had multiple mating partners in order to gain resources from the male, in the study of Salamandrina perspicillata, multiple paternity did not provide a genetic indirect benefit to the offspring. This, resulted in a cost/benefit mechanism in which the gained benefit of multiple mating counterbalanced the negative effect of the number of mates on offspring heterozygosity. Females choosing mates that are genetically different from themselves were also seen in Ichtyosauria alpestris and Lissotriton vulgaris, where in a two-male mating system, the less-related males were preferred by the females. And like the case of Salamandrina perspicillata, there were no indirect genetic benefits gained from having multiple mating partners.\n\nPycnogonids (sea spider) \nIn Ammothea hilgendorfi, a sea spider species, fertilization occurs as a female transfers her eggs to a male who holds them with ovigers, a specialized pair of legs and fertilizes the eggs externally. The males glue the eggs into clusters and carries the eggs on his ovigers until they hatch. The personal cost to males for providing a prolonged care for the young is seen to be a significant parental investment because parental assurance is thought to be substantial for post-zygotic investment. A high level of paternity assurance is Ammothea hilgendorfi, suggests that reduced foraging ability, increased predation risk, and lower mobility exist. An experimental study of Ammothea hilgendorfi showed that although males mate with multiple females, males do not mix egg batches from different dams. The eggs held in clusters by a male hatched in a close time frame, indicating that males mated with different females within a short time span.\n\nMultiple mating by female pycnogonids are possible since a recently mated female often retains unused mature eggs in one or more femora, which allows her to mate with additional partners. In species with external fertilization and male parental care, females are able to distribute her clutch amongst different males and by doing so the female increases the likelihood that at least some of her offspring will receive indirect genetic benefits and/or extensive parental care from a quality provider.\n\nHymenoptera \n\nThe reproductive females of social Hymenoptera—wasps, bees, and ants—mate with multiple partners. These females are called queens, to distinguish them from the non-reprodutive females that tend the colony and do not mate.\n\nA honey bee queen ideally mates with about a dozen drones (males) in her nuptial flight. The sperm of matings are stored in a special reservoir, called the spermatheca, for the life of the queen—which can be several years.\n\nMaintenance \nAlthough promiscuity is said to benefit both males and females, there has not yet been sufficient data to support the fact that promiscuity benefits females. In a study of dark-eyed juncos, the offspring produced by extra-pair males were neither better nor worse than the offspring of their male social partners. However, the study of dark-eyed juncos did reveal more sired offspring in promiscuous females than monogamous females. In a study of female water striders, the results showed that multiple matings can become costly to the female—especially since a lot of time and energy is invested in producing an egg. Not only were extra matings costly, but there was no support for any genetic benefits from having multiple mating partners. Instead, the results from the experiment showed that egg production and egg hatching success were the highest when the number of partners were kept at a minimum.\n\nOn the other hand, studies have shown that males have had a higher reproductive success than females when they were polygynandrous. When compared to female chimpanzees, male chimpanzees had a better ratio of number of matings and number of offspring produced. Not only did studies show a higher reproductive success, but Columbian ground squirrels exhibited a significant male-biased sexual size and body mass, suggesting male-male competition. Male-male competition means sexual dimorphism amongst the males and this means females are able to sexually select males based on the sexual ornaments they display.\n\nOverall, studies have shown that polygynandry benefits males more than it benefits females. When polygynandry is observed in different species, males most often have the upper hand—meaning males benefit more from polygynandry than do females. Females generally seek multiple mating partners in order to increase benefits for their offspring, whether it be by gaining physical resources for their offspring or by providing their offspring with healthier genes that are fit for survival. On the other hand, in most cases males generally have multiple mating partners in order to obtain as much offspring as they can during their lifespan and they are able to achieve this easier than females because in most cases, males are not parentally involved in caring and raising their offspring.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\nMating systems"
] |
[
"Havelock Ellis",
"Sexual impulse in youth",
"What was his view on sexual impulse in the youth?",
"book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity.",
"How does he feel they experience it differently?",
"sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,",
"Does he think that the youth are more sexually active than older people?",
"He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as \"reflex signs of irritation\" are typically not vividly remembered.",
"Why did he come to this conclusion?",
"However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child.",
"Were the recalling of sensations more in females or males?",
"These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four."
] | C_55326ebad6b0415ea8430f68d8c986f4_1 | Who were the other authors? | 6 | Besides Havelock Ellis who were the other authors? | Havelock Ellis | Dr. Havelock Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'" he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience. Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded that of girls. Dr. Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children experience are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude." Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable." CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and inclinations, as well as on transgender psychology. He is credited with introducing the notions of narcissism and autoeroticism, later adopted by psychoanalysis.
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He supported eugenics and served as one of 16 vice-presidents of the Eugenics Society from 1909 to 1912.
Early life and career
Ellis, son of Edward Peppen Ellis and Susannah Mary Wheatley, was born in Croydon, Surrey (now part of Greater London). He had four sisters, none of whom married. His father was a sea captain, his mother the daughter of a sea captain, and many other relatives lived on or near the sea. When he was seven his father took him on one of his voyages, during which they called at Sydney, Australia; Callao, Peru; and Antwerp, Belgium. After his return, Ellis attended the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterward attended a school in Mitcham.
In April 1875, Ellis sailed on his father's ship for Australia; soon after his arrival in Sydney, he obtained a position as a master at a private school. After the discovery of his lack of training, he was fired and became a tutor for a family living a few miles from Carcoar, New South Wales. He spent a year there and then obtained a position as a master at a grammar school in Grafton, New South Wales. The headmaster had died and Ellis carried on at the school for that year, but was unsuccessful.
At the end of the year, he returned to Sydney and, after three months' training, was given charge of two government part-time elementary schools, one at Sparkes Creek, near Scone, New South Wales, and the other at Junction Creek. He lived at the school house on Sparkes Creek for a year. He wrote in his autobiography, "In Australia, I gained health of body, I attained peace of soul, my life task was revealed to me, I was able to decide on a professional vocation, I became an artist in literature; these five points covered the whole activity of my life in the world. Some of them I should doubtless have reached without the aid of the Australian environment, scarcely all, and most of them I could never have achieved so completely if chance had not cast me into the solitude of the Liverpool Range."
Medicine and psychology
Ellis returned to England in April 1879. He had decided to take up the study of sex and felt his first step must be to qualify as a physician. He studied at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, now part of King's College London, but never had a regular medical practice. His training was aided by a small legacy and also income earned from editing works in the Mermaid Series of lesser known Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He joined The Fellowship of the New Life in 1883, meeting other social reformers Eleanor Marx, Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw.
The 1897 English translation of Ellis's book Sexual Inversion, co-authored with John Addington Symonds and originally published in German in 1896, was the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. It describes male homosexual relations as well as adolescent rape. Ellis wrote the first objective study of homosexuality, as he did not characterise it as a disease, immoral, or a crime. The work assumes that same-sex love transcended age taboos as well as gender taboos. The first edition of the book was bought-out by the executor of Symond's estate, who forbade any mention of Symonds in the second edition.
In 1897 a bookseller was prosecuted for stocking Ellis's book. Although the term homosexual is attributed to Ellis, he wrote in 1897, "'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it." In fact, the word homosexual was coined in 1868 by the Hungarian author Karl-Maria Kertbeny.
Ellis may have developed psychological concepts of autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later developed further by Sigmund Freud. Ellis's influence may have reached Radclyffe Hall, who would have been about 17 years old at the time Sexual Inversion was published. She later referred to herself as a sexual invert and wrote of female "sexual inverts" in Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself and The Well of Loneliness. When Ellis bowed out as the star witness in the trial of The Well of Loneliness on 14 May 1928, Norman Haire was set to replace him but no witnesses were called.
Eonism
Ellis studied what today are called transgender phenomena. Together with Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis is considered a major figure in the history of sexology to establish a new category that was separate and distinct from homosexuality. Aware of Hirschfeld's studies of transvestism, but disagreeing with his terminology, in 1913 Ellis proposed the term sexo-aesthetic inversion to describe the phenomenon. In 1920 he coined the term eonism, which he derived from the name of a historical figure, the Chevalier d'Éon. Ellis explained:
Ellis found eonism to be "a remarkably common anomaly", and "next in frequency to homosexuality among sexual deviations", and categorized it as "among the transitional or intermediate forms of sexuality". As in the Freudian tradition, Ellis postulated that a "too close attachment to the mother" may encourage eonism, but also considered that it "probably invokes some defective endocrine balance".
Marriage
In November 1891, at the age of 32, and reportedly still a virgin, Ellis married the English writer and proponent of women's rights Edith Lees. From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional, as Edith Lees was openly lesbian. At the end of the honeymoon, Ellis went back to his bachelor rooms in Paddington. She lived at Fellowship House. Their "open marriage" was the central subject in Ellis's autobiography, My Life. Ellis reportedly had an affair with Margaret Sanger.
According to Ellis in My Life, his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex. Some knew that he reportedly suffered from impotence until the age of 60. He then discovered that he could become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating. Ellis named this "undinism". After his wife died, Ellis formed a relationship with a French woman, Françoise Lafitte.
Eugenics
Ellis was a supporter of eugenics. He served as vice-president to the Eugenics Education Society and wrote on the subject, among others, in The Task of Social Hygiene:
In his early writings, it was clear that Ellis concurred with the notion that there was a system of racial hierarchies, and that non-western cultures were considered to be "lower races". Before explicitly talking about eugenic topics, he used the prevalence of homosexuality in these 'lower races' to indicate the universality of the behavior. In his work, Sexual Inversions, where Ellis presented numerous cases of homosexuality in Britain, he was always careful to mention the race of the subject and the health of the person's 'stock', which included their neuropathic conditions and the health of their parents. However, Ellis was clear to assert that he did not feel that homosexuality was an issue that eugenics needed to actively deal with, as he felt that once the practice was accepted in society, those with homosexual tendencies would comfortably choose not to marry, and thus would cease to pass the 'homosexual heredity' along.
In a debate in the Sociological Society, Ellis corresponded with noted eugenicist Francis Galton, who was presenting a paper in support of marriage restrictions. While Galton analogized eugenics to breeding domesticated animals, Ellis felt that a greater sense of caution was needed before applying the eugenic regulations to populations, as "we have scarcely yet realized how subtle and far-reaching hereditary influences are." Instead, because unlike domesticated animals, humans were in charge of who they mated with, Ellis argued that a greater emphasis was needed on public education about how vital this issue was. Ellis thus held much more moderate views than many contemporary eugenicists. In fact, Ellis also fundamentally disagreed with Galton's leading ideas that procreation restrictions were the same as marriage restrictions. Ellis believed that those who should not procreate should still be able to gain all the other benefits of marriage, and to not allow that was an intolerable burden. This, in his mind, was what led to eugenics being "misunderstood, ridiculed, and regarded as a fad".
Throughout his life, Ellis was both a member and later a council member of the Eugenics Society. Moreover, he played a role on the General Committee of the First International Eugenics Congress.
Sexual impulse in youth
Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse, he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience.
Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references G.V. Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent of girls were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded those of girls.
Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude". Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable".
Auto-eroticism
Ellis' views of auto-eroticism were very comprehensive, including much more than masturbation. Auto-eroticism, according to Ellis, includes a wide range of phenomena. Ellis states in his 1897 book Studies in the Psychology of Sex, that auto-eroticism ranges from erotic day-dreams, marked by a passivity shown by the subject, to "unshamed efforts at sexual self-manipulation witnessed among the insane".
Ellis also argues that auto-erotic impulses can be heightened by bodily processes like menstrual flow. During this time, he says, women, who would otherwise not feel a strong propensity for auto-eroticism, increase their masturbation patterns. This trend is absent, however, in women without a conscious acceptance of their sexual feelings and in a small percentage of women suffering from a sexual or general ailment which result in a significant amount of "sexual anesthesia".
Ellis also raises social concern over how auto-erotic tendencies affect marriages. He goes on to tying auto-eroticism to declining marriage rates. As these rates decline, he concludes that auto-eroticism will only increase in both amount and intensity for both men and women. Therefore, he states, this is an important issue to both the moralist and physician to investigate psychological underpinnings of these experiences and determine an attitude toward them.
Smell
Ellis believed that the sense of smell, although ineffective at long ranges, still contributes to sexual attraction, and therefore, to mate selection. In his 1905 book, Sexual selection in man, Ellis makes a claim for the sense of smell in the role of sexual selection. He asserts that while we have evolved out of a great necessity for the sense of smell, we still rely on our sense of smell with sexual selection. The contributions that smell makes in sexual attraction can even be heightened with certain climates. Ellis states that with warmer climates come a heightened sensitivity to sexual and other positive feelings of smell among normal populations. Because of this, he believes people are often delighted by odors in the East, particularly in India, in "Hebrew and Mohammedan lands". Ellis then continues by describing the distinct odours in various races, noting that the Japanese race has the least intense of bodily odours. Ellis concludes his argument by stating, "On the whole, it may be said that in the usual life of man odours play a not inconsiderable part and raise problems which are not without interest, but that their demonstrable part in actual sexual selection is comparatively small."
Views on women and birth control
Ellis favoured feminism from a eugenic perspective, feeling that the enhanced social, economic, and sexual choices that feminism provided for women would result in women choosing partners who were more eugenically sound. In his view, intelligent women would not choose, nor be forced to marry and procreate with feeble-minded men.
Ellis viewed birth control as merely the continuation of an evolutionary progression, noting that natural progress has always consisted of increasing impediments to reproduction, which lead to a lower quantity of offspring, but a much higher quality of them. From a eugenic perspective, birth control was an invaluable instrument for the elevation of the race. However, Ellis noted that birth control could not be used randomly in a way that could have a detrimental impact by reducing conception, but rather needed to be used in a targeted manner to improve the qualities of certain 'stocks'. He observed that it was unfortunately the 'superior stocks' who had knowledge of and used birth control while the 'inferior stocks' propagated without checks. Ellis' solution to this was a focus on contraceptives in education, as this would disseminate the knowledge in the populations that he felt needed them the most. Ellis argued that birth control was the only available way of making eugenic selection practicable, as the only other option was wide-scale abstention from intercourse for those who were 'unfit'.
Views on sterilization
Ellis was strongly opposed to the idea of castration for eugenic purposes. In 1909, regulations were introduced at the Cantonal Asylum in Bern, which allowed those deemed 'unfit' and with strong sexual inclinations to be mandatorily sterilized. In a particular instance, several men and women, including epileptics and paedophiles, were castrated, some of whom voluntarily requested it. While the results were positive, in that none of the subjects were found guilty of any more sexual offences, Ellis remained staunchly opposed to the practice. His view on the origin of these inclinations was that sexual impulses do not reside in the sexual organs, but rather they persist in the brain. Moreover, he posited that the sexual glands provided an important source of internal secretions vital for the functioning of the organism, and thus their removal could greatly injure the patient.
However, already in his time, Ellis was witness to the rise of vasectomies and ligatures of the Fallopian tubes, which performed the same sterilization without removing the whole organ. In these cases, Ellis was much more favourable, yet still maintaining that "sterilization of the unfit, if it is to be a practical and humane measure commanding general approval, must be voluntary on the part of the person undergoing it, and never compulsory." His opposition to such a system was not only rooted in morality. Rather, Ellis also considered the practicality of the situation, hypothesizing that if an already mentally unfit man is forced to undergo sterilization, he would only become more ill-balanced, and would end up committing more anti-social acts.
Though Ellis was never at ease with the idea of forced sterilizations, he was willing to find ways to circumvent that restriction. His focus was on the social ends of eugenics, and as a means to it, Ellis was in no way against 'persuading' 'volunteers' to undergo sterilization by withdrawing Poor Relief from them. While he preferred to convince those he deemed unfit using education, Ellis supported coercion as a tool. Furthermore, he supported adding ideas about eugenics and birth control to the education system in order to restructure society, and to promote social hygiene. For Ellis, sterilization seemed to be the only eugenic instrument that could be used on the mentally unfit. In fact, in his publication The Sterilization of the Unfit, Ellis argued that even institutionalization could not guarantee the complete prevention of procreation between the unfit, and thus, "the burdens of society, to say nothing of the race, are being multiplied. It is not possible to view sterilization with enthusiasm when applied to any class of people…but what, I ask myself, is the practical alternative?"
Psychedelics
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He consumed a brew made of 3 Echinocacti (peyote) in the afternoon of Good Friday alone in his apartment in Temple, London. During the experience, lasting for about 24 hours, he noted a plethora of extremely vivid, complex, colourful, pleasantly smelling hallucinations, consisting both of abstract geometrical patterns and definite objects such as butterflies and other insects. He published the account of the experience in The Contemporary Review in 1898 (Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise). The title of the article alludes to an earlier work on the effects of mind-altering substances, an 1860 book Les Paradis artificiels by French poet Charles Baudelaire (containing descriptions of experiments with opium and hashish).
Ellis was so impressed with the aesthetic quality of the experience that he gave some specimens of peyote to the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organisation of which another mescaline researcher, Aleister Crowley, was also a member.
Later life and death
Ellis resigned from his position of Fellow of the Eugenics Society over their stance on sterilization in January 1931.
Ellis spent the last year of his life at Hintlesham, Suffolk, where he died in July 1939. He is buried in Golders Green Crematorium, in North London.
Works
The Criminal (1890)
The New Spirit (1890)
The Nationalisation of Health (1892)
Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (1894) (revised 1929)
translator: Germinal (by Zola) (1895) (reissued 1933)
with J.A. Symonds
Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897–1928) six volumes (listed below)
Affirmations (1898)
The Nineteenth Century (1900)
A Study of British Genius (1904)
The Soul of Spain (1908)
The Problem of Race-Regeneration (1911)
The World of Dreams (1911) (new edition 1926)
The Task of Social Hygiene (1912)
The Philosophy of Conflict (1919)
On Life and Sex: Essays of Love and Virtue (1921)
Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922)
Sonnets, with Folk Songs from the Spanish (1925)
Eonism and Other Supplementary Studies (1928)
Studies in the Psychology of Sex Vol. 7 (1928)
The Art of Life (1929) (selected and arranged by Mrs. S. Herbert)
More Essays of Love and Virtue (1931)
ed.: James Hinton: Life in Nature (1931)
ed.: Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, by Walter Savage Landor (1933)
Chapman (1934)
My Confessional (1934)
Questions of Our Day (1934)
From Rousseau to Proust (1935)
Selected Essays (1936)
Poems (1937) (selected by John Gawsworth; pseudonym of T. Fytton Armstrong)
Love and Marriage (1938) (with others)
Sex Compatibility in Marriage (1939)
From Marlowe to Shaw (1950) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Genius of Europe (1950)
Sex and Marriage (1951) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Unpublished Letters of Havelock Ellis to Joseph Ishill (1954)
References
Bibliography
Further reading
(U.S. title)
External links
Havelock Ellis papers (MS 195). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Henry Havelock Ellis papers from the Historic Psychiatry Collection, Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society
1859 births
1939 deaths
19th-century English non-fiction writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Alumni of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
British sexologists
English eugenicists
English psychologists
People from Croydon
Psychedelic drug advocates
British relationships and sexuality writers
Medical writers on LGBT topics
British social reformers
Transgender studies academics
Victorian writers
Translators of Émile Zola | false | [
"The Catholic Authors Awards are given annually by the Asian Catholic Publishers in Manila, Philippines, in coordination with the Archdiocese of Manila. Catholic authors who have a track record of excellence in their craft have to be nominated by previous winners to be considered for the award by the Asian Catholic Publishers. A screening committee is tasked to pick the winners.\n\nThe Catholic Authors Awards were established in 1989 by the Asian Catholic Publishers, Inc., upon the initiative of Cardinal Jaime Sin, to honor men and women who promote the values of the Gospel in their writings, compositions, and their work in the communications field. Since its inception, the awards have encouraged more priests, religious men and women and laypeople to venture into more active participation in communications through the publication of books and other materials.\n\nExternal links\n\"Cardinal Sin, Cory receive awards from authors; Scenes of Sin 2 book launched Aug 24\", Archdiocese of Manila Web Site (retrieved January 14, 2008)\n\nPhilippine literary awards\nAwards established in 1989",
"The International Who's Who of Authors and Writers, formerly The International Authors and Writers Who's Who, is a biographical guide to authors that has been published under various titles since 1934.\n\nHistory\nThe work had been published by Burke's Peerage since 1934 as The Authors and Writers Who's Who, going through six editions before it was acquired by Melrose Press of Cambridge in 1974 who merged it with material collected for their planned World's Who's Who of Authors which also incorporated material from the nine volumes of the County Authors Today series for the United Kingdom, and the unpublished American Authors Today. The first edition published by Melrose was titled The International Authors and Writers Who's Who and published in 1976 as the seventh edition in the series.\n\nThe work was acquired by Routledge in 2002 and retitled the International Who's Who of Authors and Writers.\n\nReferences \n\nReference works\n1934 non-fiction books\nBiographical dictionaries\nRoutledge books"
] |
[
"Havelock Ellis",
"Sexual impulse in youth",
"What was his view on sexual impulse in the youth?",
"book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity.",
"How does he feel they experience it differently?",
"sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,",
"Does he think that the youth are more sexually active than older people?",
"He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as \"reflex signs of irritation\" are typically not vividly remembered.",
"Why did he come to this conclusion?",
"However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child.",
"Were the recalling of sensations more in females or males?",
"These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four.",
"Who were the other authors?",
"I don't know."
] | C_55326ebad6b0415ea8430f68d8c986f4_1 | Did he have any thoughts on the hereditary of sexual excitement? | 7 | Did Havelock Ellis have any thoughts on the hereditary of sexual excitement? | Havelock Ellis | Dr. Havelock Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'" he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience. Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded that of girls. Dr. Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children experience are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude." Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable." CANNOTANSWER | Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience. | Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and inclinations, as well as on transgender psychology. He is credited with introducing the notions of narcissism and autoeroticism, later adopted by psychoanalysis.
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He supported eugenics and served as one of 16 vice-presidents of the Eugenics Society from 1909 to 1912.
Early life and career
Ellis, son of Edward Peppen Ellis and Susannah Mary Wheatley, was born in Croydon, Surrey (now part of Greater London). He had four sisters, none of whom married. His father was a sea captain, his mother the daughter of a sea captain, and many other relatives lived on or near the sea. When he was seven his father took him on one of his voyages, during which they called at Sydney, Australia; Callao, Peru; and Antwerp, Belgium. After his return, Ellis attended the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterward attended a school in Mitcham.
In April 1875, Ellis sailed on his father's ship for Australia; soon after his arrival in Sydney, he obtained a position as a master at a private school. After the discovery of his lack of training, he was fired and became a tutor for a family living a few miles from Carcoar, New South Wales. He spent a year there and then obtained a position as a master at a grammar school in Grafton, New South Wales. The headmaster had died and Ellis carried on at the school for that year, but was unsuccessful.
At the end of the year, he returned to Sydney and, after three months' training, was given charge of two government part-time elementary schools, one at Sparkes Creek, near Scone, New South Wales, and the other at Junction Creek. He lived at the school house on Sparkes Creek for a year. He wrote in his autobiography, "In Australia, I gained health of body, I attained peace of soul, my life task was revealed to me, I was able to decide on a professional vocation, I became an artist in literature; these five points covered the whole activity of my life in the world. Some of them I should doubtless have reached without the aid of the Australian environment, scarcely all, and most of them I could never have achieved so completely if chance had not cast me into the solitude of the Liverpool Range."
Medicine and psychology
Ellis returned to England in April 1879. He had decided to take up the study of sex and felt his first step must be to qualify as a physician. He studied at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, now part of King's College London, but never had a regular medical practice. His training was aided by a small legacy and also income earned from editing works in the Mermaid Series of lesser known Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He joined The Fellowship of the New Life in 1883, meeting other social reformers Eleanor Marx, Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw.
The 1897 English translation of Ellis's book Sexual Inversion, co-authored with John Addington Symonds and originally published in German in 1896, was the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. It describes male homosexual relations as well as adolescent rape. Ellis wrote the first objective study of homosexuality, as he did not characterise it as a disease, immoral, or a crime. The work assumes that same-sex love transcended age taboos as well as gender taboos. The first edition of the book was bought-out by the executor of Symond's estate, who forbade any mention of Symonds in the second edition.
In 1897 a bookseller was prosecuted for stocking Ellis's book. Although the term homosexual is attributed to Ellis, he wrote in 1897, "'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it." In fact, the word homosexual was coined in 1868 by the Hungarian author Karl-Maria Kertbeny.
Ellis may have developed psychological concepts of autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later developed further by Sigmund Freud. Ellis's influence may have reached Radclyffe Hall, who would have been about 17 years old at the time Sexual Inversion was published. She later referred to herself as a sexual invert and wrote of female "sexual inverts" in Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself and The Well of Loneliness. When Ellis bowed out as the star witness in the trial of The Well of Loneliness on 14 May 1928, Norman Haire was set to replace him but no witnesses were called.
Eonism
Ellis studied what today are called transgender phenomena. Together with Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis is considered a major figure in the history of sexology to establish a new category that was separate and distinct from homosexuality. Aware of Hirschfeld's studies of transvestism, but disagreeing with his terminology, in 1913 Ellis proposed the term sexo-aesthetic inversion to describe the phenomenon. In 1920 he coined the term eonism, which he derived from the name of a historical figure, the Chevalier d'Éon. Ellis explained:
Ellis found eonism to be "a remarkably common anomaly", and "next in frequency to homosexuality among sexual deviations", and categorized it as "among the transitional or intermediate forms of sexuality". As in the Freudian tradition, Ellis postulated that a "too close attachment to the mother" may encourage eonism, but also considered that it "probably invokes some defective endocrine balance".
Marriage
In November 1891, at the age of 32, and reportedly still a virgin, Ellis married the English writer and proponent of women's rights Edith Lees. From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional, as Edith Lees was openly lesbian. At the end of the honeymoon, Ellis went back to his bachelor rooms in Paddington. She lived at Fellowship House. Their "open marriage" was the central subject in Ellis's autobiography, My Life. Ellis reportedly had an affair with Margaret Sanger.
According to Ellis in My Life, his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex. Some knew that he reportedly suffered from impotence until the age of 60. He then discovered that he could become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating. Ellis named this "undinism". After his wife died, Ellis formed a relationship with a French woman, Françoise Lafitte.
Eugenics
Ellis was a supporter of eugenics. He served as vice-president to the Eugenics Education Society and wrote on the subject, among others, in The Task of Social Hygiene:
In his early writings, it was clear that Ellis concurred with the notion that there was a system of racial hierarchies, and that non-western cultures were considered to be "lower races". Before explicitly talking about eugenic topics, he used the prevalence of homosexuality in these 'lower races' to indicate the universality of the behavior. In his work, Sexual Inversions, where Ellis presented numerous cases of homosexuality in Britain, he was always careful to mention the race of the subject and the health of the person's 'stock', which included their neuropathic conditions and the health of their parents. However, Ellis was clear to assert that he did not feel that homosexuality was an issue that eugenics needed to actively deal with, as he felt that once the practice was accepted in society, those with homosexual tendencies would comfortably choose not to marry, and thus would cease to pass the 'homosexual heredity' along.
In a debate in the Sociological Society, Ellis corresponded with noted eugenicist Francis Galton, who was presenting a paper in support of marriage restrictions. While Galton analogized eugenics to breeding domesticated animals, Ellis felt that a greater sense of caution was needed before applying the eugenic regulations to populations, as "we have scarcely yet realized how subtle and far-reaching hereditary influences are." Instead, because unlike domesticated animals, humans were in charge of who they mated with, Ellis argued that a greater emphasis was needed on public education about how vital this issue was. Ellis thus held much more moderate views than many contemporary eugenicists. In fact, Ellis also fundamentally disagreed with Galton's leading ideas that procreation restrictions were the same as marriage restrictions. Ellis believed that those who should not procreate should still be able to gain all the other benefits of marriage, and to not allow that was an intolerable burden. This, in his mind, was what led to eugenics being "misunderstood, ridiculed, and regarded as a fad".
Throughout his life, Ellis was both a member and later a council member of the Eugenics Society. Moreover, he played a role on the General Committee of the First International Eugenics Congress.
Sexual impulse in youth
Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse, he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience.
Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references G.V. Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent of girls were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded those of girls.
Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude". Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable".
Auto-eroticism
Ellis' views of auto-eroticism were very comprehensive, including much more than masturbation. Auto-eroticism, according to Ellis, includes a wide range of phenomena. Ellis states in his 1897 book Studies in the Psychology of Sex, that auto-eroticism ranges from erotic day-dreams, marked by a passivity shown by the subject, to "unshamed efforts at sexual self-manipulation witnessed among the insane".
Ellis also argues that auto-erotic impulses can be heightened by bodily processes like menstrual flow. During this time, he says, women, who would otherwise not feel a strong propensity for auto-eroticism, increase their masturbation patterns. This trend is absent, however, in women without a conscious acceptance of their sexual feelings and in a small percentage of women suffering from a sexual or general ailment which result in a significant amount of "sexual anesthesia".
Ellis also raises social concern over how auto-erotic tendencies affect marriages. He goes on to tying auto-eroticism to declining marriage rates. As these rates decline, he concludes that auto-eroticism will only increase in both amount and intensity for both men and women. Therefore, he states, this is an important issue to both the moralist and physician to investigate psychological underpinnings of these experiences and determine an attitude toward them.
Smell
Ellis believed that the sense of smell, although ineffective at long ranges, still contributes to sexual attraction, and therefore, to mate selection. In his 1905 book, Sexual selection in man, Ellis makes a claim for the sense of smell in the role of sexual selection. He asserts that while we have evolved out of a great necessity for the sense of smell, we still rely on our sense of smell with sexual selection. The contributions that smell makes in sexual attraction can even be heightened with certain climates. Ellis states that with warmer climates come a heightened sensitivity to sexual and other positive feelings of smell among normal populations. Because of this, he believes people are often delighted by odors in the East, particularly in India, in "Hebrew and Mohammedan lands". Ellis then continues by describing the distinct odours in various races, noting that the Japanese race has the least intense of bodily odours. Ellis concludes his argument by stating, "On the whole, it may be said that in the usual life of man odours play a not inconsiderable part and raise problems which are not without interest, but that their demonstrable part in actual sexual selection is comparatively small."
Views on women and birth control
Ellis favoured feminism from a eugenic perspective, feeling that the enhanced social, economic, and sexual choices that feminism provided for women would result in women choosing partners who were more eugenically sound. In his view, intelligent women would not choose, nor be forced to marry and procreate with feeble-minded men.
Ellis viewed birth control as merely the continuation of an evolutionary progression, noting that natural progress has always consisted of increasing impediments to reproduction, which lead to a lower quantity of offspring, but a much higher quality of them. From a eugenic perspective, birth control was an invaluable instrument for the elevation of the race. However, Ellis noted that birth control could not be used randomly in a way that could have a detrimental impact by reducing conception, but rather needed to be used in a targeted manner to improve the qualities of certain 'stocks'. He observed that it was unfortunately the 'superior stocks' who had knowledge of and used birth control while the 'inferior stocks' propagated without checks. Ellis' solution to this was a focus on contraceptives in education, as this would disseminate the knowledge in the populations that he felt needed them the most. Ellis argued that birth control was the only available way of making eugenic selection practicable, as the only other option was wide-scale abstention from intercourse for those who were 'unfit'.
Views on sterilization
Ellis was strongly opposed to the idea of castration for eugenic purposes. In 1909, regulations were introduced at the Cantonal Asylum in Bern, which allowed those deemed 'unfit' and with strong sexual inclinations to be mandatorily sterilized. In a particular instance, several men and women, including epileptics and paedophiles, were castrated, some of whom voluntarily requested it. While the results were positive, in that none of the subjects were found guilty of any more sexual offences, Ellis remained staunchly opposed to the practice. His view on the origin of these inclinations was that sexual impulses do not reside in the sexual organs, but rather they persist in the brain. Moreover, he posited that the sexual glands provided an important source of internal secretions vital for the functioning of the organism, and thus their removal could greatly injure the patient.
However, already in his time, Ellis was witness to the rise of vasectomies and ligatures of the Fallopian tubes, which performed the same sterilization without removing the whole organ. In these cases, Ellis was much more favourable, yet still maintaining that "sterilization of the unfit, if it is to be a practical and humane measure commanding general approval, must be voluntary on the part of the person undergoing it, and never compulsory." His opposition to such a system was not only rooted in morality. Rather, Ellis also considered the practicality of the situation, hypothesizing that if an already mentally unfit man is forced to undergo sterilization, he would only become more ill-balanced, and would end up committing more anti-social acts.
Though Ellis was never at ease with the idea of forced sterilizations, he was willing to find ways to circumvent that restriction. His focus was on the social ends of eugenics, and as a means to it, Ellis was in no way against 'persuading' 'volunteers' to undergo sterilization by withdrawing Poor Relief from them. While he preferred to convince those he deemed unfit using education, Ellis supported coercion as a tool. Furthermore, he supported adding ideas about eugenics and birth control to the education system in order to restructure society, and to promote social hygiene. For Ellis, sterilization seemed to be the only eugenic instrument that could be used on the mentally unfit. In fact, in his publication The Sterilization of the Unfit, Ellis argued that even institutionalization could not guarantee the complete prevention of procreation between the unfit, and thus, "the burdens of society, to say nothing of the race, are being multiplied. It is not possible to view sterilization with enthusiasm when applied to any class of people…but what, I ask myself, is the practical alternative?"
Psychedelics
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He consumed a brew made of 3 Echinocacti (peyote) in the afternoon of Good Friday alone in his apartment in Temple, London. During the experience, lasting for about 24 hours, he noted a plethora of extremely vivid, complex, colourful, pleasantly smelling hallucinations, consisting both of abstract geometrical patterns and definite objects such as butterflies and other insects. He published the account of the experience in The Contemporary Review in 1898 (Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise). The title of the article alludes to an earlier work on the effects of mind-altering substances, an 1860 book Les Paradis artificiels by French poet Charles Baudelaire (containing descriptions of experiments with opium and hashish).
Ellis was so impressed with the aesthetic quality of the experience that he gave some specimens of peyote to the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organisation of which another mescaline researcher, Aleister Crowley, was also a member.
Later life and death
Ellis resigned from his position of Fellow of the Eugenics Society over their stance on sterilization in January 1931.
Ellis spent the last year of his life at Hintlesham, Suffolk, where he died in July 1939. He is buried in Golders Green Crematorium, in North London.
Works
The Criminal (1890)
The New Spirit (1890)
The Nationalisation of Health (1892)
Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (1894) (revised 1929)
translator: Germinal (by Zola) (1895) (reissued 1933)
with J.A. Symonds
Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897–1928) six volumes (listed below)
Affirmations (1898)
The Nineteenth Century (1900)
A Study of British Genius (1904)
The Soul of Spain (1908)
The Problem of Race-Regeneration (1911)
The World of Dreams (1911) (new edition 1926)
The Task of Social Hygiene (1912)
The Philosophy of Conflict (1919)
On Life and Sex: Essays of Love and Virtue (1921)
Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922)
Sonnets, with Folk Songs from the Spanish (1925)
Eonism and Other Supplementary Studies (1928)
Studies in the Psychology of Sex Vol. 7 (1928)
The Art of Life (1929) (selected and arranged by Mrs. S. Herbert)
More Essays of Love and Virtue (1931)
ed.: James Hinton: Life in Nature (1931)
ed.: Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, by Walter Savage Landor (1933)
Chapman (1934)
My Confessional (1934)
Questions of Our Day (1934)
From Rousseau to Proust (1935)
Selected Essays (1936)
Poems (1937) (selected by John Gawsworth; pseudonym of T. Fytton Armstrong)
Love and Marriage (1938) (with others)
Sex Compatibility in Marriage (1939)
From Marlowe to Shaw (1950) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Genius of Europe (1950)
Sex and Marriage (1951) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Unpublished Letters of Havelock Ellis to Joseph Ishill (1954)
References
Bibliography
Further reading
(U.S. title)
External links
Havelock Ellis papers (MS 195). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Henry Havelock Ellis papers from the Historic Psychiatry Collection, Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society
1859 births
1939 deaths
19th-century English non-fiction writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Alumni of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
British sexologists
English eugenicists
English psychologists
People from Croydon
Psychedelic drug advocates
British relationships and sexuality writers
Medical writers on LGBT topics
British social reformers
Transgender studies academics
Victorian writers
Translators of Émile Zola | true | [
"An intrusive thought is an unwelcome, involuntary thought, image, or unpleasant idea that may become an obsession, is upsetting or distressing, and can feel difficult to manage or eliminate. When such thoughts are associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), depression, body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), and sometimes attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the thoughts may become paralyzing, anxiety-provoking, or persistent. Intrusive thoughts may also be associated with episodic memory, unwanted worries or memories from OCD, post-traumatic stress disorder, other anxiety disorders, eating disorders, or psychosis. Intrusive thoughts, urges, and images are of inappropriate things at inappropriate times, and generally have aggressive, sexual, or blasphemous themes.\n\nDescription\n\nGeneral\nMany people experience the type of bad or unwanted thoughts that people with more troubling intrusive thoughts have, but most people can dismiss these thoughts. For most people, intrusive thoughts are a \"fleeting annoyance\". Psychologist Stanley Rachman presented a questionnaire to healthy college students and found that virtually all said they had these thoughts from time to time, including thoughts of sexual violence, sexual punishment, \"unnatural\" sex acts, painful sexual practices, blasphemous or obscene images, thoughts of harming elderly people or someone close to them, violence against animals or towards children, and impulsive or abusive outbursts or utterances. Such thoughts are universal among humans, and have \"almost certainly always been a part of the human condition\".\n\nWhen intrusive thoughts occur with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), patients are less able to ignore the unpleasant thoughts and may pay undue attention to them, causing the thoughts to become more frequent and distressing. The suppression of intrusive thoughts often cause these thoughts to become more intense and persistent. The thoughts may become obsessions that are paralyzing, severe, and constantly present, these might involve topics such as violence, sex, or religious blasphemy, among others. Distinguishing them from normal intrusive thoughts experienced by many people, the intrusive thoughts associated with OCD may be anxiety provoking, irrepressible, and persistent.\n\nHow people react to intrusive thoughts may determine whether these thoughts will become severe, turn into obsessions, or require treatment. Intrusive thoughts can occur with or without compulsions. Carrying out the compulsion reduces the anxiety, but makes the urge to perform the compulsion stronger each time it recurs, reinforcing the intrusive thoughts. According to Lee Baer, suppressing the thoughts only makes them stronger, and recognizing that bad thoughts do not signify that one is truly evil is one of the steps to overcoming them. There is evidence of the benefit of acceptance as an alternative to the suppression of intrusive thoughts. In one particular study, those instructed to suppress intrusive thoughts experienced more distress after suppression, while patients instructed to accept the bad thoughts experienced decreased discomfort. These results may be related to underlying cognitive processes involved in OCD. However, accepting the thoughts can be more difficult for persons with OCD.\n\nThe possibility that most patients suffering from intrusive thoughts will ever act on those thoughts is low. Patients who are experiencing intense guilt, anxiety, shame, and are upset over these thoughts are very different from those who actually act on them. The history of violent crime is dominated by those who feel no guilt or remorse; the very fact that someone is tormented by intrusive thoughts and has never acted on them before is an excellent predictor that they will not act upon the thoughts. Patients who are not troubled or shamed by their thoughts, do not find them distasteful, or who have actually taken action, might need to have more serious conditions such as psychosis or potentially criminal behaviors ruled out. According to Lee Baer, a patient should be concerned that intrusive thoughts are dangerous if the person does not feel upset by the thoughts, or rather finds them pleasurable; has ever acted on violent or sexual thoughts or urges; hears voices or sees things that others do not see; or feels uncontrollable irresistible anger.\n\nAggressive thoughts\nIntrusive thoughts may involve violent obsessions about hurting others or themselves. They can be related to primarily obsessional obsessive compulsive disorder. These thoughts can include harming a child; jumping from a bridge, mountain, or the top of a tall building; urges to jump in front of a train or automobile; and urges to push another in front of a train or automobile. Rachman's survey of healthy college students found that virtually all of them had intrusive thoughts from time to time, including:\n causing harm to elderly people\n imagining or wishing harm upon someone close to oneself\n impulses to violently attack, hit, harm or kill a person, small child, or animal\n impulses to shout at or abuse someone, or attack and violently punish someone, or say something rude, inappropriate, nasty, or violent to someone.\n\nThese thoughts are part of being human, and need not ruin the quality of life. Treatment is available when the thoughts are associated with OCD and become persistent, severe, or distressing.\n\nA variant of aggressive intrusive thoughts is L'appel du vide, or the call of the void. Sufferers of L'appel du vide generally describe the condition as manifesting in certain situations, normally as a wish or brief desire to jump from a high location.\n\nSexual thoughts\nSexual obsession involves intrusive thoughts or images of \"kissing, touching, fondling, oral sex, anal sex, intercourse, and rape\" with \"strangers, acquaintances, parents, children, family members, friends, coworkers, animals and religious figures\", involving \"heterosexual or homosexual content\" with persons of any age.\n\nCommon sexual themes for intrusive thoughts for men involve “(a) having sex in a public place, (b) people I come in contact with being naked, and (c) engaging in a sexual act with someone who is unacceptable to me because they have authority over me.” While common sexual intrusive thoughts for women are (a) having sex in a public place, (b) engaging in a sexual act with someone who is unacceptable to me because they have authority over me, and (c) being sexually victimized.\n\nLike other unwanted intrusive thoughts or images, most people have some inappropriate sexual thoughts at times, but people with OCD may attach significance to the unwanted sexual thoughts, generating anxiety and distress. The doubt that accompanies OCD leads to uncertainty regarding whether one might act on the intrusive thoughts, resulting in self-criticism or loathing.\n\nOne of the more common sexual intrusive thoughts occurs when an obsessive person doubts their sexual identity. As in the case of most sexual obsessions, sufferers may feel shame and live in isolation, finding it hard to discuss their fears, doubts, and concerns about their sexual identity.\n\nA person experiencing sexual intrusive thoughts may feel shame, \"embarrassment, guilt, distress, torment, fear of acting on the thought or perceived impulse, and doubt about whether they have already acted in such a way.\" Depression may be a result of the self-loathing that can occur, depending on how much the OCD interferes with daily functioning or causes distress. Their concern over these thoughts may cause them to scrutinize their bodies to determine if the thoughts result in feelings of arousal. However, focusing their attention on any part of the body can result in feelings in that body part, hence doing so may decrease confidence and increase fear about acting on the urges. Part of the treatment of sexual intrusive thoughts involves therapy to help sufferers accept intrusive thoughts and stop trying to reassure themselves by checking their bodies. This arousal within the body parts is due to conditioned physiological responses in the brain, which do not respond to the subject of the sexual intrusive thought but rather to the fact that a sexual thought is occurring at all and thus engage an automatic response (research indicates that the correlation between what the genitalia regard as \"sexually relevant\" and what the brain regards as \"sexually appealing\" only correlates 50% of the time in men and 10% of the time in women). This means that an arousal response does not necessarily indicate that the person desires what they are thinking about. However, rational thinking processes attempt to explain this reaction and OCD causes people to attribute false meaning and importance to these physiological reactions in an attempt to make sense of them. Sufferers can also experience heightened anxiety caused by \"forbidden\" images or simply by discussing the matter which can then also cause physiological arousal, such as sweating, increased heart rate and some degree of tumescence or lubrication. This is often misinterpreted by the sufferer as an indication of desire or intent, when it is in fact not.\n\nReligious thoughts\n\nBlasphemous thoughts are a common component of OCD, documented throughout history; notable religious figures such as Martin Luther and Ignatius of Loyola were known to be tormented by intrusive, blasphemous or religious thoughts and urges. Martin Luther had urges to curse God and Jesus, and was obsessed with images of \"the Devil's behind.\" St. Ignatius had numerous obsessions, including the fear of stepping on pieces of straw forming a cross, fearing that it showed disrespect to Christ. A study of 50 patients with a primary diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder found that 40% had religious and blasphemous thoughts and doubts—a higher, but not statistically significantly different number than the 38% who had the obsessional thoughts related to dirt and contamination more commonly associated with OCD. One study suggests that the content of intrusive thoughts may vary depending on culture, and that blasphemous thoughts may be more common in men than in women.\n\nAccording to Fred Penzel, a New York psychologist, some common religious obsessions and intrusive thoughts are:\n sexual thoughts about God, saints, and religious figures\n bad thoughts or images during prayer or meditation\n thoughts of being possessed\n fears of sinning or breaking a religious law or performing a ritual incorrectly\n fears of omitting prayers or reciting them incorrectly\n repetitive and intrusive blasphemous thoughts\n urges or impulses to say blasphemous words or commit blasphemous acts during religious services.\n\nSuffering can be greater and treatment complicated when intrusive thoughts involve religious implications; patients may believe the thoughts are inspired by Satan, and may fear punishment from God or have magnified shame because they perceive themselves as sinful. Symptoms can be more distressing for sufferers with strong religious convictions or beliefs.\n\nBaer believes that blasphemous thoughts are more common in Catholics and evangelical Protestants than in other religions, whereas Jews or Muslims tend to have obsessions related more to complying with the laws and rituals of their faith, and performing the rituals perfectly. He hypothesizes that this is because what is considered inappropriate varies among cultures and religions, and intrusive thoughts torment their sufferers with whatever is considered most inappropriate in the surrounding culture.\n\nAge factors \nAdults under the age of 40 seem to be the most affected by intrusive thoughts. Individuals in this age range tend to be less experienced at coping with these thoughts, and the stress and negative affect induced by them. Younger adults also tend to have stressors specific to that period of life that can be particularly challenging especially in the face of intrusive thoughts. Although, when introduced with an intrusive thought, both age groups immediately look for ways to reduce the recurrence of the thoughts.\n\nThose in middle adulthood (40-60) have the highest prevalence of OCD and therefore seem to be the most susceptible to the anxiety and negative emotions associated with intrusive thought. Middle adults are in a unique position because they have to struggle with both the stressors of early and late adulthood. They may be more vulnerable to intrusive thought because they have more topics to relate to. Even with this being the case, middle adults are still better at coping with intrusive thoughts than early adults, although it takes them longer at first to process an intrusive thought. Older adults tend to see the intrusive thought more as a cognitive failure rather than a moral failure in opposition to young adults. They have a harder time suppressing the intrusive thoughts than young adults causing them to experience higher stress levels when dealing with these thoughts.\n\nIntrusive thoughts appear to occur at the same rate across the lifespan, however, older adults seem to be less negatively affected than younger adults. Older adults have more experience in ignoring or suppressing strong negative reactions to stress.\n\nAssociated conditions\nIntrusive thoughts are associated with OCD or OCPD, but may also occur with other conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, clinical depression, postpartum depression, generalized anxiety disorder and anxiety. One of these conditions is almost always present in people whose intrusive thoughts reach a clinical level of severity. A large study published in 2005 found that aggressive, sexual, and religious obsessions were broadly associated with comorbid anxiety disorders and depression. The intrusive thoughts that occur in a schizophrenic episode differ from the obsessional thoughts that occur with OCD or depression in that the intrusive thoughts of schizophrenics are false or delusional beliefs (i.e. held by the schizophrenic individual to be real and not doubted, as is typically the case with intrusive thoughts) .\n\nPost-traumatic stress disorder\nThe key difference between OCD and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is that the intrusive thoughts of PTSD sufferers are of content relating to traumatic events that actually happened to them, whereas OCD sufferers have thoughts of imagined catastrophes. PTSD patients with intrusive thoughts have to sort out violent, sexual, or blasphemous thoughts from memories of traumatic experiences. When patients with intrusive thoughts do not respond to treatment, physicians may suspect past physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. If a person who has experienced trauma practices looks for the positive outcomes, it is suggested they will experience less depression and higher self well-being. While a person may experience less depression for benefit finding, they may also experience an increased amount of intrusive and/or avoidant thoughts.\n\nOne study looking at women with PTSD found that intrusive thoughts were more persistent when the individual tried to cope by using avoidance-based thought regulation strategies. Their findings further support that not all coping strategies are helpful in diminishing the frequency of intrusive thoughts.\n\nDepression\nPeople who are clinically depressed may experience intrusive thoughts more intensely, and view them as evidence that they are worthless or sinful people. The suicidal thoughts that are common in depression must be distinguished from intrusive thoughts, because suicidal thoughts—unlike harmless sexual, aggressive, or religious thoughts—can be dangerous.\n\nNon-depressed individuals have been shown to have a higher activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is the area of the brain that primarily functions in cognition, working memory, and planning, while attempting to suppress intrusive thoughts. This activation decreases in people at risk of or currently diagnosed with depression. When the intrusive thoughts re-emerge, non depressed individuals also show higher activation levels in the anterior cingulate cortices, which functions in error detection, motivation, and emotional regulation, than their depressed counterparts.\n\nRoughly 60% of depressed individuals report experiencing bodily, visual, or auditory perceptions along with their intrusive thoughts. There is a correlation with experiencing those sensations with intrusive thoughts and more intense depressive symptoms as well as the need for heavier treatment.\n\nPostpartum depression and OCD\nUnwanted thoughts by mothers about harming infants are common in postpartum depression. A 1999 study of 65 women with postpartum major depression by Katherine Wisner et al. found the most frequent aggressive thought for women with postpartum depression was causing harm to their newborn infants. A study of 85 new parents found that 89% experienced intrusive images, for example, of the baby suffocating, having an accident, being harmed, or being kidnapped.\n\nSome women may develop symptoms of OCD during pregnancy or the postpartum period. Postpartum OCD occurs mainly in women who may already have OCD, perhaps in a mild or undiagnosed form. Postpartum depression and OCD may be comorbid (often occurring together). And though physicians may focus more on the depressive symptoms, one study found that obsessive thoughts did accompany postpartum depression in 57% of new mothers.\n\nWisner found common obsessions about harming babies in mothers experiencing postpartum depression include images of the baby lying dead in a casket or being eaten by sharks; stabbing the baby; throwing the baby down the stairs; or drowning or burning the baby (as by submerging it in the bathtub in the former case or throwing it in the fire or putting it in the microwave in the latter). Baer estimates that up to 200,000 new mothers with postpartum depression each year may develop these obsessional thoughts about their babies; and because they may be reluctant to share these thoughts with a physician or family member, or suffer in silence out of fear they could be \"crazy\", their depression can worsen.\n\nIntrusive fears of harming immediate children can last longer than the postpartum period. A study of 100 clinically depressed women found that 41% had obsessive fears that they might harm their child, and some were afraid to care for their children. Among non-depressed mothers, the study found 7% had thoughts of harming their child—a rate that yields an additional 280,000 non-depressed mothers in the United States with intrusive thoughts about harming their children.\n\nTreatment\nTreatment for intrusive thoughts is similar to treatment for OCD. Exposure and response prevention therapy—also referred to as habituation or desensitization—is useful in treating intrusive thoughts. Mild cases can also be treated with cognitive behavioral therapy, which helps patients identify and manage the unwanted thoughts.\n\nExposure therapy\nExposure therapy is the treatment of choice for intrusive thoughts. According to Deborah Osgood-Hynes, Psy.D. Director of Psychological Services and Training at the MGH/McLean OCD Institute, \"In order to reduce a fear, you have to face a fear. This is true of all types of anxiety and fear reactions, not just OCD.\" Because it is uncomfortable to experience bad thoughts and urges, shame, doubt or fear, the initial reaction is usually to do something to make the feelings diminish. By engaging in a ritual or compulsion to diminish the anxiety or bad feeling, the action is strengthened via a process called negative reinforcement—the mind learns that the way to avoid the bad feeling is by engaging in a ritual or compulsions. When OCD becomes severe, this leads to more interference in life and continues the frequency and severity of the thoughts the person sought to avoid.\n\nExposure therapy (or exposure and response prevention) is the practice of staying in an anxiety-provoking or feared situation until the distress or anxiety diminishes. The goal is to reduce the fear reaction, learning to not react to the bad thoughts. This is the most effective way to reduce the frequency and severity of the intrusive thoughts. The goal is to be able to \"expose yourself to the thing that most triggers your fear or discomfort for one to two hours at a time, without leaving the situation, or doing anything else to distract or comfort you.\" Exposure therapy will not eliminate intrusive thoughts—everyone has bad thoughts—but most patients find that it can decrease their thoughts sufficiently that intrusive thoughts no longer interfere with their lives.\n\nCognitive behavioral therapy\nCognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a newer therapy than exposure therapy, available for those unable or unwilling to undergo exposure therapy. Cognitive therapy has been shown to be useful in reducing intrusive thoughts, but developing a conceptualization of the obsessions and compulsions with the patient is important. One of the strategies sometimes used in Cognitive Behavioral Theory is mindfulness exercises. These include practices such as being aware of the thoughts, accepting the thoughts without judgement for them, and “being larger than your thoughts.”\n\nMedication\nAntidepressants or antipsychotic medications may be used for more severe cases if intrusive thoughts do not respond to cognitive behavioral or exposure therapy alone. Whether the cause of intrusive thoughts is OCD, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) drugs (a class of antidepressants) are the most commonly prescribed. Intrusive thoughts may occur in persons with Tourette syndrome (TS) who also have OCD; the obsessions in TS-related OCD are thought to respond to SSRI drugs as well.\n\nAntidepressants that have been shown to be effective in treating OCD include fluvoxamine (trade name Luvox), fluoxetine (Prozac), sertraline (Zoloft), paroxetine (Paxil), citalopram (Celexa), and clomipramine (Anafranil). Although SSRIs are known to be effective for OCD in general, there have been fewer studies on their effectiveness for intrusive thoughts. A retrospective chart review of patients with sexual symptoms treated with SSRIs showed the greatest improvement was in those with intrusive sexual obsessions typical of OCD. A study of ten patients with religious or blasphemous obsessions found that most patients responded to treatment with fluoxetine or clomipramine. Women with postpartum depression often have anxiety as well, and may need lower starting doses of SSRIs; they may not respond fully to the medication, and may benefit from adding cognitive behavioral or response prevention therapy.\n\nPatients with intense intrusive thoughts that do not respond to SSRIs or other antidepressants may be prescribed typical and atypical neuroleptics including risperidone (trade name Risperdal), ziprasidone (Geodon), haloperidol (Haldol), and pimozide (Orap).\n\nStudies suggest that therapeutic doses of inositol may be useful in the treatment of obsessive thoughts.\n\nEpidemiology\nA 2007 study found that 78% of a clinical sample of OCD patients had intrusive images. Most people who suffer from intrusive thoughts have not identified themselves as having OCD, because they may not have what they believe to be classic symptoms of OCD, such as handwashing. Yet, epidemiological studies suggest that intrusive thoughts are the most common kind of OCD worldwide; if people in the United States with intrusive thoughts gathered, they would form the fourth-largest city in the US, following New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.\n\nThe prevalence of OCD in every culture studied is at least 2% of the population, and the majority of those have obsessions, or bad thoughts, only; this results in a conservative estimate of more than 2 million sufferers in the United States alone (as of 2000). One author estimates that one in 50 adults have OCD and about 10–20% of these have sexual obsessions. A recent study found that 25% of 293 patients with a primary diagnosis of OCD had a history of sexual obsessions.\n\nSee also\n\n \n Internal monologue\n The Imp of the Perverse\n Shoulder angel\n Tourette syndrome\n Earworm\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links \n\nSymptoms and signs of mental disorders\nCognition",
"Robert Jesse Stoller (December 15, 1924 – September 6, 1991), was an American Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA Medical School and a researcher at the UCLA Gender Identity Clinic. He was born in Crestwood, New York, and died in Los Angeles, California. He had psychoanalytic training at the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Society and Institute from 1953 to 1961 with analysis by Hanna Fenichel.\n\nHe was the author of nine books, the co-author of three others, and the publisher of over 115 articles. \n\nStoller is known for his theories concerning the development of gender identity and the dynamics of sexual excitement. In Sex and Gender (1968), Stoller articulates a challenge to Freud's belief in biological bisexuality. Drawing on his extensive research with transsexuals and new advances in the science of sex, Stoller advances his belief in \"Primary Femininity,\" the initial orientation of both biological tissue and psychological identification toward feminine development. This early, non-conflictual phase contributes to a feminine core gender identity in both boys and girls unless a masculine force is present to interrupt the symbiotic relationship with the mother.\n\nStoller identifies three components in the formation of core gender identity, an innate and immutable sense of maleness or femaleness usually consolidated by the second year of life: \nBiological and hormonal influences;\nSex assignment at birth and \nEnvironmental and psychological influences with effects similar to imprinting.\n\nStoller asserts that threats to core gender identity are like threats to sense of self and result in the defenses known as the perversions. \n\nIn his most notable contribution, Perversion (1975), Stoller attempts to illuminate the dynamics of sexual perversion and normalize it. Stoller suggests that perversion inevitably entails an expression of unconscious aggression in the form of revenge against a person who, in early years, made some form of threat to the child's core gender identity, either in the form of overt trauma or through the frustrations of the Oedipal conflict.\n\nIn Sexual Excitement (1979), Stoller finds the same perverse dynamics at work in all sexual excitement on a continuum from overt aggression to subtle fantasy. In focusing on the unconscious fantasy, and not the behavior, Stoller provides a way of analyzing the mental dynamics of sexuality, what he terms \"erotics,\" while simultaneously de-emphasizing the pathology of any particular form of behavior. Stoller does not consider homosexuality as a monolithic behavior but rather as a range of sexual styles as diverse as heterosexuality. Many of Stoller's books, like Splitting (1973), are devoted to the documentation of the interviews on which he based his research.\n\nStoller died in a traffic accident near his home.\n\nSelected publications\nStoller, Robert; Sex and Gender: On the Development of Masculinity and Femininity, Science House, New York City (1968) 383 p.\nStoller, Robert; Sex and Gender: the Transsexual Experiment, Hogarth Press, (1968) 328 p.\nStoller, Robert; Splitting: A Case of Female Masculinity, Quadrangle, New York, (1973) 395 p. \nStoller, Robert; Perversion: The Erotic Form of Hatred, Pantheon, New York, (1975), 240 p.\nStoller, Robert; Sexual Excitement: Dynamics of Erotic Life, Pantheon, New York (1979), 281 p.\nStoller, Robert; Observing the Erotic Imagination, Yale University Press, New Haven, (1985), 228 p.\nStoller, Robert; Pain & Passion. A Psychoanalyst Explores the World of S & M, Plenum Press, New York, (1991), 306p.\nHerdt, Gilbert, & Robert. J. Stoller, Intimate Communications: Erotics and the Study of Culture, New York, Columbia University Press (1990), 467 p.\n\nReferences\n\nAmerican psychoanalysts\nAmerican ethnographers\nAmerican sexologists\nGender studies academics\nDavid Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA faculty\n1924 births\n1991 deaths\nUniversity of California, San Francisco alumni\nTransgender studies academics\nAnalysands of Hanna Fenichel"
] |
[
"David Frost",
"That Was the Week That Was (TW3)"
] | C_217351d2fd5a4a9bb19386d270564876_1 | What was David Frost job? | 1 | What was David Frost job? | David Frost | Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was, alias TW3 after Frost's flatmate John Bird suggested Sherrin should see his act at The Blue Angel. The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962-63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme. The involvement of Frost in TW3 led to an intensification of the rivalry with Peter Cook who accused him of stealing material and dubbed Frost "the bubonic plagiarist". The new satirical magazine Private Eye also mocked him at this time. Frost visited the United States during the break between the two series of TW3 in the summer of 1963 and stayed with the producer of the New York production of Beyond The Fringe. Frost was unable to swim, but still jumped into the pool, and nearly drowned until he was saved by Peter Cook. At the memorial service for Cook in 1995, Alan Bennett recalled that rescuing Frost was the one regret Cook frequently expressed. For the first three editions of the second series in 1963, the BBC attempted to limit the team by scheduling repeats of The Third Man television series after the programme, thus preventing overruns. Frost took to reading synopses of the episodes at the end of the programme as a means of sabotage. After the BBC's Director General Hugh Greene instructed that the repeats should be abandoned, TW3 returned to being open-ended. More sombrely, on 23 November 1963, a tribute to the assassinated President John F. Kennedy, an event which had occurred the previous day, formed an entire edition of That Was the Week That Was. An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended. Following a pilot episode on 10 November 1963, the 30-minute US series, also featuring Frost, ran on NBC from 10 January 1964 to May 1965. In 1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC. CANNOTANSWER | Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was, | Sir David Paradine Frost (7 April 1939 – 31 August 2013) was a British television host, journalist, comedian and writer.
He rose to prominence during the satire boom in the United Kingdom when he was chosen to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was in 1962. His success on this show led to work as a host on American television. He became known for his television interviews with senior political figures, among them the Nixon interviews with President Richard Nixon in 1977 which were adapted into a stage play and film. Frost interviewed all eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2016 and all seven American presidents in office between 1969 and 2008.
He was one of the people behind the launch of ITV station TV-am in 1983. He was the inaugural host of the US newsmagazine programme Inside Edition. He hosted the Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost for the BBC from 1993 to 2005, and spent two decades as host of Through the Keyhole. From 2006 to 2012, he hosted the weekly programme Frost Over the World on Al Jazeera English, and the weekly programme The Frost Interview from 2012. He received the BAFTA Fellowship from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2005 and the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards in 2009.
Frost died on 31 August 2013, aged 74, on board the cruise ship , where he had been engaged as a speaker. His memorial stone was unveiled in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey in March 2014.
Early life
David Paradine Frost was born in Tenterden, Kent, on 7 April 1939, the son of a Methodist minister of Huguenot descent, the Rev. Wilfred John "W. J." Paradine Frost, and his wife, Mona (Aldrich); he had two elder sisters. While living in Gillingham, Kent, he was taught in the Bible class of the Sunday school at his father's church (Byron Road Methodist) by David Gilmore Harvey, and subsequently started training as a Methodist local preacher, which he did not complete.
Frost attended Barnsole Road Primary School in Gillingham, St Hugh's School, Woodhall Spa, Gillingham Grammar School and finally – while residing in Raunds, Northamptonshire – Wellingborough Grammar School. Throughout his school years he was an avid football and cricket player, and was offered a contract with Nottingham Forest F.C. For two years before going to university he was a lay preacher, following his witnessing of an event presided over by Christian evangelist Billy Graham.
Frost studied at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, from 1958, graduating with a Third in English. He was editor of both the university's student paper, Varsity, and the literary magazine Granta. He was also secretary of the Footlights Drama Society, which included actors such as Peter Cook and John Bird. During this period Frost appeared on television for the first time in an edition of Anglia Television's Town And Gown, performing several comic characters. "The first time I stepped into a television studio", he once remembered, "it felt like home. It didn't scare me. Talking to the camera seemed the most natural thing in the world."
According to some accounts, Frost was the victim of snobbery from the group with which he associated at Cambridge, which has been confirmed by Barry Humphries. Christopher Booker, while asserting that Frost's one defining characteristic was ambition, commented that he was impossible to dislike. According to satirist John Wells, Old Etonian actor Jonathan Cecil congratulated Frost around this time for "that wonderfully silly voice" he used while performing, but then discovered that it was Frost's real voice.
After leaving university, Frost became a trainee at Associated-Rediffusion. Meanwhile, having already gained an agent, Frost performed in cabaret at the Blue Angel nightclub in Berkeley Square, London during the evenings.
That Was the Week That Was
Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was, or TW3, after Frost's flatmate John Bird suggested Sherrin should see his act at The Blue Angel. The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962–63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme.
The involvement of Frost in TW3 led to an intensification of the rivalry with Peter Cook who accused him of stealing material and dubbed Frost "the bubonic plagiarist". The new satirical magazine Private Eye also mocked him at this time. Frost visited the U.S. during the break between the two series of TW3 in the summer of 1963 and stayed with the producer of the New York City production of Beyond The Fringe. Frost was unable to swim, but still jumped into the pool, and nearly drowned until he was saved by Peter Cook. At the memorial service for Cook in 1995, Alan Bennett recalled that rescuing Frost was the one regret Cook frequently expressed.
For the first three editions of the second series in 1963, the BBC attempted to limit the team by scheduling repeats of The Third Man television series after the programme, thus preventing overruns. Frost took to reading synopses of the episodes at the end of the programme as a means of sabotage. After the BBC's Director General Hugh Greene instructed that the repeats should be abandoned, TW3 returned to being open-ended. More sombrely, on 23 November 1963, a tribute to the assassinated President John F. Kennedy, an event which had occurred the previous day, formed an entire edition of That Was the Week That Was.
An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended. Following a pilot episode on 10 November 1963, the 30-minute US series, also featuring Frost, ran on NBC from 10 January 1964 to May 1965. In 1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC.
After TW3
Frost fronted various programmes following the success of TW3, including its immediate successor, Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life, which he co-chaired with Willie Rushton and poet P. J. Kavanagh. Screened on three evenings each week, this series was dropped after a sketch was found to be offensive to Catholics and another to the British royal family. More successful was The Frost Report, broadcast between 1966 and 1967. The show launched the television careers of John Cleese, Ronnie Barker, and Ronnie Corbett, who appeared together in the Class sketch.
Frost signed for Rediffusion, the ITV weekday contractor in London, to produce a "heavier" interview-based show called The Frost Programme. Guests included Oswald Mosley and Rhodesian premier Ian Smith. His memorable dressing-down of insurance fraudster Emil Savundra, regarded as the first example of "trial by television" in the UK, led to concern from ITV executives that it might affect Savundra's right to a fair trial. Frost's introductory words for his television programmes during this period, "Hello, good evening and welcome", became his catchphrase and were often mimicked.
Frost was a member of a successful consortium, including former executives from the BBC, that bid for an ITV franchise in 1967. This became London Weekend Television, which began broadcasting in July 1968. The station began with a programming policy that was considered "highbrow" and suffered launch problems with low audience ratings and financial problems. A September 1968 meeting of the Network Programme Committee, which made decisions about the channel's scheduling, was particularly fraught, with Lew Grade expressing hatred of Frost in his presence. Frost, according to Kitty Muggeridge in 1967, had "risen without a trace."
He was involved in the station's early years as a presenter. On 20 and 21 July 1969, during the British television Apollo 11 coverage, he presented David Frost's Moon Party for LWT, a ten-hour discussion and entertainment marathon from LWT's Wembley Studios, on the night Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Two of his guests on this programme were British historian A. J. P. Taylor and entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr. Around this time Frost interviewed Rupert Murdoch whose recently acquired Sunday newspaper, the News of the World, had just serialised the memoirs of Christine Keeler, a central figure in the Profumo scandal of 1963. For the Australian publisher, this was a bruising encounter, although Frost said that he had not intended it to be. Murdoch confessed to his biographer Michael Wolff that the incident had convinced him that Frost was "an arrogant bastard, [and] a bloody bugger".
In the late 1960s Frost began an intermittent involvement in the film industry. Setting up David Paradine Ltd in 1966, he part-financed The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970), in which the lead character was based partly on Frost, and gained an executive producer credit. In 1976, Frost was the executive producer of the British musical film The Slipper and the Rose, retelling the story of Cinderella.
Frost was the subject of This Is Your Life in January 1972 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at London's Quaglino's restaurant.
American career from 1968 to 1980
In 1968, he signed a contract worth £125,000 to appear on American television in his own show on three evenings each week, the largest such arrangement for a British television personality at the time. From 1969 to 1972, Frost kept his London shows and fronted The David Frost Show on the Group W (U.S. Westinghouse Corporation) television stations in the U.S. His 1970 TV special, Frost on America, featured guests such as Jack Benny and Tennessee Williams.
In a declassified transcript of a 1972 telephone call between Frost and Henry Kissinger, President Nixon's national security advisor and secretary of state, Frost urged Kissinger to call chess Grandmaster Bobby Fischer and urge him to compete in that year's World Chess Championship. During this call, Frost revealed that he was working on a novel.
Frost interviewed heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali in 1974 at his training camp in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania before "The Rumble in the Jungle" with George Foreman. Ali remarked, "Listen David, when I meet this man, if you think the world was surprised when Nixon resigned, wait till I whip Foreman's behind."
In 1977, the Nixon Interviews, which were five 90-minute interviews with former U.S. President Richard Nixon, were broadcast. Nixon was paid $600,000 plus a share of the profits for the interviews, which had to be funded by Frost himself after the U.S. television networks turned down the programme, describing it as "checkbook journalism". Frost's company negotiated its own deals to syndicate the interviews with local stations across the U.S. and internationally, creating what Ron Howard described as "the first fourth network". Frost taped around 29 hours of interviews with Nixon over four weeks. Nixon, who had previously avoided discussing his role in the Watergate scandal that had led to his resignation as president in 1974, expressed contrition saying, "I let the American people down and I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life". Frost asked Nixon whether the president could do something illegal in certain situations such as against antiwar groups and others if he decides "it's in the best interests of the nation or something". Nixon replied: "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal", by definition.
Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Frost was the last person to interview Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the deposed Shah of Iran. The interview took place on Contadora Island in Panama in January 1980, and was broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company in the U.S. on 17 January. The Shah talks about his wealth, his illness, the SAVAK, the torture during his reign, Khomeini, his threat of extradition to Iran and draws a summary of the current situation in Iran.
Frost was an organiser of the Music for UNICEF Concert at the United Nations General Assembly in 1979. Ten years later, he was hired as the anchor of new American tabloid news program Inside Edition. He was dismissed after only three weeks because of poor ratings. It seems he was "considered too high-brow for the show's low-brow format."
After 1980
Frost was one of the "Famous Five" who launched TV-am in February 1983; however, like LWT in the late 1960s, the station began with an unsustainable "highbrow" approach. Frost remained a presenter after restructuring. Frost on Sunday began in September 1983 and continued until the station lost its franchise at the end of 1992. Frost had been part of an unsuccessful consortium, CPV-TV, with Richard Branson and other interests, which had attempted to acquire three ITV contractor franchises prior to the changes made by the Independent Television Commission in 1991. After transferring from ITV, his Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost ran on the BBC from January 1993 until 29 May 2005. For a time it ran on BSB before moving to BBC 1.
Frost hosted Through the Keyhole, which ran on several UK channels from 1987 until 2008 and also featured Loyd Grossman. Produced by his own production company, the programme was first shown in prime time and on daytime television in its later years.
Frost worked for Al Jazeera English, presenting a live weekly hour-long current affairs programme, Frost Over The World, which started when the network launched in November 2006. The programme regularly made headlines with interviewees such as Tony Blair, President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan and President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. The programme was produced by the former Question Time editor and Independent on Sunday journalist Charlie Courtauld. Frost was one of the first to interview the man who authored the Fatwa on Terrorism, Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri.
During his career as a broadcaster, Frost became one of Concorde's most frequent fliers, having flown between London and New York an average of 20 times per year for 20 years.
In 2007, Frost hosted a discussion with Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi as part of the Monitor Group's involvement in the country. In June 2010, Frost presented Frost on Satire, an hour-long BBC Four documentary looking at the history of television satire.
Achievements
Frost was the only person to have interviewed all eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2016 (Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and David Cameron) and all seven U.S. presidents in office between 1969 and 2008 (Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush).
He was a patron and former vice-president of the Motor Neurone Disease Association charity, as well as being a patron of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, Hearing Star Benevolent Fund, East Anglia's Children's Hospices, the Home Farm Trust and the Elton John AIDS Foundation. He was also recognized for his contributions to the women's charity "Wellbeing for Women".
After having been in television for 40 years, Frost was estimated to be worth £200 million by the Sunday Times Rich List in 2006, a figure he considered a significant overestimate in 2011. The valuation included the assets of his main British company and subsidiaries, plus homes in London and the country.
Frost/Nixon
Frost/Nixon was originally a play written by Peter Morgan, developed from the interviews that Frost had conducted with Richard Nixon in 1977. Frost/Nixon was presented as a stage production in London in 2006 and on Broadway in 2007. Frank Langella won a Leading Actor Tony Award for his portrayal of Nixon; the play also received nominations for Best Play and Best Direction.
The play was adapted into a Hollywood motion picture entitled Frost/Nixon and starring Michael Sheen as Frost and Langella as Nixon, both reprising their stage roles. The film was released in 2008 and directed by Ron Howard. It was nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, winning none: Best Motion Picture-Drama, Best Director-Drama, Best Actor-Drama (Langella), Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score. It was also nominated for five Academy Awards, again winning none: Best Picture, Best Actor (Langella), Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing.
In February 2009, Frost was featured on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's international affairs programme Foreign Correspondent in a report titled "The World According To Frost", reflecting on his long career and portrayal in the film Frost/Nixon.
Personal life
Frost was known for several relationships with high-profile women. In the mid-1960s, he dated British actress Janette Scott, between her marriages to songwriter Jackie Rae and singer Mel Tormé; in the early 1970s he was engaged to American actress Diahann Carroll; between 1972 and 1977 he had a relationship with British socialite Caroline Cushing; in 1981, he married Lynne Frederick, widow of Peter Sellers, but they divorced the following year. He also had an 18-year intermittent affair with American actress Carol Lynley.
On 19 March 1983, Frost married Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard, daughter of the 17th Duke of Norfolk. Three sons were born to the couple over the next five years. His second son, Wilfred Frost, followed in his father's footsteps and currently works as an anchor at CNBC. They lived for many years in Chelsea, London, and kept a weekend home at Michelmersh Court in Hampshire.
Death
On 31 August 2013, Frost was aboard the Cunard cruise ship when he died of a heart attack at the age of 74. Cunard said that the vessel had left Southampton for a ten-day cruise in the Mediterranean, ending in Rome. A post-mortem found that Frost had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Frost's son, Miles, died from the same condition at the age of 31 in 2015.
A funeral service was held at Holy Trinity Church in Nuffield, Oxfordshire, on 12 September 2013, after which he was interred in the church's graveyard. On 13 March 2014, a memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey, at which Frost was honoured with a memorial stone in Poets' Corner.
Tributes
British Prime Minister David Cameron paid tribute, saying: "He could be—and certainly was with me—both a friend and a fearsome interviewer." Michael Grade commented: "He was kind of a television renaissance man. He could put his hand to anything. He could turn over Richard Nixon or he could win the comedy prize at the Montreux Golden Rose festival."
Selected awards and honours
1970: Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)
1970: Honorary Doctor of Laws degree of Emerson College
1993: Knight Bachelor
1994: Honorary doctoral degree of the University of Sussex
2000: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
2005: Fellowship of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts BAFTA
2009: Honorary Doctor of Letters degree of the University of Winchester
2009: Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards
Bibliography
Non-fiction
How to Live Under Labour – or at Least Have as Much Chance as Anyone Else (1964)
To England with Love (1968). With Antony Jay.
The Presidential Debate, 1968: David Frost talks with Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey (and others) (1968).
The Americans (1970)
Billy Graham Talks with David Frost (1972)
Whitlam and Frost: The Full Text of Their TV Conversations Plus Exclusive New Interviews (1974)
"I Gave Them a Sword": Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews (1978). Reissued as Frost/Nixon in 2007.
David Frost's Book of Millionaires, Multimillionaires, and Really Rich People (1984)
The World's Shortest Books (1987)
An Autobiography. Part 1: From Congregations to Audiences (1993)
With Michael Deakin and illustrated by Willie Rushton
I Could Have Kicked Myself: David Frost's Book of the World's Worst Decisions (1982)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (1983)
If You'll Believe That (1986)
With Michael Shea
The Mid-Atlantic Companion, or, How to Misunderstand Americans as Much as They Misunderstand Us (1986)
The Rich Tide: Men, Women, Ideas and Their Transatlantic Impact (1986)
References
External links
BBC News Profile of David Frost
TV Cream on David Frost
TV Cream on Paradine Productions
1939 births
2013 deaths
Al Jazeera people
Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
BAFTA fellows
BBC newsreaders and journalists
British broadcast news analysts
British reporters and correspondents
British television producers
English comedians
English game show hosts
English memoirists
English Methodists
English satirists
English social commentators
English political writers
English television personalities
English television talk show hosts
International Emmy Founders Award winners
Knights Bachelor
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
People educated at Gillingham Grammar School, Kent
People educated at St Hugh's School, Woodhall Spa
People from Raunds
People from Tenterden
People from Test Valley
People from Wellingborough
People who died at sea
Primetime Emmy Award winners
20th-century British businesspeople | true | [
"Rodney David Wingfield (6 June 1928 – 31 July 2007) was an English author and radio dramatist. He is best remembered for creating the character of Detective Inspector Jack Frost, who was later played by Sir David Jason in A Touch of Frost.\n\nEarly life\nRodney David Wingfield was born in Hackney, east London in 1928. He was educated at the Coopers' Company School and during the Second World War was evacuated to Frome, Somerset. Wingfield was exempted from National Service due to poor eyesight and had various office jobs in the East End before joining the Petrofina oil company. His first radio play, Our West Ladyton Branch was accepted by the BBC in 1968 and two more were then commissioned, at which point Wingfield resigned from his job.\n\nInspector Frost\nIn 1972, Macmillan Publishers invited him to write a book, and he wrote Frost at Christmas. This was rejected and not published until the early 1980s in Canada. Wingfield had originally planned to kill Frost in the first book, but he was persuaded instead to leave it as an open ending. Following this, two more Frost books were written: A Touch of Frost and Night Frost. In 1977 Frost appeared in a radio play called Three Days of Frost, in which Frost was played by Leslie Sands, a friend of Wingfield's. The books were first published in the United Kingdom in early 1989, and in 1992 Frost first appeared on television in A Touch of Frost, played by David Jason. Wingfield was never enthusiastic about the TV adaptation of his detective, once saying he had nothing against David Jason but \"he just isn't my Frost\".\n\nHard Frost was published in 1995, followed by Winter Frost in 1999. Wingfield did not enjoy writing books, and much preferred writing radio scripts. In 20 years he wrote over 40 radio mystery plays, but stopped in 1988, with Hate Mail, due to the decline of radio and the success of his Frost books. As well as the many mystery plays, Wingfield also penned a comedy radio series, The Secret Life of Kenneth Williams, starring Kenneth Williams as a secret agent. Wingfield was a very private man, always avoiding book launches and publishing parties, and being rarely photographed.\n\nOther\nIn 1982 Leslie Sands played Sergeant Fowler in Wingfield's BBC radio thriller Outbreak of Fear, a murder mystery set in the West Country.\n\nIn 1987 Bob Peck starred in the Wingfield BBC radio drama Deadfall, about a demolition man whose past catches up with him.\n\nThe 'winkle' postcard (sent by Inspector Frost) is most probably based on a Donald McGill seaside postcard.\n\nAfter a dispute with the BBC in 1984 he submitted a number of radio plays under the pseudonym \"Arthur Jefferson\", (the real name of Stan Laurel) one such play being The Killing Season broadcast in six-parts that same year and starring Sean Barrett, Michael Jenner, John Hollis, and Allan Cuthbertson; the serial was essentially a palimpsest of his earlier serial Outbreak of Fear. The final of his non-Inspector Frost radio plays was Hate Mail broadcast in 1988.\n\nLater years\nIn 2002, R. D. Wingfield was diagnosed with prostate cancer. At about the same time he started writing the sixth, and final, Frost book, A Killing Frost. His wife, Phyllis Patten, whom he married in 1952, died in 2004. They had a son, Phillip. The cancer killed Wingfield in 2007, and A Killing Frost was published on 7 April 2008. All the books are now available in E-book format.\n\nIn 2011, the first of four new Frost books was published with the approval of the Wingfield family. The books — First Frost, Fatal Frost, Morning Frost, and Frost at Midnight — are published under the name James Henry. In the case of First Frost, this pseudonym refers to James Gurbutt and Henry Sutton, but for the others it refers to Gurbutt only.\n\nBibliography\n\nInspector Frost novels\n Frost at Christmas (1984)\n A Touch of Frost (1987)\n Night Frost (1992)\n Hard Frost (1995)\n Winter Frost (1999)\n A Killing Frost (2008)\n\nReferences\n\n1928 births\n2007 deaths\nEnglish crime fiction writers\nEnglish radio writers\nPeople from Hackney Central\nEnglish male novelists\n20th-century English novelists\n20th-century English male writers\n21st-century English novelists\n21st-century English male writers\nWriters from London",
"Wilfred Frost (born 7 August 1985) is a financial news anchor for CNBC.\nWednesday, February 16, 2022 was his last day co-anchoring Closing Bell on CNBC.\n\nEarly life and education\nFrost is the son of Sir David Frost, an interviewer and television host, and Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard, a daughter of the 17th Duke of Norfolk. Frost attended the University of Oxford and graduated with a degree in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics.\n\nCareer\nAfter graduating, Frost worked for Newton Investment Management in London for 5 years. In 2011, after attending a weekend-long media-training program in London, he left his job to pursue a career in broadcasting.\n\nIn 2014, Frost joined CNBC as the co-anchor of Worldwide Exchange, first from London and beginning in 2016, from the United States.\n\nIn 2018, Frost became co-anchor of Closing Bell. On February 3rd, 2022 Frost announced his departure from Closing Bell to begin working with Sky News in London in March 2022. Frost will remain with Comcast as an NBC/CNBC contributor.\n\nPersonal life\nFrost's parents owned Michelmersh Court, 21-acre estate in the south of England. There, he met Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, David Cameron, and George H. W. Bush.\n\nIn 2015, Frost's older brother, Miles, died from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. His father had the same condition when he died as discovered in autopsy but it was not what his father died of in 2013. In response, he and his younger brother, George, created the Miles Frost Fund, which works to raise awareness of and increase testing for this hereditary heart condition. Wilfred underwent hypertrophic cardiomyopathy screening and tested negative.\n\nHe is the godson of John Cleese.\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\n1985 births\nBritish broadcast news analysts\nTelevision personalities from London\nCNBC people\nNBC News people"
] |
[
"David Frost",
"That Was the Week That Was (TW3)",
"What was David Frost job?",
"Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was,"
] | C_217351d2fd5a4a9bb19386d270564876_1 | In what country was That was the week that was been produce? | 2 | In what country was "That was the week that was" been produce? | David Frost | Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was, alias TW3 after Frost's flatmate John Bird suggested Sherrin should see his act at The Blue Angel. The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962-63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme. The involvement of Frost in TW3 led to an intensification of the rivalry with Peter Cook who accused him of stealing material and dubbed Frost "the bubonic plagiarist". The new satirical magazine Private Eye also mocked him at this time. Frost visited the United States during the break between the two series of TW3 in the summer of 1963 and stayed with the producer of the New York production of Beyond The Fringe. Frost was unable to swim, but still jumped into the pool, and nearly drowned until he was saved by Peter Cook. At the memorial service for Cook in 1995, Alan Bennett recalled that rescuing Frost was the one regret Cook frequently expressed. For the first three editions of the second series in 1963, the BBC attempted to limit the team by scheduling repeats of The Third Man television series after the programme, thus preventing overruns. Frost took to reading synopses of the episodes at the end of the programme as a means of sabotage. After the BBC's Director General Hugh Greene instructed that the repeats should be abandoned, TW3 returned to being open-ended. More sombrely, on 23 November 1963, a tribute to the assassinated President John F. Kennedy, an event which had occurred the previous day, formed an entire edition of That Was the Week That Was. An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended. Following a pilot episode on 10 November 1963, the 30-minute US series, also featuring Frost, ran on NBC from 10 January 1964 to May 1965. In 1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC. CANNOTANSWER | Britain | Sir David Paradine Frost (7 April 1939 – 31 August 2013) was a British television host, journalist, comedian and writer.
He rose to prominence during the satire boom in the United Kingdom when he was chosen to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was in 1962. His success on this show led to work as a host on American television. He became known for his television interviews with senior political figures, among them the Nixon interviews with President Richard Nixon in 1977 which were adapted into a stage play and film. Frost interviewed all eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2016 and all seven American presidents in office between 1969 and 2008.
He was one of the people behind the launch of ITV station TV-am in 1983. He was the inaugural host of the US newsmagazine programme Inside Edition. He hosted the Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost for the BBC from 1993 to 2005, and spent two decades as host of Through the Keyhole. From 2006 to 2012, he hosted the weekly programme Frost Over the World on Al Jazeera English, and the weekly programme The Frost Interview from 2012. He received the BAFTA Fellowship from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2005 and the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards in 2009.
Frost died on 31 August 2013, aged 74, on board the cruise ship , where he had been engaged as a speaker. His memorial stone was unveiled in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey in March 2014.
Early life
David Paradine Frost was born in Tenterden, Kent, on 7 April 1939, the son of a Methodist minister of Huguenot descent, the Rev. Wilfred John "W. J." Paradine Frost, and his wife, Mona (Aldrich); he had two elder sisters. While living in Gillingham, Kent, he was taught in the Bible class of the Sunday school at his father's church (Byron Road Methodist) by David Gilmore Harvey, and subsequently started training as a Methodist local preacher, which he did not complete.
Frost attended Barnsole Road Primary School in Gillingham, St Hugh's School, Woodhall Spa, Gillingham Grammar School and finally – while residing in Raunds, Northamptonshire – Wellingborough Grammar School. Throughout his school years he was an avid football and cricket player, and was offered a contract with Nottingham Forest F.C. For two years before going to university he was a lay preacher, following his witnessing of an event presided over by Christian evangelist Billy Graham.
Frost studied at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, from 1958, graduating with a Third in English. He was editor of both the university's student paper, Varsity, and the literary magazine Granta. He was also secretary of the Footlights Drama Society, which included actors such as Peter Cook and John Bird. During this period Frost appeared on television for the first time in an edition of Anglia Television's Town And Gown, performing several comic characters. "The first time I stepped into a television studio", he once remembered, "it felt like home. It didn't scare me. Talking to the camera seemed the most natural thing in the world."
According to some accounts, Frost was the victim of snobbery from the group with which he associated at Cambridge, which has been confirmed by Barry Humphries. Christopher Booker, while asserting that Frost's one defining characteristic was ambition, commented that he was impossible to dislike. According to satirist John Wells, Old Etonian actor Jonathan Cecil congratulated Frost around this time for "that wonderfully silly voice" he used while performing, but then discovered that it was Frost's real voice.
After leaving university, Frost became a trainee at Associated-Rediffusion. Meanwhile, having already gained an agent, Frost performed in cabaret at the Blue Angel nightclub in Berkeley Square, London during the evenings.
That Was the Week That Was
Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was, or TW3, after Frost's flatmate John Bird suggested Sherrin should see his act at The Blue Angel. The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962–63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme.
The involvement of Frost in TW3 led to an intensification of the rivalry with Peter Cook who accused him of stealing material and dubbed Frost "the bubonic plagiarist". The new satirical magazine Private Eye also mocked him at this time. Frost visited the U.S. during the break between the two series of TW3 in the summer of 1963 and stayed with the producer of the New York City production of Beyond The Fringe. Frost was unable to swim, but still jumped into the pool, and nearly drowned until he was saved by Peter Cook. At the memorial service for Cook in 1995, Alan Bennett recalled that rescuing Frost was the one regret Cook frequently expressed.
For the first three editions of the second series in 1963, the BBC attempted to limit the team by scheduling repeats of The Third Man television series after the programme, thus preventing overruns. Frost took to reading synopses of the episodes at the end of the programme as a means of sabotage. After the BBC's Director General Hugh Greene instructed that the repeats should be abandoned, TW3 returned to being open-ended. More sombrely, on 23 November 1963, a tribute to the assassinated President John F. Kennedy, an event which had occurred the previous day, formed an entire edition of That Was the Week That Was.
An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended. Following a pilot episode on 10 November 1963, the 30-minute US series, also featuring Frost, ran on NBC from 10 January 1964 to May 1965. In 1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC.
After TW3
Frost fronted various programmes following the success of TW3, including its immediate successor, Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life, which he co-chaired with Willie Rushton and poet P. J. Kavanagh. Screened on three evenings each week, this series was dropped after a sketch was found to be offensive to Catholics and another to the British royal family. More successful was The Frost Report, broadcast between 1966 and 1967. The show launched the television careers of John Cleese, Ronnie Barker, and Ronnie Corbett, who appeared together in the Class sketch.
Frost signed for Rediffusion, the ITV weekday contractor in London, to produce a "heavier" interview-based show called The Frost Programme. Guests included Oswald Mosley and Rhodesian premier Ian Smith. His memorable dressing-down of insurance fraudster Emil Savundra, regarded as the first example of "trial by television" in the UK, led to concern from ITV executives that it might affect Savundra's right to a fair trial. Frost's introductory words for his television programmes during this period, "Hello, good evening and welcome", became his catchphrase and were often mimicked.
Frost was a member of a successful consortium, including former executives from the BBC, that bid for an ITV franchise in 1967. This became London Weekend Television, which began broadcasting in July 1968. The station began with a programming policy that was considered "highbrow" and suffered launch problems with low audience ratings and financial problems. A September 1968 meeting of the Network Programme Committee, which made decisions about the channel's scheduling, was particularly fraught, with Lew Grade expressing hatred of Frost in his presence. Frost, according to Kitty Muggeridge in 1967, had "risen without a trace."
He was involved in the station's early years as a presenter. On 20 and 21 July 1969, during the British television Apollo 11 coverage, he presented David Frost's Moon Party for LWT, a ten-hour discussion and entertainment marathon from LWT's Wembley Studios, on the night Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Two of his guests on this programme were British historian A. J. P. Taylor and entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr. Around this time Frost interviewed Rupert Murdoch whose recently acquired Sunday newspaper, the News of the World, had just serialised the memoirs of Christine Keeler, a central figure in the Profumo scandal of 1963. For the Australian publisher, this was a bruising encounter, although Frost said that he had not intended it to be. Murdoch confessed to his biographer Michael Wolff that the incident had convinced him that Frost was "an arrogant bastard, [and] a bloody bugger".
In the late 1960s Frost began an intermittent involvement in the film industry. Setting up David Paradine Ltd in 1966, he part-financed The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970), in which the lead character was based partly on Frost, and gained an executive producer credit. In 1976, Frost was the executive producer of the British musical film The Slipper and the Rose, retelling the story of Cinderella.
Frost was the subject of This Is Your Life in January 1972 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at London's Quaglino's restaurant.
American career from 1968 to 1980
In 1968, he signed a contract worth £125,000 to appear on American television in his own show on three evenings each week, the largest such arrangement for a British television personality at the time. From 1969 to 1972, Frost kept his London shows and fronted The David Frost Show on the Group W (U.S. Westinghouse Corporation) television stations in the U.S. His 1970 TV special, Frost on America, featured guests such as Jack Benny and Tennessee Williams.
In a declassified transcript of a 1972 telephone call between Frost and Henry Kissinger, President Nixon's national security advisor and secretary of state, Frost urged Kissinger to call chess Grandmaster Bobby Fischer and urge him to compete in that year's World Chess Championship. During this call, Frost revealed that he was working on a novel.
Frost interviewed heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali in 1974 at his training camp in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania before "The Rumble in the Jungle" with George Foreman. Ali remarked, "Listen David, when I meet this man, if you think the world was surprised when Nixon resigned, wait till I whip Foreman's behind."
In 1977, the Nixon Interviews, which were five 90-minute interviews with former U.S. President Richard Nixon, were broadcast. Nixon was paid $600,000 plus a share of the profits for the interviews, which had to be funded by Frost himself after the U.S. television networks turned down the programme, describing it as "checkbook journalism". Frost's company negotiated its own deals to syndicate the interviews with local stations across the U.S. and internationally, creating what Ron Howard described as "the first fourth network". Frost taped around 29 hours of interviews with Nixon over four weeks. Nixon, who had previously avoided discussing his role in the Watergate scandal that had led to his resignation as president in 1974, expressed contrition saying, "I let the American people down and I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life". Frost asked Nixon whether the president could do something illegal in certain situations such as against antiwar groups and others if he decides "it's in the best interests of the nation or something". Nixon replied: "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal", by definition.
Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Frost was the last person to interview Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the deposed Shah of Iran. The interview took place on Contadora Island in Panama in January 1980, and was broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company in the U.S. on 17 January. The Shah talks about his wealth, his illness, the SAVAK, the torture during his reign, Khomeini, his threat of extradition to Iran and draws a summary of the current situation in Iran.
Frost was an organiser of the Music for UNICEF Concert at the United Nations General Assembly in 1979. Ten years later, he was hired as the anchor of new American tabloid news program Inside Edition. He was dismissed after only three weeks because of poor ratings. It seems he was "considered too high-brow for the show's low-brow format."
After 1980
Frost was one of the "Famous Five" who launched TV-am in February 1983; however, like LWT in the late 1960s, the station began with an unsustainable "highbrow" approach. Frost remained a presenter after restructuring. Frost on Sunday began in September 1983 and continued until the station lost its franchise at the end of 1992. Frost had been part of an unsuccessful consortium, CPV-TV, with Richard Branson and other interests, which had attempted to acquire three ITV contractor franchises prior to the changes made by the Independent Television Commission in 1991. After transferring from ITV, his Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost ran on the BBC from January 1993 until 29 May 2005. For a time it ran on BSB before moving to BBC 1.
Frost hosted Through the Keyhole, which ran on several UK channels from 1987 until 2008 and also featured Loyd Grossman. Produced by his own production company, the programme was first shown in prime time and on daytime television in its later years.
Frost worked for Al Jazeera English, presenting a live weekly hour-long current affairs programme, Frost Over The World, which started when the network launched in November 2006. The programme regularly made headlines with interviewees such as Tony Blair, President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan and President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. The programme was produced by the former Question Time editor and Independent on Sunday journalist Charlie Courtauld. Frost was one of the first to interview the man who authored the Fatwa on Terrorism, Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri.
During his career as a broadcaster, Frost became one of Concorde's most frequent fliers, having flown between London and New York an average of 20 times per year for 20 years.
In 2007, Frost hosted a discussion with Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi as part of the Monitor Group's involvement in the country. In June 2010, Frost presented Frost on Satire, an hour-long BBC Four documentary looking at the history of television satire.
Achievements
Frost was the only person to have interviewed all eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2016 (Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and David Cameron) and all seven U.S. presidents in office between 1969 and 2008 (Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush).
He was a patron and former vice-president of the Motor Neurone Disease Association charity, as well as being a patron of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, Hearing Star Benevolent Fund, East Anglia's Children's Hospices, the Home Farm Trust and the Elton John AIDS Foundation. He was also recognized for his contributions to the women's charity "Wellbeing for Women".
After having been in television for 40 years, Frost was estimated to be worth £200 million by the Sunday Times Rich List in 2006, a figure he considered a significant overestimate in 2011. The valuation included the assets of his main British company and subsidiaries, plus homes in London and the country.
Frost/Nixon
Frost/Nixon was originally a play written by Peter Morgan, developed from the interviews that Frost had conducted with Richard Nixon in 1977. Frost/Nixon was presented as a stage production in London in 2006 and on Broadway in 2007. Frank Langella won a Leading Actor Tony Award for his portrayal of Nixon; the play also received nominations for Best Play and Best Direction.
The play was adapted into a Hollywood motion picture entitled Frost/Nixon and starring Michael Sheen as Frost and Langella as Nixon, both reprising their stage roles. The film was released in 2008 and directed by Ron Howard. It was nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, winning none: Best Motion Picture-Drama, Best Director-Drama, Best Actor-Drama (Langella), Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score. It was also nominated for five Academy Awards, again winning none: Best Picture, Best Actor (Langella), Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing.
In February 2009, Frost was featured on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's international affairs programme Foreign Correspondent in a report titled "The World According To Frost", reflecting on his long career and portrayal in the film Frost/Nixon.
Personal life
Frost was known for several relationships with high-profile women. In the mid-1960s, he dated British actress Janette Scott, between her marriages to songwriter Jackie Rae and singer Mel Tormé; in the early 1970s he was engaged to American actress Diahann Carroll; between 1972 and 1977 he had a relationship with British socialite Caroline Cushing; in 1981, he married Lynne Frederick, widow of Peter Sellers, but they divorced the following year. He also had an 18-year intermittent affair with American actress Carol Lynley.
On 19 March 1983, Frost married Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard, daughter of the 17th Duke of Norfolk. Three sons were born to the couple over the next five years. His second son, Wilfred Frost, followed in his father's footsteps and currently works as an anchor at CNBC. They lived for many years in Chelsea, London, and kept a weekend home at Michelmersh Court in Hampshire.
Death
On 31 August 2013, Frost was aboard the Cunard cruise ship when he died of a heart attack at the age of 74. Cunard said that the vessel had left Southampton for a ten-day cruise in the Mediterranean, ending in Rome. A post-mortem found that Frost had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Frost's son, Miles, died from the same condition at the age of 31 in 2015.
A funeral service was held at Holy Trinity Church in Nuffield, Oxfordshire, on 12 September 2013, after which he was interred in the church's graveyard. On 13 March 2014, a memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey, at which Frost was honoured with a memorial stone in Poets' Corner.
Tributes
British Prime Minister David Cameron paid tribute, saying: "He could be—and certainly was with me—both a friend and a fearsome interviewer." Michael Grade commented: "He was kind of a television renaissance man. He could put his hand to anything. He could turn over Richard Nixon or he could win the comedy prize at the Montreux Golden Rose festival."
Selected awards and honours
1970: Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)
1970: Honorary Doctor of Laws degree of Emerson College
1993: Knight Bachelor
1994: Honorary doctoral degree of the University of Sussex
2000: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
2005: Fellowship of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts BAFTA
2009: Honorary Doctor of Letters degree of the University of Winchester
2009: Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards
Bibliography
Non-fiction
How to Live Under Labour – or at Least Have as Much Chance as Anyone Else (1964)
To England with Love (1968). With Antony Jay.
The Presidential Debate, 1968: David Frost talks with Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey (and others) (1968).
The Americans (1970)
Billy Graham Talks with David Frost (1972)
Whitlam and Frost: The Full Text of Their TV Conversations Plus Exclusive New Interviews (1974)
"I Gave Them a Sword": Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews (1978). Reissued as Frost/Nixon in 2007.
David Frost's Book of Millionaires, Multimillionaires, and Really Rich People (1984)
The World's Shortest Books (1987)
An Autobiography. Part 1: From Congregations to Audiences (1993)
With Michael Deakin and illustrated by Willie Rushton
I Could Have Kicked Myself: David Frost's Book of the World's Worst Decisions (1982)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (1983)
If You'll Believe That (1986)
With Michael Shea
The Mid-Atlantic Companion, or, How to Misunderstand Americans as Much as They Misunderstand Us (1986)
The Rich Tide: Men, Women, Ideas and Their Transatlantic Impact (1986)
References
External links
BBC News Profile of David Frost
TV Cream on David Frost
TV Cream on Paradine Productions
1939 births
2013 deaths
Al Jazeera people
Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
BAFTA fellows
BBC newsreaders and journalists
British broadcast news analysts
British reporters and correspondents
British television producers
English comedians
English game show hosts
English memoirists
English Methodists
English satirists
English social commentators
English political writers
English television personalities
English television talk show hosts
International Emmy Founders Award winners
Knights Bachelor
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
People educated at Gillingham Grammar School, Kent
People educated at St Hugh's School, Woodhall Spa
People from Raunds
People from Tenterden
People from Test Valley
People from Wellingborough
People who died at sea
Primetime Emmy Award winners
20th-century British businesspeople | true | [
"Queensland Country Life is a newspaper published in Queensland, Australia, since 1935. It focuses on rural news.\n\nHistory\nThe Queensland Country Life newspaper is the second of that name. The first newspaper was published from 1900 to 1910 and is unrelated to the current newspaper.\n\nThe Queensland Country Life newspaper was first published on 25 July 1935. In its first issue, it described itself as a subsidiary of a New South Wales newspaper Country Life and that it incorporated the Grazier's Review and was the official organ of the:\n United Graziers' Association of Queensland\n Brisbane Wool Selling Brokers' Association\n Brisbane Fat Stock and Produce Brokers' Association\n\nThe newspaper is published once a week.\n\nDigitisation \nThe paper has been digitised as part of the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program of the National Library of Australia.\n\nSee also\n List of newspapers in Australia\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\nNewspapers published in Queensland\n1935 establishments in Australia\nNewspapers on Trove",
"\"What Ifs\" is a song recorded by American country music singer Kane Brown featuring Lauren Alaina for his self-titled debut album. The song was released with the album through RCA Nashville and was serviced to radio as the second single on February 6, 2017.\n\nBackground\nThe song was written by Brown with Matt McGinn and Jordan Schmidt. The song is about a couple where the question \"what if\" is asked repeatedly about what would happen in their relationship. It features a duet with Lauren Alaina, a school friend from Lakeview Fort Oglethorpe High School when he was living in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. According to Brown, the song was initially not intended to be a duet, he said: \"Once we decided on adding a woman to \"What Ifs,\" I knew that I wanted Lauren to sing it, and, of course, she killed it.\" According to Brown, another song was going to be used in the album, however, he was asked so much about \"What Ifs\" on social media that it was then decided that the song should be included in the album.\n\nComposition\nThe song is in the key of G minor with a moderately fast tempo of approximately 126 beats per minute. It follows the chord progression Gm-B-F. Brown's vocals range from F-B.\n\nChart performance\n\"What Ifs\" sold 6,000 downloads in the US the week the album was released on December 2, 2016, allowing it to chart at number 37 on the US Hot Country Songs chart. The song first entered the US Country Airplay chart for the week of March 4, 2017 at number 60. It reached number one on Hot Country Songs in October 2017, ending the record breaking 34-week reign of Sam Hunt's \"Body Like a Back Road\". The song is the first number one on the chart for both Brown and Alaina. The following week, for the chart dated October 28, 2017, \"What Ifs\" stayed at number one, as well as topping the Country Airplay and Country Streaming Songs charts, becoming Alaina's second number one on the former chart after her solo single, \"Road Less Traveled\", topped the chart earlier in the year. Together with the release of the deluxe edition of the album which also reached number on Top Country Albums, and another number one for a new track \"Heaven\" on digital sales, Brown became the first artist to have simultaneous number ones on all five main country charts.\n\nThe single became the third most-consumed country song of 2017, with 1,551,000 units including streams (599,000 in pure sales) sold in the year. As of January 2019, the single has sold 889,000 copies in the US. On September 29, 2020, the single was certified septuple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for combined sales and streaming equivalent units of over seven million units in the United States.\n\nMusic video\nThe official music video for the song was directed by P.R. Brown and produced by Steve Lamar. The video was filmed along the Californian coast at The Inn at Newport Ranch, a resort and cattle ranch to the north of San Francisco. It features Brown and his duet partner Lauren Alaina singing along the coast. It was released on May 14, 2017. An earlier lyric video was first released on May 4, 2017, and shows Brown and Alaina cruising down a road.\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nDecade-end charts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\n \n\n2016 songs\n2017 singles\nKane Brown songs\nLauren Alaina songs\nMale–female vocal duets\nRCA Records Nashville singles\nSong recordings produced by Dann Huff\nSongs written by Kane Brown\nSongs written by Matt McGinn (songwriter)\nSongs written by Jordan Schmidt"
] |
[
"David Frost",
"That Was the Week That Was (TW3)",
"What was David Frost job?",
"Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was,",
"In what country was That was the week that was been produce?",
"Britain"
] | C_217351d2fd5a4a9bb19386d270564876_1 | Was it successful? | 3 | Was "That was the week that was" successful? | David Frost | Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was, alias TW3 after Frost's flatmate John Bird suggested Sherrin should see his act at The Blue Angel. The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962-63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme. The involvement of Frost in TW3 led to an intensification of the rivalry with Peter Cook who accused him of stealing material and dubbed Frost "the bubonic plagiarist". The new satirical magazine Private Eye also mocked him at this time. Frost visited the United States during the break between the two series of TW3 in the summer of 1963 and stayed with the producer of the New York production of Beyond The Fringe. Frost was unable to swim, but still jumped into the pool, and nearly drowned until he was saved by Peter Cook. At the memorial service for Cook in 1995, Alan Bennett recalled that rescuing Frost was the one regret Cook frequently expressed. For the first three editions of the second series in 1963, the BBC attempted to limit the team by scheduling repeats of The Third Man television series after the programme, thus preventing overruns. Frost took to reading synopses of the episodes at the end of the programme as a means of sabotage. After the BBC's Director General Hugh Greene instructed that the repeats should be abandoned, TW3 returned to being open-ended. More sombrely, on 23 November 1963, a tribute to the assassinated President John F. Kennedy, an event which had occurred the previous day, formed an entire edition of That Was the Week That Was. An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended. Following a pilot episode on 10 November 1963, the 30-minute US series, also featuring Frost, ran on NBC from 10 January 1964 to May 1965. In 1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC. CANNOTANSWER | The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962-63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme. | Sir David Paradine Frost (7 April 1939 – 31 August 2013) was a British television host, journalist, comedian and writer.
He rose to prominence during the satire boom in the United Kingdom when he was chosen to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was in 1962. His success on this show led to work as a host on American television. He became known for his television interviews with senior political figures, among them the Nixon interviews with President Richard Nixon in 1977 which were adapted into a stage play and film. Frost interviewed all eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2016 and all seven American presidents in office between 1969 and 2008.
He was one of the people behind the launch of ITV station TV-am in 1983. He was the inaugural host of the US newsmagazine programme Inside Edition. He hosted the Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost for the BBC from 1993 to 2005, and spent two decades as host of Through the Keyhole. From 2006 to 2012, he hosted the weekly programme Frost Over the World on Al Jazeera English, and the weekly programme The Frost Interview from 2012. He received the BAFTA Fellowship from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2005 and the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards in 2009.
Frost died on 31 August 2013, aged 74, on board the cruise ship , where he had been engaged as a speaker. His memorial stone was unveiled in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey in March 2014.
Early life
David Paradine Frost was born in Tenterden, Kent, on 7 April 1939, the son of a Methodist minister of Huguenot descent, the Rev. Wilfred John "W. J." Paradine Frost, and his wife, Mona (Aldrich); he had two elder sisters. While living in Gillingham, Kent, he was taught in the Bible class of the Sunday school at his father's church (Byron Road Methodist) by David Gilmore Harvey, and subsequently started training as a Methodist local preacher, which he did not complete.
Frost attended Barnsole Road Primary School in Gillingham, St Hugh's School, Woodhall Spa, Gillingham Grammar School and finally – while residing in Raunds, Northamptonshire – Wellingborough Grammar School. Throughout his school years he was an avid football and cricket player, and was offered a contract with Nottingham Forest F.C. For two years before going to university he was a lay preacher, following his witnessing of an event presided over by Christian evangelist Billy Graham.
Frost studied at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, from 1958, graduating with a Third in English. He was editor of both the university's student paper, Varsity, and the literary magazine Granta. He was also secretary of the Footlights Drama Society, which included actors such as Peter Cook and John Bird. During this period Frost appeared on television for the first time in an edition of Anglia Television's Town And Gown, performing several comic characters. "The first time I stepped into a television studio", he once remembered, "it felt like home. It didn't scare me. Talking to the camera seemed the most natural thing in the world."
According to some accounts, Frost was the victim of snobbery from the group with which he associated at Cambridge, which has been confirmed by Barry Humphries. Christopher Booker, while asserting that Frost's one defining characteristic was ambition, commented that he was impossible to dislike. According to satirist John Wells, Old Etonian actor Jonathan Cecil congratulated Frost around this time for "that wonderfully silly voice" he used while performing, but then discovered that it was Frost's real voice.
After leaving university, Frost became a trainee at Associated-Rediffusion. Meanwhile, having already gained an agent, Frost performed in cabaret at the Blue Angel nightclub in Berkeley Square, London during the evenings.
That Was the Week That Was
Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was, or TW3, after Frost's flatmate John Bird suggested Sherrin should see his act at The Blue Angel. The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962–63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme.
The involvement of Frost in TW3 led to an intensification of the rivalry with Peter Cook who accused him of stealing material and dubbed Frost "the bubonic plagiarist". The new satirical magazine Private Eye also mocked him at this time. Frost visited the U.S. during the break between the two series of TW3 in the summer of 1963 and stayed with the producer of the New York City production of Beyond The Fringe. Frost was unable to swim, but still jumped into the pool, and nearly drowned until he was saved by Peter Cook. At the memorial service for Cook in 1995, Alan Bennett recalled that rescuing Frost was the one regret Cook frequently expressed.
For the first three editions of the second series in 1963, the BBC attempted to limit the team by scheduling repeats of The Third Man television series after the programme, thus preventing overruns. Frost took to reading synopses of the episodes at the end of the programme as a means of sabotage. After the BBC's Director General Hugh Greene instructed that the repeats should be abandoned, TW3 returned to being open-ended. More sombrely, on 23 November 1963, a tribute to the assassinated President John F. Kennedy, an event which had occurred the previous day, formed an entire edition of That Was the Week That Was.
An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended. Following a pilot episode on 10 November 1963, the 30-minute US series, also featuring Frost, ran on NBC from 10 January 1964 to May 1965. In 1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC.
After TW3
Frost fronted various programmes following the success of TW3, including its immediate successor, Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life, which he co-chaired with Willie Rushton and poet P. J. Kavanagh. Screened on three evenings each week, this series was dropped after a sketch was found to be offensive to Catholics and another to the British royal family. More successful was The Frost Report, broadcast between 1966 and 1967. The show launched the television careers of John Cleese, Ronnie Barker, and Ronnie Corbett, who appeared together in the Class sketch.
Frost signed for Rediffusion, the ITV weekday contractor in London, to produce a "heavier" interview-based show called The Frost Programme. Guests included Oswald Mosley and Rhodesian premier Ian Smith. His memorable dressing-down of insurance fraudster Emil Savundra, regarded as the first example of "trial by television" in the UK, led to concern from ITV executives that it might affect Savundra's right to a fair trial. Frost's introductory words for his television programmes during this period, "Hello, good evening and welcome", became his catchphrase and were often mimicked.
Frost was a member of a successful consortium, including former executives from the BBC, that bid for an ITV franchise in 1967. This became London Weekend Television, which began broadcasting in July 1968. The station began with a programming policy that was considered "highbrow" and suffered launch problems with low audience ratings and financial problems. A September 1968 meeting of the Network Programme Committee, which made decisions about the channel's scheduling, was particularly fraught, with Lew Grade expressing hatred of Frost in his presence. Frost, according to Kitty Muggeridge in 1967, had "risen without a trace."
He was involved in the station's early years as a presenter. On 20 and 21 July 1969, during the British television Apollo 11 coverage, he presented David Frost's Moon Party for LWT, a ten-hour discussion and entertainment marathon from LWT's Wembley Studios, on the night Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Two of his guests on this programme were British historian A. J. P. Taylor and entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr. Around this time Frost interviewed Rupert Murdoch whose recently acquired Sunday newspaper, the News of the World, had just serialised the memoirs of Christine Keeler, a central figure in the Profumo scandal of 1963. For the Australian publisher, this was a bruising encounter, although Frost said that he had not intended it to be. Murdoch confessed to his biographer Michael Wolff that the incident had convinced him that Frost was "an arrogant bastard, [and] a bloody bugger".
In the late 1960s Frost began an intermittent involvement in the film industry. Setting up David Paradine Ltd in 1966, he part-financed The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970), in which the lead character was based partly on Frost, and gained an executive producer credit. In 1976, Frost was the executive producer of the British musical film The Slipper and the Rose, retelling the story of Cinderella.
Frost was the subject of This Is Your Life in January 1972 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at London's Quaglino's restaurant.
American career from 1968 to 1980
In 1968, he signed a contract worth £125,000 to appear on American television in his own show on three evenings each week, the largest such arrangement for a British television personality at the time. From 1969 to 1972, Frost kept his London shows and fronted The David Frost Show on the Group W (U.S. Westinghouse Corporation) television stations in the U.S. His 1970 TV special, Frost on America, featured guests such as Jack Benny and Tennessee Williams.
In a declassified transcript of a 1972 telephone call between Frost and Henry Kissinger, President Nixon's national security advisor and secretary of state, Frost urged Kissinger to call chess Grandmaster Bobby Fischer and urge him to compete in that year's World Chess Championship. During this call, Frost revealed that he was working on a novel.
Frost interviewed heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali in 1974 at his training camp in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania before "The Rumble in the Jungle" with George Foreman. Ali remarked, "Listen David, when I meet this man, if you think the world was surprised when Nixon resigned, wait till I whip Foreman's behind."
In 1977, the Nixon Interviews, which were five 90-minute interviews with former U.S. President Richard Nixon, were broadcast. Nixon was paid $600,000 plus a share of the profits for the interviews, which had to be funded by Frost himself after the U.S. television networks turned down the programme, describing it as "checkbook journalism". Frost's company negotiated its own deals to syndicate the interviews with local stations across the U.S. and internationally, creating what Ron Howard described as "the first fourth network". Frost taped around 29 hours of interviews with Nixon over four weeks. Nixon, who had previously avoided discussing his role in the Watergate scandal that had led to his resignation as president in 1974, expressed contrition saying, "I let the American people down and I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life". Frost asked Nixon whether the president could do something illegal in certain situations such as against antiwar groups and others if he decides "it's in the best interests of the nation or something". Nixon replied: "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal", by definition.
Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Frost was the last person to interview Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the deposed Shah of Iran. The interview took place on Contadora Island in Panama in January 1980, and was broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company in the U.S. on 17 January. The Shah talks about his wealth, his illness, the SAVAK, the torture during his reign, Khomeini, his threat of extradition to Iran and draws a summary of the current situation in Iran.
Frost was an organiser of the Music for UNICEF Concert at the United Nations General Assembly in 1979. Ten years later, he was hired as the anchor of new American tabloid news program Inside Edition. He was dismissed after only three weeks because of poor ratings. It seems he was "considered too high-brow for the show's low-brow format."
After 1980
Frost was one of the "Famous Five" who launched TV-am in February 1983; however, like LWT in the late 1960s, the station began with an unsustainable "highbrow" approach. Frost remained a presenter after restructuring. Frost on Sunday began in September 1983 and continued until the station lost its franchise at the end of 1992. Frost had been part of an unsuccessful consortium, CPV-TV, with Richard Branson and other interests, which had attempted to acquire three ITV contractor franchises prior to the changes made by the Independent Television Commission in 1991. After transferring from ITV, his Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost ran on the BBC from January 1993 until 29 May 2005. For a time it ran on BSB before moving to BBC 1.
Frost hosted Through the Keyhole, which ran on several UK channels from 1987 until 2008 and also featured Loyd Grossman. Produced by his own production company, the programme was first shown in prime time and on daytime television in its later years.
Frost worked for Al Jazeera English, presenting a live weekly hour-long current affairs programme, Frost Over The World, which started when the network launched in November 2006. The programme regularly made headlines with interviewees such as Tony Blair, President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan and President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. The programme was produced by the former Question Time editor and Independent on Sunday journalist Charlie Courtauld. Frost was one of the first to interview the man who authored the Fatwa on Terrorism, Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri.
During his career as a broadcaster, Frost became one of Concorde's most frequent fliers, having flown between London and New York an average of 20 times per year for 20 years.
In 2007, Frost hosted a discussion with Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi as part of the Monitor Group's involvement in the country. In June 2010, Frost presented Frost on Satire, an hour-long BBC Four documentary looking at the history of television satire.
Achievements
Frost was the only person to have interviewed all eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2016 (Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and David Cameron) and all seven U.S. presidents in office between 1969 and 2008 (Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush).
He was a patron and former vice-president of the Motor Neurone Disease Association charity, as well as being a patron of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, Hearing Star Benevolent Fund, East Anglia's Children's Hospices, the Home Farm Trust and the Elton John AIDS Foundation. He was also recognized for his contributions to the women's charity "Wellbeing for Women".
After having been in television for 40 years, Frost was estimated to be worth £200 million by the Sunday Times Rich List in 2006, a figure he considered a significant overestimate in 2011. The valuation included the assets of his main British company and subsidiaries, plus homes in London and the country.
Frost/Nixon
Frost/Nixon was originally a play written by Peter Morgan, developed from the interviews that Frost had conducted with Richard Nixon in 1977. Frost/Nixon was presented as a stage production in London in 2006 and on Broadway in 2007. Frank Langella won a Leading Actor Tony Award for his portrayal of Nixon; the play also received nominations for Best Play and Best Direction.
The play was adapted into a Hollywood motion picture entitled Frost/Nixon and starring Michael Sheen as Frost and Langella as Nixon, both reprising their stage roles. The film was released in 2008 and directed by Ron Howard. It was nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, winning none: Best Motion Picture-Drama, Best Director-Drama, Best Actor-Drama (Langella), Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score. It was also nominated for five Academy Awards, again winning none: Best Picture, Best Actor (Langella), Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing.
In February 2009, Frost was featured on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's international affairs programme Foreign Correspondent in a report titled "The World According To Frost", reflecting on his long career and portrayal in the film Frost/Nixon.
Personal life
Frost was known for several relationships with high-profile women. In the mid-1960s, he dated British actress Janette Scott, between her marriages to songwriter Jackie Rae and singer Mel Tormé; in the early 1970s he was engaged to American actress Diahann Carroll; between 1972 and 1977 he had a relationship with British socialite Caroline Cushing; in 1981, he married Lynne Frederick, widow of Peter Sellers, but they divorced the following year. He also had an 18-year intermittent affair with American actress Carol Lynley.
On 19 March 1983, Frost married Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard, daughter of the 17th Duke of Norfolk. Three sons were born to the couple over the next five years. His second son, Wilfred Frost, followed in his father's footsteps and currently works as an anchor at CNBC. They lived for many years in Chelsea, London, and kept a weekend home at Michelmersh Court in Hampshire.
Death
On 31 August 2013, Frost was aboard the Cunard cruise ship when he died of a heart attack at the age of 74. Cunard said that the vessel had left Southampton for a ten-day cruise in the Mediterranean, ending in Rome. A post-mortem found that Frost had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Frost's son, Miles, died from the same condition at the age of 31 in 2015.
A funeral service was held at Holy Trinity Church in Nuffield, Oxfordshire, on 12 September 2013, after which he was interred in the church's graveyard. On 13 March 2014, a memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey, at which Frost was honoured with a memorial stone in Poets' Corner.
Tributes
British Prime Minister David Cameron paid tribute, saying: "He could be—and certainly was with me—both a friend and a fearsome interviewer." Michael Grade commented: "He was kind of a television renaissance man. He could put his hand to anything. He could turn over Richard Nixon or he could win the comedy prize at the Montreux Golden Rose festival."
Selected awards and honours
1970: Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)
1970: Honorary Doctor of Laws degree of Emerson College
1993: Knight Bachelor
1994: Honorary doctoral degree of the University of Sussex
2000: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
2005: Fellowship of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts BAFTA
2009: Honorary Doctor of Letters degree of the University of Winchester
2009: Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards
Bibliography
Non-fiction
How to Live Under Labour – or at Least Have as Much Chance as Anyone Else (1964)
To England with Love (1968). With Antony Jay.
The Presidential Debate, 1968: David Frost talks with Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey (and others) (1968).
The Americans (1970)
Billy Graham Talks with David Frost (1972)
Whitlam and Frost: The Full Text of Their TV Conversations Plus Exclusive New Interviews (1974)
"I Gave Them a Sword": Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews (1978). Reissued as Frost/Nixon in 2007.
David Frost's Book of Millionaires, Multimillionaires, and Really Rich People (1984)
The World's Shortest Books (1987)
An Autobiography. Part 1: From Congregations to Audiences (1993)
With Michael Deakin and illustrated by Willie Rushton
I Could Have Kicked Myself: David Frost's Book of the World's Worst Decisions (1982)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (1983)
If You'll Believe That (1986)
With Michael Shea
The Mid-Atlantic Companion, or, How to Misunderstand Americans as Much as They Misunderstand Us (1986)
The Rich Tide: Men, Women, Ideas and Their Transatlantic Impact (1986)
References
External links
BBC News Profile of David Frost
TV Cream on David Frost
TV Cream on Paradine Productions
1939 births
2013 deaths
Al Jazeera people
Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
BAFTA fellows
BBC newsreaders and journalists
British broadcast news analysts
British reporters and correspondents
British television producers
English comedians
English game show hosts
English memoirists
English Methodists
English satirists
English social commentators
English political writers
English television personalities
English television talk show hosts
International Emmy Founders Award winners
Knights Bachelor
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
People educated at Gillingham Grammar School, Kent
People educated at St Hugh's School, Woodhall Spa
People from Raunds
People from Tenterden
People from Test Valley
People from Wellingborough
People who died at sea
Primetime Emmy Award winners
20th-century British businesspeople | false | [
"Merry Legs (1911-1932) was a Tennessee Walking Horse mare who was given foundation registration for her influence as a broodmare. She was also a successful show horse.\n\nLife\nMerry Legs was foaled in April 1911. She was a bay with sabino markings. She was sired by the foundation stallion Black Allan F-1, out of the American Saddlebred mare Nell Dement, registration number F-3, and bred by the early breeder Albert Dement. She was a large mare at maturity, standing high and weighing . Merry Legs was a successful show horse; as a three-year-old, she won the stake class at the Tennessee State Fair. She was also successful as a broodmare, giving birth to 13 foals, among them the well-known Bud Allen, Last Chance, Major Allen, and Merry Boy. For her influence on the breed, she was given the foundation number F-4 when the TWHBEA was formed in 1935. She died in 1932.\n\nReferences\n\nIndividual Tennessee Walking Horses\n1911 animal births\n1932 animal deaths",
"The UCI Road World Championships – Men's team time trial was a world championship for road bicycle racing in the discipline of team time trial (TTT). It is organized by the world governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI).\n\nNational teams (1962–1994)\nA championship for national teams was introduced in 1962 and held until 1994. It was held annually, except that from 1972 onward, the TTT was not held in Olympic years. There were 4 riders per team on a route around 100 kilometres long. Italy is the most successful nation with seven victories.\n\nMedal winners\n\nMedals by nation\n\nMost successful riders\n\nUCI teams (2012–2018)\nThere was a long break until a championship for trade teams was introduced in 2012. There were 6 riders per team. The championship was held up to 2018.\n\nMedal winners\n\nMost successful teams\n\nMost successful riders\n\nReferences \n \n \n\n \nMen's Team Time Trial\nRecurring sporting events established in 1962\nUCI World Tour races\nMen's road bicycle races\nLists of UCI Road World Championships medalists\nRecurring sporting events disestablished in 2018"
] |
[
"David Frost",
"That Was the Week That Was (TW3)",
"What was David Frost job?",
"Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was,",
"In what country was That was the week that was been produce?",
"Britain",
"Was it successful?",
"The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962-63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme."
] | C_217351d2fd5a4a9bb19386d270564876_1 | Was it published to other country? | 4 | Was "That was the week that was" published to other country aside from Britain? | David Frost | Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was, alias TW3 after Frost's flatmate John Bird suggested Sherrin should see his act at The Blue Angel. The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962-63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme. The involvement of Frost in TW3 led to an intensification of the rivalry with Peter Cook who accused him of stealing material and dubbed Frost "the bubonic plagiarist". The new satirical magazine Private Eye also mocked him at this time. Frost visited the United States during the break between the two series of TW3 in the summer of 1963 and stayed with the producer of the New York production of Beyond The Fringe. Frost was unable to swim, but still jumped into the pool, and nearly drowned until he was saved by Peter Cook. At the memorial service for Cook in 1995, Alan Bennett recalled that rescuing Frost was the one regret Cook frequently expressed. For the first three editions of the second series in 1963, the BBC attempted to limit the team by scheduling repeats of The Third Man television series after the programme, thus preventing overruns. Frost took to reading synopses of the episodes at the end of the programme as a means of sabotage. After the BBC's Director General Hugh Greene instructed that the repeats should be abandoned, TW3 returned to being open-ended. More sombrely, on 23 November 1963, a tribute to the assassinated President John F. Kennedy, an event which had occurred the previous day, formed an entire edition of That Was the Week That Was. An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended. Following a pilot episode on 10 November 1963, the 30-minute US series, also featuring Frost, ran on NBC from 10 January 1964 to May 1965. In 1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC. CANNOTANSWER | An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended. | Sir David Paradine Frost (7 April 1939 – 31 August 2013) was a British television host, journalist, comedian and writer.
He rose to prominence during the satire boom in the United Kingdom when he was chosen to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was in 1962. His success on this show led to work as a host on American television. He became known for his television interviews with senior political figures, among them the Nixon interviews with President Richard Nixon in 1977 which were adapted into a stage play and film. Frost interviewed all eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2016 and all seven American presidents in office between 1969 and 2008.
He was one of the people behind the launch of ITV station TV-am in 1983. He was the inaugural host of the US newsmagazine programme Inside Edition. He hosted the Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost for the BBC from 1993 to 2005, and spent two decades as host of Through the Keyhole. From 2006 to 2012, he hosted the weekly programme Frost Over the World on Al Jazeera English, and the weekly programme The Frost Interview from 2012. He received the BAFTA Fellowship from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2005 and the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards in 2009.
Frost died on 31 August 2013, aged 74, on board the cruise ship , where he had been engaged as a speaker. His memorial stone was unveiled in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey in March 2014.
Early life
David Paradine Frost was born in Tenterden, Kent, on 7 April 1939, the son of a Methodist minister of Huguenot descent, the Rev. Wilfred John "W. J." Paradine Frost, and his wife, Mona (Aldrich); he had two elder sisters. While living in Gillingham, Kent, he was taught in the Bible class of the Sunday school at his father's church (Byron Road Methodist) by David Gilmore Harvey, and subsequently started training as a Methodist local preacher, which he did not complete.
Frost attended Barnsole Road Primary School in Gillingham, St Hugh's School, Woodhall Spa, Gillingham Grammar School and finally – while residing in Raunds, Northamptonshire – Wellingborough Grammar School. Throughout his school years he was an avid football and cricket player, and was offered a contract with Nottingham Forest F.C. For two years before going to university he was a lay preacher, following his witnessing of an event presided over by Christian evangelist Billy Graham.
Frost studied at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, from 1958, graduating with a Third in English. He was editor of both the university's student paper, Varsity, and the literary magazine Granta. He was also secretary of the Footlights Drama Society, which included actors such as Peter Cook and John Bird. During this period Frost appeared on television for the first time in an edition of Anglia Television's Town And Gown, performing several comic characters. "The first time I stepped into a television studio", he once remembered, "it felt like home. It didn't scare me. Talking to the camera seemed the most natural thing in the world."
According to some accounts, Frost was the victim of snobbery from the group with which he associated at Cambridge, which has been confirmed by Barry Humphries. Christopher Booker, while asserting that Frost's one defining characteristic was ambition, commented that he was impossible to dislike. According to satirist John Wells, Old Etonian actor Jonathan Cecil congratulated Frost around this time for "that wonderfully silly voice" he used while performing, but then discovered that it was Frost's real voice.
After leaving university, Frost became a trainee at Associated-Rediffusion. Meanwhile, having already gained an agent, Frost performed in cabaret at the Blue Angel nightclub in Berkeley Square, London during the evenings.
That Was the Week That Was
Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was, or TW3, after Frost's flatmate John Bird suggested Sherrin should see his act at The Blue Angel. The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962–63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme.
The involvement of Frost in TW3 led to an intensification of the rivalry with Peter Cook who accused him of stealing material and dubbed Frost "the bubonic plagiarist". The new satirical magazine Private Eye also mocked him at this time. Frost visited the U.S. during the break between the two series of TW3 in the summer of 1963 and stayed with the producer of the New York City production of Beyond The Fringe. Frost was unable to swim, but still jumped into the pool, and nearly drowned until he was saved by Peter Cook. At the memorial service for Cook in 1995, Alan Bennett recalled that rescuing Frost was the one regret Cook frequently expressed.
For the first three editions of the second series in 1963, the BBC attempted to limit the team by scheduling repeats of The Third Man television series after the programme, thus preventing overruns. Frost took to reading synopses of the episodes at the end of the programme as a means of sabotage. After the BBC's Director General Hugh Greene instructed that the repeats should be abandoned, TW3 returned to being open-ended. More sombrely, on 23 November 1963, a tribute to the assassinated President John F. Kennedy, an event which had occurred the previous day, formed an entire edition of That Was the Week That Was.
An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended. Following a pilot episode on 10 November 1963, the 30-minute US series, also featuring Frost, ran on NBC from 10 January 1964 to May 1965. In 1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC.
After TW3
Frost fronted various programmes following the success of TW3, including its immediate successor, Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life, which he co-chaired with Willie Rushton and poet P. J. Kavanagh. Screened on three evenings each week, this series was dropped after a sketch was found to be offensive to Catholics and another to the British royal family. More successful was The Frost Report, broadcast between 1966 and 1967. The show launched the television careers of John Cleese, Ronnie Barker, and Ronnie Corbett, who appeared together in the Class sketch.
Frost signed for Rediffusion, the ITV weekday contractor in London, to produce a "heavier" interview-based show called The Frost Programme. Guests included Oswald Mosley and Rhodesian premier Ian Smith. His memorable dressing-down of insurance fraudster Emil Savundra, regarded as the first example of "trial by television" in the UK, led to concern from ITV executives that it might affect Savundra's right to a fair trial. Frost's introductory words for his television programmes during this period, "Hello, good evening and welcome", became his catchphrase and were often mimicked.
Frost was a member of a successful consortium, including former executives from the BBC, that bid for an ITV franchise in 1967. This became London Weekend Television, which began broadcasting in July 1968. The station began with a programming policy that was considered "highbrow" and suffered launch problems with low audience ratings and financial problems. A September 1968 meeting of the Network Programme Committee, which made decisions about the channel's scheduling, was particularly fraught, with Lew Grade expressing hatred of Frost in his presence. Frost, according to Kitty Muggeridge in 1967, had "risen without a trace."
He was involved in the station's early years as a presenter. On 20 and 21 July 1969, during the British television Apollo 11 coverage, he presented David Frost's Moon Party for LWT, a ten-hour discussion and entertainment marathon from LWT's Wembley Studios, on the night Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Two of his guests on this programme were British historian A. J. P. Taylor and entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr. Around this time Frost interviewed Rupert Murdoch whose recently acquired Sunday newspaper, the News of the World, had just serialised the memoirs of Christine Keeler, a central figure in the Profumo scandal of 1963. For the Australian publisher, this was a bruising encounter, although Frost said that he had not intended it to be. Murdoch confessed to his biographer Michael Wolff that the incident had convinced him that Frost was "an arrogant bastard, [and] a bloody bugger".
In the late 1960s Frost began an intermittent involvement in the film industry. Setting up David Paradine Ltd in 1966, he part-financed The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970), in which the lead character was based partly on Frost, and gained an executive producer credit. In 1976, Frost was the executive producer of the British musical film The Slipper and the Rose, retelling the story of Cinderella.
Frost was the subject of This Is Your Life in January 1972 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at London's Quaglino's restaurant.
American career from 1968 to 1980
In 1968, he signed a contract worth £125,000 to appear on American television in his own show on three evenings each week, the largest such arrangement for a British television personality at the time. From 1969 to 1972, Frost kept his London shows and fronted The David Frost Show on the Group W (U.S. Westinghouse Corporation) television stations in the U.S. His 1970 TV special, Frost on America, featured guests such as Jack Benny and Tennessee Williams.
In a declassified transcript of a 1972 telephone call between Frost and Henry Kissinger, President Nixon's national security advisor and secretary of state, Frost urged Kissinger to call chess Grandmaster Bobby Fischer and urge him to compete in that year's World Chess Championship. During this call, Frost revealed that he was working on a novel.
Frost interviewed heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali in 1974 at his training camp in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania before "The Rumble in the Jungle" with George Foreman. Ali remarked, "Listen David, when I meet this man, if you think the world was surprised when Nixon resigned, wait till I whip Foreman's behind."
In 1977, the Nixon Interviews, which were five 90-minute interviews with former U.S. President Richard Nixon, were broadcast. Nixon was paid $600,000 plus a share of the profits for the interviews, which had to be funded by Frost himself after the U.S. television networks turned down the programme, describing it as "checkbook journalism". Frost's company negotiated its own deals to syndicate the interviews with local stations across the U.S. and internationally, creating what Ron Howard described as "the first fourth network". Frost taped around 29 hours of interviews with Nixon over four weeks. Nixon, who had previously avoided discussing his role in the Watergate scandal that had led to his resignation as president in 1974, expressed contrition saying, "I let the American people down and I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life". Frost asked Nixon whether the president could do something illegal in certain situations such as against antiwar groups and others if he decides "it's in the best interests of the nation or something". Nixon replied: "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal", by definition.
Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Frost was the last person to interview Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the deposed Shah of Iran. The interview took place on Contadora Island in Panama in January 1980, and was broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company in the U.S. on 17 January. The Shah talks about his wealth, his illness, the SAVAK, the torture during his reign, Khomeini, his threat of extradition to Iran and draws a summary of the current situation in Iran.
Frost was an organiser of the Music for UNICEF Concert at the United Nations General Assembly in 1979. Ten years later, he was hired as the anchor of new American tabloid news program Inside Edition. He was dismissed after only three weeks because of poor ratings. It seems he was "considered too high-brow for the show's low-brow format."
After 1980
Frost was one of the "Famous Five" who launched TV-am in February 1983; however, like LWT in the late 1960s, the station began with an unsustainable "highbrow" approach. Frost remained a presenter after restructuring. Frost on Sunday began in September 1983 and continued until the station lost its franchise at the end of 1992. Frost had been part of an unsuccessful consortium, CPV-TV, with Richard Branson and other interests, which had attempted to acquire three ITV contractor franchises prior to the changes made by the Independent Television Commission in 1991. After transferring from ITV, his Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost ran on the BBC from January 1993 until 29 May 2005. For a time it ran on BSB before moving to BBC 1.
Frost hosted Through the Keyhole, which ran on several UK channels from 1987 until 2008 and also featured Loyd Grossman. Produced by his own production company, the programme was first shown in prime time and on daytime television in its later years.
Frost worked for Al Jazeera English, presenting a live weekly hour-long current affairs programme, Frost Over The World, which started when the network launched in November 2006. The programme regularly made headlines with interviewees such as Tony Blair, President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan and President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. The programme was produced by the former Question Time editor and Independent on Sunday journalist Charlie Courtauld. Frost was one of the first to interview the man who authored the Fatwa on Terrorism, Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri.
During his career as a broadcaster, Frost became one of Concorde's most frequent fliers, having flown between London and New York an average of 20 times per year for 20 years.
In 2007, Frost hosted a discussion with Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi as part of the Monitor Group's involvement in the country. In June 2010, Frost presented Frost on Satire, an hour-long BBC Four documentary looking at the history of television satire.
Achievements
Frost was the only person to have interviewed all eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2016 (Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and David Cameron) and all seven U.S. presidents in office between 1969 and 2008 (Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush).
He was a patron and former vice-president of the Motor Neurone Disease Association charity, as well as being a patron of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, Hearing Star Benevolent Fund, East Anglia's Children's Hospices, the Home Farm Trust and the Elton John AIDS Foundation. He was also recognized for his contributions to the women's charity "Wellbeing for Women".
After having been in television for 40 years, Frost was estimated to be worth £200 million by the Sunday Times Rich List in 2006, a figure he considered a significant overestimate in 2011. The valuation included the assets of his main British company and subsidiaries, plus homes in London and the country.
Frost/Nixon
Frost/Nixon was originally a play written by Peter Morgan, developed from the interviews that Frost had conducted with Richard Nixon in 1977. Frost/Nixon was presented as a stage production in London in 2006 and on Broadway in 2007. Frank Langella won a Leading Actor Tony Award for his portrayal of Nixon; the play also received nominations for Best Play and Best Direction.
The play was adapted into a Hollywood motion picture entitled Frost/Nixon and starring Michael Sheen as Frost and Langella as Nixon, both reprising their stage roles. The film was released in 2008 and directed by Ron Howard. It was nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, winning none: Best Motion Picture-Drama, Best Director-Drama, Best Actor-Drama (Langella), Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score. It was also nominated for five Academy Awards, again winning none: Best Picture, Best Actor (Langella), Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing.
In February 2009, Frost was featured on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's international affairs programme Foreign Correspondent in a report titled "The World According To Frost", reflecting on his long career and portrayal in the film Frost/Nixon.
Personal life
Frost was known for several relationships with high-profile women. In the mid-1960s, he dated British actress Janette Scott, between her marriages to songwriter Jackie Rae and singer Mel Tormé; in the early 1970s he was engaged to American actress Diahann Carroll; between 1972 and 1977 he had a relationship with British socialite Caroline Cushing; in 1981, he married Lynne Frederick, widow of Peter Sellers, but they divorced the following year. He also had an 18-year intermittent affair with American actress Carol Lynley.
On 19 March 1983, Frost married Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard, daughter of the 17th Duke of Norfolk. Three sons were born to the couple over the next five years. His second son, Wilfred Frost, followed in his father's footsteps and currently works as an anchor at CNBC. They lived for many years in Chelsea, London, and kept a weekend home at Michelmersh Court in Hampshire.
Death
On 31 August 2013, Frost was aboard the Cunard cruise ship when he died of a heart attack at the age of 74. Cunard said that the vessel had left Southampton for a ten-day cruise in the Mediterranean, ending in Rome. A post-mortem found that Frost had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Frost's son, Miles, died from the same condition at the age of 31 in 2015.
A funeral service was held at Holy Trinity Church in Nuffield, Oxfordshire, on 12 September 2013, after which he was interred in the church's graveyard. On 13 March 2014, a memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey, at which Frost was honoured with a memorial stone in Poets' Corner.
Tributes
British Prime Minister David Cameron paid tribute, saying: "He could be—and certainly was with me—both a friend and a fearsome interviewer." Michael Grade commented: "He was kind of a television renaissance man. He could put his hand to anything. He could turn over Richard Nixon or he could win the comedy prize at the Montreux Golden Rose festival."
Selected awards and honours
1970: Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)
1970: Honorary Doctor of Laws degree of Emerson College
1993: Knight Bachelor
1994: Honorary doctoral degree of the University of Sussex
2000: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
2005: Fellowship of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts BAFTA
2009: Honorary Doctor of Letters degree of the University of Winchester
2009: Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards
Bibliography
Non-fiction
How to Live Under Labour – or at Least Have as Much Chance as Anyone Else (1964)
To England with Love (1968). With Antony Jay.
The Presidential Debate, 1968: David Frost talks with Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey (and others) (1968).
The Americans (1970)
Billy Graham Talks with David Frost (1972)
Whitlam and Frost: The Full Text of Their TV Conversations Plus Exclusive New Interviews (1974)
"I Gave Them a Sword": Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews (1978). Reissued as Frost/Nixon in 2007.
David Frost's Book of Millionaires, Multimillionaires, and Really Rich People (1984)
The World's Shortest Books (1987)
An Autobiography. Part 1: From Congregations to Audiences (1993)
With Michael Deakin and illustrated by Willie Rushton
I Could Have Kicked Myself: David Frost's Book of the World's Worst Decisions (1982)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (1983)
If You'll Believe That (1986)
With Michael Shea
The Mid-Atlantic Companion, or, How to Misunderstand Americans as Much as They Misunderstand Us (1986)
The Rich Tide: Men, Women, Ideas and Their Transatlantic Impact (1986)
References
External links
BBC News Profile of David Frost
TV Cream on David Frost
TV Cream on Paradine Productions
1939 births
2013 deaths
Al Jazeera people
Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
BAFTA fellows
BBC newsreaders and journalists
British broadcast news analysts
British reporters and correspondents
British television producers
English comedians
English game show hosts
English memoirists
English Methodists
English satirists
English social commentators
English political writers
English television personalities
English television talk show hosts
International Emmy Founders Award winners
Knights Bachelor
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
People educated at Gillingham Grammar School, Kent
People educated at St Hugh's School, Woodhall Spa
People from Raunds
People from Tenterden
People from Test Valley
People from Wellingborough
People who died at sea
Primetime Emmy Award winners
20th-century British businesspeople | true | [
"Dominika Eristavi (), pen name Gandegili, (1864–1929) was a prominent Georgian writer and translator.\n\nBiography\n\nDominika Eristavi was born on 28 October 1864 in the Vani district. Her first poem titled \"ბარათაშვილის ნეშთის გადმოსვენების გამო\" (Baratashvili's Remains to be Reburied) was published in 1893 in the journal Iveria. She went on to contribute poetry and prose to a wide variety of periodicals and newspapers. Thanks to her competence in the Georgian language, in 1904 she was appointed editor of the magazine Nobati. In 1914, she was one of the founding members of the Georgian Women's Society. Her ability as a storyteller was recognized when her short story Marine was published in 1897.\nEristavi also translated literary works by authors including Heinrich Heine, Ivan Turgenev and Maxim Gorky.\n\nUnder the pen-name Gandegili she published a collection of poems and short stories in 1910 and another collection of poems in 1918.\n\nShe was a strong defender of women's rights. Criticizing the absence of women at a meeting of cultural societies in 1916, she commented: \"Georgian women have never failed to reveal if not higher at least equal capabilities with men in any field, but the meeting of cultural societies does not prove to be cultural enough to allocate a dignified place to a Georgian woman whom our ancestors appreciated much more than our contemporaries.\"\n\nDominika Eristavi died in Tbilisi on 24 January 1929.\n\nReferences \n\n1864 births\n1929 deaths\nWomen writers from Georgia (country)\nPeople from Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti\n19th-century poets from Georgia (country)\n20th-century poets from Georgia (country)\n20th-century women writers from Georgia (country)\n19th-century women writers from Georgia (country)\nTranslators from Georgia (country)\nPoets from Georgia (country)\n19th-century translators\n20th-century translators",
"Larry Koon (April 26, 1946 - December 30, 2012) was a published author and newspaper columnist who specialized in antiques and collectibles. Koon was born April 26, 1946 in Ripley, West Virginia, where he was also raised. Koon wrote several books on antiques and collectibles, and was the first to write a book on specialized auction markets. Koon also wrote a weekly antiques column for The Marietta Times. His column also appeared in A Woman's View Magazine and other publications around the country. Koon died December 30, 2012.\n\nBibliography\nNorth American Auction Markets, published 1997 by Gordons Art Reference,\nPrice Guide to Lee Middleton Dolls, published by Hobby House, Grantsville. Maryland\nPrice Guide to Annalee Dolls, published by Portfolio Press, New York\nPrice Guide to Stickley Brothers Furniture, published by Collector Books, Paducah, Ky\nPrice Guide to Roycroft Furniture, published by Collector Books, Paducah, Ky\nStickley Brothers Furniture, Identification and Value Guide\n\nReferences \n\n1956 births\nAmerican non-fiction writers\n2012 deaths\nPeople from Ripley, West Virginia"
] |
[
"David Frost",
"That Was the Week That Was (TW3)",
"What was David Frost job?",
"Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was,",
"In what country was That was the week that was been produce?",
"Britain",
"Was it successful?",
"The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962-63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme.",
"Was it published to other country?",
"An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended."
] | C_217351d2fd5a4a9bb19386d270564876_1 | How successful did it get? | 5 | How successful did American version of TW3 get? | David Frost | Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was, alias TW3 after Frost's flatmate John Bird suggested Sherrin should see his act at The Blue Angel. The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962-63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme. The involvement of Frost in TW3 led to an intensification of the rivalry with Peter Cook who accused him of stealing material and dubbed Frost "the bubonic plagiarist". The new satirical magazine Private Eye also mocked him at this time. Frost visited the United States during the break between the two series of TW3 in the summer of 1963 and stayed with the producer of the New York production of Beyond The Fringe. Frost was unable to swim, but still jumped into the pool, and nearly drowned until he was saved by Peter Cook. At the memorial service for Cook in 1995, Alan Bennett recalled that rescuing Frost was the one regret Cook frequently expressed. For the first three editions of the second series in 1963, the BBC attempted to limit the team by scheduling repeats of The Third Man television series after the programme, thus preventing overruns. Frost took to reading synopses of the episodes at the end of the programme as a means of sabotage. After the BBC's Director General Hugh Greene instructed that the repeats should be abandoned, TW3 returned to being open-ended. More sombrely, on 23 November 1963, a tribute to the assassinated President John F. Kennedy, an event which had occurred the previous day, formed an entire edition of That Was the Week That Was. An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended. Following a pilot episode on 10 November 1963, the 30-minute US series, also featuring Frost, ran on NBC from 10 January 1964 to May 1965. In 1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Sir David Paradine Frost (7 April 1939 – 31 August 2013) was a British television host, journalist, comedian and writer.
He rose to prominence during the satire boom in the United Kingdom when he was chosen to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was in 1962. His success on this show led to work as a host on American television. He became known for his television interviews with senior political figures, among them the Nixon interviews with President Richard Nixon in 1977 which were adapted into a stage play and film. Frost interviewed all eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2016 and all seven American presidents in office between 1969 and 2008.
He was one of the people behind the launch of ITV station TV-am in 1983. He was the inaugural host of the US newsmagazine programme Inside Edition. He hosted the Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost for the BBC from 1993 to 2005, and spent two decades as host of Through the Keyhole. From 2006 to 2012, he hosted the weekly programme Frost Over the World on Al Jazeera English, and the weekly programme The Frost Interview from 2012. He received the BAFTA Fellowship from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2005 and the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards in 2009.
Frost died on 31 August 2013, aged 74, on board the cruise ship , where he had been engaged as a speaker. His memorial stone was unveiled in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey in March 2014.
Early life
David Paradine Frost was born in Tenterden, Kent, on 7 April 1939, the son of a Methodist minister of Huguenot descent, the Rev. Wilfred John "W. J." Paradine Frost, and his wife, Mona (Aldrich); he had two elder sisters. While living in Gillingham, Kent, he was taught in the Bible class of the Sunday school at his father's church (Byron Road Methodist) by David Gilmore Harvey, and subsequently started training as a Methodist local preacher, which he did not complete.
Frost attended Barnsole Road Primary School in Gillingham, St Hugh's School, Woodhall Spa, Gillingham Grammar School and finally – while residing in Raunds, Northamptonshire – Wellingborough Grammar School. Throughout his school years he was an avid football and cricket player, and was offered a contract with Nottingham Forest F.C. For two years before going to university he was a lay preacher, following his witnessing of an event presided over by Christian evangelist Billy Graham.
Frost studied at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, from 1958, graduating with a Third in English. He was editor of both the university's student paper, Varsity, and the literary magazine Granta. He was also secretary of the Footlights Drama Society, which included actors such as Peter Cook and John Bird. During this period Frost appeared on television for the first time in an edition of Anglia Television's Town And Gown, performing several comic characters. "The first time I stepped into a television studio", he once remembered, "it felt like home. It didn't scare me. Talking to the camera seemed the most natural thing in the world."
According to some accounts, Frost was the victim of snobbery from the group with which he associated at Cambridge, which has been confirmed by Barry Humphries. Christopher Booker, while asserting that Frost's one defining characteristic was ambition, commented that he was impossible to dislike. According to satirist John Wells, Old Etonian actor Jonathan Cecil congratulated Frost around this time for "that wonderfully silly voice" he used while performing, but then discovered that it was Frost's real voice.
After leaving university, Frost became a trainee at Associated-Rediffusion. Meanwhile, having already gained an agent, Frost performed in cabaret at the Blue Angel nightclub in Berkeley Square, London during the evenings.
That Was the Week That Was
Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was, or TW3, after Frost's flatmate John Bird suggested Sherrin should see his act at The Blue Angel. The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962–63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme.
The involvement of Frost in TW3 led to an intensification of the rivalry with Peter Cook who accused him of stealing material and dubbed Frost "the bubonic plagiarist". The new satirical magazine Private Eye also mocked him at this time. Frost visited the U.S. during the break between the two series of TW3 in the summer of 1963 and stayed with the producer of the New York City production of Beyond The Fringe. Frost was unable to swim, but still jumped into the pool, and nearly drowned until he was saved by Peter Cook. At the memorial service for Cook in 1995, Alan Bennett recalled that rescuing Frost was the one regret Cook frequently expressed.
For the first three editions of the second series in 1963, the BBC attempted to limit the team by scheduling repeats of The Third Man television series after the programme, thus preventing overruns. Frost took to reading synopses of the episodes at the end of the programme as a means of sabotage. After the BBC's Director General Hugh Greene instructed that the repeats should be abandoned, TW3 returned to being open-ended. More sombrely, on 23 November 1963, a tribute to the assassinated President John F. Kennedy, an event which had occurred the previous day, formed an entire edition of That Was the Week That Was.
An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended. Following a pilot episode on 10 November 1963, the 30-minute US series, also featuring Frost, ran on NBC from 10 January 1964 to May 1965. In 1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC.
After TW3
Frost fronted various programmes following the success of TW3, including its immediate successor, Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life, which he co-chaired with Willie Rushton and poet P. J. Kavanagh. Screened on three evenings each week, this series was dropped after a sketch was found to be offensive to Catholics and another to the British royal family. More successful was The Frost Report, broadcast between 1966 and 1967. The show launched the television careers of John Cleese, Ronnie Barker, and Ronnie Corbett, who appeared together in the Class sketch.
Frost signed for Rediffusion, the ITV weekday contractor in London, to produce a "heavier" interview-based show called The Frost Programme. Guests included Oswald Mosley and Rhodesian premier Ian Smith. His memorable dressing-down of insurance fraudster Emil Savundra, regarded as the first example of "trial by television" in the UK, led to concern from ITV executives that it might affect Savundra's right to a fair trial. Frost's introductory words for his television programmes during this period, "Hello, good evening and welcome", became his catchphrase and were often mimicked.
Frost was a member of a successful consortium, including former executives from the BBC, that bid for an ITV franchise in 1967. This became London Weekend Television, which began broadcasting in July 1968. The station began with a programming policy that was considered "highbrow" and suffered launch problems with low audience ratings and financial problems. A September 1968 meeting of the Network Programme Committee, which made decisions about the channel's scheduling, was particularly fraught, with Lew Grade expressing hatred of Frost in his presence. Frost, according to Kitty Muggeridge in 1967, had "risen without a trace."
He was involved in the station's early years as a presenter. On 20 and 21 July 1969, during the British television Apollo 11 coverage, he presented David Frost's Moon Party for LWT, a ten-hour discussion and entertainment marathon from LWT's Wembley Studios, on the night Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Two of his guests on this programme were British historian A. J. P. Taylor and entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr. Around this time Frost interviewed Rupert Murdoch whose recently acquired Sunday newspaper, the News of the World, had just serialised the memoirs of Christine Keeler, a central figure in the Profumo scandal of 1963. For the Australian publisher, this was a bruising encounter, although Frost said that he had not intended it to be. Murdoch confessed to his biographer Michael Wolff that the incident had convinced him that Frost was "an arrogant bastard, [and] a bloody bugger".
In the late 1960s Frost began an intermittent involvement in the film industry. Setting up David Paradine Ltd in 1966, he part-financed The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970), in which the lead character was based partly on Frost, and gained an executive producer credit. In 1976, Frost was the executive producer of the British musical film The Slipper and the Rose, retelling the story of Cinderella.
Frost was the subject of This Is Your Life in January 1972 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at London's Quaglino's restaurant.
American career from 1968 to 1980
In 1968, he signed a contract worth £125,000 to appear on American television in his own show on three evenings each week, the largest such arrangement for a British television personality at the time. From 1969 to 1972, Frost kept his London shows and fronted The David Frost Show on the Group W (U.S. Westinghouse Corporation) television stations in the U.S. His 1970 TV special, Frost on America, featured guests such as Jack Benny and Tennessee Williams.
In a declassified transcript of a 1972 telephone call between Frost and Henry Kissinger, President Nixon's national security advisor and secretary of state, Frost urged Kissinger to call chess Grandmaster Bobby Fischer and urge him to compete in that year's World Chess Championship. During this call, Frost revealed that he was working on a novel.
Frost interviewed heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali in 1974 at his training camp in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania before "The Rumble in the Jungle" with George Foreman. Ali remarked, "Listen David, when I meet this man, if you think the world was surprised when Nixon resigned, wait till I whip Foreman's behind."
In 1977, the Nixon Interviews, which were five 90-minute interviews with former U.S. President Richard Nixon, were broadcast. Nixon was paid $600,000 plus a share of the profits for the interviews, which had to be funded by Frost himself after the U.S. television networks turned down the programme, describing it as "checkbook journalism". Frost's company negotiated its own deals to syndicate the interviews with local stations across the U.S. and internationally, creating what Ron Howard described as "the first fourth network". Frost taped around 29 hours of interviews with Nixon over four weeks. Nixon, who had previously avoided discussing his role in the Watergate scandal that had led to his resignation as president in 1974, expressed contrition saying, "I let the American people down and I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life". Frost asked Nixon whether the president could do something illegal in certain situations such as against antiwar groups and others if he decides "it's in the best interests of the nation or something". Nixon replied: "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal", by definition.
Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Frost was the last person to interview Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the deposed Shah of Iran. The interview took place on Contadora Island in Panama in January 1980, and was broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company in the U.S. on 17 January. The Shah talks about his wealth, his illness, the SAVAK, the torture during his reign, Khomeini, his threat of extradition to Iran and draws a summary of the current situation in Iran.
Frost was an organiser of the Music for UNICEF Concert at the United Nations General Assembly in 1979. Ten years later, he was hired as the anchor of new American tabloid news program Inside Edition. He was dismissed after only three weeks because of poor ratings. It seems he was "considered too high-brow for the show's low-brow format."
After 1980
Frost was one of the "Famous Five" who launched TV-am in February 1983; however, like LWT in the late 1960s, the station began with an unsustainable "highbrow" approach. Frost remained a presenter after restructuring. Frost on Sunday began in September 1983 and continued until the station lost its franchise at the end of 1992. Frost had been part of an unsuccessful consortium, CPV-TV, with Richard Branson and other interests, which had attempted to acquire three ITV contractor franchises prior to the changes made by the Independent Television Commission in 1991. After transferring from ITV, his Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost ran on the BBC from January 1993 until 29 May 2005. For a time it ran on BSB before moving to BBC 1.
Frost hosted Through the Keyhole, which ran on several UK channels from 1987 until 2008 and also featured Loyd Grossman. Produced by his own production company, the programme was first shown in prime time and on daytime television in its later years.
Frost worked for Al Jazeera English, presenting a live weekly hour-long current affairs programme, Frost Over The World, which started when the network launched in November 2006. The programme regularly made headlines with interviewees such as Tony Blair, President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan and President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. The programme was produced by the former Question Time editor and Independent on Sunday journalist Charlie Courtauld. Frost was one of the first to interview the man who authored the Fatwa on Terrorism, Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri.
During his career as a broadcaster, Frost became one of Concorde's most frequent fliers, having flown between London and New York an average of 20 times per year for 20 years.
In 2007, Frost hosted a discussion with Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi as part of the Monitor Group's involvement in the country. In June 2010, Frost presented Frost on Satire, an hour-long BBC Four documentary looking at the history of television satire.
Achievements
Frost was the only person to have interviewed all eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2016 (Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and David Cameron) and all seven U.S. presidents in office between 1969 and 2008 (Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush).
He was a patron and former vice-president of the Motor Neurone Disease Association charity, as well as being a patron of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, Hearing Star Benevolent Fund, East Anglia's Children's Hospices, the Home Farm Trust and the Elton John AIDS Foundation. He was also recognized for his contributions to the women's charity "Wellbeing for Women".
After having been in television for 40 years, Frost was estimated to be worth £200 million by the Sunday Times Rich List in 2006, a figure he considered a significant overestimate in 2011. The valuation included the assets of his main British company and subsidiaries, plus homes in London and the country.
Frost/Nixon
Frost/Nixon was originally a play written by Peter Morgan, developed from the interviews that Frost had conducted with Richard Nixon in 1977. Frost/Nixon was presented as a stage production in London in 2006 and on Broadway in 2007. Frank Langella won a Leading Actor Tony Award for his portrayal of Nixon; the play also received nominations for Best Play and Best Direction.
The play was adapted into a Hollywood motion picture entitled Frost/Nixon and starring Michael Sheen as Frost and Langella as Nixon, both reprising their stage roles. The film was released in 2008 and directed by Ron Howard. It was nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, winning none: Best Motion Picture-Drama, Best Director-Drama, Best Actor-Drama (Langella), Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score. It was also nominated for five Academy Awards, again winning none: Best Picture, Best Actor (Langella), Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing.
In February 2009, Frost was featured on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's international affairs programme Foreign Correspondent in a report titled "The World According To Frost", reflecting on his long career and portrayal in the film Frost/Nixon.
Personal life
Frost was known for several relationships with high-profile women. In the mid-1960s, he dated British actress Janette Scott, between her marriages to songwriter Jackie Rae and singer Mel Tormé; in the early 1970s he was engaged to American actress Diahann Carroll; between 1972 and 1977 he had a relationship with British socialite Caroline Cushing; in 1981, he married Lynne Frederick, widow of Peter Sellers, but they divorced the following year. He also had an 18-year intermittent affair with American actress Carol Lynley.
On 19 March 1983, Frost married Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard, daughter of the 17th Duke of Norfolk. Three sons were born to the couple over the next five years. His second son, Wilfred Frost, followed in his father's footsteps and currently works as an anchor at CNBC. They lived for many years in Chelsea, London, and kept a weekend home at Michelmersh Court in Hampshire.
Death
On 31 August 2013, Frost was aboard the Cunard cruise ship when he died of a heart attack at the age of 74. Cunard said that the vessel had left Southampton for a ten-day cruise in the Mediterranean, ending in Rome. A post-mortem found that Frost had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Frost's son, Miles, died from the same condition at the age of 31 in 2015.
A funeral service was held at Holy Trinity Church in Nuffield, Oxfordshire, on 12 September 2013, after which he was interred in the church's graveyard. On 13 March 2014, a memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey, at which Frost was honoured with a memorial stone in Poets' Corner.
Tributes
British Prime Minister David Cameron paid tribute, saying: "He could be—and certainly was with me—both a friend and a fearsome interviewer." Michael Grade commented: "He was kind of a television renaissance man. He could put his hand to anything. He could turn over Richard Nixon or he could win the comedy prize at the Montreux Golden Rose festival."
Selected awards and honours
1970: Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)
1970: Honorary Doctor of Laws degree of Emerson College
1993: Knight Bachelor
1994: Honorary doctoral degree of the University of Sussex
2000: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
2005: Fellowship of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts BAFTA
2009: Honorary Doctor of Letters degree of the University of Winchester
2009: Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards
Bibliography
Non-fiction
How to Live Under Labour – or at Least Have as Much Chance as Anyone Else (1964)
To England with Love (1968). With Antony Jay.
The Presidential Debate, 1968: David Frost talks with Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey (and others) (1968).
The Americans (1970)
Billy Graham Talks with David Frost (1972)
Whitlam and Frost: The Full Text of Their TV Conversations Plus Exclusive New Interviews (1974)
"I Gave Them a Sword": Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews (1978). Reissued as Frost/Nixon in 2007.
David Frost's Book of Millionaires, Multimillionaires, and Really Rich People (1984)
The World's Shortest Books (1987)
An Autobiography. Part 1: From Congregations to Audiences (1993)
With Michael Deakin and illustrated by Willie Rushton
I Could Have Kicked Myself: David Frost's Book of the World's Worst Decisions (1982)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (1983)
If You'll Believe That (1986)
With Michael Shea
The Mid-Atlantic Companion, or, How to Misunderstand Americans as Much as They Misunderstand Us (1986)
The Rich Tide: Men, Women, Ideas and Their Transatlantic Impact (1986)
References
External links
BBC News Profile of David Frost
TV Cream on David Frost
TV Cream on Paradine Productions
1939 births
2013 deaths
Al Jazeera people
Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
BAFTA fellows
BBC newsreaders and journalists
British broadcast news analysts
British reporters and correspondents
British television producers
English comedians
English game show hosts
English memoirists
English Methodists
English satirists
English social commentators
English political writers
English television personalities
English television talk show hosts
International Emmy Founders Award winners
Knights Bachelor
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
People educated at Gillingham Grammar School, Kent
People educated at St Hugh's School, Woodhall Spa
People from Raunds
People from Tenterden
People from Test Valley
People from Wellingborough
People who died at sea
Primetime Emmy Award winners
20th-century British businesspeople | false | [
"How Did This Get Made? is a comedy podcast on the Earwolf network hosted by Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Jason Mantzoukas.\n\nGenerally, How Did This Get Made? is released every two weeks. During the show's off-week, a \".5\" episode is uploaded featuring Scheer announcing the next week's movie, as well as challenges for the fans. In addition to the shows and mini-shows, the How Did This Get Made? stream hosted the first three episodes of Bitch Sesh, the podcast of previous guests Casey Wilson and Danielle Schneider, in December 2015. It has also hosted episodes of its own spin-off podcast, the How Did This Get Made? Origin Stories, in which Blake Harris interviews people involved with the films covered by the main show. In December 2017, an episode was recorded for the Pee Cast Blast event, and released exclusively on Stitcher Premium.\n\nEvery episode has featured Paul Scheer as the host of the podcast. The only episode to date in which Scheer hosted remotely was The Smurfs, in which he Skyped in. Raphael has taken extended breaks from the podcast for both filming commitments and maternity leave. Mantzoukas has also missed episodes due to work, but has also Skyped in for various episodes. On the occasions that neither Raphael nor Mantzoukas are available for live appearances, Scheer calls in previous fan-favorite guests for what is known as a How Did This Get Made? All-Stars episode.\n\nList of episodes\n\nMini episodes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n List of How Did This Get Made? episodes\n\nHow Did This Get Made\nHow Did This Get Made",
"How Did This Get Made? (HDTGM) is a podcast on the Earwolf network. It is hosted by Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael and Jason Mantzoukas. Each episode, which typically has a different guest, features the deconstruction and mockery of outlandish and bad films.\n\nFormat\nThe hosts and guest make jokes about the films as well as attempt to unscramble plots. After discussing the film, Scheer reads \"second opinions\" in the form of five-star reviews posted online by Amazon.com users. The hosts also often make recommendations on if the film is worth watching. The show is released every two weeks.\n\nDuring the show's off week a \".5\" episode (also known as a \"minisode\") is uploaded. These episodes feature Scheer's \"explanation hopeline\" where he answers questions from fans who call in, the movie for the next week is announced, Scheer reads corrections and omissions from the message board regarding last week's episode, and he opens fan mail and provides his recommendations on books, movies, TV shows etc. that he is enjoying.\n\nSome full episodes are recorded in front of a live audience and include a question and answer session and original \"second opinion\" theme songs sung by fans. Not all content from the live shows is included in the final released episode - about 30 minutes of each live show is edited out.\n\nHistory\nHow Did This Get Made? began after Scheer and Raphael saw the movie Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Later, the pair talked to Mantzoukas about the movie and joked about the idea for starting a bad movie podcast. , Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps has never been covered on the podcast.\n\nAwards\nIn 2019, How Did This Get Made? won a Webby Award in the category of Podcasts – Television & Film.\n\nIn 2020, How Did This Get Made? won an iHeartRadio award in the category of Best TV & Film Podcast.\n\nIn 2022, How Did This Get Made? won an iHeartRadio award in the category of Best TV & Film Podcast.\n\nSpinoffs\n\nHow Did This Get Made?: Origin Stories\nBetween February and September 2017, a 17-episode spin-off series of the podcast was released. Entitled How Did This Get Made?: Origin Stories, author Blake J. Harris would interview people involved with the movies discussed on the podcast. Guests on the show included director Mel Brooks, who served as executive producer on Solarbabies, and screenwriter Dan Gordon, who wrote Surf Ninjas.\n\nUnspooled\nIn May 2018, Scheer began a new podcast with Amy Nicholson titled Unspooled that is also devoted to movies. Unlike HDTGM?, however, Unspooled looks at films deemed good enough for the updated 2007 edition of the AFI Top 100. This is often referenced in How Did This Get Made? by Mantzoukas and Raphael, who are comically annoyed at how they were not invited to host the podcast, instead being subjected to the bad films that HDTGM covers.\n\nHow Did This Get Played?\nIn June 2019, the Earwolf network launched the podcast How Did This Get Played?, hosted by Doughboys host Nick Wiger and former Saturday Night Live writer Heather Anne Campbell. The podcast is positioned as the video game equivalent of HDTGM?, where Wiger and Campbell review widely panned video games.\n\nEpisodes\n\nAdaptation\nThe program was adapted in France in 2014 under the title 2 heures de perdues (http://www.2hdp.fr/ and available on Spotify and iTunes), a podcast in which several friends meet to analyze bad films in the same style (mainly American, French, and British films). The show then ends with a reading of comments found on AlloCiné (biggest French-speaking cinema website) or Amazon.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n How Did This Get Made on Earwolf\n\nAudio podcasts\nEarwolf\nFilm and television podcasts\nComedy and humor podcasts\n2010 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"David Frost",
"That Was the Week That Was (TW3)",
"What was David Frost job?",
"Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was,",
"In what country was That was the week that was been produce?",
"Britain",
"Was it successful?",
"The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962-63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme.",
"Was it published to other country?",
"An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended.",
"How successful did it get?",
"I don't know."
] | C_217351d2fd5a4a9bb19386d270564876_1 | Did he get other shows that was popular? | 6 | Besides "That was the week that was", did David Frost get other shows that was popular? | David Frost | Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was, alias TW3 after Frost's flatmate John Bird suggested Sherrin should see his act at The Blue Angel. The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962-63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme. The involvement of Frost in TW3 led to an intensification of the rivalry with Peter Cook who accused him of stealing material and dubbed Frost "the bubonic plagiarist". The new satirical magazine Private Eye also mocked him at this time. Frost visited the United States during the break between the two series of TW3 in the summer of 1963 and stayed with the producer of the New York production of Beyond The Fringe. Frost was unable to swim, but still jumped into the pool, and nearly drowned until he was saved by Peter Cook. At the memorial service for Cook in 1995, Alan Bennett recalled that rescuing Frost was the one regret Cook frequently expressed. For the first three editions of the second series in 1963, the BBC attempted to limit the team by scheduling repeats of The Third Man television series after the programme, thus preventing overruns. Frost took to reading synopses of the episodes at the end of the programme as a means of sabotage. After the BBC's Director General Hugh Greene instructed that the repeats should be abandoned, TW3 returned to being open-ended. More sombrely, on 23 November 1963, a tribute to the assassinated President John F. Kennedy, an event which had occurred the previous day, formed an entire edition of That Was the Week That Was. An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended. Following a pilot episode on 10 November 1963, the 30-minute US series, also featuring Frost, ran on NBC from 10 January 1964 to May 1965. In 1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC. CANNOTANSWER | 1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC. | Sir David Paradine Frost (7 April 1939 – 31 August 2013) was a British television host, journalist, comedian and writer.
He rose to prominence during the satire boom in the United Kingdom when he was chosen to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was in 1962. His success on this show led to work as a host on American television. He became known for his television interviews with senior political figures, among them the Nixon interviews with President Richard Nixon in 1977 which were adapted into a stage play and film. Frost interviewed all eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2016 and all seven American presidents in office between 1969 and 2008.
He was one of the people behind the launch of ITV station TV-am in 1983. He was the inaugural host of the US newsmagazine programme Inside Edition. He hosted the Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost for the BBC from 1993 to 2005, and spent two decades as host of Through the Keyhole. From 2006 to 2012, he hosted the weekly programme Frost Over the World on Al Jazeera English, and the weekly programme The Frost Interview from 2012. He received the BAFTA Fellowship from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2005 and the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards in 2009.
Frost died on 31 August 2013, aged 74, on board the cruise ship , where he had been engaged as a speaker. His memorial stone was unveiled in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey in March 2014.
Early life
David Paradine Frost was born in Tenterden, Kent, on 7 April 1939, the son of a Methodist minister of Huguenot descent, the Rev. Wilfred John "W. J." Paradine Frost, and his wife, Mona (Aldrich); he had two elder sisters. While living in Gillingham, Kent, he was taught in the Bible class of the Sunday school at his father's church (Byron Road Methodist) by David Gilmore Harvey, and subsequently started training as a Methodist local preacher, which he did not complete.
Frost attended Barnsole Road Primary School in Gillingham, St Hugh's School, Woodhall Spa, Gillingham Grammar School and finally – while residing in Raunds, Northamptonshire – Wellingborough Grammar School. Throughout his school years he was an avid football and cricket player, and was offered a contract with Nottingham Forest F.C. For two years before going to university he was a lay preacher, following his witnessing of an event presided over by Christian evangelist Billy Graham.
Frost studied at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, from 1958, graduating with a Third in English. He was editor of both the university's student paper, Varsity, and the literary magazine Granta. He was also secretary of the Footlights Drama Society, which included actors such as Peter Cook and John Bird. During this period Frost appeared on television for the first time in an edition of Anglia Television's Town And Gown, performing several comic characters. "The first time I stepped into a television studio", he once remembered, "it felt like home. It didn't scare me. Talking to the camera seemed the most natural thing in the world."
According to some accounts, Frost was the victim of snobbery from the group with which he associated at Cambridge, which has been confirmed by Barry Humphries. Christopher Booker, while asserting that Frost's one defining characteristic was ambition, commented that he was impossible to dislike. According to satirist John Wells, Old Etonian actor Jonathan Cecil congratulated Frost around this time for "that wonderfully silly voice" he used while performing, but then discovered that it was Frost's real voice.
After leaving university, Frost became a trainee at Associated-Rediffusion. Meanwhile, having already gained an agent, Frost performed in cabaret at the Blue Angel nightclub in Berkeley Square, London during the evenings.
That Was the Week That Was
Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was, or TW3, after Frost's flatmate John Bird suggested Sherrin should see his act at The Blue Angel. The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962–63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme.
The involvement of Frost in TW3 led to an intensification of the rivalry with Peter Cook who accused him of stealing material and dubbed Frost "the bubonic plagiarist". The new satirical magazine Private Eye also mocked him at this time. Frost visited the U.S. during the break between the two series of TW3 in the summer of 1963 and stayed with the producer of the New York City production of Beyond The Fringe. Frost was unable to swim, but still jumped into the pool, and nearly drowned until he was saved by Peter Cook. At the memorial service for Cook in 1995, Alan Bennett recalled that rescuing Frost was the one regret Cook frequently expressed.
For the first three editions of the second series in 1963, the BBC attempted to limit the team by scheduling repeats of The Third Man television series after the programme, thus preventing overruns. Frost took to reading synopses of the episodes at the end of the programme as a means of sabotage. After the BBC's Director General Hugh Greene instructed that the repeats should be abandoned, TW3 returned to being open-ended. More sombrely, on 23 November 1963, a tribute to the assassinated President John F. Kennedy, an event which had occurred the previous day, formed an entire edition of That Was the Week That Was.
An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended. Following a pilot episode on 10 November 1963, the 30-minute US series, also featuring Frost, ran on NBC from 10 January 1964 to May 1965. In 1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC.
After TW3
Frost fronted various programmes following the success of TW3, including its immediate successor, Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life, which he co-chaired with Willie Rushton and poet P. J. Kavanagh. Screened on three evenings each week, this series was dropped after a sketch was found to be offensive to Catholics and another to the British royal family. More successful was The Frost Report, broadcast between 1966 and 1967. The show launched the television careers of John Cleese, Ronnie Barker, and Ronnie Corbett, who appeared together in the Class sketch.
Frost signed for Rediffusion, the ITV weekday contractor in London, to produce a "heavier" interview-based show called The Frost Programme. Guests included Oswald Mosley and Rhodesian premier Ian Smith. His memorable dressing-down of insurance fraudster Emil Savundra, regarded as the first example of "trial by television" in the UK, led to concern from ITV executives that it might affect Savundra's right to a fair trial. Frost's introductory words for his television programmes during this period, "Hello, good evening and welcome", became his catchphrase and were often mimicked.
Frost was a member of a successful consortium, including former executives from the BBC, that bid for an ITV franchise in 1967. This became London Weekend Television, which began broadcasting in July 1968. The station began with a programming policy that was considered "highbrow" and suffered launch problems with low audience ratings and financial problems. A September 1968 meeting of the Network Programme Committee, which made decisions about the channel's scheduling, was particularly fraught, with Lew Grade expressing hatred of Frost in his presence. Frost, according to Kitty Muggeridge in 1967, had "risen without a trace."
He was involved in the station's early years as a presenter. On 20 and 21 July 1969, during the British television Apollo 11 coverage, he presented David Frost's Moon Party for LWT, a ten-hour discussion and entertainment marathon from LWT's Wembley Studios, on the night Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Two of his guests on this programme were British historian A. J. P. Taylor and entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr. Around this time Frost interviewed Rupert Murdoch whose recently acquired Sunday newspaper, the News of the World, had just serialised the memoirs of Christine Keeler, a central figure in the Profumo scandal of 1963. For the Australian publisher, this was a bruising encounter, although Frost said that he had not intended it to be. Murdoch confessed to his biographer Michael Wolff that the incident had convinced him that Frost was "an arrogant bastard, [and] a bloody bugger".
In the late 1960s Frost began an intermittent involvement in the film industry. Setting up David Paradine Ltd in 1966, he part-financed The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970), in which the lead character was based partly on Frost, and gained an executive producer credit. In 1976, Frost was the executive producer of the British musical film The Slipper and the Rose, retelling the story of Cinderella.
Frost was the subject of This Is Your Life in January 1972 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at London's Quaglino's restaurant.
American career from 1968 to 1980
In 1968, he signed a contract worth £125,000 to appear on American television in his own show on three evenings each week, the largest such arrangement for a British television personality at the time. From 1969 to 1972, Frost kept his London shows and fronted The David Frost Show on the Group W (U.S. Westinghouse Corporation) television stations in the U.S. His 1970 TV special, Frost on America, featured guests such as Jack Benny and Tennessee Williams.
In a declassified transcript of a 1972 telephone call between Frost and Henry Kissinger, President Nixon's national security advisor and secretary of state, Frost urged Kissinger to call chess Grandmaster Bobby Fischer and urge him to compete in that year's World Chess Championship. During this call, Frost revealed that he was working on a novel.
Frost interviewed heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali in 1974 at his training camp in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania before "The Rumble in the Jungle" with George Foreman. Ali remarked, "Listen David, when I meet this man, if you think the world was surprised when Nixon resigned, wait till I whip Foreman's behind."
In 1977, the Nixon Interviews, which were five 90-minute interviews with former U.S. President Richard Nixon, were broadcast. Nixon was paid $600,000 plus a share of the profits for the interviews, which had to be funded by Frost himself after the U.S. television networks turned down the programme, describing it as "checkbook journalism". Frost's company negotiated its own deals to syndicate the interviews with local stations across the U.S. and internationally, creating what Ron Howard described as "the first fourth network". Frost taped around 29 hours of interviews with Nixon over four weeks. Nixon, who had previously avoided discussing his role in the Watergate scandal that had led to his resignation as president in 1974, expressed contrition saying, "I let the American people down and I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life". Frost asked Nixon whether the president could do something illegal in certain situations such as against antiwar groups and others if he decides "it's in the best interests of the nation or something". Nixon replied: "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal", by definition.
Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Frost was the last person to interview Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the deposed Shah of Iran. The interview took place on Contadora Island in Panama in January 1980, and was broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company in the U.S. on 17 January. The Shah talks about his wealth, his illness, the SAVAK, the torture during his reign, Khomeini, his threat of extradition to Iran and draws a summary of the current situation in Iran.
Frost was an organiser of the Music for UNICEF Concert at the United Nations General Assembly in 1979. Ten years later, he was hired as the anchor of new American tabloid news program Inside Edition. He was dismissed after only three weeks because of poor ratings. It seems he was "considered too high-brow for the show's low-brow format."
After 1980
Frost was one of the "Famous Five" who launched TV-am in February 1983; however, like LWT in the late 1960s, the station began with an unsustainable "highbrow" approach. Frost remained a presenter after restructuring. Frost on Sunday began in September 1983 and continued until the station lost its franchise at the end of 1992. Frost had been part of an unsuccessful consortium, CPV-TV, with Richard Branson and other interests, which had attempted to acquire three ITV contractor franchises prior to the changes made by the Independent Television Commission in 1991. After transferring from ITV, his Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost ran on the BBC from January 1993 until 29 May 2005. For a time it ran on BSB before moving to BBC 1.
Frost hosted Through the Keyhole, which ran on several UK channels from 1987 until 2008 and also featured Loyd Grossman. Produced by his own production company, the programme was first shown in prime time and on daytime television in its later years.
Frost worked for Al Jazeera English, presenting a live weekly hour-long current affairs programme, Frost Over The World, which started when the network launched in November 2006. The programme regularly made headlines with interviewees such as Tony Blair, President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan and President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. The programme was produced by the former Question Time editor and Independent on Sunday journalist Charlie Courtauld. Frost was one of the first to interview the man who authored the Fatwa on Terrorism, Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri.
During his career as a broadcaster, Frost became one of Concorde's most frequent fliers, having flown between London and New York an average of 20 times per year for 20 years.
In 2007, Frost hosted a discussion with Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi as part of the Monitor Group's involvement in the country. In June 2010, Frost presented Frost on Satire, an hour-long BBC Four documentary looking at the history of television satire.
Achievements
Frost was the only person to have interviewed all eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2016 (Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and David Cameron) and all seven U.S. presidents in office between 1969 and 2008 (Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush).
He was a patron and former vice-president of the Motor Neurone Disease Association charity, as well as being a patron of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, Hearing Star Benevolent Fund, East Anglia's Children's Hospices, the Home Farm Trust and the Elton John AIDS Foundation. He was also recognized for his contributions to the women's charity "Wellbeing for Women".
After having been in television for 40 years, Frost was estimated to be worth £200 million by the Sunday Times Rich List in 2006, a figure he considered a significant overestimate in 2011. The valuation included the assets of his main British company and subsidiaries, plus homes in London and the country.
Frost/Nixon
Frost/Nixon was originally a play written by Peter Morgan, developed from the interviews that Frost had conducted with Richard Nixon in 1977. Frost/Nixon was presented as a stage production in London in 2006 and on Broadway in 2007. Frank Langella won a Leading Actor Tony Award for his portrayal of Nixon; the play also received nominations for Best Play and Best Direction.
The play was adapted into a Hollywood motion picture entitled Frost/Nixon and starring Michael Sheen as Frost and Langella as Nixon, both reprising their stage roles. The film was released in 2008 and directed by Ron Howard. It was nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, winning none: Best Motion Picture-Drama, Best Director-Drama, Best Actor-Drama (Langella), Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score. It was also nominated for five Academy Awards, again winning none: Best Picture, Best Actor (Langella), Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing.
In February 2009, Frost was featured on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's international affairs programme Foreign Correspondent in a report titled "The World According To Frost", reflecting on his long career and portrayal in the film Frost/Nixon.
Personal life
Frost was known for several relationships with high-profile women. In the mid-1960s, he dated British actress Janette Scott, between her marriages to songwriter Jackie Rae and singer Mel Tormé; in the early 1970s he was engaged to American actress Diahann Carroll; between 1972 and 1977 he had a relationship with British socialite Caroline Cushing; in 1981, he married Lynne Frederick, widow of Peter Sellers, but they divorced the following year. He also had an 18-year intermittent affair with American actress Carol Lynley.
On 19 March 1983, Frost married Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard, daughter of the 17th Duke of Norfolk. Three sons were born to the couple over the next five years. His second son, Wilfred Frost, followed in his father's footsteps and currently works as an anchor at CNBC. They lived for many years in Chelsea, London, and kept a weekend home at Michelmersh Court in Hampshire.
Death
On 31 August 2013, Frost was aboard the Cunard cruise ship when he died of a heart attack at the age of 74. Cunard said that the vessel had left Southampton for a ten-day cruise in the Mediterranean, ending in Rome. A post-mortem found that Frost had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Frost's son, Miles, died from the same condition at the age of 31 in 2015.
A funeral service was held at Holy Trinity Church in Nuffield, Oxfordshire, on 12 September 2013, after which he was interred in the church's graveyard. On 13 March 2014, a memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey, at which Frost was honoured with a memorial stone in Poets' Corner.
Tributes
British Prime Minister David Cameron paid tribute, saying: "He could be—and certainly was with me—both a friend and a fearsome interviewer." Michael Grade commented: "He was kind of a television renaissance man. He could put his hand to anything. He could turn over Richard Nixon or he could win the comedy prize at the Montreux Golden Rose festival."
Selected awards and honours
1970: Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)
1970: Honorary Doctor of Laws degree of Emerson College
1993: Knight Bachelor
1994: Honorary doctoral degree of the University of Sussex
2000: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
2005: Fellowship of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts BAFTA
2009: Honorary Doctor of Letters degree of the University of Winchester
2009: Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards
Bibliography
Non-fiction
How to Live Under Labour – or at Least Have as Much Chance as Anyone Else (1964)
To England with Love (1968). With Antony Jay.
The Presidential Debate, 1968: David Frost talks with Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey (and others) (1968).
The Americans (1970)
Billy Graham Talks with David Frost (1972)
Whitlam and Frost: The Full Text of Their TV Conversations Plus Exclusive New Interviews (1974)
"I Gave Them a Sword": Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews (1978). Reissued as Frost/Nixon in 2007.
David Frost's Book of Millionaires, Multimillionaires, and Really Rich People (1984)
The World's Shortest Books (1987)
An Autobiography. Part 1: From Congregations to Audiences (1993)
With Michael Deakin and illustrated by Willie Rushton
I Could Have Kicked Myself: David Frost's Book of the World's Worst Decisions (1982)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (1983)
If You'll Believe That (1986)
With Michael Shea
The Mid-Atlantic Companion, or, How to Misunderstand Americans as Much as They Misunderstand Us (1986)
The Rich Tide: Men, Women, Ideas and Their Transatlantic Impact (1986)
References
External links
BBC News Profile of David Frost
TV Cream on David Frost
TV Cream on Paradine Productions
1939 births
2013 deaths
Al Jazeera people
Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
BAFTA fellows
BBC newsreaders and journalists
British broadcast news analysts
British reporters and correspondents
British television producers
English comedians
English game show hosts
English memoirists
English Methodists
English satirists
English social commentators
English political writers
English television personalities
English television talk show hosts
International Emmy Founders Award winners
Knights Bachelor
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
People educated at Gillingham Grammar School, Kent
People educated at St Hugh's School, Woodhall Spa
People from Raunds
People from Tenterden
People from Test Valley
People from Wellingborough
People who died at sea
Primetime Emmy Award winners
20th-century British businesspeople | true | [
"Celebrity Coach Trip 1 was the first series of Celebrity Coach Trip which was filmed from 6 to 20 September 2010 and began airing on 8 November 2010. The series featured a variety of celebrity couples on a 10-day tour, the couples get to vote off the other couples that they do not get along with. On the last day of the coach trip the remaining couples vote for the couple that they want to win the £1000 prize for charity. The first day of the coach trip started in Prague and the last day of the trip ended in Venice. Tour guide Brendan Sheerin, narrator Dave Vitty, coach driver Paul Donald and the MT09 MTT registration all returned for this series, which aired on Channel 4.\n\nVoting System\nThe Voting system on this series was:\n Days 1 to 4 was a yellow card\n Days 5 to 9 an automatic red card\n\nContestants\n Indicates the couple were aboard the coach\n Indicates the couple were immune from votes\n Indicates that the couple were voted as the most popular couple and won series \n Indicates that the couple were voted as the second most popular couple \n Indicates that the couple were voted as the third most popular couple\n Indicates the couple got a yellow card\n Indicates the couple got a red card\n\nVoting history\n\n Indicates that the couple received the most votes and received a yellow card\n Indicates that the couple received the most votes and were red carded off the trip\n Indicates that it was the couple's first vote meaning they could not be voted for\n Indicates that the couple were voted as the most popular couple and won series\n Indicates that the couple were voted as the second most popular couple\n Indicates that the couple were voted as the third most popular couple\n\nThe trip by day\n\nReferences\n\n2010 British television seasons\nCoach Trip series\nTelevision shows set in Austria\nTelevision shows set in the Czech Republic\nTelevision shows set in Germany\nTelevision shows set in Italy",
"Coach Trip 4 was the fourth series of Coach Trip in the United Kingdom which that was filmed between 7 September and 27 October 2009, and began airing on Monday 15 February 2010. The length of this series was longer than the previous or future instalments, increased from 30 to 50 days for a tour centred on European, Mediterranean, North African and West Asian countries on a coach like series 1, 2 and 3 attempting to vote off the least popular couples. Tour guide Brendan Sheerin, coach driver Paul Donald and narrator David Quantick all returned for this series, which aired on Channel 4. MT09 MTT was the registration number plate.\n\nContestants\n\nVoting history\n\n Indicates that the couple received the most votes and received a yellow card\n Indicates that the couple were red carded off the trip\n Indicates that the couple were removed from the coach\n Indicates that the couple left the coach due to other reasons than being voted off or being removed from the coach\n Indicates that it was the couple's first vote meaning they could not be voted for\n Indicates that the couple did not take part in the vote, meaning they could neither vote nor be voted for\n Indicates that the couple received a special treat due to being voted as the most popular couple\n Indicates that the couple were voted as the most popular couple and won series\n Indicates that the couple were voted as the second most popular couple\n Indicates that the couple were voted as the third most popular couple\n Indicates that the couple were voted as the fourth most popular couple\n\nNotes\n\nNo timekeepers in series\n\nThe Trip Day-by-Day\n\nReferences\n\n2010 British television seasons\nCoach Trip series\nPortsmouth\nTelevision shows set in Austria\nTelevision shows set in Bulgaria\nTelevision shows set in Croatia\nTelevision shows set in France\nTelevision shows set in Greece\nTelevision shows set in Hampshire\nTelevision shows set in Italy\nTelevision shows set in Serbia\nTelevision shows set in Slovenia\nTelevision shows set in Switzerland\nTelevision shows set in Tunisia\nTelevision shows set in Turkey"
] |
[
"David Frost",
"That Was the Week That Was (TW3)",
"What was David Frost job?",
"Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was,",
"In what country was That was the week that was been produce?",
"Britain",
"Was it successful?",
"The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962-63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme.",
"Was it published to other country?",
"An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended.",
"How successful did it get?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he get other shows that was popular?",
"1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC."
] | C_217351d2fd5a4a9bb19386d270564876_1 | Did he get a partner on his job? | 7 | Did David Frost get a partner on his job? | David Frost | Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was, alias TW3 after Frost's flatmate John Bird suggested Sherrin should see his act at The Blue Angel. The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962-63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme. The involvement of Frost in TW3 led to an intensification of the rivalry with Peter Cook who accused him of stealing material and dubbed Frost "the bubonic plagiarist". The new satirical magazine Private Eye also mocked him at this time. Frost visited the United States during the break between the two series of TW3 in the summer of 1963 and stayed with the producer of the New York production of Beyond The Fringe. Frost was unable to swim, but still jumped into the pool, and nearly drowned until he was saved by Peter Cook. At the memorial service for Cook in 1995, Alan Bennett recalled that rescuing Frost was the one regret Cook frequently expressed. For the first three editions of the second series in 1963, the BBC attempted to limit the team by scheduling repeats of The Third Man television series after the programme, thus preventing overruns. Frost took to reading synopses of the episodes at the end of the programme as a means of sabotage. After the BBC's Director General Hugh Greene instructed that the repeats should be abandoned, TW3 returned to being open-ended. More sombrely, on 23 November 1963, a tribute to the assassinated President John F. Kennedy, an event which had occurred the previous day, formed an entire edition of That Was the Week That Was. An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended. Following a pilot episode on 10 November 1963, the 30-minute US series, also featuring Frost, ran on NBC from 10 January 1964 to May 1965. In 1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Sir David Paradine Frost (7 April 1939 – 31 August 2013) was a British television host, journalist, comedian and writer.
He rose to prominence during the satire boom in the United Kingdom when he was chosen to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was in 1962. His success on this show led to work as a host on American television. He became known for his television interviews with senior political figures, among them the Nixon interviews with President Richard Nixon in 1977 which were adapted into a stage play and film. Frost interviewed all eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2016 and all seven American presidents in office between 1969 and 2008.
He was one of the people behind the launch of ITV station TV-am in 1983. He was the inaugural host of the US newsmagazine programme Inside Edition. He hosted the Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost for the BBC from 1993 to 2005, and spent two decades as host of Through the Keyhole. From 2006 to 2012, he hosted the weekly programme Frost Over the World on Al Jazeera English, and the weekly programme The Frost Interview from 2012. He received the BAFTA Fellowship from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2005 and the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards in 2009.
Frost died on 31 August 2013, aged 74, on board the cruise ship , where he had been engaged as a speaker. His memorial stone was unveiled in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey in March 2014.
Early life
David Paradine Frost was born in Tenterden, Kent, on 7 April 1939, the son of a Methodist minister of Huguenot descent, the Rev. Wilfred John "W. J." Paradine Frost, and his wife, Mona (Aldrich); he had two elder sisters. While living in Gillingham, Kent, he was taught in the Bible class of the Sunday school at his father's church (Byron Road Methodist) by David Gilmore Harvey, and subsequently started training as a Methodist local preacher, which he did not complete.
Frost attended Barnsole Road Primary School in Gillingham, St Hugh's School, Woodhall Spa, Gillingham Grammar School and finally – while residing in Raunds, Northamptonshire – Wellingborough Grammar School. Throughout his school years he was an avid football and cricket player, and was offered a contract with Nottingham Forest F.C. For two years before going to university he was a lay preacher, following his witnessing of an event presided over by Christian evangelist Billy Graham.
Frost studied at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, from 1958, graduating with a Third in English. He was editor of both the university's student paper, Varsity, and the literary magazine Granta. He was also secretary of the Footlights Drama Society, which included actors such as Peter Cook and John Bird. During this period Frost appeared on television for the first time in an edition of Anglia Television's Town And Gown, performing several comic characters. "The first time I stepped into a television studio", he once remembered, "it felt like home. It didn't scare me. Talking to the camera seemed the most natural thing in the world."
According to some accounts, Frost was the victim of snobbery from the group with which he associated at Cambridge, which has been confirmed by Barry Humphries. Christopher Booker, while asserting that Frost's one defining characteristic was ambition, commented that he was impossible to dislike. According to satirist John Wells, Old Etonian actor Jonathan Cecil congratulated Frost around this time for "that wonderfully silly voice" he used while performing, but then discovered that it was Frost's real voice.
After leaving university, Frost became a trainee at Associated-Rediffusion. Meanwhile, having already gained an agent, Frost performed in cabaret at the Blue Angel nightclub in Berkeley Square, London during the evenings.
That Was the Week That Was
Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was, or TW3, after Frost's flatmate John Bird suggested Sherrin should see his act at The Blue Angel. The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962–63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme.
The involvement of Frost in TW3 led to an intensification of the rivalry with Peter Cook who accused him of stealing material and dubbed Frost "the bubonic plagiarist". The new satirical magazine Private Eye also mocked him at this time. Frost visited the U.S. during the break between the two series of TW3 in the summer of 1963 and stayed with the producer of the New York City production of Beyond The Fringe. Frost was unable to swim, but still jumped into the pool, and nearly drowned until he was saved by Peter Cook. At the memorial service for Cook in 1995, Alan Bennett recalled that rescuing Frost was the one regret Cook frequently expressed.
For the first three editions of the second series in 1963, the BBC attempted to limit the team by scheduling repeats of The Third Man television series after the programme, thus preventing overruns. Frost took to reading synopses of the episodes at the end of the programme as a means of sabotage. After the BBC's Director General Hugh Greene instructed that the repeats should be abandoned, TW3 returned to being open-ended. More sombrely, on 23 November 1963, a tribute to the assassinated President John F. Kennedy, an event which had occurred the previous day, formed an entire edition of That Was the Week That Was.
An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended. Following a pilot episode on 10 November 1963, the 30-minute US series, also featuring Frost, ran on NBC from 10 January 1964 to May 1965. In 1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC.
After TW3
Frost fronted various programmes following the success of TW3, including its immediate successor, Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life, which he co-chaired with Willie Rushton and poet P. J. Kavanagh. Screened on three evenings each week, this series was dropped after a sketch was found to be offensive to Catholics and another to the British royal family. More successful was The Frost Report, broadcast between 1966 and 1967. The show launched the television careers of John Cleese, Ronnie Barker, and Ronnie Corbett, who appeared together in the Class sketch.
Frost signed for Rediffusion, the ITV weekday contractor in London, to produce a "heavier" interview-based show called The Frost Programme. Guests included Oswald Mosley and Rhodesian premier Ian Smith. His memorable dressing-down of insurance fraudster Emil Savundra, regarded as the first example of "trial by television" in the UK, led to concern from ITV executives that it might affect Savundra's right to a fair trial. Frost's introductory words for his television programmes during this period, "Hello, good evening and welcome", became his catchphrase and were often mimicked.
Frost was a member of a successful consortium, including former executives from the BBC, that bid for an ITV franchise in 1967. This became London Weekend Television, which began broadcasting in July 1968. The station began with a programming policy that was considered "highbrow" and suffered launch problems with low audience ratings and financial problems. A September 1968 meeting of the Network Programme Committee, which made decisions about the channel's scheduling, was particularly fraught, with Lew Grade expressing hatred of Frost in his presence. Frost, according to Kitty Muggeridge in 1967, had "risen without a trace."
He was involved in the station's early years as a presenter. On 20 and 21 July 1969, during the British television Apollo 11 coverage, he presented David Frost's Moon Party for LWT, a ten-hour discussion and entertainment marathon from LWT's Wembley Studios, on the night Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Two of his guests on this programme were British historian A. J. P. Taylor and entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr. Around this time Frost interviewed Rupert Murdoch whose recently acquired Sunday newspaper, the News of the World, had just serialised the memoirs of Christine Keeler, a central figure in the Profumo scandal of 1963. For the Australian publisher, this was a bruising encounter, although Frost said that he had not intended it to be. Murdoch confessed to his biographer Michael Wolff that the incident had convinced him that Frost was "an arrogant bastard, [and] a bloody bugger".
In the late 1960s Frost began an intermittent involvement in the film industry. Setting up David Paradine Ltd in 1966, he part-financed The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970), in which the lead character was based partly on Frost, and gained an executive producer credit. In 1976, Frost was the executive producer of the British musical film The Slipper and the Rose, retelling the story of Cinderella.
Frost was the subject of This Is Your Life in January 1972 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at London's Quaglino's restaurant.
American career from 1968 to 1980
In 1968, he signed a contract worth £125,000 to appear on American television in his own show on three evenings each week, the largest such arrangement for a British television personality at the time. From 1969 to 1972, Frost kept his London shows and fronted The David Frost Show on the Group W (U.S. Westinghouse Corporation) television stations in the U.S. His 1970 TV special, Frost on America, featured guests such as Jack Benny and Tennessee Williams.
In a declassified transcript of a 1972 telephone call between Frost and Henry Kissinger, President Nixon's national security advisor and secretary of state, Frost urged Kissinger to call chess Grandmaster Bobby Fischer and urge him to compete in that year's World Chess Championship. During this call, Frost revealed that he was working on a novel.
Frost interviewed heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali in 1974 at his training camp in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania before "The Rumble in the Jungle" with George Foreman. Ali remarked, "Listen David, when I meet this man, if you think the world was surprised when Nixon resigned, wait till I whip Foreman's behind."
In 1977, the Nixon Interviews, which were five 90-minute interviews with former U.S. President Richard Nixon, were broadcast. Nixon was paid $600,000 plus a share of the profits for the interviews, which had to be funded by Frost himself after the U.S. television networks turned down the programme, describing it as "checkbook journalism". Frost's company negotiated its own deals to syndicate the interviews with local stations across the U.S. and internationally, creating what Ron Howard described as "the first fourth network". Frost taped around 29 hours of interviews with Nixon over four weeks. Nixon, who had previously avoided discussing his role in the Watergate scandal that had led to his resignation as president in 1974, expressed contrition saying, "I let the American people down and I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life". Frost asked Nixon whether the president could do something illegal in certain situations such as against antiwar groups and others if he decides "it's in the best interests of the nation or something". Nixon replied: "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal", by definition.
Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Frost was the last person to interview Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the deposed Shah of Iran. The interview took place on Contadora Island in Panama in January 1980, and was broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company in the U.S. on 17 January. The Shah talks about his wealth, his illness, the SAVAK, the torture during his reign, Khomeini, his threat of extradition to Iran and draws a summary of the current situation in Iran.
Frost was an organiser of the Music for UNICEF Concert at the United Nations General Assembly in 1979. Ten years later, he was hired as the anchor of new American tabloid news program Inside Edition. He was dismissed after only three weeks because of poor ratings. It seems he was "considered too high-brow for the show's low-brow format."
After 1980
Frost was one of the "Famous Five" who launched TV-am in February 1983; however, like LWT in the late 1960s, the station began with an unsustainable "highbrow" approach. Frost remained a presenter after restructuring. Frost on Sunday began in September 1983 and continued until the station lost its franchise at the end of 1992. Frost had been part of an unsuccessful consortium, CPV-TV, with Richard Branson and other interests, which had attempted to acquire three ITV contractor franchises prior to the changes made by the Independent Television Commission in 1991. After transferring from ITV, his Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost ran on the BBC from January 1993 until 29 May 2005. For a time it ran on BSB before moving to BBC 1.
Frost hosted Through the Keyhole, which ran on several UK channels from 1987 until 2008 and also featured Loyd Grossman. Produced by his own production company, the programme was first shown in prime time and on daytime television in its later years.
Frost worked for Al Jazeera English, presenting a live weekly hour-long current affairs programme, Frost Over The World, which started when the network launched in November 2006. The programme regularly made headlines with interviewees such as Tony Blair, President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan and President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. The programme was produced by the former Question Time editor and Independent on Sunday journalist Charlie Courtauld. Frost was one of the first to interview the man who authored the Fatwa on Terrorism, Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri.
During his career as a broadcaster, Frost became one of Concorde's most frequent fliers, having flown between London and New York an average of 20 times per year for 20 years.
In 2007, Frost hosted a discussion with Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi as part of the Monitor Group's involvement in the country. In June 2010, Frost presented Frost on Satire, an hour-long BBC Four documentary looking at the history of television satire.
Achievements
Frost was the only person to have interviewed all eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2016 (Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and David Cameron) and all seven U.S. presidents in office between 1969 and 2008 (Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush).
He was a patron and former vice-president of the Motor Neurone Disease Association charity, as well as being a patron of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, Hearing Star Benevolent Fund, East Anglia's Children's Hospices, the Home Farm Trust and the Elton John AIDS Foundation. He was also recognized for his contributions to the women's charity "Wellbeing for Women".
After having been in television for 40 years, Frost was estimated to be worth £200 million by the Sunday Times Rich List in 2006, a figure he considered a significant overestimate in 2011. The valuation included the assets of his main British company and subsidiaries, plus homes in London and the country.
Frost/Nixon
Frost/Nixon was originally a play written by Peter Morgan, developed from the interviews that Frost had conducted with Richard Nixon in 1977. Frost/Nixon was presented as a stage production in London in 2006 and on Broadway in 2007. Frank Langella won a Leading Actor Tony Award for his portrayal of Nixon; the play also received nominations for Best Play and Best Direction.
The play was adapted into a Hollywood motion picture entitled Frost/Nixon and starring Michael Sheen as Frost and Langella as Nixon, both reprising their stage roles. The film was released in 2008 and directed by Ron Howard. It was nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, winning none: Best Motion Picture-Drama, Best Director-Drama, Best Actor-Drama (Langella), Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score. It was also nominated for five Academy Awards, again winning none: Best Picture, Best Actor (Langella), Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing.
In February 2009, Frost was featured on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's international affairs programme Foreign Correspondent in a report titled "The World According To Frost", reflecting on his long career and portrayal in the film Frost/Nixon.
Personal life
Frost was known for several relationships with high-profile women. In the mid-1960s, he dated British actress Janette Scott, between her marriages to songwriter Jackie Rae and singer Mel Tormé; in the early 1970s he was engaged to American actress Diahann Carroll; between 1972 and 1977 he had a relationship with British socialite Caroline Cushing; in 1981, he married Lynne Frederick, widow of Peter Sellers, but they divorced the following year. He also had an 18-year intermittent affair with American actress Carol Lynley.
On 19 March 1983, Frost married Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard, daughter of the 17th Duke of Norfolk. Three sons were born to the couple over the next five years. His second son, Wilfred Frost, followed in his father's footsteps and currently works as an anchor at CNBC. They lived for many years in Chelsea, London, and kept a weekend home at Michelmersh Court in Hampshire.
Death
On 31 August 2013, Frost was aboard the Cunard cruise ship when he died of a heart attack at the age of 74. Cunard said that the vessel had left Southampton for a ten-day cruise in the Mediterranean, ending in Rome. A post-mortem found that Frost had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Frost's son, Miles, died from the same condition at the age of 31 in 2015.
A funeral service was held at Holy Trinity Church in Nuffield, Oxfordshire, on 12 September 2013, after which he was interred in the church's graveyard. On 13 March 2014, a memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey, at which Frost was honoured with a memorial stone in Poets' Corner.
Tributes
British Prime Minister David Cameron paid tribute, saying: "He could be—and certainly was with me—both a friend and a fearsome interviewer." Michael Grade commented: "He was kind of a television renaissance man. He could put his hand to anything. He could turn over Richard Nixon or he could win the comedy prize at the Montreux Golden Rose festival."
Selected awards and honours
1970: Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)
1970: Honorary Doctor of Laws degree of Emerson College
1993: Knight Bachelor
1994: Honorary doctoral degree of the University of Sussex
2000: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
2005: Fellowship of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts BAFTA
2009: Honorary Doctor of Letters degree of the University of Winchester
2009: Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards
Bibliography
Non-fiction
How to Live Under Labour – or at Least Have as Much Chance as Anyone Else (1964)
To England with Love (1968). With Antony Jay.
The Presidential Debate, 1968: David Frost talks with Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey (and others) (1968).
The Americans (1970)
Billy Graham Talks with David Frost (1972)
Whitlam and Frost: The Full Text of Their TV Conversations Plus Exclusive New Interviews (1974)
"I Gave Them a Sword": Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews (1978). Reissued as Frost/Nixon in 2007.
David Frost's Book of Millionaires, Multimillionaires, and Really Rich People (1984)
The World's Shortest Books (1987)
An Autobiography. Part 1: From Congregations to Audiences (1993)
With Michael Deakin and illustrated by Willie Rushton
I Could Have Kicked Myself: David Frost's Book of the World's Worst Decisions (1982)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (1983)
If You'll Believe That (1986)
With Michael Shea
The Mid-Atlantic Companion, or, How to Misunderstand Americans as Much as They Misunderstand Us (1986)
The Rich Tide: Men, Women, Ideas and Their Transatlantic Impact (1986)
References
External links
BBC News Profile of David Frost
TV Cream on David Frost
TV Cream on Paradine Productions
1939 births
2013 deaths
Al Jazeera people
Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
BAFTA fellows
BBC newsreaders and journalists
British broadcast news analysts
British reporters and correspondents
British television producers
English comedians
English game show hosts
English memoirists
English Methodists
English satirists
English social commentators
English political writers
English television personalities
English television talk show hosts
International Emmy Founders Award winners
Knights Bachelor
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
People educated at Gillingham Grammar School, Kent
People educated at St Hugh's School, Woodhall Spa
People from Raunds
People from Tenterden
People from Test Valley
People from Wellingborough
People who died at sea
Primetime Emmy Award winners
20th-century British businesspeople | false | [
"M.G. Siegler (born November 2, 1981) is a general partner at Google Ventures, where he primarily focuses on seed and early-stage investments.\n\nEarly life and education\n\nHe is originally from Ohio, and obtained his B.S. from the University of Michigan in 2004.\n\nCareer\n\nAfter graduation, he moved out to Los Angeles to get a job in Hollywood, and took on tasks such as a set PA and a script reader. He then moved to San Diego, where he did front-end web development. During his stint as a web developer, he started taking blogging more seriously, which helped him get noticed by VentureBeat. He became a blogger for VentureBeat from 2007 to 2009, and a blogger for TechCrunch from 2009 to 2014. As a blogger, much of his blogging focused on Apple, and he was \"known best for his unabashed pro-Apple bias\". He became a partner at CrunchFund in 2011, where he helped build a portfolio including Airbnb, Betable, Crowdtilt, Ifttt, Karma, Mailbox, Path, Square, Uber, Vine, and Yammer. He left CrunchFund for Google Ventures in May 2013.\n\nHe serves on the board for Slack. He has invested in companies like Medium and Secret. He regularly maintains a blog on Medium called \"500ish Words\", and was interviewed in the documentary The Startup Kids.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nTechCrunch blog entries\n\n1981 births\nAmerican venture capitalists\nLiving people\nUniversity of Michigan alumni\nBusinesspeople from Ohio",
"\"Get a Job\" is a song by the Silhouettes released in November 1957. It reached the number one spot on the Billboard pop and R&B singles charts in February 1958, and was later included in Robert Christgau's \"Basic Record Library\" of 1950s and 1960s recordings, published in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981). The song celebrates the virtues of securing gainful employment.\n\nBackground\n\"When I was in the service in the early 1950s and didn't come home and go to work, my mother said 'get a job' and basically that's where the song came from,\" said tenor Richard Lewis, who wrote the lyrics. The four members of the group shared the credit, jointly creating the \"sha na na\" and \"dip dip dip dip\" hooks later imitated by other doo-wop groups.\n\nIt was recorded at Robinson Recording Laboratories in Philadelphia in October 1957. Rollee McGill played the saxophone break, and the arranger was Howard Biggs. Intended as the B-side to \"I Am Lonely\", \"Get a Job\" was initially released on Kae Williams' Junior label; Williams, who was also a Philadelphia disc-jockey, was the Silhouettes' manager. Doug Moody, an executive at Ember Records, acquired the rights to the song for that label, where it was licensed for national distribution.\n\nIn early 1958, the Silhouettes performed \"Get a Job\" several times on American Bandstand and once on The Dick Clark Show, appearances that contributed to the song's success by exposing it to a large audience. Ultimately the single sold more than a million copies.\n\nPersonnel\nRichard \"Rick\" Lewis - vocals\nBill Horton - vocals\nEarl T. Beal - vocals\nRaymond Edwards - vocals\nRollee McGill - saxophone\nHoward Biggs - arrangements\n\nLegacy\nThe song was later featured in the soundtracks of the movies American Graffiti (1973), Stand By Me (1986), Trading Places (1983), Get a Job (1985), Joey (1986), and Good Morning, Vietnam (1987). In the 1980s, the UK recruitment agency, Brook Street Bureau, used it in their two TV commercials, replacing the words \"get a job\" with \"better job\".\n\nThe revival group Sha Na Na derived their name from the song's doo-wop introduction. They performed it at Woodstock in 1969. Sha Na Na in return, though under the spelling \"Xanana\" became the nickname of former East Timorese President and Prime Minister José Alexandre Gusmão, better known as \"Xanana Gusmão\". \"Get a Job\" inspired a number of answer songs, including \"Got a Job\", the debut recording by The Miracles. Dennis Wilson, co-founder of the Beach Boys, believed that his group's song \"She's Goin' Bald\" (1967) paid homage to \"Get a Job\". Several bars of \"Get a Job\" are quoted at the start of \"The Obvious Child,\" the first track on Paul Simon's album The Rhythm of the Saints.\n\nThe famous line \"yep yep yep yep yep um um um um get a job\" was used in an episode of Married... with Children (Al Bundy tells his son Bud what he should do to earn money).\n\nCover versions\nAustralian band Ol' 55 covered the song on their album Take It Greasy (1976). It was recorded by Jan Berry of Jan & Dean on his 1997 solo album Second Wave. Other versions include those by the Hampton String Quartet (What if Mozart Wrote \"Roll Over Beethoven\"?), Neil Young & Crazy Horse (Americana, 2012). and The Delltones. James Taylor did a rendition on his Other Covers album. The Mills Brothers (Dot Records 45-15695) 1958.\n\nTelevision and film\nIn the 1984 \"You and the Horse You Rode In On\" episode 7 of season 2 of the TV series Hardcastle and McCormick, at 11 minutes and 2 seconds, this song is played during the sequence in which the character Mark McCormick is walking the streets in search of employment.\n\nNote\n\nSee also\n List of 1950s one-hit wonders in the United States\n\nReferences\n\n1958 singles\nBillboard Top 100 number-one singles\nCashbox number-one singles\n1957 songs\nDoo-wop songs"
] |
[
"David Frost",
"That Was the Week That Was (TW3)",
"What was David Frost job?",
"Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was,",
"In what country was That was the week that was been produce?",
"Britain",
"Was it successful?",
"The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962-63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme.",
"Was it published to other country?",
"An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended.",
"How successful did it get?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he get other shows that was popular?",
"1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC.",
"Did he get a partner on his job?",
"I don't know."
] | C_217351d2fd5a4a9bb19386d270564876_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 8 | Aside from television special, are there any other interesting aspects about David Frost, That Was the Week That Was (TW3)? | David Frost | Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was, alias TW3 after Frost's flatmate John Bird suggested Sherrin should see his act at The Blue Angel. The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962-63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme. The involvement of Frost in TW3 led to an intensification of the rivalry with Peter Cook who accused him of stealing material and dubbed Frost "the bubonic plagiarist". The new satirical magazine Private Eye also mocked him at this time. Frost visited the United States during the break between the two series of TW3 in the summer of 1963 and stayed with the producer of the New York production of Beyond The Fringe. Frost was unable to swim, but still jumped into the pool, and nearly drowned until he was saved by Peter Cook. At the memorial service for Cook in 1995, Alan Bennett recalled that rescuing Frost was the one regret Cook frequently expressed. For the first three editions of the second series in 1963, the BBC attempted to limit the team by scheduling repeats of The Third Man television series after the programme, thus preventing overruns. Frost took to reading synopses of the episodes at the end of the programme as a means of sabotage. After the BBC's Director General Hugh Greene instructed that the repeats should be abandoned, TW3 returned to being open-ended. More sombrely, on 23 November 1963, a tribute to the assassinated President John F. Kennedy, an event which had occurred the previous day, formed an entire edition of That Was the Week That Was. An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended. Following a pilot episode on 10 November 1963, the 30-minute US series, also featuring Frost, ran on NBC from 10 January 1964 to May 1965. In 1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC. CANNOTANSWER | Frost was unable to swim, but still jumped into the pool, and nearly drowned until he was saved by Peter Cook. | Sir David Paradine Frost (7 April 1939 – 31 August 2013) was a British television host, journalist, comedian and writer.
He rose to prominence during the satire boom in the United Kingdom when he was chosen to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was in 1962. His success on this show led to work as a host on American television. He became known for his television interviews with senior political figures, among them the Nixon interviews with President Richard Nixon in 1977 which were adapted into a stage play and film. Frost interviewed all eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2016 and all seven American presidents in office between 1969 and 2008.
He was one of the people behind the launch of ITV station TV-am in 1983. He was the inaugural host of the US newsmagazine programme Inside Edition. He hosted the Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost for the BBC from 1993 to 2005, and spent two decades as host of Through the Keyhole. From 2006 to 2012, he hosted the weekly programme Frost Over the World on Al Jazeera English, and the weekly programme The Frost Interview from 2012. He received the BAFTA Fellowship from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2005 and the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards in 2009.
Frost died on 31 August 2013, aged 74, on board the cruise ship , where he had been engaged as a speaker. His memorial stone was unveiled in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey in March 2014.
Early life
David Paradine Frost was born in Tenterden, Kent, on 7 April 1939, the son of a Methodist minister of Huguenot descent, the Rev. Wilfred John "W. J." Paradine Frost, and his wife, Mona (Aldrich); he had two elder sisters. While living in Gillingham, Kent, he was taught in the Bible class of the Sunday school at his father's church (Byron Road Methodist) by David Gilmore Harvey, and subsequently started training as a Methodist local preacher, which he did not complete.
Frost attended Barnsole Road Primary School in Gillingham, St Hugh's School, Woodhall Spa, Gillingham Grammar School and finally – while residing in Raunds, Northamptonshire – Wellingborough Grammar School. Throughout his school years he was an avid football and cricket player, and was offered a contract with Nottingham Forest F.C. For two years before going to university he was a lay preacher, following his witnessing of an event presided over by Christian evangelist Billy Graham.
Frost studied at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, from 1958, graduating with a Third in English. He was editor of both the university's student paper, Varsity, and the literary magazine Granta. He was also secretary of the Footlights Drama Society, which included actors such as Peter Cook and John Bird. During this period Frost appeared on television for the first time in an edition of Anglia Television's Town And Gown, performing several comic characters. "The first time I stepped into a television studio", he once remembered, "it felt like home. It didn't scare me. Talking to the camera seemed the most natural thing in the world."
According to some accounts, Frost was the victim of snobbery from the group with which he associated at Cambridge, which has been confirmed by Barry Humphries. Christopher Booker, while asserting that Frost's one defining characteristic was ambition, commented that he was impossible to dislike. According to satirist John Wells, Old Etonian actor Jonathan Cecil congratulated Frost around this time for "that wonderfully silly voice" he used while performing, but then discovered that it was Frost's real voice.
After leaving university, Frost became a trainee at Associated-Rediffusion. Meanwhile, having already gained an agent, Frost performed in cabaret at the Blue Angel nightclub in Berkeley Square, London during the evenings.
That Was the Week That Was
Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was, or TW3, after Frost's flatmate John Bird suggested Sherrin should see his act at The Blue Angel. The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962–63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme.
The involvement of Frost in TW3 led to an intensification of the rivalry with Peter Cook who accused him of stealing material and dubbed Frost "the bubonic plagiarist". The new satirical magazine Private Eye also mocked him at this time. Frost visited the U.S. during the break between the two series of TW3 in the summer of 1963 and stayed with the producer of the New York City production of Beyond The Fringe. Frost was unable to swim, but still jumped into the pool, and nearly drowned until he was saved by Peter Cook. At the memorial service for Cook in 1995, Alan Bennett recalled that rescuing Frost was the one regret Cook frequently expressed.
For the first three editions of the second series in 1963, the BBC attempted to limit the team by scheduling repeats of The Third Man television series after the programme, thus preventing overruns. Frost took to reading synopses of the episodes at the end of the programme as a means of sabotage. After the BBC's Director General Hugh Greene instructed that the repeats should be abandoned, TW3 returned to being open-ended. More sombrely, on 23 November 1963, a tribute to the assassinated President John F. Kennedy, an event which had occurred the previous day, formed an entire edition of That Was the Week That Was.
An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended. Following a pilot episode on 10 November 1963, the 30-minute US series, also featuring Frost, ran on NBC from 10 January 1964 to May 1965. In 1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC.
After TW3
Frost fronted various programmes following the success of TW3, including its immediate successor, Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life, which he co-chaired with Willie Rushton and poet P. J. Kavanagh. Screened on three evenings each week, this series was dropped after a sketch was found to be offensive to Catholics and another to the British royal family. More successful was The Frost Report, broadcast between 1966 and 1967. The show launched the television careers of John Cleese, Ronnie Barker, and Ronnie Corbett, who appeared together in the Class sketch.
Frost signed for Rediffusion, the ITV weekday contractor in London, to produce a "heavier" interview-based show called The Frost Programme. Guests included Oswald Mosley and Rhodesian premier Ian Smith. His memorable dressing-down of insurance fraudster Emil Savundra, regarded as the first example of "trial by television" in the UK, led to concern from ITV executives that it might affect Savundra's right to a fair trial. Frost's introductory words for his television programmes during this period, "Hello, good evening and welcome", became his catchphrase and were often mimicked.
Frost was a member of a successful consortium, including former executives from the BBC, that bid for an ITV franchise in 1967. This became London Weekend Television, which began broadcasting in July 1968. The station began with a programming policy that was considered "highbrow" and suffered launch problems with low audience ratings and financial problems. A September 1968 meeting of the Network Programme Committee, which made decisions about the channel's scheduling, was particularly fraught, with Lew Grade expressing hatred of Frost in his presence. Frost, according to Kitty Muggeridge in 1967, had "risen without a trace."
He was involved in the station's early years as a presenter. On 20 and 21 July 1969, during the British television Apollo 11 coverage, he presented David Frost's Moon Party for LWT, a ten-hour discussion and entertainment marathon from LWT's Wembley Studios, on the night Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Two of his guests on this programme were British historian A. J. P. Taylor and entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr. Around this time Frost interviewed Rupert Murdoch whose recently acquired Sunday newspaper, the News of the World, had just serialised the memoirs of Christine Keeler, a central figure in the Profumo scandal of 1963. For the Australian publisher, this was a bruising encounter, although Frost said that he had not intended it to be. Murdoch confessed to his biographer Michael Wolff that the incident had convinced him that Frost was "an arrogant bastard, [and] a bloody bugger".
In the late 1960s Frost began an intermittent involvement in the film industry. Setting up David Paradine Ltd in 1966, he part-financed The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970), in which the lead character was based partly on Frost, and gained an executive producer credit. In 1976, Frost was the executive producer of the British musical film The Slipper and the Rose, retelling the story of Cinderella.
Frost was the subject of This Is Your Life in January 1972 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at London's Quaglino's restaurant.
American career from 1968 to 1980
In 1968, he signed a contract worth £125,000 to appear on American television in his own show on three evenings each week, the largest such arrangement for a British television personality at the time. From 1969 to 1972, Frost kept his London shows and fronted The David Frost Show on the Group W (U.S. Westinghouse Corporation) television stations in the U.S. His 1970 TV special, Frost on America, featured guests such as Jack Benny and Tennessee Williams.
In a declassified transcript of a 1972 telephone call between Frost and Henry Kissinger, President Nixon's national security advisor and secretary of state, Frost urged Kissinger to call chess Grandmaster Bobby Fischer and urge him to compete in that year's World Chess Championship. During this call, Frost revealed that he was working on a novel.
Frost interviewed heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali in 1974 at his training camp in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania before "The Rumble in the Jungle" with George Foreman. Ali remarked, "Listen David, when I meet this man, if you think the world was surprised when Nixon resigned, wait till I whip Foreman's behind."
In 1977, the Nixon Interviews, which were five 90-minute interviews with former U.S. President Richard Nixon, were broadcast. Nixon was paid $600,000 plus a share of the profits for the interviews, which had to be funded by Frost himself after the U.S. television networks turned down the programme, describing it as "checkbook journalism". Frost's company negotiated its own deals to syndicate the interviews with local stations across the U.S. and internationally, creating what Ron Howard described as "the first fourth network". Frost taped around 29 hours of interviews with Nixon over four weeks. Nixon, who had previously avoided discussing his role in the Watergate scandal that had led to his resignation as president in 1974, expressed contrition saying, "I let the American people down and I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life". Frost asked Nixon whether the president could do something illegal in certain situations such as against antiwar groups and others if he decides "it's in the best interests of the nation or something". Nixon replied: "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal", by definition.
Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Frost was the last person to interview Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the deposed Shah of Iran. The interview took place on Contadora Island in Panama in January 1980, and was broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company in the U.S. on 17 January. The Shah talks about his wealth, his illness, the SAVAK, the torture during his reign, Khomeini, his threat of extradition to Iran and draws a summary of the current situation in Iran.
Frost was an organiser of the Music for UNICEF Concert at the United Nations General Assembly in 1979. Ten years later, he was hired as the anchor of new American tabloid news program Inside Edition. He was dismissed after only three weeks because of poor ratings. It seems he was "considered too high-brow for the show's low-brow format."
After 1980
Frost was one of the "Famous Five" who launched TV-am in February 1983; however, like LWT in the late 1960s, the station began with an unsustainable "highbrow" approach. Frost remained a presenter after restructuring. Frost on Sunday began in September 1983 and continued until the station lost its franchise at the end of 1992. Frost had been part of an unsuccessful consortium, CPV-TV, with Richard Branson and other interests, which had attempted to acquire three ITV contractor franchises prior to the changes made by the Independent Television Commission in 1991. After transferring from ITV, his Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost ran on the BBC from January 1993 until 29 May 2005. For a time it ran on BSB before moving to BBC 1.
Frost hosted Through the Keyhole, which ran on several UK channels from 1987 until 2008 and also featured Loyd Grossman. Produced by his own production company, the programme was first shown in prime time and on daytime television in its later years.
Frost worked for Al Jazeera English, presenting a live weekly hour-long current affairs programme, Frost Over The World, which started when the network launched in November 2006. The programme regularly made headlines with interviewees such as Tony Blair, President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan and President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. The programme was produced by the former Question Time editor and Independent on Sunday journalist Charlie Courtauld. Frost was one of the first to interview the man who authored the Fatwa on Terrorism, Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri.
During his career as a broadcaster, Frost became one of Concorde's most frequent fliers, having flown between London and New York an average of 20 times per year for 20 years.
In 2007, Frost hosted a discussion with Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi as part of the Monitor Group's involvement in the country. In June 2010, Frost presented Frost on Satire, an hour-long BBC Four documentary looking at the history of television satire.
Achievements
Frost was the only person to have interviewed all eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2016 (Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and David Cameron) and all seven U.S. presidents in office between 1969 and 2008 (Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush).
He was a patron and former vice-president of the Motor Neurone Disease Association charity, as well as being a patron of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, Hearing Star Benevolent Fund, East Anglia's Children's Hospices, the Home Farm Trust and the Elton John AIDS Foundation. He was also recognized for his contributions to the women's charity "Wellbeing for Women".
After having been in television for 40 years, Frost was estimated to be worth £200 million by the Sunday Times Rich List in 2006, a figure he considered a significant overestimate in 2011. The valuation included the assets of his main British company and subsidiaries, plus homes in London and the country.
Frost/Nixon
Frost/Nixon was originally a play written by Peter Morgan, developed from the interviews that Frost had conducted with Richard Nixon in 1977. Frost/Nixon was presented as a stage production in London in 2006 and on Broadway in 2007. Frank Langella won a Leading Actor Tony Award for his portrayal of Nixon; the play also received nominations for Best Play and Best Direction.
The play was adapted into a Hollywood motion picture entitled Frost/Nixon and starring Michael Sheen as Frost and Langella as Nixon, both reprising their stage roles. The film was released in 2008 and directed by Ron Howard. It was nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, winning none: Best Motion Picture-Drama, Best Director-Drama, Best Actor-Drama (Langella), Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score. It was also nominated for five Academy Awards, again winning none: Best Picture, Best Actor (Langella), Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing.
In February 2009, Frost was featured on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's international affairs programme Foreign Correspondent in a report titled "The World According To Frost", reflecting on his long career and portrayal in the film Frost/Nixon.
Personal life
Frost was known for several relationships with high-profile women. In the mid-1960s, he dated British actress Janette Scott, between her marriages to songwriter Jackie Rae and singer Mel Tormé; in the early 1970s he was engaged to American actress Diahann Carroll; between 1972 and 1977 he had a relationship with British socialite Caroline Cushing; in 1981, he married Lynne Frederick, widow of Peter Sellers, but they divorced the following year. He also had an 18-year intermittent affair with American actress Carol Lynley.
On 19 March 1983, Frost married Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard, daughter of the 17th Duke of Norfolk. Three sons were born to the couple over the next five years. His second son, Wilfred Frost, followed in his father's footsteps and currently works as an anchor at CNBC. They lived for many years in Chelsea, London, and kept a weekend home at Michelmersh Court in Hampshire.
Death
On 31 August 2013, Frost was aboard the Cunard cruise ship when he died of a heart attack at the age of 74. Cunard said that the vessel had left Southampton for a ten-day cruise in the Mediterranean, ending in Rome. A post-mortem found that Frost had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Frost's son, Miles, died from the same condition at the age of 31 in 2015.
A funeral service was held at Holy Trinity Church in Nuffield, Oxfordshire, on 12 September 2013, after which he was interred in the church's graveyard. On 13 March 2014, a memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey, at which Frost was honoured with a memorial stone in Poets' Corner.
Tributes
British Prime Minister David Cameron paid tribute, saying: "He could be—and certainly was with me—both a friend and a fearsome interviewer." Michael Grade commented: "He was kind of a television renaissance man. He could put his hand to anything. He could turn over Richard Nixon or he could win the comedy prize at the Montreux Golden Rose festival."
Selected awards and honours
1970: Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)
1970: Honorary Doctor of Laws degree of Emerson College
1993: Knight Bachelor
1994: Honorary doctoral degree of the University of Sussex
2000: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
2005: Fellowship of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts BAFTA
2009: Honorary Doctor of Letters degree of the University of Winchester
2009: Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards
Bibliography
Non-fiction
How to Live Under Labour – or at Least Have as Much Chance as Anyone Else (1964)
To England with Love (1968). With Antony Jay.
The Presidential Debate, 1968: David Frost talks with Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey (and others) (1968).
The Americans (1970)
Billy Graham Talks with David Frost (1972)
Whitlam and Frost: The Full Text of Their TV Conversations Plus Exclusive New Interviews (1974)
"I Gave Them a Sword": Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews (1978). Reissued as Frost/Nixon in 2007.
David Frost's Book of Millionaires, Multimillionaires, and Really Rich People (1984)
The World's Shortest Books (1987)
An Autobiography. Part 1: From Congregations to Audiences (1993)
With Michael Deakin and illustrated by Willie Rushton
I Could Have Kicked Myself: David Frost's Book of the World's Worst Decisions (1982)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (1983)
If You'll Believe That (1986)
With Michael Shea
The Mid-Atlantic Companion, or, How to Misunderstand Americans as Much as They Misunderstand Us (1986)
The Rich Tide: Men, Women, Ideas and Their Transatlantic Impact (1986)
References
External links
BBC News Profile of David Frost
TV Cream on David Frost
TV Cream on Paradine Productions
1939 births
2013 deaths
Al Jazeera people
Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
BAFTA fellows
BBC newsreaders and journalists
British broadcast news analysts
British reporters and correspondents
British television producers
English comedians
English game show hosts
English memoirists
English Methodists
English satirists
English social commentators
English political writers
English television personalities
English television talk show hosts
International Emmy Founders Award winners
Knights Bachelor
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
People educated at Gillingham Grammar School, Kent
People educated at St Hugh's School, Woodhall Spa
People from Raunds
People from Tenterden
People from Test Valley
People from Wellingborough
People who died at sea
Primetime Emmy Award winners
20th-century British businesspeople | true | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"David Frost",
"That Was the Week That Was (TW3)",
"What was David Frost job?",
"Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was,",
"In what country was That was the week that was been produce?",
"Britain",
"Was it successful?",
"The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962-63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme.",
"Was it published to other country?",
"An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended.",
"How successful did it get?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he get other shows that was popular?",
"1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC.",
"Did he get a partner on his job?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Frost was unable to swim, but still jumped into the pool, and nearly drowned until he was saved by Peter Cook."
] | C_217351d2fd5a4a9bb19386d270564876_1 | Is Frost incapable? | 9 | Is David Frost incapable to swim? | David Frost | Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was, alias TW3 after Frost's flatmate John Bird suggested Sherrin should see his act at The Blue Angel. The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962-63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme. The involvement of Frost in TW3 led to an intensification of the rivalry with Peter Cook who accused him of stealing material and dubbed Frost "the bubonic plagiarist". The new satirical magazine Private Eye also mocked him at this time. Frost visited the United States during the break between the two series of TW3 in the summer of 1963 and stayed with the producer of the New York production of Beyond The Fringe. Frost was unable to swim, but still jumped into the pool, and nearly drowned until he was saved by Peter Cook. At the memorial service for Cook in 1995, Alan Bennett recalled that rescuing Frost was the one regret Cook frequently expressed. For the first three editions of the second series in 1963, the BBC attempted to limit the team by scheduling repeats of The Third Man television series after the programme, thus preventing overruns. Frost took to reading synopses of the episodes at the end of the programme as a means of sabotage. After the BBC's Director General Hugh Greene instructed that the repeats should be abandoned, TW3 returned to being open-ended. More sombrely, on 23 November 1963, a tribute to the assassinated President John F. Kennedy, an event which had occurred the previous day, formed an entire edition of That Was the Week That Was. An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended. Following a pilot episode on 10 November 1963, the 30-minute US series, also featuring Frost, ran on NBC from 10 January 1964 to May 1965. In 1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Sir David Paradine Frost (7 April 1939 – 31 August 2013) was a British television host, journalist, comedian and writer.
He rose to prominence during the satire boom in the United Kingdom when he was chosen to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was in 1962. His success on this show led to work as a host on American television. He became known for his television interviews with senior political figures, among them the Nixon interviews with President Richard Nixon in 1977 which were adapted into a stage play and film. Frost interviewed all eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2016 and all seven American presidents in office between 1969 and 2008.
He was one of the people behind the launch of ITV station TV-am in 1983. He was the inaugural host of the US newsmagazine programme Inside Edition. He hosted the Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost for the BBC from 1993 to 2005, and spent two decades as host of Through the Keyhole. From 2006 to 2012, he hosted the weekly programme Frost Over the World on Al Jazeera English, and the weekly programme The Frost Interview from 2012. He received the BAFTA Fellowship from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2005 and the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards in 2009.
Frost died on 31 August 2013, aged 74, on board the cruise ship , where he had been engaged as a speaker. His memorial stone was unveiled in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey in March 2014.
Early life
David Paradine Frost was born in Tenterden, Kent, on 7 April 1939, the son of a Methodist minister of Huguenot descent, the Rev. Wilfred John "W. J." Paradine Frost, and his wife, Mona (Aldrich); he had two elder sisters. While living in Gillingham, Kent, he was taught in the Bible class of the Sunday school at his father's church (Byron Road Methodist) by David Gilmore Harvey, and subsequently started training as a Methodist local preacher, which he did not complete.
Frost attended Barnsole Road Primary School in Gillingham, St Hugh's School, Woodhall Spa, Gillingham Grammar School and finally – while residing in Raunds, Northamptonshire – Wellingborough Grammar School. Throughout his school years he was an avid football and cricket player, and was offered a contract with Nottingham Forest F.C. For two years before going to university he was a lay preacher, following his witnessing of an event presided over by Christian evangelist Billy Graham.
Frost studied at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, from 1958, graduating with a Third in English. He was editor of both the university's student paper, Varsity, and the literary magazine Granta. He was also secretary of the Footlights Drama Society, which included actors such as Peter Cook and John Bird. During this period Frost appeared on television for the first time in an edition of Anglia Television's Town And Gown, performing several comic characters. "The first time I stepped into a television studio", he once remembered, "it felt like home. It didn't scare me. Talking to the camera seemed the most natural thing in the world."
According to some accounts, Frost was the victim of snobbery from the group with which he associated at Cambridge, which has been confirmed by Barry Humphries. Christopher Booker, while asserting that Frost's one defining characteristic was ambition, commented that he was impossible to dislike. According to satirist John Wells, Old Etonian actor Jonathan Cecil congratulated Frost around this time for "that wonderfully silly voice" he used while performing, but then discovered that it was Frost's real voice.
After leaving university, Frost became a trainee at Associated-Rediffusion. Meanwhile, having already gained an agent, Frost performed in cabaret at the Blue Angel nightclub in Berkeley Square, London during the evenings.
That Was the Week That Was
Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host the satirical programme That Was the Week That Was, or TW3, after Frost's flatmate John Bird suggested Sherrin should see his act at The Blue Angel. The series, which ran for less than 18 months during 1962–63, was part of the satire boom in early 1960s Britain and became a popular programme.
The involvement of Frost in TW3 led to an intensification of the rivalry with Peter Cook who accused him of stealing material and dubbed Frost "the bubonic plagiarist". The new satirical magazine Private Eye also mocked him at this time. Frost visited the U.S. during the break between the two series of TW3 in the summer of 1963 and stayed with the producer of the New York City production of Beyond The Fringe. Frost was unable to swim, but still jumped into the pool, and nearly drowned until he was saved by Peter Cook. At the memorial service for Cook in 1995, Alan Bennett recalled that rescuing Frost was the one regret Cook frequently expressed.
For the first three editions of the second series in 1963, the BBC attempted to limit the team by scheduling repeats of The Third Man television series after the programme, thus preventing overruns. Frost took to reading synopses of the episodes at the end of the programme as a means of sabotage. After the BBC's Director General Hugh Greene instructed that the repeats should be abandoned, TW3 returned to being open-ended. More sombrely, on 23 November 1963, a tribute to the assassinated President John F. Kennedy, an event which had occurred the previous day, formed an entire edition of That Was the Week That Was.
An American version of TW3 ran after the original British series had ended. Following a pilot episode on 10 November 1963, the 30-minute US series, also featuring Frost, ran on NBC from 10 January 1964 to May 1965. In 1985, Frost produced and hosted a television special in the same format, That Was the Year That Was, on NBC.
After TW3
Frost fronted various programmes following the success of TW3, including its immediate successor, Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life, which he co-chaired with Willie Rushton and poet P. J. Kavanagh. Screened on three evenings each week, this series was dropped after a sketch was found to be offensive to Catholics and another to the British royal family. More successful was The Frost Report, broadcast between 1966 and 1967. The show launched the television careers of John Cleese, Ronnie Barker, and Ronnie Corbett, who appeared together in the Class sketch.
Frost signed for Rediffusion, the ITV weekday contractor in London, to produce a "heavier" interview-based show called The Frost Programme. Guests included Oswald Mosley and Rhodesian premier Ian Smith. His memorable dressing-down of insurance fraudster Emil Savundra, regarded as the first example of "trial by television" in the UK, led to concern from ITV executives that it might affect Savundra's right to a fair trial. Frost's introductory words for his television programmes during this period, "Hello, good evening and welcome", became his catchphrase and were often mimicked.
Frost was a member of a successful consortium, including former executives from the BBC, that bid for an ITV franchise in 1967. This became London Weekend Television, which began broadcasting in July 1968. The station began with a programming policy that was considered "highbrow" and suffered launch problems with low audience ratings and financial problems. A September 1968 meeting of the Network Programme Committee, which made decisions about the channel's scheduling, was particularly fraught, with Lew Grade expressing hatred of Frost in his presence. Frost, according to Kitty Muggeridge in 1967, had "risen without a trace."
He was involved in the station's early years as a presenter. On 20 and 21 July 1969, during the British television Apollo 11 coverage, he presented David Frost's Moon Party for LWT, a ten-hour discussion and entertainment marathon from LWT's Wembley Studios, on the night Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Two of his guests on this programme were British historian A. J. P. Taylor and entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr. Around this time Frost interviewed Rupert Murdoch whose recently acquired Sunday newspaper, the News of the World, had just serialised the memoirs of Christine Keeler, a central figure in the Profumo scandal of 1963. For the Australian publisher, this was a bruising encounter, although Frost said that he had not intended it to be. Murdoch confessed to his biographer Michael Wolff that the incident had convinced him that Frost was "an arrogant bastard, [and] a bloody bugger".
In the late 1960s Frost began an intermittent involvement in the film industry. Setting up David Paradine Ltd in 1966, he part-financed The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970), in which the lead character was based partly on Frost, and gained an executive producer credit. In 1976, Frost was the executive producer of the British musical film The Slipper and the Rose, retelling the story of Cinderella.
Frost was the subject of This Is Your Life in January 1972 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at London's Quaglino's restaurant.
American career from 1968 to 1980
In 1968, he signed a contract worth £125,000 to appear on American television in his own show on three evenings each week, the largest such arrangement for a British television personality at the time. From 1969 to 1972, Frost kept his London shows and fronted The David Frost Show on the Group W (U.S. Westinghouse Corporation) television stations in the U.S. His 1970 TV special, Frost on America, featured guests such as Jack Benny and Tennessee Williams.
In a declassified transcript of a 1972 telephone call between Frost and Henry Kissinger, President Nixon's national security advisor and secretary of state, Frost urged Kissinger to call chess Grandmaster Bobby Fischer and urge him to compete in that year's World Chess Championship. During this call, Frost revealed that he was working on a novel.
Frost interviewed heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali in 1974 at his training camp in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania before "The Rumble in the Jungle" with George Foreman. Ali remarked, "Listen David, when I meet this man, if you think the world was surprised when Nixon resigned, wait till I whip Foreman's behind."
In 1977, the Nixon Interviews, which were five 90-minute interviews with former U.S. President Richard Nixon, were broadcast. Nixon was paid $600,000 plus a share of the profits for the interviews, which had to be funded by Frost himself after the U.S. television networks turned down the programme, describing it as "checkbook journalism". Frost's company negotiated its own deals to syndicate the interviews with local stations across the U.S. and internationally, creating what Ron Howard described as "the first fourth network". Frost taped around 29 hours of interviews with Nixon over four weeks. Nixon, who had previously avoided discussing his role in the Watergate scandal that had led to his resignation as president in 1974, expressed contrition saying, "I let the American people down and I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life". Frost asked Nixon whether the president could do something illegal in certain situations such as against antiwar groups and others if he decides "it's in the best interests of the nation or something". Nixon replied: "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal", by definition.
Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Frost was the last person to interview Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the deposed Shah of Iran. The interview took place on Contadora Island in Panama in January 1980, and was broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company in the U.S. on 17 January. The Shah talks about his wealth, his illness, the SAVAK, the torture during his reign, Khomeini, his threat of extradition to Iran and draws a summary of the current situation in Iran.
Frost was an organiser of the Music for UNICEF Concert at the United Nations General Assembly in 1979. Ten years later, he was hired as the anchor of new American tabloid news program Inside Edition. He was dismissed after only three weeks because of poor ratings. It seems he was "considered too high-brow for the show's low-brow format."
After 1980
Frost was one of the "Famous Five" who launched TV-am in February 1983; however, like LWT in the late 1960s, the station began with an unsustainable "highbrow" approach. Frost remained a presenter after restructuring. Frost on Sunday began in September 1983 and continued until the station lost its franchise at the end of 1992. Frost had been part of an unsuccessful consortium, CPV-TV, with Richard Branson and other interests, which had attempted to acquire three ITV contractor franchises prior to the changes made by the Independent Television Commission in 1991. After transferring from ITV, his Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost ran on the BBC from January 1993 until 29 May 2005. For a time it ran on BSB before moving to BBC 1.
Frost hosted Through the Keyhole, which ran on several UK channels from 1987 until 2008 and also featured Loyd Grossman. Produced by his own production company, the programme was first shown in prime time and on daytime television in its later years.
Frost worked for Al Jazeera English, presenting a live weekly hour-long current affairs programme, Frost Over The World, which started when the network launched in November 2006. The programme regularly made headlines with interviewees such as Tony Blair, President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan and President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. The programme was produced by the former Question Time editor and Independent on Sunday journalist Charlie Courtauld. Frost was one of the first to interview the man who authored the Fatwa on Terrorism, Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri.
During his career as a broadcaster, Frost became one of Concorde's most frequent fliers, having flown between London and New York an average of 20 times per year for 20 years.
In 2007, Frost hosted a discussion with Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi as part of the Monitor Group's involvement in the country. In June 2010, Frost presented Frost on Satire, an hour-long BBC Four documentary looking at the history of television satire.
Achievements
Frost was the only person to have interviewed all eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2016 (Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and David Cameron) and all seven U.S. presidents in office between 1969 and 2008 (Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush).
He was a patron and former vice-president of the Motor Neurone Disease Association charity, as well as being a patron of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, Hearing Star Benevolent Fund, East Anglia's Children's Hospices, the Home Farm Trust and the Elton John AIDS Foundation. He was also recognized for his contributions to the women's charity "Wellbeing for Women".
After having been in television for 40 years, Frost was estimated to be worth £200 million by the Sunday Times Rich List in 2006, a figure he considered a significant overestimate in 2011. The valuation included the assets of his main British company and subsidiaries, plus homes in London and the country.
Frost/Nixon
Frost/Nixon was originally a play written by Peter Morgan, developed from the interviews that Frost had conducted with Richard Nixon in 1977. Frost/Nixon was presented as a stage production in London in 2006 and on Broadway in 2007. Frank Langella won a Leading Actor Tony Award for his portrayal of Nixon; the play also received nominations for Best Play and Best Direction.
The play was adapted into a Hollywood motion picture entitled Frost/Nixon and starring Michael Sheen as Frost and Langella as Nixon, both reprising their stage roles. The film was released in 2008 and directed by Ron Howard. It was nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, winning none: Best Motion Picture-Drama, Best Director-Drama, Best Actor-Drama (Langella), Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score. It was also nominated for five Academy Awards, again winning none: Best Picture, Best Actor (Langella), Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing.
In February 2009, Frost was featured on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's international affairs programme Foreign Correspondent in a report titled "The World According To Frost", reflecting on his long career and portrayal in the film Frost/Nixon.
Personal life
Frost was known for several relationships with high-profile women. In the mid-1960s, he dated British actress Janette Scott, between her marriages to songwriter Jackie Rae and singer Mel Tormé; in the early 1970s he was engaged to American actress Diahann Carroll; between 1972 and 1977 he had a relationship with British socialite Caroline Cushing; in 1981, he married Lynne Frederick, widow of Peter Sellers, but they divorced the following year. He also had an 18-year intermittent affair with American actress Carol Lynley.
On 19 March 1983, Frost married Lady Carina Fitzalan-Howard, daughter of the 17th Duke of Norfolk. Three sons were born to the couple over the next five years. His second son, Wilfred Frost, followed in his father's footsteps and currently works as an anchor at CNBC. They lived for many years in Chelsea, London, and kept a weekend home at Michelmersh Court in Hampshire.
Death
On 31 August 2013, Frost was aboard the Cunard cruise ship when he died of a heart attack at the age of 74. Cunard said that the vessel had left Southampton for a ten-day cruise in the Mediterranean, ending in Rome. A post-mortem found that Frost had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Frost's son, Miles, died from the same condition at the age of 31 in 2015.
A funeral service was held at Holy Trinity Church in Nuffield, Oxfordshire, on 12 September 2013, after which he was interred in the church's graveyard. On 13 March 2014, a memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey, at which Frost was honoured with a memorial stone in Poets' Corner.
Tributes
British Prime Minister David Cameron paid tribute, saying: "He could be—and certainly was with me—both a friend and a fearsome interviewer." Michael Grade commented: "He was kind of a television renaissance man. He could put his hand to anything. He could turn over Richard Nixon or he could win the comedy prize at the Montreux Golden Rose festival."
Selected awards and honours
1970: Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)
1970: Honorary Doctor of Laws degree of Emerson College
1993: Knight Bachelor
1994: Honorary doctoral degree of the University of Sussex
2000: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
2005: Fellowship of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts BAFTA
2009: Honorary Doctor of Letters degree of the University of Winchester
2009: Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmy Awards
Bibliography
Non-fiction
How to Live Under Labour – or at Least Have as Much Chance as Anyone Else (1964)
To England with Love (1968). With Antony Jay.
The Presidential Debate, 1968: David Frost talks with Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey (and others) (1968).
The Americans (1970)
Billy Graham Talks with David Frost (1972)
Whitlam and Frost: The Full Text of Their TV Conversations Plus Exclusive New Interviews (1974)
"I Gave Them a Sword": Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews (1978). Reissued as Frost/Nixon in 2007.
David Frost's Book of Millionaires, Multimillionaires, and Really Rich People (1984)
The World's Shortest Books (1987)
An Autobiography. Part 1: From Congregations to Audiences (1993)
With Michael Deakin and illustrated by Willie Rushton
I Could Have Kicked Myself: David Frost's Book of the World's Worst Decisions (1982)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (1983)
If You'll Believe That (1986)
With Michael Shea
The Mid-Atlantic Companion, or, How to Misunderstand Americans as Much as They Misunderstand Us (1986)
The Rich Tide: Men, Women, Ideas and Their Transatlantic Impact (1986)
References
External links
BBC News Profile of David Frost
TV Cream on David Frost
TV Cream on Paradine Productions
1939 births
2013 deaths
Al Jazeera people
Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
BAFTA fellows
BBC newsreaders and journalists
British broadcast news analysts
British reporters and correspondents
British television producers
English comedians
English game show hosts
English memoirists
English Methodists
English satirists
English social commentators
English political writers
English television personalities
English television talk show hosts
International Emmy Founders Award winners
Knights Bachelor
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
People educated at Gillingham Grammar School, Kent
People educated at St Hugh's School, Woodhall Spa
People from Raunds
People from Tenterden
People from Test Valley
People from Wellingborough
People who died at sea
Primetime Emmy Award winners
20th-century British businesspeople | false | [
"Freezing or frost occurs when the air temperature falls below the freezing point of water (0 °C, 32 °F, 273 K). This is usually measured at the height of 1.2 metres above the ground surface.\n\nThere exist some scales defining several degrees of frost severity (from \"slight\" to \"very severe\") but they depend on location thus the usual temperatures occurring in winter. The primary symptom of frost weather is that water freezes. If the temperature is low for sufficiently long time, freezing will occur with some delay in lakes, rivers, and the sea. It can occur even in water supply networks, although this is highly undesirable and efforts are done to prevent this from happening.\n\nTerminology \n\nThe English word \"frost\" has 2 base meanings that are related to each other but nevertheless sufficiently different:\n temperature of air below the freezing point of water (ca 273 K)\n deposit of ice on cold surfaces\nThe WMO avoids the word \"frost\" alone and uses\n \"freezing\" for temperature of air below the freezing point of water\n \"hoar frost\" and \"ground frost\" for deposit of ice on cold surfaces (see Hoar frost)\n\nRelation between freezing and hoar frost or ground frost \nA temperature at or below freezing is not absolutely necessary to get ground frost or hoar frost; they can form even if air temperature is marginally above freezing point if the sky is clear. This is because the ground loses heat due to radiation. It radiates its heat to the sky/space. The amount of heat that radiates is proportional to the difference of the fourth power of the temperatures between the two objects. At night, the atmosphere is not being warmed by the sun and the sky/space can approach 2.7 K (the blackbody temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation). On a clear night the ground can become colder than the air because it radiates its heat to the sky, and ground frost can form. On the other hand, a temperature below the freezing point of water does not mean that hoar frost must occur.\n\nSee also \n\n Freezing (the physical aspect)\n Permafrost (permanently frozen ground)\n Frost and Rime (deposit of ice on cold surfaces)\n\nReferences \n\nSnow or ice weather phenomena\nAtmospheric temperature",
"Frost Parish is a civil parish of Narromine County, New South Wales\n\nFrost Parish is on Yellow Creek, south of Narromine, New South Wales and is located at 32°13′54″S 148°08′04″E.\n\nThe cargo transporting Parkes–Narromine railway line passes through Frost Parish with two (disused) stations at Fairview and Narwonah railway stations.\n\nThe economy of Frost Parish is mainly based on broad acre agriculture including sheep, cattle and wheat.\n\nReferences\n\nCentral West (New South Wales)\nParishes of Narromine County"
] |
[
"Martha and the Vandellas",
"Motown major hit years (1962-1968)"
] | C_1183ad7f6a684fc28b80ad594e48035d_0 | What happened during motown major hit years? | 1 | What happened to Martha and the Vandellas during motown major hit years (1962-1968)? | Martha and the Vandellas | Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team, Holland-Dozier-Holland, titled "Come and Get These Memories". It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart. Their second hit, "Heat Wave", became a phenomenal record for the group, reaching number four on the Hot 100 and hitting number one on the R&B singles chart for five weeks. It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance. (On the single and album, the song was titled "Heat Wave". It was sometime later that the song was retitled to avoid confusion with the Irving Berlin song.) The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, "Quicksand", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963. Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964. Betty Kelley, formerly of the Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise. The next two singles, "Live Wire" and "In My Lonely Room" (#6 R&B Cashbox) were less successful singles, failing to reach the Top 40. However, their next single, "Dancing in the Street", rose up to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also found global success, peaking at #21 on the UK Singles Chart in 1964. In 1969, "Dancing in the Street" was re-issued and it was plugged heavily on radio stations. It did not take long for the song to peak at #4 in the UK, thus making the song one of the all-time favourite Motown single releases ever. The song became a million-seller, and one of the most played singles in history. Between 1964 and 1967, singles like "Wild One" (US #34), "Nowhere to Run" (US #8; UK #26), "Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)" (US #70; R&B #22), "You've Been in Love Too Long" (US #36), "My Baby Loves Me" (US #22; R&B #3), "I'm Ready for Love" (US #9; R&B #2; UK #29) and "Jimmy Mack" (US #10; R&B #1; UK #21) kept the Vandellas on the map as one of the label's top acts. The Vandellas' popularity helped the group get spots on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, American Bandstand and Shindig!. Throughout this period, the Vandellas had also become one of the label's most popular performing acts. CANNOTANSWER | Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team, | Martha and the Vandellas (known from 1967 to 1972 as Martha Reeves & The Vandellas) were an American vocal girl group formed in Detroit in 1957. The group achieved fame in the 1960s with Motown.
An act founded by friends Annette Beard, Rosalind Ashford and Gloria Williams, the group eventually included Martha Reeves, who moved up in ranks as lead vocalist of the group after Williams' departure in 1962. The group signed with and eventually recorded all of their singles for Motown's Gordy imprint.
The group's string of hits included "Come and Get These Memories", "Heat Wave", "Quicksand", "Nowhere to Run", "Jimmy Mack", "I'm Ready for Love", "Bless You" and "Dancing in the Street", the latter song becoming their signature single.
During their nine-year run on the charts from 1963 to 1972, Martha and the Vandellas charted over twenty-six hits and recorded in the styles of doo-wop, R&B, pop, blues, rock and roll and soul. Ten Vandellas songs reached the top ten of the Billboard R&B singles chart, including two R&B number ones, and six Top Ten Pop Hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Selected members of the group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 2013.
History
Early years (1957–1962)
Teenagers Rosalind Ashford and Annette Beard first became acquainted after a local music manager hired them to be members of a girl group he named the Del-Phis. Ashford, Beard, and lead vocalist Gloria Williams, performed at local clubs, private events, church benefits, YMCA events and school functions. They were also being coached by Maxine Powell at Detroit's Ferris Center. One of the group's first professional engagements was singing background for singer Mike Hanks.
The group originally had up to six members, subsequently reduced to four. When one of the four left the group, she was replaced by Alabama-born vocalist Martha Reeves, a former member of two groups, the Fascinations and the Sabre-Ettes. In 1960, the group signed their first recording contract with Checker Records, releasing the Reeves-led "I'll Let You Know," which flopped. The Del-Phis then went to Checkmate Records, a subsidiary of Chess Records, recording their "There He Is (At My Door)" featuring Williams on lead vocals, which also flopped.
Reeves reverted to a solo artist under the name Martha LaVaille in the hope of getting a contract with emerging Detroit label Motown. After Motown staffer Mickey Stevenson saw Reeves singing at a Detroit club, he offered her an audition. Reeves showed up at Motown's Hitsville USA studios on a Tuesday rather than Thursday, Motown's usual audition day. Initially upset with Reeves, Stevenson soon assigned her as his secretary eventually responsible for handling Motown's auditions. By 1961, the group, now known as The Vels, were recording background vocals for Motown acts. Prior to her success as lead singer of The Elgins, Sandra Edwards (then going by her surname Maulett) recorded the song "Camel Walk", in 1962, which featured the Vels in background vocals. That year, the quartet began applying background vocals for emerging Motown star Marvin Gaye, singing on Gaye's first hit single, "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" After Mary Wells failed to make a scheduled recording session feigning a short illness, the Vels recorded what was initially a demo recording of "I'll Have to Let Him Go". Motown was so impressed by the group's vocals – and Martha's lead vocals in the song – that the label CEO Berry Gordy offered to give the group a contract. Figuring that being in show business was too rigorous, Williams opted out of the group. With Williams out, the remaining trio of Ashford, Beard and Reeves were told by Gordy that they would need a new name. After failing to come up with a name on their own, Gordy gave the group the name The Vandellas. As stated in an interview with The History Makers, Ashford emphatically states that contrary to popular belief, The Vandellas were not named after Della Reese and Van Dyke Avenue, nor did Reeves come up with the name.
Motown major hit years (1962–1968)
Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team, Holland–Dozier–Holland, titled "Come and Get These Memories". It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart. Their second hit, "Heat Wave", became a phenomenal record for the group, reaching number four on the Hot 100 and hitting number one on the R&B singles chart for five weeks. It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Best R&B Performance. On the single and album, the song was titled "Heat Wave". It was sometime later that the song was retitled to avoid confusion with the Irving Berlin song.
The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, "Quicksand", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963. Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964. Betty Kelley, formerly of the Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise.
The next two singles, "Live Wire" and "In My Lonely Room" (#6 R&B Cashbox) were less successful singles, failing to reach the Pop Top 40. However, their next single, "Dancing in the Street", rose up to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also found global success, peaking at No. 21 on the UK Singles Chart in 1964. In 1969, "Dancing in the Street" was re-issued and it was plugged heavily on radio stations. It did not take long for the song to peak at No. 4 in the UK, thus making the song one of the all-time favourite Motown single releases ever. The song became a million-seller, and one of the most played singles in history.
Between 1964 and 1967, singles like "Wild One" (US #34), "Nowhere to Run" (US #8; UK #26), "Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)" (US #70; R&B #22), "You've Been in Love Too Long" (US #36), "My Baby Loves Me" (US #22; R&B #3), "I'm Ready for Love" (US #9; R&B #2; UK #29) and "Jimmy Mack" (US #10; R&B #1; UK #21) kept the Vandellas on the map as one of the label's top acts. The Vandellas' popularity helped the group get spots on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, American Bandstand and Shindig!. Throughout this period, the Vandellas had also become one of the label's most popular performing acts. On June 28, 1965, the group appeared with several other popular acts of the period on CBS-TV's Murray The K-It's What's Happening, Baby. Martha, Rosalind and Betty performed "Nowhere to Run," as they skipped through a Ford auto plant and sat in a Ford Mustang convertible as it's being assembled.
Personnel changes
Motown struggled to find good material for many of their acts after the exit of Motown contributor and Reeves' mentor William "Mickey" Stevenson in 1967 and Holland–Dozier–Holland in early 1968, but after their former collaborators left the label, the Vandellas initially continued to find success with the Richard Morris-produced singles "Love Bug Leave My Heart Alone" (US #25; R&B #14) and "Honey Chile" (US #11; UK #30; R&B #5) added to their already extended list of charted singles. In the summer of 1968, the group joined The Supremes, The Temptations, The Four Tops and Marvin Gaye in performing at the Copacabana though much like albums from the Four Tops and Gaye, a live album of their performance there was shelved indefinitely.
That same year, label changes had started to take effect, and Gordy focused much of his attention on building the Supremes' as well as Diana Ross' burgeoning upcoming solo career that would follow in 1970. The Vandellas' chart performance (and the chart performance of many Motown acts with the exception of Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, and Stevie Wonder) suffered as a result.
However it was the infighting among the members of the Vandellas that led to their problems. Kelley was the first to be let go after reportedly missing shows, as well as getting into altercations with Reeves. There were many instances where these "fights" happened on stage. Kelley was fired in 1967 and was replaced by Martha Reeves' sister Lois. Simultaneously, the group's name was officially changed to Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, to conform with the company's recent changes of The Supremes' and The Miracles' names to reflect their featured lead singers. During this time, Vandellas records including "(We've Got) Honey Love", "Sweet Darlin'" and "Taking My Love and Leaving Me" were issued as singles with diminishing success.
"Bless You" (1969–1972)
Reeves, out of the group temporarily due to illness, recovered and returned; Ashford was replaced by another former member of the Velvelettes, Sandra Tilley, and the group continued to release albums and singles into the early 1970s. Although they could not reignite the fire they had made in America they continued to have successful records the UK and abroad. Among their late 1960s hits was "I Can't Dance to That Music You're Playing", which featured singer Syreeta Wright singing the chorus, and peaked at number forty-two. Reeves reportedly hated singing the song sensing it "close to home". In 1969 a reissue of "Nowhere To Run" reached the top 40 in the UK. In 1970, the group issued Motown's first protest single, the controversial anti-war song, "I Should Be Proud", which peaked at a modest forty-five on the R&B singles chart. The song was uncharacteristic of the Vandellas and did nothing to promote the group. On some stations, the flip-side "Love, Guess Who" was played instead, however the group reached the top 20 that year in the UK with a reissue of "Jimmy Mack".
In 1971, the group scored a top 11 hit in the UK with "Forget Me Not". later that year they scored an international hit with "Bless You" (produced by the Jackson 5's producers The Corporation). The song peaked at number fifty-three on the American pop singles chart (the biggest peak of Vandellas' seventies singles in the US), and number twenty-nine on the R&B singles chart. "Bless You" reached number thirty-three in the UK giving the group two big hits that year in England. . "Bless You" reached number 16 in Canada and went all the way to number 2 in Puerto Rico . It was to be the last Billboard Hot 100 hit single for the group. After two successive Top 40 R&B singles, the ballad "In and Out of My Life" (#22 US R&B) and the Marvin Gaye cover, "Tear It On Down" (#37 US R&B), the group disbanded following a farewell concert, held at Detroit's Cobo Hall on December 21, 1972, but Martha Reeves is still often billed as ‘Martha Reeves& The Vandellas’.
The next year, Reeves announced plans of starting a solo career. At the same time, Motown Records moved its operations to Los Angeles. When Reeves did not want to move, she negotiated out of her contract with Motown, signing with MCA in 1974, and releasing the critically acclaimed self-titled debut album, Martha Reeves. Despite rave reviews of her work, neither of Reeves' post-Vandellas/Motown recordings produced the same success as they had the decade before. After living what she called "a rock & roll lifestyle" of prescription pills, cocaine and alcohol, Reeves sobered up in 1977, overcoming her addictions and becoming a born-again Christian.
Epilogue
After the Vandellas' split, Reeves' sister Lois sang with the group Quiet Elegance and sang background for Al Green, while Tilley retired from show business in the late 1970s, suddenly dying of a brain aneurysm in 1981 at the age of thirty-eight. Original member Gloria Williams, who retired from show business when she left the group, died in 2000. In 1978, Reeves and original Vandellas Ashford and Beard reunited at a Los Angeles benefit concert for actor Will Geer. In 1983, Reeves successfully sued for royalties from her Motown hits and the label agreed to have the songs credited as Martha Reeves and the Vandellas from then on. That year, Reeves performed solo at Motown 25, which alongside some of their songs being placed on the Big Chill soundtrack, helped Reeves and the Vandellas gain a new audience. In 1989, original members Ashford and Beard also sued Motown for royalties. During this time, the original trio were inspired to reunite both as a recording act and in performances. They were offered a recording contract with Ian Levine at Motorcity Records who issued the group's first single since the Vandellas disbanded seventeen years earlier called "Step Into My Shoes."
Although they are no longer singing together full-time, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas have occasionally reunited for various concerts. Currently, Ashford, whose full name now is Rosalind Ashford-Holmes, and Beard, whose full name now is Annette Beard-Helton, continue to perform with other singers, most notably Roschelle Laughhunn, as "The Original Vandellas." Reeves, with her sisters Lois and Delphine Reeves, tour as "Martha Reeves and the Vandellas."
From 2005 to 2009, Reeves held the eighth seat of Detroit's city council. She has since lost her seat and told the press that she would continue performing.
A remake of the song "Nowhere To Run," sung by Arnold McCuller, is heard in the film "The Warriors" during the scene in which the Gramercy Riffs call a hit on the Warriors.
In a Season One episode of the television show The Golden Girls, Blanche described her car as the "noisiest thing to come out of Detroit since Martha & The Vandellas.".
Candice Bergen, who hosted the Saturday Night Live episode on which Martha Reeves appeared in its inaugural season, made sure that Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were a presence throughout her "Murphy Brown" series. The group's picture was displayed prominently in Murphy's office. When Aretha Franklin guest starred and Murphy tried to sing with her, Franklin stopped her, saying, ". . .I'm not Martha, and you ain't no Vandella."
The group is briefly portrayed in the 2017 film Detroit, performing "Nowhere To Run" at the Fox Theatre, Detroit.
Awards and accolades
Martha and the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 (they were nominated for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group for the song in 1964). In 1993, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were awarded the Pioneer Award by the Rhythm & Blues Foundation. Except for pre-Vandellas member Gloria Williamson and Vandellas member Sandra Tilley, all members of the group were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, becoming the second all-female group to be inducted. They were inducted by rock group The B-52's, whose frothy dance music was inspired by the Vandellas. They were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003. Two of their singles, "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" and "Dancing in the Street" were included in the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the group No. 96 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2005, Martha & The Vandellas were voted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame.
Always concert favorites, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were nominated for UK Festival Awards in 2010 and 2011 as "Best Headliner."
Martha and the Vandellas was inducted into the inaugural class of the Official Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame at Cleveland State University August 2013
Lineups
The Del-Phis
1957–1962
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Gloria Williams
Martha & the Vandellas
1964–1967
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Betty Kelly
Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
1969–1972
Martha Reeves
Lois Reeves
Sandra Tilley
The Original Vandellas
2000s-present
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Roschelle Laughhunn
Martha & the Vandellas
1962–1964
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
1967–1969
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Lois Reeves
Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
2010–present
Martha Reeves
Lois Reeves
Delphine Reeves
Discography
For a detailed listing of albums and singles, see Martha and the Vandellas discography
Albums
Come and Get These Memories (1963)
Heat Wave (1963)
Dance Party (1965)
Greatest Hits (1966)
Watchout! (1966)
Martha and the Vandellas Live! (1967)
Ridin' High (1968)
Sugar 'n' Spice (1969)
Natural Resources (1970)
Black Magic (1972)
Top 10 singles
The following singles reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 song chart in the U.S.
"Heat Wave" (1963)
"Quicksand" (1963)
"Dancing in the Street" (1964)
"Nowhere to Run" (1965)
"I'm Ready for Love" (1966)
"Jimmy Mack" (1967)
Awards and recognition
Martha Reeves and the Vandellas' "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" and "Dancing in the Street" were inducted to the Grammy Hall of Fame and were both included in the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
They were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 becoming just the second all-female group to be inducted and the fifth group in the Motown roster to be inducted.
They were inducted to the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003.
They were nominated for a Grammy Award for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance in 1964 for their hit song "Heat Wave"
"Dancing in the Street" was included in the United States Library of Congress' National Recording Registry for its historical, artistic and cultural significance in 2006.
References
External links
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame page on Martha and the Vandellas
'Martha and the Vandellas' Vocal Group Hall of Fame Page
History of Rock page on Martha and the Vandellas
The Original Vandellas (Rosalind Ashford-Holmes & Annette Beard-Helton) page
Martha and the Vandellas History, Charts and Songs
Martha & The Vandellas at Doo Wop Heaven
Martha & The Vandellas bio on the Soulwalking U.K. website.
African-American girl groups
American soul musical groups
Motown artists
Musical groups from Detroit
Northern soul musicians
1957 establishments in Michigan
Musical groups disestablished in 1972
Singers from Detroit | true | [
"Take Two is a duet album by Motown label mates Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston, released August 25, 1966 on the Motown's Tamla label. The album was titled after its most successful selection, the Top 5 R&B/Top 20 Pop hit \"It Takes Two\", which was to this point Gaye's most successful duet with another singer. The album also featured the modest hit \"What Good Am I Without You?\".\n\nShortly after this album was released, Weston left Motown in a dispute over royalties (coincidentally, Mary Wells had departed from Motown two years prior after also recording a duets album - Together - with Gaye). Weston's replacement as Gaye's duet partner was Tammi Terrell, who recorded several successful hit singles with Gaye during the late 1960s.\n\nTrack listing\n\nSide one\n\"It Takes Two\" (Sylvia Moy, William \"Mickey\" Stevenson) - 3:00\n\"I Love You, Yes I Do\" (Henry Glover, Sally Nix) - 2:22\n\"Baby I Need Your Loving\" (Holland-Dozier-Holland) - 3:14\n\"It's Got to Be a Miracle (This Thing Called Love)\" (Vernon Bullock, Moy, Stevenson) - 3:31\n\"Baby Say Yes\" (Stevenson, Kim Weston) - 3:16\n\"What Good Am I Without You\" (Alphonso Higdon, Stevenson) - 2:55\n\nSide two\n\"'Til There Was You\" (Meredith Willson) - 2:28\n\"Love Fell on Me\" (Moy, Stevenson) - 2:29\n\"Secret Love\" (Sammy Fain, Paul Francis Webster) - 2:48\n\"I Want You 'Round\" (William \"Smokey\" Robinson, Stevenson) - 2:27\n\"Heaven Sent You, I Know\" (Bullock, Moy, Stevenson) - 3:05\n\"When We're Together\" (Bullock, Moy) - 2:40\n\nPersonnel\nMarvin Gaye - vocals\nKim Weston - vocals\nThe Andantes - backing vocals (tracks 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12)\nThe Spinners - backing vocals (track 10)\nThe Funk Brothers - instrumentation\n\n1966 albums\nMarvin Gaye albums\nTamla Records albums\nAlbums produced by Harvey Fuqua\nAlbums produced by Smokey Robinson\nAlbums produced by William \"Mickey\" Stevenson\nAlbums recorded at Hitsville U.S.A.\nVocal duet albums",
"\"What's So Good About Goodbye\" was a 1961 hit single recorded by R&B group The Miracles for Motown Records' Tamla label, later included on their 1962 album I'll Try Something New. The single was the Miracles’ second Top 40 Pop hit, peaking at number 35 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States during the winter of 1962, and a Top 20 R&B hit as well, peaking at number 16 on Billboard's R&B singles chart.\n\nWritten by Miracles lead singer Smokey Robinson, \"What's So Good About Goodbye\" explores a relationship on the verge of breakup. This song, particularly Miracles member Marv Tarplin's guitar licks, proved a major influence on The Beatles, and inspired their song \"Ask Me Why\". Its B-side, \"I've Been Good To You\", was also a hit, charting at number 103 in the U.S. It too was an influence on The Beatles, most notably shown on their 1968 recording “Sexy Sadie”. Both songs were performed on the group's first live album, The Miracles Recorded Live on Stage. \"What's So Good About Goodbye\" was later covered by The Temptations (and included on their 1965 album The Temptations Sing Smokey), The Jackson 5 (Unreleased from 1969), rock band Quix*o*tic, and Canadian group Giant Sunflower.\n\nPersonnel\nSmokey Robinson - lead vocals\nClaudette Rogers Robinson - background vocals\nPete Moore - background vocals\nRonnie White - background vocals\nBobby Rogers - background vocals\nMarv Tarplin - guitar\n The Funk Brothers - instrumentation\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n [http://motownjunkies.wordpress.com/2010/04/29/144/ The Miracles: \"What's So Good About Goodbye\" - Song review from the \" Motown Junkies\" website]\n\nThe Miracles songs\nSongs written by Smokey Robinson\nTamla Records singles\n1961 singles\n1962 singles\nSong recordings produced by Berry Gordy\n1961 songs"
] |
[
"Martha and the Vandellas",
"Motown major hit years (1962-1968)",
"What happened during motown major hit years?",
"Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team,"
] | C_1183ad7f6a684fc28b80ad594e48035d_0 | What happened after that? | 2 | What happened to Martha and the Vandellas after striking gold with the second album release? | Martha and the Vandellas | Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team, Holland-Dozier-Holland, titled "Come and Get These Memories". It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart. Their second hit, "Heat Wave", became a phenomenal record for the group, reaching number four on the Hot 100 and hitting number one on the R&B singles chart for five weeks. It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance. (On the single and album, the song was titled "Heat Wave". It was sometime later that the song was retitled to avoid confusion with the Irving Berlin song.) The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, "Quicksand", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963. Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964. Betty Kelley, formerly of the Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise. The next two singles, "Live Wire" and "In My Lonely Room" (#6 R&B Cashbox) were less successful singles, failing to reach the Top 40. However, their next single, "Dancing in the Street", rose up to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also found global success, peaking at #21 on the UK Singles Chart in 1964. In 1969, "Dancing in the Street" was re-issued and it was plugged heavily on radio stations. It did not take long for the song to peak at #4 in the UK, thus making the song one of the all-time favourite Motown single releases ever. The song became a million-seller, and one of the most played singles in history. Between 1964 and 1967, singles like "Wild One" (US #34), "Nowhere to Run" (US #8; UK #26), "Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)" (US #70; R&B #22), "You've Been in Love Too Long" (US #36), "My Baby Loves Me" (US #22; R&B #3), "I'm Ready for Love" (US #9; R&B #2; UK #29) and "Jimmy Mack" (US #10; R&B #1; UK #21) kept the Vandellas on the map as one of the label's top acts. The Vandellas' popularity helped the group get spots on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, American Bandstand and Shindig!. Throughout this period, the Vandellas had also become one of the label's most popular performing acts. CANNOTANSWER | It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart. | Martha and the Vandellas (known from 1967 to 1972 as Martha Reeves & The Vandellas) were an American vocal girl group formed in Detroit in 1957. The group achieved fame in the 1960s with Motown.
An act founded by friends Annette Beard, Rosalind Ashford and Gloria Williams, the group eventually included Martha Reeves, who moved up in ranks as lead vocalist of the group after Williams' departure in 1962. The group signed with and eventually recorded all of their singles for Motown's Gordy imprint.
The group's string of hits included "Come and Get These Memories", "Heat Wave", "Quicksand", "Nowhere to Run", "Jimmy Mack", "I'm Ready for Love", "Bless You" and "Dancing in the Street", the latter song becoming their signature single.
During their nine-year run on the charts from 1963 to 1972, Martha and the Vandellas charted over twenty-six hits and recorded in the styles of doo-wop, R&B, pop, blues, rock and roll and soul. Ten Vandellas songs reached the top ten of the Billboard R&B singles chart, including two R&B number ones, and six Top Ten Pop Hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Selected members of the group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 2013.
History
Early years (1957–1962)
Teenagers Rosalind Ashford and Annette Beard first became acquainted after a local music manager hired them to be members of a girl group he named the Del-Phis. Ashford, Beard, and lead vocalist Gloria Williams, performed at local clubs, private events, church benefits, YMCA events and school functions. They were also being coached by Maxine Powell at Detroit's Ferris Center. One of the group's first professional engagements was singing background for singer Mike Hanks.
The group originally had up to six members, subsequently reduced to four. When one of the four left the group, she was replaced by Alabama-born vocalist Martha Reeves, a former member of two groups, the Fascinations and the Sabre-Ettes. In 1960, the group signed their first recording contract with Checker Records, releasing the Reeves-led "I'll Let You Know," which flopped. The Del-Phis then went to Checkmate Records, a subsidiary of Chess Records, recording their "There He Is (At My Door)" featuring Williams on lead vocals, which also flopped.
Reeves reverted to a solo artist under the name Martha LaVaille in the hope of getting a contract with emerging Detroit label Motown. After Motown staffer Mickey Stevenson saw Reeves singing at a Detroit club, he offered her an audition. Reeves showed up at Motown's Hitsville USA studios on a Tuesday rather than Thursday, Motown's usual audition day. Initially upset with Reeves, Stevenson soon assigned her as his secretary eventually responsible for handling Motown's auditions. By 1961, the group, now known as The Vels, were recording background vocals for Motown acts. Prior to her success as lead singer of The Elgins, Sandra Edwards (then going by her surname Maulett) recorded the song "Camel Walk", in 1962, which featured the Vels in background vocals. That year, the quartet began applying background vocals for emerging Motown star Marvin Gaye, singing on Gaye's first hit single, "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" After Mary Wells failed to make a scheduled recording session feigning a short illness, the Vels recorded what was initially a demo recording of "I'll Have to Let Him Go". Motown was so impressed by the group's vocals – and Martha's lead vocals in the song – that the label CEO Berry Gordy offered to give the group a contract. Figuring that being in show business was too rigorous, Williams opted out of the group. With Williams out, the remaining trio of Ashford, Beard and Reeves were told by Gordy that they would need a new name. After failing to come up with a name on their own, Gordy gave the group the name The Vandellas. As stated in an interview with The History Makers, Ashford emphatically states that contrary to popular belief, The Vandellas were not named after Della Reese and Van Dyke Avenue, nor did Reeves come up with the name.
Motown major hit years (1962–1968)
Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team, Holland–Dozier–Holland, titled "Come and Get These Memories". It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart. Their second hit, "Heat Wave", became a phenomenal record for the group, reaching number four on the Hot 100 and hitting number one on the R&B singles chart for five weeks. It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Best R&B Performance. On the single and album, the song was titled "Heat Wave". It was sometime later that the song was retitled to avoid confusion with the Irving Berlin song.
The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, "Quicksand", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963. Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964. Betty Kelley, formerly of the Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise.
The next two singles, "Live Wire" and "In My Lonely Room" (#6 R&B Cashbox) were less successful singles, failing to reach the Pop Top 40. However, their next single, "Dancing in the Street", rose up to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also found global success, peaking at No. 21 on the UK Singles Chart in 1964. In 1969, "Dancing in the Street" was re-issued and it was plugged heavily on radio stations. It did not take long for the song to peak at No. 4 in the UK, thus making the song one of the all-time favourite Motown single releases ever. The song became a million-seller, and one of the most played singles in history.
Between 1964 and 1967, singles like "Wild One" (US #34), "Nowhere to Run" (US #8; UK #26), "Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)" (US #70; R&B #22), "You've Been in Love Too Long" (US #36), "My Baby Loves Me" (US #22; R&B #3), "I'm Ready for Love" (US #9; R&B #2; UK #29) and "Jimmy Mack" (US #10; R&B #1; UK #21) kept the Vandellas on the map as one of the label's top acts. The Vandellas' popularity helped the group get spots on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, American Bandstand and Shindig!. Throughout this period, the Vandellas had also become one of the label's most popular performing acts. On June 28, 1965, the group appeared with several other popular acts of the period on CBS-TV's Murray The K-It's What's Happening, Baby. Martha, Rosalind and Betty performed "Nowhere to Run," as they skipped through a Ford auto plant and sat in a Ford Mustang convertible as it's being assembled.
Personnel changes
Motown struggled to find good material for many of their acts after the exit of Motown contributor and Reeves' mentor William "Mickey" Stevenson in 1967 and Holland–Dozier–Holland in early 1968, but after their former collaborators left the label, the Vandellas initially continued to find success with the Richard Morris-produced singles "Love Bug Leave My Heart Alone" (US #25; R&B #14) and "Honey Chile" (US #11; UK #30; R&B #5) added to their already extended list of charted singles. In the summer of 1968, the group joined The Supremes, The Temptations, The Four Tops and Marvin Gaye in performing at the Copacabana though much like albums from the Four Tops and Gaye, a live album of their performance there was shelved indefinitely.
That same year, label changes had started to take effect, and Gordy focused much of his attention on building the Supremes' as well as Diana Ross' burgeoning upcoming solo career that would follow in 1970. The Vandellas' chart performance (and the chart performance of many Motown acts with the exception of Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, and Stevie Wonder) suffered as a result.
However it was the infighting among the members of the Vandellas that led to their problems. Kelley was the first to be let go after reportedly missing shows, as well as getting into altercations with Reeves. There were many instances where these "fights" happened on stage. Kelley was fired in 1967 and was replaced by Martha Reeves' sister Lois. Simultaneously, the group's name was officially changed to Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, to conform with the company's recent changes of The Supremes' and The Miracles' names to reflect their featured lead singers. During this time, Vandellas records including "(We've Got) Honey Love", "Sweet Darlin'" and "Taking My Love and Leaving Me" were issued as singles with diminishing success.
"Bless You" (1969–1972)
Reeves, out of the group temporarily due to illness, recovered and returned; Ashford was replaced by another former member of the Velvelettes, Sandra Tilley, and the group continued to release albums and singles into the early 1970s. Although they could not reignite the fire they had made in America they continued to have successful records the UK and abroad. Among their late 1960s hits was "I Can't Dance to That Music You're Playing", which featured singer Syreeta Wright singing the chorus, and peaked at number forty-two. Reeves reportedly hated singing the song sensing it "close to home". In 1969 a reissue of "Nowhere To Run" reached the top 40 in the UK. In 1970, the group issued Motown's first protest single, the controversial anti-war song, "I Should Be Proud", which peaked at a modest forty-five on the R&B singles chart. The song was uncharacteristic of the Vandellas and did nothing to promote the group. On some stations, the flip-side "Love, Guess Who" was played instead, however the group reached the top 20 that year in the UK with a reissue of "Jimmy Mack".
In 1971, the group scored a top 11 hit in the UK with "Forget Me Not". later that year they scored an international hit with "Bless You" (produced by the Jackson 5's producers The Corporation). The song peaked at number fifty-three on the American pop singles chart (the biggest peak of Vandellas' seventies singles in the US), and number twenty-nine on the R&B singles chart. "Bless You" reached number thirty-three in the UK giving the group two big hits that year in England. . "Bless You" reached number 16 in Canada and went all the way to number 2 in Puerto Rico . It was to be the last Billboard Hot 100 hit single for the group. After two successive Top 40 R&B singles, the ballad "In and Out of My Life" (#22 US R&B) and the Marvin Gaye cover, "Tear It On Down" (#37 US R&B), the group disbanded following a farewell concert, held at Detroit's Cobo Hall on December 21, 1972, but Martha Reeves is still often billed as ‘Martha Reeves& The Vandellas’.
The next year, Reeves announced plans of starting a solo career. At the same time, Motown Records moved its operations to Los Angeles. When Reeves did not want to move, she negotiated out of her contract with Motown, signing with MCA in 1974, and releasing the critically acclaimed self-titled debut album, Martha Reeves. Despite rave reviews of her work, neither of Reeves' post-Vandellas/Motown recordings produced the same success as they had the decade before. After living what she called "a rock & roll lifestyle" of prescription pills, cocaine and alcohol, Reeves sobered up in 1977, overcoming her addictions and becoming a born-again Christian.
Epilogue
After the Vandellas' split, Reeves' sister Lois sang with the group Quiet Elegance and sang background for Al Green, while Tilley retired from show business in the late 1970s, suddenly dying of a brain aneurysm in 1981 at the age of thirty-eight. Original member Gloria Williams, who retired from show business when she left the group, died in 2000. In 1978, Reeves and original Vandellas Ashford and Beard reunited at a Los Angeles benefit concert for actor Will Geer. In 1983, Reeves successfully sued for royalties from her Motown hits and the label agreed to have the songs credited as Martha Reeves and the Vandellas from then on. That year, Reeves performed solo at Motown 25, which alongside some of their songs being placed on the Big Chill soundtrack, helped Reeves and the Vandellas gain a new audience. In 1989, original members Ashford and Beard also sued Motown for royalties. During this time, the original trio were inspired to reunite both as a recording act and in performances. They were offered a recording contract with Ian Levine at Motorcity Records who issued the group's first single since the Vandellas disbanded seventeen years earlier called "Step Into My Shoes."
Although they are no longer singing together full-time, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas have occasionally reunited for various concerts. Currently, Ashford, whose full name now is Rosalind Ashford-Holmes, and Beard, whose full name now is Annette Beard-Helton, continue to perform with other singers, most notably Roschelle Laughhunn, as "The Original Vandellas." Reeves, with her sisters Lois and Delphine Reeves, tour as "Martha Reeves and the Vandellas."
From 2005 to 2009, Reeves held the eighth seat of Detroit's city council. She has since lost her seat and told the press that she would continue performing.
A remake of the song "Nowhere To Run," sung by Arnold McCuller, is heard in the film "The Warriors" during the scene in which the Gramercy Riffs call a hit on the Warriors.
In a Season One episode of the television show The Golden Girls, Blanche described her car as the "noisiest thing to come out of Detroit since Martha & The Vandellas.".
Candice Bergen, who hosted the Saturday Night Live episode on which Martha Reeves appeared in its inaugural season, made sure that Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were a presence throughout her "Murphy Brown" series. The group's picture was displayed prominently in Murphy's office. When Aretha Franklin guest starred and Murphy tried to sing with her, Franklin stopped her, saying, ". . .I'm not Martha, and you ain't no Vandella."
The group is briefly portrayed in the 2017 film Detroit, performing "Nowhere To Run" at the Fox Theatre, Detroit.
Awards and accolades
Martha and the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 (they were nominated for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group for the song in 1964). In 1993, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were awarded the Pioneer Award by the Rhythm & Blues Foundation. Except for pre-Vandellas member Gloria Williamson and Vandellas member Sandra Tilley, all members of the group were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, becoming the second all-female group to be inducted. They were inducted by rock group The B-52's, whose frothy dance music was inspired by the Vandellas. They were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003. Two of their singles, "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" and "Dancing in the Street" were included in the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the group No. 96 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2005, Martha & The Vandellas were voted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame.
Always concert favorites, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were nominated for UK Festival Awards in 2010 and 2011 as "Best Headliner."
Martha and the Vandellas was inducted into the inaugural class of the Official Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame at Cleveland State University August 2013
Lineups
The Del-Phis
1957–1962
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Gloria Williams
Martha & the Vandellas
1964–1967
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Betty Kelly
Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
1969–1972
Martha Reeves
Lois Reeves
Sandra Tilley
The Original Vandellas
2000s-present
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Roschelle Laughhunn
Martha & the Vandellas
1962–1964
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
1967–1969
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Lois Reeves
Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
2010–present
Martha Reeves
Lois Reeves
Delphine Reeves
Discography
For a detailed listing of albums and singles, see Martha and the Vandellas discography
Albums
Come and Get These Memories (1963)
Heat Wave (1963)
Dance Party (1965)
Greatest Hits (1966)
Watchout! (1966)
Martha and the Vandellas Live! (1967)
Ridin' High (1968)
Sugar 'n' Spice (1969)
Natural Resources (1970)
Black Magic (1972)
Top 10 singles
The following singles reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 song chart in the U.S.
"Heat Wave" (1963)
"Quicksand" (1963)
"Dancing in the Street" (1964)
"Nowhere to Run" (1965)
"I'm Ready for Love" (1966)
"Jimmy Mack" (1967)
Awards and recognition
Martha Reeves and the Vandellas' "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" and "Dancing in the Street" were inducted to the Grammy Hall of Fame and were both included in the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
They were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 becoming just the second all-female group to be inducted and the fifth group in the Motown roster to be inducted.
They were inducted to the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003.
They were nominated for a Grammy Award for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance in 1964 for their hit song "Heat Wave"
"Dancing in the Street" was included in the United States Library of Congress' National Recording Registry for its historical, artistic and cultural significance in 2006.
References
External links
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame page on Martha and the Vandellas
'Martha and the Vandellas' Vocal Group Hall of Fame Page
History of Rock page on Martha and the Vandellas
The Original Vandellas (Rosalind Ashford-Holmes & Annette Beard-Helton) page
Martha and the Vandellas History, Charts and Songs
Martha & The Vandellas at Doo Wop Heaven
Martha & The Vandellas bio on the Soulwalking U.K. website.
African-American girl groups
American soul musical groups
Motown artists
Musical groups from Detroit
Northern soul musicians
1957 establishments in Michigan
Musical groups disestablished in 1972
Singers from Detroit | true | [
"Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books",
"What Happened to Jones may refer to:\n What Happened to Jones (1897 play), a play by George Broadhurst\n What Happened to Jones (1915 film), a lost silent film\n What Happened to Jones (1920 film), a lost silent film\n What Happened to Jones (1926 film), a silent film comedy"
] |
[
"Martha and the Vandellas",
"Motown major hit years (1962-1968)",
"What happened during motown major hit years?",
"Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team,",
"What happened after that?",
"It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart."
] | C_1183ad7f6a684fc28b80ad594e48035d_0 | Can you tell me how long did it stay on the charts? | 3 | Can you tell me how long did Martha and the Vandellas second album stay on the charts? | Martha and the Vandellas | Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team, Holland-Dozier-Holland, titled "Come and Get These Memories". It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart. Their second hit, "Heat Wave", became a phenomenal record for the group, reaching number four on the Hot 100 and hitting number one on the R&B singles chart for five weeks. It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance. (On the single and album, the song was titled "Heat Wave". It was sometime later that the song was retitled to avoid confusion with the Irving Berlin song.) The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, "Quicksand", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963. Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964. Betty Kelley, formerly of the Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise. The next two singles, "Live Wire" and "In My Lonely Room" (#6 R&B Cashbox) were less successful singles, failing to reach the Top 40. However, their next single, "Dancing in the Street", rose up to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also found global success, peaking at #21 on the UK Singles Chart in 1964. In 1969, "Dancing in the Street" was re-issued and it was plugged heavily on radio stations. It did not take long for the song to peak at #4 in the UK, thus making the song one of the all-time favourite Motown single releases ever. The song became a million-seller, and one of the most played singles in history. Between 1964 and 1967, singles like "Wild One" (US #34), "Nowhere to Run" (US #8; UK #26), "Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)" (US #70; R&B #22), "You've Been in Love Too Long" (US #36), "My Baby Loves Me" (US #22; R&B #3), "I'm Ready for Love" (US #9; R&B #2; UK #29) and "Jimmy Mack" (US #10; R&B #1; UK #21) kept the Vandellas on the map as one of the label's top acts. The Vandellas' popularity helped the group get spots on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, American Bandstand and Shindig!. Throughout this period, the Vandellas had also become one of the label's most popular performing acts. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Martha and the Vandellas (known from 1967 to 1972 as Martha Reeves & The Vandellas) were an American vocal girl group formed in Detroit in 1957. The group achieved fame in the 1960s with Motown.
An act founded by friends Annette Beard, Rosalind Ashford and Gloria Williams, the group eventually included Martha Reeves, who moved up in ranks as lead vocalist of the group after Williams' departure in 1962. The group signed with and eventually recorded all of their singles for Motown's Gordy imprint.
The group's string of hits included "Come and Get These Memories", "Heat Wave", "Quicksand", "Nowhere to Run", "Jimmy Mack", "I'm Ready for Love", "Bless You" and "Dancing in the Street", the latter song becoming their signature single.
During their nine-year run on the charts from 1963 to 1972, Martha and the Vandellas charted over twenty-six hits and recorded in the styles of doo-wop, R&B, pop, blues, rock and roll and soul. Ten Vandellas songs reached the top ten of the Billboard R&B singles chart, including two R&B number ones, and six Top Ten Pop Hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Selected members of the group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 2013.
History
Early years (1957–1962)
Teenagers Rosalind Ashford and Annette Beard first became acquainted after a local music manager hired them to be members of a girl group he named the Del-Phis. Ashford, Beard, and lead vocalist Gloria Williams, performed at local clubs, private events, church benefits, YMCA events and school functions. They were also being coached by Maxine Powell at Detroit's Ferris Center. One of the group's first professional engagements was singing background for singer Mike Hanks.
The group originally had up to six members, subsequently reduced to four. When one of the four left the group, she was replaced by Alabama-born vocalist Martha Reeves, a former member of two groups, the Fascinations and the Sabre-Ettes. In 1960, the group signed their first recording contract with Checker Records, releasing the Reeves-led "I'll Let You Know," which flopped. The Del-Phis then went to Checkmate Records, a subsidiary of Chess Records, recording their "There He Is (At My Door)" featuring Williams on lead vocals, which also flopped.
Reeves reverted to a solo artist under the name Martha LaVaille in the hope of getting a contract with emerging Detroit label Motown. After Motown staffer Mickey Stevenson saw Reeves singing at a Detroit club, he offered her an audition. Reeves showed up at Motown's Hitsville USA studios on a Tuesday rather than Thursday, Motown's usual audition day. Initially upset with Reeves, Stevenson soon assigned her as his secretary eventually responsible for handling Motown's auditions. By 1961, the group, now known as The Vels, were recording background vocals for Motown acts. Prior to her success as lead singer of The Elgins, Sandra Edwards (then going by her surname Maulett) recorded the song "Camel Walk", in 1962, which featured the Vels in background vocals. That year, the quartet began applying background vocals for emerging Motown star Marvin Gaye, singing on Gaye's first hit single, "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" After Mary Wells failed to make a scheduled recording session feigning a short illness, the Vels recorded what was initially a demo recording of "I'll Have to Let Him Go". Motown was so impressed by the group's vocals – and Martha's lead vocals in the song – that the label CEO Berry Gordy offered to give the group a contract. Figuring that being in show business was too rigorous, Williams opted out of the group. With Williams out, the remaining trio of Ashford, Beard and Reeves were told by Gordy that they would need a new name. After failing to come up with a name on their own, Gordy gave the group the name The Vandellas. As stated in an interview with The History Makers, Ashford emphatically states that contrary to popular belief, The Vandellas were not named after Della Reese and Van Dyke Avenue, nor did Reeves come up with the name.
Motown major hit years (1962–1968)
Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team, Holland–Dozier–Holland, titled "Come and Get These Memories". It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart. Their second hit, "Heat Wave", became a phenomenal record for the group, reaching number four on the Hot 100 and hitting number one on the R&B singles chart for five weeks. It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Best R&B Performance. On the single and album, the song was titled "Heat Wave". It was sometime later that the song was retitled to avoid confusion with the Irving Berlin song.
The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, "Quicksand", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963. Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964. Betty Kelley, formerly of the Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise.
The next two singles, "Live Wire" and "In My Lonely Room" (#6 R&B Cashbox) were less successful singles, failing to reach the Pop Top 40. However, their next single, "Dancing in the Street", rose up to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also found global success, peaking at No. 21 on the UK Singles Chart in 1964. In 1969, "Dancing in the Street" was re-issued and it was plugged heavily on radio stations. It did not take long for the song to peak at No. 4 in the UK, thus making the song one of the all-time favourite Motown single releases ever. The song became a million-seller, and one of the most played singles in history.
Between 1964 and 1967, singles like "Wild One" (US #34), "Nowhere to Run" (US #8; UK #26), "Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)" (US #70; R&B #22), "You've Been in Love Too Long" (US #36), "My Baby Loves Me" (US #22; R&B #3), "I'm Ready for Love" (US #9; R&B #2; UK #29) and "Jimmy Mack" (US #10; R&B #1; UK #21) kept the Vandellas on the map as one of the label's top acts. The Vandellas' popularity helped the group get spots on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, American Bandstand and Shindig!. Throughout this period, the Vandellas had also become one of the label's most popular performing acts. On June 28, 1965, the group appeared with several other popular acts of the period on CBS-TV's Murray The K-It's What's Happening, Baby. Martha, Rosalind and Betty performed "Nowhere to Run," as they skipped through a Ford auto plant and sat in a Ford Mustang convertible as it's being assembled.
Personnel changes
Motown struggled to find good material for many of their acts after the exit of Motown contributor and Reeves' mentor William "Mickey" Stevenson in 1967 and Holland–Dozier–Holland in early 1968, but after their former collaborators left the label, the Vandellas initially continued to find success with the Richard Morris-produced singles "Love Bug Leave My Heart Alone" (US #25; R&B #14) and "Honey Chile" (US #11; UK #30; R&B #5) added to their already extended list of charted singles. In the summer of 1968, the group joined The Supremes, The Temptations, The Four Tops and Marvin Gaye in performing at the Copacabana though much like albums from the Four Tops and Gaye, a live album of their performance there was shelved indefinitely.
That same year, label changes had started to take effect, and Gordy focused much of his attention on building the Supremes' as well as Diana Ross' burgeoning upcoming solo career that would follow in 1970. The Vandellas' chart performance (and the chart performance of many Motown acts with the exception of Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, and Stevie Wonder) suffered as a result.
However it was the infighting among the members of the Vandellas that led to their problems. Kelley was the first to be let go after reportedly missing shows, as well as getting into altercations with Reeves. There were many instances where these "fights" happened on stage. Kelley was fired in 1967 and was replaced by Martha Reeves' sister Lois. Simultaneously, the group's name was officially changed to Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, to conform with the company's recent changes of The Supremes' and The Miracles' names to reflect their featured lead singers. During this time, Vandellas records including "(We've Got) Honey Love", "Sweet Darlin'" and "Taking My Love and Leaving Me" were issued as singles with diminishing success.
"Bless You" (1969–1972)
Reeves, out of the group temporarily due to illness, recovered and returned; Ashford was replaced by another former member of the Velvelettes, Sandra Tilley, and the group continued to release albums and singles into the early 1970s. Although they could not reignite the fire they had made in America they continued to have successful records the UK and abroad. Among their late 1960s hits was "I Can't Dance to That Music You're Playing", which featured singer Syreeta Wright singing the chorus, and peaked at number forty-two. Reeves reportedly hated singing the song sensing it "close to home". In 1969 a reissue of "Nowhere To Run" reached the top 40 in the UK. In 1970, the group issued Motown's first protest single, the controversial anti-war song, "I Should Be Proud", which peaked at a modest forty-five on the R&B singles chart. The song was uncharacteristic of the Vandellas and did nothing to promote the group. On some stations, the flip-side "Love, Guess Who" was played instead, however the group reached the top 20 that year in the UK with a reissue of "Jimmy Mack".
In 1971, the group scored a top 11 hit in the UK with "Forget Me Not". later that year they scored an international hit with "Bless You" (produced by the Jackson 5's producers The Corporation). The song peaked at number fifty-three on the American pop singles chart (the biggest peak of Vandellas' seventies singles in the US), and number twenty-nine on the R&B singles chart. "Bless You" reached number thirty-three in the UK giving the group two big hits that year in England. . "Bless You" reached number 16 in Canada and went all the way to number 2 in Puerto Rico . It was to be the last Billboard Hot 100 hit single for the group. After two successive Top 40 R&B singles, the ballad "In and Out of My Life" (#22 US R&B) and the Marvin Gaye cover, "Tear It On Down" (#37 US R&B), the group disbanded following a farewell concert, held at Detroit's Cobo Hall on December 21, 1972, but Martha Reeves is still often billed as ‘Martha Reeves& The Vandellas’.
The next year, Reeves announced plans of starting a solo career. At the same time, Motown Records moved its operations to Los Angeles. When Reeves did not want to move, she negotiated out of her contract with Motown, signing with MCA in 1974, and releasing the critically acclaimed self-titled debut album, Martha Reeves. Despite rave reviews of her work, neither of Reeves' post-Vandellas/Motown recordings produced the same success as they had the decade before. After living what she called "a rock & roll lifestyle" of prescription pills, cocaine and alcohol, Reeves sobered up in 1977, overcoming her addictions and becoming a born-again Christian.
Epilogue
After the Vandellas' split, Reeves' sister Lois sang with the group Quiet Elegance and sang background for Al Green, while Tilley retired from show business in the late 1970s, suddenly dying of a brain aneurysm in 1981 at the age of thirty-eight. Original member Gloria Williams, who retired from show business when she left the group, died in 2000. In 1978, Reeves and original Vandellas Ashford and Beard reunited at a Los Angeles benefit concert for actor Will Geer. In 1983, Reeves successfully sued for royalties from her Motown hits and the label agreed to have the songs credited as Martha Reeves and the Vandellas from then on. That year, Reeves performed solo at Motown 25, which alongside some of their songs being placed on the Big Chill soundtrack, helped Reeves and the Vandellas gain a new audience. In 1989, original members Ashford and Beard also sued Motown for royalties. During this time, the original trio were inspired to reunite both as a recording act and in performances. They were offered a recording contract with Ian Levine at Motorcity Records who issued the group's first single since the Vandellas disbanded seventeen years earlier called "Step Into My Shoes."
Although they are no longer singing together full-time, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas have occasionally reunited for various concerts. Currently, Ashford, whose full name now is Rosalind Ashford-Holmes, and Beard, whose full name now is Annette Beard-Helton, continue to perform with other singers, most notably Roschelle Laughhunn, as "The Original Vandellas." Reeves, with her sisters Lois and Delphine Reeves, tour as "Martha Reeves and the Vandellas."
From 2005 to 2009, Reeves held the eighth seat of Detroit's city council. She has since lost her seat and told the press that she would continue performing.
A remake of the song "Nowhere To Run," sung by Arnold McCuller, is heard in the film "The Warriors" during the scene in which the Gramercy Riffs call a hit on the Warriors.
In a Season One episode of the television show The Golden Girls, Blanche described her car as the "noisiest thing to come out of Detroit since Martha & The Vandellas.".
Candice Bergen, who hosted the Saturday Night Live episode on which Martha Reeves appeared in its inaugural season, made sure that Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were a presence throughout her "Murphy Brown" series. The group's picture was displayed prominently in Murphy's office. When Aretha Franklin guest starred and Murphy tried to sing with her, Franklin stopped her, saying, ". . .I'm not Martha, and you ain't no Vandella."
The group is briefly portrayed in the 2017 film Detroit, performing "Nowhere To Run" at the Fox Theatre, Detroit.
Awards and accolades
Martha and the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 (they were nominated for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group for the song in 1964). In 1993, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were awarded the Pioneer Award by the Rhythm & Blues Foundation. Except for pre-Vandellas member Gloria Williamson and Vandellas member Sandra Tilley, all members of the group were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, becoming the second all-female group to be inducted. They were inducted by rock group The B-52's, whose frothy dance music was inspired by the Vandellas. They were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003. Two of their singles, "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" and "Dancing in the Street" were included in the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the group No. 96 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2005, Martha & The Vandellas were voted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame.
Always concert favorites, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were nominated for UK Festival Awards in 2010 and 2011 as "Best Headliner."
Martha and the Vandellas was inducted into the inaugural class of the Official Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame at Cleveland State University August 2013
Lineups
The Del-Phis
1957–1962
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Gloria Williams
Martha & the Vandellas
1964–1967
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Betty Kelly
Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
1969–1972
Martha Reeves
Lois Reeves
Sandra Tilley
The Original Vandellas
2000s-present
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Roschelle Laughhunn
Martha & the Vandellas
1962–1964
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
1967–1969
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Lois Reeves
Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
2010–present
Martha Reeves
Lois Reeves
Delphine Reeves
Discography
For a detailed listing of albums and singles, see Martha and the Vandellas discography
Albums
Come and Get These Memories (1963)
Heat Wave (1963)
Dance Party (1965)
Greatest Hits (1966)
Watchout! (1966)
Martha and the Vandellas Live! (1967)
Ridin' High (1968)
Sugar 'n' Spice (1969)
Natural Resources (1970)
Black Magic (1972)
Top 10 singles
The following singles reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 song chart in the U.S.
"Heat Wave" (1963)
"Quicksand" (1963)
"Dancing in the Street" (1964)
"Nowhere to Run" (1965)
"I'm Ready for Love" (1966)
"Jimmy Mack" (1967)
Awards and recognition
Martha Reeves and the Vandellas' "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" and "Dancing in the Street" were inducted to the Grammy Hall of Fame and were both included in the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
They were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 becoming just the second all-female group to be inducted and the fifth group in the Motown roster to be inducted.
They were inducted to the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003.
They were nominated for a Grammy Award for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance in 1964 for their hit song "Heat Wave"
"Dancing in the Street" was included in the United States Library of Congress' National Recording Registry for its historical, artistic and cultural significance in 2006.
References
External links
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame page on Martha and the Vandellas
'Martha and the Vandellas' Vocal Group Hall of Fame Page
History of Rock page on Martha and the Vandellas
The Original Vandellas (Rosalind Ashford-Holmes & Annette Beard-Helton) page
Martha and the Vandellas History, Charts and Songs
Martha & The Vandellas at Doo Wop Heaven
Martha & The Vandellas bio on the Soulwalking U.K. website.
African-American girl groups
American soul musical groups
Motown artists
Musical groups from Detroit
Northern soul musicians
1957 establishments in Michigan
Musical groups disestablished in 1972
Singers from Detroit | false | [
"\"Tell Me How You Feel\" is a song by American singer and actress Joy Enriquez. It samples \"Mellow Mellow Right On\" by Lowrell Simon. The song was released as the second single from her debut self-titled studio album in September 2000, peaking at number 17 on the US Billboard Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, number 24 in Australia and number 14 in New Zealand, where it was certified Gold for sales of over 5,000.\n\nTrack listings\n\nUS CD single\n \"Tell Me How You Feel\" – 4:06\n Snippets from Joy Enriquez\n \"Shake Up the Party\"\n \"Situation\"\n \"I Can't Believe\"\n\nAustralian maxi-CD single\n \"Tell Me How You Feel\" – 4:06\n \"Tell Me How You Feel\" (Full Crew remix) – 4:04\n \"Between You and Me\" – 4:21\n \"How Can I Not Love You\" – 4:33\n\nEuropean CD single\n \"Tell Me How You Feel\" (album version) – 4:06\n \"Tell Me How You Feel\" (Full Crew remix) – 4:05\n\nEuropean maxi-CD single\n \"Tell Me How You Feel\" (album version) – 4:06\n \"Tell Me How You Feel\" (Full Crew remix) – 4:05\n \"Dime mi amor\" (Spanish version) – 3:59\n \"Tell Me How You Feel\" (instrumental) – 4:05\n\nJapanese CD single\n \"Tell Me How You Feel\"\n \"How Can I Not Love You\"\n\nCharts\n\nCertifications\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n at Discogs\n\n2000 singles\n2000 songs\n2001 singles\nArista Records singles\nSong recordings produced by Soulshock and Karlin\nSongs written by Kenneth Karlin\nSongs written by Soulshock",
"Kim Sozzi (born 1978) is an American dance-pop singer from Long Island, New York.\n\nPersonal life\n\nSozzi grew up on Long Island. She is of Italian and Puerto Rican descent.\n\nCareer\nKim Sozzi's career began in 1999 when she signed a contract on Columbia Records for her first major album, Life Goes On. Her first single from the album was \"Til I Cry You Out Of Me\", followed by \"Letting Go\" which was on the soundtrack for the TV show Dawson's Creek. Both singles were successful, but the album was shelved and never released. Another single, \"Feelin' Me\", was a popular dance track.\n\nAs part of the group MYNT, Kim Sozzi released the single \"How Did You Know\" followed by an album, Still Not Sorry, which featured Kim Sozzi on vocals on some tracks. Kim Sozzi later left the group to pursue her solo career.\n\nKim Sozzi signed with Ultra Records and released a new single, \"Alone\", a cover of the Heart song, and another single \"Break Up\" which achieved some success in the US and the UK. In 2008, she released \"Like a Star\". \"Feel Your Love\" was released at the end of 2008, becoming Kim Sozzi's most successful single, peaking at No. 1 on the Billboard Dance Airplay Chart. \"Just One Day\" was released on July 21, 2009, on Ultra Records.\nShe also made a song with Jim Johnston \"You Can Look But You Can't Touch\" for the WWE Divas Nikki and Brie, The Bella Twins, which is now solely attributed to Nikki.\n\nDiscography\n\nAlbums\n 1999: Life Goes On\n 2007: Still Not Sorry\n 2009: Just One Day\n\nEPs\n 2011: EP 1\n 2011: EP 2\n\nSingles\n\"Til I Cry You Out of Me\" (Teaching Mrs. Tingle) (Soundtrack) (from Life Goes On)\n\"Letting Go\" (Dawsons Creek) (Soundtrack) - (from Life Goes On)\n\"Feelin' Me\" - Edel Records\n\"Every 1's a Winner\" (as Kim Styles) - (from The German Album)\n\"Show Me the Way\" (as Kim Styles feat. José Carreras) - (from The German Album)\n\"How Did You Know\" (Soundtrack) - (from Still Not Sorry) (No. 3 Billboard Dance Charts)\n\"Stay\" - (from Still Not Sorry)\n\"Alone\" - (from Just One Day)\n\"Break Up\" - (from Just One Day) (No. 23 UK Singles Chart June 2007)\n\"Like a Star\" - (from Just One Day)\n\"Feel Your Love\" - (from Just one Day) (No. 1 Billboard Dance Charts)\n\"Kiss Me Back\" - (from Just One Day) (No. 1 Billboard Dance Charts 12/9/2009)\n\"Secret Love\" - (from Just One Day) (No. 1 Billboard Dance Charts 2/22/2010)\n\"Just One Day\" - (from Just One Day)\n\"Rated R\" - standalone digital single\n\"Little Bird\" - standalone digital single (No. 15 Billboard Dance Charts)\n\"Crystallized\" - standalone digital single\n\"Never Say Goodnight\"\n\"How Did You Know\" - standalone digital single\n\nMusic videos\n\"Every 1's a Winner\"\n\"Break Up\"\n\"Feel Your Love\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial Website\nArtist Site at Ultra Records\nMyspace\n\n1978 births\nLiving people\nUltra Records artists\nAmerican musicians of Puerto Rican descent\n21st-century American singers\n21st-century American women singers"
] |
[
"Martha and the Vandellas",
"Motown major hit years (1962-1968)",
"What happened during motown major hit years?",
"Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team,",
"What happened after that?",
"It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart.",
"Can you tell me how long did it stay on the charts?",
"I don't know."
] | C_1183ad7f6a684fc28b80ad594e48035d_0 | What were some of their major hits? | 4 | What were some of Martha and the Vandellas major hits? | Martha and the Vandellas | Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team, Holland-Dozier-Holland, titled "Come and Get These Memories". It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart. Their second hit, "Heat Wave", became a phenomenal record for the group, reaching number four on the Hot 100 and hitting number one on the R&B singles chart for five weeks. It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance. (On the single and album, the song was titled "Heat Wave". It was sometime later that the song was retitled to avoid confusion with the Irving Berlin song.) The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, "Quicksand", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963. Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964. Betty Kelley, formerly of the Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise. The next two singles, "Live Wire" and "In My Lonely Room" (#6 R&B Cashbox) were less successful singles, failing to reach the Top 40. However, their next single, "Dancing in the Street", rose up to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also found global success, peaking at #21 on the UK Singles Chart in 1964. In 1969, "Dancing in the Street" was re-issued and it was plugged heavily on radio stations. It did not take long for the song to peak at #4 in the UK, thus making the song one of the all-time favourite Motown single releases ever. The song became a million-seller, and one of the most played singles in history. Between 1964 and 1967, singles like "Wild One" (US #34), "Nowhere to Run" (US #8; UK #26), "Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)" (US #70; R&B #22), "You've Been in Love Too Long" (US #36), "My Baby Loves Me" (US #22; R&B #3), "I'm Ready for Love" (US #9; R&B #2; UK #29) and "Jimmy Mack" (US #10; R&B #1; UK #21) kept the Vandellas on the map as one of the label's top acts. The Vandellas' popularity helped the group get spots on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, American Bandstand and Shindig!. Throughout this period, the Vandellas had also become one of the label's most popular performing acts. CANNOTANSWER | Their second hit, "Heat Wave", became a phenomenal record for the group, | Martha and the Vandellas (known from 1967 to 1972 as Martha Reeves & The Vandellas) were an American vocal girl group formed in Detroit in 1957. The group achieved fame in the 1960s with Motown.
An act founded by friends Annette Beard, Rosalind Ashford and Gloria Williams, the group eventually included Martha Reeves, who moved up in ranks as lead vocalist of the group after Williams' departure in 1962. The group signed with and eventually recorded all of their singles for Motown's Gordy imprint.
The group's string of hits included "Come and Get These Memories", "Heat Wave", "Quicksand", "Nowhere to Run", "Jimmy Mack", "I'm Ready for Love", "Bless You" and "Dancing in the Street", the latter song becoming their signature single.
During their nine-year run on the charts from 1963 to 1972, Martha and the Vandellas charted over twenty-six hits and recorded in the styles of doo-wop, R&B, pop, blues, rock and roll and soul. Ten Vandellas songs reached the top ten of the Billboard R&B singles chart, including two R&B number ones, and six Top Ten Pop Hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Selected members of the group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 2013.
History
Early years (1957–1962)
Teenagers Rosalind Ashford and Annette Beard first became acquainted after a local music manager hired them to be members of a girl group he named the Del-Phis. Ashford, Beard, and lead vocalist Gloria Williams, performed at local clubs, private events, church benefits, YMCA events and school functions. They were also being coached by Maxine Powell at Detroit's Ferris Center. One of the group's first professional engagements was singing background for singer Mike Hanks.
The group originally had up to six members, subsequently reduced to four. When one of the four left the group, she was replaced by Alabama-born vocalist Martha Reeves, a former member of two groups, the Fascinations and the Sabre-Ettes. In 1960, the group signed their first recording contract with Checker Records, releasing the Reeves-led "I'll Let You Know," which flopped. The Del-Phis then went to Checkmate Records, a subsidiary of Chess Records, recording their "There He Is (At My Door)" featuring Williams on lead vocals, which also flopped.
Reeves reverted to a solo artist under the name Martha LaVaille in the hope of getting a contract with emerging Detroit label Motown. After Motown staffer Mickey Stevenson saw Reeves singing at a Detroit club, he offered her an audition. Reeves showed up at Motown's Hitsville USA studios on a Tuesday rather than Thursday, Motown's usual audition day. Initially upset with Reeves, Stevenson soon assigned her as his secretary eventually responsible for handling Motown's auditions. By 1961, the group, now known as The Vels, were recording background vocals for Motown acts. Prior to her success as lead singer of The Elgins, Sandra Edwards (then going by her surname Maulett) recorded the song "Camel Walk", in 1962, which featured the Vels in background vocals. That year, the quartet began applying background vocals for emerging Motown star Marvin Gaye, singing on Gaye's first hit single, "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" After Mary Wells failed to make a scheduled recording session feigning a short illness, the Vels recorded what was initially a demo recording of "I'll Have to Let Him Go". Motown was so impressed by the group's vocals – and Martha's lead vocals in the song – that the label CEO Berry Gordy offered to give the group a contract. Figuring that being in show business was too rigorous, Williams opted out of the group. With Williams out, the remaining trio of Ashford, Beard and Reeves were told by Gordy that they would need a new name. After failing to come up with a name on their own, Gordy gave the group the name The Vandellas. As stated in an interview with The History Makers, Ashford emphatically states that contrary to popular belief, The Vandellas were not named after Della Reese and Van Dyke Avenue, nor did Reeves come up with the name.
Motown major hit years (1962–1968)
Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team, Holland–Dozier–Holland, titled "Come and Get These Memories". It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart. Their second hit, "Heat Wave", became a phenomenal record for the group, reaching number four on the Hot 100 and hitting number one on the R&B singles chart for five weeks. It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Best R&B Performance. On the single and album, the song was titled "Heat Wave". It was sometime later that the song was retitled to avoid confusion with the Irving Berlin song.
The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, "Quicksand", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963. Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964. Betty Kelley, formerly of the Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise.
The next two singles, "Live Wire" and "In My Lonely Room" (#6 R&B Cashbox) were less successful singles, failing to reach the Pop Top 40. However, their next single, "Dancing in the Street", rose up to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also found global success, peaking at No. 21 on the UK Singles Chart in 1964. In 1969, "Dancing in the Street" was re-issued and it was plugged heavily on radio stations. It did not take long for the song to peak at No. 4 in the UK, thus making the song one of the all-time favourite Motown single releases ever. The song became a million-seller, and one of the most played singles in history.
Between 1964 and 1967, singles like "Wild One" (US #34), "Nowhere to Run" (US #8; UK #26), "Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)" (US #70; R&B #22), "You've Been in Love Too Long" (US #36), "My Baby Loves Me" (US #22; R&B #3), "I'm Ready for Love" (US #9; R&B #2; UK #29) and "Jimmy Mack" (US #10; R&B #1; UK #21) kept the Vandellas on the map as one of the label's top acts. The Vandellas' popularity helped the group get spots on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, American Bandstand and Shindig!. Throughout this period, the Vandellas had also become one of the label's most popular performing acts. On June 28, 1965, the group appeared with several other popular acts of the period on CBS-TV's Murray The K-It's What's Happening, Baby. Martha, Rosalind and Betty performed "Nowhere to Run," as they skipped through a Ford auto plant and sat in a Ford Mustang convertible as it's being assembled.
Personnel changes
Motown struggled to find good material for many of their acts after the exit of Motown contributor and Reeves' mentor William "Mickey" Stevenson in 1967 and Holland–Dozier–Holland in early 1968, but after their former collaborators left the label, the Vandellas initially continued to find success with the Richard Morris-produced singles "Love Bug Leave My Heart Alone" (US #25; R&B #14) and "Honey Chile" (US #11; UK #30; R&B #5) added to their already extended list of charted singles. In the summer of 1968, the group joined The Supremes, The Temptations, The Four Tops and Marvin Gaye in performing at the Copacabana though much like albums from the Four Tops and Gaye, a live album of their performance there was shelved indefinitely.
That same year, label changes had started to take effect, and Gordy focused much of his attention on building the Supremes' as well as Diana Ross' burgeoning upcoming solo career that would follow in 1970. The Vandellas' chart performance (and the chart performance of many Motown acts with the exception of Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, and Stevie Wonder) suffered as a result.
However it was the infighting among the members of the Vandellas that led to their problems. Kelley was the first to be let go after reportedly missing shows, as well as getting into altercations with Reeves. There were many instances where these "fights" happened on stage. Kelley was fired in 1967 and was replaced by Martha Reeves' sister Lois. Simultaneously, the group's name was officially changed to Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, to conform with the company's recent changes of The Supremes' and The Miracles' names to reflect their featured lead singers. During this time, Vandellas records including "(We've Got) Honey Love", "Sweet Darlin'" and "Taking My Love and Leaving Me" were issued as singles with diminishing success.
"Bless You" (1969–1972)
Reeves, out of the group temporarily due to illness, recovered and returned; Ashford was replaced by another former member of the Velvelettes, Sandra Tilley, and the group continued to release albums and singles into the early 1970s. Although they could not reignite the fire they had made in America they continued to have successful records the UK and abroad. Among their late 1960s hits was "I Can't Dance to That Music You're Playing", which featured singer Syreeta Wright singing the chorus, and peaked at number forty-two. Reeves reportedly hated singing the song sensing it "close to home". In 1969 a reissue of "Nowhere To Run" reached the top 40 in the UK. In 1970, the group issued Motown's first protest single, the controversial anti-war song, "I Should Be Proud", which peaked at a modest forty-five on the R&B singles chart. The song was uncharacteristic of the Vandellas and did nothing to promote the group. On some stations, the flip-side "Love, Guess Who" was played instead, however the group reached the top 20 that year in the UK with a reissue of "Jimmy Mack".
In 1971, the group scored a top 11 hit in the UK with "Forget Me Not". later that year they scored an international hit with "Bless You" (produced by the Jackson 5's producers The Corporation). The song peaked at number fifty-three on the American pop singles chart (the biggest peak of Vandellas' seventies singles in the US), and number twenty-nine on the R&B singles chart. "Bless You" reached number thirty-three in the UK giving the group two big hits that year in England. . "Bless You" reached number 16 in Canada and went all the way to number 2 in Puerto Rico . It was to be the last Billboard Hot 100 hit single for the group. After two successive Top 40 R&B singles, the ballad "In and Out of My Life" (#22 US R&B) and the Marvin Gaye cover, "Tear It On Down" (#37 US R&B), the group disbanded following a farewell concert, held at Detroit's Cobo Hall on December 21, 1972, but Martha Reeves is still often billed as ‘Martha Reeves& The Vandellas’.
The next year, Reeves announced plans of starting a solo career. At the same time, Motown Records moved its operations to Los Angeles. When Reeves did not want to move, she negotiated out of her contract with Motown, signing with MCA in 1974, and releasing the critically acclaimed self-titled debut album, Martha Reeves. Despite rave reviews of her work, neither of Reeves' post-Vandellas/Motown recordings produced the same success as they had the decade before. After living what she called "a rock & roll lifestyle" of prescription pills, cocaine and alcohol, Reeves sobered up in 1977, overcoming her addictions and becoming a born-again Christian.
Epilogue
After the Vandellas' split, Reeves' sister Lois sang with the group Quiet Elegance and sang background for Al Green, while Tilley retired from show business in the late 1970s, suddenly dying of a brain aneurysm in 1981 at the age of thirty-eight. Original member Gloria Williams, who retired from show business when she left the group, died in 2000. In 1978, Reeves and original Vandellas Ashford and Beard reunited at a Los Angeles benefit concert for actor Will Geer. In 1983, Reeves successfully sued for royalties from her Motown hits and the label agreed to have the songs credited as Martha Reeves and the Vandellas from then on. That year, Reeves performed solo at Motown 25, which alongside some of their songs being placed on the Big Chill soundtrack, helped Reeves and the Vandellas gain a new audience. In 1989, original members Ashford and Beard also sued Motown for royalties. During this time, the original trio were inspired to reunite both as a recording act and in performances. They were offered a recording contract with Ian Levine at Motorcity Records who issued the group's first single since the Vandellas disbanded seventeen years earlier called "Step Into My Shoes."
Although they are no longer singing together full-time, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas have occasionally reunited for various concerts. Currently, Ashford, whose full name now is Rosalind Ashford-Holmes, and Beard, whose full name now is Annette Beard-Helton, continue to perform with other singers, most notably Roschelle Laughhunn, as "The Original Vandellas." Reeves, with her sisters Lois and Delphine Reeves, tour as "Martha Reeves and the Vandellas."
From 2005 to 2009, Reeves held the eighth seat of Detroit's city council. She has since lost her seat and told the press that she would continue performing.
A remake of the song "Nowhere To Run," sung by Arnold McCuller, is heard in the film "The Warriors" during the scene in which the Gramercy Riffs call a hit on the Warriors.
In a Season One episode of the television show The Golden Girls, Blanche described her car as the "noisiest thing to come out of Detroit since Martha & The Vandellas.".
Candice Bergen, who hosted the Saturday Night Live episode on which Martha Reeves appeared in its inaugural season, made sure that Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were a presence throughout her "Murphy Brown" series. The group's picture was displayed prominently in Murphy's office. When Aretha Franklin guest starred and Murphy tried to sing with her, Franklin stopped her, saying, ". . .I'm not Martha, and you ain't no Vandella."
The group is briefly portrayed in the 2017 film Detroit, performing "Nowhere To Run" at the Fox Theatre, Detroit.
Awards and accolades
Martha and the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 (they were nominated for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group for the song in 1964). In 1993, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were awarded the Pioneer Award by the Rhythm & Blues Foundation. Except for pre-Vandellas member Gloria Williamson and Vandellas member Sandra Tilley, all members of the group were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, becoming the second all-female group to be inducted. They were inducted by rock group The B-52's, whose frothy dance music was inspired by the Vandellas. They were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003. Two of their singles, "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" and "Dancing in the Street" were included in the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the group No. 96 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2005, Martha & The Vandellas were voted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame.
Always concert favorites, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were nominated for UK Festival Awards in 2010 and 2011 as "Best Headliner."
Martha and the Vandellas was inducted into the inaugural class of the Official Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame at Cleveland State University August 2013
Lineups
The Del-Phis
1957–1962
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Gloria Williams
Martha & the Vandellas
1964–1967
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Betty Kelly
Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
1969–1972
Martha Reeves
Lois Reeves
Sandra Tilley
The Original Vandellas
2000s-present
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Roschelle Laughhunn
Martha & the Vandellas
1962–1964
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
1967–1969
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Lois Reeves
Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
2010–present
Martha Reeves
Lois Reeves
Delphine Reeves
Discography
For a detailed listing of albums and singles, see Martha and the Vandellas discography
Albums
Come and Get These Memories (1963)
Heat Wave (1963)
Dance Party (1965)
Greatest Hits (1966)
Watchout! (1966)
Martha and the Vandellas Live! (1967)
Ridin' High (1968)
Sugar 'n' Spice (1969)
Natural Resources (1970)
Black Magic (1972)
Top 10 singles
The following singles reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 song chart in the U.S.
"Heat Wave" (1963)
"Quicksand" (1963)
"Dancing in the Street" (1964)
"Nowhere to Run" (1965)
"I'm Ready for Love" (1966)
"Jimmy Mack" (1967)
Awards and recognition
Martha Reeves and the Vandellas' "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" and "Dancing in the Street" were inducted to the Grammy Hall of Fame and were both included in the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
They were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 becoming just the second all-female group to be inducted and the fifth group in the Motown roster to be inducted.
They were inducted to the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003.
They were nominated for a Grammy Award for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance in 1964 for their hit song "Heat Wave"
"Dancing in the Street" was included in the United States Library of Congress' National Recording Registry for its historical, artistic and cultural significance in 2006.
References
External links
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame page on Martha and the Vandellas
'Martha and the Vandellas' Vocal Group Hall of Fame Page
History of Rock page on Martha and the Vandellas
The Original Vandellas (Rosalind Ashford-Holmes & Annette Beard-Helton) page
Martha and the Vandellas History, Charts and Songs
Martha & The Vandellas at Doo Wop Heaven
Martha & The Vandellas bio on the Soulwalking U.K. website.
African-American girl groups
American soul musical groups
Motown artists
Musical groups from Detroit
Northern soul musicians
1957 establishments in Michigan
Musical groups disestablished in 1972
Singers from Detroit | true | [
"Now That's What I Call Classic Rock Hits is one of many genre-themed compilation albums from the Now! series in the United States, this one focusing on popular classic rock songs from the 1970s. It was released on May 1, 2012.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReception\n\nIn his review for Allmusic, Gregory Heaney says \"the Now series delivers a dose of good ol' classic rock with Now That's What I Call Classic Rock Hits,\" which \"gathers some of rock's most enduring crossover hits.\" Now That's What I Call Classic Rock Hits is \"an album that achieves its primary goal of being able to please most of the people most of the time with a wide-ranging selection of hits that should fit into most anyone's definition of classic rock.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official U.S. Now That's What I Call Music website\n\n2012 compilation albums\nClassic Rock Hits\nEMI Records compilation albums",
"Greatest Hits 1982–1989 is the third greatest hits album, and twentieth album overall, by the American band Chicago, released by Full Moon/Reprise Records on November 21, 1989. Spanning from Chicago 16 in 1982 to Chicago 19 in 1988, the set includes founding vocalist Peter Cetera and his successor Jason Scheff. It includes a remix of \"What Kind of Man Would I Be?\".\n\nA variation titled The Heart of... Chicago was issued in countries outside North America, with similar artwork but a different track list including four songs originally released on the Columbia record label.\n\nTrack listing Greatest Hits 1982–1989 \n\"Hard to Say I'm Sorry/Get Away\" (Peter Cetera, David Foster, Robert Lamm) – 5:07\n\"Look Away\" (Diane Warren) – 4:03\n\"Stay the Night\" (Cetera, Foster) – 3:49\n\"Will You Still Love Me?\" (Foster, Tom Keane, Richard Baskin) – 5:43\n\"Love Me Tomorrow\" (Cetera, Foster) – 5:06\n\"What Kind of Man Would I Be?\" (Remix) (Jason Scheff, Chas Sandford, Bobby Caldwell) – 4:14\n\"You're the Inspiration\" (Cetera, Foster) – 3:50\n\"I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love\" (Warren, Albert Hammond) – 3:52\n\"Hard Habit to Break\" (Steve Kipner, Jon Parker) – 4:44\n\"Along Comes a Woman\" (Cetera, Mark Goldenberg) – 4:16\n\"If She Would Have Been Faithful...\" (Kipner, Randy Goodrum) – 3:53\n\"We Can Last Forever\" (Scheff, John Dexter) – 3:44\n\nUnlike the two previous Greatest Hits releases, all of the songs were released in their album lengths, except \"What Kind of Man Would I Be?\". Some US copies on vinyl, and possibly CD copies as well, list \"Along Comes a Woman\" but actually contain \"Remember the Feeling\" (originally the flipside of \"Hard Habit to Break\").\n\nTrack listing The Heart of... Chicago\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nCertifications\n\nGreatest Hits 1982–1989\n\nThe Heart of... Chicago\n\nSingles\n\nReferences\n\n1989 greatest hits albums\nAlbums produced by David Foster\nAlbums produced by Ron Nevison\nChicago (band) compilation albums"
] |
[
"Martha and the Vandellas",
"Motown major hit years (1962-1968)",
"What happened during motown major hit years?",
"Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team,",
"What happened after that?",
"It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart.",
"Can you tell me how long did it stay on the charts?",
"I don't know.",
"What were some of their major hits?",
"Their second hit, \"Heat Wave\", became a phenomenal record for the group,"
] | C_1183ad7f6a684fc28b80ad594e48035d_0 | Were they popular among a lot of people? | 5 | Were Martha and the Vandellas popular among a lot of people? | Martha and the Vandellas | Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team, Holland-Dozier-Holland, titled "Come and Get These Memories". It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart. Their second hit, "Heat Wave", became a phenomenal record for the group, reaching number four on the Hot 100 and hitting number one on the R&B singles chart for five weeks. It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance. (On the single and album, the song was titled "Heat Wave". It was sometime later that the song was retitled to avoid confusion with the Irving Berlin song.) The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, "Quicksand", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963. Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964. Betty Kelley, formerly of the Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise. The next two singles, "Live Wire" and "In My Lonely Room" (#6 R&B Cashbox) were less successful singles, failing to reach the Top 40. However, their next single, "Dancing in the Street", rose up to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also found global success, peaking at #21 on the UK Singles Chart in 1964. In 1969, "Dancing in the Street" was re-issued and it was plugged heavily on radio stations. It did not take long for the song to peak at #4 in the UK, thus making the song one of the all-time favourite Motown single releases ever. The song became a million-seller, and one of the most played singles in history. Between 1964 and 1967, singles like "Wild One" (US #34), "Nowhere to Run" (US #8; UK #26), "Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)" (US #70; R&B #22), "You've Been in Love Too Long" (US #36), "My Baby Loves Me" (US #22; R&B #3), "I'm Ready for Love" (US #9; R&B #2; UK #29) and "Jimmy Mack" (US #10; R&B #1; UK #21) kept the Vandellas on the map as one of the label's top acts. The Vandellas' popularity helped the group get spots on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, American Bandstand and Shindig!. Throughout this period, the Vandellas had also become one of the label's most popular performing acts. CANNOTANSWER | It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance. ( | Martha and the Vandellas (known from 1967 to 1972 as Martha Reeves & The Vandellas) were an American vocal girl group formed in Detroit in 1957. The group achieved fame in the 1960s with Motown.
An act founded by friends Annette Beard, Rosalind Ashford and Gloria Williams, the group eventually included Martha Reeves, who moved up in ranks as lead vocalist of the group after Williams' departure in 1962. The group signed with and eventually recorded all of their singles for Motown's Gordy imprint.
The group's string of hits included "Come and Get These Memories", "Heat Wave", "Quicksand", "Nowhere to Run", "Jimmy Mack", "I'm Ready for Love", "Bless You" and "Dancing in the Street", the latter song becoming their signature single.
During their nine-year run on the charts from 1963 to 1972, Martha and the Vandellas charted over twenty-six hits and recorded in the styles of doo-wop, R&B, pop, blues, rock and roll and soul. Ten Vandellas songs reached the top ten of the Billboard R&B singles chart, including two R&B number ones, and six Top Ten Pop Hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Selected members of the group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 2013.
History
Early years (1957–1962)
Teenagers Rosalind Ashford and Annette Beard first became acquainted after a local music manager hired them to be members of a girl group he named the Del-Phis. Ashford, Beard, and lead vocalist Gloria Williams, performed at local clubs, private events, church benefits, YMCA events and school functions. They were also being coached by Maxine Powell at Detroit's Ferris Center. One of the group's first professional engagements was singing background for singer Mike Hanks.
The group originally had up to six members, subsequently reduced to four. When one of the four left the group, she was replaced by Alabama-born vocalist Martha Reeves, a former member of two groups, the Fascinations and the Sabre-Ettes. In 1960, the group signed their first recording contract with Checker Records, releasing the Reeves-led "I'll Let You Know," which flopped. The Del-Phis then went to Checkmate Records, a subsidiary of Chess Records, recording their "There He Is (At My Door)" featuring Williams on lead vocals, which also flopped.
Reeves reverted to a solo artist under the name Martha LaVaille in the hope of getting a contract with emerging Detroit label Motown. After Motown staffer Mickey Stevenson saw Reeves singing at a Detroit club, he offered her an audition. Reeves showed up at Motown's Hitsville USA studios on a Tuesday rather than Thursday, Motown's usual audition day. Initially upset with Reeves, Stevenson soon assigned her as his secretary eventually responsible for handling Motown's auditions. By 1961, the group, now known as The Vels, were recording background vocals for Motown acts. Prior to her success as lead singer of The Elgins, Sandra Edwards (then going by her surname Maulett) recorded the song "Camel Walk", in 1962, which featured the Vels in background vocals. That year, the quartet began applying background vocals for emerging Motown star Marvin Gaye, singing on Gaye's first hit single, "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" After Mary Wells failed to make a scheduled recording session feigning a short illness, the Vels recorded what was initially a demo recording of "I'll Have to Let Him Go". Motown was so impressed by the group's vocals – and Martha's lead vocals in the song – that the label CEO Berry Gordy offered to give the group a contract. Figuring that being in show business was too rigorous, Williams opted out of the group. With Williams out, the remaining trio of Ashford, Beard and Reeves were told by Gordy that they would need a new name. After failing to come up with a name on their own, Gordy gave the group the name The Vandellas. As stated in an interview with The History Makers, Ashford emphatically states that contrary to popular belief, The Vandellas were not named after Della Reese and Van Dyke Avenue, nor did Reeves come up with the name.
Motown major hit years (1962–1968)
Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team, Holland–Dozier–Holland, titled "Come and Get These Memories". It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart. Their second hit, "Heat Wave", became a phenomenal record for the group, reaching number four on the Hot 100 and hitting number one on the R&B singles chart for five weeks. It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Best R&B Performance. On the single and album, the song was titled "Heat Wave". It was sometime later that the song was retitled to avoid confusion with the Irving Berlin song.
The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, "Quicksand", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963. Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964. Betty Kelley, formerly of the Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise.
The next two singles, "Live Wire" and "In My Lonely Room" (#6 R&B Cashbox) were less successful singles, failing to reach the Pop Top 40. However, their next single, "Dancing in the Street", rose up to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also found global success, peaking at No. 21 on the UK Singles Chart in 1964. In 1969, "Dancing in the Street" was re-issued and it was plugged heavily on radio stations. It did not take long for the song to peak at No. 4 in the UK, thus making the song one of the all-time favourite Motown single releases ever. The song became a million-seller, and one of the most played singles in history.
Between 1964 and 1967, singles like "Wild One" (US #34), "Nowhere to Run" (US #8; UK #26), "Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)" (US #70; R&B #22), "You've Been in Love Too Long" (US #36), "My Baby Loves Me" (US #22; R&B #3), "I'm Ready for Love" (US #9; R&B #2; UK #29) and "Jimmy Mack" (US #10; R&B #1; UK #21) kept the Vandellas on the map as one of the label's top acts. The Vandellas' popularity helped the group get spots on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, American Bandstand and Shindig!. Throughout this period, the Vandellas had also become one of the label's most popular performing acts. On June 28, 1965, the group appeared with several other popular acts of the period on CBS-TV's Murray The K-It's What's Happening, Baby. Martha, Rosalind and Betty performed "Nowhere to Run," as they skipped through a Ford auto plant and sat in a Ford Mustang convertible as it's being assembled.
Personnel changes
Motown struggled to find good material for many of their acts after the exit of Motown contributor and Reeves' mentor William "Mickey" Stevenson in 1967 and Holland–Dozier–Holland in early 1968, but after their former collaborators left the label, the Vandellas initially continued to find success with the Richard Morris-produced singles "Love Bug Leave My Heart Alone" (US #25; R&B #14) and "Honey Chile" (US #11; UK #30; R&B #5) added to their already extended list of charted singles. In the summer of 1968, the group joined The Supremes, The Temptations, The Four Tops and Marvin Gaye in performing at the Copacabana though much like albums from the Four Tops and Gaye, a live album of their performance there was shelved indefinitely.
That same year, label changes had started to take effect, and Gordy focused much of his attention on building the Supremes' as well as Diana Ross' burgeoning upcoming solo career that would follow in 1970. The Vandellas' chart performance (and the chart performance of many Motown acts with the exception of Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, and Stevie Wonder) suffered as a result.
However it was the infighting among the members of the Vandellas that led to their problems. Kelley was the first to be let go after reportedly missing shows, as well as getting into altercations with Reeves. There were many instances where these "fights" happened on stage. Kelley was fired in 1967 and was replaced by Martha Reeves' sister Lois. Simultaneously, the group's name was officially changed to Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, to conform with the company's recent changes of The Supremes' and The Miracles' names to reflect their featured lead singers. During this time, Vandellas records including "(We've Got) Honey Love", "Sweet Darlin'" and "Taking My Love and Leaving Me" were issued as singles with diminishing success.
"Bless You" (1969–1972)
Reeves, out of the group temporarily due to illness, recovered and returned; Ashford was replaced by another former member of the Velvelettes, Sandra Tilley, and the group continued to release albums and singles into the early 1970s. Although they could not reignite the fire they had made in America they continued to have successful records the UK and abroad. Among their late 1960s hits was "I Can't Dance to That Music You're Playing", which featured singer Syreeta Wright singing the chorus, and peaked at number forty-two. Reeves reportedly hated singing the song sensing it "close to home". In 1969 a reissue of "Nowhere To Run" reached the top 40 in the UK. In 1970, the group issued Motown's first protest single, the controversial anti-war song, "I Should Be Proud", which peaked at a modest forty-five on the R&B singles chart. The song was uncharacteristic of the Vandellas and did nothing to promote the group. On some stations, the flip-side "Love, Guess Who" was played instead, however the group reached the top 20 that year in the UK with a reissue of "Jimmy Mack".
In 1971, the group scored a top 11 hit in the UK with "Forget Me Not". later that year they scored an international hit with "Bless You" (produced by the Jackson 5's producers The Corporation). The song peaked at number fifty-three on the American pop singles chart (the biggest peak of Vandellas' seventies singles in the US), and number twenty-nine on the R&B singles chart. "Bless You" reached number thirty-three in the UK giving the group two big hits that year in England. . "Bless You" reached number 16 in Canada and went all the way to number 2 in Puerto Rico . It was to be the last Billboard Hot 100 hit single for the group. After two successive Top 40 R&B singles, the ballad "In and Out of My Life" (#22 US R&B) and the Marvin Gaye cover, "Tear It On Down" (#37 US R&B), the group disbanded following a farewell concert, held at Detroit's Cobo Hall on December 21, 1972, but Martha Reeves is still often billed as ‘Martha Reeves& The Vandellas’.
The next year, Reeves announced plans of starting a solo career. At the same time, Motown Records moved its operations to Los Angeles. When Reeves did not want to move, she negotiated out of her contract with Motown, signing with MCA in 1974, and releasing the critically acclaimed self-titled debut album, Martha Reeves. Despite rave reviews of her work, neither of Reeves' post-Vandellas/Motown recordings produced the same success as they had the decade before. After living what she called "a rock & roll lifestyle" of prescription pills, cocaine and alcohol, Reeves sobered up in 1977, overcoming her addictions and becoming a born-again Christian.
Epilogue
After the Vandellas' split, Reeves' sister Lois sang with the group Quiet Elegance and sang background for Al Green, while Tilley retired from show business in the late 1970s, suddenly dying of a brain aneurysm in 1981 at the age of thirty-eight. Original member Gloria Williams, who retired from show business when she left the group, died in 2000. In 1978, Reeves and original Vandellas Ashford and Beard reunited at a Los Angeles benefit concert for actor Will Geer. In 1983, Reeves successfully sued for royalties from her Motown hits and the label agreed to have the songs credited as Martha Reeves and the Vandellas from then on. That year, Reeves performed solo at Motown 25, which alongside some of their songs being placed on the Big Chill soundtrack, helped Reeves and the Vandellas gain a new audience. In 1989, original members Ashford and Beard also sued Motown for royalties. During this time, the original trio were inspired to reunite both as a recording act and in performances. They were offered a recording contract with Ian Levine at Motorcity Records who issued the group's first single since the Vandellas disbanded seventeen years earlier called "Step Into My Shoes."
Although they are no longer singing together full-time, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas have occasionally reunited for various concerts. Currently, Ashford, whose full name now is Rosalind Ashford-Holmes, and Beard, whose full name now is Annette Beard-Helton, continue to perform with other singers, most notably Roschelle Laughhunn, as "The Original Vandellas." Reeves, with her sisters Lois and Delphine Reeves, tour as "Martha Reeves and the Vandellas."
From 2005 to 2009, Reeves held the eighth seat of Detroit's city council. She has since lost her seat and told the press that she would continue performing.
A remake of the song "Nowhere To Run," sung by Arnold McCuller, is heard in the film "The Warriors" during the scene in which the Gramercy Riffs call a hit on the Warriors.
In a Season One episode of the television show The Golden Girls, Blanche described her car as the "noisiest thing to come out of Detroit since Martha & The Vandellas.".
Candice Bergen, who hosted the Saturday Night Live episode on which Martha Reeves appeared in its inaugural season, made sure that Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were a presence throughout her "Murphy Brown" series. The group's picture was displayed prominently in Murphy's office. When Aretha Franklin guest starred and Murphy tried to sing with her, Franklin stopped her, saying, ". . .I'm not Martha, and you ain't no Vandella."
The group is briefly portrayed in the 2017 film Detroit, performing "Nowhere To Run" at the Fox Theatre, Detroit.
Awards and accolades
Martha and the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 (they were nominated for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group for the song in 1964). In 1993, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were awarded the Pioneer Award by the Rhythm & Blues Foundation. Except for pre-Vandellas member Gloria Williamson and Vandellas member Sandra Tilley, all members of the group were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, becoming the second all-female group to be inducted. They were inducted by rock group The B-52's, whose frothy dance music was inspired by the Vandellas. They were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003. Two of their singles, "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" and "Dancing in the Street" were included in the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the group No. 96 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2005, Martha & The Vandellas were voted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame.
Always concert favorites, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were nominated for UK Festival Awards in 2010 and 2011 as "Best Headliner."
Martha and the Vandellas was inducted into the inaugural class of the Official Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame at Cleveland State University August 2013
Lineups
The Del-Phis
1957–1962
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Gloria Williams
Martha & the Vandellas
1964–1967
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Betty Kelly
Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
1969–1972
Martha Reeves
Lois Reeves
Sandra Tilley
The Original Vandellas
2000s-present
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Roschelle Laughhunn
Martha & the Vandellas
1962–1964
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
1967–1969
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Lois Reeves
Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
2010–present
Martha Reeves
Lois Reeves
Delphine Reeves
Discography
For a detailed listing of albums and singles, see Martha and the Vandellas discography
Albums
Come and Get These Memories (1963)
Heat Wave (1963)
Dance Party (1965)
Greatest Hits (1966)
Watchout! (1966)
Martha and the Vandellas Live! (1967)
Ridin' High (1968)
Sugar 'n' Spice (1969)
Natural Resources (1970)
Black Magic (1972)
Top 10 singles
The following singles reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 song chart in the U.S.
"Heat Wave" (1963)
"Quicksand" (1963)
"Dancing in the Street" (1964)
"Nowhere to Run" (1965)
"I'm Ready for Love" (1966)
"Jimmy Mack" (1967)
Awards and recognition
Martha Reeves and the Vandellas' "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" and "Dancing in the Street" were inducted to the Grammy Hall of Fame and were both included in the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
They were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 becoming just the second all-female group to be inducted and the fifth group in the Motown roster to be inducted.
They were inducted to the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003.
They were nominated for a Grammy Award for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance in 1964 for their hit song "Heat Wave"
"Dancing in the Street" was included in the United States Library of Congress' National Recording Registry for its historical, artistic and cultural significance in 2006.
References
External links
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame page on Martha and the Vandellas
'Martha and the Vandellas' Vocal Group Hall of Fame Page
History of Rock page on Martha and the Vandellas
The Original Vandellas (Rosalind Ashford-Holmes & Annette Beard-Helton) page
Martha and the Vandellas History, Charts and Songs
Martha & The Vandellas at Doo Wop Heaven
Martha & The Vandellas bio on the Soulwalking U.K. website.
African-American girl groups
American soul musical groups
Motown artists
Musical groups from Detroit
Northern soul musicians
1957 establishments in Michigan
Musical groups disestablished in 1972
Singers from Detroit | false | [
"Ramarajapuram is a village panchayat in Nilakkottai taluk, Dindigul district at Madurai Region in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.\n\nDemographics \nAs of the 2001 India census, Ramarajapuram had a population of 9,439. Males constitute 51% of the population and females 49%. Ramarajapuram has an average literacy rate of 60%, higher than the national average of 59.5% male literacy, and female literacy is 40%. In Ramarajapuram, 11% of the population is under 6 years of age.\n\nFacilities \n\nIt has five schools. According to Tamil Nadu Government's Department of School Education, the list of the schools include a government high school, two primary schools and a soman matriculation school.\n\nRamarajapuram has a rich supply of water and is situated on the bank of river Vaigai.\nAgriculture is the primary occupation of the population. Madurai and Dindigul are the major towns nearby.\n\nThis village has a government hospital. The children from the village travel to pandiarajpuram, Sholavandan, vadipatti for their education in English.\n\nThe village has seen a lot of growth among the students leaving to complete higher education including BE, ME, CA, MBA, MCA etc. The fully agriculture dependent village is seeing a lot of growth by these younger generations and seeing few in Automobile and IT industry. This small village also has a tradition of sending many young men to the Indian army, CRPF, BSF, etc.\n\nThe village men play kabadi and a few among them are represented at state and national level teams. Cricket is also popular. A lot of tournaments are conducted. It is possible to see children playing carrom and chess in the streets.\n\nA lot of people are in state police and fire services.\n\nVillages in Dindigul district",
"Aamar FM (literally meaning My FM) was an FM radio channel in Kolkata, India. It was the only private radio station whose on-air presentation language was Bengali. This station had started its broadcasting in 2003 and had stopped suddenly on 23 January 2020 without any early announcement.\n\nAamar 106.2 FM described itself as \"The Radio Station Built for Kolkata by Kolkatans\". The tagline was \"Kolkata's Best Music\" and \"Kolkatar Gaan, Kolkatar Pran\", which means \"The Song of Kolkata and the Life of Kolkata\".\n\nHistory\n\nThis channel had done a lot to uplift the young singers and had worked a lot to make popular to some modern Bengali songs, especially the Bengali Bands. This was a very popular channel, among the Bengalees, lives in Kolkata. This channel broadcast only old and modern Bengali and old Hindi Songs, which made it popular among the old age people, as well as the new generation in Kolkata. This channel had no online broadcasting, only the offline broadcasting was available.\n\nClosure\nThe reason for the closure of this radio station, as stated by the authority, refers to the economical problem, as the employee did not get a salary since October 2019, though, they continued their jobs without salary, to save the station. But, without any notice, the authority locked the door on 23 January 2020.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links and sources\n www.amsiradio.com\n\nRadio stations in Kolkata"
] |
[
"Martha and the Vandellas",
"Motown major hit years (1962-1968)",
"What happened during motown major hit years?",
"Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team,",
"What happened after that?",
"It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart.",
"Can you tell me how long did it stay on the charts?",
"I don't know.",
"What were some of their major hits?",
"Their second hit, \"Heat Wave\", became a phenomenal record for the group,",
"Were they popular among a lot of people?",
"It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance. ("
] | C_1183ad7f6a684fc28b80ad594e48035d_0 | What other things took place after that? | 6 | What other things took place after Martha and the Vandellas received a Grammy Award nomination? | Martha and the Vandellas | Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team, Holland-Dozier-Holland, titled "Come and Get These Memories". It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart. Their second hit, "Heat Wave", became a phenomenal record for the group, reaching number four on the Hot 100 and hitting number one on the R&B singles chart for five weeks. It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance. (On the single and album, the song was titled "Heat Wave". It was sometime later that the song was retitled to avoid confusion with the Irving Berlin song.) The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, "Quicksand", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963. Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964. Betty Kelley, formerly of the Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise. The next two singles, "Live Wire" and "In My Lonely Room" (#6 R&B Cashbox) were less successful singles, failing to reach the Top 40. However, their next single, "Dancing in the Street", rose up to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also found global success, peaking at #21 on the UK Singles Chart in 1964. In 1969, "Dancing in the Street" was re-issued and it was plugged heavily on radio stations. It did not take long for the song to peak at #4 in the UK, thus making the song one of the all-time favourite Motown single releases ever. The song became a million-seller, and one of the most played singles in history. Between 1964 and 1967, singles like "Wild One" (US #34), "Nowhere to Run" (US #8; UK #26), "Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)" (US #70; R&B #22), "You've Been in Love Too Long" (US #36), "My Baby Loves Me" (US #22; R&B #3), "I'm Ready for Love" (US #9; R&B #2; UK #29) and "Jimmy Mack" (US #10; R&B #1; UK #21) kept the Vandellas on the map as one of the label's top acts. The Vandellas' popularity helped the group get spots on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, American Bandstand and Shindig!. Throughout this period, the Vandellas had also become one of the label's most popular performing acts. CANNOTANSWER | The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, "Quicksand", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland | Martha and the Vandellas (known from 1967 to 1972 as Martha Reeves & The Vandellas) were an American vocal girl group formed in Detroit in 1957. The group achieved fame in the 1960s with Motown.
An act founded by friends Annette Beard, Rosalind Ashford and Gloria Williams, the group eventually included Martha Reeves, who moved up in ranks as lead vocalist of the group after Williams' departure in 1962. The group signed with and eventually recorded all of their singles for Motown's Gordy imprint.
The group's string of hits included "Come and Get These Memories", "Heat Wave", "Quicksand", "Nowhere to Run", "Jimmy Mack", "I'm Ready for Love", "Bless You" and "Dancing in the Street", the latter song becoming their signature single.
During their nine-year run on the charts from 1963 to 1972, Martha and the Vandellas charted over twenty-six hits and recorded in the styles of doo-wop, R&B, pop, blues, rock and roll and soul. Ten Vandellas songs reached the top ten of the Billboard R&B singles chart, including two R&B number ones, and six Top Ten Pop Hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Selected members of the group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 2013.
History
Early years (1957–1962)
Teenagers Rosalind Ashford and Annette Beard first became acquainted after a local music manager hired them to be members of a girl group he named the Del-Phis. Ashford, Beard, and lead vocalist Gloria Williams, performed at local clubs, private events, church benefits, YMCA events and school functions. They were also being coached by Maxine Powell at Detroit's Ferris Center. One of the group's first professional engagements was singing background for singer Mike Hanks.
The group originally had up to six members, subsequently reduced to four. When one of the four left the group, she was replaced by Alabama-born vocalist Martha Reeves, a former member of two groups, the Fascinations and the Sabre-Ettes. In 1960, the group signed their first recording contract with Checker Records, releasing the Reeves-led "I'll Let You Know," which flopped. The Del-Phis then went to Checkmate Records, a subsidiary of Chess Records, recording their "There He Is (At My Door)" featuring Williams on lead vocals, which also flopped.
Reeves reverted to a solo artist under the name Martha LaVaille in the hope of getting a contract with emerging Detroit label Motown. After Motown staffer Mickey Stevenson saw Reeves singing at a Detroit club, he offered her an audition. Reeves showed up at Motown's Hitsville USA studios on a Tuesday rather than Thursday, Motown's usual audition day. Initially upset with Reeves, Stevenson soon assigned her as his secretary eventually responsible for handling Motown's auditions. By 1961, the group, now known as The Vels, were recording background vocals for Motown acts. Prior to her success as lead singer of The Elgins, Sandra Edwards (then going by her surname Maulett) recorded the song "Camel Walk", in 1962, which featured the Vels in background vocals. That year, the quartet began applying background vocals for emerging Motown star Marvin Gaye, singing on Gaye's first hit single, "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" After Mary Wells failed to make a scheduled recording session feigning a short illness, the Vels recorded what was initially a demo recording of "I'll Have to Let Him Go". Motown was so impressed by the group's vocals – and Martha's lead vocals in the song – that the label CEO Berry Gordy offered to give the group a contract. Figuring that being in show business was too rigorous, Williams opted out of the group. With Williams out, the remaining trio of Ashford, Beard and Reeves were told by Gordy that they would need a new name. After failing to come up with a name on their own, Gordy gave the group the name The Vandellas. As stated in an interview with The History Makers, Ashford emphatically states that contrary to popular belief, The Vandellas were not named after Della Reese and Van Dyke Avenue, nor did Reeves come up with the name.
Motown major hit years (1962–1968)
Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team, Holland–Dozier–Holland, titled "Come and Get These Memories". It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart. Their second hit, "Heat Wave", became a phenomenal record for the group, reaching number four on the Hot 100 and hitting number one on the R&B singles chart for five weeks. It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Best R&B Performance. On the single and album, the song was titled "Heat Wave". It was sometime later that the song was retitled to avoid confusion with the Irving Berlin song.
The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, "Quicksand", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963. Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964. Betty Kelley, formerly of the Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise.
The next two singles, "Live Wire" and "In My Lonely Room" (#6 R&B Cashbox) were less successful singles, failing to reach the Pop Top 40. However, their next single, "Dancing in the Street", rose up to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also found global success, peaking at No. 21 on the UK Singles Chart in 1964. In 1969, "Dancing in the Street" was re-issued and it was plugged heavily on radio stations. It did not take long for the song to peak at No. 4 in the UK, thus making the song one of the all-time favourite Motown single releases ever. The song became a million-seller, and one of the most played singles in history.
Between 1964 and 1967, singles like "Wild One" (US #34), "Nowhere to Run" (US #8; UK #26), "Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)" (US #70; R&B #22), "You've Been in Love Too Long" (US #36), "My Baby Loves Me" (US #22; R&B #3), "I'm Ready for Love" (US #9; R&B #2; UK #29) and "Jimmy Mack" (US #10; R&B #1; UK #21) kept the Vandellas on the map as one of the label's top acts. The Vandellas' popularity helped the group get spots on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, American Bandstand and Shindig!. Throughout this period, the Vandellas had also become one of the label's most popular performing acts. On June 28, 1965, the group appeared with several other popular acts of the period on CBS-TV's Murray The K-It's What's Happening, Baby. Martha, Rosalind and Betty performed "Nowhere to Run," as they skipped through a Ford auto plant and sat in a Ford Mustang convertible as it's being assembled.
Personnel changes
Motown struggled to find good material for many of their acts after the exit of Motown contributor and Reeves' mentor William "Mickey" Stevenson in 1967 and Holland–Dozier–Holland in early 1968, but after their former collaborators left the label, the Vandellas initially continued to find success with the Richard Morris-produced singles "Love Bug Leave My Heart Alone" (US #25; R&B #14) and "Honey Chile" (US #11; UK #30; R&B #5) added to their already extended list of charted singles. In the summer of 1968, the group joined The Supremes, The Temptations, The Four Tops and Marvin Gaye in performing at the Copacabana though much like albums from the Four Tops and Gaye, a live album of their performance there was shelved indefinitely.
That same year, label changes had started to take effect, and Gordy focused much of his attention on building the Supremes' as well as Diana Ross' burgeoning upcoming solo career that would follow in 1970. The Vandellas' chart performance (and the chart performance of many Motown acts with the exception of Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, and Stevie Wonder) suffered as a result.
However it was the infighting among the members of the Vandellas that led to their problems. Kelley was the first to be let go after reportedly missing shows, as well as getting into altercations with Reeves. There were many instances where these "fights" happened on stage. Kelley was fired in 1967 and was replaced by Martha Reeves' sister Lois. Simultaneously, the group's name was officially changed to Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, to conform with the company's recent changes of The Supremes' and The Miracles' names to reflect their featured lead singers. During this time, Vandellas records including "(We've Got) Honey Love", "Sweet Darlin'" and "Taking My Love and Leaving Me" were issued as singles with diminishing success.
"Bless You" (1969–1972)
Reeves, out of the group temporarily due to illness, recovered and returned; Ashford was replaced by another former member of the Velvelettes, Sandra Tilley, and the group continued to release albums and singles into the early 1970s. Although they could not reignite the fire they had made in America they continued to have successful records the UK and abroad. Among their late 1960s hits was "I Can't Dance to That Music You're Playing", which featured singer Syreeta Wright singing the chorus, and peaked at number forty-two. Reeves reportedly hated singing the song sensing it "close to home". In 1969 a reissue of "Nowhere To Run" reached the top 40 in the UK. In 1970, the group issued Motown's first protest single, the controversial anti-war song, "I Should Be Proud", which peaked at a modest forty-five on the R&B singles chart. The song was uncharacteristic of the Vandellas and did nothing to promote the group. On some stations, the flip-side "Love, Guess Who" was played instead, however the group reached the top 20 that year in the UK with a reissue of "Jimmy Mack".
In 1971, the group scored a top 11 hit in the UK with "Forget Me Not". later that year they scored an international hit with "Bless You" (produced by the Jackson 5's producers The Corporation). The song peaked at number fifty-three on the American pop singles chart (the biggest peak of Vandellas' seventies singles in the US), and number twenty-nine on the R&B singles chart. "Bless You" reached number thirty-three in the UK giving the group two big hits that year in England. . "Bless You" reached number 16 in Canada and went all the way to number 2 in Puerto Rico . It was to be the last Billboard Hot 100 hit single for the group. After two successive Top 40 R&B singles, the ballad "In and Out of My Life" (#22 US R&B) and the Marvin Gaye cover, "Tear It On Down" (#37 US R&B), the group disbanded following a farewell concert, held at Detroit's Cobo Hall on December 21, 1972, but Martha Reeves is still often billed as ‘Martha Reeves& The Vandellas’.
The next year, Reeves announced plans of starting a solo career. At the same time, Motown Records moved its operations to Los Angeles. When Reeves did not want to move, she negotiated out of her contract with Motown, signing with MCA in 1974, and releasing the critically acclaimed self-titled debut album, Martha Reeves. Despite rave reviews of her work, neither of Reeves' post-Vandellas/Motown recordings produced the same success as they had the decade before. After living what she called "a rock & roll lifestyle" of prescription pills, cocaine and alcohol, Reeves sobered up in 1977, overcoming her addictions and becoming a born-again Christian.
Epilogue
After the Vandellas' split, Reeves' sister Lois sang with the group Quiet Elegance and sang background for Al Green, while Tilley retired from show business in the late 1970s, suddenly dying of a brain aneurysm in 1981 at the age of thirty-eight. Original member Gloria Williams, who retired from show business when she left the group, died in 2000. In 1978, Reeves and original Vandellas Ashford and Beard reunited at a Los Angeles benefit concert for actor Will Geer. In 1983, Reeves successfully sued for royalties from her Motown hits and the label agreed to have the songs credited as Martha Reeves and the Vandellas from then on. That year, Reeves performed solo at Motown 25, which alongside some of their songs being placed on the Big Chill soundtrack, helped Reeves and the Vandellas gain a new audience. In 1989, original members Ashford and Beard also sued Motown for royalties. During this time, the original trio were inspired to reunite both as a recording act and in performances. They were offered a recording contract with Ian Levine at Motorcity Records who issued the group's first single since the Vandellas disbanded seventeen years earlier called "Step Into My Shoes."
Although they are no longer singing together full-time, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas have occasionally reunited for various concerts. Currently, Ashford, whose full name now is Rosalind Ashford-Holmes, and Beard, whose full name now is Annette Beard-Helton, continue to perform with other singers, most notably Roschelle Laughhunn, as "The Original Vandellas." Reeves, with her sisters Lois and Delphine Reeves, tour as "Martha Reeves and the Vandellas."
From 2005 to 2009, Reeves held the eighth seat of Detroit's city council. She has since lost her seat and told the press that she would continue performing.
A remake of the song "Nowhere To Run," sung by Arnold McCuller, is heard in the film "The Warriors" during the scene in which the Gramercy Riffs call a hit on the Warriors.
In a Season One episode of the television show The Golden Girls, Blanche described her car as the "noisiest thing to come out of Detroit since Martha & The Vandellas.".
Candice Bergen, who hosted the Saturday Night Live episode on which Martha Reeves appeared in its inaugural season, made sure that Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were a presence throughout her "Murphy Brown" series. The group's picture was displayed prominently in Murphy's office. When Aretha Franklin guest starred and Murphy tried to sing with her, Franklin stopped her, saying, ". . .I'm not Martha, and you ain't no Vandella."
The group is briefly portrayed in the 2017 film Detroit, performing "Nowhere To Run" at the Fox Theatre, Detroit.
Awards and accolades
Martha and the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 (they were nominated for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group for the song in 1964). In 1993, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were awarded the Pioneer Award by the Rhythm & Blues Foundation. Except for pre-Vandellas member Gloria Williamson and Vandellas member Sandra Tilley, all members of the group were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, becoming the second all-female group to be inducted. They were inducted by rock group The B-52's, whose frothy dance music was inspired by the Vandellas. They were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003. Two of their singles, "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" and "Dancing in the Street" were included in the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the group No. 96 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2005, Martha & The Vandellas were voted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame.
Always concert favorites, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were nominated for UK Festival Awards in 2010 and 2011 as "Best Headliner."
Martha and the Vandellas was inducted into the inaugural class of the Official Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame at Cleveland State University August 2013
Lineups
The Del-Phis
1957–1962
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Gloria Williams
Martha & the Vandellas
1964–1967
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Betty Kelly
Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
1969–1972
Martha Reeves
Lois Reeves
Sandra Tilley
The Original Vandellas
2000s-present
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Roschelle Laughhunn
Martha & the Vandellas
1962–1964
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
1967–1969
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Lois Reeves
Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
2010–present
Martha Reeves
Lois Reeves
Delphine Reeves
Discography
For a detailed listing of albums and singles, see Martha and the Vandellas discography
Albums
Come and Get These Memories (1963)
Heat Wave (1963)
Dance Party (1965)
Greatest Hits (1966)
Watchout! (1966)
Martha and the Vandellas Live! (1967)
Ridin' High (1968)
Sugar 'n' Spice (1969)
Natural Resources (1970)
Black Magic (1972)
Top 10 singles
The following singles reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 song chart in the U.S.
"Heat Wave" (1963)
"Quicksand" (1963)
"Dancing in the Street" (1964)
"Nowhere to Run" (1965)
"I'm Ready for Love" (1966)
"Jimmy Mack" (1967)
Awards and recognition
Martha Reeves and the Vandellas' "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" and "Dancing in the Street" were inducted to the Grammy Hall of Fame and were both included in the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
They were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 becoming just the second all-female group to be inducted and the fifth group in the Motown roster to be inducted.
They were inducted to the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003.
They were nominated for a Grammy Award for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance in 1964 for their hit song "Heat Wave"
"Dancing in the Street" was included in the United States Library of Congress' National Recording Registry for its historical, artistic and cultural significance in 2006.
References
External links
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame page on Martha and the Vandellas
'Martha and the Vandellas' Vocal Group Hall of Fame Page
History of Rock page on Martha and the Vandellas
The Original Vandellas (Rosalind Ashford-Holmes & Annette Beard-Helton) page
Martha and the Vandellas History, Charts and Songs
Martha & The Vandellas at Doo Wop Heaven
Martha & The Vandellas bio on the Soulwalking U.K. website.
African-American girl groups
American soul musical groups
Motown artists
Musical groups from Detroit
Northern soul musicians
1957 establishments in Michigan
Musical groups disestablished in 1972
Singers from Detroit | true | [
"2015 China Open may means one of these things below:\n2015 China Open (snooker), a tournament that took place between April and March.\n2015 China Open (tennis), a tournament that took place in October.",
"¿Qué hubiera pasado si...? (in English, What would have happened if...?) is a counterfactual history Argentine book written by Rosendo Fraga. The book speculates on how would the History of Argentina have developed if certain key events did not take place or had happened in a different way.\n\nDescription\nAmong other things, the book speculates what would have happened if the viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata wasn't created, if the British invasions of the Río de la Plata did not fail, if José de San Martín had obeyed the Supreme Directors and returned with the Army of the Andes to fight Artigas instead of taking the independentist war to Peru, if the Conquest of the Desert did not take place, if the different coup d'états that took place in Argentina did not happen or were defeated, and if Argentina had obtained the sovereignty of the Malvinas. Each chapter starts with a basic premise but speculates as well on related possibilities that could have influenced changes: for example, the one on San Martin questions as well what would have happened if the government of Chile fell, if a Spanish task force arrived to take Buenos Aires, and what stance could have the caudillos taken in those hypothetic scenarios.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Interview with Rosendo Fraga about the book \n\nArgentine books\nAlternate history anthologies"
] |
[
"Martha and the Vandellas",
"Motown major hit years (1962-1968)",
"What happened during motown major hit years?",
"Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team,",
"What happened after that?",
"It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart.",
"Can you tell me how long did it stay on the charts?",
"I don't know.",
"What were some of their major hits?",
"Their second hit, \"Heat Wave\", became a phenomenal record for the group,",
"Were they popular among a lot of people?",
"It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance. (",
"What other things took place after that?",
"The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, \"Quicksand\", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland"
] | C_1183ad7f6a684fc28b80ad594e48035d_0 | Did they go on to continue to be successful? | 7 | Did Martha and the Vandellas go on to continue to be successful after the second Top Ten single "Quicksand" was released? | Martha and the Vandellas | Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team, Holland-Dozier-Holland, titled "Come and Get These Memories". It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart. Their second hit, "Heat Wave", became a phenomenal record for the group, reaching number four on the Hot 100 and hitting number one on the R&B singles chart for five weeks. It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance. (On the single and album, the song was titled "Heat Wave". It was sometime later that the song was retitled to avoid confusion with the Irving Berlin song.) The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, "Quicksand", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963. Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964. Betty Kelley, formerly of the Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise. The next two singles, "Live Wire" and "In My Lonely Room" (#6 R&B Cashbox) were less successful singles, failing to reach the Top 40. However, their next single, "Dancing in the Street", rose up to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also found global success, peaking at #21 on the UK Singles Chart in 1964. In 1969, "Dancing in the Street" was re-issued and it was plugged heavily on radio stations. It did not take long for the song to peak at #4 in the UK, thus making the song one of the all-time favourite Motown single releases ever. The song became a million-seller, and one of the most played singles in history. Between 1964 and 1967, singles like "Wild One" (US #34), "Nowhere to Run" (US #8; UK #26), "Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)" (US #70; R&B #22), "You've Been in Love Too Long" (US #36), "My Baby Loves Me" (US #22; R&B #3), "I'm Ready for Love" (US #9; R&B #2; UK #29) and "Jimmy Mack" (US #10; R&B #1; UK #21) kept the Vandellas on the map as one of the label's top acts. The Vandellas' popularity helped the group get spots on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, American Bandstand and Shindig!. Throughout this period, the Vandellas had also become one of the label's most popular performing acts. CANNOTANSWER | and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963. | Martha and the Vandellas (known from 1967 to 1972 as Martha Reeves & The Vandellas) were an American vocal girl group formed in Detroit in 1957. The group achieved fame in the 1960s with Motown.
An act founded by friends Annette Beard, Rosalind Ashford and Gloria Williams, the group eventually included Martha Reeves, who moved up in ranks as lead vocalist of the group after Williams' departure in 1962. The group signed with and eventually recorded all of their singles for Motown's Gordy imprint.
The group's string of hits included "Come and Get These Memories", "Heat Wave", "Quicksand", "Nowhere to Run", "Jimmy Mack", "I'm Ready for Love", "Bless You" and "Dancing in the Street", the latter song becoming their signature single.
During their nine-year run on the charts from 1963 to 1972, Martha and the Vandellas charted over twenty-six hits and recorded in the styles of doo-wop, R&B, pop, blues, rock and roll and soul. Ten Vandellas songs reached the top ten of the Billboard R&B singles chart, including two R&B number ones, and six Top Ten Pop Hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Selected members of the group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 2013.
History
Early years (1957–1962)
Teenagers Rosalind Ashford and Annette Beard first became acquainted after a local music manager hired them to be members of a girl group he named the Del-Phis. Ashford, Beard, and lead vocalist Gloria Williams, performed at local clubs, private events, church benefits, YMCA events and school functions. They were also being coached by Maxine Powell at Detroit's Ferris Center. One of the group's first professional engagements was singing background for singer Mike Hanks.
The group originally had up to six members, subsequently reduced to four. When one of the four left the group, she was replaced by Alabama-born vocalist Martha Reeves, a former member of two groups, the Fascinations and the Sabre-Ettes. In 1960, the group signed their first recording contract with Checker Records, releasing the Reeves-led "I'll Let You Know," which flopped. The Del-Phis then went to Checkmate Records, a subsidiary of Chess Records, recording their "There He Is (At My Door)" featuring Williams on lead vocals, which also flopped.
Reeves reverted to a solo artist under the name Martha LaVaille in the hope of getting a contract with emerging Detroit label Motown. After Motown staffer Mickey Stevenson saw Reeves singing at a Detroit club, he offered her an audition. Reeves showed up at Motown's Hitsville USA studios on a Tuesday rather than Thursday, Motown's usual audition day. Initially upset with Reeves, Stevenson soon assigned her as his secretary eventually responsible for handling Motown's auditions. By 1961, the group, now known as The Vels, were recording background vocals for Motown acts. Prior to her success as lead singer of The Elgins, Sandra Edwards (then going by her surname Maulett) recorded the song "Camel Walk", in 1962, which featured the Vels in background vocals. That year, the quartet began applying background vocals for emerging Motown star Marvin Gaye, singing on Gaye's first hit single, "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" After Mary Wells failed to make a scheduled recording session feigning a short illness, the Vels recorded what was initially a demo recording of "I'll Have to Let Him Go". Motown was so impressed by the group's vocals – and Martha's lead vocals in the song – that the label CEO Berry Gordy offered to give the group a contract. Figuring that being in show business was too rigorous, Williams opted out of the group. With Williams out, the remaining trio of Ashford, Beard and Reeves were told by Gordy that they would need a new name. After failing to come up with a name on their own, Gordy gave the group the name The Vandellas. As stated in an interview with The History Makers, Ashford emphatically states that contrary to popular belief, The Vandellas were not named after Della Reese and Van Dyke Avenue, nor did Reeves come up with the name.
Motown major hit years (1962–1968)
Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team, Holland–Dozier–Holland, titled "Come and Get These Memories". It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart. Their second hit, "Heat Wave", became a phenomenal record for the group, reaching number four on the Hot 100 and hitting number one on the R&B singles chart for five weeks. It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Best R&B Performance. On the single and album, the song was titled "Heat Wave". It was sometime later that the song was retitled to avoid confusion with the Irving Berlin song.
The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, "Quicksand", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963. Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964. Betty Kelley, formerly of the Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise.
The next two singles, "Live Wire" and "In My Lonely Room" (#6 R&B Cashbox) were less successful singles, failing to reach the Pop Top 40. However, their next single, "Dancing in the Street", rose up to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also found global success, peaking at No. 21 on the UK Singles Chart in 1964. In 1969, "Dancing in the Street" was re-issued and it was plugged heavily on radio stations. It did not take long for the song to peak at No. 4 in the UK, thus making the song one of the all-time favourite Motown single releases ever. The song became a million-seller, and one of the most played singles in history.
Between 1964 and 1967, singles like "Wild One" (US #34), "Nowhere to Run" (US #8; UK #26), "Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)" (US #70; R&B #22), "You've Been in Love Too Long" (US #36), "My Baby Loves Me" (US #22; R&B #3), "I'm Ready for Love" (US #9; R&B #2; UK #29) and "Jimmy Mack" (US #10; R&B #1; UK #21) kept the Vandellas on the map as one of the label's top acts. The Vandellas' popularity helped the group get spots on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, American Bandstand and Shindig!. Throughout this period, the Vandellas had also become one of the label's most popular performing acts. On June 28, 1965, the group appeared with several other popular acts of the period on CBS-TV's Murray The K-It's What's Happening, Baby. Martha, Rosalind and Betty performed "Nowhere to Run," as they skipped through a Ford auto plant and sat in a Ford Mustang convertible as it's being assembled.
Personnel changes
Motown struggled to find good material for many of their acts after the exit of Motown contributor and Reeves' mentor William "Mickey" Stevenson in 1967 and Holland–Dozier–Holland in early 1968, but after their former collaborators left the label, the Vandellas initially continued to find success with the Richard Morris-produced singles "Love Bug Leave My Heart Alone" (US #25; R&B #14) and "Honey Chile" (US #11; UK #30; R&B #5) added to their already extended list of charted singles. In the summer of 1968, the group joined The Supremes, The Temptations, The Four Tops and Marvin Gaye in performing at the Copacabana though much like albums from the Four Tops and Gaye, a live album of their performance there was shelved indefinitely.
That same year, label changes had started to take effect, and Gordy focused much of his attention on building the Supremes' as well as Diana Ross' burgeoning upcoming solo career that would follow in 1970. The Vandellas' chart performance (and the chart performance of many Motown acts with the exception of Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, and Stevie Wonder) suffered as a result.
However it was the infighting among the members of the Vandellas that led to their problems. Kelley was the first to be let go after reportedly missing shows, as well as getting into altercations with Reeves. There were many instances where these "fights" happened on stage. Kelley was fired in 1967 and was replaced by Martha Reeves' sister Lois. Simultaneously, the group's name was officially changed to Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, to conform with the company's recent changes of The Supremes' and The Miracles' names to reflect their featured lead singers. During this time, Vandellas records including "(We've Got) Honey Love", "Sweet Darlin'" and "Taking My Love and Leaving Me" were issued as singles with diminishing success.
"Bless You" (1969–1972)
Reeves, out of the group temporarily due to illness, recovered and returned; Ashford was replaced by another former member of the Velvelettes, Sandra Tilley, and the group continued to release albums and singles into the early 1970s. Although they could not reignite the fire they had made in America they continued to have successful records the UK and abroad. Among their late 1960s hits was "I Can't Dance to That Music You're Playing", which featured singer Syreeta Wright singing the chorus, and peaked at number forty-two. Reeves reportedly hated singing the song sensing it "close to home". In 1969 a reissue of "Nowhere To Run" reached the top 40 in the UK. In 1970, the group issued Motown's first protest single, the controversial anti-war song, "I Should Be Proud", which peaked at a modest forty-five on the R&B singles chart. The song was uncharacteristic of the Vandellas and did nothing to promote the group. On some stations, the flip-side "Love, Guess Who" was played instead, however the group reached the top 20 that year in the UK with a reissue of "Jimmy Mack".
In 1971, the group scored a top 11 hit in the UK with "Forget Me Not". later that year they scored an international hit with "Bless You" (produced by the Jackson 5's producers The Corporation). The song peaked at number fifty-three on the American pop singles chart (the biggest peak of Vandellas' seventies singles in the US), and number twenty-nine on the R&B singles chart. "Bless You" reached number thirty-three in the UK giving the group two big hits that year in England. . "Bless You" reached number 16 in Canada and went all the way to number 2 in Puerto Rico . It was to be the last Billboard Hot 100 hit single for the group. After two successive Top 40 R&B singles, the ballad "In and Out of My Life" (#22 US R&B) and the Marvin Gaye cover, "Tear It On Down" (#37 US R&B), the group disbanded following a farewell concert, held at Detroit's Cobo Hall on December 21, 1972, but Martha Reeves is still often billed as ‘Martha Reeves& The Vandellas’.
The next year, Reeves announced plans of starting a solo career. At the same time, Motown Records moved its operations to Los Angeles. When Reeves did not want to move, she negotiated out of her contract with Motown, signing with MCA in 1974, and releasing the critically acclaimed self-titled debut album, Martha Reeves. Despite rave reviews of her work, neither of Reeves' post-Vandellas/Motown recordings produced the same success as they had the decade before. After living what she called "a rock & roll lifestyle" of prescription pills, cocaine and alcohol, Reeves sobered up in 1977, overcoming her addictions and becoming a born-again Christian.
Epilogue
After the Vandellas' split, Reeves' sister Lois sang with the group Quiet Elegance and sang background for Al Green, while Tilley retired from show business in the late 1970s, suddenly dying of a brain aneurysm in 1981 at the age of thirty-eight. Original member Gloria Williams, who retired from show business when she left the group, died in 2000. In 1978, Reeves and original Vandellas Ashford and Beard reunited at a Los Angeles benefit concert for actor Will Geer. In 1983, Reeves successfully sued for royalties from her Motown hits and the label agreed to have the songs credited as Martha Reeves and the Vandellas from then on. That year, Reeves performed solo at Motown 25, which alongside some of their songs being placed on the Big Chill soundtrack, helped Reeves and the Vandellas gain a new audience. In 1989, original members Ashford and Beard also sued Motown for royalties. During this time, the original trio were inspired to reunite both as a recording act and in performances. They were offered a recording contract with Ian Levine at Motorcity Records who issued the group's first single since the Vandellas disbanded seventeen years earlier called "Step Into My Shoes."
Although they are no longer singing together full-time, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas have occasionally reunited for various concerts. Currently, Ashford, whose full name now is Rosalind Ashford-Holmes, and Beard, whose full name now is Annette Beard-Helton, continue to perform with other singers, most notably Roschelle Laughhunn, as "The Original Vandellas." Reeves, with her sisters Lois and Delphine Reeves, tour as "Martha Reeves and the Vandellas."
From 2005 to 2009, Reeves held the eighth seat of Detroit's city council. She has since lost her seat and told the press that she would continue performing.
A remake of the song "Nowhere To Run," sung by Arnold McCuller, is heard in the film "The Warriors" during the scene in which the Gramercy Riffs call a hit on the Warriors.
In a Season One episode of the television show The Golden Girls, Blanche described her car as the "noisiest thing to come out of Detroit since Martha & The Vandellas.".
Candice Bergen, who hosted the Saturday Night Live episode on which Martha Reeves appeared in its inaugural season, made sure that Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were a presence throughout her "Murphy Brown" series. The group's picture was displayed prominently in Murphy's office. When Aretha Franklin guest starred and Murphy tried to sing with her, Franklin stopped her, saying, ". . .I'm not Martha, and you ain't no Vandella."
The group is briefly portrayed in the 2017 film Detroit, performing "Nowhere To Run" at the Fox Theatre, Detroit.
Awards and accolades
Martha and the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 (they were nominated for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group for the song in 1964). In 1993, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were awarded the Pioneer Award by the Rhythm & Blues Foundation. Except for pre-Vandellas member Gloria Williamson and Vandellas member Sandra Tilley, all members of the group were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, becoming the second all-female group to be inducted. They were inducted by rock group The B-52's, whose frothy dance music was inspired by the Vandellas. They were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003. Two of their singles, "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" and "Dancing in the Street" were included in the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the group No. 96 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2005, Martha & The Vandellas were voted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame.
Always concert favorites, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were nominated for UK Festival Awards in 2010 and 2011 as "Best Headliner."
Martha and the Vandellas was inducted into the inaugural class of the Official Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame at Cleveland State University August 2013
Lineups
The Del-Phis
1957–1962
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Gloria Williams
Martha & the Vandellas
1964–1967
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Betty Kelly
Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
1969–1972
Martha Reeves
Lois Reeves
Sandra Tilley
The Original Vandellas
2000s-present
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Roschelle Laughhunn
Martha & the Vandellas
1962–1964
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
1967–1969
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Lois Reeves
Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
2010–present
Martha Reeves
Lois Reeves
Delphine Reeves
Discography
For a detailed listing of albums and singles, see Martha and the Vandellas discography
Albums
Come and Get These Memories (1963)
Heat Wave (1963)
Dance Party (1965)
Greatest Hits (1966)
Watchout! (1966)
Martha and the Vandellas Live! (1967)
Ridin' High (1968)
Sugar 'n' Spice (1969)
Natural Resources (1970)
Black Magic (1972)
Top 10 singles
The following singles reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 song chart in the U.S.
"Heat Wave" (1963)
"Quicksand" (1963)
"Dancing in the Street" (1964)
"Nowhere to Run" (1965)
"I'm Ready for Love" (1966)
"Jimmy Mack" (1967)
Awards and recognition
Martha Reeves and the Vandellas' "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" and "Dancing in the Street" were inducted to the Grammy Hall of Fame and were both included in the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
They were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 becoming just the second all-female group to be inducted and the fifth group in the Motown roster to be inducted.
They were inducted to the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003.
They were nominated for a Grammy Award for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance in 1964 for their hit song "Heat Wave"
"Dancing in the Street" was included in the United States Library of Congress' National Recording Registry for its historical, artistic and cultural significance in 2006.
References
External links
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame page on Martha and the Vandellas
'Martha and the Vandellas' Vocal Group Hall of Fame Page
History of Rock page on Martha and the Vandellas
The Original Vandellas (Rosalind Ashford-Holmes & Annette Beard-Helton) page
Martha and the Vandellas History, Charts and Songs
Martha & The Vandellas at Doo Wop Heaven
Martha & The Vandellas bio on the Soulwalking U.K. website.
African-American girl groups
American soul musical groups
Motown artists
Musical groups from Detroit
Northern soul musicians
1957 establishments in Michigan
Musical groups disestablished in 1972
Singers from Detroit | true | [
"PBS Kids Go! is a former television brand that was used by PBS for programs aimed at older children up to 5th grade, in contrast to the kindergarten and preschool-level PBS Kids. It was primarily broadcast on PBS stations during the afternoon hours on weekdays. It debuted on October 11, 2004, and was discontinued on October 7, 2013.\n\nHistory\nThe PBS Kids Go! programming block was launched on October 11, 2004 upon the premiere of brand new programs Maya & Miguel and Postcards from Buster, with the purpose of making older children watch and appreciate PBS Kids educational programming, as it was found that only preschoolers and kindergarteners were watching PBS Kids. With the discontinuation of the original PBS Kids Channel (a revived version has been launched as of January 16, 2017) in favor of PBS Kids Sprout in 2005, PBS Kids Go! continued its run on PBS.\n\nIn April 2006, PBS announced that, in October 2006, a 24-hour digital multicast network called PBS Kids Go! Channel would be launched with additional content. Slated were several programming blocks, an evening Go! family block targeted at both children and their families, a Spanish language-programming block, \"PBS Kids Vayan!\" and a school block. KidsWorld Sports, HIT Entertainment’s Wishbone reruns, and Kratts’ Creatures were planned as exclusive programs for the network. These exclusive shows plus those from the PBS block would total seven hours of original programming. At this time, PBS planned on adding one or two new series per year. The network was to be fee-based, allowing those stations that subscript to place the network's exclusive programs on their analog channel if they order. A branded interactive club was also part of the plan, with stations working it into their existing club or starting a new club and branding it how they would like to.\n\nWith only one third of PBS stations affiliating with the network and half needed on July 6, 2006, the network was withdrawn. PBS left open the possibility to re-offer the network. Stations found that the sliding scale licensing fees were too high for what little exclusive programming they received, especially after spending additional funds for the PBS HD feed.\n\nOn August 7, 2013, PBS announced that the PBS Kids Go! brand would be discontinued, with the Go! programming rebranded into a new universal branding design across all of PBS's children's programming. The redesign was introduced two months later on October 7, 2013 with the launch of Peg + Cat. PBS considered the nine year long effort to age up its overall audience with the Go! effort to be successful, negating the need to continue it further. After the shutdown, all shows that premiered before the launch of the PBS Kids Go! block returned back to the main PBS Kids block after nearly a decade, and all shows that premiered during the PBS Kids Go! block were permanently moved to the main PBS Kids block, all airing with PBS Kids branding, with the exception of Maya & Miguel, and nearly all references to PBS Kids Go! were removed.\n\nProgramming\n 1 Premiered before the launch of PBS Kids Go!\n 2 Only aired as reruns\n\nFormer programming\n\nOriginal programming\n\nWeb series\n\nShorts\nPBS Kids Go! aired shorts, usually right before the end credits of Cyberchase and Maya & Miguel, right after the end credits of Animalia, and during breaks between episode pairs of Arthur, to fill time during long-form programming. These include Go! Figure, WordGirl, Oh Noah, Space Race, A Word From Us Kids, and other miscellaneous shorts featuring live-action kids talking about things they do; about their families' heritage; or other topics with Maya (Candi Milo) or Miguel (Nika Futterman) doing a voiceover.\n\nWriting and illustrating contest\n\nIn 2009, PBS launched the first contest called PBS Kids Go! Writers Contest to continue the annual writing and illustrating competition for children in kindergarten through 3rd grade, which started in 1995 as the Reading Rainbow Young Writers and Illustrators Contest. In 2014, it was renamed to PBS Kids Writers Contest.\n\nSee also\n PBS\n PBS Kids\n\nReferences\n\nTelevision programming blocks in the United States\nPBS original programming\nPBS Kids\nPBS Kids shows\n2004 establishments in California\n2013 disestablishments in California",
"This is a list of episodes for the American animated television series Metalocalypse, which was formerly aired on Adult Swim. The series is produced by Williams Street Studios and animated by Titmouse, Inc.\n\nMetalocalypse made its Adult Swim Video debut on August 4, 2006, with its television debut two days later. The release date for the Season One DVD in the United States was October 2, 2007, one week after the release of The Dethalbum. The Metalocalypse Season One DVD was also released in DVD Region 4, on December 5, 2007. Season Two began September 23, two days prior to the release of The Dethalbum (the deluxe edition of which features the first episode of Season Two). On December 2, 2008, Season Two was released on DVD. On November 9, 2010, Season Three was released on DVD and Blu-ray. The Season Four DVD/Blu-ray was released on October 30, 2012. On October 27, 2013 a one-hour rock-opera special premiered on Adult Swim, entitled Metalocalypse: The Doomstar Requiem.\n\nA total of 62 episodes of Metalocalypse aired, concluding the series.\n\nSeries overview\n\nEpisodes\n\nSeason 1 (2006)\n\nSeason 2 (2007–2008)\n\nSeason 3 (2009–2010)\n\nSeason 4 (2012)\n\nSpecial\n\nFuture\nIn April 2014, in an interview on Steve Agee: Uhhh podcast, Brendon Small confirmed that a fifth and final season was in pre-production. Small was originally waiting on Adult Swim for an appropriate budget in order to end the show the way he wants rather than rushing it. But after pitching the idea for the finale to the network, they turned it down, stating that they did not have the budget for it.\n\nIn October 2015, Brendon Small announced a month-long social media campaign entitled \"Metalocalypse Now\" as an attempt to gather fan support to have Hulu and Adult Swim co-finance the final season of Metalocalypse. At the time it was thought to be successful, the finale to be titled: Metalocalypse: The Army of the Doomstar – The Final Chapter, and would be a miniseries on Hulu Plus.\n\nIn May 2016, Brendon Small said in an interview that he is \"all but finished making Dethklok records\" due to Adult Swim declining to continue with the final season despite popular support of the continuation. Small stated that as a result of the \"Metalocalypse Now\" campaign, financial backers had come forward to fund the Metalocalypse finale, but Adult Swim ultimately did not want to go forward and make a finale. Small stated that he does have plans to eventually finish the Metalocalypse story, but he cannot say how.\n\nOn May 12, 2021, Adult Swim announced a direct-to-video film is in development and will be released on home video and digital followed by streaming on HBO Max 90 days after along with a broadcast premiere on the channel.\n\nNotes\n The airing of season 2 was suspended for six months between November 18, 2007 and May 18, 2008. The bumper for the episode \"Cleanso\" stated: \"Next is the last new Metalocalypse of the year. It's taking a break 'til 2008. After all, the holidays are brutal enough, so you metal fiends will have to make do with the old eps or the CD, or go back to college and catch the tour before it runs out.\" Season 2 was relaunched on April 6, 2008, starting with \"Dethwedding\".\n Each episode of season 3 is 21 minutes long, season 4 returned to the 11 minute runtime.\n\nReferences\n\nGeneral references\n\nExternal links\n \n\nList\nLists of American adult animated television series episodes"
] |
[
"Martha and the Vandellas",
"Motown major hit years (1962-1968)",
"What happened during motown major hit years?",
"Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team,",
"What happened after that?",
"It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart.",
"Can you tell me how long did it stay on the charts?",
"I don't know.",
"What were some of their major hits?",
"Their second hit, \"Heat Wave\", became a phenomenal record for the group,",
"Were they popular among a lot of people?",
"It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance. (",
"What other things took place after that?",
"The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, \"Quicksand\", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland",
"Did they go on to continue to be successful?",
"and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963."
] | C_1183ad7f6a684fc28b80ad594e48035d_0 | Any other important aspects regarding their major hit years? | 8 | Any other important aspects regarding Martha and the Vandellas' major hit years other than the awards and nominations? | Martha and the Vandellas | Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team, Holland-Dozier-Holland, titled "Come and Get These Memories". It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart. Their second hit, "Heat Wave", became a phenomenal record for the group, reaching number four on the Hot 100 and hitting number one on the R&B singles chart for five weeks. It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance. (On the single and album, the song was titled "Heat Wave". It was sometime later that the song was retitled to avoid confusion with the Irving Berlin song.) The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, "Quicksand", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963. Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964. Betty Kelley, formerly of the Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise. The next two singles, "Live Wire" and "In My Lonely Room" (#6 R&B Cashbox) were less successful singles, failing to reach the Top 40. However, their next single, "Dancing in the Street", rose up to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also found global success, peaking at #21 on the UK Singles Chart in 1964. In 1969, "Dancing in the Street" was re-issued and it was plugged heavily on radio stations. It did not take long for the song to peak at #4 in the UK, thus making the song one of the all-time favourite Motown single releases ever. The song became a million-seller, and one of the most played singles in history. Between 1964 and 1967, singles like "Wild One" (US #34), "Nowhere to Run" (US #8; UK #26), "Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)" (US #70; R&B #22), "You've Been in Love Too Long" (US #36), "My Baby Loves Me" (US #22; R&B #3), "I'm Ready for Love" (US #9; R&B #2; UK #29) and "Jimmy Mack" (US #10; R&B #1; UK #21) kept the Vandellas on the map as one of the label's top acts. The Vandellas' popularity helped the group get spots on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, American Bandstand and Shindig!. Throughout this period, the Vandellas had also become one of the label's most popular performing acts. CANNOTANSWER | Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964. | Martha and the Vandellas (known from 1967 to 1972 as Martha Reeves & The Vandellas) were an American vocal girl group formed in Detroit in 1957. The group achieved fame in the 1960s with Motown.
An act founded by friends Annette Beard, Rosalind Ashford and Gloria Williams, the group eventually included Martha Reeves, who moved up in ranks as lead vocalist of the group after Williams' departure in 1962. The group signed with and eventually recorded all of their singles for Motown's Gordy imprint.
The group's string of hits included "Come and Get These Memories", "Heat Wave", "Quicksand", "Nowhere to Run", "Jimmy Mack", "I'm Ready for Love", "Bless You" and "Dancing in the Street", the latter song becoming their signature single.
During their nine-year run on the charts from 1963 to 1972, Martha and the Vandellas charted over twenty-six hits and recorded in the styles of doo-wop, R&B, pop, blues, rock and roll and soul. Ten Vandellas songs reached the top ten of the Billboard R&B singles chart, including two R&B number ones, and six Top Ten Pop Hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Selected members of the group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 2013.
History
Early years (1957–1962)
Teenagers Rosalind Ashford and Annette Beard first became acquainted after a local music manager hired them to be members of a girl group he named the Del-Phis. Ashford, Beard, and lead vocalist Gloria Williams, performed at local clubs, private events, church benefits, YMCA events and school functions. They were also being coached by Maxine Powell at Detroit's Ferris Center. One of the group's first professional engagements was singing background for singer Mike Hanks.
The group originally had up to six members, subsequently reduced to four. When one of the four left the group, she was replaced by Alabama-born vocalist Martha Reeves, a former member of two groups, the Fascinations and the Sabre-Ettes. In 1960, the group signed their first recording contract with Checker Records, releasing the Reeves-led "I'll Let You Know," which flopped. The Del-Phis then went to Checkmate Records, a subsidiary of Chess Records, recording their "There He Is (At My Door)" featuring Williams on lead vocals, which also flopped.
Reeves reverted to a solo artist under the name Martha LaVaille in the hope of getting a contract with emerging Detroit label Motown. After Motown staffer Mickey Stevenson saw Reeves singing at a Detroit club, he offered her an audition. Reeves showed up at Motown's Hitsville USA studios on a Tuesday rather than Thursday, Motown's usual audition day. Initially upset with Reeves, Stevenson soon assigned her as his secretary eventually responsible for handling Motown's auditions. By 1961, the group, now known as The Vels, were recording background vocals for Motown acts. Prior to her success as lead singer of The Elgins, Sandra Edwards (then going by her surname Maulett) recorded the song "Camel Walk", in 1962, which featured the Vels in background vocals. That year, the quartet began applying background vocals for emerging Motown star Marvin Gaye, singing on Gaye's first hit single, "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" After Mary Wells failed to make a scheduled recording session feigning a short illness, the Vels recorded what was initially a demo recording of "I'll Have to Let Him Go". Motown was so impressed by the group's vocals – and Martha's lead vocals in the song – that the label CEO Berry Gordy offered to give the group a contract. Figuring that being in show business was too rigorous, Williams opted out of the group. With Williams out, the remaining trio of Ashford, Beard and Reeves were told by Gordy that they would need a new name. After failing to come up with a name on their own, Gordy gave the group the name The Vandellas. As stated in an interview with The History Makers, Ashford emphatically states that contrary to popular belief, The Vandellas were not named after Della Reese and Van Dyke Avenue, nor did Reeves come up with the name.
Motown major hit years (1962–1968)
Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team, Holland–Dozier–Holland, titled "Come and Get These Memories". It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart. Their second hit, "Heat Wave", became a phenomenal record for the group, reaching number four on the Hot 100 and hitting number one on the R&B singles chart for five weeks. It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Best R&B Performance. On the single and album, the song was titled "Heat Wave". It was sometime later that the song was retitled to avoid confusion with the Irving Berlin song.
The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, "Quicksand", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963. Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964. Betty Kelley, formerly of the Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise.
The next two singles, "Live Wire" and "In My Lonely Room" (#6 R&B Cashbox) were less successful singles, failing to reach the Pop Top 40. However, their next single, "Dancing in the Street", rose up to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also found global success, peaking at No. 21 on the UK Singles Chart in 1964. In 1969, "Dancing in the Street" was re-issued and it was plugged heavily on radio stations. It did not take long for the song to peak at No. 4 in the UK, thus making the song one of the all-time favourite Motown single releases ever. The song became a million-seller, and one of the most played singles in history.
Between 1964 and 1967, singles like "Wild One" (US #34), "Nowhere to Run" (US #8; UK #26), "Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)" (US #70; R&B #22), "You've Been in Love Too Long" (US #36), "My Baby Loves Me" (US #22; R&B #3), "I'm Ready for Love" (US #9; R&B #2; UK #29) and "Jimmy Mack" (US #10; R&B #1; UK #21) kept the Vandellas on the map as one of the label's top acts. The Vandellas' popularity helped the group get spots on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, American Bandstand and Shindig!. Throughout this period, the Vandellas had also become one of the label's most popular performing acts. On June 28, 1965, the group appeared with several other popular acts of the period on CBS-TV's Murray The K-It's What's Happening, Baby. Martha, Rosalind and Betty performed "Nowhere to Run," as they skipped through a Ford auto plant and sat in a Ford Mustang convertible as it's being assembled.
Personnel changes
Motown struggled to find good material for many of their acts after the exit of Motown contributor and Reeves' mentor William "Mickey" Stevenson in 1967 and Holland–Dozier–Holland in early 1968, but after their former collaborators left the label, the Vandellas initially continued to find success with the Richard Morris-produced singles "Love Bug Leave My Heart Alone" (US #25; R&B #14) and "Honey Chile" (US #11; UK #30; R&B #5) added to their already extended list of charted singles. In the summer of 1968, the group joined The Supremes, The Temptations, The Four Tops and Marvin Gaye in performing at the Copacabana though much like albums from the Four Tops and Gaye, a live album of their performance there was shelved indefinitely.
That same year, label changes had started to take effect, and Gordy focused much of his attention on building the Supremes' as well as Diana Ross' burgeoning upcoming solo career that would follow in 1970. The Vandellas' chart performance (and the chart performance of many Motown acts with the exception of Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, and Stevie Wonder) suffered as a result.
However it was the infighting among the members of the Vandellas that led to their problems. Kelley was the first to be let go after reportedly missing shows, as well as getting into altercations with Reeves. There were many instances where these "fights" happened on stage. Kelley was fired in 1967 and was replaced by Martha Reeves' sister Lois. Simultaneously, the group's name was officially changed to Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, to conform with the company's recent changes of The Supremes' and The Miracles' names to reflect their featured lead singers. During this time, Vandellas records including "(We've Got) Honey Love", "Sweet Darlin'" and "Taking My Love and Leaving Me" were issued as singles with diminishing success.
"Bless You" (1969–1972)
Reeves, out of the group temporarily due to illness, recovered and returned; Ashford was replaced by another former member of the Velvelettes, Sandra Tilley, and the group continued to release albums and singles into the early 1970s. Although they could not reignite the fire they had made in America they continued to have successful records the UK and abroad. Among their late 1960s hits was "I Can't Dance to That Music You're Playing", which featured singer Syreeta Wright singing the chorus, and peaked at number forty-two. Reeves reportedly hated singing the song sensing it "close to home". In 1969 a reissue of "Nowhere To Run" reached the top 40 in the UK. In 1970, the group issued Motown's first protest single, the controversial anti-war song, "I Should Be Proud", which peaked at a modest forty-five on the R&B singles chart. The song was uncharacteristic of the Vandellas and did nothing to promote the group. On some stations, the flip-side "Love, Guess Who" was played instead, however the group reached the top 20 that year in the UK with a reissue of "Jimmy Mack".
In 1971, the group scored a top 11 hit in the UK with "Forget Me Not". later that year they scored an international hit with "Bless You" (produced by the Jackson 5's producers The Corporation). The song peaked at number fifty-three on the American pop singles chart (the biggest peak of Vandellas' seventies singles in the US), and number twenty-nine on the R&B singles chart. "Bless You" reached number thirty-three in the UK giving the group two big hits that year in England. . "Bless You" reached number 16 in Canada and went all the way to number 2 in Puerto Rico . It was to be the last Billboard Hot 100 hit single for the group. After two successive Top 40 R&B singles, the ballad "In and Out of My Life" (#22 US R&B) and the Marvin Gaye cover, "Tear It On Down" (#37 US R&B), the group disbanded following a farewell concert, held at Detroit's Cobo Hall on December 21, 1972, but Martha Reeves is still often billed as ‘Martha Reeves& The Vandellas’.
The next year, Reeves announced plans of starting a solo career. At the same time, Motown Records moved its operations to Los Angeles. When Reeves did not want to move, she negotiated out of her contract with Motown, signing with MCA in 1974, and releasing the critically acclaimed self-titled debut album, Martha Reeves. Despite rave reviews of her work, neither of Reeves' post-Vandellas/Motown recordings produced the same success as they had the decade before. After living what she called "a rock & roll lifestyle" of prescription pills, cocaine and alcohol, Reeves sobered up in 1977, overcoming her addictions and becoming a born-again Christian.
Epilogue
After the Vandellas' split, Reeves' sister Lois sang with the group Quiet Elegance and sang background for Al Green, while Tilley retired from show business in the late 1970s, suddenly dying of a brain aneurysm in 1981 at the age of thirty-eight. Original member Gloria Williams, who retired from show business when she left the group, died in 2000. In 1978, Reeves and original Vandellas Ashford and Beard reunited at a Los Angeles benefit concert for actor Will Geer. In 1983, Reeves successfully sued for royalties from her Motown hits and the label agreed to have the songs credited as Martha Reeves and the Vandellas from then on. That year, Reeves performed solo at Motown 25, which alongside some of their songs being placed on the Big Chill soundtrack, helped Reeves and the Vandellas gain a new audience. In 1989, original members Ashford and Beard also sued Motown for royalties. During this time, the original trio were inspired to reunite both as a recording act and in performances. They were offered a recording contract with Ian Levine at Motorcity Records who issued the group's first single since the Vandellas disbanded seventeen years earlier called "Step Into My Shoes."
Although they are no longer singing together full-time, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas have occasionally reunited for various concerts. Currently, Ashford, whose full name now is Rosalind Ashford-Holmes, and Beard, whose full name now is Annette Beard-Helton, continue to perform with other singers, most notably Roschelle Laughhunn, as "The Original Vandellas." Reeves, with her sisters Lois and Delphine Reeves, tour as "Martha Reeves and the Vandellas."
From 2005 to 2009, Reeves held the eighth seat of Detroit's city council. She has since lost her seat and told the press that she would continue performing.
A remake of the song "Nowhere To Run," sung by Arnold McCuller, is heard in the film "The Warriors" during the scene in which the Gramercy Riffs call a hit on the Warriors.
In a Season One episode of the television show The Golden Girls, Blanche described her car as the "noisiest thing to come out of Detroit since Martha & The Vandellas.".
Candice Bergen, who hosted the Saturday Night Live episode on which Martha Reeves appeared in its inaugural season, made sure that Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were a presence throughout her "Murphy Brown" series. The group's picture was displayed prominently in Murphy's office. When Aretha Franklin guest starred and Murphy tried to sing with her, Franklin stopped her, saying, ". . .I'm not Martha, and you ain't no Vandella."
The group is briefly portrayed in the 2017 film Detroit, performing "Nowhere To Run" at the Fox Theatre, Detroit.
Awards and accolades
Martha and the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 (they were nominated for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group for the song in 1964). In 1993, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were awarded the Pioneer Award by the Rhythm & Blues Foundation. Except for pre-Vandellas member Gloria Williamson and Vandellas member Sandra Tilley, all members of the group were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, becoming the second all-female group to be inducted. They were inducted by rock group The B-52's, whose frothy dance music was inspired by the Vandellas. They were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003. Two of their singles, "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" and "Dancing in the Street" were included in the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the group No. 96 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2005, Martha & The Vandellas were voted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame.
Always concert favorites, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were nominated for UK Festival Awards in 2010 and 2011 as "Best Headliner."
Martha and the Vandellas was inducted into the inaugural class of the Official Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame at Cleveland State University August 2013
Lineups
The Del-Phis
1957–1962
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Gloria Williams
Martha & the Vandellas
1964–1967
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Betty Kelly
Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
1969–1972
Martha Reeves
Lois Reeves
Sandra Tilley
The Original Vandellas
2000s-present
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Roschelle Laughhunn
Martha & the Vandellas
1962–1964
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
1967–1969
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Lois Reeves
Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
2010–present
Martha Reeves
Lois Reeves
Delphine Reeves
Discography
For a detailed listing of albums and singles, see Martha and the Vandellas discography
Albums
Come and Get These Memories (1963)
Heat Wave (1963)
Dance Party (1965)
Greatest Hits (1966)
Watchout! (1966)
Martha and the Vandellas Live! (1967)
Ridin' High (1968)
Sugar 'n' Spice (1969)
Natural Resources (1970)
Black Magic (1972)
Top 10 singles
The following singles reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 song chart in the U.S.
"Heat Wave" (1963)
"Quicksand" (1963)
"Dancing in the Street" (1964)
"Nowhere to Run" (1965)
"I'm Ready for Love" (1966)
"Jimmy Mack" (1967)
Awards and recognition
Martha Reeves and the Vandellas' "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" and "Dancing in the Street" were inducted to the Grammy Hall of Fame and were both included in the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
They were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 becoming just the second all-female group to be inducted and the fifth group in the Motown roster to be inducted.
They were inducted to the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003.
They were nominated for a Grammy Award for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance in 1964 for their hit song "Heat Wave"
"Dancing in the Street" was included in the United States Library of Congress' National Recording Registry for its historical, artistic and cultural significance in 2006.
References
External links
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame page on Martha and the Vandellas
'Martha and the Vandellas' Vocal Group Hall of Fame Page
History of Rock page on Martha and the Vandellas
The Original Vandellas (Rosalind Ashford-Holmes & Annette Beard-Helton) page
Martha and the Vandellas History, Charts and Songs
Martha & The Vandellas at Doo Wop Heaven
Martha & The Vandellas bio on the Soulwalking U.K. website.
African-American girl groups
American soul musical groups
Motown artists
Musical groups from Detroit
Northern soul musicians
1957 establishments in Michigan
Musical groups disestablished in 1972
Singers from Detroit | true | [
"The Holtzman inkblot technique (HIT), also known as the Holtzman inkblot test, is an ink blot test aimed at detecting personality and was conceived by Wayne H. Holtzman and colleagues. It was first introduced in 1961 as a projective personality test similar to the Rorschach. The HIT is a standardized measurement. The Holtzman Inkblot Test was developed as an attempt to address some controversial issues surrounding the Rorschach Inkblot Test.\n\nPurpose\n\nThe Holtzman inkblot test (HIT) was invented as an attempt to address some issues surrounding the Rorschach Inkblot Test. The HIT was used to assess the personal structure of the subject.\n\nScoring\nThe scoring includes 22 variables covering the aspects of the patient's response to the inkblot. Many different variables apply when scoring.\n\n22 variables and abbreviations applied\n\nTest standardization\nHoltzman and Swartz (1983), reviewing 25 years of research, reported that, in the standardization of the HIT, 22 quantitative variables had been developed, covering most of the scoring categories and dimensions used with the Rorschach Test. High reliability coefficients had been reported in a large number of investigations. Norms for several important clinical reference groups had been established (for example schizophrenics, depressives, delinquents, neurotics, and alcoholics). The six factors, representing the most important variables, had proven useful in clinical applications of the HIT. A large number of studies had confirmed the technique's differential validity, supported by findings from longitudinal, cross-sectional, and cross-cultural investigations. Several hundred studies had been published on the relationships between HIT variables and other measures of personality. Still other investigations of external validity had been conducted using physiological and behavioral measures, as well as personality questionnaires. The authors also summarized the results from studies using the German version of the HIT and discussed recent advances with the test.\n\nU.S. and Mexico\nThe test correlation between U.S. and Mexican populations has been estimated to range from .36 for Popular to .81 for normal adults. The most stable of the inkblot scores was location in the United States and Mexico. Reaction, Time, Form Definiteness, Movement, and Human also scored relatively high in both cultures. However, these aspects test more of the cognitive-perceptual aspects rather than personality characteristics. Rejection, Form Appropriateness, Shading, Pathognomic Verbalization, Barrier, and Penetration had lower stability coefficients while Space, Sex, Abstract and Balance proved to be extremely infrequent in the children's samples. Test results generally became more stable with age. The children showed a much weaker stability of data than that of older patients and adults possessed the greatest stability of information.\n\nSee also\n\nReferences\n\nProjective tests",
"R&J Stone were the English/American husband and wife musical duo, Russell Oliver Stone and Joanne Stone. The pair were originally members of James Last's British Choir for a number of years. They had a hit single in the mid 1970s with their self penned song \"We Do It\". The track was produced by Phil Swern. Some time after their hit, Russell Stone decided that he did not want to remain as a singer, and preferred to concentrate on producing and writing for his wife. Their second album did not do well and a third album, although recorded, was never released.\n\nJoanne Stone died of a brain tumour in 1979.\n\nRussell Stone later went to Munich to work with the Icelander Thorir Baldursson. Stone, a recovered alcoholic, has released three solo albumsLove Aspects (2013), Groove Aspects (2014) and Devotional Aspects (2016)after spending years out of the music industry.\n\nDiscography\n\nSingles\n \"We Do It\" / \"We Love Each Other\" - RCA 2616 - 1976 (UK number 5)(AUS number 3)\n \"One Chance\" / \"I Just Can't Get It Right\" - RCA 2660 - 1976\n \"There's No Other Way\" / \"I Just Can't Get It Right\" - RCA 2681 - 1976\n \"Thrown It All Away\" / \"Home Is Where The Heart Is\" - RCA 2746 - 1976\n \"It Just Goes To Show\" - RCA PB 5018 - 1977\n\nAlbums\nWe Do It - RCA RS 1052 - 1976 (AUS number 12)\nR&J - RCA PL 25069 - 1977\nVery Best Of R&J Stone - Lynx Music UK LYX004CD - 2012\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\nEnglish pop music duos\nMarried couples"
] |
[
"Martha and the Vandellas",
"Motown major hit years (1962-1968)",
"What happened during motown major hit years?",
"Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team,",
"What happened after that?",
"It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart.",
"Can you tell me how long did it stay on the charts?",
"I don't know.",
"What were some of their major hits?",
"Their second hit, \"Heat Wave\", became a phenomenal record for the group,",
"Were they popular among a lot of people?",
"It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance. (",
"What other things took place after that?",
"The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, \"Quicksand\", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland",
"Did they go on to continue to be successful?",
"and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963.",
"Any other important aspects regarding their major hit years?",
"Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964."
] | C_1183ad7f6a684fc28b80ad594e48035d_0 | Did the group grow apart after she left? | 9 | Did Martha and the Vandellas grow apart after Annette left to get married and have a child? | Martha and the Vandellas | Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team, Holland-Dozier-Holland, titled "Come and Get These Memories". It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart. Their second hit, "Heat Wave", became a phenomenal record for the group, reaching number four on the Hot 100 and hitting number one on the R&B singles chart for five weeks. It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance. (On the single and album, the song was titled "Heat Wave". It was sometime later that the song was retitled to avoid confusion with the Irving Berlin song.) The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, "Quicksand", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963. Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964. Betty Kelley, formerly of the Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise. The next two singles, "Live Wire" and "In My Lonely Room" (#6 R&B Cashbox) were less successful singles, failing to reach the Top 40. However, their next single, "Dancing in the Street", rose up to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also found global success, peaking at #21 on the UK Singles Chart in 1964. In 1969, "Dancing in the Street" was re-issued and it was plugged heavily on radio stations. It did not take long for the song to peak at #4 in the UK, thus making the song one of the all-time favourite Motown single releases ever. The song became a million-seller, and one of the most played singles in history. Between 1964 and 1967, singles like "Wild One" (US #34), "Nowhere to Run" (US #8; UK #26), "Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)" (US #70; R&B #22), "You've Been in Love Too Long" (US #36), "My Baby Loves Me" (US #22; R&B #3), "I'm Ready for Love" (US #9; R&B #2; UK #29) and "Jimmy Mack" (US #10; R&B #1; UK #21) kept the Vandellas on the map as one of the label's top acts. The Vandellas' popularity helped the group get spots on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, American Bandstand and Shindig!. Throughout this period, the Vandellas had also become one of the label's most popular performing acts. CANNOTANSWER | Betty Kelley, formerly of the Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise. | Martha and the Vandellas (known from 1967 to 1972 as Martha Reeves & The Vandellas) were an American vocal girl group formed in Detroit in 1957. The group achieved fame in the 1960s with Motown.
An act founded by friends Annette Beard, Rosalind Ashford and Gloria Williams, the group eventually included Martha Reeves, who moved up in ranks as lead vocalist of the group after Williams' departure in 1962. The group signed with and eventually recorded all of their singles for Motown's Gordy imprint.
The group's string of hits included "Come and Get These Memories", "Heat Wave", "Quicksand", "Nowhere to Run", "Jimmy Mack", "I'm Ready for Love", "Bless You" and "Dancing in the Street", the latter song becoming their signature single.
During their nine-year run on the charts from 1963 to 1972, Martha and the Vandellas charted over twenty-six hits and recorded in the styles of doo-wop, R&B, pop, blues, rock and roll and soul. Ten Vandellas songs reached the top ten of the Billboard R&B singles chart, including two R&B number ones, and six Top Ten Pop Hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Selected members of the group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 2013.
History
Early years (1957–1962)
Teenagers Rosalind Ashford and Annette Beard first became acquainted after a local music manager hired them to be members of a girl group he named the Del-Phis. Ashford, Beard, and lead vocalist Gloria Williams, performed at local clubs, private events, church benefits, YMCA events and school functions. They were also being coached by Maxine Powell at Detroit's Ferris Center. One of the group's first professional engagements was singing background for singer Mike Hanks.
The group originally had up to six members, subsequently reduced to four. When one of the four left the group, she was replaced by Alabama-born vocalist Martha Reeves, a former member of two groups, the Fascinations and the Sabre-Ettes. In 1960, the group signed their first recording contract with Checker Records, releasing the Reeves-led "I'll Let You Know," which flopped. The Del-Phis then went to Checkmate Records, a subsidiary of Chess Records, recording their "There He Is (At My Door)" featuring Williams on lead vocals, which also flopped.
Reeves reverted to a solo artist under the name Martha LaVaille in the hope of getting a contract with emerging Detroit label Motown. After Motown staffer Mickey Stevenson saw Reeves singing at a Detroit club, he offered her an audition. Reeves showed up at Motown's Hitsville USA studios on a Tuesday rather than Thursday, Motown's usual audition day. Initially upset with Reeves, Stevenson soon assigned her as his secretary eventually responsible for handling Motown's auditions. By 1961, the group, now known as The Vels, were recording background vocals for Motown acts. Prior to her success as lead singer of The Elgins, Sandra Edwards (then going by her surname Maulett) recorded the song "Camel Walk", in 1962, which featured the Vels in background vocals. That year, the quartet began applying background vocals for emerging Motown star Marvin Gaye, singing on Gaye's first hit single, "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" After Mary Wells failed to make a scheduled recording session feigning a short illness, the Vels recorded what was initially a demo recording of "I'll Have to Let Him Go". Motown was so impressed by the group's vocals – and Martha's lead vocals in the song – that the label CEO Berry Gordy offered to give the group a contract. Figuring that being in show business was too rigorous, Williams opted out of the group. With Williams out, the remaining trio of Ashford, Beard and Reeves were told by Gordy that they would need a new name. After failing to come up with a name on their own, Gordy gave the group the name The Vandellas. As stated in an interview with The History Makers, Ashford emphatically states that contrary to popular belief, The Vandellas were not named after Della Reese and Van Dyke Avenue, nor did Reeves come up with the name.
Motown major hit years (1962–1968)
Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team, Holland–Dozier–Holland, titled "Come and Get These Memories". It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart. Their second hit, "Heat Wave", became a phenomenal record for the group, reaching number four on the Hot 100 and hitting number one on the R&B singles chart for five weeks. It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Best R&B Performance. On the single and album, the song was titled "Heat Wave". It was sometime later that the song was retitled to avoid confusion with the Irving Berlin song.
The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, "Quicksand", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963. Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964. Betty Kelley, formerly of the Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise.
The next two singles, "Live Wire" and "In My Lonely Room" (#6 R&B Cashbox) were less successful singles, failing to reach the Pop Top 40. However, their next single, "Dancing in the Street", rose up to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also found global success, peaking at No. 21 on the UK Singles Chart in 1964. In 1969, "Dancing in the Street" was re-issued and it was plugged heavily on radio stations. It did not take long for the song to peak at No. 4 in the UK, thus making the song one of the all-time favourite Motown single releases ever. The song became a million-seller, and one of the most played singles in history.
Between 1964 and 1967, singles like "Wild One" (US #34), "Nowhere to Run" (US #8; UK #26), "Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)" (US #70; R&B #22), "You've Been in Love Too Long" (US #36), "My Baby Loves Me" (US #22; R&B #3), "I'm Ready for Love" (US #9; R&B #2; UK #29) and "Jimmy Mack" (US #10; R&B #1; UK #21) kept the Vandellas on the map as one of the label's top acts. The Vandellas' popularity helped the group get spots on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, American Bandstand and Shindig!. Throughout this period, the Vandellas had also become one of the label's most popular performing acts. On June 28, 1965, the group appeared with several other popular acts of the period on CBS-TV's Murray The K-It's What's Happening, Baby. Martha, Rosalind and Betty performed "Nowhere to Run," as they skipped through a Ford auto plant and sat in a Ford Mustang convertible as it's being assembled.
Personnel changes
Motown struggled to find good material for many of their acts after the exit of Motown contributor and Reeves' mentor William "Mickey" Stevenson in 1967 and Holland–Dozier–Holland in early 1968, but after their former collaborators left the label, the Vandellas initially continued to find success with the Richard Morris-produced singles "Love Bug Leave My Heart Alone" (US #25; R&B #14) and "Honey Chile" (US #11; UK #30; R&B #5) added to their already extended list of charted singles. In the summer of 1968, the group joined The Supremes, The Temptations, The Four Tops and Marvin Gaye in performing at the Copacabana though much like albums from the Four Tops and Gaye, a live album of their performance there was shelved indefinitely.
That same year, label changes had started to take effect, and Gordy focused much of his attention on building the Supremes' as well as Diana Ross' burgeoning upcoming solo career that would follow in 1970. The Vandellas' chart performance (and the chart performance of many Motown acts with the exception of Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, and Stevie Wonder) suffered as a result.
However it was the infighting among the members of the Vandellas that led to their problems. Kelley was the first to be let go after reportedly missing shows, as well as getting into altercations with Reeves. There were many instances where these "fights" happened on stage. Kelley was fired in 1967 and was replaced by Martha Reeves' sister Lois. Simultaneously, the group's name was officially changed to Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, to conform with the company's recent changes of The Supremes' and The Miracles' names to reflect their featured lead singers. During this time, Vandellas records including "(We've Got) Honey Love", "Sweet Darlin'" and "Taking My Love and Leaving Me" were issued as singles with diminishing success.
"Bless You" (1969–1972)
Reeves, out of the group temporarily due to illness, recovered and returned; Ashford was replaced by another former member of the Velvelettes, Sandra Tilley, and the group continued to release albums and singles into the early 1970s. Although they could not reignite the fire they had made in America they continued to have successful records the UK and abroad. Among their late 1960s hits was "I Can't Dance to That Music You're Playing", which featured singer Syreeta Wright singing the chorus, and peaked at number forty-two. Reeves reportedly hated singing the song sensing it "close to home". In 1969 a reissue of "Nowhere To Run" reached the top 40 in the UK. In 1970, the group issued Motown's first protest single, the controversial anti-war song, "I Should Be Proud", which peaked at a modest forty-five on the R&B singles chart. The song was uncharacteristic of the Vandellas and did nothing to promote the group. On some stations, the flip-side "Love, Guess Who" was played instead, however the group reached the top 20 that year in the UK with a reissue of "Jimmy Mack".
In 1971, the group scored a top 11 hit in the UK with "Forget Me Not". later that year they scored an international hit with "Bless You" (produced by the Jackson 5's producers The Corporation). The song peaked at number fifty-three on the American pop singles chart (the biggest peak of Vandellas' seventies singles in the US), and number twenty-nine on the R&B singles chart. "Bless You" reached number thirty-three in the UK giving the group two big hits that year in England. . "Bless You" reached number 16 in Canada and went all the way to number 2 in Puerto Rico . It was to be the last Billboard Hot 100 hit single for the group. After two successive Top 40 R&B singles, the ballad "In and Out of My Life" (#22 US R&B) and the Marvin Gaye cover, "Tear It On Down" (#37 US R&B), the group disbanded following a farewell concert, held at Detroit's Cobo Hall on December 21, 1972, but Martha Reeves is still often billed as ‘Martha Reeves& The Vandellas’.
The next year, Reeves announced plans of starting a solo career. At the same time, Motown Records moved its operations to Los Angeles. When Reeves did not want to move, she negotiated out of her contract with Motown, signing with MCA in 1974, and releasing the critically acclaimed self-titled debut album, Martha Reeves. Despite rave reviews of her work, neither of Reeves' post-Vandellas/Motown recordings produced the same success as they had the decade before. After living what she called "a rock & roll lifestyle" of prescription pills, cocaine and alcohol, Reeves sobered up in 1977, overcoming her addictions and becoming a born-again Christian.
Epilogue
After the Vandellas' split, Reeves' sister Lois sang with the group Quiet Elegance and sang background for Al Green, while Tilley retired from show business in the late 1970s, suddenly dying of a brain aneurysm in 1981 at the age of thirty-eight. Original member Gloria Williams, who retired from show business when she left the group, died in 2000. In 1978, Reeves and original Vandellas Ashford and Beard reunited at a Los Angeles benefit concert for actor Will Geer. In 1983, Reeves successfully sued for royalties from her Motown hits and the label agreed to have the songs credited as Martha Reeves and the Vandellas from then on. That year, Reeves performed solo at Motown 25, which alongside some of their songs being placed on the Big Chill soundtrack, helped Reeves and the Vandellas gain a new audience. In 1989, original members Ashford and Beard also sued Motown for royalties. During this time, the original trio were inspired to reunite both as a recording act and in performances. They were offered a recording contract with Ian Levine at Motorcity Records who issued the group's first single since the Vandellas disbanded seventeen years earlier called "Step Into My Shoes."
Although they are no longer singing together full-time, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas have occasionally reunited for various concerts. Currently, Ashford, whose full name now is Rosalind Ashford-Holmes, and Beard, whose full name now is Annette Beard-Helton, continue to perform with other singers, most notably Roschelle Laughhunn, as "The Original Vandellas." Reeves, with her sisters Lois and Delphine Reeves, tour as "Martha Reeves and the Vandellas."
From 2005 to 2009, Reeves held the eighth seat of Detroit's city council. She has since lost her seat and told the press that she would continue performing.
A remake of the song "Nowhere To Run," sung by Arnold McCuller, is heard in the film "The Warriors" during the scene in which the Gramercy Riffs call a hit on the Warriors.
In a Season One episode of the television show The Golden Girls, Blanche described her car as the "noisiest thing to come out of Detroit since Martha & The Vandellas.".
Candice Bergen, who hosted the Saturday Night Live episode on which Martha Reeves appeared in its inaugural season, made sure that Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were a presence throughout her "Murphy Brown" series. The group's picture was displayed prominently in Murphy's office. When Aretha Franklin guest starred and Murphy tried to sing with her, Franklin stopped her, saying, ". . .I'm not Martha, and you ain't no Vandella."
The group is briefly portrayed in the 2017 film Detroit, performing "Nowhere To Run" at the Fox Theatre, Detroit.
Awards and accolades
Martha and the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 (they were nominated for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group for the song in 1964). In 1993, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were awarded the Pioneer Award by the Rhythm & Blues Foundation. Except for pre-Vandellas member Gloria Williamson and Vandellas member Sandra Tilley, all members of the group were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, becoming the second all-female group to be inducted. They were inducted by rock group The B-52's, whose frothy dance music was inspired by the Vandellas. They were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003. Two of their singles, "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" and "Dancing in the Street" were included in the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the group No. 96 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2005, Martha & The Vandellas were voted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame.
Always concert favorites, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were nominated for UK Festival Awards in 2010 and 2011 as "Best Headliner."
Martha and the Vandellas was inducted into the inaugural class of the Official Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame at Cleveland State University August 2013
Lineups
The Del-Phis
1957–1962
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Gloria Williams
Martha & the Vandellas
1964–1967
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Betty Kelly
Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
1969–1972
Martha Reeves
Lois Reeves
Sandra Tilley
The Original Vandellas
2000s-present
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Roschelle Laughhunn
Martha & the Vandellas
1962–1964
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
1967–1969
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Lois Reeves
Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
2010–present
Martha Reeves
Lois Reeves
Delphine Reeves
Discography
For a detailed listing of albums and singles, see Martha and the Vandellas discography
Albums
Come and Get These Memories (1963)
Heat Wave (1963)
Dance Party (1965)
Greatest Hits (1966)
Watchout! (1966)
Martha and the Vandellas Live! (1967)
Ridin' High (1968)
Sugar 'n' Spice (1969)
Natural Resources (1970)
Black Magic (1972)
Top 10 singles
The following singles reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 song chart in the U.S.
"Heat Wave" (1963)
"Quicksand" (1963)
"Dancing in the Street" (1964)
"Nowhere to Run" (1965)
"I'm Ready for Love" (1966)
"Jimmy Mack" (1967)
Awards and recognition
Martha Reeves and the Vandellas' "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" and "Dancing in the Street" were inducted to the Grammy Hall of Fame and were both included in the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
They were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 becoming just the second all-female group to be inducted and the fifth group in the Motown roster to be inducted.
They were inducted to the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003.
They were nominated for a Grammy Award for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance in 1964 for their hit song "Heat Wave"
"Dancing in the Street" was included in the United States Library of Congress' National Recording Registry for its historical, artistic and cultural significance in 2006.
References
External links
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame page on Martha and the Vandellas
'Martha and the Vandellas' Vocal Group Hall of Fame Page
History of Rock page on Martha and the Vandellas
The Original Vandellas (Rosalind Ashford-Holmes & Annette Beard-Helton) page
Martha and the Vandellas History, Charts and Songs
Martha & The Vandellas at Doo Wop Heaven
Martha & The Vandellas bio on the Soulwalking U.K. website.
African-American girl groups
American soul musical groups
Motown artists
Musical groups from Detroit
Northern soul musicians
1957 establishments in Michigan
Musical groups disestablished in 1972
Singers from Detroit | true | [
"Erica Alicia Grow-Cei (born March 15, 1980) is an American meteorologist and television reporter who is on PIX 11 News for New York City.\n\nEarly life\nErica Grow was born and raised in Bethlehem in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley. She graduated from Penn State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Meteorology in 2002.\n\nBroadcasting career\nAfter graduating from Penn State, Grow became a meteorologist and weather producer for KMID-TV in Midland and Odessa, Texas, writing and producing the \"Weather Wise\" segment. She left Midland to join the crew of WHP-TV in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania as a meteorologist and reporter.\n\nIn 2007, Grow became a weather anchor for WPVI-TV's 6ABC Action News on Saturday and Sunday mornings in Philadelphia. She became active in education initiatives in Philadelphia area schools, and represented 6ABC at community events such as the Philadelphia Flower Show, Philadelphia Auto Show, and the 6ABC Holiday Food Drive. Grow left WPVI in 2010 when her contract was not renewed.\n\nShortly after, in 2011, she was hired to forecast, produce and anchor weather segments for WTNH-TV News 8 in New Haven, Connecticut, where she was also active in the community visiting schools with the News 8 \"Mobile Weather Lab\" vehicle. In 2012, Grow earned the Certified Broadcast Meteorologist (CBM) Seal of Approval from the American Meteorological Society. After only one year there She left WTNH in 2012.\n\nIn September 2012, Grow worked on-air at CBS affiliate WUSA in Washington, D.C., as a Meteorologist for the weekend evening newscasts. Grow left WUSA in 2015.\n\nIn late September 2015, Grow became the new weekend evening meteorologist for flagship NBC station WNBC in New York City. Sometime in the summer of 2019, Grow was replaced by meteorologist Matt Brickman.\n\nErica can now be seen on PIX-11 News in New York City.\n\nPersonal life\nGrow is married to Kevin Cei, who also graduated Penn State in meteorology. Cei is president of the NYC Chapter of the Penn State Alumni Association, where Grow serves in the position of Digital Content & Visibility.\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\nAmerican meteorologists\nPeople from the Lehigh Valley\n1980 births\nPenn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences alumni",
"HMS Ariadne was an minelayer of the Royal Navy.\n\nShe was built by Alexander Stephen and Sons of Glasgow, Scotland. She was laid down on 15 November 1941, launched on 16 February 1943 and commissioned on 9 October 1943.\n\nService history\nHer first duty was to lay mines off the coast of Norway. She was also one of the ships taking part in Operation Stonewall. She then left Home waters in January 1944 to join the United States Seventh Fleet in the Pacific Ocean theatre of war. In June 1944 she laid 146 mines off the northern coast of New Guinea, and when landings were made in the Mapia Group of islands in November 1944, Ariadne was used to carry US Army soldiers. During her period of active service she laid 1,352 mines.\n\nAfter the end of the war, Ariadne was used to repatriate British prisoners of war from Japan and as a mailship due to her speed. She was paid off into the Reserve Fleet at Sheerness, and did not see service again, apart from a short trial after a refit in the 1950s. This involved the replacement of her light anti-aircraft guns with more modern weapons. She was finally sold to W.H. Arnott Young for scrapping and arrived at Dalmuir in February 1965. She was then scrapped at Dalmuir and Troon in June 1965.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nHMS Ariadne at Uboat.net\nHistory of HMS Ariadne\n\n \n\nAbdiel-class minelayers\nShips built on the River Clyde\n1943 ships\nWorld War II minelayers of the United Kingdom"
] |
[
"Martha and the Vandellas",
"Motown major hit years (1962-1968)",
"What happened during motown major hit years?",
"Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team,",
"What happened after that?",
"It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart.",
"Can you tell me how long did it stay on the charts?",
"I don't know.",
"What were some of their major hits?",
"Their second hit, \"Heat Wave\", became a phenomenal record for the group,",
"Were they popular among a lot of people?",
"It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance. (",
"What other things took place after that?",
"The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, \"Quicksand\", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland",
"Did they go on to continue to be successful?",
"and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963.",
"Any other important aspects regarding their major hit years?",
"Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964.",
"Did the group grow apart after she left?",
"Betty Kelley, formerly of the Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise."
] | C_1183ad7f6a684fc28b80ad594e48035d_0 | Did she do well with joining the group? | 10 | Did Betty Kelly do well with joining Martha and the Vandellas? | Martha and the Vandellas | Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team, Holland-Dozier-Holland, titled "Come and Get These Memories". It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart. Their second hit, "Heat Wave", became a phenomenal record for the group, reaching number four on the Hot 100 and hitting number one on the R&B singles chart for five weeks. It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance. (On the single and album, the song was titled "Heat Wave". It was sometime later that the song was retitled to avoid confusion with the Irving Berlin song.) The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, "Quicksand", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963. Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964. Betty Kelley, formerly of the Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise. The next two singles, "Live Wire" and "In My Lonely Room" (#6 R&B Cashbox) were less successful singles, failing to reach the Top 40. However, their next single, "Dancing in the Street", rose up to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also found global success, peaking at #21 on the UK Singles Chart in 1964. In 1969, "Dancing in the Street" was re-issued and it was plugged heavily on radio stations. It did not take long for the song to peak at #4 in the UK, thus making the song one of the all-time favourite Motown single releases ever. The song became a million-seller, and one of the most played singles in history. Between 1964 and 1967, singles like "Wild One" (US #34), "Nowhere to Run" (US #8; UK #26), "Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)" (US #70; R&B #22), "You've Been in Love Too Long" (US #36), "My Baby Loves Me" (US #22; R&B #3), "I'm Ready for Love" (US #9; R&B #2; UK #29) and "Jimmy Mack" (US #10; R&B #1; UK #21) kept the Vandellas on the map as one of the label's top acts. The Vandellas' popularity helped the group get spots on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, American Bandstand and Shindig!. Throughout this period, the Vandellas had also become one of the label's most popular performing acts. CANNOTANSWER | The next two singles, "Live Wire" and "In My Lonely Room" (#6 R&B Cashbox) were less successful singles, failing to reach the Top 40. | Martha and the Vandellas (known from 1967 to 1972 as Martha Reeves & The Vandellas) were an American vocal girl group formed in Detroit in 1957. The group achieved fame in the 1960s with Motown.
An act founded by friends Annette Beard, Rosalind Ashford and Gloria Williams, the group eventually included Martha Reeves, who moved up in ranks as lead vocalist of the group after Williams' departure in 1962. The group signed with and eventually recorded all of their singles for Motown's Gordy imprint.
The group's string of hits included "Come and Get These Memories", "Heat Wave", "Quicksand", "Nowhere to Run", "Jimmy Mack", "I'm Ready for Love", "Bless You" and "Dancing in the Street", the latter song becoming their signature single.
During their nine-year run on the charts from 1963 to 1972, Martha and the Vandellas charted over twenty-six hits and recorded in the styles of doo-wop, R&B, pop, blues, rock and roll and soul. Ten Vandellas songs reached the top ten of the Billboard R&B singles chart, including two R&B number ones, and six Top Ten Pop Hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Selected members of the group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 2013.
History
Early years (1957–1962)
Teenagers Rosalind Ashford and Annette Beard first became acquainted after a local music manager hired them to be members of a girl group he named the Del-Phis. Ashford, Beard, and lead vocalist Gloria Williams, performed at local clubs, private events, church benefits, YMCA events and school functions. They were also being coached by Maxine Powell at Detroit's Ferris Center. One of the group's first professional engagements was singing background for singer Mike Hanks.
The group originally had up to six members, subsequently reduced to four. When one of the four left the group, she was replaced by Alabama-born vocalist Martha Reeves, a former member of two groups, the Fascinations and the Sabre-Ettes. In 1960, the group signed their first recording contract with Checker Records, releasing the Reeves-led "I'll Let You Know," which flopped. The Del-Phis then went to Checkmate Records, a subsidiary of Chess Records, recording their "There He Is (At My Door)" featuring Williams on lead vocals, which also flopped.
Reeves reverted to a solo artist under the name Martha LaVaille in the hope of getting a contract with emerging Detroit label Motown. After Motown staffer Mickey Stevenson saw Reeves singing at a Detroit club, he offered her an audition. Reeves showed up at Motown's Hitsville USA studios on a Tuesday rather than Thursday, Motown's usual audition day. Initially upset with Reeves, Stevenson soon assigned her as his secretary eventually responsible for handling Motown's auditions. By 1961, the group, now known as The Vels, were recording background vocals for Motown acts. Prior to her success as lead singer of The Elgins, Sandra Edwards (then going by her surname Maulett) recorded the song "Camel Walk", in 1962, which featured the Vels in background vocals. That year, the quartet began applying background vocals for emerging Motown star Marvin Gaye, singing on Gaye's first hit single, "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" After Mary Wells failed to make a scheduled recording session feigning a short illness, the Vels recorded what was initially a demo recording of "I'll Have to Let Him Go". Motown was so impressed by the group's vocals – and Martha's lead vocals in the song – that the label CEO Berry Gordy offered to give the group a contract. Figuring that being in show business was too rigorous, Williams opted out of the group. With Williams out, the remaining trio of Ashford, Beard and Reeves were told by Gordy that they would need a new name. After failing to come up with a name on their own, Gordy gave the group the name The Vandellas. As stated in an interview with The History Makers, Ashford emphatically states that contrary to popular belief, The Vandellas were not named after Della Reese and Van Dyke Avenue, nor did Reeves come up with the name.
Motown major hit years (1962–1968)
Following their signing to Motown's Gordy imprint in 1962, the Vandellas struck gold with their second release, the first composition and production from the famed writing team, Holland–Dozier–Holland, titled "Come and Get These Memories". It became the Vandellas' first Top 40 recording, reaching number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at number six on the R&B chart. Their second hit, "Heat Wave", became a phenomenal record for the group, reaching number four on the Hot 100 and hitting number one on the R&B singles chart for five weeks. It became their first million-seller and eventually got the group their only Grammy Award nomination for Best R&B Performance. On the single and album, the song was titled "Heat Wave". It was sometime later that the song was retitled to avoid confusion with the Irving Berlin song.
The group's success continued with their second Top Ten single and third Top 40 single, "Quicksand", which was another composition with Holland-Dozier-Holland and reached number eight pop in the late fall of 1963. Around that time, Annette, who was pregnant with her first child and set to get married, chose to leave her singing career behind by 1964. Betty Kelley, formerly of the Velvelettes, was brought in shortly afterward to continue the Vandellas' rise.
The next two singles, "Live Wire" and "In My Lonely Room" (#6 R&B Cashbox) were less successful singles, failing to reach the Pop Top 40. However, their next single, "Dancing in the Street", rose up to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also found global success, peaking at No. 21 on the UK Singles Chart in 1964. In 1969, "Dancing in the Street" was re-issued and it was plugged heavily on radio stations. It did not take long for the song to peak at No. 4 in the UK, thus making the song one of the all-time favourite Motown single releases ever. The song became a million-seller, and one of the most played singles in history.
Between 1964 and 1967, singles like "Wild One" (US #34), "Nowhere to Run" (US #8; UK #26), "Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)" (US #70; R&B #22), "You've Been in Love Too Long" (US #36), "My Baby Loves Me" (US #22; R&B #3), "I'm Ready for Love" (US #9; R&B #2; UK #29) and "Jimmy Mack" (US #10; R&B #1; UK #21) kept the Vandellas on the map as one of the label's top acts. The Vandellas' popularity helped the group get spots on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, American Bandstand and Shindig!. Throughout this period, the Vandellas had also become one of the label's most popular performing acts. On June 28, 1965, the group appeared with several other popular acts of the period on CBS-TV's Murray The K-It's What's Happening, Baby. Martha, Rosalind and Betty performed "Nowhere to Run," as they skipped through a Ford auto plant and sat in a Ford Mustang convertible as it's being assembled.
Personnel changes
Motown struggled to find good material for many of their acts after the exit of Motown contributor and Reeves' mentor William "Mickey" Stevenson in 1967 and Holland–Dozier–Holland in early 1968, but after their former collaborators left the label, the Vandellas initially continued to find success with the Richard Morris-produced singles "Love Bug Leave My Heart Alone" (US #25; R&B #14) and "Honey Chile" (US #11; UK #30; R&B #5) added to their already extended list of charted singles. In the summer of 1968, the group joined The Supremes, The Temptations, The Four Tops and Marvin Gaye in performing at the Copacabana though much like albums from the Four Tops and Gaye, a live album of their performance there was shelved indefinitely.
That same year, label changes had started to take effect, and Gordy focused much of his attention on building the Supremes' as well as Diana Ross' burgeoning upcoming solo career that would follow in 1970. The Vandellas' chart performance (and the chart performance of many Motown acts with the exception of Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, and Stevie Wonder) suffered as a result.
However it was the infighting among the members of the Vandellas that led to their problems. Kelley was the first to be let go after reportedly missing shows, as well as getting into altercations with Reeves. There were many instances where these "fights" happened on stage. Kelley was fired in 1967 and was replaced by Martha Reeves' sister Lois. Simultaneously, the group's name was officially changed to Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, to conform with the company's recent changes of The Supremes' and The Miracles' names to reflect their featured lead singers. During this time, Vandellas records including "(We've Got) Honey Love", "Sweet Darlin'" and "Taking My Love and Leaving Me" were issued as singles with diminishing success.
"Bless You" (1969–1972)
Reeves, out of the group temporarily due to illness, recovered and returned; Ashford was replaced by another former member of the Velvelettes, Sandra Tilley, and the group continued to release albums and singles into the early 1970s. Although they could not reignite the fire they had made in America they continued to have successful records the UK and abroad. Among their late 1960s hits was "I Can't Dance to That Music You're Playing", which featured singer Syreeta Wright singing the chorus, and peaked at number forty-two. Reeves reportedly hated singing the song sensing it "close to home". In 1969 a reissue of "Nowhere To Run" reached the top 40 in the UK. In 1970, the group issued Motown's first protest single, the controversial anti-war song, "I Should Be Proud", which peaked at a modest forty-five on the R&B singles chart. The song was uncharacteristic of the Vandellas and did nothing to promote the group. On some stations, the flip-side "Love, Guess Who" was played instead, however the group reached the top 20 that year in the UK with a reissue of "Jimmy Mack".
In 1971, the group scored a top 11 hit in the UK with "Forget Me Not". later that year they scored an international hit with "Bless You" (produced by the Jackson 5's producers The Corporation). The song peaked at number fifty-three on the American pop singles chart (the biggest peak of Vandellas' seventies singles in the US), and number twenty-nine on the R&B singles chart. "Bless You" reached number thirty-three in the UK giving the group two big hits that year in England. . "Bless You" reached number 16 in Canada and went all the way to number 2 in Puerto Rico . It was to be the last Billboard Hot 100 hit single for the group. After two successive Top 40 R&B singles, the ballad "In and Out of My Life" (#22 US R&B) and the Marvin Gaye cover, "Tear It On Down" (#37 US R&B), the group disbanded following a farewell concert, held at Detroit's Cobo Hall on December 21, 1972, but Martha Reeves is still often billed as ‘Martha Reeves& The Vandellas’.
The next year, Reeves announced plans of starting a solo career. At the same time, Motown Records moved its operations to Los Angeles. When Reeves did not want to move, she negotiated out of her contract with Motown, signing with MCA in 1974, and releasing the critically acclaimed self-titled debut album, Martha Reeves. Despite rave reviews of her work, neither of Reeves' post-Vandellas/Motown recordings produced the same success as they had the decade before. After living what she called "a rock & roll lifestyle" of prescription pills, cocaine and alcohol, Reeves sobered up in 1977, overcoming her addictions and becoming a born-again Christian.
Epilogue
After the Vandellas' split, Reeves' sister Lois sang with the group Quiet Elegance and sang background for Al Green, while Tilley retired from show business in the late 1970s, suddenly dying of a brain aneurysm in 1981 at the age of thirty-eight. Original member Gloria Williams, who retired from show business when she left the group, died in 2000. In 1978, Reeves and original Vandellas Ashford and Beard reunited at a Los Angeles benefit concert for actor Will Geer. In 1983, Reeves successfully sued for royalties from her Motown hits and the label agreed to have the songs credited as Martha Reeves and the Vandellas from then on. That year, Reeves performed solo at Motown 25, which alongside some of their songs being placed on the Big Chill soundtrack, helped Reeves and the Vandellas gain a new audience. In 1989, original members Ashford and Beard also sued Motown for royalties. During this time, the original trio were inspired to reunite both as a recording act and in performances. They were offered a recording contract with Ian Levine at Motorcity Records who issued the group's first single since the Vandellas disbanded seventeen years earlier called "Step Into My Shoes."
Although they are no longer singing together full-time, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas have occasionally reunited for various concerts. Currently, Ashford, whose full name now is Rosalind Ashford-Holmes, and Beard, whose full name now is Annette Beard-Helton, continue to perform with other singers, most notably Roschelle Laughhunn, as "The Original Vandellas." Reeves, with her sisters Lois and Delphine Reeves, tour as "Martha Reeves and the Vandellas."
From 2005 to 2009, Reeves held the eighth seat of Detroit's city council. She has since lost her seat and told the press that she would continue performing.
A remake of the song "Nowhere To Run," sung by Arnold McCuller, is heard in the film "The Warriors" during the scene in which the Gramercy Riffs call a hit on the Warriors.
In a Season One episode of the television show The Golden Girls, Blanche described her car as the "noisiest thing to come out of Detroit since Martha & The Vandellas.".
Candice Bergen, who hosted the Saturday Night Live episode on which Martha Reeves appeared in its inaugural season, made sure that Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were a presence throughout her "Murphy Brown" series. The group's picture was displayed prominently in Murphy's office. When Aretha Franklin guest starred and Murphy tried to sing with her, Franklin stopped her, saying, ". . .I'm not Martha, and you ain't no Vandella."
The group is briefly portrayed in the 2017 film Detroit, performing "Nowhere To Run" at the Fox Theatre, Detroit.
Awards and accolades
Martha and the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 (they were nominated for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group for the song in 1964). In 1993, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were awarded the Pioneer Award by the Rhythm & Blues Foundation. Except for pre-Vandellas member Gloria Williamson and Vandellas member Sandra Tilley, all members of the group were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, becoming the second all-female group to be inducted. They were inducted by rock group The B-52's, whose frothy dance music was inspired by the Vandellas. They were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003. Two of their singles, "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" and "Dancing in the Street" were included in the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the group No. 96 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2005, Martha & The Vandellas were voted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame.
Always concert favorites, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas were nominated for UK Festival Awards in 2010 and 2011 as "Best Headliner."
Martha and the Vandellas was inducted into the inaugural class of the Official Rhythm & Blues Music Hall of Fame at Cleveland State University August 2013
Lineups
The Del-Phis
1957–1962
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Gloria Williams
Martha & the Vandellas
1964–1967
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Betty Kelly
Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
1969–1972
Martha Reeves
Lois Reeves
Sandra Tilley
The Original Vandellas
2000s-present
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Roschelle Laughhunn
Martha & the Vandellas
1962–1964
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Annette Beard-Helton
Martha Reeves & the Vandellas
1967–1969
Martha Reeves
Rosalind Ashford-Holmes
Lois Reeves
Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
2010–present
Martha Reeves
Lois Reeves
Delphine Reeves
Discography
For a detailed listing of albums and singles, see Martha and the Vandellas discography
Albums
Come and Get These Memories (1963)
Heat Wave (1963)
Dance Party (1965)
Greatest Hits (1966)
Watchout! (1966)
Martha and the Vandellas Live! (1967)
Ridin' High (1968)
Sugar 'n' Spice (1969)
Natural Resources (1970)
Black Magic (1972)
Top 10 singles
The following singles reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 song chart in the U.S.
"Heat Wave" (1963)
"Quicksand" (1963)
"Dancing in the Street" (1964)
"Nowhere to Run" (1965)
"I'm Ready for Love" (1966)
"Jimmy Mack" (1967)
Awards and recognition
Martha Reeves and the Vandellas' "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" and "Dancing in the Street" were inducted to the Grammy Hall of Fame and were both included in the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
They were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 becoming just the second all-female group to be inducted and the fifth group in the Motown roster to be inducted.
They were inducted to the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2003.
They were nominated for a Grammy Award for Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance in 1964 for their hit song "Heat Wave"
"Dancing in the Street" was included in the United States Library of Congress' National Recording Registry for its historical, artistic and cultural significance in 2006.
References
External links
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame page on Martha and the Vandellas
'Martha and the Vandellas' Vocal Group Hall of Fame Page
History of Rock page on Martha and the Vandellas
The Original Vandellas (Rosalind Ashford-Holmes & Annette Beard-Helton) page
Martha and the Vandellas History, Charts and Songs
Martha & The Vandellas at Doo Wop Heaven
Martha & The Vandellas bio on the Soulwalking U.K. website.
African-American girl groups
American soul musical groups
Motown artists
Musical groups from Detroit
Northern soul musicians
1957 establishments in Michigan
Musical groups disestablished in 1972
Singers from Detroit | false | [
"Maizie Ursula Williams (born 25 March 1951) is a British model, dancer and singer who became one of the original members of the successful 1970s disco music group Boney M. Though she did not sing on the studio recordings of their songs, she did perform live and subsequently established an independent career as a singer.\n\nEarly years\nBrought up in Birmingham, England, Williams began working as a model, eventually gaining the title Miss Black Beautiful in a contest in 1973. After this initial success she went on to front her own band — Black Beautiful People. She later moved to West Germany with her friend Sheyla Bonnick. One day in 1975, while at a restaurant, the two were approached by an agent who asked if they were interested in joining a new pop group called Boney M. \"She asked if we could sing. Well, you don't say no, do you,\" Williams later recalled in an interview. She had previously been singing with a local band back in England but had been told off by her brother Billy: \"You have a terrible voice. Better keep working as a walking clothes-hanger.\"\n\nIt turned out that it was not important if Williams could sing or not, since the job was to dance and mime to a disco song called \"Baby Do You Wanna Bump\" that producer Frank Farian had recorded the vocals for, but was unable to promote himself since he had a career as a schlager singer in his own name. Williams and Bonnick teamed up with two other performers identified only as \"Nathalie\" and \"Mike\". They did a discothèque tour and a few TV performances over the next months. However, no footage has ever surfaced of the earlier Boney M lineup. Nathalie left the group and was replaced by Claudja Barry. Sheyla then decided that lip-syncing was not for her and also left; hoping to achieve a solo career. Mike left as well, and the two were replaced by new members Marcia Barrett and Bobby Farrell. When Claudja went the same way as Sheyla, Liz Mitchell took her place, and finally the pieces fell together. Boney M. were assembled as a real group and ready to do a follow-up to \"Baby Do You Wanna Bump\". The classic Boney M. lineup as Bobby Farrell, Maizie Williams and Marcia Barrett performing \"Baby Do You Wanna Bump\" in the Dutch music show, Top Pop, was first recorded on January 2, 1976.Liz Mitchell joined the group somewhat later.\n\nBoney M.\nBoth Liz Mitchell and Marcia Barrett were singers and would participate in the group's recordings together with producer Frank Farian who did the deep male voice. The threesome recorded the follow-up single \"Daddy Cool\" which soon became a worldwide hit and launched the group's phenomenal career, with numerous hit singles and albums over the next decade. Williams and Bobby Farrell did not sing on the records since \"their voices weren't suited for this particular kind of music\" as Farian put it in a Bravo interview in 1978. It did not create a scandal – both Williams and Farrell did sing during the group's many live performances during their extensive world tours 1977–1979. Williams remained with the group until the ultimate break-up in 1990. In 1994, she did what her former colleagues Liz Mitchell and Bobby Farrell had also done, she formed her own Boney M group, billed as Boney M featuring Maizie Williams. The group also featured Sheyla Bonnick from the short-lived original 1975 line-up. Williams herself would finally front as a lead singer in the group's renditions of the hits \"Brown Girl in the Ring\", \"Hooray! Hooray! It's a Holi-Holiday\", \"Sunny\" and \"Daddy Cool\".\n\nVocal controversy\nIt is stated on Williams' official site that \"it's no secret that although she sang in the studio Williams' less dominant voice appears to have been mostly excluded from many of the recordings, with the exception of some backing vocals, for reasons only the producer knew at the time\". However, the inner sleeve of the group's Oceans of Fantasy LP, 1979, lists only Farian, Mitchell and Barrett in the track-by-track vocal credits. Maizie did record a minor part for the group's \"That's Boonoonoonoos / Train to Skaville\" which was also broadcast in the 1981 TV special \"Ein Sound geht um die Welt\" (A Sound Goes Around the World), but in the final mix released on record, the part was eventually re-recorded by Liz Mitchell.\n\nThe singer initiated a court case against Boney M.'s producer Frank Farian and Sony/BMG concerning her rights to perform under the name \"Boney M\". Farian was promoting Liz Mitchell's group as the authentic continuation of Boney M. The court heard that \"she had not sung on any of the band's recordings\". On 16 February 2009, Williams had judgement in the case, that Farian has to account to her for pay on all record sales and future sales.\n\nPresent\nBesides still touring the world, Williams released her first solo record in December 2006, Call Upon Jesus, including the download single \"Praise Be Unto Him\". In February 2007, she released her own dance version of the Boney M. hit \"Sunny\". In June, she starred as the featured vocalist on Latvian group Melo-M's version of \"Daddy Cool\" which hit the No. 1 spot in the LMK charts in the last week of August.\n\nIn September 2011, a Dutch press release was issued regarding a tribute single that has been written by Williams, together with Dutch songwriters Eddie Middle-Line and Björn de Water. The song and video for \"Josephine Baker\" (Eddie Middle-Line Mix) had a worldwide release.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nMaizie Williams official website\n\n1951 births\nLiving people\nMusicians from Birmingham, West Midlands\n20th-century Black British women singers\nBritish pop singers\nBritish female models\nBoney M. members\nMontserratian emigrants to the United Kingdom",
"Pam Hall is a Jamaican reggae singer whose career began in the 1970s.\n\nCareer\nHall recorded as a solo artist from the mid-1970s as well as providing backing vocals for several other artists including Jimmy Cliff, Judy Mowatt, Beres Hammond, Dennis Brown, and Peter Tosh, sometimes along with her sister Audrey. Among her earliest releases were \"Creation\", a duet with Orville Wood as Pam & Woody, and \"You Should Never Do That\", a duet with Tinga Stewart.\n\nHer 1986 single \"Dear Boopsie\" topped the reggae charts and reached number 54 on the UK Singles Chart. Her first album, Perfidia, was released in 1987.\n\nShe had further hits on the reggae charts in the 1990s with her version of \"I Will Always Love You\", \"Young Hearts Run Free\", and \"You Are Not Alone\". She continued to be in demand for backing vocals, working with Toots Hibbert, and Ziggy Marley in the 1990s. She went on to release a string of solo albums on VP Records.\n\nIn the 1990s she filled in for Judy Mowatt in the I Threes, joining the group in the decade that followed.\n\nDiscography\nPerfidia (1987), World Enterprise\nAlways Love you (1993), VP\nMissing You Baby (1995), VP\nMagic (1996), VP\nBet You Don't Know (1998), VP\nTime For Love (2001), VP\nR&B Hits Reggae Style (2001), VP\nSongs in the Key of Dancehall (2007), Jet Star\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nLiving people\n21st-century Jamaican women singers\nJamaican reggae singers\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nVP Records artists"
] |
[
"Nomeansno",
"Early years as two-piece, Mama (1979-1982)"
] | C_0c375df1b7874f38a2530ccfccb1d6e1_1 | where did the group first come together | 1 | where did the group Nomeansno come together | Nomeansno | In 1979 and at age 25, Rob Wright returned to his family's home in Victoria after studying in Calgary. His younger brother John, eight years his junior, played drums in the school jazz band. They were inspired to play punk rock after seeing D.O.A. perform at the University of Victoria. The two began rehearsing in their parents' basement in 1979, and took the name Nomeansno from an anti-date rape slogan. They also briefly gigged as the rhythm section for the local cover band Castle. Nomeansno recorded its earliest material in the months that followed on a TASCAM four-track recorder, with Rob playing electric guitar and bass, John playing keyboards and drums, and both brothers singing. Some of these recordings were issued as their first two self-released 7"s, the "Look, Here Come the Wormies / SS Social Service" single (a 1980 split with another short-lived Wright brothers project, Mass Appeal), and the Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred EP of 1981. The brothers began performing live as a bass-and-drums duo in 1981. Their sound developed without a guitar, and John Wright later reflected on these developments: ...without a guitar player you can't rely on the standard hooks that punk rock and rock n' roll in general relies on. The guitar player - the guitar god quote unquote - was such a focus for so long that by the nature of not having a guitar player, the bass and the drums have to do a lot more. It also makes the vocals more important, or at least it makes a lot more room for the vocals. You don't have guitar solos, you don't have the wash of high end. And the things you do on the drums are different, if you just did a straight four beat on the drums it would get kinda dull after awhile. It isn't as though bass guitar hasn't been a prominent instrument at times in other bands but it made us approach things differently, our song structure couldn't just be verse-chorus-verse. It had everything to do with how our sound got off to a unique start. Some of the songs they played in this period were released on the Mama LP of 1982, which was self-released in a limited pressing. Writing for Trouser Press, critic Ira Robbins described Mama and the early 7"s as "Devo on a jazz trip, Motorhead after art school, or Wire on psychotic steroids." This same year, John Wright also joined the Victoria punk band The Infamous Scientists. CANNOTANSWER | rehearsing in their parents' basement in 1979, | Nomeansno (sometimes stylized as NoMeansNo or spelled No Means No) was a Canadian punk rock band formed in Victoria, British Columbia and later relocated to Vancouver. They issued 11 albums, including a collaborative album with Jello Biafra, as well as numerous EPs and singles. Critic Martin Popoff described their music as "the mightiest merger between the hateful aggression of punk and the discipline of heavy metal." Nomeansno's distinct hardcore punk sound, complex instrumentation, and dark, "savagely intelligent" lyrics inspired subsequent musicians. They are often considered foundational in the punk jazz and post-hardcore movements, and have been cited as a formative influence on the math rock and emo genres.
Formed in 1979 by brothers Rob and John Wright, the group began as a two-piece punk band influenced by jazz and progressive rock. They self-released their debut Mama LP in 1982. Adding guitarist Andy Kerr the following year, the group signed with the Alternative Tentacles imprint and continued to expand their audience. Kerr departed in 1992 after five LPs with the band, and the group returned to its two-piece formation for the Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? album.
Guitarist Tom Holliston, and briefly second drummer Ken Kempster, joined in 1993, and Nomeansno continued touring and recording extensively while operating their own Wrong Records label. After three further LPs, they left Alternative Tentacles and issued their final album, All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt, in 2006. They were inducted into the Western Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2015, and announced their retirement the following year.
History
Early years as two-piece, Mama (1979–1982)
In 1979 and at age 25, Rob Wright returned to his family's home in Victoria after studying in Calgary. John Wright, Rob's younger brother by eight years, played drums in the school jazz band, and the two were inspired to play punk rock after seeing D.O.A. perform at the University of Victoria. They began rehearsing in their parents' basement in 1979, and took the name Nomeansno from an anti-date rape slogan. They also briefly gigged as the rhythm section for the local cover band Castle.
Nomeansno recorded its earliest material in the months that followed on a TASCAM four-track recorder, with Rob playing electric guitar and bass, John playing keyboards and drums, and both brothers singing. Some of these recordings were issued as their first two self-released 7"s, the "Look, Here Come the Wormies / SS Social Service" single (a 1980 split with Mass Appeal, whose recording lineup featured both Wright Brothers), and the Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred EP of 1981.
The brothers began performing live as a bass-and-drums duo in 1981. Their sound developed without a guitar, and John Wright later reflected on these developments:
Some of the songs they played in this period were released on the Mama LP, which was self-released in a limited pressing in 1982. Writing for Trouser Press, critic Ira Robbins described Mama and the early 7"s as "Devo on a jazz trip, Motörhead after art school, or Wire on psychotic steroids." This same year, John Wright also joined the Victoria punk band The Infamous Scientists.
With Andy Kerr, You Kill Me, Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed (1983–1989)
The Infamous Scientists disbanded in 1983, and their guitarist and vocalist Andy Kerr joined Nomeansno several months later. Kerr brought a distinct hardcore punk edge to Nomeansno's sound, creating a buzz-saw guitar tone by playing through a Fender Bassman amplifier and a P.A. speaker. Nomeansno became a fixture in the British Columbia punk scene despite playing music that did not always conform to punk rock standards. The You Kill Me EP in 1985 on the Undergrowth Records imprint exhibited their experimental sound on dark and ponderous songs like "Body Bag" and a cover of "Manic Depression" by Jimi Hendrix. The three also began performing Ramones covers and more traditional punk music as The Hanson Brothers, a side project that would later receive more of their attention.
Issued initially by the Montreal punk label Psyche Industry, the band released Sex Mad, their second LP and first with Kerr. The album further expanded the band's experimental and progressive punk sound, yielding the single "Dad". The song was a minor college radio hit, which AllMusic reviewer Adam Bregman called "a bit chilling, even though it's spit out at slam-pit's pace". Kerr, the song's lead vocalist, increasingly became responsible for lead vocals as Rob Wright suffered from nodules on his vocal cords.
They soon signed with the seminal punk rock label Alternative Tentacles, run by Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys. This, along with frequent touring in North America and Europe, helped the band to garner a larger audience. In 1988, the group issued two releases recorded with producer Cecil English: The Day Everything Became Nothing EP and the Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed album. Alternative Tentacles compiled the two together on a single CD, The Day Everything Became Isolated and Destroyed. AllMusic reviewer Sean Carruthers called the experimental recordings "less aggressive" than, but nonetheless worthy of, the band's previous efforts.
Wrong, 0 + 2 = 1, Kerr's departure (1989–1992)
Rob Wright's vocal cords began to heal, and he again began acting as the group's lead vocalist. In 1989, the band issued their fourth album, Wrong, to wide critical acclaim. For AllMusic, Carruthers wrote that "[t]he playing is incredibly skilled;" critic Martin Popoff in writing for The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal called Wrong the band's best album and rated the album 10 out of 10 points. The band's extensive touring in support of the record is documented in part on the Live + Cuddly album, recorded in Holland in 1990. John Wright later reported that circa 1990 the band became profitable enough that "we didn't have to have day jobs."
The band released a collaborative LP with Biafra, The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy, in 1991. Shortly thereafter, they issued 0 + 2 = 1, their fifth album and final release with Kerr. In a mixed review, AllMusic critic Adam Bregman praised 0 + 2 = 1 for its finer moments, but was concerned by its overall length and ponderousness.
Kerr departed the band after touring in support of the record and emigrated to the Netherlands. He went on to release two LPs with Hissanol, a collaboration with Scott Henderson of Shovlhed. He subsequently released a solo album in 1997 before forming the duo Two Pin Din with Wilf Plum of Dog Faced Hermans in 2005.
Side projects, Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? (1992–1993)
The Wright brothers had begun to focus on their side project, The Hanson Brothers. Dressing as a mock group of backward Canadian ice hockey players and fans, they derived the band's name and personae from a group of characters in the 1977 George Roy Hill film Slap Shot starring Paul Newman. With John acting as lead vocalist, the Wright brothers were joined by guitarist Tom Holliston of the Showbusiness Giants and drummer Ken Jensen of D.O.A. With encouragement from Alternative Tentacles to record an LP, The Hanson Brothers issued the Gross Misconduct album in 1992.
The Wright brothers also remained active with other endeavors. Rob Wright began performing as a solo artist under the name Mr. Wrong, appearing as a character dressed as an authoritarian priest. John Wright became a member of D.O.A. for several years. The brothers also continued to expand Wrong Records, their own imprint.
In 1993, the brothers assembled material for a sixth Nomeansno LP and recorded Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? as a duo. AllMusic critic Ned Raggett later praised the album's balance, arguing that it reached dark and sinister depths while also exhibiting subtler and more introspective moments. The Wrights also compiled the collection Mr. Right & Mr. Wrong: One Down & Two to Go, comprising early demos, studio outtakes, and additional material, which was released on Wrong the following year.
With Tom Holliston, Worldhood of the World (As Such), Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie (1993–1999)
For touring in support of Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy?, Nomeansno assembled their first four-piece lineup, completed by Hanson Brothers guitarist Holliston and second drummer Ken Kempster. Holliston replaced Kerr as their full-time guitarist, while Kempster went on to tour sporadically with Nomeansno over the next four years.
The first Nomeansno album to feature Holliston was The Worldhood of the World (As Such), released in 1995. Receiving its title from philosopher Martin Heidegger's seminal text Being and Time, the album featured simpler and more melodic songs than its predecessors while nonetheless retaining the band's "taste for blood and gristle." After focusing briefly on the Hanson Brothers and releasing their second LP, Sudden Death, Nomeansno followed with the EPs Would We Be Alive? and In the Fishtank 1, each featuring a cover of "Would We Be Alive?" by The Residents.
Their eighth studio album, the double LP Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie, was released in 1998. The album featured some of the band's longest songs, including its title track. The album received mixed, but generally positive, reviews. In a retrospective review, AllMusic critic Tom Schulte praised the album in its experimental tone as "dark and unforgettable, poignant and cutting." A critic writing for The A.V. Club, however, dismissed the album as "dull, meandering punk" and likened the band pejoratively to Rush.
One, All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt (2000–2006)
The band issued its final Alternative Tentacles album, One, in 2000. Featuring a slow stoner rock cover of The Ramones's "Beat on the Brat" and a fifteen-minute version of Miles Davis's "Bitches Brew" with electric piano and congas, the album was well received. AllMusic's Schulte assessed the album as "intense and heavy collegiate punk" as praised it as the band's finest effort since Wrong. Three outtakes from the album were also issued as the Generic Shame EP on Wrong.
The band left Alternative Tentacles in 2002, and began slowly reissuing their back catalogue through Wrong and distributors Southern Records. With new drummer Ernie Hawkins, The Hanson Brothers released their third album, My Game, later that year. Nomeansno continued touring extensively, but ultimately took six years to release their next album. In the meantime, they issued the best-of compilation The People's Choice.
Their tenth studio album, All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt, was released on August 22, 2006, by AntAcidAudio in the United States and Southern in Europe. AllMusic critic Jo-Ann Greene praised the album's exhausting diversity as befitting of the band's legacy and career-spanning accomplishments. Greene wrote that with the record Nomeansno travel "yet again through the undergrowth and underbelly of the rock realm, and with all the piss and vinegar that they started out with a quarter century ago."
Later years, retirement (2007–2016)
The band toured frequently in the years that followed, but ceased recording albums. Fang drummer Mike Branum joined The Hanson Brothers in 2008. In 2010, Nomeansno digitally released outtakes and demos from the 0 + 2 = 1 sessions as 0 + 2 = 1 ½. They next released two four-track EPs, Tour EP 1 (alternatively known as Old) and Tour EP 2 (alternatively Jubilation). They continued performing live through 2013, and toured as The Hanson Brothers in the following year with Byron Slack on drums, but entered a hiatus thereafter.
Holliston continued to perform with The Showbusiness Giants and release solo albums, while John Wright began working as musical director for the all-robot rock band Compressorhead. In 2015, Nomeansno was inducted into the Western Canadian Music Hall of Fame. They played an acoustic set at the awards ceremony, and a Ramones cover set (with Slack on drums) on New Year's Eve, which became their final public appearances. Holliston announced his departure from the band in August 2016. On September 24, John Wright announced the band's official retirement.
In 2021, Wrong was named the public vote winner of the Polaris Heritage Prize at the 2021 Polaris Music Prize.
Band members
Rob Wright – bass, vocals, guitar (1979–2016)
John Wright – drums, vocals, keyboards (1979–2016)
Andy Kerr – guitar, vocals, bass (1983–1992)
Tom Holliston – guitar, vocals (1993–2016)
Ken Kempster – drums (1993–1997)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Mama (1982)
Sex Mad (1986)
Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed (1988)
Wrong (1989)
0 + 2 = 1 (1991)
Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? (1993)
The Worldhood of the World (As Such) (1995)
Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie (1998)
One (2000)
All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt (2006)
Collaborative albums
The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy (with Jello Biafra) (1991)
Live albums
Live + Cuddly (1991)
EPs
Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred (1981)
You Kill Me (1985)
The Day Everything Became Nothing (1988)
The Power of Positive Thinking (1990)
Would We Be Alive? (1996)
In the Fishtank 1 (1996)
Generic Shame (2001)
Tour EP 1 (2010)
Tour EP 2 (2010)
Singles
"Look, Here Come the Wormies / SS Social Service" (split with Mass Appeal) (1980)
"Dad/Revenge" (1987)
"Oh, Canaduh" (1991)
Compilations
The Day Everything Became Isolated and Destroyed (1988)
Sex Mad/You Kill Me (1991)
Mr. Right & Mr. Wrong: One Down & Two to Go (1994)
The People's Choice (2004)
0 + 2 = 1 ½ (2010)
Bootlegs
Live at the Paradiso Amsterdam – bootleg – VPRO Radio station recording (1988)
Live in Warsaw – bootleg cassette (1990)
Sasquatch – The Man, The Myth, The Compilation – includes cover tracks "I Don't Care" and "Glad All Over" (1991)
Where are they now file - live compilation, includes "I Want it All" (1991)
The Infamous Scientist 45" – bootleg 7" (1993)
Leave the Seaside – live bootleg 7" (1994)
Compilation appearances
It Came from the Pit (1986)
Random Thought: A Victoria Sampler (Volumes 1 & 2) – includes, "Getting Colder", "Burn" and "Love Thang" (1986)
Oops! Wrong Stereotype (Alternative Tentacles compilation) (1988)
Terminal City Ricochet (soundtrack Terminal City Ricochet movie) (1990)
Clam Chowder & Ice Vs. Big Macs and Bombers (1992)
Virus 100 (a cappella version of Dead Kennedys song, "Forward to Death") (1992)
Over a Century of Vivisection and Anti-Vivisection (How Much Longer?) – Includes the 1981 Mama outtake, "No Means No" (1992)
The Making of Allied One Two Three (1995)
Basement Tapes: A KSPC Compilation of Live Recordings – includes "I Don't Want To Go Down To The Basement" (1995)
Short Music for Short People (1999)
Sex With Nothing (2002)
Fubar: The Album (2002)
All Your Ears Can Hear (2007)
Videography
Would We Be...Live? (Live footage of Nomeansno and The Hanson Brothers, filmed in London, on DVD) (2004)
We Played At Squats (Portrait about Nomeansno and The Hanson Brothers, produced in Austria, on DVD) (2014)
See also
List of bands from Canada
References
External links
Nomeansno discography
1979 establishments in British Columbia
2016 disestablishments in British Columbia
Alternative Tentacles artists
Musical groups established in 1979
Musical groups disestablished in 2016
Musical groups from Vancouver
Canadian hardcore punk groups
Canadian post-hardcore musical groups
Sibling musical groups | true | [
"Where Did Our Love Go is the second studio album by Motown singing group The Supremes, released in 1964. The album includes several of the group's singles and B-sides from 1963 and 1964. Included are the group's first Billboard Pop Singles number-one hits, \"Where Did Our Love Go\", \"Baby Love\", and \"Come See About Me\", as well as their first Top 40 hit, \"When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes\", and the singles \"A Breathtaking Guy\" and \"Run, Run, Run\".\n\nWith the release of this album, The Supremes became the first act in Billboard magazine history to have three number-one hits from the same album. It was the album that introduced \"The Motown Sound\" to the masses. It was also, at the time, the highest-ranking album by an all-female group. It remained in the #2 position for 4 consecutive weeks in January 1965, shut out of the top spot by the Beatles' blockbuster Beatles '65 album. Where Did Our Love Go remained on the Billboard album chart for an unprecedented 89 weeks.\n\nHip-O Select released a limited run fortieth anniversary deluxe edition of the album in 2004, which included both the mono and stereo versions of the album, as well as several outtakes, non-album tracks and a recorded live show from the Twenty Grand club in Detroit, Michigan. It sold out immediately.\n\nThey filmed performances of four of the singles from the album including \"Run, Run, Run\", \"When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes\", \"Where Did Our Love Go\" and \"Baby Love\" for the concert film, The T.A.M.I. Show released on December 29, 1964. It was equivalent to Motown 25 or Live Aid as a pivotal music concert event . When it hit theaters nationwide, it undoubtedly raised and extended the visibility of the Where Did Our Love Go album.\n\nTrack listing\nAll tracks written by Holland–Dozier–Holland except as noted.\n\nSide one\n\"Where Did Our Love Go\" - 2:33\n\"Run, Run, Run\" - 2:16\n\"Baby Love\" - 2:39\n\"When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes\" - 3:05\n\"Come See About Me\" - 2:44\n\"Long Gone Lover\" (Smokey Robinson) - 2:27\n\nSide two\n\"I'm Giving You Your Freedom\" - 2:40\n\"A Breathtaking Guy\" (Robinson) - 2:25\n\"He Means the World to Me\" (Norman Whitfield) - 2:00\n\"Standing at the Crossroads of Love\" - 2:27\n\"Your Kiss of Fire\" (Robert Gordy, Harvey Fuqua) - 2:48\n\"Ask Any Girl\" - 3:00\n\n2004 Expanded CD bonus tracklist\n \"This Is It\" (Faye Hale) ****\n \"I'm The Exception To The Rule\" (Whitfield) **\n \"Everyday I'll Love You More Than Yesterday\" (Robinson, Claudette Rogers Robinson) *\n \"Beginning To The Ending\" (George Fowler) *****\n \"Mr. Blues\" (Robinson) *\n \"Come On Boy\" (Berry Gordy, Jr.) ***\n \"Bye Baby\" (Gordy) ***\n \"My Imagination\" (Richard Parker, Faye Hale) ****\n \"I Idolize You\" (Robinson) *\n \"You're Gonna Come To Me\" (Gordy) (Version 4 - Credited as Version \"3\")\n \"Honey Babe\" (Gordy, Stevie Wonder) ***\n \"Penny Pincher\"\n \"Let Me Hear You Say (I Love You)\" (Andre Williams, Johnny Bristol) ********\n \"Don't Take It Away\" (William Weatherspoon, William \"Mickey\" Stevenson) *******\n \"Just Call Me\" (Ivy Jo Hunter, Stevenson) ******\n \"That's A Funny Way\" (Hunter, Stevenson) ******\n \"Stop, Look & Listen\" (Ed Cobb) ***\n \"Send Me No Flowers\"\n \"Baby Love\" (Alternate \"early\" version)\n \"Introduction/Devil's Den\" (Live (Live 1964)\n \"When The Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes\" (Live 1964)\n \"A Breathtaking Guy\" (Live 1964)\n \"Your Heart Belongs To Me\" (Live 1964)\n \"Let Me Go The Right Way\" (Live 1964)\n \"I Am Woman, You Are Man\" (Jule Styne, Bob Merrill) (Live 1964)\n \"People\" (Merrill, Styne) (Live 1964)\n \"Where Did Our Love Go\" (Live 1964)\n\nThe original album sold a million copies {in 1964-1965} stateside alone. The limited exclusive \"40th Anniversary\" version is now listed as \"sold out\". It remains, to date, their third best-selling studio album.\n\nPersonnel\n Diana Ross, Florence Ballard, and Mary Wilson - lead and background vocals\n The Four Tops, and Holland–Dozier–Holland - background vocals on \"When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes\", \"Run, Run, Run\" and \"Penny Pincher\"\n The Love-Tones - background vocals on \"Standing on the Crossroads of Love\", \"This Is It\" and \"My Imagination\"\n Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier - producers on all tracks except noted below\n Smokey Robinson - producer on \"Long Gone Lover\" and \"A Breathtaking Guy\" (and bonus track *)\n Norman Whitfield - producer on \"He Means the World to Me\" (and bonus track **)\n Robert Gordy - producer on \"Your Kiss of Fire\"\n Berry Gordy, Jr. - producer on bonus track ***\n Faye Hale - producer on bonus track ****\n George Fowler - producer on bonus track *****\n Ivy Jo Hunter, William \"Mickey\" Stevenson - producer on bonus track ******\n William \"Mickey\" Stevenson - producer on bonus track *******\n Andre Williams - producer on bonus track ********\n The Funk Brothers - instrumentation\nEarl Van Dyke – piano on \"Where Did Our Love Go\", \"Baby Love\" and \"Come See About Me\"\nRobert White – guitar on \"Where Did Our Love Go\"\nEddie Willis – guitar on \"Where Did Our Love Go\" and \"Baby Love\"\nJoe Messina – guitar on \"Come See About Me\"\nJames Jamerson – bass on \"Where Did Our Love Go\", \"Baby Love\" and \"Come See About Me\"\nRichard \"Pistol\" Allen – drums on \"Where Did Our Love Go\" and \"Baby Love\"\nUriel Jones – drums on \"Come See About Me\"\nJack Ashford – vibraphone on \"Where Did Our Love Go\", \"Baby Love\" and \"Come See About Me\"\nAndrew \"Mike\" Terry – baritone saxophone on \"Where Did Our Love Go\", \"Baby Love\" and \"Come See About Me\"\nHank Cosby – tenor saxophone on \"Baby Love\" and \"Come See About Me\"\nMike Valvano – footstomps on \"Where Did Our Love Go\", \"Baby Love\" and \"Come See About Me\"\n Bernard Yeszin, Wallace Mead - cover design\n\nSingles history\n\"A Breath Taking, First Sight Soul Shaking, One Night Love Making, Next Day Heart Breaking Guy\" b/w \"(The Man with the) Rock And Roll Banjo Band\" (from The Supremes Sing Country, Western and Pop) (Motown 1044, June 12, 1963, reissued immediately with A-side title shortened to \"A Breath Taking Guy\")\n\"When The Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes\" b/w \"Standing at the Crossroads of Love\" (Motown 1051, October 31, 1963)\n\"Run, Run, Run\" b/w \"I'm Giving You Your Freedom\" (Motown 1054, February 7, 1964)\n\"Where Did Our Love Go\" b/w \"He Means the World to Me\" (Motown 1060, June 17, 1964)\n\"Baby Love\" b/w \"Ask Any Girl\" (Motown 1066, September 17, 1964)\n\"Come See About Me\" b/w \"You're Gone, But Always in My Heart\" (on The Supremes Sing Holland–Dozier–Holland) (Motown 1068, October 27, 1964)\n\nChart history\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nSee also\nList of Billboard number-one R&B albums of the 1960s\n\nReferences\n\n1964 albums\nThe Supremes albums\nAlbums produced by Norman Whitfield\nAlbums produced by Smokey Robinson\nAlbums produced by Brian Holland\nAlbums produced by Lamont Dozier\nMotown albums\nAlbums recorded at Hitsville U.S.A.",
"Hotstylz is an American hip hop group from Chicago, Illinois, formed in 2007. The trio, composed of Midwest rappers Krazee, Meatball and Raydio G, is signed to fellow American rapper Yung Joc's Swagg Team, distributed by Jive/RCA Records. In late 2007 they released their debut single titled \"Lookin Boy\", which features Yung Joc and peaked at #47 on the US Billboard Hot 100.\n\nEach member of Hotstylz works as solo artist, but they come together to form the group Hotstylz. The current rappers of the group are Raydio G (Raymond Jones), Krazee (Kryss Johnson), and Meatball (Garren Hodge). In Fall 2011, they released a mixtape entitled \"Where Yall Been At\".\n\nDespite being active since mid 2007, the group has yet to release a full album and had only released two mixtapes.\n\nControversy\nIn 2013, Detroit-based rapper Eminem, sampled \"Lookin' Boy\", for his 2013 hit single, \"Rap God\".The group claims Eminem did not receive permission to use the sample, nor did he credit or compensate them. In November 2013, Hotstylz released a diss track towards Eminem titled \"Rap Fraud\", where they sample several of his songs and criticize him for not crediting them. In January 2015, TMZ reported Hotstylz were suing Eminem and Shady Records, for the amount of $8 million, for using the 6-second sample of \"Lookin' Boy\" on his song \"Rap God\", without their permission.\n\nDiscography\n\nMixtapes \n A.D.D. (2009)\n Where Y'all Been At (2011)\n We Back (2016)\n\nSingles\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nHotstylz's Myspace\n\nJive Records artists\nMidwest hip hop groups\nMusical groups from Chicago\nAfrican-American musical groups\nAmerican hip hop groups\nMusical groups established in 2007\nRappers from Chicago\nAmerican musical trios"
] |
[
"Nomeansno",
"Early years as two-piece, Mama (1979-1982)",
"where did the group first come together",
"rehearsing in their parents' basement in 1979,"
] | C_0c375df1b7874f38a2530ccfccb1d6e1_1 | did school cause the breakup | 2 | did school cause Nomeansno breakup? | Nomeansno | In 1979 and at age 25, Rob Wright returned to his family's home in Victoria after studying in Calgary. His younger brother John, eight years his junior, played drums in the school jazz band. They were inspired to play punk rock after seeing D.O.A. perform at the University of Victoria. The two began rehearsing in their parents' basement in 1979, and took the name Nomeansno from an anti-date rape slogan. They also briefly gigged as the rhythm section for the local cover band Castle. Nomeansno recorded its earliest material in the months that followed on a TASCAM four-track recorder, with Rob playing electric guitar and bass, John playing keyboards and drums, and both brothers singing. Some of these recordings were issued as their first two self-released 7"s, the "Look, Here Come the Wormies / SS Social Service" single (a 1980 split with another short-lived Wright brothers project, Mass Appeal), and the Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred EP of 1981. The brothers began performing live as a bass-and-drums duo in 1981. Their sound developed without a guitar, and John Wright later reflected on these developments: ...without a guitar player you can't rely on the standard hooks that punk rock and rock n' roll in general relies on. The guitar player - the guitar god quote unquote - was such a focus for so long that by the nature of not having a guitar player, the bass and the drums have to do a lot more. It also makes the vocals more important, or at least it makes a lot more room for the vocals. You don't have guitar solos, you don't have the wash of high end. And the things you do on the drums are different, if you just did a straight four beat on the drums it would get kinda dull after awhile. It isn't as though bass guitar hasn't been a prominent instrument at times in other bands but it made us approach things differently, our song structure couldn't just be verse-chorus-verse. It had everything to do with how our sound got off to a unique start. Some of the songs they played in this period were released on the Mama LP of 1982, which was self-released in a limited pressing. Writing for Trouser Press, critic Ira Robbins described Mama and the early 7"s as "Devo on a jazz trip, Motorhead after art school, or Wire on psychotic steroids." This same year, John Wright also joined the Victoria punk band The Infamous Scientists. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Nomeansno (sometimes stylized as NoMeansNo or spelled No Means No) was a Canadian punk rock band formed in Victoria, British Columbia and later relocated to Vancouver. They issued 11 albums, including a collaborative album with Jello Biafra, as well as numerous EPs and singles. Critic Martin Popoff described their music as "the mightiest merger between the hateful aggression of punk and the discipline of heavy metal." Nomeansno's distinct hardcore punk sound, complex instrumentation, and dark, "savagely intelligent" lyrics inspired subsequent musicians. They are often considered foundational in the punk jazz and post-hardcore movements, and have been cited as a formative influence on the math rock and emo genres.
Formed in 1979 by brothers Rob and John Wright, the group began as a two-piece punk band influenced by jazz and progressive rock. They self-released their debut Mama LP in 1982. Adding guitarist Andy Kerr the following year, the group signed with the Alternative Tentacles imprint and continued to expand their audience. Kerr departed in 1992 after five LPs with the band, and the group returned to its two-piece formation for the Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? album.
Guitarist Tom Holliston, and briefly second drummer Ken Kempster, joined in 1993, and Nomeansno continued touring and recording extensively while operating their own Wrong Records label. After three further LPs, they left Alternative Tentacles and issued their final album, All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt, in 2006. They were inducted into the Western Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2015, and announced their retirement the following year.
History
Early years as two-piece, Mama (1979–1982)
In 1979 and at age 25, Rob Wright returned to his family's home in Victoria after studying in Calgary. John Wright, Rob's younger brother by eight years, played drums in the school jazz band, and the two were inspired to play punk rock after seeing D.O.A. perform at the University of Victoria. They began rehearsing in their parents' basement in 1979, and took the name Nomeansno from an anti-date rape slogan. They also briefly gigged as the rhythm section for the local cover band Castle.
Nomeansno recorded its earliest material in the months that followed on a TASCAM four-track recorder, with Rob playing electric guitar and bass, John playing keyboards and drums, and both brothers singing. Some of these recordings were issued as their first two self-released 7"s, the "Look, Here Come the Wormies / SS Social Service" single (a 1980 split with Mass Appeal, whose recording lineup featured both Wright Brothers), and the Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred EP of 1981.
The brothers began performing live as a bass-and-drums duo in 1981. Their sound developed without a guitar, and John Wright later reflected on these developments:
Some of the songs they played in this period were released on the Mama LP, which was self-released in a limited pressing in 1982. Writing for Trouser Press, critic Ira Robbins described Mama and the early 7"s as "Devo on a jazz trip, Motörhead after art school, or Wire on psychotic steroids." This same year, John Wright also joined the Victoria punk band The Infamous Scientists.
With Andy Kerr, You Kill Me, Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed (1983–1989)
The Infamous Scientists disbanded in 1983, and their guitarist and vocalist Andy Kerr joined Nomeansno several months later. Kerr brought a distinct hardcore punk edge to Nomeansno's sound, creating a buzz-saw guitar tone by playing through a Fender Bassman amplifier and a P.A. speaker. Nomeansno became a fixture in the British Columbia punk scene despite playing music that did not always conform to punk rock standards. The You Kill Me EP in 1985 on the Undergrowth Records imprint exhibited their experimental sound on dark and ponderous songs like "Body Bag" and a cover of "Manic Depression" by Jimi Hendrix. The three also began performing Ramones covers and more traditional punk music as The Hanson Brothers, a side project that would later receive more of their attention.
Issued initially by the Montreal punk label Psyche Industry, the band released Sex Mad, their second LP and first with Kerr. The album further expanded the band's experimental and progressive punk sound, yielding the single "Dad". The song was a minor college radio hit, which AllMusic reviewer Adam Bregman called "a bit chilling, even though it's spit out at slam-pit's pace". Kerr, the song's lead vocalist, increasingly became responsible for lead vocals as Rob Wright suffered from nodules on his vocal cords.
They soon signed with the seminal punk rock label Alternative Tentacles, run by Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys. This, along with frequent touring in North America and Europe, helped the band to garner a larger audience. In 1988, the group issued two releases recorded with producer Cecil English: The Day Everything Became Nothing EP and the Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed album. Alternative Tentacles compiled the two together on a single CD, The Day Everything Became Isolated and Destroyed. AllMusic reviewer Sean Carruthers called the experimental recordings "less aggressive" than, but nonetheless worthy of, the band's previous efforts.
Wrong, 0 + 2 = 1, Kerr's departure (1989–1992)
Rob Wright's vocal cords began to heal, and he again began acting as the group's lead vocalist. In 1989, the band issued their fourth album, Wrong, to wide critical acclaim. For AllMusic, Carruthers wrote that "[t]he playing is incredibly skilled;" critic Martin Popoff in writing for The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal called Wrong the band's best album and rated the album 10 out of 10 points. The band's extensive touring in support of the record is documented in part on the Live + Cuddly album, recorded in Holland in 1990. John Wright later reported that circa 1990 the band became profitable enough that "we didn't have to have day jobs."
The band released a collaborative LP with Biafra, The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy, in 1991. Shortly thereafter, they issued 0 + 2 = 1, their fifth album and final release with Kerr. In a mixed review, AllMusic critic Adam Bregman praised 0 + 2 = 1 for its finer moments, but was concerned by its overall length and ponderousness.
Kerr departed the band after touring in support of the record and emigrated to the Netherlands. He went on to release two LPs with Hissanol, a collaboration with Scott Henderson of Shovlhed. He subsequently released a solo album in 1997 before forming the duo Two Pin Din with Wilf Plum of Dog Faced Hermans in 2005.
Side projects, Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? (1992–1993)
The Wright brothers had begun to focus on their side project, The Hanson Brothers. Dressing as a mock group of backward Canadian ice hockey players and fans, they derived the band's name and personae from a group of characters in the 1977 George Roy Hill film Slap Shot starring Paul Newman. With John acting as lead vocalist, the Wright brothers were joined by guitarist Tom Holliston of the Showbusiness Giants and drummer Ken Jensen of D.O.A. With encouragement from Alternative Tentacles to record an LP, The Hanson Brothers issued the Gross Misconduct album in 1992.
The Wright brothers also remained active with other endeavors. Rob Wright began performing as a solo artist under the name Mr. Wrong, appearing as a character dressed as an authoritarian priest. John Wright became a member of D.O.A. for several years. The brothers also continued to expand Wrong Records, their own imprint.
In 1993, the brothers assembled material for a sixth Nomeansno LP and recorded Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? as a duo. AllMusic critic Ned Raggett later praised the album's balance, arguing that it reached dark and sinister depths while also exhibiting subtler and more introspective moments. The Wrights also compiled the collection Mr. Right & Mr. Wrong: One Down & Two to Go, comprising early demos, studio outtakes, and additional material, which was released on Wrong the following year.
With Tom Holliston, Worldhood of the World (As Such), Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie (1993–1999)
For touring in support of Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy?, Nomeansno assembled their first four-piece lineup, completed by Hanson Brothers guitarist Holliston and second drummer Ken Kempster. Holliston replaced Kerr as their full-time guitarist, while Kempster went on to tour sporadically with Nomeansno over the next four years.
The first Nomeansno album to feature Holliston was The Worldhood of the World (As Such), released in 1995. Receiving its title from philosopher Martin Heidegger's seminal text Being and Time, the album featured simpler and more melodic songs than its predecessors while nonetheless retaining the band's "taste for blood and gristle." After focusing briefly on the Hanson Brothers and releasing their second LP, Sudden Death, Nomeansno followed with the EPs Would We Be Alive? and In the Fishtank 1, each featuring a cover of "Would We Be Alive?" by The Residents.
Their eighth studio album, the double LP Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie, was released in 1998. The album featured some of the band's longest songs, including its title track. The album received mixed, but generally positive, reviews. In a retrospective review, AllMusic critic Tom Schulte praised the album in its experimental tone as "dark and unforgettable, poignant and cutting." A critic writing for The A.V. Club, however, dismissed the album as "dull, meandering punk" and likened the band pejoratively to Rush.
One, All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt (2000–2006)
The band issued its final Alternative Tentacles album, One, in 2000. Featuring a slow stoner rock cover of The Ramones's "Beat on the Brat" and a fifteen-minute version of Miles Davis's "Bitches Brew" with electric piano and congas, the album was well received. AllMusic's Schulte assessed the album as "intense and heavy collegiate punk" as praised it as the band's finest effort since Wrong. Three outtakes from the album were also issued as the Generic Shame EP on Wrong.
The band left Alternative Tentacles in 2002, and began slowly reissuing their back catalogue through Wrong and distributors Southern Records. With new drummer Ernie Hawkins, The Hanson Brothers released their third album, My Game, later that year. Nomeansno continued touring extensively, but ultimately took six years to release their next album. In the meantime, they issued the best-of compilation The People's Choice.
Their tenth studio album, All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt, was released on August 22, 2006, by AntAcidAudio in the United States and Southern in Europe. AllMusic critic Jo-Ann Greene praised the album's exhausting diversity as befitting of the band's legacy and career-spanning accomplishments. Greene wrote that with the record Nomeansno travel "yet again through the undergrowth and underbelly of the rock realm, and with all the piss and vinegar that they started out with a quarter century ago."
Later years, retirement (2007–2016)
The band toured frequently in the years that followed, but ceased recording albums. Fang drummer Mike Branum joined The Hanson Brothers in 2008. In 2010, Nomeansno digitally released outtakes and demos from the 0 + 2 = 1 sessions as 0 + 2 = 1 ½. They next released two four-track EPs, Tour EP 1 (alternatively known as Old) and Tour EP 2 (alternatively Jubilation). They continued performing live through 2013, and toured as The Hanson Brothers in the following year with Byron Slack on drums, but entered a hiatus thereafter.
Holliston continued to perform with The Showbusiness Giants and release solo albums, while John Wright began working as musical director for the all-robot rock band Compressorhead. In 2015, Nomeansno was inducted into the Western Canadian Music Hall of Fame. They played an acoustic set at the awards ceremony, and a Ramones cover set (with Slack on drums) on New Year's Eve, which became their final public appearances. Holliston announced his departure from the band in August 2016. On September 24, John Wright announced the band's official retirement.
In 2021, Wrong was named the public vote winner of the Polaris Heritage Prize at the 2021 Polaris Music Prize.
Band members
Rob Wright – bass, vocals, guitar (1979–2016)
John Wright – drums, vocals, keyboards (1979–2016)
Andy Kerr – guitar, vocals, bass (1983–1992)
Tom Holliston – guitar, vocals (1993–2016)
Ken Kempster – drums (1993–1997)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Mama (1982)
Sex Mad (1986)
Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed (1988)
Wrong (1989)
0 + 2 = 1 (1991)
Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? (1993)
The Worldhood of the World (As Such) (1995)
Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie (1998)
One (2000)
All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt (2006)
Collaborative albums
The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy (with Jello Biafra) (1991)
Live albums
Live + Cuddly (1991)
EPs
Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred (1981)
You Kill Me (1985)
The Day Everything Became Nothing (1988)
The Power of Positive Thinking (1990)
Would We Be Alive? (1996)
In the Fishtank 1 (1996)
Generic Shame (2001)
Tour EP 1 (2010)
Tour EP 2 (2010)
Singles
"Look, Here Come the Wormies / SS Social Service" (split with Mass Appeal) (1980)
"Dad/Revenge" (1987)
"Oh, Canaduh" (1991)
Compilations
The Day Everything Became Isolated and Destroyed (1988)
Sex Mad/You Kill Me (1991)
Mr. Right & Mr. Wrong: One Down & Two to Go (1994)
The People's Choice (2004)
0 + 2 = 1 ½ (2010)
Bootlegs
Live at the Paradiso Amsterdam – bootleg – VPRO Radio station recording (1988)
Live in Warsaw – bootleg cassette (1990)
Sasquatch – The Man, The Myth, The Compilation – includes cover tracks "I Don't Care" and "Glad All Over" (1991)
Where are they now file - live compilation, includes "I Want it All" (1991)
The Infamous Scientist 45" – bootleg 7" (1993)
Leave the Seaside – live bootleg 7" (1994)
Compilation appearances
It Came from the Pit (1986)
Random Thought: A Victoria Sampler (Volumes 1 & 2) – includes, "Getting Colder", "Burn" and "Love Thang" (1986)
Oops! Wrong Stereotype (Alternative Tentacles compilation) (1988)
Terminal City Ricochet (soundtrack Terminal City Ricochet movie) (1990)
Clam Chowder & Ice Vs. Big Macs and Bombers (1992)
Virus 100 (a cappella version of Dead Kennedys song, "Forward to Death") (1992)
Over a Century of Vivisection and Anti-Vivisection (How Much Longer?) – Includes the 1981 Mama outtake, "No Means No" (1992)
The Making of Allied One Two Three (1995)
Basement Tapes: A KSPC Compilation of Live Recordings – includes "I Don't Want To Go Down To The Basement" (1995)
Short Music for Short People (1999)
Sex With Nothing (2002)
Fubar: The Album (2002)
All Your Ears Can Hear (2007)
Videography
Would We Be...Live? (Live footage of Nomeansno and The Hanson Brothers, filmed in London, on DVD) (2004)
We Played At Squats (Portrait about Nomeansno and The Hanson Brothers, produced in Austria, on DVD) (2014)
See also
List of bands from Canada
References
External links
Nomeansno discography
1979 establishments in British Columbia
2016 disestablishments in British Columbia
Alternative Tentacles artists
Musical groups established in 1979
Musical groups disestablished in 2016
Musical groups from Vancouver
Canadian hardcore punk groups
Canadian post-hardcore musical groups
Sibling musical groups | false | [
"A breakup song is a song describing the breakup of an intimate relationship. Breakup Song may also refer to:\n\nBreakup Song, a 2012 album by Deerhoof\n\"Break Up Song\" (Little Mix song), a 2020 song by Little Mix\n\"The Breakup Song (They Don't Write 'Em)\", a 1981 song by Greg Kihn\n\"The Breakup Song\" (Francesca Battistelli song), a 2018 song by Francesca Battistelli\n\nSee also\n\"Potential Breakup Song\", a 2006 song by Aly & AJ",
"A breakup song is a song describing the breakup of an intimate relationship, with associated emotions of sadness, frustration, anger, and sometimes of acceptance or relief. As one source states (discussing the upbeat breakup song \"Better Things\" by The Kinks), \"Pop music is littered with break-up masterpieces\", but \"[i]t's a rare break-up song that isn't bitter\".\n\nListening to breakup songs during a breakup can help the listener to experience a sense of catharsis. For example, songwriter Phil Collins notes that \"People hate a break-up, but they love a break-up song. \"Against All Odds\" pins down how it feels to be broken-hearted, and it's one of the songs most often mentioned when people write to me, describing how it helped them through the trauma of heartbreak\".\n\nGenres and styles\nBreakup songs can be found in every genre of music. For example, \"You Oughta Know\" by Alanis Morissette is categorized as alternative rock and post-grunge; \"Tainted Love\", originally composed by Ed Cobb and recorded as a soul music track by Gloria Jones in 1964, attained worldwide fame after being covered by Soft Cell in 1981 as a synthpop/new wave song; \"I Will Survive\", popularized by Gloria Gaynor, has been described as a \"disco anthem\"; and \"Achy Breaky Heart\", popularized by Billy Ray Cyrus, is a country/rockabilly song. Some musicians are particularly well known for having written or recorded a large number of breakup songs; for example, Taylor Swift, whose penchant for the genre has been the subject of examination.\n\nThe nature and style of breakup songs also changes over time. One source contends that \"1960s charts were full of tragic break-up songs, whereas by the 1990s these were a rarity – which may indicate that, contrary to its in-your-face aerobics'n'attitude bluster, 1990s pop is more emotionally repressed\". In many instances, breakup songs \"spring from biographical material\", with songwriters using the medium to record their own feelings about a breakup. Breakup songs can also reflect specific phases of a breakup, including feelings of estrangement between the partners before the actual breakup, describing the breakup itself, and describing feelings in the aftermath of the breakup.\n\nBest-selling breakup songs\nThe all-time best-selling single of a breakup song is the 1992 Whitney Houston version of \"I Will Always Love You\", which sold over 20 million copies. The song had originally been written and recorded in 1973 by American singer-songwriter Dolly Parton, and topped the country charts in 1974. It was written as a farewell to her one-time partner and mentor of seven years, Porter Wagoner, following Parton's decision to pursue a solo career. Other high-selling breakup songs include \"Un-Break My Heart\" by Toni Braxton in 1996 (10 million copies), \"Believe\" by Cher in 1998 (10 million copies) and \"Careless Whisper\" by George Michael in 1984 (6 million copies). Best-selling digital singles include \"Somebody That I Used to Know\" by Gotye featuring Kimbra in 2011 (13 million copies), \"Hello\" by Adele in 2015 (12.3 million copies), and \"Love Yourself\" by Justin Bieber in 2016 (11.7 million copies).\n\nSee also\nLove song\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nHeartbreak Hits: Top 30 Breakup Songs , Billboard (14 February 2014)\nThe 50 Best Breakup Songs, Esquire (25 July 2017)\n10 Songs To Get You Through Every Breakup, Seventeen (23 October 2013)\nThe 10 best breakup songs to help you move on, Business Insider (12 May 2017)\n\nSong forms\nSong"
] |
[
"Nomeansno",
"Early years as two-piece, Mama (1979-1982)",
"where did the group first come together",
"rehearsing in their parents' basement in 1979,",
"did school cause the breakup",
"I don't know."
] | C_0c375df1b7874f38a2530ccfccb1d6e1_1 | did any members leave on good terms | 3 | did any members of Nomeansno leave on good terms? | Nomeansno | In 1979 and at age 25, Rob Wright returned to his family's home in Victoria after studying in Calgary. His younger brother John, eight years his junior, played drums in the school jazz band. They were inspired to play punk rock after seeing D.O.A. perform at the University of Victoria. The two began rehearsing in their parents' basement in 1979, and took the name Nomeansno from an anti-date rape slogan. They also briefly gigged as the rhythm section for the local cover band Castle. Nomeansno recorded its earliest material in the months that followed on a TASCAM four-track recorder, with Rob playing electric guitar and bass, John playing keyboards and drums, and both brothers singing. Some of these recordings were issued as their first two self-released 7"s, the "Look, Here Come the Wormies / SS Social Service" single (a 1980 split with another short-lived Wright brothers project, Mass Appeal), and the Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred EP of 1981. The brothers began performing live as a bass-and-drums duo in 1981. Their sound developed without a guitar, and John Wright later reflected on these developments: ...without a guitar player you can't rely on the standard hooks that punk rock and rock n' roll in general relies on. The guitar player - the guitar god quote unquote - was such a focus for so long that by the nature of not having a guitar player, the bass and the drums have to do a lot more. It also makes the vocals more important, or at least it makes a lot more room for the vocals. You don't have guitar solos, you don't have the wash of high end. And the things you do on the drums are different, if you just did a straight four beat on the drums it would get kinda dull after awhile. It isn't as though bass guitar hasn't been a prominent instrument at times in other bands but it made us approach things differently, our song structure couldn't just be verse-chorus-verse. It had everything to do with how our sound got off to a unique start. Some of the songs they played in this period were released on the Mama LP of 1982, which was self-released in a limited pressing. Writing for Trouser Press, critic Ira Robbins described Mama and the early 7"s as "Devo on a jazz trip, Motorhead after art school, or Wire on psychotic steroids." This same year, John Wright also joined the Victoria punk band The Infamous Scientists. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Nomeansno (sometimes stylized as NoMeansNo or spelled No Means No) was a Canadian punk rock band formed in Victoria, British Columbia and later relocated to Vancouver. They issued 11 albums, including a collaborative album with Jello Biafra, as well as numerous EPs and singles. Critic Martin Popoff described their music as "the mightiest merger between the hateful aggression of punk and the discipline of heavy metal." Nomeansno's distinct hardcore punk sound, complex instrumentation, and dark, "savagely intelligent" lyrics inspired subsequent musicians. They are often considered foundational in the punk jazz and post-hardcore movements, and have been cited as a formative influence on the math rock and emo genres.
Formed in 1979 by brothers Rob and John Wright, the group began as a two-piece punk band influenced by jazz and progressive rock. They self-released their debut Mama LP in 1982. Adding guitarist Andy Kerr the following year, the group signed with the Alternative Tentacles imprint and continued to expand their audience. Kerr departed in 1992 after five LPs with the band, and the group returned to its two-piece formation for the Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? album.
Guitarist Tom Holliston, and briefly second drummer Ken Kempster, joined in 1993, and Nomeansno continued touring and recording extensively while operating their own Wrong Records label. After three further LPs, they left Alternative Tentacles and issued their final album, All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt, in 2006. They were inducted into the Western Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2015, and announced their retirement the following year.
History
Early years as two-piece, Mama (1979–1982)
In 1979 and at age 25, Rob Wright returned to his family's home in Victoria after studying in Calgary. John Wright, Rob's younger brother by eight years, played drums in the school jazz band, and the two were inspired to play punk rock after seeing D.O.A. perform at the University of Victoria. They began rehearsing in their parents' basement in 1979, and took the name Nomeansno from an anti-date rape slogan. They also briefly gigged as the rhythm section for the local cover band Castle.
Nomeansno recorded its earliest material in the months that followed on a TASCAM four-track recorder, with Rob playing electric guitar and bass, John playing keyboards and drums, and both brothers singing. Some of these recordings were issued as their first two self-released 7"s, the "Look, Here Come the Wormies / SS Social Service" single (a 1980 split with Mass Appeal, whose recording lineup featured both Wright Brothers), and the Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred EP of 1981.
The brothers began performing live as a bass-and-drums duo in 1981. Their sound developed without a guitar, and John Wright later reflected on these developments:
Some of the songs they played in this period were released on the Mama LP, which was self-released in a limited pressing in 1982. Writing for Trouser Press, critic Ira Robbins described Mama and the early 7"s as "Devo on a jazz trip, Motörhead after art school, or Wire on psychotic steroids." This same year, John Wright also joined the Victoria punk band The Infamous Scientists.
With Andy Kerr, You Kill Me, Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed (1983–1989)
The Infamous Scientists disbanded in 1983, and their guitarist and vocalist Andy Kerr joined Nomeansno several months later. Kerr brought a distinct hardcore punk edge to Nomeansno's sound, creating a buzz-saw guitar tone by playing through a Fender Bassman amplifier and a P.A. speaker. Nomeansno became a fixture in the British Columbia punk scene despite playing music that did not always conform to punk rock standards. The You Kill Me EP in 1985 on the Undergrowth Records imprint exhibited their experimental sound on dark and ponderous songs like "Body Bag" and a cover of "Manic Depression" by Jimi Hendrix. The three also began performing Ramones covers and more traditional punk music as The Hanson Brothers, a side project that would later receive more of their attention.
Issued initially by the Montreal punk label Psyche Industry, the band released Sex Mad, their second LP and first with Kerr. The album further expanded the band's experimental and progressive punk sound, yielding the single "Dad". The song was a minor college radio hit, which AllMusic reviewer Adam Bregman called "a bit chilling, even though it's spit out at slam-pit's pace". Kerr, the song's lead vocalist, increasingly became responsible for lead vocals as Rob Wright suffered from nodules on his vocal cords.
They soon signed with the seminal punk rock label Alternative Tentacles, run by Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys. This, along with frequent touring in North America and Europe, helped the band to garner a larger audience. In 1988, the group issued two releases recorded with producer Cecil English: The Day Everything Became Nothing EP and the Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed album. Alternative Tentacles compiled the two together on a single CD, The Day Everything Became Isolated and Destroyed. AllMusic reviewer Sean Carruthers called the experimental recordings "less aggressive" than, but nonetheless worthy of, the band's previous efforts.
Wrong, 0 + 2 = 1, Kerr's departure (1989–1992)
Rob Wright's vocal cords began to heal, and he again began acting as the group's lead vocalist. In 1989, the band issued their fourth album, Wrong, to wide critical acclaim. For AllMusic, Carruthers wrote that "[t]he playing is incredibly skilled;" critic Martin Popoff in writing for The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal called Wrong the band's best album and rated the album 10 out of 10 points. The band's extensive touring in support of the record is documented in part on the Live + Cuddly album, recorded in Holland in 1990. John Wright later reported that circa 1990 the band became profitable enough that "we didn't have to have day jobs."
The band released a collaborative LP with Biafra, The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy, in 1991. Shortly thereafter, they issued 0 + 2 = 1, their fifth album and final release with Kerr. In a mixed review, AllMusic critic Adam Bregman praised 0 + 2 = 1 for its finer moments, but was concerned by its overall length and ponderousness.
Kerr departed the band after touring in support of the record and emigrated to the Netherlands. He went on to release two LPs with Hissanol, a collaboration with Scott Henderson of Shovlhed. He subsequently released a solo album in 1997 before forming the duo Two Pin Din with Wilf Plum of Dog Faced Hermans in 2005.
Side projects, Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? (1992–1993)
The Wright brothers had begun to focus on their side project, The Hanson Brothers. Dressing as a mock group of backward Canadian ice hockey players and fans, they derived the band's name and personae from a group of characters in the 1977 George Roy Hill film Slap Shot starring Paul Newman. With John acting as lead vocalist, the Wright brothers were joined by guitarist Tom Holliston of the Showbusiness Giants and drummer Ken Jensen of D.O.A. With encouragement from Alternative Tentacles to record an LP, The Hanson Brothers issued the Gross Misconduct album in 1992.
The Wright brothers also remained active with other endeavors. Rob Wright began performing as a solo artist under the name Mr. Wrong, appearing as a character dressed as an authoritarian priest. John Wright became a member of D.O.A. for several years. The brothers also continued to expand Wrong Records, their own imprint.
In 1993, the brothers assembled material for a sixth Nomeansno LP and recorded Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? as a duo. AllMusic critic Ned Raggett later praised the album's balance, arguing that it reached dark and sinister depths while also exhibiting subtler and more introspective moments. The Wrights also compiled the collection Mr. Right & Mr. Wrong: One Down & Two to Go, comprising early demos, studio outtakes, and additional material, which was released on Wrong the following year.
With Tom Holliston, Worldhood of the World (As Such), Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie (1993–1999)
For touring in support of Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy?, Nomeansno assembled their first four-piece lineup, completed by Hanson Brothers guitarist Holliston and second drummer Ken Kempster. Holliston replaced Kerr as their full-time guitarist, while Kempster went on to tour sporadically with Nomeansno over the next four years.
The first Nomeansno album to feature Holliston was The Worldhood of the World (As Such), released in 1995. Receiving its title from philosopher Martin Heidegger's seminal text Being and Time, the album featured simpler and more melodic songs than its predecessors while nonetheless retaining the band's "taste for blood and gristle." After focusing briefly on the Hanson Brothers and releasing their second LP, Sudden Death, Nomeansno followed with the EPs Would We Be Alive? and In the Fishtank 1, each featuring a cover of "Would We Be Alive?" by The Residents.
Their eighth studio album, the double LP Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie, was released in 1998. The album featured some of the band's longest songs, including its title track. The album received mixed, but generally positive, reviews. In a retrospective review, AllMusic critic Tom Schulte praised the album in its experimental tone as "dark and unforgettable, poignant and cutting." A critic writing for The A.V. Club, however, dismissed the album as "dull, meandering punk" and likened the band pejoratively to Rush.
One, All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt (2000–2006)
The band issued its final Alternative Tentacles album, One, in 2000. Featuring a slow stoner rock cover of The Ramones's "Beat on the Brat" and a fifteen-minute version of Miles Davis's "Bitches Brew" with electric piano and congas, the album was well received. AllMusic's Schulte assessed the album as "intense and heavy collegiate punk" as praised it as the band's finest effort since Wrong. Three outtakes from the album were also issued as the Generic Shame EP on Wrong.
The band left Alternative Tentacles in 2002, and began slowly reissuing their back catalogue through Wrong and distributors Southern Records. With new drummer Ernie Hawkins, The Hanson Brothers released their third album, My Game, later that year. Nomeansno continued touring extensively, but ultimately took six years to release their next album. In the meantime, they issued the best-of compilation The People's Choice.
Their tenth studio album, All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt, was released on August 22, 2006, by AntAcidAudio in the United States and Southern in Europe. AllMusic critic Jo-Ann Greene praised the album's exhausting diversity as befitting of the band's legacy and career-spanning accomplishments. Greene wrote that with the record Nomeansno travel "yet again through the undergrowth and underbelly of the rock realm, and with all the piss and vinegar that they started out with a quarter century ago."
Later years, retirement (2007–2016)
The band toured frequently in the years that followed, but ceased recording albums. Fang drummer Mike Branum joined The Hanson Brothers in 2008. In 2010, Nomeansno digitally released outtakes and demos from the 0 + 2 = 1 sessions as 0 + 2 = 1 ½. They next released two four-track EPs, Tour EP 1 (alternatively known as Old) and Tour EP 2 (alternatively Jubilation). They continued performing live through 2013, and toured as The Hanson Brothers in the following year with Byron Slack on drums, but entered a hiatus thereafter.
Holliston continued to perform with The Showbusiness Giants and release solo albums, while John Wright began working as musical director for the all-robot rock band Compressorhead. In 2015, Nomeansno was inducted into the Western Canadian Music Hall of Fame. They played an acoustic set at the awards ceremony, and a Ramones cover set (with Slack on drums) on New Year's Eve, which became their final public appearances. Holliston announced his departure from the band in August 2016. On September 24, John Wright announced the band's official retirement.
In 2021, Wrong was named the public vote winner of the Polaris Heritage Prize at the 2021 Polaris Music Prize.
Band members
Rob Wright – bass, vocals, guitar (1979–2016)
John Wright – drums, vocals, keyboards (1979–2016)
Andy Kerr – guitar, vocals, bass (1983–1992)
Tom Holliston – guitar, vocals (1993–2016)
Ken Kempster – drums (1993–1997)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Mama (1982)
Sex Mad (1986)
Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed (1988)
Wrong (1989)
0 + 2 = 1 (1991)
Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? (1993)
The Worldhood of the World (As Such) (1995)
Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie (1998)
One (2000)
All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt (2006)
Collaborative albums
The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy (with Jello Biafra) (1991)
Live albums
Live + Cuddly (1991)
EPs
Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred (1981)
You Kill Me (1985)
The Day Everything Became Nothing (1988)
The Power of Positive Thinking (1990)
Would We Be Alive? (1996)
In the Fishtank 1 (1996)
Generic Shame (2001)
Tour EP 1 (2010)
Tour EP 2 (2010)
Singles
"Look, Here Come the Wormies / SS Social Service" (split with Mass Appeal) (1980)
"Dad/Revenge" (1987)
"Oh, Canaduh" (1991)
Compilations
The Day Everything Became Isolated and Destroyed (1988)
Sex Mad/You Kill Me (1991)
Mr. Right & Mr. Wrong: One Down & Two to Go (1994)
The People's Choice (2004)
0 + 2 = 1 ½ (2010)
Bootlegs
Live at the Paradiso Amsterdam – bootleg – VPRO Radio station recording (1988)
Live in Warsaw – bootleg cassette (1990)
Sasquatch – The Man, The Myth, The Compilation – includes cover tracks "I Don't Care" and "Glad All Over" (1991)
Where are they now file - live compilation, includes "I Want it All" (1991)
The Infamous Scientist 45" – bootleg 7" (1993)
Leave the Seaside – live bootleg 7" (1994)
Compilation appearances
It Came from the Pit (1986)
Random Thought: A Victoria Sampler (Volumes 1 & 2) – includes, "Getting Colder", "Burn" and "Love Thang" (1986)
Oops! Wrong Stereotype (Alternative Tentacles compilation) (1988)
Terminal City Ricochet (soundtrack Terminal City Ricochet movie) (1990)
Clam Chowder & Ice Vs. Big Macs and Bombers (1992)
Virus 100 (a cappella version of Dead Kennedys song, "Forward to Death") (1992)
Over a Century of Vivisection and Anti-Vivisection (How Much Longer?) – Includes the 1981 Mama outtake, "No Means No" (1992)
The Making of Allied One Two Three (1995)
Basement Tapes: A KSPC Compilation of Live Recordings – includes "I Don't Want To Go Down To The Basement" (1995)
Short Music for Short People (1999)
Sex With Nothing (2002)
Fubar: The Album (2002)
All Your Ears Can Hear (2007)
Videography
Would We Be...Live? (Live footage of Nomeansno and The Hanson Brothers, filmed in London, on DVD) (2004)
We Played At Squats (Portrait about Nomeansno and The Hanson Brothers, produced in Austria, on DVD) (2014)
See also
List of bands from Canada
References
External links
Nomeansno discography
1979 establishments in British Columbia
2016 disestablishments in British Columbia
Alternative Tentacles artists
Musical groups established in 1979
Musical groups disestablished in 2016
Musical groups from Vancouver
Canadian hardcore punk groups
Canadian post-hardcore musical groups
Sibling musical groups | false | [
"This is a list of the members of the Tasmanian Legislative Council between 1903 and 1909. The terms of the Legislative Council did not coincide with Legislative Assembly elections, and members served six year terms, with a number of members facing election each year.\n\nElections\n\nMembers\n\nNotes\n On 7 February 1904, William Hart, one of the two members for Launceston, died. Charles Russen won the resulting by-election on 3 May 1904.\n On 4 March 1905, John Watchorn, the member for Huon, died. Thomas Fisher won the resulting by-election on 2 May 1905.\n On 29 November 1905, William Gibson, one of the three members for Hobart, died. William Propsting won the resulting by-election on 22 December 1905.\n\nSources\n \n Parliament of Tasmania (2006). The Parliament of Tasmania from 1856\n\nMembers of Tasmanian parliaments by term\n20th-century Australian politicians",
"This is a list of members of the Tasmanian Legislative Council between 1933 and 1939. Terms of the Legislative Council did not coincide with Legislative Assembly elections, and members served six year terms, with a number of members facing election each year.\n\nElections\n\nMembers\n\nNotes\n On 27 October 1935, James Murdoch, the member for Pembroke, died. His brother John Murdoch won the resulting by-election on 17 December 1935. However, John Murdoch also died on 17 August 1936, and on 3 October 1936, Archibald Blacklow was elected to replace him.\n On 3 December 1937, William Propsting, one of the three members for Hobart and the President of the Council, died. William Strutt won the resulting by-election on 15 February 1938.\n On 24 December 1938, Alan Wardlaw, the member for South Esk, died. Leslie Procter won the resulting by-election on 7 March 1939.\n\nSources\n \n Parliament of Tasmania (2006). The Parliament of Tasmania from 1856\n\nMembers of Tasmanian parliaments by term\n20th-century Australian politicians"
] |
[
"Nomeansno",
"Early years as two-piece, Mama (1979-1982)",
"where did the group first come together",
"rehearsing in their parents' basement in 1979,",
"did school cause the breakup",
"I don't know.",
"did any members leave on good terms",
"I don't know."
] | C_0c375df1b7874f38a2530ccfccb1d6e1_1 | Did they ever try other forms of music | 4 | Besides Nomeansno's original sound, did Nomeansno ever try other forms of music | Nomeansno | In 1979 and at age 25, Rob Wright returned to his family's home in Victoria after studying in Calgary. His younger brother John, eight years his junior, played drums in the school jazz band. They were inspired to play punk rock after seeing D.O.A. perform at the University of Victoria. The two began rehearsing in their parents' basement in 1979, and took the name Nomeansno from an anti-date rape slogan. They also briefly gigged as the rhythm section for the local cover band Castle. Nomeansno recorded its earliest material in the months that followed on a TASCAM four-track recorder, with Rob playing electric guitar and bass, John playing keyboards and drums, and both brothers singing. Some of these recordings were issued as their first two self-released 7"s, the "Look, Here Come the Wormies / SS Social Service" single (a 1980 split with another short-lived Wright brothers project, Mass Appeal), and the Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred EP of 1981. The brothers began performing live as a bass-and-drums duo in 1981. Their sound developed without a guitar, and John Wright later reflected on these developments: ...without a guitar player you can't rely on the standard hooks that punk rock and rock n' roll in general relies on. The guitar player - the guitar god quote unquote - was such a focus for so long that by the nature of not having a guitar player, the bass and the drums have to do a lot more. It also makes the vocals more important, or at least it makes a lot more room for the vocals. You don't have guitar solos, you don't have the wash of high end. And the things you do on the drums are different, if you just did a straight four beat on the drums it would get kinda dull after awhile. It isn't as though bass guitar hasn't been a prominent instrument at times in other bands but it made us approach things differently, our song structure couldn't just be verse-chorus-verse. It had everything to do with how our sound got off to a unique start. Some of the songs they played in this period were released on the Mama LP of 1982, which was self-released in a limited pressing. Writing for Trouser Press, critic Ira Robbins described Mama and the early 7"s as "Devo on a jazz trip, Motorhead after art school, or Wire on psychotic steroids." This same year, John Wright also joined the Victoria punk band The Infamous Scientists. CANNOTANSWER | The brothers began performing live as a bass-and-drums duo in 1981. | Nomeansno (sometimes stylized as NoMeansNo or spelled No Means No) was a Canadian punk rock band formed in Victoria, British Columbia and later relocated to Vancouver. They issued 11 albums, including a collaborative album with Jello Biafra, as well as numerous EPs and singles. Critic Martin Popoff described their music as "the mightiest merger between the hateful aggression of punk and the discipline of heavy metal." Nomeansno's distinct hardcore punk sound, complex instrumentation, and dark, "savagely intelligent" lyrics inspired subsequent musicians. They are often considered foundational in the punk jazz and post-hardcore movements, and have been cited as a formative influence on the math rock and emo genres.
Formed in 1979 by brothers Rob and John Wright, the group began as a two-piece punk band influenced by jazz and progressive rock. They self-released their debut Mama LP in 1982. Adding guitarist Andy Kerr the following year, the group signed with the Alternative Tentacles imprint and continued to expand their audience. Kerr departed in 1992 after five LPs with the band, and the group returned to its two-piece formation for the Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? album.
Guitarist Tom Holliston, and briefly second drummer Ken Kempster, joined in 1993, and Nomeansno continued touring and recording extensively while operating their own Wrong Records label. After three further LPs, they left Alternative Tentacles and issued their final album, All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt, in 2006. They were inducted into the Western Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2015, and announced their retirement the following year.
History
Early years as two-piece, Mama (1979–1982)
In 1979 and at age 25, Rob Wright returned to his family's home in Victoria after studying in Calgary. John Wright, Rob's younger brother by eight years, played drums in the school jazz band, and the two were inspired to play punk rock after seeing D.O.A. perform at the University of Victoria. They began rehearsing in their parents' basement in 1979, and took the name Nomeansno from an anti-date rape slogan. They also briefly gigged as the rhythm section for the local cover band Castle.
Nomeansno recorded its earliest material in the months that followed on a TASCAM four-track recorder, with Rob playing electric guitar and bass, John playing keyboards and drums, and both brothers singing. Some of these recordings were issued as their first two self-released 7"s, the "Look, Here Come the Wormies / SS Social Service" single (a 1980 split with Mass Appeal, whose recording lineup featured both Wright Brothers), and the Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred EP of 1981.
The brothers began performing live as a bass-and-drums duo in 1981. Their sound developed without a guitar, and John Wright later reflected on these developments:
Some of the songs they played in this period were released on the Mama LP, which was self-released in a limited pressing in 1982. Writing for Trouser Press, critic Ira Robbins described Mama and the early 7"s as "Devo on a jazz trip, Motörhead after art school, or Wire on psychotic steroids." This same year, John Wright also joined the Victoria punk band The Infamous Scientists.
With Andy Kerr, You Kill Me, Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed (1983–1989)
The Infamous Scientists disbanded in 1983, and their guitarist and vocalist Andy Kerr joined Nomeansno several months later. Kerr brought a distinct hardcore punk edge to Nomeansno's sound, creating a buzz-saw guitar tone by playing through a Fender Bassman amplifier and a P.A. speaker. Nomeansno became a fixture in the British Columbia punk scene despite playing music that did not always conform to punk rock standards. The You Kill Me EP in 1985 on the Undergrowth Records imprint exhibited their experimental sound on dark and ponderous songs like "Body Bag" and a cover of "Manic Depression" by Jimi Hendrix. The three also began performing Ramones covers and more traditional punk music as The Hanson Brothers, a side project that would later receive more of their attention.
Issued initially by the Montreal punk label Psyche Industry, the band released Sex Mad, their second LP and first with Kerr. The album further expanded the band's experimental and progressive punk sound, yielding the single "Dad". The song was a minor college radio hit, which AllMusic reviewer Adam Bregman called "a bit chilling, even though it's spit out at slam-pit's pace". Kerr, the song's lead vocalist, increasingly became responsible for lead vocals as Rob Wright suffered from nodules on his vocal cords.
They soon signed with the seminal punk rock label Alternative Tentacles, run by Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys. This, along with frequent touring in North America and Europe, helped the band to garner a larger audience. In 1988, the group issued two releases recorded with producer Cecil English: The Day Everything Became Nothing EP and the Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed album. Alternative Tentacles compiled the two together on a single CD, The Day Everything Became Isolated and Destroyed. AllMusic reviewer Sean Carruthers called the experimental recordings "less aggressive" than, but nonetheless worthy of, the band's previous efforts.
Wrong, 0 + 2 = 1, Kerr's departure (1989–1992)
Rob Wright's vocal cords began to heal, and he again began acting as the group's lead vocalist. In 1989, the band issued their fourth album, Wrong, to wide critical acclaim. For AllMusic, Carruthers wrote that "[t]he playing is incredibly skilled;" critic Martin Popoff in writing for The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal called Wrong the band's best album and rated the album 10 out of 10 points. The band's extensive touring in support of the record is documented in part on the Live + Cuddly album, recorded in Holland in 1990. John Wright later reported that circa 1990 the band became profitable enough that "we didn't have to have day jobs."
The band released a collaborative LP with Biafra, The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy, in 1991. Shortly thereafter, they issued 0 + 2 = 1, their fifth album and final release with Kerr. In a mixed review, AllMusic critic Adam Bregman praised 0 + 2 = 1 for its finer moments, but was concerned by its overall length and ponderousness.
Kerr departed the band after touring in support of the record and emigrated to the Netherlands. He went on to release two LPs with Hissanol, a collaboration with Scott Henderson of Shovlhed. He subsequently released a solo album in 1997 before forming the duo Two Pin Din with Wilf Plum of Dog Faced Hermans in 2005.
Side projects, Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? (1992–1993)
The Wright brothers had begun to focus on their side project, The Hanson Brothers. Dressing as a mock group of backward Canadian ice hockey players and fans, they derived the band's name and personae from a group of characters in the 1977 George Roy Hill film Slap Shot starring Paul Newman. With John acting as lead vocalist, the Wright brothers were joined by guitarist Tom Holliston of the Showbusiness Giants and drummer Ken Jensen of D.O.A. With encouragement from Alternative Tentacles to record an LP, The Hanson Brothers issued the Gross Misconduct album in 1992.
The Wright brothers also remained active with other endeavors. Rob Wright began performing as a solo artist under the name Mr. Wrong, appearing as a character dressed as an authoritarian priest. John Wright became a member of D.O.A. for several years. The brothers also continued to expand Wrong Records, their own imprint.
In 1993, the brothers assembled material for a sixth Nomeansno LP and recorded Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? as a duo. AllMusic critic Ned Raggett later praised the album's balance, arguing that it reached dark and sinister depths while also exhibiting subtler and more introspective moments. The Wrights also compiled the collection Mr. Right & Mr. Wrong: One Down & Two to Go, comprising early demos, studio outtakes, and additional material, which was released on Wrong the following year.
With Tom Holliston, Worldhood of the World (As Such), Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie (1993–1999)
For touring in support of Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy?, Nomeansno assembled their first four-piece lineup, completed by Hanson Brothers guitarist Holliston and second drummer Ken Kempster. Holliston replaced Kerr as their full-time guitarist, while Kempster went on to tour sporadically with Nomeansno over the next four years.
The first Nomeansno album to feature Holliston was The Worldhood of the World (As Such), released in 1995. Receiving its title from philosopher Martin Heidegger's seminal text Being and Time, the album featured simpler and more melodic songs than its predecessors while nonetheless retaining the band's "taste for blood and gristle." After focusing briefly on the Hanson Brothers and releasing their second LP, Sudden Death, Nomeansno followed with the EPs Would We Be Alive? and In the Fishtank 1, each featuring a cover of "Would We Be Alive?" by The Residents.
Their eighth studio album, the double LP Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie, was released in 1998. The album featured some of the band's longest songs, including its title track. The album received mixed, but generally positive, reviews. In a retrospective review, AllMusic critic Tom Schulte praised the album in its experimental tone as "dark and unforgettable, poignant and cutting." A critic writing for The A.V. Club, however, dismissed the album as "dull, meandering punk" and likened the band pejoratively to Rush.
One, All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt (2000–2006)
The band issued its final Alternative Tentacles album, One, in 2000. Featuring a slow stoner rock cover of The Ramones's "Beat on the Brat" and a fifteen-minute version of Miles Davis's "Bitches Brew" with electric piano and congas, the album was well received. AllMusic's Schulte assessed the album as "intense and heavy collegiate punk" as praised it as the band's finest effort since Wrong. Three outtakes from the album were also issued as the Generic Shame EP on Wrong.
The band left Alternative Tentacles in 2002, and began slowly reissuing their back catalogue through Wrong and distributors Southern Records. With new drummer Ernie Hawkins, The Hanson Brothers released their third album, My Game, later that year. Nomeansno continued touring extensively, but ultimately took six years to release their next album. In the meantime, they issued the best-of compilation The People's Choice.
Their tenth studio album, All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt, was released on August 22, 2006, by AntAcidAudio in the United States and Southern in Europe. AllMusic critic Jo-Ann Greene praised the album's exhausting diversity as befitting of the band's legacy and career-spanning accomplishments. Greene wrote that with the record Nomeansno travel "yet again through the undergrowth and underbelly of the rock realm, and with all the piss and vinegar that they started out with a quarter century ago."
Later years, retirement (2007–2016)
The band toured frequently in the years that followed, but ceased recording albums. Fang drummer Mike Branum joined The Hanson Brothers in 2008. In 2010, Nomeansno digitally released outtakes and demos from the 0 + 2 = 1 sessions as 0 + 2 = 1 ½. They next released two four-track EPs, Tour EP 1 (alternatively known as Old) and Tour EP 2 (alternatively Jubilation). They continued performing live through 2013, and toured as The Hanson Brothers in the following year with Byron Slack on drums, but entered a hiatus thereafter.
Holliston continued to perform with The Showbusiness Giants and release solo albums, while John Wright began working as musical director for the all-robot rock band Compressorhead. In 2015, Nomeansno was inducted into the Western Canadian Music Hall of Fame. They played an acoustic set at the awards ceremony, and a Ramones cover set (with Slack on drums) on New Year's Eve, which became their final public appearances. Holliston announced his departure from the band in August 2016. On September 24, John Wright announced the band's official retirement.
In 2021, Wrong was named the public vote winner of the Polaris Heritage Prize at the 2021 Polaris Music Prize.
Band members
Rob Wright – bass, vocals, guitar (1979–2016)
John Wright – drums, vocals, keyboards (1979–2016)
Andy Kerr – guitar, vocals, bass (1983–1992)
Tom Holliston – guitar, vocals (1993–2016)
Ken Kempster – drums (1993–1997)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Mama (1982)
Sex Mad (1986)
Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed (1988)
Wrong (1989)
0 + 2 = 1 (1991)
Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? (1993)
The Worldhood of the World (As Such) (1995)
Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie (1998)
One (2000)
All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt (2006)
Collaborative albums
The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy (with Jello Biafra) (1991)
Live albums
Live + Cuddly (1991)
EPs
Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred (1981)
You Kill Me (1985)
The Day Everything Became Nothing (1988)
The Power of Positive Thinking (1990)
Would We Be Alive? (1996)
In the Fishtank 1 (1996)
Generic Shame (2001)
Tour EP 1 (2010)
Tour EP 2 (2010)
Singles
"Look, Here Come the Wormies / SS Social Service" (split with Mass Appeal) (1980)
"Dad/Revenge" (1987)
"Oh, Canaduh" (1991)
Compilations
The Day Everything Became Isolated and Destroyed (1988)
Sex Mad/You Kill Me (1991)
Mr. Right & Mr. Wrong: One Down & Two to Go (1994)
The People's Choice (2004)
0 + 2 = 1 ½ (2010)
Bootlegs
Live at the Paradiso Amsterdam – bootleg – VPRO Radio station recording (1988)
Live in Warsaw – bootleg cassette (1990)
Sasquatch – The Man, The Myth, The Compilation – includes cover tracks "I Don't Care" and "Glad All Over" (1991)
Where are they now file - live compilation, includes "I Want it All" (1991)
The Infamous Scientist 45" – bootleg 7" (1993)
Leave the Seaside – live bootleg 7" (1994)
Compilation appearances
It Came from the Pit (1986)
Random Thought: A Victoria Sampler (Volumes 1 & 2) – includes, "Getting Colder", "Burn" and "Love Thang" (1986)
Oops! Wrong Stereotype (Alternative Tentacles compilation) (1988)
Terminal City Ricochet (soundtrack Terminal City Ricochet movie) (1990)
Clam Chowder & Ice Vs. Big Macs and Bombers (1992)
Virus 100 (a cappella version of Dead Kennedys song, "Forward to Death") (1992)
Over a Century of Vivisection and Anti-Vivisection (How Much Longer?) – Includes the 1981 Mama outtake, "No Means No" (1992)
The Making of Allied One Two Three (1995)
Basement Tapes: A KSPC Compilation of Live Recordings – includes "I Don't Want To Go Down To The Basement" (1995)
Short Music for Short People (1999)
Sex With Nothing (2002)
Fubar: The Album (2002)
All Your Ears Can Hear (2007)
Videography
Would We Be...Live? (Live footage of Nomeansno and The Hanson Brothers, filmed in London, on DVD) (2004)
We Played At Squats (Portrait about Nomeansno and The Hanson Brothers, produced in Austria, on DVD) (2014)
See also
List of bands from Canada
References
External links
Nomeansno discography
1979 establishments in British Columbia
2016 disestablishments in British Columbia
Alternative Tentacles artists
Musical groups established in 1979
Musical groups disestablished in 2016
Musical groups from Vancouver
Canadian hardcore punk groups
Canadian post-hardcore musical groups
Sibling musical groups | true | [
"Shambhavi School of Dance was established in 1993 at Kengeri, Bangalore in the state of Karnataka in India as a Gurukul of Indian classical dance and music. The Artistic Director of this school is Smt.Vyjayanthi Kashi who is an exponent in Kuchipudi dance form.\n\nActivities\n\nTo cultivate and nurture the culture of Indian Arts, Shambhavi School of Dance create a common canvas for artists of yesterday, today, tomorrow; They utilize the advanced technology of today's era to share their knowledge, experiences, emotions and feelings through the ancient art forms. They offer introductory courses (short and long term), diploma course and advanced course in various subjects like Indian Classical Dance, dance theory, music, yoga, and dance therapy for the students. The school conducts workshops, lecture demonstrations and choreography for annual days in Education of arts in schools, non-governmental organizations, and other institutions. The Shambhavi Dance Ensemble has performed across India.\n\nAchievements\n\n Shambhavi School of Dance every year organises \"Dance Jathre\"-India's first ever International Dance Fair where workshops are conducted on Various Dance forms by concerned exponents in that dance forms and also performances by various artists all over India.\n Shambhavi School of Dance organised \"Nayika- Excellence Personified\" on the occasion of International Women's Day which includes a seminar on \"Contribution of women to Kuchipudi\" and also \"Natya Shastra\" Award was conferred to legendary Dansuse Padma Bhushan Dr. Yamini Krishnamurthy.\n World Dance Day Celebrations 2016\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nOfficial website\nShambhavi School of Dance\n\nDance schools in India\nEducational institutions established in 1993\nTourist attractions in Bangalore\n1993 establishments in Karnataka",
"George Ritchie (16 April 1848 – 31 January 1896) was a Scotland international rugby union player. He played as a Forward.\n\nPlaying in the very first international, Ritchie scored a try which was chalked off by the umpire Hely Hutchinson Almond. The resulting pressure, though, did break in Scotland's favour with Angus Buchanan scoring that first try. Notwithstanding, Ritchie always maintained that his try was valid and should have stood.\n\nRugby Union career\n\nAmateur career\n\nRitchie played for Merchistons in Edinburgh.\n\nInternational career\n\nRitchie played in the first ever rugby union international match for Scotland against England in 27 March 1871 at Raeburn Place, Edinburgh.\n\nIn the match, he almost scored the first ever international try. He went over the try-line but a clutch of bodies were on top of him. An Englishman claimed to have control of the ball and the umpire decided it was Scotland's hack off 5 yards from the line. Scotland then scored a try and goal from the resultant set-piece; the try coming from Angus Buchanan.\n\nIt was Ritchie's only international appearance for Scotland and he always maintained that he scored a perfectly good try, throughout the rest of his life. He died in Kelso, Scotland in 1896.\n\nReferences\n\n1848 births\n1896 deaths\nScottish rugby union players\nMerchistonian FC players\nScotland international rugby union players\nRugby union players from Edinburgh"
] |
[
"Nomeansno",
"Early years as two-piece, Mama (1979-1982)",
"where did the group first come together",
"rehearsing in their parents' basement in 1979,",
"did school cause the breakup",
"I don't know.",
"did any members leave on good terms",
"I don't know.",
"Did they ever try other forms of music",
"The brothers began performing live as a bass-and-drums duo in 1981."
] | C_0c375df1b7874f38a2530ccfccb1d6e1_1 | Did they ever have dreams of tourning | 5 | Did Nomeansno ever have dreams of touring? | Nomeansno | In 1979 and at age 25, Rob Wright returned to his family's home in Victoria after studying in Calgary. His younger brother John, eight years his junior, played drums in the school jazz band. They were inspired to play punk rock after seeing D.O.A. perform at the University of Victoria. The two began rehearsing in their parents' basement in 1979, and took the name Nomeansno from an anti-date rape slogan. They also briefly gigged as the rhythm section for the local cover band Castle. Nomeansno recorded its earliest material in the months that followed on a TASCAM four-track recorder, with Rob playing electric guitar and bass, John playing keyboards and drums, and both brothers singing. Some of these recordings were issued as their first two self-released 7"s, the "Look, Here Come the Wormies / SS Social Service" single (a 1980 split with another short-lived Wright brothers project, Mass Appeal), and the Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred EP of 1981. The brothers began performing live as a bass-and-drums duo in 1981. Their sound developed without a guitar, and John Wright later reflected on these developments: ...without a guitar player you can't rely on the standard hooks that punk rock and rock n' roll in general relies on. The guitar player - the guitar god quote unquote - was such a focus for so long that by the nature of not having a guitar player, the bass and the drums have to do a lot more. It also makes the vocals more important, or at least it makes a lot more room for the vocals. You don't have guitar solos, you don't have the wash of high end. And the things you do on the drums are different, if you just did a straight four beat on the drums it would get kinda dull after awhile. It isn't as though bass guitar hasn't been a prominent instrument at times in other bands but it made us approach things differently, our song structure couldn't just be verse-chorus-verse. It had everything to do with how our sound got off to a unique start. Some of the songs they played in this period were released on the Mama LP of 1982, which was self-released in a limited pressing. Writing for Trouser Press, critic Ira Robbins described Mama and the early 7"s as "Devo on a jazz trip, Motorhead after art school, or Wire on psychotic steroids." This same year, John Wright also joined the Victoria punk band The Infamous Scientists. CANNOTANSWER | They were inspired to play punk rock after seeing D.O.A. perform at the University of Victoria. | Nomeansno (sometimes stylized as NoMeansNo or spelled No Means No) was a Canadian punk rock band formed in Victoria, British Columbia and later relocated to Vancouver. They issued 11 albums, including a collaborative album with Jello Biafra, as well as numerous EPs and singles. Critic Martin Popoff described their music as "the mightiest merger between the hateful aggression of punk and the discipline of heavy metal." Nomeansno's distinct hardcore punk sound, complex instrumentation, and dark, "savagely intelligent" lyrics inspired subsequent musicians. They are often considered foundational in the punk jazz and post-hardcore movements, and have been cited as a formative influence on the math rock and emo genres.
Formed in 1979 by brothers Rob and John Wright, the group began as a two-piece punk band influenced by jazz and progressive rock. They self-released their debut Mama LP in 1982. Adding guitarist Andy Kerr the following year, the group signed with the Alternative Tentacles imprint and continued to expand their audience. Kerr departed in 1992 after five LPs with the band, and the group returned to its two-piece formation for the Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? album.
Guitarist Tom Holliston, and briefly second drummer Ken Kempster, joined in 1993, and Nomeansno continued touring and recording extensively while operating their own Wrong Records label. After three further LPs, they left Alternative Tentacles and issued their final album, All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt, in 2006. They were inducted into the Western Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2015, and announced their retirement the following year.
History
Early years as two-piece, Mama (1979–1982)
In 1979 and at age 25, Rob Wright returned to his family's home in Victoria after studying in Calgary. John Wright, Rob's younger brother by eight years, played drums in the school jazz band, and the two were inspired to play punk rock after seeing D.O.A. perform at the University of Victoria. They began rehearsing in their parents' basement in 1979, and took the name Nomeansno from an anti-date rape slogan. They also briefly gigged as the rhythm section for the local cover band Castle.
Nomeansno recorded its earliest material in the months that followed on a TASCAM four-track recorder, with Rob playing electric guitar and bass, John playing keyboards and drums, and both brothers singing. Some of these recordings were issued as their first two self-released 7"s, the "Look, Here Come the Wormies / SS Social Service" single (a 1980 split with Mass Appeal, whose recording lineup featured both Wright Brothers), and the Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred EP of 1981.
The brothers began performing live as a bass-and-drums duo in 1981. Their sound developed without a guitar, and John Wright later reflected on these developments:
Some of the songs they played in this period were released on the Mama LP, which was self-released in a limited pressing in 1982. Writing for Trouser Press, critic Ira Robbins described Mama and the early 7"s as "Devo on a jazz trip, Motörhead after art school, or Wire on psychotic steroids." This same year, John Wright also joined the Victoria punk band The Infamous Scientists.
With Andy Kerr, You Kill Me, Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed (1983–1989)
The Infamous Scientists disbanded in 1983, and their guitarist and vocalist Andy Kerr joined Nomeansno several months later. Kerr brought a distinct hardcore punk edge to Nomeansno's sound, creating a buzz-saw guitar tone by playing through a Fender Bassman amplifier and a P.A. speaker. Nomeansno became a fixture in the British Columbia punk scene despite playing music that did not always conform to punk rock standards. The You Kill Me EP in 1985 on the Undergrowth Records imprint exhibited their experimental sound on dark and ponderous songs like "Body Bag" and a cover of "Manic Depression" by Jimi Hendrix. The three also began performing Ramones covers and more traditional punk music as The Hanson Brothers, a side project that would later receive more of their attention.
Issued initially by the Montreal punk label Psyche Industry, the band released Sex Mad, their second LP and first with Kerr. The album further expanded the band's experimental and progressive punk sound, yielding the single "Dad". The song was a minor college radio hit, which AllMusic reviewer Adam Bregman called "a bit chilling, even though it's spit out at slam-pit's pace". Kerr, the song's lead vocalist, increasingly became responsible for lead vocals as Rob Wright suffered from nodules on his vocal cords.
They soon signed with the seminal punk rock label Alternative Tentacles, run by Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys. This, along with frequent touring in North America and Europe, helped the band to garner a larger audience. In 1988, the group issued two releases recorded with producer Cecil English: The Day Everything Became Nothing EP and the Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed album. Alternative Tentacles compiled the two together on a single CD, The Day Everything Became Isolated and Destroyed. AllMusic reviewer Sean Carruthers called the experimental recordings "less aggressive" than, but nonetheless worthy of, the band's previous efforts.
Wrong, 0 + 2 = 1, Kerr's departure (1989–1992)
Rob Wright's vocal cords began to heal, and he again began acting as the group's lead vocalist. In 1989, the band issued their fourth album, Wrong, to wide critical acclaim. For AllMusic, Carruthers wrote that "[t]he playing is incredibly skilled;" critic Martin Popoff in writing for The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal called Wrong the band's best album and rated the album 10 out of 10 points. The band's extensive touring in support of the record is documented in part on the Live + Cuddly album, recorded in Holland in 1990. John Wright later reported that circa 1990 the band became profitable enough that "we didn't have to have day jobs."
The band released a collaborative LP with Biafra, The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy, in 1991. Shortly thereafter, they issued 0 + 2 = 1, their fifth album and final release with Kerr. In a mixed review, AllMusic critic Adam Bregman praised 0 + 2 = 1 for its finer moments, but was concerned by its overall length and ponderousness.
Kerr departed the band after touring in support of the record and emigrated to the Netherlands. He went on to release two LPs with Hissanol, a collaboration with Scott Henderson of Shovlhed. He subsequently released a solo album in 1997 before forming the duo Two Pin Din with Wilf Plum of Dog Faced Hermans in 2005.
Side projects, Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? (1992–1993)
The Wright brothers had begun to focus on their side project, The Hanson Brothers. Dressing as a mock group of backward Canadian ice hockey players and fans, they derived the band's name and personae from a group of characters in the 1977 George Roy Hill film Slap Shot starring Paul Newman. With John acting as lead vocalist, the Wright brothers were joined by guitarist Tom Holliston of the Showbusiness Giants and drummer Ken Jensen of D.O.A. With encouragement from Alternative Tentacles to record an LP, The Hanson Brothers issued the Gross Misconduct album in 1992.
The Wright brothers also remained active with other endeavors. Rob Wright began performing as a solo artist under the name Mr. Wrong, appearing as a character dressed as an authoritarian priest. John Wright became a member of D.O.A. for several years. The brothers also continued to expand Wrong Records, their own imprint.
In 1993, the brothers assembled material for a sixth Nomeansno LP and recorded Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? as a duo. AllMusic critic Ned Raggett later praised the album's balance, arguing that it reached dark and sinister depths while also exhibiting subtler and more introspective moments. The Wrights also compiled the collection Mr. Right & Mr. Wrong: One Down & Two to Go, comprising early demos, studio outtakes, and additional material, which was released on Wrong the following year.
With Tom Holliston, Worldhood of the World (As Such), Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie (1993–1999)
For touring in support of Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy?, Nomeansno assembled their first four-piece lineup, completed by Hanson Brothers guitarist Holliston and second drummer Ken Kempster. Holliston replaced Kerr as their full-time guitarist, while Kempster went on to tour sporadically with Nomeansno over the next four years.
The first Nomeansno album to feature Holliston was The Worldhood of the World (As Such), released in 1995. Receiving its title from philosopher Martin Heidegger's seminal text Being and Time, the album featured simpler and more melodic songs than its predecessors while nonetheless retaining the band's "taste for blood and gristle." After focusing briefly on the Hanson Brothers and releasing their second LP, Sudden Death, Nomeansno followed with the EPs Would We Be Alive? and In the Fishtank 1, each featuring a cover of "Would We Be Alive?" by The Residents.
Their eighth studio album, the double LP Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie, was released in 1998. The album featured some of the band's longest songs, including its title track. The album received mixed, but generally positive, reviews. In a retrospective review, AllMusic critic Tom Schulte praised the album in its experimental tone as "dark and unforgettable, poignant and cutting." A critic writing for The A.V. Club, however, dismissed the album as "dull, meandering punk" and likened the band pejoratively to Rush.
One, All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt (2000–2006)
The band issued its final Alternative Tentacles album, One, in 2000. Featuring a slow stoner rock cover of The Ramones's "Beat on the Brat" and a fifteen-minute version of Miles Davis's "Bitches Brew" with electric piano and congas, the album was well received. AllMusic's Schulte assessed the album as "intense and heavy collegiate punk" as praised it as the band's finest effort since Wrong. Three outtakes from the album were also issued as the Generic Shame EP on Wrong.
The band left Alternative Tentacles in 2002, and began slowly reissuing their back catalogue through Wrong and distributors Southern Records. With new drummer Ernie Hawkins, The Hanson Brothers released their third album, My Game, later that year. Nomeansno continued touring extensively, but ultimately took six years to release their next album. In the meantime, they issued the best-of compilation The People's Choice.
Their tenth studio album, All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt, was released on August 22, 2006, by AntAcidAudio in the United States and Southern in Europe. AllMusic critic Jo-Ann Greene praised the album's exhausting diversity as befitting of the band's legacy and career-spanning accomplishments. Greene wrote that with the record Nomeansno travel "yet again through the undergrowth and underbelly of the rock realm, and with all the piss and vinegar that they started out with a quarter century ago."
Later years, retirement (2007–2016)
The band toured frequently in the years that followed, but ceased recording albums. Fang drummer Mike Branum joined The Hanson Brothers in 2008. In 2010, Nomeansno digitally released outtakes and demos from the 0 + 2 = 1 sessions as 0 + 2 = 1 ½. They next released two four-track EPs, Tour EP 1 (alternatively known as Old) and Tour EP 2 (alternatively Jubilation). They continued performing live through 2013, and toured as The Hanson Brothers in the following year with Byron Slack on drums, but entered a hiatus thereafter.
Holliston continued to perform with The Showbusiness Giants and release solo albums, while John Wright began working as musical director for the all-robot rock band Compressorhead. In 2015, Nomeansno was inducted into the Western Canadian Music Hall of Fame. They played an acoustic set at the awards ceremony, and a Ramones cover set (with Slack on drums) on New Year's Eve, which became their final public appearances. Holliston announced his departure from the band in August 2016. On September 24, John Wright announced the band's official retirement.
In 2021, Wrong was named the public vote winner of the Polaris Heritage Prize at the 2021 Polaris Music Prize.
Band members
Rob Wright – bass, vocals, guitar (1979–2016)
John Wright – drums, vocals, keyboards (1979–2016)
Andy Kerr – guitar, vocals, bass (1983–1992)
Tom Holliston – guitar, vocals (1993–2016)
Ken Kempster – drums (1993–1997)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Mama (1982)
Sex Mad (1986)
Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed (1988)
Wrong (1989)
0 + 2 = 1 (1991)
Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? (1993)
The Worldhood of the World (As Such) (1995)
Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie (1998)
One (2000)
All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt (2006)
Collaborative albums
The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy (with Jello Biafra) (1991)
Live albums
Live + Cuddly (1991)
EPs
Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred (1981)
You Kill Me (1985)
The Day Everything Became Nothing (1988)
The Power of Positive Thinking (1990)
Would We Be Alive? (1996)
In the Fishtank 1 (1996)
Generic Shame (2001)
Tour EP 1 (2010)
Tour EP 2 (2010)
Singles
"Look, Here Come the Wormies / SS Social Service" (split with Mass Appeal) (1980)
"Dad/Revenge" (1987)
"Oh, Canaduh" (1991)
Compilations
The Day Everything Became Isolated and Destroyed (1988)
Sex Mad/You Kill Me (1991)
Mr. Right & Mr. Wrong: One Down & Two to Go (1994)
The People's Choice (2004)
0 + 2 = 1 ½ (2010)
Bootlegs
Live at the Paradiso Amsterdam – bootleg – VPRO Radio station recording (1988)
Live in Warsaw – bootleg cassette (1990)
Sasquatch – The Man, The Myth, The Compilation – includes cover tracks "I Don't Care" and "Glad All Over" (1991)
Where are they now file - live compilation, includes "I Want it All" (1991)
The Infamous Scientist 45" – bootleg 7" (1993)
Leave the Seaside – live bootleg 7" (1994)
Compilation appearances
It Came from the Pit (1986)
Random Thought: A Victoria Sampler (Volumes 1 & 2) – includes, "Getting Colder", "Burn" and "Love Thang" (1986)
Oops! Wrong Stereotype (Alternative Tentacles compilation) (1988)
Terminal City Ricochet (soundtrack Terminal City Ricochet movie) (1990)
Clam Chowder & Ice Vs. Big Macs and Bombers (1992)
Virus 100 (a cappella version of Dead Kennedys song, "Forward to Death") (1992)
Over a Century of Vivisection and Anti-Vivisection (How Much Longer?) – Includes the 1981 Mama outtake, "No Means No" (1992)
The Making of Allied One Two Three (1995)
Basement Tapes: A KSPC Compilation of Live Recordings – includes "I Don't Want To Go Down To The Basement" (1995)
Short Music for Short People (1999)
Sex With Nothing (2002)
Fubar: The Album (2002)
All Your Ears Can Hear (2007)
Videography
Would We Be...Live? (Live footage of Nomeansno and The Hanson Brothers, filmed in London, on DVD) (2004)
We Played At Squats (Portrait about Nomeansno and The Hanson Brothers, produced in Austria, on DVD) (2014)
See also
List of bands from Canada
References
External links
Nomeansno discography
1979 establishments in British Columbia
2016 disestablishments in British Columbia
Alternative Tentacles artists
Musical groups established in 1979
Musical groups disestablished in 2016
Musical groups from Vancouver
Canadian hardcore punk groups
Canadian post-hardcore musical groups
Sibling musical groups | false | [
"A dream dictionary (also known as oneirocritic literature) is a tool made for interpreting images in a dream. Dream dictionaries tend to include specific images which are attached to specific interpretations. However, dream dictionaries are generally not considered scientifically viable by those within the psychology community.\n\nHistory\nSince the 19th century, the art of dream interpretation has been transferred to a scientific ground, making it a distinct part of psychology. However, the dream symbols of the \"unscientific\" days—the outcome of hearsay interpretations that differ around the world among different cultures—continued to mark the day of an average human-being, who is most likely unfamiliar with Freudian analysis of dreams.\n\nThe dream dictionary includes interpretations of dreams, giving each symbol in a dream a specific meaning. The argument of what dreams represent has greatly changed over time. With this changing, so have the interpretation of dreams. Dream dictionaries have changed in content since they were first published. The Greeks and Romans saw dreams as having a religious meaning. This made them believe that their dreams were an insight into the future and held the key to the solutions of their problems. Aristotle's view on dreams were that they were merely a function of our physiological make up. He did not believe dreams have a greater meaning, solely that it is a result of how we sleep. In the Middle Ages, dreams were seen as an interpretation of good or evil.\n\nAlthough the dream dictionary is not recognized in the psychology world, Freud is said to have revolutionized the interpretation and study of dreams. Freud came to the conclusion that dreams were a form of wish fulfillment. Dream dictionaries were first based upon Freudian thoughts and ancient interpretations of dreams.\n\nSome examples of dream interpretation are: dreaming you are on a beach means you are facing negativity in your life, or a lion may represent a need to control others. Dream dictionaries typically hold interpretations ranging from A-Z. Dream dictionaries can be found in book form or on the internet.\n\nSee also\n Dream interpretation\n Dream journal\n Dream sharing\n Oneiromancy\n Psychoanalytic dream interpretation\n Recurring dream\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n Condron, Barbara (1994). The Dreamer's Dictionary. School of Metaphysics Publishing. \n Crisp, Tony (2002). Dream Dictionary: An A to Z Guide to Understanding Your Unconscious Mind. \n Freud, Sigmund (1980). The Interpretation of Dreams, Avon.\n Guiley, Rsemary Ellen (1995). The Encyclopedia of Dreams. \n Hadfield, J. A. (1954). Dreams and Nightmares, Penguin.\n Jung, Carl (1964). \"Man and His Symbols\", Doubleday.\n MacKenzie, Norman (1989). \"Dreams and Dreaming\", Bloomsbury Books.\n Van de Castle, Robert (1994). \"Our Dreaming Mind\", Aquarian.\n\nExternal links\n Dream Dictionary \n \n\nDictionary\nSymbols\nDictionaries by type",
"A dream diary (or dream journal) is a diary in which dream experiences are recorded. A dream diary might include a record of nightly dreams, personal reflections and waking dream experiences. It is often used in the study of dreams and psychology. Dream diaries are also used by some people as a way to help induce lucid dreams. They are also regarded as a useful catalyst for remembering dreams. The use of a dream diary was recommended by Ann Faraday in The Dream Game as an aid to memory and a way to preserve details, many of which are otherwise rapidly forgotten no matter how memorable the dream originally seemed. Keeping a dream diary conditions a person to view remembering dreams as important. Dreams can be recorded in a paper diary (as text, drawings, paintings, etc.) or via an audio recording device (as narrative, music or imitations of other auditory experiences from the dream). Many websites offer the ability to create a digital dream diary.\n\nLucid dreaming \nDream diaries are often kept by people striving to induce and remember lucid dreams. Writing down dreams increases what is called dream recall, or the ability to remember dreams. When writing down dreams, the dreamer often searches for dream signs, or recurring themes that have been detected between dreams. Dream recall can vary from day to day but keeping a diary tends to regulate waking dream memory.\n\nIt is important to record the dreams in the diary immediately after waking up, as individuals forget the details of their dreams very quickly. Writing the next day's date in the dream diary asserts a conscious thought to remember dreams, which communicates intention to the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind then responds by fulfilling that desire. This mental action causes the conscious and subconscious minds to work together toward the common goal of remembering the dream.\n\nFalse awakenings \nThe discipline of waking up to record a dream in a diary sometimes leads to a false awakening where the dreamer records the previous dream while still in a dream. Some dream diarists report writing down the same dream one or two times in a dream before actually waking up, and recording it in a physical dream diary.\n\nSpecific uses\nFollowers of Eckankar frequently keep dream diaries, since they view dreams as important teaching tools and as a gateway to \"Soul Travel,\" or the shifting of one's consciousness to ever-higher states of being.\n\nSee also\n False awakening\n List of dream diaries\n Lucid dreaming\n Stream of unconsciousness (narrative mode)\n\nReferences\n\nBooks by type\nDiary"
] |
[
"Nomeansno",
"Early years as two-piece, Mama (1979-1982)",
"where did the group first come together",
"rehearsing in their parents' basement in 1979,",
"did school cause the breakup",
"I don't know.",
"did any members leave on good terms",
"I don't know.",
"Did they ever try other forms of music",
"The brothers began performing live as a bass-and-drums duo in 1981.",
"Did they ever have dreams of tourning",
"They were inspired to play punk rock after seeing D.O.A. perform at the University of Victoria."
] | C_0c375df1b7874f38a2530ccfccb1d6e1_1 | Were they always into music | 6 | Was Nomeansno always into music? | Nomeansno | In 1979 and at age 25, Rob Wright returned to his family's home in Victoria after studying in Calgary. His younger brother John, eight years his junior, played drums in the school jazz band. They were inspired to play punk rock after seeing D.O.A. perform at the University of Victoria. The two began rehearsing in their parents' basement in 1979, and took the name Nomeansno from an anti-date rape slogan. They also briefly gigged as the rhythm section for the local cover band Castle. Nomeansno recorded its earliest material in the months that followed on a TASCAM four-track recorder, with Rob playing electric guitar and bass, John playing keyboards and drums, and both brothers singing. Some of these recordings were issued as their first two self-released 7"s, the "Look, Here Come the Wormies / SS Social Service" single (a 1980 split with another short-lived Wright brothers project, Mass Appeal), and the Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred EP of 1981. The brothers began performing live as a bass-and-drums duo in 1981. Their sound developed without a guitar, and John Wright later reflected on these developments: ...without a guitar player you can't rely on the standard hooks that punk rock and rock n' roll in general relies on. The guitar player - the guitar god quote unquote - was such a focus for so long that by the nature of not having a guitar player, the bass and the drums have to do a lot more. It also makes the vocals more important, or at least it makes a lot more room for the vocals. You don't have guitar solos, you don't have the wash of high end. And the things you do on the drums are different, if you just did a straight four beat on the drums it would get kinda dull after awhile. It isn't as though bass guitar hasn't been a prominent instrument at times in other bands but it made us approach things differently, our song structure couldn't just be verse-chorus-verse. It had everything to do with how our sound got off to a unique start. Some of the songs they played in this period were released on the Mama LP of 1982, which was self-released in a limited pressing. Writing for Trouser Press, critic Ira Robbins described Mama and the early 7"s as "Devo on a jazz trip, Motorhead after art school, or Wire on psychotic steroids." This same year, John Wright also joined the Victoria punk band The Infamous Scientists. CANNOTANSWER | younger brother John, eight years his junior, played drums in the school jazz band. | Nomeansno (sometimes stylized as NoMeansNo or spelled No Means No) was a Canadian punk rock band formed in Victoria, British Columbia and later relocated to Vancouver. They issued 11 albums, including a collaborative album with Jello Biafra, as well as numerous EPs and singles. Critic Martin Popoff described their music as "the mightiest merger between the hateful aggression of punk and the discipline of heavy metal." Nomeansno's distinct hardcore punk sound, complex instrumentation, and dark, "savagely intelligent" lyrics inspired subsequent musicians. They are often considered foundational in the punk jazz and post-hardcore movements, and have been cited as a formative influence on the math rock and emo genres.
Formed in 1979 by brothers Rob and John Wright, the group began as a two-piece punk band influenced by jazz and progressive rock. They self-released their debut Mama LP in 1982. Adding guitarist Andy Kerr the following year, the group signed with the Alternative Tentacles imprint and continued to expand their audience. Kerr departed in 1992 after five LPs with the band, and the group returned to its two-piece formation for the Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? album.
Guitarist Tom Holliston, and briefly second drummer Ken Kempster, joined in 1993, and Nomeansno continued touring and recording extensively while operating their own Wrong Records label. After three further LPs, they left Alternative Tentacles and issued their final album, All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt, in 2006. They were inducted into the Western Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2015, and announced their retirement the following year.
History
Early years as two-piece, Mama (1979–1982)
In 1979 and at age 25, Rob Wright returned to his family's home in Victoria after studying in Calgary. John Wright, Rob's younger brother by eight years, played drums in the school jazz band, and the two were inspired to play punk rock after seeing D.O.A. perform at the University of Victoria. They began rehearsing in their parents' basement in 1979, and took the name Nomeansno from an anti-date rape slogan. They also briefly gigged as the rhythm section for the local cover band Castle.
Nomeansno recorded its earliest material in the months that followed on a TASCAM four-track recorder, with Rob playing electric guitar and bass, John playing keyboards and drums, and both brothers singing. Some of these recordings were issued as their first two self-released 7"s, the "Look, Here Come the Wormies / SS Social Service" single (a 1980 split with Mass Appeal, whose recording lineup featured both Wright Brothers), and the Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred EP of 1981.
The brothers began performing live as a bass-and-drums duo in 1981. Their sound developed without a guitar, and John Wright later reflected on these developments:
Some of the songs they played in this period were released on the Mama LP, which was self-released in a limited pressing in 1982. Writing for Trouser Press, critic Ira Robbins described Mama and the early 7"s as "Devo on a jazz trip, Motörhead after art school, or Wire on psychotic steroids." This same year, John Wright also joined the Victoria punk band The Infamous Scientists.
With Andy Kerr, You Kill Me, Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed (1983–1989)
The Infamous Scientists disbanded in 1983, and their guitarist and vocalist Andy Kerr joined Nomeansno several months later. Kerr brought a distinct hardcore punk edge to Nomeansno's sound, creating a buzz-saw guitar tone by playing through a Fender Bassman amplifier and a P.A. speaker. Nomeansno became a fixture in the British Columbia punk scene despite playing music that did not always conform to punk rock standards. The You Kill Me EP in 1985 on the Undergrowth Records imprint exhibited their experimental sound on dark and ponderous songs like "Body Bag" and a cover of "Manic Depression" by Jimi Hendrix. The three also began performing Ramones covers and more traditional punk music as The Hanson Brothers, a side project that would later receive more of their attention.
Issued initially by the Montreal punk label Psyche Industry, the band released Sex Mad, their second LP and first with Kerr. The album further expanded the band's experimental and progressive punk sound, yielding the single "Dad". The song was a minor college radio hit, which AllMusic reviewer Adam Bregman called "a bit chilling, even though it's spit out at slam-pit's pace". Kerr, the song's lead vocalist, increasingly became responsible for lead vocals as Rob Wright suffered from nodules on his vocal cords.
They soon signed with the seminal punk rock label Alternative Tentacles, run by Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys. This, along with frequent touring in North America and Europe, helped the band to garner a larger audience. In 1988, the group issued two releases recorded with producer Cecil English: The Day Everything Became Nothing EP and the Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed album. Alternative Tentacles compiled the two together on a single CD, The Day Everything Became Isolated and Destroyed. AllMusic reviewer Sean Carruthers called the experimental recordings "less aggressive" than, but nonetheless worthy of, the band's previous efforts.
Wrong, 0 + 2 = 1, Kerr's departure (1989–1992)
Rob Wright's vocal cords began to heal, and he again began acting as the group's lead vocalist. In 1989, the band issued their fourth album, Wrong, to wide critical acclaim. For AllMusic, Carruthers wrote that "[t]he playing is incredibly skilled;" critic Martin Popoff in writing for The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal called Wrong the band's best album and rated the album 10 out of 10 points. The band's extensive touring in support of the record is documented in part on the Live + Cuddly album, recorded in Holland in 1990. John Wright later reported that circa 1990 the band became profitable enough that "we didn't have to have day jobs."
The band released a collaborative LP with Biafra, The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy, in 1991. Shortly thereafter, they issued 0 + 2 = 1, their fifth album and final release with Kerr. In a mixed review, AllMusic critic Adam Bregman praised 0 + 2 = 1 for its finer moments, but was concerned by its overall length and ponderousness.
Kerr departed the band after touring in support of the record and emigrated to the Netherlands. He went on to release two LPs with Hissanol, a collaboration with Scott Henderson of Shovlhed. He subsequently released a solo album in 1997 before forming the duo Two Pin Din with Wilf Plum of Dog Faced Hermans in 2005.
Side projects, Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? (1992–1993)
The Wright brothers had begun to focus on their side project, The Hanson Brothers. Dressing as a mock group of backward Canadian ice hockey players and fans, they derived the band's name and personae from a group of characters in the 1977 George Roy Hill film Slap Shot starring Paul Newman. With John acting as lead vocalist, the Wright brothers were joined by guitarist Tom Holliston of the Showbusiness Giants and drummer Ken Jensen of D.O.A. With encouragement from Alternative Tentacles to record an LP, The Hanson Brothers issued the Gross Misconduct album in 1992.
The Wright brothers also remained active with other endeavors. Rob Wright began performing as a solo artist under the name Mr. Wrong, appearing as a character dressed as an authoritarian priest. John Wright became a member of D.O.A. for several years. The brothers also continued to expand Wrong Records, their own imprint.
In 1993, the brothers assembled material for a sixth Nomeansno LP and recorded Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? as a duo. AllMusic critic Ned Raggett later praised the album's balance, arguing that it reached dark and sinister depths while also exhibiting subtler and more introspective moments. The Wrights also compiled the collection Mr. Right & Mr. Wrong: One Down & Two to Go, comprising early demos, studio outtakes, and additional material, which was released on Wrong the following year.
With Tom Holliston, Worldhood of the World (As Such), Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie (1993–1999)
For touring in support of Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy?, Nomeansno assembled their first four-piece lineup, completed by Hanson Brothers guitarist Holliston and second drummer Ken Kempster. Holliston replaced Kerr as their full-time guitarist, while Kempster went on to tour sporadically with Nomeansno over the next four years.
The first Nomeansno album to feature Holliston was The Worldhood of the World (As Such), released in 1995. Receiving its title from philosopher Martin Heidegger's seminal text Being and Time, the album featured simpler and more melodic songs than its predecessors while nonetheless retaining the band's "taste for blood and gristle." After focusing briefly on the Hanson Brothers and releasing their second LP, Sudden Death, Nomeansno followed with the EPs Would We Be Alive? and In the Fishtank 1, each featuring a cover of "Would We Be Alive?" by The Residents.
Their eighth studio album, the double LP Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie, was released in 1998. The album featured some of the band's longest songs, including its title track. The album received mixed, but generally positive, reviews. In a retrospective review, AllMusic critic Tom Schulte praised the album in its experimental tone as "dark and unforgettable, poignant and cutting." A critic writing for The A.V. Club, however, dismissed the album as "dull, meandering punk" and likened the band pejoratively to Rush.
One, All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt (2000–2006)
The band issued its final Alternative Tentacles album, One, in 2000. Featuring a slow stoner rock cover of The Ramones's "Beat on the Brat" and a fifteen-minute version of Miles Davis's "Bitches Brew" with electric piano and congas, the album was well received. AllMusic's Schulte assessed the album as "intense and heavy collegiate punk" as praised it as the band's finest effort since Wrong. Three outtakes from the album were also issued as the Generic Shame EP on Wrong.
The band left Alternative Tentacles in 2002, and began slowly reissuing their back catalogue through Wrong and distributors Southern Records. With new drummer Ernie Hawkins, The Hanson Brothers released their third album, My Game, later that year. Nomeansno continued touring extensively, but ultimately took six years to release their next album. In the meantime, they issued the best-of compilation The People's Choice.
Their tenth studio album, All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt, was released on August 22, 2006, by AntAcidAudio in the United States and Southern in Europe. AllMusic critic Jo-Ann Greene praised the album's exhausting diversity as befitting of the band's legacy and career-spanning accomplishments. Greene wrote that with the record Nomeansno travel "yet again through the undergrowth and underbelly of the rock realm, and with all the piss and vinegar that they started out with a quarter century ago."
Later years, retirement (2007–2016)
The band toured frequently in the years that followed, but ceased recording albums. Fang drummer Mike Branum joined The Hanson Brothers in 2008. In 2010, Nomeansno digitally released outtakes and demos from the 0 + 2 = 1 sessions as 0 + 2 = 1 ½. They next released two four-track EPs, Tour EP 1 (alternatively known as Old) and Tour EP 2 (alternatively Jubilation). They continued performing live through 2013, and toured as The Hanson Brothers in the following year with Byron Slack on drums, but entered a hiatus thereafter.
Holliston continued to perform with The Showbusiness Giants and release solo albums, while John Wright began working as musical director for the all-robot rock band Compressorhead. In 2015, Nomeansno was inducted into the Western Canadian Music Hall of Fame. They played an acoustic set at the awards ceremony, and a Ramones cover set (with Slack on drums) on New Year's Eve, which became their final public appearances. Holliston announced his departure from the band in August 2016. On September 24, John Wright announced the band's official retirement.
In 2021, Wrong was named the public vote winner of the Polaris Heritage Prize at the 2021 Polaris Music Prize.
Band members
Rob Wright – bass, vocals, guitar (1979–2016)
John Wright – drums, vocals, keyboards (1979–2016)
Andy Kerr – guitar, vocals, bass (1983–1992)
Tom Holliston – guitar, vocals (1993–2016)
Ken Kempster – drums (1993–1997)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Mama (1982)
Sex Mad (1986)
Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed (1988)
Wrong (1989)
0 + 2 = 1 (1991)
Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? (1993)
The Worldhood of the World (As Such) (1995)
Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie (1998)
One (2000)
All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt (2006)
Collaborative albums
The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy (with Jello Biafra) (1991)
Live albums
Live + Cuddly (1991)
EPs
Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred (1981)
You Kill Me (1985)
The Day Everything Became Nothing (1988)
The Power of Positive Thinking (1990)
Would We Be Alive? (1996)
In the Fishtank 1 (1996)
Generic Shame (2001)
Tour EP 1 (2010)
Tour EP 2 (2010)
Singles
"Look, Here Come the Wormies / SS Social Service" (split with Mass Appeal) (1980)
"Dad/Revenge" (1987)
"Oh, Canaduh" (1991)
Compilations
The Day Everything Became Isolated and Destroyed (1988)
Sex Mad/You Kill Me (1991)
Mr. Right & Mr. Wrong: One Down & Two to Go (1994)
The People's Choice (2004)
0 + 2 = 1 ½ (2010)
Bootlegs
Live at the Paradiso Amsterdam – bootleg – VPRO Radio station recording (1988)
Live in Warsaw – bootleg cassette (1990)
Sasquatch – The Man, The Myth, The Compilation – includes cover tracks "I Don't Care" and "Glad All Over" (1991)
Where are they now file - live compilation, includes "I Want it All" (1991)
The Infamous Scientist 45" – bootleg 7" (1993)
Leave the Seaside – live bootleg 7" (1994)
Compilation appearances
It Came from the Pit (1986)
Random Thought: A Victoria Sampler (Volumes 1 & 2) – includes, "Getting Colder", "Burn" and "Love Thang" (1986)
Oops! Wrong Stereotype (Alternative Tentacles compilation) (1988)
Terminal City Ricochet (soundtrack Terminal City Ricochet movie) (1990)
Clam Chowder & Ice Vs. Big Macs and Bombers (1992)
Virus 100 (a cappella version of Dead Kennedys song, "Forward to Death") (1992)
Over a Century of Vivisection and Anti-Vivisection (How Much Longer?) – Includes the 1981 Mama outtake, "No Means No" (1992)
The Making of Allied One Two Three (1995)
Basement Tapes: A KSPC Compilation of Live Recordings – includes "I Don't Want To Go Down To The Basement" (1995)
Short Music for Short People (1999)
Sex With Nothing (2002)
Fubar: The Album (2002)
All Your Ears Can Hear (2007)
Videography
Would We Be...Live? (Live footage of Nomeansno and The Hanson Brothers, filmed in London, on DVD) (2004)
We Played At Squats (Portrait about Nomeansno and The Hanson Brothers, produced in Austria, on DVD) (2014)
See also
List of bands from Canada
References
External links
Nomeansno discography
1979 establishments in British Columbia
2016 disestablishments in British Columbia
Alternative Tentacles artists
Musical groups established in 1979
Musical groups disestablished in 2016
Musical groups from Vancouver
Canadian hardcore punk groups
Canadian post-hardcore musical groups
Sibling musical groups | false | [
"Littlenobody, founded by Karen Penman, is a small animation collective working from the South East of England.\n\nLittlenobody Productions specialise in animation and have screened projects in competition at Bradford Animation Festival, Encounters Film Festival, Northern Lights Film Festival and Interfilm Berlin as well as Clermont-Ferrands Film market.\n\nRepresented by Ouat Media in Canada, with projects sold to A-one Films and The Short Film Channel Movieola.\n\nLittlenobody were shortlisted down to the final 12 for the Virgin Media short competition meaning their first animated short What Cassandra Saw is BBFC certificated is screening in 212 cinemas UK wide from July 2008 till July 2009. Littlenobody won the 4TALENT animation award for 2008 and featured in a double page spread in the 4Talent Magazine.\n\nThey were runners up in the 4mations Digital shorts South East Funding Scheme and completed Weather Beaten their second animated short for the Commonwealth Vision awards 2009, Final 10 in competition.\n\nMost recently they have been awarded funding for their latest stop motion animated short I Wish I Were an Elephant from the UK Film Council, New Cinema Fund, Digital Shorts Scheme via regional screen agency Screen East.\n\nLittlenobody Projects to date \n\nI Wish I Were an Elephant - Funded by Screen East & UK Film Council - September 2011\nBallad of a Poor Man - Music Video for Vaughn King - December 2009\nMagpie - Short Film - September 2009\nWeather Beaten - Short Film for Commonwealth Vision Awards - January 2009\nEvery Time I close my Eyes - Music Video for Clare Blackman - December 2008\nTwo Times, Three Times for - Music Video for Reason or Romanza - April 2008\nInterduvet Yarns - Music Video for Hybernation - November 2007\nWhat Cassandra Saw - Short Film - September 2007\nYeah, You can me my Muse - Music Video for Amplifico - August 2007\nVisual for multimedia events - Shoplands with Sutton - July 2007\nThou Shalt Always Kill - Music Video for Dan le sac vs Scroobius Pip - April 2007\nMusic monkeys - Music Video for BB Music House - August 2006\nShowreel Littlenobody For 2008\n\nLittlenobody Festivals, Awards and Screenings to date \n\nCambridge Film Festival 31st 2011 - EM Media Digital Shorts - I Wish I Were an Elephant\nAnimated Encounters 16th International Film Festival 2010 - Channel 4 Industry screening - I Wish I Were an Elephant\nNozstock Festival 2010 - Thou Shalt Always Kill & Interduvet Yarns, Herefordshire\n4Talent Animation Award Channel 4 - 2008\nFinal 12 Virgin Media Shorts 2008 - What Cassandra Saw - Year tour in over 212 cinemas on 35mm\nLondon Socialist Film Co-op screening 2008 - Thou Shalt Always Kill\nSundown Multimedia Night 2008 - What Cassandra Saw & Interduvet Yarns\nZEBRA Poetry Berlin Film Festival 2008 - Interduvet Yarns\nSouthend Six Festival 2008 - What Cassandra Saw\nClermont-Ferrand Shorts Market 2008 - What Cassandra Saw & Thou shalt Always Kill\nNorthern Lights Film Festival 2007 - What Cassandra Saw\nEnvy Post - Industry screening 2007 - Thou Shalt Always Kill\nInterfilm Berlin 2007 - Thou Shalt Always Kill\nEncounters Bristol Short Film Festival 2007 - Thou Shalt Always Kill\nThe National Media Museum Bradford Animation Film Festival 2007 - Thou Shalt Always Kill,\nSutton with Shoplands in Rochford Festival 2007 - Visuals\nLFS Leigh-on-Sea Film Society Film Festival 2007 - Thou Shalt Always Kill\n\nReviews \n\nThe 4Talent Animation Award was judged by Ruth Fielding, Lupus Films and animation consultant to Channel 4, and Helen Brunsdon, Development Executive at Aardman who said regarding Littlenobody's portfolio “Stand out work with a real wow-factor. Impressive and diverse use of techniques and an ability to challenge the viewer and themselves. Given a chance and some decent budgets, you just know these two talented animators are going to go on to bigger and better things. We were also very impressed by their ability to self promote via their website.”.\n\nIan Lumsden World animation blogger adds \"I first noticed their music video Thou Shalt Always Kill when I previewed the weekend's BAF 07. It was most professionally done. I was therefore impressed to discover it was produced by a fledgling studio. Also surprising is the diversity of work produced in a short period of time .........Sometimes the combination of live action and animation jars. This is decidedly not the case here. Filters, excellent lighting, interesting camera angles and stop motion techniques, together with animated twinkling effects lead naturally into the interspersed animated sections. Their website is developing apace and belies its short life........A perfect blend of traditional animation and eye popping contemporary film-making. Karen is a fizzing PR machine and it helps if you have quality to sell because they are pretty special in that department too .....There is a beauty bestowed on the scene and always there is an edgy magic to the production. An imaginative, original approach.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \nI Wish I Were an Elephant - Blog\nLittlenobody double page spread in 4Talent Magazine\nBBFC certificate What Cassandra Saw\n4talent Magazine\nVirgin Media Shorts - Shortlist\nLondon Socialist Film Co-operative\nSundown Multimedia\nBerlin Poetry Film Festival\nSouthend 6 Festival\nWhat Cassandra Saw - Clermont Ferrad Film Festival page\nThou Shalt Always Kill - Clermont Ferrad Film Festival page\nNorthern Lights Film Festival\nEnvy Post Production House\nInterfilm Berlin\nEncounters Film Festival\nNational Media Museum\nSutton with Shoplands Festival\nLeigh Film Society\nIan Lumsden Animation Blog\n\nBritish animation studios\n2004 establishments in England",
"Miss Willie Brown was an American country music duo consisting of Amanda Watkins and Kasey Buckley, who are respectively natives of West Virginia and Texas but met in California. They are signed to A&M/Octone Records, to which they were the first group signed.\n\nThe duo performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2011 before their signing. Afterward, they began working with producer Keith Stegall on their debut album. They also toured with Dierks Bentley and Josh Thompson and released a self-titled extended play. Debut single \"Sick of Me\" did not enter the charts, but its followup, \"You're All That Matters to Me\", was made into a music video and charted in August 2012. Miss Willie Brown performed \"You're All That Matters to Me\" and \"Sick of Me\" on The CW's Hart of Dixie on April 9, 2012 in the episode \"Always on My Mind\".\n\nOn April 16, 2013, the duo announced on their Facebook page that they were dissolving the group with Watkins pursuing a solo career and Buckley taking a break from music.\n\nDiscography\n\nExtended plays\n\nSingles\n\nMusic videos\n\nReferences\n\nA&M Records artists\nCountry music groups from Tennessee\nCountry music duos\nMusical groups from Nashville, Tennessee\nMusical groups established in 2011\nMusical groups disestablished in 2013\n2011 establishments in Tennessee"
] |
[
"Nomeansno",
"Early years as two-piece, Mama (1979-1982)",
"where did the group first come together",
"rehearsing in their parents' basement in 1979,",
"did school cause the breakup",
"I don't know.",
"did any members leave on good terms",
"I don't know.",
"Did they ever try other forms of music",
"The brothers began performing live as a bass-and-drums duo in 1981.",
"Did they ever have dreams of tourning",
"They were inspired to play punk rock after seeing D.O.A. perform at the University of Victoria.",
"Were they always into music",
"younger brother John, eight years his junior, played drums in the school jazz band."
] | C_0c375df1b7874f38a2530ccfccb1d6e1_1 | did they have a back up plan if music fell thru | 7 | Did Nomeansno have a back up plan if music fell through? | Nomeansno | In 1979 and at age 25, Rob Wright returned to his family's home in Victoria after studying in Calgary. His younger brother John, eight years his junior, played drums in the school jazz band. They were inspired to play punk rock after seeing D.O.A. perform at the University of Victoria. The two began rehearsing in their parents' basement in 1979, and took the name Nomeansno from an anti-date rape slogan. They also briefly gigged as the rhythm section for the local cover band Castle. Nomeansno recorded its earliest material in the months that followed on a TASCAM four-track recorder, with Rob playing electric guitar and bass, John playing keyboards and drums, and both brothers singing. Some of these recordings were issued as their first two self-released 7"s, the "Look, Here Come the Wormies / SS Social Service" single (a 1980 split with another short-lived Wright brothers project, Mass Appeal), and the Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred EP of 1981. The brothers began performing live as a bass-and-drums duo in 1981. Their sound developed without a guitar, and John Wright later reflected on these developments: ...without a guitar player you can't rely on the standard hooks that punk rock and rock n' roll in general relies on. The guitar player - the guitar god quote unquote - was such a focus for so long that by the nature of not having a guitar player, the bass and the drums have to do a lot more. It also makes the vocals more important, or at least it makes a lot more room for the vocals. You don't have guitar solos, you don't have the wash of high end. And the things you do on the drums are different, if you just did a straight four beat on the drums it would get kinda dull after awhile. It isn't as though bass guitar hasn't been a prominent instrument at times in other bands but it made us approach things differently, our song structure couldn't just be verse-chorus-verse. It had everything to do with how our sound got off to a unique start. Some of the songs they played in this period were released on the Mama LP of 1982, which was self-released in a limited pressing. Writing for Trouser Press, critic Ira Robbins described Mama and the early 7"s as "Devo on a jazz trip, Motorhead after art school, or Wire on psychotic steroids." This same year, John Wright also joined the Victoria punk band The Infamous Scientists. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Nomeansno (sometimes stylized as NoMeansNo or spelled No Means No) was a Canadian punk rock band formed in Victoria, British Columbia and later relocated to Vancouver. They issued 11 albums, including a collaborative album with Jello Biafra, as well as numerous EPs and singles. Critic Martin Popoff described their music as "the mightiest merger between the hateful aggression of punk and the discipline of heavy metal." Nomeansno's distinct hardcore punk sound, complex instrumentation, and dark, "savagely intelligent" lyrics inspired subsequent musicians. They are often considered foundational in the punk jazz and post-hardcore movements, and have been cited as a formative influence on the math rock and emo genres.
Formed in 1979 by brothers Rob and John Wright, the group began as a two-piece punk band influenced by jazz and progressive rock. They self-released their debut Mama LP in 1982. Adding guitarist Andy Kerr the following year, the group signed with the Alternative Tentacles imprint and continued to expand their audience. Kerr departed in 1992 after five LPs with the band, and the group returned to its two-piece formation for the Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? album.
Guitarist Tom Holliston, and briefly second drummer Ken Kempster, joined in 1993, and Nomeansno continued touring and recording extensively while operating their own Wrong Records label. After three further LPs, they left Alternative Tentacles and issued their final album, All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt, in 2006. They were inducted into the Western Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2015, and announced their retirement the following year.
History
Early years as two-piece, Mama (1979–1982)
In 1979 and at age 25, Rob Wright returned to his family's home in Victoria after studying in Calgary. John Wright, Rob's younger brother by eight years, played drums in the school jazz band, and the two were inspired to play punk rock after seeing D.O.A. perform at the University of Victoria. They began rehearsing in their parents' basement in 1979, and took the name Nomeansno from an anti-date rape slogan. They also briefly gigged as the rhythm section for the local cover band Castle.
Nomeansno recorded its earliest material in the months that followed on a TASCAM four-track recorder, with Rob playing electric guitar and bass, John playing keyboards and drums, and both brothers singing. Some of these recordings were issued as their first two self-released 7"s, the "Look, Here Come the Wormies / SS Social Service" single (a 1980 split with Mass Appeal, whose recording lineup featured both Wright Brothers), and the Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred EP of 1981.
The brothers began performing live as a bass-and-drums duo in 1981. Their sound developed without a guitar, and John Wright later reflected on these developments:
Some of the songs they played in this period were released on the Mama LP, which was self-released in a limited pressing in 1982. Writing for Trouser Press, critic Ira Robbins described Mama and the early 7"s as "Devo on a jazz trip, Motörhead after art school, or Wire on psychotic steroids." This same year, John Wright also joined the Victoria punk band The Infamous Scientists.
With Andy Kerr, You Kill Me, Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed (1983–1989)
The Infamous Scientists disbanded in 1983, and their guitarist and vocalist Andy Kerr joined Nomeansno several months later. Kerr brought a distinct hardcore punk edge to Nomeansno's sound, creating a buzz-saw guitar tone by playing through a Fender Bassman amplifier and a P.A. speaker. Nomeansno became a fixture in the British Columbia punk scene despite playing music that did not always conform to punk rock standards. The You Kill Me EP in 1985 on the Undergrowth Records imprint exhibited their experimental sound on dark and ponderous songs like "Body Bag" and a cover of "Manic Depression" by Jimi Hendrix. The three also began performing Ramones covers and more traditional punk music as The Hanson Brothers, a side project that would later receive more of their attention.
Issued initially by the Montreal punk label Psyche Industry, the band released Sex Mad, their second LP and first with Kerr. The album further expanded the band's experimental and progressive punk sound, yielding the single "Dad". The song was a minor college radio hit, which AllMusic reviewer Adam Bregman called "a bit chilling, even though it's spit out at slam-pit's pace". Kerr, the song's lead vocalist, increasingly became responsible for lead vocals as Rob Wright suffered from nodules on his vocal cords.
They soon signed with the seminal punk rock label Alternative Tentacles, run by Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys. This, along with frequent touring in North America and Europe, helped the band to garner a larger audience. In 1988, the group issued two releases recorded with producer Cecil English: The Day Everything Became Nothing EP and the Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed album. Alternative Tentacles compiled the two together on a single CD, The Day Everything Became Isolated and Destroyed. AllMusic reviewer Sean Carruthers called the experimental recordings "less aggressive" than, but nonetheless worthy of, the band's previous efforts.
Wrong, 0 + 2 = 1, Kerr's departure (1989–1992)
Rob Wright's vocal cords began to heal, and he again began acting as the group's lead vocalist. In 1989, the band issued their fourth album, Wrong, to wide critical acclaim. For AllMusic, Carruthers wrote that "[t]he playing is incredibly skilled;" critic Martin Popoff in writing for The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal called Wrong the band's best album and rated the album 10 out of 10 points. The band's extensive touring in support of the record is documented in part on the Live + Cuddly album, recorded in Holland in 1990. John Wright later reported that circa 1990 the band became profitable enough that "we didn't have to have day jobs."
The band released a collaborative LP with Biafra, The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy, in 1991. Shortly thereafter, they issued 0 + 2 = 1, their fifth album and final release with Kerr. In a mixed review, AllMusic critic Adam Bregman praised 0 + 2 = 1 for its finer moments, but was concerned by its overall length and ponderousness.
Kerr departed the band after touring in support of the record and emigrated to the Netherlands. He went on to release two LPs with Hissanol, a collaboration with Scott Henderson of Shovlhed. He subsequently released a solo album in 1997 before forming the duo Two Pin Din with Wilf Plum of Dog Faced Hermans in 2005.
Side projects, Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? (1992–1993)
The Wright brothers had begun to focus on their side project, The Hanson Brothers. Dressing as a mock group of backward Canadian ice hockey players and fans, they derived the band's name and personae from a group of characters in the 1977 George Roy Hill film Slap Shot starring Paul Newman. With John acting as lead vocalist, the Wright brothers were joined by guitarist Tom Holliston of the Showbusiness Giants and drummer Ken Jensen of D.O.A. With encouragement from Alternative Tentacles to record an LP, The Hanson Brothers issued the Gross Misconduct album in 1992.
The Wright brothers also remained active with other endeavors. Rob Wright began performing as a solo artist under the name Mr. Wrong, appearing as a character dressed as an authoritarian priest. John Wright became a member of D.O.A. for several years. The brothers also continued to expand Wrong Records, their own imprint.
In 1993, the brothers assembled material for a sixth Nomeansno LP and recorded Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? as a duo. AllMusic critic Ned Raggett later praised the album's balance, arguing that it reached dark and sinister depths while also exhibiting subtler and more introspective moments. The Wrights also compiled the collection Mr. Right & Mr. Wrong: One Down & Two to Go, comprising early demos, studio outtakes, and additional material, which was released on Wrong the following year.
With Tom Holliston, Worldhood of the World (As Such), Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie (1993–1999)
For touring in support of Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy?, Nomeansno assembled their first four-piece lineup, completed by Hanson Brothers guitarist Holliston and second drummer Ken Kempster. Holliston replaced Kerr as their full-time guitarist, while Kempster went on to tour sporadically with Nomeansno over the next four years.
The first Nomeansno album to feature Holliston was The Worldhood of the World (As Such), released in 1995. Receiving its title from philosopher Martin Heidegger's seminal text Being and Time, the album featured simpler and more melodic songs than its predecessors while nonetheless retaining the band's "taste for blood and gristle." After focusing briefly on the Hanson Brothers and releasing their second LP, Sudden Death, Nomeansno followed with the EPs Would We Be Alive? and In the Fishtank 1, each featuring a cover of "Would We Be Alive?" by The Residents.
Their eighth studio album, the double LP Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie, was released in 1998. The album featured some of the band's longest songs, including its title track. The album received mixed, but generally positive, reviews. In a retrospective review, AllMusic critic Tom Schulte praised the album in its experimental tone as "dark and unforgettable, poignant and cutting." A critic writing for The A.V. Club, however, dismissed the album as "dull, meandering punk" and likened the band pejoratively to Rush.
One, All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt (2000–2006)
The band issued its final Alternative Tentacles album, One, in 2000. Featuring a slow stoner rock cover of The Ramones's "Beat on the Brat" and a fifteen-minute version of Miles Davis's "Bitches Brew" with electric piano and congas, the album was well received. AllMusic's Schulte assessed the album as "intense and heavy collegiate punk" as praised it as the band's finest effort since Wrong. Three outtakes from the album were also issued as the Generic Shame EP on Wrong.
The band left Alternative Tentacles in 2002, and began slowly reissuing their back catalogue through Wrong and distributors Southern Records. With new drummer Ernie Hawkins, The Hanson Brothers released their third album, My Game, later that year. Nomeansno continued touring extensively, but ultimately took six years to release their next album. In the meantime, they issued the best-of compilation The People's Choice.
Their tenth studio album, All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt, was released on August 22, 2006, by AntAcidAudio in the United States and Southern in Europe. AllMusic critic Jo-Ann Greene praised the album's exhausting diversity as befitting of the band's legacy and career-spanning accomplishments. Greene wrote that with the record Nomeansno travel "yet again through the undergrowth and underbelly of the rock realm, and with all the piss and vinegar that they started out with a quarter century ago."
Later years, retirement (2007–2016)
The band toured frequently in the years that followed, but ceased recording albums. Fang drummer Mike Branum joined The Hanson Brothers in 2008. In 2010, Nomeansno digitally released outtakes and demos from the 0 + 2 = 1 sessions as 0 + 2 = 1 ½. They next released two four-track EPs, Tour EP 1 (alternatively known as Old) and Tour EP 2 (alternatively Jubilation). They continued performing live through 2013, and toured as The Hanson Brothers in the following year with Byron Slack on drums, but entered a hiatus thereafter.
Holliston continued to perform with The Showbusiness Giants and release solo albums, while John Wright began working as musical director for the all-robot rock band Compressorhead. In 2015, Nomeansno was inducted into the Western Canadian Music Hall of Fame. They played an acoustic set at the awards ceremony, and a Ramones cover set (with Slack on drums) on New Year's Eve, which became their final public appearances. Holliston announced his departure from the band in August 2016. On September 24, John Wright announced the band's official retirement.
In 2021, Wrong was named the public vote winner of the Polaris Heritage Prize at the 2021 Polaris Music Prize.
Band members
Rob Wright – bass, vocals, guitar (1979–2016)
John Wright – drums, vocals, keyboards (1979–2016)
Andy Kerr – guitar, vocals, bass (1983–1992)
Tom Holliston – guitar, vocals (1993–2016)
Ken Kempster – drums (1993–1997)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
Mama (1982)
Sex Mad (1986)
Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed (1988)
Wrong (1989)
0 + 2 = 1 (1991)
Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? (1993)
The Worldhood of the World (As Such) (1995)
Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie (1998)
One (2000)
All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt (2006)
Collaborative albums
The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy (with Jello Biafra) (1991)
Live albums
Live + Cuddly (1991)
EPs
Betrayal, Fear, Anger, Hatred (1981)
You Kill Me (1985)
The Day Everything Became Nothing (1988)
The Power of Positive Thinking (1990)
Would We Be Alive? (1996)
In the Fishtank 1 (1996)
Generic Shame (2001)
Tour EP 1 (2010)
Tour EP 2 (2010)
Singles
"Look, Here Come the Wormies / SS Social Service" (split with Mass Appeal) (1980)
"Dad/Revenge" (1987)
"Oh, Canaduh" (1991)
Compilations
The Day Everything Became Isolated and Destroyed (1988)
Sex Mad/You Kill Me (1991)
Mr. Right & Mr. Wrong: One Down & Two to Go (1994)
The People's Choice (2004)
0 + 2 = 1 ½ (2010)
Bootlegs
Live at the Paradiso Amsterdam – bootleg – VPRO Radio station recording (1988)
Live in Warsaw – bootleg cassette (1990)
Sasquatch – The Man, The Myth, The Compilation – includes cover tracks "I Don't Care" and "Glad All Over" (1991)
Where are they now file - live compilation, includes "I Want it All" (1991)
The Infamous Scientist 45" – bootleg 7" (1993)
Leave the Seaside – live bootleg 7" (1994)
Compilation appearances
It Came from the Pit (1986)
Random Thought: A Victoria Sampler (Volumes 1 & 2) – includes, "Getting Colder", "Burn" and "Love Thang" (1986)
Oops! Wrong Stereotype (Alternative Tentacles compilation) (1988)
Terminal City Ricochet (soundtrack Terminal City Ricochet movie) (1990)
Clam Chowder & Ice Vs. Big Macs and Bombers (1992)
Virus 100 (a cappella version of Dead Kennedys song, "Forward to Death") (1992)
Over a Century of Vivisection and Anti-Vivisection (How Much Longer?) – Includes the 1981 Mama outtake, "No Means No" (1992)
The Making of Allied One Two Three (1995)
Basement Tapes: A KSPC Compilation of Live Recordings – includes "I Don't Want To Go Down To The Basement" (1995)
Short Music for Short People (1999)
Sex With Nothing (2002)
Fubar: The Album (2002)
All Your Ears Can Hear (2007)
Videography
Would We Be...Live? (Live footage of Nomeansno and The Hanson Brothers, filmed in London, on DVD) (2004)
We Played At Squats (Portrait about Nomeansno and The Hanson Brothers, produced in Austria, on DVD) (2014)
See also
List of bands from Canada
References
External links
Nomeansno discography
1979 establishments in British Columbia
2016 disestablishments in British Columbia
Alternative Tentacles artists
Musical groups established in 1979
Musical groups disestablished in 2016
Musical groups from Vancouver
Canadian hardcore punk groups
Canadian post-hardcore musical groups
Sibling musical groups | false | [
"\"I Ain't Thru\" is a song by American singer Keyshia Cole. It features Trinidadian rapper Nicki Minaj rapping the second verse of the song. Written by Cole, Minaj and Russell Gonzalez, the up-tempo hip hop/R&B song is the lead single taken from Cole's fourth studio album Calling All Hearts (2010). The song's lyrics revolve around Cole trying to do her own thing well while maintaining ignorance toward people who are against her. It was produced by The ARE and Ron Fair as Cole's 'statement record'.\n\nIt was released for digital download in the United States on December 7, 2010. \"I Ain't Thru\" was described by critics as the most grit-flecked Cole has ever sounded. It was moderately successful across the airplay formats as it debuted on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart at number 78 on November 18, 2010. In subsequent weeks, the single peaked at number 54. An accompanying music video for \"I Ain't Thru\", directed by Benny Boom, was premiered on November 12, 2010 alongside the music video for follow-up single \"Long Way Down\".\n\nBackground and meaning\nCole described \"I Ain't Thru\" as a \"statement single\". During an interview with Associated Press, Cole admitted that she should not have released 'I Ain't Thru' as the lead single. She stated, “The label didn’t really want to drop the record because they knew … that people wanted a more intense, soulful record from me about love and I really should have followed (their) direction,” she said. “But I wanted that to be a statement record. It’s like saying, ‘I’m doing me, you know. I don’t have no regrets for nothing that I’m doing.’” Some speculate that Minaj's verse in the song is a diss at Lil' Kim, with lines like \"I took the spot, She's Gone. Poof!\" being subliminal and direct at the rapper.\n\nMusic video\nThe video premiered on November 12, 2010. The production of the video was shot in Los Angeles. The visual was overseen by Benny Boom.\n\nTrack listing and formats \n US standard digital download\n \"I Ain't Thru\" (Featuring Nicki Minaj) (Clean or Explicit) - 3:59\n\n US and Canadian Mega-Deluxe EP\n \"I Ain't Thru\" (Explicit Version featuring Nicki Minaj) - 3:59\n \"I Ain't Thru\" (Clean Version featuring Nicki Minaj) - 3:59\n \"I Ain't Thru\" (Explicit Leak Mix featuring Nicki Minaj) - 4:04\n \"I Ain't Thru\" (Clean Leak Mix featuring Nicki Minaj) - 4:04\n \"I Ain't Thru\" (Video) - 4:08\n\nCharts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2010 singles\nKeyshia Cole songs\nNicki Minaj songs\nSongs written by Nicki Minaj\nMusic videos directed by Benny Boom\nHip hop songs\nSong recordings produced by Ron Fair\nSongs written by Keyshia Cole\n2010 songs",
"Oliver Lake (born September 14, 1942) is an American jazz saxophonist, flutist, composer, poet, and visual artist. He is known mainly for alto saxophone, but he also performs on soprano and flute. During the 1960s, Lake worked with the Black Artists Group in St. Louis. In 1977, he founded the World Saxophone Quartet with David Murray, Julius Hemphill, and Hamiet Bluiett. He has worked in the group Trio 3 with Reggie Workman and Andrew Cyrille. He has appeared on more than 80 albums as a bandleader, co-leader, and side musician. He is the father of drummer Gene Lake. Lake has been a resident of Montclair, New Jersey.\n\nAwards and honors\n Guggenheim Fellowship (1993)\n Mellon Jazz Living Legacy Award (2006)\n Doris Duke Performing Artist Award (2014)\n\nDiscography\n\nAs leader\n Heavy Spirits (Arista/Freedom, 1975)\n Passing Thru (Passin' Thru, 1974)\n Holding Together (Black Saint, 1976)\n NTU: Point from Which Creation Begins (Arista/Freedom, 1976)\n Buster Bee (Sackville, 1978)\n Life Dance of Is (Arista Novus, 1978)\n Shine! (Arista Novus, 1979)\n Clevont Fitzhubert (Black Saint, 1981)\n Prophet (Black Saint, 1981)\n Jump Up (Gramavision, 1982)\n Plug It (Gramavision, 1983)\n Expandable Language (Black Saint, 1985)\n Gallery (Gramavision, 1986)\n Dancevision (Blue Heron, 1986)\n Impala (Gramavision, 1987)\n Otherside (Gramavision, 1988)\n Again and Again (Gramavision, 1991)\n Boston Duets (Music & Arts, 1992)\n Virtual Reality (Total Escapism) (Gazell, 1992)\n Zaki (hat ART, 1992)\n Edge-ing (Black Saint, 1994)\n Dedicated to Dolphy (Black Saint, 1996)\n Matador of 1st & 1st (Passin' Thru, 1996)\n Movement, Turns & Switches (Passin' Thru, 1997)\n Kinda' Up (Justin Time, 2000)\n Talkin' Stick (Passin' Thru, 2000)\n Have Yourself a Merry... (Passin' Thru, 2001)\n Cloth (Passin' Thru, 2003)\n Dat Love (Passin' Thru, 2004)\n Live (Passin' Thru, 2005)\n Urban Rumination (Metaphysical, 2005)\n Lake/Tchicai/Osgood/Westergaard (Passin' Thru, 2006)\n Makin' It (Passin' Thru, 2008)\n For a Little Dancin (Intakt, 2010)\n Plan (Passin' Thru, 2010)\n Lakes at the Stone (Passin' Thru, 2011)\n Wheels (Passin' Thru, 2013)\n All Decks (Intakt, 2013)\n What I Heard (Passin' Thru, 2014)\n To Roy (Intakt, 2015)\n Live at the Downtown Music Gallery NYC (2016)\n Right Up On (Passin' Thru, 2017)\n\nWith Trio 3\n Live in Willisau (Dizim, 1997)\n Encounter (Passin' Thru, 2000)\n Open Ideas (Palmetto, 2002)\n Time Being (Intakt, 2006)\n Wha's Nine (Marge, 2008)\n At This Time (Intakt, 2009)\n Berne Concert (Intakt, 2009)\n Celebrating Mary Lou Williams Live at Birdland New York (Intakt, 2011)\n Refraction – Breakin' Glass (Intakt, 2013)\n Wiring (Intakt, 2014)\n Visiting Texture (Intakt, 2017)\n\nAs sideman\nWith Björk\n Debut (One Little Indian, 1993)\n Celebrating Wood and Metal (MTV, 1997)\n Surrounded (One Little Indian, 2006)\n\nWith World Saxophone Quartet\n Point of No Return (Moers Music, 1977)\n Steppin' with the World Saxophone Quartet (Black Saint, 1979)\n W.S.Q. (Black Saint, 1981)\n Revue (Black Saint, 1982)\n Live in Zurich (Black Saint, 1984)\n Live at Brooklyn Academy of Music (Black Saint, 1986)\n Plays Duke Ellington (Elektra Nonesuch, 1986)\n Dances and Ballads (Elektra Nonesuch, 1987)\n Rhythm and Blues (Elektra Musician, 1989)\n Metamorphosis (Elektra Nonesuch, 1991)\n Moving Right Along (Black Saint, 1994)\n Breath of Life (Elektra Nonesuch, 1994)\n Takin' It 2 the Next Level (Justin Time, 1996)\n Four Now (Justin Time, 1996)\n Selim Sivad: a Tribute to Miles Davis (Justin Time, 1998)\n M'Bizo (Justin Time, 1999)\n Requiem for Julius (Justin Time, 2000)\n 25th Anniversary: The New Chapter (Justin Time, 2001)\n Steppenwolf (Justin Time, 2002)\n Experience (Justin Time, 2004)\n Political Blues (Justin Time, 2006)\n\nWith others\n Pheeroan Aklaff, Global Mantras (ModernMasters, 1998)\n Karl Berger, Live at the Donaueschingen Music Festival (MPS, 1980)\n Karl Berger, New Moon (Palcoscenico, 1980)\n Borah Bergman, A New Organization (Soul Note, 1999)\n Samuel Blaser, Early in the Morning (Outnote, 2018)\n Joseph Bowie, Joseph Bowie & Oliver Lake (Sackville, 1976)\n Anthony Braxton, New York, Fall 1974 (Arista, 1975)\n Alex Cline, For People in Sorrow (Cryptogramophone, 2013)\n Jerome Cooper, For the People (hat Hut, 1980)\n Marilyn Crispell, Circles (Victo, 1991)\n Andrew Cyrille, My Friend Louis (DIW, 1992)\n Andrew Cyrille, Ode to the Living Tree (Venus, 1995)\n Ted Daniel, In the Beginning (Altura Music, 1997)\n Ted Daniel, Innerconnection (NoBusiness, 2014)\n Defunkt, Live in Europe (Music Avenue, 2002)\n Dave Douglas, Metamorphosis (Greenleaf Music, 2017)\n Lisle Ellis, Sucker Punch Requiem: Henceforth (2008)\n Laika Fatien, Nebula (Verve, 2011)\n Donal Fox, Gone City (New World, 1997)\n Dennis Gonzalez, Idle Wild (Clean Feed, 2005)\n Ross Hammond, Our Place On the Wheel (Prescott, 2020)\n Craig Harris, Souls Within the Veil (Aquastra Music, 2005)\n Billy Hart, Enchance (Horizon, 1977)\n Julius Hemphill, One Atmosphere (Tzadik, 2003)\n Human Arts Ensemble, Whisper of Dharma (Universal Justice, 1972)\n Michael Gregory Jackson, Clarity (Bija, 1977)\n Michael Gregory Jackson, Karmonic Suite (Improvising Artists 1978)\n Bill Laswell, Bill Laswell & Material (Golden Stars, 2005)\n Abbey Lincoln, Who Used to Dance (Verve/Gitanes, 1997)\n Mark Masters, Farewell Walter Dewey Redman (Capri, 2008)\n Material, One Down (Elektra/Celluloid, 1982)\n Mediaeval Baebes, Undrentide (BMG, 2000)\n Meshell Ndegeocello, The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams (Bismillah, 2007)\n Meshell Ndegeocello, The Spirit Music Jamia (Universal/EmArcy, 2005)\n Tatsuya Nakamura, Song of Pat (Nadja, 1976)\n Lou Reed, Set the Twilight Reeling (Warner Bros., 1995)\n Archie Shepp, Phat Jam in Milano (Dawn of Freedom 2009)\n Bernadette Speach, Without Borders (Mode, 1988)\n String Trio of New York, Frozen Ropes (Barking Hoop, 2005)\n Sunny Murray, Apple Cores (Philly Jazz, 1978)\n Malachi Thompson, Freebop Now! (Delmark, 1998)\n Malachi Thompson, Talking Horns (Delmark, 2001)\n Trio Transition, Trio Transition with Special Guest Oliver Lake (DIW, 1988)\n James Blood Ulmer, Are You Glad to Be in America? (Rough Trade, 1980)\n James Blood Ulmer, Free Lancing (Columbia, 1981)\n Bennie Wallace, The Art of the Saxophone (Denon, 1987)\n Reggie Workman, Synthesis (Leo, 1986)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official website\n Oliver Lake collection, 1974-2009 at the Library of Congress\n Portraits of Oliver Lake by Dominik Huber / dominikphoto.com\n\nAvant-garde jazz musicians\n1942 births\nLiving people\nAmerican jazz saxophonists\nAmerican male saxophonists\nAmerican jazz composers\nAmerican male jazz composers\nJazz alto saxophonists\nPeople from Marianna, Arkansas\nMusic of St. Louis\nFreedom Records artists\nWorld Saxophone Quartet members\nMusicians from New Jersey\nPeople from Montclair, New Jersey\n21st-century saxophonists\nJazz musicians from Arkansas\n21st-century American male musicians\nHuman Arts Ensemble members\nSackville Records artists\nImprovising Artists Records artists\nIntakt Records artists\nJustin Time Records artists"
] |
[
"Ernie Kovacs",
"Death"
] | C_8d50647977304f559cc6b26bd64e27fc_1 | when did he die? | 1 | When did Ernie Kovacs die? | Ernie Kovacs | Kovacs was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles during the early morning hours of January 13, 1962. Kovacs, who had worked for much of the evening, met Adams at a baby shower given by Billy Wilder for Milton Berle and his wife, who had recently adopted a newborn baby boy. The couple left the party in separate cars. After a light southern California rainstorm, Kovacs lost control of his Chevrolet Corvair station wagon while turning quickly, and crashed into a power pole at the corner of Beverly Glen and Santa Monica Boulevards. He was thrown halfway out the passenger side, and died almost instantly from chest and head injuries. A photographer managed to arrive moments later, and graphic images of Kovacs's dead body appeared in newspapers across the United States. An unlit cigar lay on the pavement, inches from his outstretched arm. Years later, in a documentary about Kovacs, Edie Adams described telephoning the police impatiently when she learned of the crash. An official cupped his hand over the receiver, saying to a colleague, "It's Mrs. Kovacs, he's on his way to the coroner - what should I tell her?" With that, Adams's fears were confirmed, and she became inconsolable. Jack Lemmon, who also attended the Berle party, identified Kovacs's body at the morgue because Adams was too distraught to do so. After attending funerals for Hollywood friends, Kovacs had expressed his wishes to Adams that any funeral services for him be kept simple. In keeping with his request, Adams made arrangements for Presbyterian services at the Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian Church. The active pallbearers were Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Billy Wilder, Mervyn LeRoy, and Joe Mikolas. Kovacs's father and brother, Andrew and Tom, respectively, served as honorary pallbearers. The attendees included George Burns, Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Buster Keaton and Milton Berle. There was no typical Hollywood-type eulogy, but the church's pastor paid tribute to Kovacs, adding that he once summed up his life in two sentences: "I was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1919 to a Hungarian couple. I've been smoking cigars ever since." Kovacs is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads, "Nothing in moderation--We all loved him." Only one of Kovacs's three children survives: his eldest, Elizabeth, from his first marriage. Kippie, his second daughter, died on July 28, 2001 at the age of 52, after a long illness and a lifetime of poor health. Kippie and her husband, Bill Lancaster (1947-1997), a screenwriter and the son of actor Burt Lancaster, are the parents of Kovacs's only grandchild, Keigh Lancaster. His only child with Edie Adams, Mia (1959-1982), was killed on May 8, 1982, also in an automobile accident. Her gravestone reads "Daddy's little girl. We all loved her, too". Mia and Kippie are buried close to their father; when Edie died in 2008, she was buried between Mia and Kippie. CANNOTANSWER | Kovacs was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles during the early morning hours of January 13, 1962. | Ernest Edward Kovacs (January 23, 1919 – January 13, 1962) was an American comedian, actor, and writer.
Kovacs's visually experimental and often spontaneous comedic style influenced numerous television comedy programs for years after his death. Kovacs has been credited as an influence by many individuals and shows, including Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Jim Henson, Max Headroom, Chevy Chase, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Pee-wee's Playhouse, The Muppet Show, Dave Garroway, Andy Kaufman, You Can't Do That on Television, MST3K, Uncle Floyd, among others. Chevy Chase thanked Kovacs during his acceptance speech for his Emmy award for Saturday Night Live.
While Kovacs and Adams received Emmy nominations for best performances in a comedy series during 1957, his talent was not recognized formally until after his death. The 1962 Emmy for Outstanding Electronic Camera Work and the Directors' Guild award came a short time after his fatal accident. A quarter century later, he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. Kovacs also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in television. In 1986, the Museum of Broadcasting (later to become the Museum of Television & Radio and now the Paley Center for Media) presented an exhibit of Kovacs's work, called The Vision of Ernie Kovacs. The Pulitzer Prize–winning television critic, William Henry III, wrote for the museum's booklet: "Kovacs was more than another wide-eyed, self-ingratiating clown. He was television's first significant video artist."
Early life and career
Kovacs's father, Andrew John Kovacs, was born in 1890 and emigrated from Tornaújfalu, Hungary, which is now known as Turnianska Nová Ves, Slovakia. Andrew sailed on the S.S. Würzburg via Bremen, arriving at Ellis Island on February 8, 1906, at age 16. He worked as a policeman, restaurateur, and bootlegger, the last so successfully that he moved his wife Mary, son Tom, and his half-brother Ernest Edward Kovacs into a 20-room mansion in the better part of Trenton.
Though a poor student, Kovacs was influenced by his Trenton Central High School drama teacher, Harold Van Kirk, and received an acting scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1937 with Van Kirk's help. The end of Prohibition and the onset of the Great Depression resulted in difficult financial times for the family. When Kovacs began drama school, all he could afford was a fifth-floor walk-up apartment on West 74th Street in New York City.
During this time, he watched many "Grade B" movies; admission was only ten cents. Many of these movies influenced his comedy routines later.
A 1938 local newspaper photograph shows Kovacs as a member of the Prospect Players, not yet wearing his trademark mustache. Kovacs used his class vacation time to pursue roles in summer stock companies. While working in Vermont in 1939, he became so seriously ill with pneumonia and pleurisy that his doctors didn't expect him to survive. During the next year and a half, his comedic talents developed as he entertained both doctors and patients with his antics during stays at several hospitals. While hospitalized, Kovacs developed a lifelong love of classical music by the gift of a radio, which he kept tuned to WQXR. By the time he was released his parents had separated, and Kovacs went back to Trenton, living with his mother in a two-room apartment over a store. He began work as a cigar salesman, which resulted in a lifelong tobacco-smoking habit.
Kovacs's first paid entertainment work was during 1941 as an announcer for Trenton's radio station WTTM. He spent the next nine years with WTTM, becoming the station's director of special events; in this job he did things like trying to see what it was like to be run over by a train (leaving the tracks at the last minute) and broadcasting from the cockpit of a plane for which he took flying lessons. Kovacs was also involved with local theater; a local newspaper published a photograph of him and the news that he was doing some directing for the Trenton Players Guild in early 1941. The Trentonian, a local weekly newspaper, offered Kovacs a column in June 1945; he named it "Kovacs Unlimited".
Start in television
Arriving at NBC's Philadelphia affiliate, WPTZ, for an audition wearing a barrel and shorts got Kovacs his first television job in January 1950. His first show was Pick Your Ideal, a fashion and promotional program for the Ideal Manufacturing Company. Before long, Kovacs was also the host of Deadline For Dinner and Now You're Cooking, shows featuring advice from local chefs. When Kovacs's guest chef did not arrive in time for the show, he offered a recipe for "Eggs Scavok" (Kovacs spelled backward). Kovacs seasoned the egg dish with ashes from his cigar. The sponsor was a local propane company. Hosting these shows soon resulted in his becoming host of a program named Three to Get Ready, named for WPTZ's channel 3 spot on television dials.
Premiering in November 1950, Three to Get Ready was innovative because it was the first regularly scheduled early morning (7–9am) show in a major television market, predating NBC's Today by more than a year. Prior to this, it had been assumed that few people would watch television at such an early hour. While the show was advertised as early morning news and weather, Kovacs provided this and more in an original manner. When rain was in the weather forecast, Kovacs would get on a ladder and pour water down on the staff member reading the report. Goats were auditioned for a local theater performance and tiny women appeared to walk up his arm. Kovacs also went outside of the studio for some of his skits, running through a downtown Philadelphia restaurant in a gorilla suit in one; in another, he looked into a construction pit, saying it was deep enough to see to China, when a man in Chinese clothing popped up, said a few words in the language, and ran off. Despite its popularity, the weekly prop budget for the show was just $15. Kovacs once asked his viewers to send unwanted items to Channel 3; they filled the station's lobby.
The only character no one ever saw inspired more gifts; he was Howard, the World's Strongest Ant. From the time of his WPTZ debut, Howard received more than 30,000 gifts from Kovacs's viewers, including a mink-lined swimming pool. Kovacs began his Early Eyeball Fraternal & Marching Society (EEFMS) while doing Three to Get Ready. There were membership cards with by-laws and ties; the password was a favorite phrase of Kovacs's: "It's Been Real". Kovacs continued the EEFMS on his morning show when he moved to WCBS in New York in 1952. The success of Three to Get Ready proved that people did indeed watch early-morning television, and it was one of the factors that caused NBC to create The Today Show. WPTZ did not begin broadcasting Today when it premiered on January 14, 1952; network influence caused the station to end Three to Get Ready at the end of March of that year.
During early 1952, Kovacs was also doing a late morning show for WPTZ named Kovacs on the Corner. Kovacs would walk through an imaginary neighborhood, talking with various characters such as Pete the Cop and Luigi the Barber. As with Three to Get Ready, there were some special segments. "Swap Time" was one of them: Viewers could bring their unwanted items to the WPTZ studios to trade them live on the air with Kovacs. The show made its debut on January 4, 1952, with Kovacs losing creative control of the program soon after it was begun. Kovacs on the Corner was short-lived; it ended on March 28, 1952, along with Three to Get Ready. Kovacs then began work for WCBS-TV in New York with a local morning show and a later network one. Both programs were canceled; Kovacs lost the local morning program for the same reason as Three to Get Ready—the broadcasting time was confiscated by the station's network in 1954.
Visual humor and characters
At WPTZ, Kovacs began using the ad-libbed and experimental style that would become his reputation, including video effects, superimpositions, reverse polarities and scanning, and quick blackouts. He was also noted for abstraction and carefully timed non-sequitur gags and for allowing the fourth wall to be breached. Kovacs's cameras commonly showed his viewers activity beyond the boundaries of the show set—including crew members and outside the studio itself. Kovacs also liked talking to the off-camera crew and even introduced segments from the studio control room. He frequently made use of accidents and happenstance, incorporating the unexpected into his shows. In one of Kovacs's Philadelphia broadcasts, Oscar Liebetrau, an elderly crew member who was known for often sleeping for the duration of the telecast, was introduced to the audience as "Sleeping Schwartz." Kovacs was once knocked unconscious when a pie smashed into his face still had the plate under it.
Kovacs's love of spontaneity extended to his crew, who would occasionally play on-air pranks on him to see how he would react. During one of his NBC shows, Kovacs was appearing as the inept magician Matzoh Heppelwhite. The sketch called for the magician to frequently hit a gong, which was the signal for a sexy female assistant to bring out a bottle and shot glass for a quick snort of alcohol. Stagehands substituted real liquor for the iced tea normally used for the skit. Kovacs realized that he would be called upon to drink a shot of liquor for each successive gong. He pressed on with the sketch and was quite inebriated by the end of the show.
Kovacs helped develop camera tricks still common decades after his death. His character Eugene sat at a table to eat his lunch, but as he removed items one at a time from a lunch box, he watched them inexplicably roll down the table into the lap of a man reading a newspaper at the other end. When Kovacs poured milk from a thermos bottle, the stream flowed in a seemingly unusual direction. Never seen on television before, the secret was using a tilted set in front of a camera tilted at the same angle.
He constantly sought new techniques and used both primitive and improvised ways of creating visual effects that would later be done electronically. One innovative construction involved attaching a kaleidoscope made from a toilet paper roll to a camera lens with cardboard and tape and setting the resulting abstract images to music. Another was a soup can with both ends removed fitted with angled mirrors. Used on a camera and turning it could put Kovacs seemingly on the ceiling. An underwater stunt involved cigar smoker Kovacs sitting in an easy chair, reading his newspaper and somehow smoking a cigar. Removing it from his mouth, Kovacs was able to exhale a puff of white smoke, all while floating underwater. The trick: the "smoke" was a small amount of milk which he filled his mouth with before submerging. Kovacs repeated the effect for a Dutch Masters television commercial on his ABC game show, Take A Good Look.
One of the special effects he employed made it appear as if he was able to look through his assistant, Barbara Loden's, head. The illusion was performed by placing a black patch on Loden's head and standing her against a black background while one studio camera was trained on her. A second one photographed Kovacs, who used the studio monitor to position himself exactly so that his eye would appear to be looking through a hole in her head.
He also developed such routines as an all-gorilla version of Swan Lake, a poker game set to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the skit Silent Show, in which Eugene interacts with the world accompanied solely by music and sound effects, parodies of typical television commercials and movie genres, and various musical segments with everyday items (such as kitchen appliances or office equipment) moving in sync to music. A popular recurring skit was The Nairobi Trio, three derby-hatted apes miming mechanically and rhythmically to the tune of Robert Maxwell's "Solfeggio".
Kovacs used extended sketches and mood pieces or quick blackout gags lasting only seconds. Some could be expensive, such as his famous used-car salesman routine with a jalopy and a breakaway floor: it cost $12,000 to produce the six-second gag. He was one of the first television comedians to use odd fake credits and comments between the legitimate credits and, at times, during his routines.
Kovacs reportedly disliked working in front of a live audience, as was the case with the shows he did for NBC during the 1950s. He found the presence of an audience distracting, and those in the seats frequently did not understand some of the more elaborate visual gags and special effects, which could only be appreciated by watching studio monitors instead of the stage.
Like many comedians of the era, Kovacs created a rotation of recurring roles. In addition to the silent "Eugene," his most familiar characters were the fey, lisping poet Percy Dovetonsils, and the heavily accented German radio announcer, Wolfgang von Sauerbraten. Mr. Question Man, who answered viewer queries, was a satire on the long-run (1937–56) radio series, The Answer Man. Others included horror show host Auntie Gruesome, bumbling magician Matzoh Heppelwhite, Frenchman Pierre Ragout and Miklos Molnar, the sardonic Hungarian host of a cooking show. The Miklos character wasn't always confined to a kitchen; Kovacs performed a parody of The Howdy Doody Show with "Buffalo Miklos" as the host. Poet Percy Dovetonsils can be found playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata on a disappearing piano and as a "Master Detective" on the "Private Eye-Private Eye" presentation of the US Steel Hour on CBS March 8, 1961. On the same show, the Nairobi Trio abandons its instruments for a safe-cracking job; still with a background of "Solfeggio", but speaking, two of the three appear in an "Outer Space" sketch.
Kovacs became a regular on NBC Radio's program Monitor beginning during late 1958, often using his Mr. Question Man character in his radio monologues.
Kovacs never hesitated to lampoon those considered institutions of radio and television. In April 1954, he started the late-night talk show, The Ernie Kovacs Show, on DuMont Television Network's New York flagship station, WABD. Stage, screen and radio notables were often guests. Archie Bleyer, head of Cadence Records, came to chat one evening. Bleyer had been the long-time orchestra director for Arthur Godfrey's radio and television shows. He had been dismissed by Godfrey the year before, together with fellow cast member, singer Julius La Rosa. In La Rosa's case, he hired a manager, defying an unwritten Godfrey policy. With Bleyer, Godfrey was angered when he found that Bleyer's record company Cadence Records had produced spoken-word material by Don McNeill, host of ABC's Don McNeill's Breakfast Club, which Godfrey considered competition to his show. Bleyer and Kovacs were shown in split screen, with Kovacs wearing a red wig, headphones, and playing a ukulele in a Godfrey imitation, while talking with his guest.
Kovacs's television programs included Three to Get Ready (an early morning program seen on Philadelphia's WPTZ from 1950 through 1952), It's Time for Ernie (1951, his first network series), Ernie in Kovacsland, (a summer replacement show for Kukla, Fran and Ollie, 1951), The Ernie Kovacs Show (1952–56 on various networks), a twice-a-week job filling in for Steve Allen as host of The Tonight Show on Mondays and Tuesdays (1956–57), and game shows Gamble on Love, One Minute Please, Time Will Tell (all on DuMont), and Take a Good Look (1959–61). Kovacs was also the host of a program, Silents Please, which showed silent movies on network television, with serious discussion about the movies and their actors.
Kovacs had a brief stint as a celebrity panelist for the television series What's My Line?, but took his responsibilities less than seriously, often eschewing a legitimate question for the sake of a laugh. An example: Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, the founder of an automobile company, was the program's "mystery guest." Previous questioning had established that the mystery guest's name was synonymous with an automobile brand, Kovacs asked, "Are you – and this is just a wild guess – but are you Abraham Lincoln?"—a reference to the Ford Motor Company's Lincoln automobiles. When Kovacs gave an interview admitting that he was absent from the show when he wanted to go out for dinner on a Sunday, his stint on the panel show was ended.
TV specials
He also did several television specials, including the famous Silent Show (1957), featuring his character, Eugene: the first all-pantomime prime-time network program. After the end of the Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis partnership, NBC offered Lewis the opportunity to host his own 90-minute color television special. Lewis opted to use only 60 minutes, leaving the network 30 minutes to fill; no one wanted this time slot, but Kovacs was willing to have it. The program contained no spoken dialogue and contained only sound effects and music. Featuring Kovacs as the mute, Charlie Chaplin-like character "Eugene", the program contained surreal sight gags. Kovacs developed the Eugene character during the autumn of 1956, when hosting the television series The Tonight Show. Expectations were high for the Lewis program, but it was Kovacs' special that received the most attention; Kovacs received his first movie offer, had a cover story in Life magazine, and received the Sylvania Award that year.
In 1961, Kovacs and his co-director, Joe Behar, were recipients of the Directors Guild of America Award for a second version of this program broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company network.
A series of monthly half-hour specials for ABC during 1961–62 is often considered his best television work. Produced on videotape using new editing and special effects techniques, it won a 1962 Emmy Award. Kovacs and co-director Behar also won the Directors Guild of America award for an Ernie Kovacs Special based on the earlier, silent "Eugene" program. Kovacs' last ABC special was broadcast posthumously, on January 23, 1962.
The Dutch Masters cigar company became well-known during the late 1950s and early 1960s for its sponsorship of various television projects of Ernie Kovacs. The company allowed Kovacs total creative control in the creation of their television commercials for his programs and specials. He produced a series of non-speaking television commercials for Dutch Masters during the run of his television series Take A Good Look which was praised by both television critics and viewers.
While praised by critics, Kovacs rarely had a highly-rated show. The Museum of Broadcast Communications says, "It is doubtful that Ernie Kovacs would find a place on television today. He was too zany, too unrestrained, too undisciplined. Perhaps Jack Gould of The New York Times said it best for Ernie Kovacs: 'The fun was in trying'."
Other shows had greater success while using elements of Kovacs's style. George Schlatter, producer of the later television series Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, was married to actress Jolene Brand, who had appeared in Kovacs' comic troupes over the years and had been a frequent participant in his pioneering sketches. Laugh-In made frequent use of the quick blackout gags and surreal humor that marked many Kovacs projects. Another link was a young NBC staffer, Bill Wendell, Kovacs's usual announcer and sometimes a sketch participant. From 1980 to 1995, Wendell was the announcer for David Letterman, whose show and style of humor were greatly influenced by Kovacs.
The Music Man
Kovacs was also known for his eclectic musical taste. His main theme song was named "Oriental Blues" by Jack Newton. The rendition most often heard was a piano-driven trio version, but, for his primetime show during 1956, music director Harry Sosnik presented a full-blown big-band version. The German song "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer" from The Threepenny Opera (anglicized to "Mack the Knife"), frequently underscored his blackout routines. Songwriter Robert Maxwell's "Solfeggio" became associated with the derby-hatted apes, 'The Nairobi Trio'.
In the 1982 TV special Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius, Edie Adams recalled that when Kovacs first heard the melody, he immediately knew what he wanted to do with it, creating a music-box-like trio that moved in time to the tune. Kovacs was introduced to the song in 1954 by Barry Shear, his director at DuMont Television Network.
Kovacs matched an unusual treatment of "Sentimental Journey", by Mexican bandleader Juan García Esquivel, to video of an empty office in which various items (pencil sharpeners, water coolers, wall clocks) come to life in rhythm with the music; it was a variation on several famous animations of a decade earlier. The original three-minute presentation was outlined by Kovacs in a four-page, single-spaced memo to his staff. The perfectionist Kovacs describes in minute detail what had to be done and how to do it. The memo ends with this: "I don't know how the hell you're going to get this done by Sunday – but 'rots of ruck." (signed) "Ernie (with love)". Kovacs also made careful use of the shrill singer Leona Anderson—who had somewhat less than a classical (or even listenable) voice, by some estimations—in comic vignettes.
Kovacs used classical music as background for silent skits or abstract visual routines, including "Concerto for Orchestra", by Béla Bartók; music from the opera "The Love of Three Oranges", by Sergei Prokofiev; the finale of Igor Stravinsky's suite "The Firebird"; and Richard Strauss' "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks"; and, from George Gershwin, "Rialto Ripples"--the theme to his shows--as well as parts of Gershwin's "Concerto in F". He may have been known best for using Joseph Haydn's "String Quartet, Opus 3, Number 5" (the "Serenade," actually composed by Roman Hoffstetter) for a series of 1960–61 commercials he created and videotaped for his sponsor, Dutch Masters.
For the show of May 22, 1959, Kovacs on Music, Kovacs began by saying, "I have never really understood classical music, so I would like to take this opportunity to explain it to others." He presented a gorilla version of Swan Lake which differed from the usual performance only in the persona of the dancers, along with giant paper clips moving to music and other sketches.
He also served as host on a jazz album to benefit the American Cancer Society in 1957, Listening to Jazz with Ernie Kovacs. It was a 15-minute recording featuring some of the celebrities of the art, including pianist Jimmy Yancey and old original New Orleans Jazz Trumpeter Bunk Johnson, soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet, guitarist Django Reinhardt, composer/pianist/bandleader Duke Ellington and longtime Ellington trumpeter Cootie Williams. Both the Library of Congress and the National Library of Canada have copies of this recording in their collections.
In print
Kovacs wrote a novel, Zoomar: A Sophisticated Novel about Love and TV (Doubleday, 1957), based on television pioneer Pat Weaver; it took Kovacs only 13 days to write. The book took its title from the Zoomar brand zoom lenses frequently used on television cameras at the time. In a 1960 interview, Edie Adams related that the novel was written after Kovacs' experiences with network television while he was preparing to broadcast the Silent Show. The 1961 British edition was retitled T.V. Medium Rare by its London-based publisher, Transworld.
While he worked on several other book projects, Kovacs's only other published title was How to Talk at Gin, published posthumously in 1962. He intended part of the book's proceeds to benefit Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. During 1955–58, he wrote for Mad (his favorite humor magazine), including the feature "Strangely Believe It!" (a parody of Ripley's Believe It or Not! that was a regular feature of his television shows) and Gringo, a board game with ridiculously complicated rules that was renamed Droongo for the television show. Kovacs also wrote the introduction to the 1958 collection Mad For Keeps: A Collection of the Best from Mad Magazine.
Television guest star
Kovacs and Edie Adams guest starred on what turned out to be the final episode of The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show, (syndicated as The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour or We Love Lucy) "Lucy Meets the Moustache", which was in rehearsals during the week of February 28 and filmed on March 3 for an April 1, 1960 network broadcast. "Lucy Meets the Moustache" was the last time Arnaz and Ball worked together and the last time their famous characters appeared in a first-run broadcast. According to Adams, Ball and Arnaz 'avoided contact and barely talked to each other in rehearsals and in-between scenes'. Adams also said that they were not told their episode was the last or that the famous couple was to divorce (Ball entered the uncontested divorce request March 4, 1960).
Kovacs also appeared in roles on other television programs. For General Electric Theater's "I Was a Bloodhound" in 1959, Kovacs played the role of detective Barney Colby, whose extraordinary sense of smell helped him solve many seemingly-impossible cases. Colby was hired by a foreign country to recover its symbol of royalty, a baby elephant, who was being held for ransom.
Films
Kovacs found Hollywood success as a character actor, often typecast as a swarthy military officer (almost always a "Captain" of some sort) in such films as Operation Mad Ball, Wake Me When It's Over and Our Man in Havana. While working in his first film role for Operation Mad Ball, Kovacs was filming a wild party scene after midnight; it was decided to use real champagne for realism. After a few hours of work, someone came up to Kovacs and remarked that he had been having quite a good time chasing starlets all night. Kovacs told the stranger to go to hell, since he was following the script; he later learned the stranger was Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures. Kovacs and Cohn later became friends despite the way they had met, with Cohn giving Kovacs roles in Bell, Book and Candle (1958) and It Happened to Jane (1959).
He garnered critical acclaim for film roles such as the perennially-inebriated writer in Bell, Book and Candle and as the cartoonishly-evil head of a railroad company (who resembled Orson Welles' title character in Citizen Kane) in It Happened to Jane, where he had his head shaved and his remaining hair dyed grey for the role. In 1960, he played the base commander Charlie Stark in the comedy Wake Me When It's Over and the con man Frankie Cannon trying to steal John Wayne's gold mine in the western comedy, North to Alaska. His own personal favorite was said to have been the offbeat Five Golden Hours (1961), in which he portrayed a larcenous professional mourner who meets his match in a professional widow played by Cyd Charisse. Kovacs's last movie, Sail a Crooked Ship (also 1961), was released one month before his death.
Personal life
First marriage
Kovacs and his first wife, Bette Wilcox, were married on August 13, 1945. When the marriage ended, he fought for custody of their children, Elizabeth ("Bette") and Kip Raleigh ("Kippie"). The court awarded Kovacs full custody upon determining that his former wife was mentally unstable. The decision was extremely unusual at the time, setting a legal precedent. Wilcox subsequently kidnapped the children, taking them to Florida. After a long and expensive search, Kovacs regained custody. These events were portrayed in the television movie Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter (1984), which garnered an Emmy Award nomination for its writer, April Smith. Kovacs was portrayed by Jeff Goldblum.
Kovacs's first wife made a legal attempt to gain custody of her two daughters soon after his death. She began August 2, 1962, by claiming $500,000 was her share of Kovacs's estate and charging that her ex-husband had abducted the girls in 1955; Kovacs had been granted legal custody of his daughters in 1952. On August 30, Wilcox filed an affidavit claiming that Kovacs's widow, Edie Adams, the stepmother to the girls, was "unfit" to care for them. Both daughters, Bette and Kippie, testified that they wanted to stay with their stepmother, Edie. Kippie's testimony was very emotional; in it she referred to Edie as "Mommy" and her birth mother as "the other lady." Upon hearing the verdict that the girls would remain in their home, Adams wept, saying, "This is what Ernie would have wanted. Now I can smile." Elizabeth Kovacs's reaction was "I'm so happy I can hardly express myself", after learning she and her sister would not be forced to leave Edie.
Second marriage
Kovacs and Adams met in 1951 when she was hired to work for his WPTZ show, Three to Get Ready. Her appearance on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts caught the eye of Kovacs's producer, and he asked her to audition for the program. A classically-trained singer, she was able to perform only three popular songs. Edie said later, "I sang them all during the audition, and if they had asked to hear another, I never would have made it." Quoting Kovacs, "I wish I could say I was the big shot that hired her, but it was my show in name only – the producer had all the say. Later on I did have something to say and I said it: 'Let's get married.'"
After the couple's first date, Kovacs proceeded to buy a Jaguar car, telling Adams he wanted to take her out in style. He was seriously taken with the beautiful and talented young woman, courting her with imagination and flair. Kovacs's attempts to win Adams' affection included hiring a mariachi band to serenade her backstage at the Broadway musical she was performing in and the sudden gift of a diamond engagement ring, telling her to wear it until she made up her mind. Kovacs continued this romantic quest after the show went out of town.
Adams booked a six-week European cruise, which she hoped would let her make up her mind whether or not to marry Kovacs. After only three days away and many long-distance telephone calls, she curtailed her trip and returned to say "yes". They eloped and were married on September 12, 1954, in Mexico City. The ceremony was presided over by former New York City mayor William O'Dwyer and was performed in Spanish, which neither Kovacs nor Adams understood; O'Dwyer had to prompt each of them to say "Sí" at the "I do" portion of the vows. Adams, who had a middle-class upbringing, was smitten by Kovacs's quirky ways; the couple remained together until his death. (She later said about Kovacs, "He treated me like a little girl, and I loved it—Women's Lib be damned!")
Adams also aided Kovacs's struggle to reclaim his two older children after the kidnapping by their mother. She also was a regular partner on his television shows. Kovacs usually introduced or addressed her in a businesslike way, as "Edith Adams". Adams was usually willing to do anything he envisioned, whether it was singing seriously, performing impersonations (including a well-regarded impression of Marilyn Monroe) or taking a pie in the face or a pratfall if and when needed. The couple had one daughter, Mia Susan Kovacs, born June 20, 1959.
Kovacs and his family shared a 16-room apartment in Manhattan on Central Park West that seemed perfect until he went to California for his first film role in Operation Mad Ball. The experience of the totally different, laid-back lifestyle of Hollywood made a big impression on him. He realized he was working too much in New York; in California he would be able to work fewer hours, do just as well or better and have more time for Edie and his daughters. At the time, he was working most of the time and sleeping about two or three hours a night. Kovacs claimed that he realized it was time for a change when he was telling his girls a bedtime story and found himself thinking of using it for a show instead. Kovacs relocated his family there in 1957, after Edie finished work for the Broadway play Li'l Abner.
Death
In the early morning hours of January 13, 1962, Kovacs lost control of his Chevrolet Corvair station wagon while turning quickly and crashed into a power pole in Beverly Hills. He was thrown halfway out the vehicle's passenger side and died almost instantly from chest and head injuries.
A photographer arrived soon after and images of Kovacs' bodywith an unlit cigar on the pavement near his outstretched handappeared in newspapers across the United States.
In keeping Kovacs's wishes, a simple service was held at the Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian Church. The pallbearers included Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Billy Wilder, and Mervyn LeRoy, and George Burns, Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Buster Keaton and Milton Berle also attended. The pastor said that Kovacs had summed up his life thus: "I was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1919 to a Hungarian couple. I've been smoking cigars ever since."
He is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads "Nothing in moderation—We all loved him."
Tax evasion
A frequent critic of the U.S. tax system, Kovacs owed the Internal Revenue Service several hundred thousand dollars in back taxes, due to his refusal to pay the bulk of them. Up to 90% of his earnings were garnished as a result. His long battles with the IRS inspired Kovacs to invest his money in a convoluted series of paper corporations in the U.S. and Canada. He would give them bizarre names, such as "The Bazooka Dooka Hicka Hocka Hookah Company". In 1961, Kovacs was served with a $75,000 lien for back taxes; that same day he bought the California Racquet Club with the apparent hope of being able to use it as a tax write-off. The property had mortgages at the time of purchase which were later paid by Edie Adams.
His tax woes also affected Kovacs's career, forcing him to take any offered work to pay his debt. This included the ABC game show Take a Good Look, appearances on variety shows such as NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford, and some of his less-memorable film roles. He also filmed an unaired 1962 pilot episode for a proposed CBS series, Medicine Man (co-starring Buster Keaton; the pilot episode titled "A Pony for Chris"). Kovacs' role was that of Dr. P. Crookshank, a traveling medicine salesman in the 1870s, who was selling Mother McGreevy's Wizard Juice, also known as "man's best friend in a bottle". This was abandoned after his death, which occurred the day after filming some scenes for the pilot in Griffith Park. CBS initially intended to broadcast the show as part of a summer replacement program, The Comedy Spot, but decided against it due to problems with Kovacs' estate. The pilot is part of the public collection of the Paley Center for Media.
Some of the issues regarding Kovacs' tax problems were still unresolved years after his death. Kovacs had purchased two insurance policies in 1951; his mother was named as the primary beneficiary of them. The IRS placed a lien against them both for their cash value in 1961. To stop the actions being taken against her, Mary Kovacs had to go to Federal court. The court's early 1966 ruling resolved the issue, with the last sentence of the document reading: "Prima facie, it looks as if, within the limits of discretion permitted the government by the relevant statutes, an injustice is being done Mary Kovacs."
Adams, who married and divorced twice after Kovacs' death, refused help from celebrity friends who planned a benefit for the purpose. "I can take care of my own children," she said, and resolved to accept offers only from those who wanted to hire her for her talents. Adams eventually paid all of Kovacs's debts.
Lost and surviving work
Most of Kovacs's early television work was performed live: few kinescopes have survived. Some videotapes of his ABC specials were preserved; others, such as his quirky game show, Take a Good Look, were available mostly in short segments until recently, with the release of some complete, videotaped episodes. After Kovacs's death, Adams discovered not only that her husband owed ABC a great deal of money, but that some networks were systematically erasing and reusing tapes of Kovacs's shows or disposing of the kinescopes and videotapes. She succeeded in purchasing the rights to surviving footage with the proceeds from Kovacs' insurance policy and her own earnings after Kovacs' IRS debts were paid. In March 1996, Adams detailed her experiences before the National Film Preservation Board.
Adams first used some of the videotapes she had purchased for a 1968 ABC television special, The Comedy of Ernie Kovacs; to produce the show, she hired Kovacs's former producer and editor. The hour-long program was sponsored by Kovacs's former sponsor, Dutch Masters.
Most of Kovacs's salvaged work is available to researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles Library's Department of Special Collections: additional material is available at the Paley Center for Media.
The 1984 television film Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter helped return Kovacs to the public's attention, though the show emphasized his bid to retrieve his kidnapped children instead of his professional life. Jeff Goldblum portrayed Kovacs, Madolyn Smith portrayed Bette and Melody Anderson portrayed Adams in the movie. Edie Adams appeared in a cameo in this film, playing Mae West; it was one of the impressions she performed in shows with Kovacs. Telecasts of edited compilations of some of his work by PBS (station WTTW, Chicago) under the title The Best of Ernie Kovacs in 1977, inspired the film. These broadcasts were made available on VHS and DVD. The DVD set features extras that are not in the VHS set. The series was narrated by Jack Lemmon.
During the early 1990s, The Comedy Channel broadcast a series of Kovacs' shows under the generic title of The Ernie Kovacs Show. The series included both the ABC specials and some of his 1950s shows from NBC. By 2008, there were no broadcast, cable, or satellite channels broadcasting any of Kovacs's television work, other than his panel appearances on What's My Line? on the Game Show Network.
On April 19, 2011, Shout! Factory released The Ernie Kovacs Collection, six DVDs spanning Kovacs's television career. The company's website also offers an extra disc with material from Tonight! and The Ernie Kovacs Show, as well as a rare color kinescope of the complete 30-minute 1957 NBC color broadcast featuring "Eugene". On October 23, 2012, Shout! Factory released The Ernie Kovacs Collection: Volume 2 on DVD.
In 1961, Kovacs recorded a record album of poetry in the character of Percy Dovetonsils named Percy Dovetonsils Thpeakth, but was unable to release it due to contractual obligations with other record companies. After he was given the masters, Kovacs donated them to a Los Angeles area hospital. Adams was able to re-acquire the tapes in 1967, and they remained part of her private collection until her death in 2008. The tapes were labeled as movie material and were thought to be such until further examination proved they were Kovacs as Percy reading his poems with no music background. The album was finally released in 2012.
Kovacs was inducted posthumously into the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia's Hall of Fame in 1992.
Partial filmography
Operation Mad Ball (1957) (with Jack Lemmon) as Capt. Paul Lock
Bell, Book and Candle (1958) (with James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Jack Lemmon as Sidney Redlitch
It Happened to Jane (1959) (with Doris Day and Jack Lemmon) as Harry Foster Malone
Our Man in Havana (1959) (with Alec Guinness and Noël Coward) as Capt. Segura
Wake Me When It's Over (1960) (with Dick Shawn) as Capt. Charlie Stark
Strangers When We Meet (1960) (with Kirk Douglas and Kim Novak) as Roger Altar
North to Alaska (1960) (with John Wayne) as Frankie Canon
Pepe (1960) (with Cantinflas) as Immigration Inspector
Five Golden Hours (1961) (with Cyd Charisse and George Sanders) as Aldo Bondi
Sail a Crooked Ship (1961, with Robert Wagner) as Bugsy G. Foglemeyer aka The Captain
Notes
References
Bibliography
via Project MUSE
Further reading
Adams, Edie (1990). Sing a Pretty Song: The "Offbeat" Life of Edie Adams, Including the Ernie Kovacs Years. William Morrow;
Barker, David Brian (1982). "Every Moment's a Gift": Ernie Kovacs in Hollywood, 1957–1962, a Master's Thesis. Available for viewing at the library at the University of Texas at Austin
Rico, Diana (1990). Kovacsland: A Biography of Ernie Kovacs. Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich;
Walley, David (1975). Nothing in Moderation. Drake Publishers; Reprinted as The Ernie Kovacs Phile by David Walley, Bolder Books, 1978 and Fireside/Simon & Schuster, 1987;
External links
The Official Ernie Kovacs Website
Ernie Kovacs Dot Net: A Tribute To Television's Original Genius
Kovacsland Online! – the Ernie Kovacs website
List of Kovacs' 16 articles for MAD magazine
Watch
The Jack Benny Program with Ernie Kovacs as guest at the Internet Archive
Operation Mad Ball Trailer (1957) at the Internet Archive
John Barbour's documentary Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius at John Barbour's World
Ernie Kovacs Dutch Masters Cigar Commercial
1919 births
1962 deaths
20th-century American male actors
American people of Hungarian descent
American comedy writers
American game show hosts
American male film actors
American male television actors
American humorists
American satirists
American comics writers
American television talk show hosts
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
Emmy Award winners
Mad (magazine) people
Male actors from New Jersey
Actors from Trenton, New Jersey
Road incident deaths in California
Trenton Central High School alumni
Writers from Trenton, New Jersey
American male comedy actors
20th-century American comedians | false | [
"Hagen Friedrich Liebing (18 February 1961 – 25 September 2016), nicknamed \"The Incredible Hagen\", was a German musician and journalist, best known as the bassist for the influential punk band Die Ärzte. \n\nIn 1986, drummer Bela B invited him to join Die Ärzte. The two knew each other from early Berlin punk days. The band disbanded in 1988. Liebing tried his hand at journalism shortly thereafter. He wrote several articles for Der Tagesspiegel, and was the senior music editor of Tip Berlin since the mid-1990s. \n\nWhen Die Ärzte reunited in 1993, Liebing did not join them. However, he did join them on stage as a special guest in 2002. In 2003, he published his memoirs The Incredible Hagen – My Years with Die Ärzte. From 2003 to 2010, he headed the Press and Public Relations at the football club Tennis Borussia Berlin. \n\nLiebing died in Berlin on 25 September 2016, after a battle with a brain tumor.\n\nReferences\n\n1961 births\n2016 deaths\nMusicians from Berlin\nGerman male musicians\nGerman journalists\nDeaths from cancer in Germany\nDeaths from brain tumor",
"Johann Karl Wezel (October 31, 1747 in Sondershausen, Germany – January 28, 1819 in Sondershausen), also Johann Carl Wezel, was a German poet, novelist and philosopher of the Enlightenment.\n\nLife\nBorn the son of domestic servants, Wezel studied Theology, Law, Philosophy and Philology at the University of Leipzig. Early philosophical influences include John Locke and Julien Offray de La Mettrie. After positions as tutor at the courts of Bautzen and Berlin, Wezel lived as a freelance writer. A short stay in Vienna did not result in him getting employed by the local national theater. He thus moved back to Leipzig and, in 1793, to Sondershausen, which he did not leave again until his death in 1819.\n\nAlthough his works were extremely successful when they were published, Wezel was almost forgotten when he died. His rediscovery in the second half of the 20th century is mainly due to German author Arno Schmidt who published a radio essay about him in 1959.\n\nWorks\n Filibert und Theodosia (1772)\n Lebensgeschichte Tobias Knauts, des Weisen, sonst der Stammler genannt: aus Familiennachrichten gesammelt (1773–1776)\n Der Graf von Wickham (1774)\n Epistel an die deutschen Dichter (1775)\n Belphegor oder die wahrscheinlichste Geschichte unter der Sonne (1776)\n Herrmann und Ulrike (1780)\n Appellation der Vokalen an das Publikum (1778)\n Die wilde Betty (1779)\n Zelmor und Ermide (1779)\n Tagebuch eines neuen Ehmanns (1779)\n Robinson Krusoe. Neu bearbeitet (1779)\n Ueber Sprache, Wißenschaften und Geschmack der Teutschen (1781)\n Meine Auferstehung (1782)\n Wilhelmine Arend oder die Gefahren der Empfindsamkeit (1782)\n Kakerlak, oder Geschichte eines Rosenkreuzers aus dem vorigen Jahrhunderte (1784)\n Versuch über die Kenntniß des Menschen (1784–1785)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\n1747 births\n1819 deaths\nPeople from Sondershausen\n\nGerman male writershuort escrouesr"
] |
[
"Ernie Kovacs",
"Death",
"when did he die?",
"Kovacs was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles during the early morning hours of January 13, 1962."
] | C_8d50647977304f559cc6b26bd64e27fc_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 2 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article in addition to Ernie being killed in a car accident? | Ernie Kovacs | Kovacs was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles during the early morning hours of January 13, 1962. Kovacs, who had worked for much of the evening, met Adams at a baby shower given by Billy Wilder for Milton Berle and his wife, who had recently adopted a newborn baby boy. The couple left the party in separate cars. After a light southern California rainstorm, Kovacs lost control of his Chevrolet Corvair station wagon while turning quickly, and crashed into a power pole at the corner of Beverly Glen and Santa Monica Boulevards. He was thrown halfway out the passenger side, and died almost instantly from chest and head injuries. A photographer managed to arrive moments later, and graphic images of Kovacs's dead body appeared in newspapers across the United States. An unlit cigar lay on the pavement, inches from his outstretched arm. Years later, in a documentary about Kovacs, Edie Adams described telephoning the police impatiently when she learned of the crash. An official cupped his hand over the receiver, saying to a colleague, "It's Mrs. Kovacs, he's on his way to the coroner - what should I tell her?" With that, Adams's fears were confirmed, and she became inconsolable. Jack Lemmon, who also attended the Berle party, identified Kovacs's body at the morgue because Adams was too distraught to do so. After attending funerals for Hollywood friends, Kovacs had expressed his wishes to Adams that any funeral services for him be kept simple. In keeping with his request, Adams made arrangements for Presbyterian services at the Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian Church. The active pallbearers were Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Billy Wilder, Mervyn LeRoy, and Joe Mikolas. Kovacs's father and brother, Andrew and Tom, respectively, served as honorary pallbearers. The attendees included George Burns, Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Buster Keaton and Milton Berle. There was no typical Hollywood-type eulogy, but the church's pastor paid tribute to Kovacs, adding that he once summed up his life in two sentences: "I was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1919 to a Hungarian couple. I've been smoking cigars ever since." Kovacs is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads, "Nothing in moderation--We all loved him." Only one of Kovacs's three children survives: his eldest, Elizabeth, from his first marriage. Kippie, his second daughter, died on July 28, 2001 at the age of 52, after a long illness and a lifetime of poor health. Kippie and her husband, Bill Lancaster (1947-1997), a screenwriter and the son of actor Burt Lancaster, are the parents of Kovacs's only grandchild, Keigh Lancaster. His only child with Edie Adams, Mia (1959-1982), was killed on May 8, 1982, also in an automobile accident. Her gravestone reads "Daddy's little girl. We all loved her, too". Mia and Kippie are buried close to their father; when Edie died in 2008, she was buried between Mia and Kippie. CANNOTANSWER | A photographer managed to arrive moments later, and graphic images of Kovacs's dead body appeared in newspapers across the United States. | Ernest Edward Kovacs (January 23, 1919 – January 13, 1962) was an American comedian, actor, and writer.
Kovacs's visually experimental and often spontaneous comedic style influenced numerous television comedy programs for years after his death. Kovacs has been credited as an influence by many individuals and shows, including Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Jim Henson, Max Headroom, Chevy Chase, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Pee-wee's Playhouse, The Muppet Show, Dave Garroway, Andy Kaufman, You Can't Do That on Television, MST3K, Uncle Floyd, among others. Chevy Chase thanked Kovacs during his acceptance speech for his Emmy award for Saturday Night Live.
While Kovacs and Adams received Emmy nominations for best performances in a comedy series during 1957, his talent was not recognized formally until after his death. The 1962 Emmy for Outstanding Electronic Camera Work and the Directors' Guild award came a short time after his fatal accident. A quarter century later, he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. Kovacs also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in television. In 1986, the Museum of Broadcasting (later to become the Museum of Television & Radio and now the Paley Center for Media) presented an exhibit of Kovacs's work, called The Vision of Ernie Kovacs. The Pulitzer Prize–winning television critic, William Henry III, wrote for the museum's booklet: "Kovacs was more than another wide-eyed, self-ingratiating clown. He was television's first significant video artist."
Early life and career
Kovacs's father, Andrew John Kovacs, was born in 1890 and emigrated from Tornaújfalu, Hungary, which is now known as Turnianska Nová Ves, Slovakia. Andrew sailed on the S.S. Würzburg via Bremen, arriving at Ellis Island on February 8, 1906, at age 16. He worked as a policeman, restaurateur, and bootlegger, the last so successfully that he moved his wife Mary, son Tom, and his half-brother Ernest Edward Kovacs into a 20-room mansion in the better part of Trenton.
Though a poor student, Kovacs was influenced by his Trenton Central High School drama teacher, Harold Van Kirk, and received an acting scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1937 with Van Kirk's help. The end of Prohibition and the onset of the Great Depression resulted in difficult financial times for the family. When Kovacs began drama school, all he could afford was a fifth-floor walk-up apartment on West 74th Street in New York City.
During this time, he watched many "Grade B" movies; admission was only ten cents. Many of these movies influenced his comedy routines later.
A 1938 local newspaper photograph shows Kovacs as a member of the Prospect Players, not yet wearing his trademark mustache. Kovacs used his class vacation time to pursue roles in summer stock companies. While working in Vermont in 1939, he became so seriously ill with pneumonia and pleurisy that his doctors didn't expect him to survive. During the next year and a half, his comedic talents developed as he entertained both doctors and patients with his antics during stays at several hospitals. While hospitalized, Kovacs developed a lifelong love of classical music by the gift of a radio, which he kept tuned to WQXR. By the time he was released his parents had separated, and Kovacs went back to Trenton, living with his mother in a two-room apartment over a store. He began work as a cigar salesman, which resulted in a lifelong tobacco-smoking habit.
Kovacs's first paid entertainment work was during 1941 as an announcer for Trenton's radio station WTTM. He spent the next nine years with WTTM, becoming the station's director of special events; in this job he did things like trying to see what it was like to be run over by a train (leaving the tracks at the last minute) and broadcasting from the cockpit of a plane for which he took flying lessons. Kovacs was also involved with local theater; a local newspaper published a photograph of him and the news that he was doing some directing for the Trenton Players Guild in early 1941. The Trentonian, a local weekly newspaper, offered Kovacs a column in June 1945; he named it "Kovacs Unlimited".
Start in television
Arriving at NBC's Philadelphia affiliate, WPTZ, for an audition wearing a barrel and shorts got Kovacs his first television job in January 1950. His first show was Pick Your Ideal, a fashion and promotional program for the Ideal Manufacturing Company. Before long, Kovacs was also the host of Deadline For Dinner and Now You're Cooking, shows featuring advice from local chefs. When Kovacs's guest chef did not arrive in time for the show, he offered a recipe for "Eggs Scavok" (Kovacs spelled backward). Kovacs seasoned the egg dish with ashes from his cigar. The sponsor was a local propane company. Hosting these shows soon resulted in his becoming host of a program named Three to Get Ready, named for WPTZ's channel 3 spot on television dials.
Premiering in November 1950, Three to Get Ready was innovative because it was the first regularly scheduled early morning (7–9am) show in a major television market, predating NBC's Today by more than a year. Prior to this, it had been assumed that few people would watch television at such an early hour. While the show was advertised as early morning news and weather, Kovacs provided this and more in an original manner. When rain was in the weather forecast, Kovacs would get on a ladder and pour water down on the staff member reading the report. Goats were auditioned for a local theater performance and tiny women appeared to walk up his arm. Kovacs also went outside of the studio for some of his skits, running through a downtown Philadelphia restaurant in a gorilla suit in one; in another, he looked into a construction pit, saying it was deep enough to see to China, when a man in Chinese clothing popped up, said a few words in the language, and ran off. Despite its popularity, the weekly prop budget for the show was just $15. Kovacs once asked his viewers to send unwanted items to Channel 3; they filled the station's lobby.
The only character no one ever saw inspired more gifts; he was Howard, the World's Strongest Ant. From the time of his WPTZ debut, Howard received more than 30,000 gifts from Kovacs's viewers, including a mink-lined swimming pool. Kovacs began his Early Eyeball Fraternal & Marching Society (EEFMS) while doing Three to Get Ready. There were membership cards with by-laws and ties; the password was a favorite phrase of Kovacs's: "It's Been Real". Kovacs continued the EEFMS on his morning show when he moved to WCBS in New York in 1952. The success of Three to Get Ready proved that people did indeed watch early-morning television, and it was one of the factors that caused NBC to create The Today Show. WPTZ did not begin broadcasting Today when it premiered on January 14, 1952; network influence caused the station to end Three to Get Ready at the end of March of that year.
During early 1952, Kovacs was also doing a late morning show for WPTZ named Kovacs on the Corner. Kovacs would walk through an imaginary neighborhood, talking with various characters such as Pete the Cop and Luigi the Barber. As with Three to Get Ready, there were some special segments. "Swap Time" was one of them: Viewers could bring their unwanted items to the WPTZ studios to trade them live on the air with Kovacs. The show made its debut on January 4, 1952, with Kovacs losing creative control of the program soon after it was begun. Kovacs on the Corner was short-lived; it ended on March 28, 1952, along with Three to Get Ready. Kovacs then began work for WCBS-TV in New York with a local morning show and a later network one. Both programs were canceled; Kovacs lost the local morning program for the same reason as Three to Get Ready—the broadcasting time was confiscated by the station's network in 1954.
Visual humor and characters
At WPTZ, Kovacs began using the ad-libbed and experimental style that would become his reputation, including video effects, superimpositions, reverse polarities and scanning, and quick blackouts. He was also noted for abstraction and carefully timed non-sequitur gags and for allowing the fourth wall to be breached. Kovacs's cameras commonly showed his viewers activity beyond the boundaries of the show set—including crew members and outside the studio itself. Kovacs also liked talking to the off-camera crew and even introduced segments from the studio control room. He frequently made use of accidents and happenstance, incorporating the unexpected into his shows. In one of Kovacs's Philadelphia broadcasts, Oscar Liebetrau, an elderly crew member who was known for often sleeping for the duration of the telecast, was introduced to the audience as "Sleeping Schwartz." Kovacs was once knocked unconscious when a pie smashed into his face still had the plate under it.
Kovacs's love of spontaneity extended to his crew, who would occasionally play on-air pranks on him to see how he would react. During one of his NBC shows, Kovacs was appearing as the inept magician Matzoh Heppelwhite. The sketch called for the magician to frequently hit a gong, which was the signal for a sexy female assistant to bring out a bottle and shot glass for a quick snort of alcohol. Stagehands substituted real liquor for the iced tea normally used for the skit. Kovacs realized that he would be called upon to drink a shot of liquor for each successive gong. He pressed on with the sketch and was quite inebriated by the end of the show.
Kovacs helped develop camera tricks still common decades after his death. His character Eugene sat at a table to eat his lunch, but as he removed items one at a time from a lunch box, he watched them inexplicably roll down the table into the lap of a man reading a newspaper at the other end. When Kovacs poured milk from a thermos bottle, the stream flowed in a seemingly unusual direction. Never seen on television before, the secret was using a tilted set in front of a camera tilted at the same angle.
He constantly sought new techniques and used both primitive and improvised ways of creating visual effects that would later be done electronically. One innovative construction involved attaching a kaleidoscope made from a toilet paper roll to a camera lens with cardboard and tape and setting the resulting abstract images to music. Another was a soup can with both ends removed fitted with angled mirrors. Used on a camera and turning it could put Kovacs seemingly on the ceiling. An underwater stunt involved cigar smoker Kovacs sitting in an easy chair, reading his newspaper and somehow smoking a cigar. Removing it from his mouth, Kovacs was able to exhale a puff of white smoke, all while floating underwater. The trick: the "smoke" was a small amount of milk which he filled his mouth with before submerging. Kovacs repeated the effect for a Dutch Masters television commercial on his ABC game show, Take A Good Look.
One of the special effects he employed made it appear as if he was able to look through his assistant, Barbara Loden's, head. The illusion was performed by placing a black patch on Loden's head and standing her against a black background while one studio camera was trained on her. A second one photographed Kovacs, who used the studio monitor to position himself exactly so that his eye would appear to be looking through a hole in her head.
He also developed such routines as an all-gorilla version of Swan Lake, a poker game set to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the skit Silent Show, in which Eugene interacts with the world accompanied solely by music and sound effects, parodies of typical television commercials and movie genres, and various musical segments with everyday items (such as kitchen appliances or office equipment) moving in sync to music. A popular recurring skit was The Nairobi Trio, three derby-hatted apes miming mechanically and rhythmically to the tune of Robert Maxwell's "Solfeggio".
Kovacs used extended sketches and mood pieces or quick blackout gags lasting only seconds. Some could be expensive, such as his famous used-car salesman routine with a jalopy and a breakaway floor: it cost $12,000 to produce the six-second gag. He was one of the first television comedians to use odd fake credits and comments between the legitimate credits and, at times, during his routines.
Kovacs reportedly disliked working in front of a live audience, as was the case with the shows he did for NBC during the 1950s. He found the presence of an audience distracting, and those in the seats frequently did not understand some of the more elaborate visual gags and special effects, which could only be appreciated by watching studio monitors instead of the stage.
Like many comedians of the era, Kovacs created a rotation of recurring roles. In addition to the silent "Eugene," his most familiar characters were the fey, lisping poet Percy Dovetonsils, and the heavily accented German radio announcer, Wolfgang von Sauerbraten. Mr. Question Man, who answered viewer queries, was a satire on the long-run (1937–56) radio series, The Answer Man. Others included horror show host Auntie Gruesome, bumbling magician Matzoh Heppelwhite, Frenchman Pierre Ragout and Miklos Molnar, the sardonic Hungarian host of a cooking show. The Miklos character wasn't always confined to a kitchen; Kovacs performed a parody of The Howdy Doody Show with "Buffalo Miklos" as the host. Poet Percy Dovetonsils can be found playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata on a disappearing piano and as a "Master Detective" on the "Private Eye-Private Eye" presentation of the US Steel Hour on CBS March 8, 1961. On the same show, the Nairobi Trio abandons its instruments for a safe-cracking job; still with a background of "Solfeggio", but speaking, two of the three appear in an "Outer Space" sketch.
Kovacs became a regular on NBC Radio's program Monitor beginning during late 1958, often using his Mr. Question Man character in his radio monologues.
Kovacs never hesitated to lampoon those considered institutions of radio and television. In April 1954, he started the late-night talk show, The Ernie Kovacs Show, on DuMont Television Network's New York flagship station, WABD. Stage, screen and radio notables were often guests. Archie Bleyer, head of Cadence Records, came to chat one evening. Bleyer had been the long-time orchestra director for Arthur Godfrey's radio and television shows. He had been dismissed by Godfrey the year before, together with fellow cast member, singer Julius La Rosa. In La Rosa's case, he hired a manager, defying an unwritten Godfrey policy. With Bleyer, Godfrey was angered when he found that Bleyer's record company Cadence Records had produced spoken-word material by Don McNeill, host of ABC's Don McNeill's Breakfast Club, which Godfrey considered competition to his show. Bleyer and Kovacs were shown in split screen, with Kovacs wearing a red wig, headphones, and playing a ukulele in a Godfrey imitation, while talking with his guest.
Kovacs's television programs included Three to Get Ready (an early morning program seen on Philadelphia's WPTZ from 1950 through 1952), It's Time for Ernie (1951, his first network series), Ernie in Kovacsland, (a summer replacement show for Kukla, Fran and Ollie, 1951), The Ernie Kovacs Show (1952–56 on various networks), a twice-a-week job filling in for Steve Allen as host of The Tonight Show on Mondays and Tuesdays (1956–57), and game shows Gamble on Love, One Minute Please, Time Will Tell (all on DuMont), and Take a Good Look (1959–61). Kovacs was also the host of a program, Silents Please, which showed silent movies on network television, with serious discussion about the movies and their actors.
Kovacs had a brief stint as a celebrity panelist for the television series What's My Line?, but took his responsibilities less than seriously, often eschewing a legitimate question for the sake of a laugh. An example: Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, the founder of an automobile company, was the program's "mystery guest." Previous questioning had established that the mystery guest's name was synonymous with an automobile brand, Kovacs asked, "Are you – and this is just a wild guess – but are you Abraham Lincoln?"—a reference to the Ford Motor Company's Lincoln automobiles. When Kovacs gave an interview admitting that he was absent from the show when he wanted to go out for dinner on a Sunday, his stint on the panel show was ended.
TV specials
He also did several television specials, including the famous Silent Show (1957), featuring his character, Eugene: the first all-pantomime prime-time network program. After the end of the Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis partnership, NBC offered Lewis the opportunity to host his own 90-minute color television special. Lewis opted to use only 60 minutes, leaving the network 30 minutes to fill; no one wanted this time slot, but Kovacs was willing to have it. The program contained no spoken dialogue and contained only sound effects and music. Featuring Kovacs as the mute, Charlie Chaplin-like character "Eugene", the program contained surreal sight gags. Kovacs developed the Eugene character during the autumn of 1956, when hosting the television series The Tonight Show. Expectations were high for the Lewis program, but it was Kovacs' special that received the most attention; Kovacs received his first movie offer, had a cover story in Life magazine, and received the Sylvania Award that year.
In 1961, Kovacs and his co-director, Joe Behar, were recipients of the Directors Guild of America Award for a second version of this program broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company network.
A series of monthly half-hour specials for ABC during 1961–62 is often considered his best television work. Produced on videotape using new editing and special effects techniques, it won a 1962 Emmy Award. Kovacs and co-director Behar also won the Directors Guild of America award for an Ernie Kovacs Special based on the earlier, silent "Eugene" program. Kovacs' last ABC special was broadcast posthumously, on January 23, 1962.
The Dutch Masters cigar company became well-known during the late 1950s and early 1960s for its sponsorship of various television projects of Ernie Kovacs. The company allowed Kovacs total creative control in the creation of their television commercials for his programs and specials. He produced a series of non-speaking television commercials for Dutch Masters during the run of his television series Take A Good Look which was praised by both television critics and viewers.
While praised by critics, Kovacs rarely had a highly-rated show. The Museum of Broadcast Communications says, "It is doubtful that Ernie Kovacs would find a place on television today. He was too zany, too unrestrained, too undisciplined. Perhaps Jack Gould of The New York Times said it best for Ernie Kovacs: 'The fun was in trying'."
Other shows had greater success while using elements of Kovacs's style. George Schlatter, producer of the later television series Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, was married to actress Jolene Brand, who had appeared in Kovacs' comic troupes over the years and had been a frequent participant in his pioneering sketches. Laugh-In made frequent use of the quick blackout gags and surreal humor that marked many Kovacs projects. Another link was a young NBC staffer, Bill Wendell, Kovacs's usual announcer and sometimes a sketch participant. From 1980 to 1995, Wendell was the announcer for David Letterman, whose show and style of humor were greatly influenced by Kovacs.
The Music Man
Kovacs was also known for his eclectic musical taste. His main theme song was named "Oriental Blues" by Jack Newton. The rendition most often heard was a piano-driven trio version, but, for his primetime show during 1956, music director Harry Sosnik presented a full-blown big-band version. The German song "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer" from The Threepenny Opera (anglicized to "Mack the Knife"), frequently underscored his blackout routines. Songwriter Robert Maxwell's "Solfeggio" became associated with the derby-hatted apes, 'The Nairobi Trio'.
In the 1982 TV special Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius, Edie Adams recalled that when Kovacs first heard the melody, he immediately knew what he wanted to do with it, creating a music-box-like trio that moved in time to the tune. Kovacs was introduced to the song in 1954 by Barry Shear, his director at DuMont Television Network.
Kovacs matched an unusual treatment of "Sentimental Journey", by Mexican bandleader Juan García Esquivel, to video of an empty office in which various items (pencil sharpeners, water coolers, wall clocks) come to life in rhythm with the music; it was a variation on several famous animations of a decade earlier. The original three-minute presentation was outlined by Kovacs in a four-page, single-spaced memo to his staff. The perfectionist Kovacs describes in minute detail what had to be done and how to do it. The memo ends with this: "I don't know how the hell you're going to get this done by Sunday – but 'rots of ruck." (signed) "Ernie (with love)". Kovacs also made careful use of the shrill singer Leona Anderson—who had somewhat less than a classical (or even listenable) voice, by some estimations—in comic vignettes.
Kovacs used classical music as background for silent skits or abstract visual routines, including "Concerto for Orchestra", by Béla Bartók; music from the opera "The Love of Three Oranges", by Sergei Prokofiev; the finale of Igor Stravinsky's suite "The Firebird"; and Richard Strauss' "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks"; and, from George Gershwin, "Rialto Ripples"--the theme to his shows--as well as parts of Gershwin's "Concerto in F". He may have been known best for using Joseph Haydn's "String Quartet, Opus 3, Number 5" (the "Serenade," actually composed by Roman Hoffstetter) for a series of 1960–61 commercials he created and videotaped for his sponsor, Dutch Masters.
For the show of May 22, 1959, Kovacs on Music, Kovacs began by saying, "I have never really understood classical music, so I would like to take this opportunity to explain it to others." He presented a gorilla version of Swan Lake which differed from the usual performance only in the persona of the dancers, along with giant paper clips moving to music and other sketches.
He also served as host on a jazz album to benefit the American Cancer Society in 1957, Listening to Jazz with Ernie Kovacs. It was a 15-minute recording featuring some of the celebrities of the art, including pianist Jimmy Yancey and old original New Orleans Jazz Trumpeter Bunk Johnson, soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet, guitarist Django Reinhardt, composer/pianist/bandleader Duke Ellington and longtime Ellington trumpeter Cootie Williams. Both the Library of Congress and the National Library of Canada have copies of this recording in their collections.
In print
Kovacs wrote a novel, Zoomar: A Sophisticated Novel about Love and TV (Doubleday, 1957), based on television pioneer Pat Weaver; it took Kovacs only 13 days to write. The book took its title from the Zoomar brand zoom lenses frequently used on television cameras at the time. In a 1960 interview, Edie Adams related that the novel was written after Kovacs' experiences with network television while he was preparing to broadcast the Silent Show. The 1961 British edition was retitled T.V. Medium Rare by its London-based publisher, Transworld.
While he worked on several other book projects, Kovacs's only other published title was How to Talk at Gin, published posthumously in 1962. He intended part of the book's proceeds to benefit Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. During 1955–58, he wrote for Mad (his favorite humor magazine), including the feature "Strangely Believe It!" (a parody of Ripley's Believe It or Not! that was a regular feature of his television shows) and Gringo, a board game with ridiculously complicated rules that was renamed Droongo for the television show. Kovacs also wrote the introduction to the 1958 collection Mad For Keeps: A Collection of the Best from Mad Magazine.
Television guest star
Kovacs and Edie Adams guest starred on what turned out to be the final episode of The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show, (syndicated as The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour or We Love Lucy) "Lucy Meets the Moustache", which was in rehearsals during the week of February 28 and filmed on March 3 for an April 1, 1960 network broadcast. "Lucy Meets the Moustache" was the last time Arnaz and Ball worked together and the last time their famous characters appeared in a first-run broadcast. According to Adams, Ball and Arnaz 'avoided contact and barely talked to each other in rehearsals and in-between scenes'. Adams also said that they were not told their episode was the last or that the famous couple was to divorce (Ball entered the uncontested divorce request March 4, 1960).
Kovacs also appeared in roles on other television programs. For General Electric Theater's "I Was a Bloodhound" in 1959, Kovacs played the role of detective Barney Colby, whose extraordinary sense of smell helped him solve many seemingly-impossible cases. Colby was hired by a foreign country to recover its symbol of royalty, a baby elephant, who was being held for ransom.
Films
Kovacs found Hollywood success as a character actor, often typecast as a swarthy military officer (almost always a "Captain" of some sort) in such films as Operation Mad Ball, Wake Me When It's Over and Our Man in Havana. While working in his first film role for Operation Mad Ball, Kovacs was filming a wild party scene after midnight; it was decided to use real champagne for realism. After a few hours of work, someone came up to Kovacs and remarked that he had been having quite a good time chasing starlets all night. Kovacs told the stranger to go to hell, since he was following the script; he later learned the stranger was Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures. Kovacs and Cohn later became friends despite the way they had met, with Cohn giving Kovacs roles in Bell, Book and Candle (1958) and It Happened to Jane (1959).
He garnered critical acclaim for film roles such as the perennially-inebriated writer in Bell, Book and Candle and as the cartoonishly-evil head of a railroad company (who resembled Orson Welles' title character in Citizen Kane) in It Happened to Jane, where he had his head shaved and his remaining hair dyed grey for the role. In 1960, he played the base commander Charlie Stark in the comedy Wake Me When It's Over and the con man Frankie Cannon trying to steal John Wayne's gold mine in the western comedy, North to Alaska. His own personal favorite was said to have been the offbeat Five Golden Hours (1961), in which he portrayed a larcenous professional mourner who meets his match in a professional widow played by Cyd Charisse. Kovacs's last movie, Sail a Crooked Ship (also 1961), was released one month before his death.
Personal life
First marriage
Kovacs and his first wife, Bette Wilcox, were married on August 13, 1945. When the marriage ended, he fought for custody of their children, Elizabeth ("Bette") and Kip Raleigh ("Kippie"). The court awarded Kovacs full custody upon determining that his former wife was mentally unstable. The decision was extremely unusual at the time, setting a legal precedent. Wilcox subsequently kidnapped the children, taking them to Florida. After a long and expensive search, Kovacs regained custody. These events were portrayed in the television movie Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter (1984), which garnered an Emmy Award nomination for its writer, April Smith. Kovacs was portrayed by Jeff Goldblum.
Kovacs's first wife made a legal attempt to gain custody of her two daughters soon after his death. She began August 2, 1962, by claiming $500,000 was her share of Kovacs's estate and charging that her ex-husband had abducted the girls in 1955; Kovacs had been granted legal custody of his daughters in 1952. On August 30, Wilcox filed an affidavit claiming that Kovacs's widow, Edie Adams, the stepmother to the girls, was "unfit" to care for them. Both daughters, Bette and Kippie, testified that they wanted to stay with their stepmother, Edie. Kippie's testimony was very emotional; in it she referred to Edie as "Mommy" and her birth mother as "the other lady." Upon hearing the verdict that the girls would remain in their home, Adams wept, saying, "This is what Ernie would have wanted. Now I can smile." Elizabeth Kovacs's reaction was "I'm so happy I can hardly express myself", after learning she and her sister would not be forced to leave Edie.
Second marriage
Kovacs and Adams met in 1951 when she was hired to work for his WPTZ show, Three to Get Ready. Her appearance on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts caught the eye of Kovacs's producer, and he asked her to audition for the program. A classically-trained singer, she was able to perform only three popular songs. Edie said later, "I sang them all during the audition, and if they had asked to hear another, I never would have made it." Quoting Kovacs, "I wish I could say I was the big shot that hired her, but it was my show in name only – the producer had all the say. Later on I did have something to say and I said it: 'Let's get married.'"
After the couple's first date, Kovacs proceeded to buy a Jaguar car, telling Adams he wanted to take her out in style. He was seriously taken with the beautiful and talented young woman, courting her with imagination and flair. Kovacs's attempts to win Adams' affection included hiring a mariachi band to serenade her backstage at the Broadway musical she was performing in and the sudden gift of a diamond engagement ring, telling her to wear it until she made up her mind. Kovacs continued this romantic quest after the show went out of town.
Adams booked a six-week European cruise, which she hoped would let her make up her mind whether or not to marry Kovacs. After only three days away and many long-distance telephone calls, she curtailed her trip and returned to say "yes". They eloped and were married on September 12, 1954, in Mexico City. The ceremony was presided over by former New York City mayor William O'Dwyer and was performed in Spanish, which neither Kovacs nor Adams understood; O'Dwyer had to prompt each of them to say "Sí" at the "I do" portion of the vows. Adams, who had a middle-class upbringing, was smitten by Kovacs's quirky ways; the couple remained together until his death. (She later said about Kovacs, "He treated me like a little girl, and I loved it—Women's Lib be damned!")
Adams also aided Kovacs's struggle to reclaim his two older children after the kidnapping by their mother. She also was a regular partner on his television shows. Kovacs usually introduced or addressed her in a businesslike way, as "Edith Adams". Adams was usually willing to do anything he envisioned, whether it was singing seriously, performing impersonations (including a well-regarded impression of Marilyn Monroe) or taking a pie in the face or a pratfall if and when needed. The couple had one daughter, Mia Susan Kovacs, born June 20, 1959.
Kovacs and his family shared a 16-room apartment in Manhattan on Central Park West that seemed perfect until he went to California for his first film role in Operation Mad Ball. The experience of the totally different, laid-back lifestyle of Hollywood made a big impression on him. He realized he was working too much in New York; in California he would be able to work fewer hours, do just as well or better and have more time for Edie and his daughters. At the time, he was working most of the time and sleeping about two or three hours a night. Kovacs claimed that he realized it was time for a change when he was telling his girls a bedtime story and found himself thinking of using it for a show instead. Kovacs relocated his family there in 1957, after Edie finished work for the Broadway play Li'l Abner.
Death
In the early morning hours of January 13, 1962, Kovacs lost control of his Chevrolet Corvair station wagon while turning quickly and crashed into a power pole in Beverly Hills. He was thrown halfway out the vehicle's passenger side and died almost instantly from chest and head injuries.
A photographer arrived soon after and images of Kovacs' bodywith an unlit cigar on the pavement near his outstretched handappeared in newspapers across the United States.
In keeping Kovacs's wishes, a simple service was held at the Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian Church. The pallbearers included Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Billy Wilder, and Mervyn LeRoy, and George Burns, Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Buster Keaton and Milton Berle also attended. The pastor said that Kovacs had summed up his life thus: "I was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1919 to a Hungarian couple. I've been smoking cigars ever since."
He is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads "Nothing in moderation—We all loved him."
Tax evasion
A frequent critic of the U.S. tax system, Kovacs owed the Internal Revenue Service several hundred thousand dollars in back taxes, due to his refusal to pay the bulk of them. Up to 90% of his earnings were garnished as a result. His long battles with the IRS inspired Kovacs to invest his money in a convoluted series of paper corporations in the U.S. and Canada. He would give them bizarre names, such as "The Bazooka Dooka Hicka Hocka Hookah Company". In 1961, Kovacs was served with a $75,000 lien for back taxes; that same day he bought the California Racquet Club with the apparent hope of being able to use it as a tax write-off. The property had mortgages at the time of purchase which were later paid by Edie Adams.
His tax woes also affected Kovacs's career, forcing him to take any offered work to pay his debt. This included the ABC game show Take a Good Look, appearances on variety shows such as NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford, and some of his less-memorable film roles. He also filmed an unaired 1962 pilot episode for a proposed CBS series, Medicine Man (co-starring Buster Keaton; the pilot episode titled "A Pony for Chris"). Kovacs' role was that of Dr. P. Crookshank, a traveling medicine salesman in the 1870s, who was selling Mother McGreevy's Wizard Juice, also known as "man's best friend in a bottle". This was abandoned after his death, which occurred the day after filming some scenes for the pilot in Griffith Park. CBS initially intended to broadcast the show as part of a summer replacement program, The Comedy Spot, but decided against it due to problems with Kovacs' estate. The pilot is part of the public collection of the Paley Center for Media.
Some of the issues regarding Kovacs' tax problems were still unresolved years after his death. Kovacs had purchased two insurance policies in 1951; his mother was named as the primary beneficiary of them. The IRS placed a lien against them both for their cash value in 1961. To stop the actions being taken against her, Mary Kovacs had to go to Federal court. The court's early 1966 ruling resolved the issue, with the last sentence of the document reading: "Prima facie, it looks as if, within the limits of discretion permitted the government by the relevant statutes, an injustice is being done Mary Kovacs."
Adams, who married and divorced twice after Kovacs' death, refused help from celebrity friends who planned a benefit for the purpose. "I can take care of my own children," she said, and resolved to accept offers only from those who wanted to hire her for her talents. Adams eventually paid all of Kovacs's debts.
Lost and surviving work
Most of Kovacs's early television work was performed live: few kinescopes have survived. Some videotapes of his ABC specials were preserved; others, such as his quirky game show, Take a Good Look, were available mostly in short segments until recently, with the release of some complete, videotaped episodes. After Kovacs's death, Adams discovered not only that her husband owed ABC a great deal of money, but that some networks were systematically erasing and reusing tapes of Kovacs's shows or disposing of the kinescopes and videotapes. She succeeded in purchasing the rights to surviving footage with the proceeds from Kovacs' insurance policy and her own earnings after Kovacs' IRS debts were paid. In March 1996, Adams detailed her experiences before the National Film Preservation Board.
Adams first used some of the videotapes she had purchased for a 1968 ABC television special, The Comedy of Ernie Kovacs; to produce the show, she hired Kovacs's former producer and editor. The hour-long program was sponsored by Kovacs's former sponsor, Dutch Masters.
Most of Kovacs's salvaged work is available to researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles Library's Department of Special Collections: additional material is available at the Paley Center for Media.
The 1984 television film Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter helped return Kovacs to the public's attention, though the show emphasized his bid to retrieve his kidnapped children instead of his professional life. Jeff Goldblum portrayed Kovacs, Madolyn Smith portrayed Bette and Melody Anderson portrayed Adams in the movie. Edie Adams appeared in a cameo in this film, playing Mae West; it was one of the impressions she performed in shows with Kovacs. Telecasts of edited compilations of some of his work by PBS (station WTTW, Chicago) under the title The Best of Ernie Kovacs in 1977, inspired the film. These broadcasts were made available on VHS and DVD. The DVD set features extras that are not in the VHS set. The series was narrated by Jack Lemmon.
During the early 1990s, The Comedy Channel broadcast a series of Kovacs' shows under the generic title of The Ernie Kovacs Show. The series included both the ABC specials and some of his 1950s shows from NBC. By 2008, there were no broadcast, cable, or satellite channels broadcasting any of Kovacs's television work, other than his panel appearances on What's My Line? on the Game Show Network.
On April 19, 2011, Shout! Factory released The Ernie Kovacs Collection, six DVDs spanning Kovacs's television career. The company's website also offers an extra disc with material from Tonight! and The Ernie Kovacs Show, as well as a rare color kinescope of the complete 30-minute 1957 NBC color broadcast featuring "Eugene". On October 23, 2012, Shout! Factory released The Ernie Kovacs Collection: Volume 2 on DVD.
In 1961, Kovacs recorded a record album of poetry in the character of Percy Dovetonsils named Percy Dovetonsils Thpeakth, but was unable to release it due to contractual obligations with other record companies. After he was given the masters, Kovacs donated them to a Los Angeles area hospital. Adams was able to re-acquire the tapes in 1967, and they remained part of her private collection until her death in 2008. The tapes were labeled as movie material and were thought to be such until further examination proved they were Kovacs as Percy reading his poems with no music background. The album was finally released in 2012.
Kovacs was inducted posthumously into the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia's Hall of Fame in 1992.
Partial filmography
Operation Mad Ball (1957) (with Jack Lemmon) as Capt. Paul Lock
Bell, Book and Candle (1958) (with James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Jack Lemmon as Sidney Redlitch
It Happened to Jane (1959) (with Doris Day and Jack Lemmon) as Harry Foster Malone
Our Man in Havana (1959) (with Alec Guinness and Noël Coward) as Capt. Segura
Wake Me When It's Over (1960) (with Dick Shawn) as Capt. Charlie Stark
Strangers When We Meet (1960) (with Kirk Douglas and Kim Novak) as Roger Altar
North to Alaska (1960) (with John Wayne) as Frankie Canon
Pepe (1960) (with Cantinflas) as Immigration Inspector
Five Golden Hours (1961) (with Cyd Charisse and George Sanders) as Aldo Bondi
Sail a Crooked Ship (1961, with Robert Wagner) as Bugsy G. Foglemeyer aka The Captain
Notes
References
Bibliography
via Project MUSE
Further reading
Adams, Edie (1990). Sing a Pretty Song: The "Offbeat" Life of Edie Adams, Including the Ernie Kovacs Years. William Morrow;
Barker, David Brian (1982). "Every Moment's a Gift": Ernie Kovacs in Hollywood, 1957–1962, a Master's Thesis. Available for viewing at the library at the University of Texas at Austin
Rico, Diana (1990). Kovacsland: A Biography of Ernie Kovacs. Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich;
Walley, David (1975). Nothing in Moderation. Drake Publishers; Reprinted as The Ernie Kovacs Phile by David Walley, Bolder Books, 1978 and Fireside/Simon & Schuster, 1987;
External links
The Official Ernie Kovacs Website
Ernie Kovacs Dot Net: A Tribute To Television's Original Genius
Kovacsland Online! – the Ernie Kovacs website
List of Kovacs' 16 articles for MAD magazine
Watch
The Jack Benny Program with Ernie Kovacs as guest at the Internet Archive
Operation Mad Ball Trailer (1957) at the Internet Archive
John Barbour's documentary Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius at John Barbour's World
Ernie Kovacs Dutch Masters Cigar Commercial
1919 births
1962 deaths
20th-century American male actors
American people of Hungarian descent
American comedy writers
American game show hosts
American male film actors
American male television actors
American humorists
American satirists
American comics writers
American television talk show hosts
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
Emmy Award winners
Mad (magazine) people
Male actors from New Jersey
Actors from Trenton, New Jersey
Road incident deaths in California
Trenton Central High School alumni
Writers from Trenton, New Jersey
American male comedy actors
20th-century American comedians | false | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Ernie Kovacs",
"Death",
"when did he die?",
"Kovacs was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles during the early morning hours of January 13, 1962.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"A photographer managed to arrive moments later, and graphic images of Kovacs's dead body appeared in newspapers across the United States."
] | C_8d50647977304f559cc6b26bd64e27fc_1 | did he have children? | 3 | Did Ernie Kovacs have children? | Ernie Kovacs | Kovacs was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles during the early morning hours of January 13, 1962. Kovacs, who had worked for much of the evening, met Adams at a baby shower given by Billy Wilder for Milton Berle and his wife, who had recently adopted a newborn baby boy. The couple left the party in separate cars. After a light southern California rainstorm, Kovacs lost control of his Chevrolet Corvair station wagon while turning quickly, and crashed into a power pole at the corner of Beverly Glen and Santa Monica Boulevards. He was thrown halfway out the passenger side, and died almost instantly from chest and head injuries. A photographer managed to arrive moments later, and graphic images of Kovacs's dead body appeared in newspapers across the United States. An unlit cigar lay on the pavement, inches from his outstretched arm. Years later, in a documentary about Kovacs, Edie Adams described telephoning the police impatiently when she learned of the crash. An official cupped his hand over the receiver, saying to a colleague, "It's Mrs. Kovacs, he's on his way to the coroner - what should I tell her?" With that, Adams's fears were confirmed, and she became inconsolable. Jack Lemmon, who also attended the Berle party, identified Kovacs's body at the morgue because Adams was too distraught to do so. After attending funerals for Hollywood friends, Kovacs had expressed his wishes to Adams that any funeral services for him be kept simple. In keeping with his request, Adams made arrangements for Presbyterian services at the Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian Church. The active pallbearers were Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Billy Wilder, Mervyn LeRoy, and Joe Mikolas. Kovacs's father and brother, Andrew and Tom, respectively, served as honorary pallbearers. The attendees included George Burns, Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Buster Keaton and Milton Berle. There was no typical Hollywood-type eulogy, but the church's pastor paid tribute to Kovacs, adding that he once summed up his life in two sentences: "I was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1919 to a Hungarian couple. I've been smoking cigars ever since." Kovacs is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads, "Nothing in moderation--We all loved him." Only one of Kovacs's three children survives: his eldest, Elizabeth, from his first marriage. Kippie, his second daughter, died on July 28, 2001 at the age of 52, after a long illness and a lifetime of poor health. Kippie and her husband, Bill Lancaster (1947-1997), a screenwriter and the son of actor Burt Lancaster, are the parents of Kovacs's only grandchild, Keigh Lancaster. His only child with Edie Adams, Mia (1959-1982), was killed on May 8, 1982, also in an automobile accident. Her gravestone reads "Daddy's little girl. We all loved her, too". Mia and Kippie are buried close to their father; when Edie died in 2008, she was buried between Mia and Kippie. CANNOTANSWER | Only one of Kovacs's three children survives: his eldest, Elizabeth, from his first marriage. Kippie, his second daughter, died on July 28, 2001 at the age of 52, | Ernest Edward Kovacs (January 23, 1919 – January 13, 1962) was an American comedian, actor, and writer.
Kovacs's visually experimental and often spontaneous comedic style influenced numerous television comedy programs for years after his death. Kovacs has been credited as an influence by many individuals and shows, including Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Jim Henson, Max Headroom, Chevy Chase, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Pee-wee's Playhouse, The Muppet Show, Dave Garroway, Andy Kaufman, You Can't Do That on Television, MST3K, Uncle Floyd, among others. Chevy Chase thanked Kovacs during his acceptance speech for his Emmy award for Saturday Night Live.
While Kovacs and Adams received Emmy nominations for best performances in a comedy series during 1957, his talent was not recognized formally until after his death. The 1962 Emmy for Outstanding Electronic Camera Work and the Directors' Guild award came a short time after his fatal accident. A quarter century later, he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. Kovacs also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in television. In 1986, the Museum of Broadcasting (later to become the Museum of Television & Radio and now the Paley Center for Media) presented an exhibit of Kovacs's work, called The Vision of Ernie Kovacs. The Pulitzer Prize–winning television critic, William Henry III, wrote for the museum's booklet: "Kovacs was more than another wide-eyed, self-ingratiating clown. He was television's first significant video artist."
Early life and career
Kovacs's father, Andrew John Kovacs, was born in 1890 and emigrated from Tornaújfalu, Hungary, which is now known as Turnianska Nová Ves, Slovakia. Andrew sailed on the S.S. Würzburg via Bremen, arriving at Ellis Island on February 8, 1906, at age 16. He worked as a policeman, restaurateur, and bootlegger, the last so successfully that he moved his wife Mary, son Tom, and his half-brother Ernest Edward Kovacs into a 20-room mansion in the better part of Trenton.
Though a poor student, Kovacs was influenced by his Trenton Central High School drama teacher, Harold Van Kirk, and received an acting scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1937 with Van Kirk's help. The end of Prohibition and the onset of the Great Depression resulted in difficult financial times for the family. When Kovacs began drama school, all he could afford was a fifth-floor walk-up apartment on West 74th Street in New York City.
During this time, he watched many "Grade B" movies; admission was only ten cents. Many of these movies influenced his comedy routines later.
A 1938 local newspaper photograph shows Kovacs as a member of the Prospect Players, not yet wearing his trademark mustache. Kovacs used his class vacation time to pursue roles in summer stock companies. While working in Vermont in 1939, he became so seriously ill with pneumonia and pleurisy that his doctors didn't expect him to survive. During the next year and a half, his comedic talents developed as he entertained both doctors and patients with his antics during stays at several hospitals. While hospitalized, Kovacs developed a lifelong love of classical music by the gift of a radio, which he kept tuned to WQXR. By the time he was released his parents had separated, and Kovacs went back to Trenton, living with his mother in a two-room apartment over a store. He began work as a cigar salesman, which resulted in a lifelong tobacco-smoking habit.
Kovacs's first paid entertainment work was during 1941 as an announcer for Trenton's radio station WTTM. He spent the next nine years with WTTM, becoming the station's director of special events; in this job he did things like trying to see what it was like to be run over by a train (leaving the tracks at the last minute) and broadcasting from the cockpit of a plane for which he took flying lessons. Kovacs was also involved with local theater; a local newspaper published a photograph of him and the news that he was doing some directing for the Trenton Players Guild in early 1941. The Trentonian, a local weekly newspaper, offered Kovacs a column in June 1945; he named it "Kovacs Unlimited".
Start in television
Arriving at NBC's Philadelphia affiliate, WPTZ, for an audition wearing a barrel and shorts got Kovacs his first television job in January 1950. His first show was Pick Your Ideal, a fashion and promotional program for the Ideal Manufacturing Company. Before long, Kovacs was also the host of Deadline For Dinner and Now You're Cooking, shows featuring advice from local chefs. When Kovacs's guest chef did not arrive in time for the show, he offered a recipe for "Eggs Scavok" (Kovacs spelled backward). Kovacs seasoned the egg dish with ashes from his cigar. The sponsor was a local propane company. Hosting these shows soon resulted in his becoming host of a program named Three to Get Ready, named for WPTZ's channel 3 spot on television dials.
Premiering in November 1950, Three to Get Ready was innovative because it was the first regularly scheduled early morning (7–9am) show in a major television market, predating NBC's Today by more than a year. Prior to this, it had been assumed that few people would watch television at such an early hour. While the show was advertised as early morning news and weather, Kovacs provided this and more in an original manner. When rain was in the weather forecast, Kovacs would get on a ladder and pour water down on the staff member reading the report. Goats were auditioned for a local theater performance and tiny women appeared to walk up his arm. Kovacs also went outside of the studio for some of his skits, running through a downtown Philadelphia restaurant in a gorilla suit in one; in another, he looked into a construction pit, saying it was deep enough to see to China, when a man in Chinese clothing popped up, said a few words in the language, and ran off. Despite its popularity, the weekly prop budget for the show was just $15. Kovacs once asked his viewers to send unwanted items to Channel 3; they filled the station's lobby.
The only character no one ever saw inspired more gifts; he was Howard, the World's Strongest Ant. From the time of his WPTZ debut, Howard received more than 30,000 gifts from Kovacs's viewers, including a mink-lined swimming pool. Kovacs began his Early Eyeball Fraternal & Marching Society (EEFMS) while doing Three to Get Ready. There were membership cards with by-laws and ties; the password was a favorite phrase of Kovacs's: "It's Been Real". Kovacs continued the EEFMS on his morning show when he moved to WCBS in New York in 1952. The success of Three to Get Ready proved that people did indeed watch early-morning television, and it was one of the factors that caused NBC to create The Today Show. WPTZ did not begin broadcasting Today when it premiered on January 14, 1952; network influence caused the station to end Three to Get Ready at the end of March of that year.
During early 1952, Kovacs was also doing a late morning show for WPTZ named Kovacs on the Corner. Kovacs would walk through an imaginary neighborhood, talking with various characters such as Pete the Cop and Luigi the Barber. As with Three to Get Ready, there were some special segments. "Swap Time" was one of them: Viewers could bring their unwanted items to the WPTZ studios to trade them live on the air with Kovacs. The show made its debut on January 4, 1952, with Kovacs losing creative control of the program soon after it was begun. Kovacs on the Corner was short-lived; it ended on March 28, 1952, along with Three to Get Ready. Kovacs then began work for WCBS-TV in New York with a local morning show and a later network one. Both programs were canceled; Kovacs lost the local morning program for the same reason as Three to Get Ready—the broadcasting time was confiscated by the station's network in 1954.
Visual humor and characters
At WPTZ, Kovacs began using the ad-libbed and experimental style that would become his reputation, including video effects, superimpositions, reverse polarities and scanning, and quick blackouts. He was also noted for abstraction and carefully timed non-sequitur gags and for allowing the fourth wall to be breached. Kovacs's cameras commonly showed his viewers activity beyond the boundaries of the show set—including crew members and outside the studio itself. Kovacs also liked talking to the off-camera crew and even introduced segments from the studio control room. He frequently made use of accidents and happenstance, incorporating the unexpected into his shows. In one of Kovacs's Philadelphia broadcasts, Oscar Liebetrau, an elderly crew member who was known for often sleeping for the duration of the telecast, was introduced to the audience as "Sleeping Schwartz." Kovacs was once knocked unconscious when a pie smashed into his face still had the plate under it.
Kovacs's love of spontaneity extended to his crew, who would occasionally play on-air pranks on him to see how he would react. During one of his NBC shows, Kovacs was appearing as the inept magician Matzoh Heppelwhite. The sketch called for the magician to frequently hit a gong, which was the signal for a sexy female assistant to bring out a bottle and shot glass for a quick snort of alcohol. Stagehands substituted real liquor for the iced tea normally used for the skit. Kovacs realized that he would be called upon to drink a shot of liquor for each successive gong. He pressed on with the sketch and was quite inebriated by the end of the show.
Kovacs helped develop camera tricks still common decades after his death. His character Eugene sat at a table to eat his lunch, but as he removed items one at a time from a lunch box, he watched them inexplicably roll down the table into the lap of a man reading a newspaper at the other end. When Kovacs poured milk from a thermos bottle, the stream flowed in a seemingly unusual direction. Never seen on television before, the secret was using a tilted set in front of a camera tilted at the same angle.
He constantly sought new techniques and used both primitive and improvised ways of creating visual effects that would later be done electronically. One innovative construction involved attaching a kaleidoscope made from a toilet paper roll to a camera lens with cardboard and tape and setting the resulting abstract images to music. Another was a soup can with both ends removed fitted with angled mirrors. Used on a camera and turning it could put Kovacs seemingly on the ceiling. An underwater stunt involved cigar smoker Kovacs sitting in an easy chair, reading his newspaper and somehow smoking a cigar. Removing it from his mouth, Kovacs was able to exhale a puff of white smoke, all while floating underwater. The trick: the "smoke" was a small amount of milk which he filled his mouth with before submerging. Kovacs repeated the effect for a Dutch Masters television commercial on his ABC game show, Take A Good Look.
One of the special effects he employed made it appear as if he was able to look through his assistant, Barbara Loden's, head. The illusion was performed by placing a black patch on Loden's head and standing her against a black background while one studio camera was trained on her. A second one photographed Kovacs, who used the studio monitor to position himself exactly so that his eye would appear to be looking through a hole in her head.
He also developed such routines as an all-gorilla version of Swan Lake, a poker game set to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the skit Silent Show, in which Eugene interacts with the world accompanied solely by music and sound effects, parodies of typical television commercials and movie genres, and various musical segments with everyday items (such as kitchen appliances or office equipment) moving in sync to music. A popular recurring skit was The Nairobi Trio, three derby-hatted apes miming mechanically and rhythmically to the tune of Robert Maxwell's "Solfeggio".
Kovacs used extended sketches and mood pieces or quick blackout gags lasting only seconds. Some could be expensive, such as his famous used-car salesman routine with a jalopy and a breakaway floor: it cost $12,000 to produce the six-second gag. He was one of the first television comedians to use odd fake credits and comments between the legitimate credits and, at times, during his routines.
Kovacs reportedly disliked working in front of a live audience, as was the case with the shows he did for NBC during the 1950s. He found the presence of an audience distracting, and those in the seats frequently did not understand some of the more elaborate visual gags and special effects, which could only be appreciated by watching studio monitors instead of the stage.
Like many comedians of the era, Kovacs created a rotation of recurring roles. In addition to the silent "Eugene," his most familiar characters were the fey, lisping poet Percy Dovetonsils, and the heavily accented German radio announcer, Wolfgang von Sauerbraten. Mr. Question Man, who answered viewer queries, was a satire on the long-run (1937–56) radio series, The Answer Man. Others included horror show host Auntie Gruesome, bumbling magician Matzoh Heppelwhite, Frenchman Pierre Ragout and Miklos Molnar, the sardonic Hungarian host of a cooking show. The Miklos character wasn't always confined to a kitchen; Kovacs performed a parody of The Howdy Doody Show with "Buffalo Miklos" as the host. Poet Percy Dovetonsils can be found playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata on a disappearing piano and as a "Master Detective" on the "Private Eye-Private Eye" presentation of the US Steel Hour on CBS March 8, 1961. On the same show, the Nairobi Trio abandons its instruments for a safe-cracking job; still with a background of "Solfeggio", but speaking, two of the three appear in an "Outer Space" sketch.
Kovacs became a regular on NBC Radio's program Monitor beginning during late 1958, often using his Mr. Question Man character in his radio monologues.
Kovacs never hesitated to lampoon those considered institutions of radio and television. In April 1954, he started the late-night talk show, The Ernie Kovacs Show, on DuMont Television Network's New York flagship station, WABD. Stage, screen and radio notables were often guests. Archie Bleyer, head of Cadence Records, came to chat one evening. Bleyer had been the long-time orchestra director for Arthur Godfrey's radio and television shows. He had been dismissed by Godfrey the year before, together with fellow cast member, singer Julius La Rosa. In La Rosa's case, he hired a manager, defying an unwritten Godfrey policy. With Bleyer, Godfrey was angered when he found that Bleyer's record company Cadence Records had produced spoken-word material by Don McNeill, host of ABC's Don McNeill's Breakfast Club, which Godfrey considered competition to his show. Bleyer and Kovacs were shown in split screen, with Kovacs wearing a red wig, headphones, and playing a ukulele in a Godfrey imitation, while talking with his guest.
Kovacs's television programs included Three to Get Ready (an early morning program seen on Philadelphia's WPTZ from 1950 through 1952), It's Time for Ernie (1951, his first network series), Ernie in Kovacsland, (a summer replacement show for Kukla, Fran and Ollie, 1951), The Ernie Kovacs Show (1952–56 on various networks), a twice-a-week job filling in for Steve Allen as host of The Tonight Show on Mondays and Tuesdays (1956–57), and game shows Gamble on Love, One Minute Please, Time Will Tell (all on DuMont), and Take a Good Look (1959–61). Kovacs was also the host of a program, Silents Please, which showed silent movies on network television, with serious discussion about the movies and their actors.
Kovacs had a brief stint as a celebrity panelist for the television series What's My Line?, but took his responsibilities less than seriously, often eschewing a legitimate question for the sake of a laugh. An example: Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, the founder of an automobile company, was the program's "mystery guest." Previous questioning had established that the mystery guest's name was synonymous with an automobile brand, Kovacs asked, "Are you – and this is just a wild guess – but are you Abraham Lincoln?"—a reference to the Ford Motor Company's Lincoln automobiles. When Kovacs gave an interview admitting that he was absent from the show when he wanted to go out for dinner on a Sunday, his stint on the panel show was ended.
TV specials
He also did several television specials, including the famous Silent Show (1957), featuring his character, Eugene: the first all-pantomime prime-time network program. After the end of the Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis partnership, NBC offered Lewis the opportunity to host his own 90-minute color television special. Lewis opted to use only 60 minutes, leaving the network 30 minutes to fill; no one wanted this time slot, but Kovacs was willing to have it. The program contained no spoken dialogue and contained only sound effects and music. Featuring Kovacs as the mute, Charlie Chaplin-like character "Eugene", the program contained surreal sight gags. Kovacs developed the Eugene character during the autumn of 1956, when hosting the television series The Tonight Show. Expectations were high for the Lewis program, but it was Kovacs' special that received the most attention; Kovacs received his first movie offer, had a cover story in Life magazine, and received the Sylvania Award that year.
In 1961, Kovacs and his co-director, Joe Behar, were recipients of the Directors Guild of America Award for a second version of this program broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company network.
A series of monthly half-hour specials for ABC during 1961–62 is often considered his best television work. Produced on videotape using new editing and special effects techniques, it won a 1962 Emmy Award. Kovacs and co-director Behar also won the Directors Guild of America award for an Ernie Kovacs Special based on the earlier, silent "Eugene" program. Kovacs' last ABC special was broadcast posthumously, on January 23, 1962.
The Dutch Masters cigar company became well-known during the late 1950s and early 1960s for its sponsorship of various television projects of Ernie Kovacs. The company allowed Kovacs total creative control in the creation of their television commercials for his programs and specials. He produced a series of non-speaking television commercials for Dutch Masters during the run of his television series Take A Good Look which was praised by both television critics and viewers.
While praised by critics, Kovacs rarely had a highly-rated show. The Museum of Broadcast Communications says, "It is doubtful that Ernie Kovacs would find a place on television today. He was too zany, too unrestrained, too undisciplined. Perhaps Jack Gould of The New York Times said it best for Ernie Kovacs: 'The fun was in trying'."
Other shows had greater success while using elements of Kovacs's style. George Schlatter, producer of the later television series Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, was married to actress Jolene Brand, who had appeared in Kovacs' comic troupes over the years and had been a frequent participant in his pioneering sketches. Laugh-In made frequent use of the quick blackout gags and surreal humor that marked many Kovacs projects. Another link was a young NBC staffer, Bill Wendell, Kovacs's usual announcer and sometimes a sketch participant. From 1980 to 1995, Wendell was the announcer for David Letterman, whose show and style of humor were greatly influenced by Kovacs.
The Music Man
Kovacs was also known for his eclectic musical taste. His main theme song was named "Oriental Blues" by Jack Newton. The rendition most often heard was a piano-driven trio version, but, for his primetime show during 1956, music director Harry Sosnik presented a full-blown big-band version. The German song "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer" from The Threepenny Opera (anglicized to "Mack the Knife"), frequently underscored his blackout routines. Songwriter Robert Maxwell's "Solfeggio" became associated with the derby-hatted apes, 'The Nairobi Trio'.
In the 1982 TV special Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius, Edie Adams recalled that when Kovacs first heard the melody, he immediately knew what he wanted to do with it, creating a music-box-like trio that moved in time to the tune. Kovacs was introduced to the song in 1954 by Barry Shear, his director at DuMont Television Network.
Kovacs matched an unusual treatment of "Sentimental Journey", by Mexican bandleader Juan García Esquivel, to video of an empty office in which various items (pencil sharpeners, water coolers, wall clocks) come to life in rhythm with the music; it was a variation on several famous animations of a decade earlier. The original three-minute presentation was outlined by Kovacs in a four-page, single-spaced memo to his staff. The perfectionist Kovacs describes in minute detail what had to be done and how to do it. The memo ends with this: "I don't know how the hell you're going to get this done by Sunday – but 'rots of ruck." (signed) "Ernie (with love)". Kovacs also made careful use of the shrill singer Leona Anderson—who had somewhat less than a classical (or even listenable) voice, by some estimations—in comic vignettes.
Kovacs used classical music as background for silent skits or abstract visual routines, including "Concerto for Orchestra", by Béla Bartók; music from the opera "The Love of Three Oranges", by Sergei Prokofiev; the finale of Igor Stravinsky's suite "The Firebird"; and Richard Strauss' "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks"; and, from George Gershwin, "Rialto Ripples"--the theme to his shows--as well as parts of Gershwin's "Concerto in F". He may have been known best for using Joseph Haydn's "String Quartet, Opus 3, Number 5" (the "Serenade," actually composed by Roman Hoffstetter) for a series of 1960–61 commercials he created and videotaped for his sponsor, Dutch Masters.
For the show of May 22, 1959, Kovacs on Music, Kovacs began by saying, "I have never really understood classical music, so I would like to take this opportunity to explain it to others." He presented a gorilla version of Swan Lake which differed from the usual performance only in the persona of the dancers, along with giant paper clips moving to music and other sketches.
He also served as host on a jazz album to benefit the American Cancer Society in 1957, Listening to Jazz with Ernie Kovacs. It was a 15-minute recording featuring some of the celebrities of the art, including pianist Jimmy Yancey and old original New Orleans Jazz Trumpeter Bunk Johnson, soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet, guitarist Django Reinhardt, composer/pianist/bandleader Duke Ellington and longtime Ellington trumpeter Cootie Williams. Both the Library of Congress and the National Library of Canada have copies of this recording in their collections.
In print
Kovacs wrote a novel, Zoomar: A Sophisticated Novel about Love and TV (Doubleday, 1957), based on television pioneer Pat Weaver; it took Kovacs only 13 days to write. The book took its title from the Zoomar brand zoom lenses frequently used on television cameras at the time. In a 1960 interview, Edie Adams related that the novel was written after Kovacs' experiences with network television while he was preparing to broadcast the Silent Show. The 1961 British edition was retitled T.V. Medium Rare by its London-based publisher, Transworld.
While he worked on several other book projects, Kovacs's only other published title was How to Talk at Gin, published posthumously in 1962. He intended part of the book's proceeds to benefit Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. During 1955–58, he wrote for Mad (his favorite humor magazine), including the feature "Strangely Believe It!" (a parody of Ripley's Believe It or Not! that was a regular feature of his television shows) and Gringo, a board game with ridiculously complicated rules that was renamed Droongo for the television show. Kovacs also wrote the introduction to the 1958 collection Mad For Keeps: A Collection of the Best from Mad Magazine.
Television guest star
Kovacs and Edie Adams guest starred on what turned out to be the final episode of The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show, (syndicated as The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour or We Love Lucy) "Lucy Meets the Moustache", which was in rehearsals during the week of February 28 and filmed on March 3 for an April 1, 1960 network broadcast. "Lucy Meets the Moustache" was the last time Arnaz and Ball worked together and the last time their famous characters appeared in a first-run broadcast. According to Adams, Ball and Arnaz 'avoided contact and barely talked to each other in rehearsals and in-between scenes'. Adams also said that they were not told their episode was the last or that the famous couple was to divorce (Ball entered the uncontested divorce request March 4, 1960).
Kovacs also appeared in roles on other television programs. For General Electric Theater's "I Was a Bloodhound" in 1959, Kovacs played the role of detective Barney Colby, whose extraordinary sense of smell helped him solve many seemingly-impossible cases. Colby was hired by a foreign country to recover its symbol of royalty, a baby elephant, who was being held for ransom.
Films
Kovacs found Hollywood success as a character actor, often typecast as a swarthy military officer (almost always a "Captain" of some sort) in such films as Operation Mad Ball, Wake Me When It's Over and Our Man in Havana. While working in his first film role for Operation Mad Ball, Kovacs was filming a wild party scene after midnight; it was decided to use real champagne for realism. After a few hours of work, someone came up to Kovacs and remarked that he had been having quite a good time chasing starlets all night. Kovacs told the stranger to go to hell, since he was following the script; he later learned the stranger was Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures. Kovacs and Cohn later became friends despite the way they had met, with Cohn giving Kovacs roles in Bell, Book and Candle (1958) and It Happened to Jane (1959).
He garnered critical acclaim for film roles such as the perennially-inebriated writer in Bell, Book and Candle and as the cartoonishly-evil head of a railroad company (who resembled Orson Welles' title character in Citizen Kane) in It Happened to Jane, where he had his head shaved and his remaining hair dyed grey for the role. In 1960, he played the base commander Charlie Stark in the comedy Wake Me When It's Over and the con man Frankie Cannon trying to steal John Wayne's gold mine in the western comedy, North to Alaska. His own personal favorite was said to have been the offbeat Five Golden Hours (1961), in which he portrayed a larcenous professional mourner who meets his match in a professional widow played by Cyd Charisse. Kovacs's last movie, Sail a Crooked Ship (also 1961), was released one month before his death.
Personal life
First marriage
Kovacs and his first wife, Bette Wilcox, were married on August 13, 1945. When the marriage ended, he fought for custody of their children, Elizabeth ("Bette") and Kip Raleigh ("Kippie"). The court awarded Kovacs full custody upon determining that his former wife was mentally unstable. The decision was extremely unusual at the time, setting a legal precedent. Wilcox subsequently kidnapped the children, taking them to Florida. After a long and expensive search, Kovacs regained custody. These events were portrayed in the television movie Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter (1984), which garnered an Emmy Award nomination for its writer, April Smith. Kovacs was portrayed by Jeff Goldblum.
Kovacs's first wife made a legal attempt to gain custody of her two daughters soon after his death. She began August 2, 1962, by claiming $500,000 was her share of Kovacs's estate and charging that her ex-husband had abducted the girls in 1955; Kovacs had been granted legal custody of his daughters in 1952. On August 30, Wilcox filed an affidavit claiming that Kovacs's widow, Edie Adams, the stepmother to the girls, was "unfit" to care for them. Both daughters, Bette and Kippie, testified that they wanted to stay with their stepmother, Edie. Kippie's testimony was very emotional; in it she referred to Edie as "Mommy" and her birth mother as "the other lady." Upon hearing the verdict that the girls would remain in their home, Adams wept, saying, "This is what Ernie would have wanted. Now I can smile." Elizabeth Kovacs's reaction was "I'm so happy I can hardly express myself", after learning she and her sister would not be forced to leave Edie.
Second marriage
Kovacs and Adams met in 1951 when she was hired to work for his WPTZ show, Three to Get Ready. Her appearance on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts caught the eye of Kovacs's producer, and he asked her to audition for the program. A classically-trained singer, she was able to perform only three popular songs. Edie said later, "I sang them all during the audition, and if they had asked to hear another, I never would have made it." Quoting Kovacs, "I wish I could say I was the big shot that hired her, but it was my show in name only – the producer had all the say. Later on I did have something to say and I said it: 'Let's get married.'"
After the couple's first date, Kovacs proceeded to buy a Jaguar car, telling Adams he wanted to take her out in style. He was seriously taken with the beautiful and talented young woman, courting her with imagination and flair. Kovacs's attempts to win Adams' affection included hiring a mariachi band to serenade her backstage at the Broadway musical she was performing in and the sudden gift of a diamond engagement ring, telling her to wear it until she made up her mind. Kovacs continued this romantic quest after the show went out of town.
Adams booked a six-week European cruise, which she hoped would let her make up her mind whether or not to marry Kovacs. After only three days away and many long-distance telephone calls, she curtailed her trip and returned to say "yes". They eloped and were married on September 12, 1954, in Mexico City. The ceremony was presided over by former New York City mayor William O'Dwyer and was performed in Spanish, which neither Kovacs nor Adams understood; O'Dwyer had to prompt each of them to say "Sí" at the "I do" portion of the vows. Adams, who had a middle-class upbringing, was smitten by Kovacs's quirky ways; the couple remained together until his death. (She later said about Kovacs, "He treated me like a little girl, and I loved it—Women's Lib be damned!")
Adams also aided Kovacs's struggle to reclaim his two older children after the kidnapping by their mother. She also was a regular partner on his television shows. Kovacs usually introduced or addressed her in a businesslike way, as "Edith Adams". Adams was usually willing to do anything he envisioned, whether it was singing seriously, performing impersonations (including a well-regarded impression of Marilyn Monroe) or taking a pie in the face or a pratfall if and when needed. The couple had one daughter, Mia Susan Kovacs, born June 20, 1959.
Kovacs and his family shared a 16-room apartment in Manhattan on Central Park West that seemed perfect until he went to California for his first film role in Operation Mad Ball. The experience of the totally different, laid-back lifestyle of Hollywood made a big impression on him. He realized he was working too much in New York; in California he would be able to work fewer hours, do just as well or better and have more time for Edie and his daughters. At the time, he was working most of the time and sleeping about two or three hours a night. Kovacs claimed that he realized it was time for a change when he was telling his girls a bedtime story and found himself thinking of using it for a show instead. Kovacs relocated his family there in 1957, after Edie finished work for the Broadway play Li'l Abner.
Death
In the early morning hours of January 13, 1962, Kovacs lost control of his Chevrolet Corvair station wagon while turning quickly and crashed into a power pole in Beverly Hills. He was thrown halfway out the vehicle's passenger side and died almost instantly from chest and head injuries.
A photographer arrived soon after and images of Kovacs' bodywith an unlit cigar on the pavement near his outstretched handappeared in newspapers across the United States.
In keeping Kovacs's wishes, a simple service was held at the Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian Church. The pallbearers included Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Billy Wilder, and Mervyn LeRoy, and George Burns, Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Buster Keaton and Milton Berle also attended. The pastor said that Kovacs had summed up his life thus: "I was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1919 to a Hungarian couple. I've been smoking cigars ever since."
He is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads "Nothing in moderation—We all loved him."
Tax evasion
A frequent critic of the U.S. tax system, Kovacs owed the Internal Revenue Service several hundred thousand dollars in back taxes, due to his refusal to pay the bulk of them. Up to 90% of his earnings were garnished as a result. His long battles with the IRS inspired Kovacs to invest his money in a convoluted series of paper corporations in the U.S. and Canada. He would give them bizarre names, such as "The Bazooka Dooka Hicka Hocka Hookah Company". In 1961, Kovacs was served with a $75,000 lien for back taxes; that same day he bought the California Racquet Club with the apparent hope of being able to use it as a tax write-off. The property had mortgages at the time of purchase which were later paid by Edie Adams.
His tax woes also affected Kovacs's career, forcing him to take any offered work to pay his debt. This included the ABC game show Take a Good Look, appearances on variety shows such as NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford, and some of his less-memorable film roles. He also filmed an unaired 1962 pilot episode for a proposed CBS series, Medicine Man (co-starring Buster Keaton; the pilot episode titled "A Pony for Chris"). Kovacs' role was that of Dr. P. Crookshank, a traveling medicine salesman in the 1870s, who was selling Mother McGreevy's Wizard Juice, also known as "man's best friend in a bottle". This was abandoned after his death, which occurred the day after filming some scenes for the pilot in Griffith Park. CBS initially intended to broadcast the show as part of a summer replacement program, The Comedy Spot, but decided against it due to problems with Kovacs' estate. The pilot is part of the public collection of the Paley Center for Media.
Some of the issues regarding Kovacs' tax problems were still unresolved years after his death. Kovacs had purchased two insurance policies in 1951; his mother was named as the primary beneficiary of them. The IRS placed a lien against them both for their cash value in 1961. To stop the actions being taken against her, Mary Kovacs had to go to Federal court. The court's early 1966 ruling resolved the issue, with the last sentence of the document reading: "Prima facie, it looks as if, within the limits of discretion permitted the government by the relevant statutes, an injustice is being done Mary Kovacs."
Adams, who married and divorced twice after Kovacs' death, refused help from celebrity friends who planned a benefit for the purpose. "I can take care of my own children," she said, and resolved to accept offers only from those who wanted to hire her for her talents. Adams eventually paid all of Kovacs's debts.
Lost and surviving work
Most of Kovacs's early television work was performed live: few kinescopes have survived. Some videotapes of his ABC specials were preserved; others, such as his quirky game show, Take a Good Look, were available mostly in short segments until recently, with the release of some complete, videotaped episodes. After Kovacs's death, Adams discovered not only that her husband owed ABC a great deal of money, but that some networks were systematically erasing and reusing tapes of Kovacs's shows or disposing of the kinescopes and videotapes. She succeeded in purchasing the rights to surviving footage with the proceeds from Kovacs' insurance policy and her own earnings after Kovacs' IRS debts were paid. In March 1996, Adams detailed her experiences before the National Film Preservation Board.
Adams first used some of the videotapes she had purchased for a 1968 ABC television special, The Comedy of Ernie Kovacs; to produce the show, she hired Kovacs's former producer and editor. The hour-long program was sponsored by Kovacs's former sponsor, Dutch Masters.
Most of Kovacs's salvaged work is available to researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles Library's Department of Special Collections: additional material is available at the Paley Center for Media.
The 1984 television film Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter helped return Kovacs to the public's attention, though the show emphasized his bid to retrieve his kidnapped children instead of his professional life. Jeff Goldblum portrayed Kovacs, Madolyn Smith portrayed Bette and Melody Anderson portrayed Adams in the movie. Edie Adams appeared in a cameo in this film, playing Mae West; it was one of the impressions she performed in shows with Kovacs. Telecasts of edited compilations of some of his work by PBS (station WTTW, Chicago) under the title The Best of Ernie Kovacs in 1977, inspired the film. These broadcasts were made available on VHS and DVD. The DVD set features extras that are not in the VHS set. The series was narrated by Jack Lemmon.
During the early 1990s, The Comedy Channel broadcast a series of Kovacs' shows under the generic title of The Ernie Kovacs Show. The series included both the ABC specials and some of his 1950s shows from NBC. By 2008, there were no broadcast, cable, or satellite channels broadcasting any of Kovacs's television work, other than his panel appearances on What's My Line? on the Game Show Network.
On April 19, 2011, Shout! Factory released The Ernie Kovacs Collection, six DVDs spanning Kovacs's television career. The company's website also offers an extra disc with material from Tonight! and The Ernie Kovacs Show, as well as a rare color kinescope of the complete 30-minute 1957 NBC color broadcast featuring "Eugene". On October 23, 2012, Shout! Factory released The Ernie Kovacs Collection: Volume 2 on DVD.
In 1961, Kovacs recorded a record album of poetry in the character of Percy Dovetonsils named Percy Dovetonsils Thpeakth, but was unable to release it due to contractual obligations with other record companies. After he was given the masters, Kovacs donated them to a Los Angeles area hospital. Adams was able to re-acquire the tapes in 1967, and they remained part of her private collection until her death in 2008. The tapes were labeled as movie material and were thought to be such until further examination proved they were Kovacs as Percy reading his poems with no music background. The album was finally released in 2012.
Kovacs was inducted posthumously into the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia's Hall of Fame in 1992.
Partial filmography
Operation Mad Ball (1957) (with Jack Lemmon) as Capt. Paul Lock
Bell, Book and Candle (1958) (with James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Jack Lemmon as Sidney Redlitch
It Happened to Jane (1959) (with Doris Day and Jack Lemmon) as Harry Foster Malone
Our Man in Havana (1959) (with Alec Guinness and Noël Coward) as Capt. Segura
Wake Me When It's Over (1960) (with Dick Shawn) as Capt. Charlie Stark
Strangers When We Meet (1960) (with Kirk Douglas and Kim Novak) as Roger Altar
North to Alaska (1960) (with John Wayne) as Frankie Canon
Pepe (1960) (with Cantinflas) as Immigration Inspector
Five Golden Hours (1961) (with Cyd Charisse and George Sanders) as Aldo Bondi
Sail a Crooked Ship (1961, with Robert Wagner) as Bugsy G. Foglemeyer aka The Captain
Notes
References
Bibliography
via Project MUSE
Further reading
Adams, Edie (1990). Sing a Pretty Song: The "Offbeat" Life of Edie Adams, Including the Ernie Kovacs Years. William Morrow;
Barker, David Brian (1982). "Every Moment's a Gift": Ernie Kovacs in Hollywood, 1957–1962, a Master's Thesis. Available for viewing at the library at the University of Texas at Austin
Rico, Diana (1990). Kovacsland: A Biography of Ernie Kovacs. Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich;
Walley, David (1975). Nothing in Moderation. Drake Publishers; Reprinted as The Ernie Kovacs Phile by David Walley, Bolder Books, 1978 and Fireside/Simon & Schuster, 1987;
External links
The Official Ernie Kovacs Website
Ernie Kovacs Dot Net: A Tribute To Television's Original Genius
Kovacsland Online! – the Ernie Kovacs website
List of Kovacs' 16 articles for MAD magazine
Watch
The Jack Benny Program with Ernie Kovacs as guest at the Internet Archive
Operation Mad Ball Trailer (1957) at the Internet Archive
John Barbour's documentary Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius at John Barbour's World
Ernie Kovacs Dutch Masters Cigar Commercial
1919 births
1962 deaths
20th-century American male actors
American people of Hungarian descent
American comedy writers
American game show hosts
American male film actors
American male television actors
American humorists
American satirists
American comics writers
American television talk show hosts
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
Emmy Award winners
Mad (magazine) people
Male actors from New Jersey
Actors from Trenton, New Jersey
Road incident deaths in California
Trenton Central High School alumni
Writers from Trenton, New Jersey
American male comedy actors
20th-century American comedians | false | [
"Antonio Oposa Jr. is a creative litigator, organizer and activist for environmental legislation in the Philippines. Oposa helped to litigate one of the first class-action suits taken by children to oppose environmentally-harmful actions taken by their government: in the 1990s, he represented 43 children from a local village to stop deforestation around the village that had been authorized by the Philippine government, on the basis that the children's rights would be harmed by the deforestation.\n\nThough the case was initially thrown out in lower courts on the basis that the children did not have legal standing, the Philippine Supreme Court overturned these, affirming the children did have standing; between both legal and legislative action, the deforestation activity was halted. The case inspired several other environmental cases around the globe, with children serving as the plaintiffs to fight for these rights.\n\nFor his actions, Oposa won the 2009 non-categorized Ramon Magsaysay Award for his work. He currently leads The Law of Nature Foundation.\n\nIn 2013, Oposa sued seven individual and government officials for violating Philippines environment laws through noise pollution from sound amplifier during regular benefit dance events.\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\nFilipino environmentalists\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nPlace of birth missing (living people)",
"Matthew 11:17 is the seventeenth verse in the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament.\n\nContent\nIn the original Greek according to Westcott-Hort for this verse is:\nκαὶ λέγουσιν, Ηὐλήσαμεν ὑμῖν, καὶ οὐκ ὠρχήσασθε· ἐθρηνήσαμεν ὑμῖν, καὶ οὐκ ἐκόψασθε. \n\nIn the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:\nAnd saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.\n\nThe New International Version translates the passage as:\n\"'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge and you did not mourn.'\n\nAnalysis\nWitham states that Christ here is represented by the children that piped, while St. John by those that mourned, since Christ did not refuse to eat and converse with sinners.\n\nCommentary from the Church Fathers\nSaint Remigius: \" And straightway He answers Himself, saying, It is like unto children sitting in the market-place, crying unto their fellows, and saying, We have played music to you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned, and ye have not lamented.\"\n\nHilary of Poitiers: \" By the children are meant the Prophets, who preached as children in singleness of meaning, and in the midst of the synagogue, that is in the market-place, reprove them, that when they played to those to whom they had devoted the service of their body, they had not obeyed their words, as the movement of the dancers are regulated by the measures of the music. For the Prophets invited them to make confession by song to God, as it is contained in the song of Moses, of Isaiah, or of David.\"\n\nJerome: \" They say therefore, We have flayed music to you, and ye have not danced; i. e. We have called on you to work good works to our songs, and ye would not. We have lamented and called you to repentance, and this ye would not, rejecting both preaching, as well of exhortation to virtue, as of repentance for sin.\"\n\nSaint Remigius: \" What is that He says, To their fellows? Were the unbelieving Jews then fellows of the Prophets? He speaks thus only because they were sprung of one stock.\"\n\nJerome: \" The children are they of whom Isaiah speaks, Behold I, and the children whom the Lord has given me. (Is. 8:18) These children then sit in the market-place, where are many things for sale, and say,\"\n\nChrysostom: \" We have played music to you, and ye have not danced; that is, I have showed you an unrestricted life, and ye are not convinced; We have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented; that is, John lived a hard life, and ye heeded him not. Yet does not he speak one thing, and I another, but both speak the same thing, because both have one and the same object. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a dæmon. The Son of man came &c.\"\n\nSee also\nWeddings and Funerals\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOther translations of Matthew 11:17 at BibleHub\n\n011:17"
] |
[
"Ernie Kovacs",
"Death",
"when did he die?",
"Kovacs was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles during the early morning hours of January 13, 1962.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"A photographer managed to arrive moments later, and graphic images of Kovacs's dead body appeared in newspapers across the United States.",
"did he have children?",
"Only one of Kovacs's three children survives: his eldest, Elizabeth, from his first marriage. Kippie, his second daughter, died on July 28, 2001 at the age of 52,"
] | C_8d50647977304f559cc6b26bd64e27fc_1 | what did his daughter die from? | 4 | What did Ernie's daughter die from? | Ernie Kovacs | Kovacs was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles during the early morning hours of January 13, 1962. Kovacs, who had worked for much of the evening, met Adams at a baby shower given by Billy Wilder for Milton Berle and his wife, who had recently adopted a newborn baby boy. The couple left the party in separate cars. After a light southern California rainstorm, Kovacs lost control of his Chevrolet Corvair station wagon while turning quickly, and crashed into a power pole at the corner of Beverly Glen and Santa Monica Boulevards. He was thrown halfway out the passenger side, and died almost instantly from chest and head injuries. A photographer managed to arrive moments later, and graphic images of Kovacs's dead body appeared in newspapers across the United States. An unlit cigar lay on the pavement, inches from his outstretched arm. Years later, in a documentary about Kovacs, Edie Adams described telephoning the police impatiently when she learned of the crash. An official cupped his hand over the receiver, saying to a colleague, "It's Mrs. Kovacs, he's on his way to the coroner - what should I tell her?" With that, Adams's fears were confirmed, and she became inconsolable. Jack Lemmon, who also attended the Berle party, identified Kovacs's body at the morgue because Adams was too distraught to do so. After attending funerals for Hollywood friends, Kovacs had expressed his wishes to Adams that any funeral services for him be kept simple. In keeping with his request, Adams made arrangements for Presbyterian services at the Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian Church. The active pallbearers were Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Billy Wilder, Mervyn LeRoy, and Joe Mikolas. Kovacs's father and brother, Andrew and Tom, respectively, served as honorary pallbearers. The attendees included George Burns, Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Buster Keaton and Milton Berle. There was no typical Hollywood-type eulogy, but the church's pastor paid tribute to Kovacs, adding that he once summed up his life in two sentences: "I was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1919 to a Hungarian couple. I've been smoking cigars ever since." Kovacs is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads, "Nothing in moderation--We all loved him." Only one of Kovacs's three children survives: his eldest, Elizabeth, from his first marriage. Kippie, his second daughter, died on July 28, 2001 at the age of 52, after a long illness and a lifetime of poor health. Kippie and her husband, Bill Lancaster (1947-1997), a screenwriter and the son of actor Burt Lancaster, are the parents of Kovacs's only grandchild, Keigh Lancaster. His only child with Edie Adams, Mia (1959-1982), was killed on May 8, 1982, also in an automobile accident. Her gravestone reads "Daddy's little girl. We all loved her, too". Mia and Kippie are buried close to their father; when Edie died in 2008, she was buried between Mia and Kippie. CANNOTANSWER | 52, after a long illness and a lifetime of poor health. | Ernest Edward Kovacs (January 23, 1919 – January 13, 1962) was an American comedian, actor, and writer.
Kovacs's visually experimental and often spontaneous comedic style influenced numerous television comedy programs for years after his death. Kovacs has been credited as an influence by many individuals and shows, including Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Jim Henson, Max Headroom, Chevy Chase, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Pee-wee's Playhouse, The Muppet Show, Dave Garroway, Andy Kaufman, You Can't Do That on Television, MST3K, Uncle Floyd, among others. Chevy Chase thanked Kovacs during his acceptance speech for his Emmy award for Saturday Night Live.
While Kovacs and Adams received Emmy nominations for best performances in a comedy series during 1957, his talent was not recognized formally until after his death. The 1962 Emmy for Outstanding Electronic Camera Work and the Directors' Guild award came a short time after his fatal accident. A quarter century later, he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. Kovacs also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in television. In 1986, the Museum of Broadcasting (later to become the Museum of Television & Radio and now the Paley Center for Media) presented an exhibit of Kovacs's work, called The Vision of Ernie Kovacs. The Pulitzer Prize–winning television critic, William Henry III, wrote for the museum's booklet: "Kovacs was more than another wide-eyed, self-ingratiating clown. He was television's first significant video artist."
Early life and career
Kovacs's father, Andrew John Kovacs, was born in 1890 and emigrated from Tornaújfalu, Hungary, which is now known as Turnianska Nová Ves, Slovakia. Andrew sailed on the S.S. Würzburg via Bremen, arriving at Ellis Island on February 8, 1906, at age 16. He worked as a policeman, restaurateur, and bootlegger, the last so successfully that he moved his wife Mary, son Tom, and his half-brother Ernest Edward Kovacs into a 20-room mansion in the better part of Trenton.
Though a poor student, Kovacs was influenced by his Trenton Central High School drama teacher, Harold Van Kirk, and received an acting scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1937 with Van Kirk's help. The end of Prohibition and the onset of the Great Depression resulted in difficult financial times for the family. When Kovacs began drama school, all he could afford was a fifth-floor walk-up apartment on West 74th Street in New York City.
During this time, he watched many "Grade B" movies; admission was only ten cents. Many of these movies influenced his comedy routines later.
A 1938 local newspaper photograph shows Kovacs as a member of the Prospect Players, not yet wearing his trademark mustache. Kovacs used his class vacation time to pursue roles in summer stock companies. While working in Vermont in 1939, he became so seriously ill with pneumonia and pleurisy that his doctors didn't expect him to survive. During the next year and a half, his comedic talents developed as he entertained both doctors and patients with his antics during stays at several hospitals. While hospitalized, Kovacs developed a lifelong love of classical music by the gift of a radio, which he kept tuned to WQXR. By the time he was released his parents had separated, and Kovacs went back to Trenton, living with his mother in a two-room apartment over a store. He began work as a cigar salesman, which resulted in a lifelong tobacco-smoking habit.
Kovacs's first paid entertainment work was during 1941 as an announcer for Trenton's radio station WTTM. He spent the next nine years with WTTM, becoming the station's director of special events; in this job he did things like trying to see what it was like to be run over by a train (leaving the tracks at the last minute) and broadcasting from the cockpit of a plane for which he took flying lessons. Kovacs was also involved with local theater; a local newspaper published a photograph of him and the news that he was doing some directing for the Trenton Players Guild in early 1941. The Trentonian, a local weekly newspaper, offered Kovacs a column in June 1945; he named it "Kovacs Unlimited".
Start in television
Arriving at NBC's Philadelphia affiliate, WPTZ, for an audition wearing a barrel and shorts got Kovacs his first television job in January 1950. His first show was Pick Your Ideal, a fashion and promotional program for the Ideal Manufacturing Company. Before long, Kovacs was also the host of Deadline For Dinner and Now You're Cooking, shows featuring advice from local chefs. When Kovacs's guest chef did not arrive in time for the show, he offered a recipe for "Eggs Scavok" (Kovacs spelled backward). Kovacs seasoned the egg dish with ashes from his cigar. The sponsor was a local propane company. Hosting these shows soon resulted in his becoming host of a program named Three to Get Ready, named for WPTZ's channel 3 spot on television dials.
Premiering in November 1950, Three to Get Ready was innovative because it was the first regularly scheduled early morning (7–9am) show in a major television market, predating NBC's Today by more than a year. Prior to this, it had been assumed that few people would watch television at such an early hour. While the show was advertised as early morning news and weather, Kovacs provided this and more in an original manner. When rain was in the weather forecast, Kovacs would get on a ladder and pour water down on the staff member reading the report. Goats were auditioned for a local theater performance and tiny women appeared to walk up his arm. Kovacs also went outside of the studio for some of his skits, running through a downtown Philadelphia restaurant in a gorilla suit in one; in another, he looked into a construction pit, saying it was deep enough to see to China, when a man in Chinese clothing popped up, said a few words in the language, and ran off. Despite its popularity, the weekly prop budget for the show was just $15. Kovacs once asked his viewers to send unwanted items to Channel 3; they filled the station's lobby.
The only character no one ever saw inspired more gifts; he was Howard, the World's Strongest Ant. From the time of his WPTZ debut, Howard received more than 30,000 gifts from Kovacs's viewers, including a mink-lined swimming pool. Kovacs began his Early Eyeball Fraternal & Marching Society (EEFMS) while doing Three to Get Ready. There were membership cards with by-laws and ties; the password was a favorite phrase of Kovacs's: "It's Been Real". Kovacs continued the EEFMS on his morning show when he moved to WCBS in New York in 1952. The success of Three to Get Ready proved that people did indeed watch early-morning television, and it was one of the factors that caused NBC to create The Today Show. WPTZ did not begin broadcasting Today when it premiered on January 14, 1952; network influence caused the station to end Three to Get Ready at the end of March of that year.
During early 1952, Kovacs was also doing a late morning show for WPTZ named Kovacs on the Corner. Kovacs would walk through an imaginary neighborhood, talking with various characters such as Pete the Cop and Luigi the Barber. As with Three to Get Ready, there were some special segments. "Swap Time" was one of them: Viewers could bring their unwanted items to the WPTZ studios to trade them live on the air with Kovacs. The show made its debut on January 4, 1952, with Kovacs losing creative control of the program soon after it was begun. Kovacs on the Corner was short-lived; it ended on March 28, 1952, along with Three to Get Ready. Kovacs then began work for WCBS-TV in New York with a local morning show and a later network one. Both programs were canceled; Kovacs lost the local morning program for the same reason as Three to Get Ready—the broadcasting time was confiscated by the station's network in 1954.
Visual humor and characters
At WPTZ, Kovacs began using the ad-libbed and experimental style that would become his reputation, including video effects, superimpositions, reverse polarities and scanning, and quick blackouts. He was also noted for abstraction and carefully timed non-sequitur gags and for allowing the fourth wall to be breached. Kovacs's cameras commonly showed his viewers activity beyond the boundaries of the show set—including crew members and outside the studio itself. Kovacs also liked talking to the off-camera crew and even introduced segments from the studio control room. He frequently made use of accidents and happenstance, incorporating the unexpected into his shows. In one of Kovacs's Philadelphia broadcasts, Oscar Liebetrau, an elderly crew member who was known for often sleeping for the duration of the telecast, was introduced to the audience as "Sleeping Schwartz." Kovacs was once knocked unconscious when a pie smashed into his face still had the plate under it.
Kovacs's love of spontaneity extended to his crew, who would occasionally play on-air pranks on him to see how he would react. During one of his NBC shows, Kovacs was appearing as the inept magician Matzoh Heppelwhite. The sketch called for the magician to frequently hit a gong, which was the signal for a sexy female assistant to bring out a bottle and shot glass for a quick snort of alcohol. Stagehands substituted real liquor for the iced tea normally used for the skit. Kovacs realized that he would be called upon to drink a shot of liquor for each successive gong. He pressed on with the sketch and was quite inebriated by the end of the show.
Kovacs helped develop camera tricks still common decades after his death. His character Eugene sat at a table to eat his lunch, but as he removed items one at a time from a lunch box, he watched them inexplicably roll down the table into the lap of a man reading a newspaper at the other end. When Kovacs poured milk from a thermos bottle, the stream flowed in a seemingly unusual direction. Never seen on television before, the secret was using a tilted set in front of a camera tilted at the same angle.
He constantly sought new techniques and used both primitive and improvised ways of creating visual effects that would later be done electronically. One innovative construction involved attaching a kaleidoscope made from a toilet paper roll to a camera lens with cardboard and tape and setting the resulting abstract images to music. Another was a soup can with both ends removed fitted with angled mirrors. Used on a camera and turning it could put Kovacs seemingly on the ceiling. An underwater stunt involved cigar smoker Kovacs sitting in an easy chair, reading his newspaper and somehow smoking a cigar. Removing it from his mouth, Kovacs was able to exhale a puff of white smoke, all while floating underwater. The trick: the "smoke" was a small amount of milk which he filled his mouth with before submerging. Kovacs repeated the effect for a Dutch Masters television commercial on his ABC game show, Take A Good Look.
One of the special effects he employed made it appear as if he was able to look through his assistant, Barbara Loden's, head. The illusion was performed by placing a black patch on Loden's head and standing her against a black background while one studio camera was trained on her. A second one photographed Kovacs, who used the studio monitor to position himself exactly so that his eye would appear to be looking through a hole in her head.
He also developed such routines as an all-gorilla version of Swan Lake, a poker game set to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the skit Silent Show, in which Eugene interacts with the world accompanied solely by music and sound effects, parodies of typical television commercials and movie genres, and various musical segments with everyday items (such as kitchen appliances or office equipment) moving in sync to music. A popular recurring skit was The Nairobi Trio, three derby-hatted apes miming mechanically and rhythmically to the tune of Robert Maxwell's "Solfeggio".
Kovacs used extended sketches and mood pieces or quick blackout gags lasting only seconds. Some could be expensive, such as his famous used-car salesman routine with a jalopy and a breakaway floor: it cost $12,000 to produce the six-second gag. He was one of the first television comedians to use odd fake credits and comments between the legitimate credits and, at times, during his routines.
Kovacs reportedly disliked working in front of a live audience, as was the case with the shows he did for NBC during the 1950s. He found the presence of an audience distracting, and those in the seats frequently did not understand some of the more elaborate visual gags and special effects, which could only be appreciated by watching studio monitors instead of the stage.
Like many comedians of the era, Kovacs created a rotation of recurring roles. In addition to the silent "Eugene," his most familiar characters were the fey, lisping poet Percy Dovetonsils, and the heavily accented German radio announcer, Wolfgang von Sauerbraten. Mr. Question Man, who answered viewer queries, was a satire on the long-run (1937–56) radio series, The Answer Man. Others included horror show host Auntie Gruesome, bumbling magician Matzoh Heppelwhite, Frenchman Pierre Ragout and Miklos Molnar, the sardonic Hungarian host of a cooking show. The Miklos character wasn't always confined to a kitchen; Kovacs performed a parody of The Howdy Doody Show with "Buffalo Miklos" as the host. Poet Percy Dovetonsils can be found playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata on a disappearing piano and as a "Master Detective" on the "Private Eye-Private Eye" presentation of the US Steel Hour on CBS March 8, 1961. On the same show, the Nairobi Trio abandons its instruments for a safe-cracking job; still with a background of "Solfeggio", but speaking, two of the three appear in an "Outer Space" sketch.
Kovacs became a regular on NBC Radio's program Monitor beginning during late 1958, often using his Mr. Question Man character in his radio monologues.
Kovacs never hesitated to lampoon those considered institutions of radio and television. In April 1954, he started the late-night talk show, The Ernie Kovacs Show, on DuMont Television Network's New York flagship station, WABD. Stage, screen and radio notables were often guests. Archie Bleyer, head of Cadence Records, came to chat one evening. Bleyer had been the long-time orchestra director for Arthur Godfrey's radio and television shows. He had been dismissed by Godfrey the year before, together with fellow cast member, singer Julius La Rosa. In La Rosa's case, he hired a manager, defying an unwritten Godfrey policy. With Bleyer, Godfrey was angered when he found that Bleyer's record company Cadence Records had produced spoken-word material by Don McNeill, host of ABC's Don McNeill's Breakfast Club, which Godfrey considered competition to his show. Bleyer and Kovacs were shown in split screen, with Kovacs wearing a red wig, headphones, and playing a ukulele in a Godfrey imitation, while talking with his guest.
Kovacs's television programs included Three to Get Ready (an early morning program seen on Philadelphia's WPTZ from 1950 through 1952), It's Time for Ernie (1951, his first network series), Ernie in Kovacsland, (a summer replacement show for Kukla, Fran and Ollie, 1951), The Ernie Kovacs Show (1952–56 on various networks), a twice-a-week job filling in for Steve Allen as host of The Tonight Show on Mondays and Tuesdays (1956–57), and game shows Gamble on Love, One Minute Please, Time Will Tell (all on DuMont), and Take a Good Look (1959–61). Kovacs was also the host of a program, Silents Please, which showed silent movies on network television, with serious discussion about the movies and their actors.
Kovacs had a brief stint as a celebrity panelist for the television series What's My Line?, but took his responsibilities less than seriously, often eschewing a legitimate question for the sake of a laugh. An example: Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, the founder of an automobile company, was the program's "mystery guest." Previous questioning had established that the mystery guest's name was synonymous with an automobile brand, Kovacs asked, "Are you – and this is just a wild guess – but are you Abraham Lincoln?"—a reference to the Ford Motor Company's Lincoln automobiles. When Kovacs gave an interview admitting that he was absent from the show when he wanted to go out for dinner on a Sunday, his stint on the panel show was ended.
TV specials
He also did several television specials, including the famous Silent Show (1957), featuring his character, Eugene: the first all-pantomime prime-time network program. After the end of the Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis partnership, NBC offered Lewis the opportunity to host his own 90-minute color television special. Lewis opted to use only 60 minutes, leaving the network 30 minutes to fill; no one wanted this time slot, but Kovacs was willing to have it. The program contained no spoken dialogue and contained only sound effects and music. Featuring Kovacs as the mute, Charlie Chaplin-like character "Eugene", the program contained surreal sight gags. Kovacs developed the Eugene character during the autumn of 1956, when hosting the television series The Tonight Show. Expectations were high for the Lewis program, but it was Kovacs' special that received the most attention; Kovacs received his first movie offer, had a cover story in Life magazine, and received the Sylvania Award that year.
In 1961, Kovacs and his co-director, Joe Behar, were recipients of the Directors Guild of America Award for a second version of this program broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company network.
A series of monthly half-hour specials for ABC during 1961–62 is often considered his best television work. Produced on videotape using new editing and special effects techniques, it won a 1962 Emmy Award. Kovacs and co-director Behar also won the Directors Guild of America award for an Ernie Kovacs Special based on the earlier, silent "Eugene" program. Kovacs' last ABC special was broadcast posthumously, on January 23, 1962.
The Dutch Masters cigar company became well-known during the late 1950s and early 1960s for its sponsorship of various television projects of Ernie Kovacs. The company allowed Kovacs total creative control in the creation of their television commercials for his programs and specials. He produced a series of non-speaking television commercials for Dutch Masters during the run of his television series Take A Good Look which was praised by both television critics and viewers.
While praised by critics, Kovacs rarely had a highly-rated show. The Museum of Broadcast Communications says, "It is doubtful that Ernie Kovacs would find a place on television today. He was too zany, too unrestrained, too undisciplined. Perhaps Jack Gould of The New York Times said it best for Ernie Kovacs: 'The fun was in trying'."
Other shows had greater success while using elements of Kovacs's style. George Schlatter, producer of the later television series Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, was married to actress Jolene Brand, who had appeared in Kovacs' comic troupes over the years and had been a frequent participant in his pioneering sketches. Laugh-In made frequent use of the quick blackout gags and surreal humor that marked many Kovacs projects. Another link was a young NBC staffer, Bill Wendell, Kovacs's usual announcer and sometimes a sketch participant. From 1980 to 1995, Wendell was the announcer for David Letterman, whose show and style of humor were greatly influenced by Kovacs.
The Music Man
Kovacs was also known for his eclectic musical taste. His main theme song was named "Oriental Blues" by Jack Newton. The rendition most often heard was a piano-driven trio version, but, for his primetime show during 1956, music director Harry Sosnik presented a full-blown big-band version. The German song "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer" from The Threepenny Opera (anglicized to "Mack the Knife"), frequently underscored his blackout routines. Songwriter Robert Maxwell's "Solfeggio" became associated with the derby-hatted apes, 'The Nairobi Trio'.
In the 1982 TV special Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius, Edie Adams recalled that when Kovacs first heard the melody, he immediately knew what he wanted to do with it, creating a music-box-like trio that moved in time to the tune. Kovacs was introduced to the song in 1954 by Barry Shear, his director at DuMont Television Network.
Kovacs matched an unusual treatment of "Sentimental Journey", by Mexican bandleader Juan García Esquivel, to video of an empty office in which various items (pencil sharpeners, water coolers, wall clocks) come to life in rhythm with the music; it was a variation on several famous animations of a decade earlier. The original three-minute presentation was outlined by Kovacs in a four-page, single-spaced memo to his staff. The perfectionist Kovacs describes in minute detail what had to be done and how to do it. The memo ends with this: "I don't know how the hell you're going to get this done by Sunday – but 'rots of ruck." (signed) "Ernie (with love)". Kovacs also made careful use of the shrill singer Leona Anderson—who had somewhat less than a classical (or even listenable) voice, by some estimations—in comic vignettes.
Kovacs used classical music as background for silent skits or abstract visual routines, including "Concerto for Orchestra", by Béla Bartók; music from the opera "The Love of Three Oranges", by Sergei Prokofiev; the finale of Igor Stravinsky's suite "The Firebird"; and Richard Strauss' "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks"; and, from George Gershwin, "Rialto Ripples"--the theme to his shows--as well as parts of Gershwin's "Concerto in F". He may have been known best for using Joseph Haydn's "String Quartet, Opus 3, Number 5" (the "Serenade," actually composed by Roman Hoffstetter) for a series of 1960–61 commercials he created and videotaped for his sponsor, Dutch Masters.
For the show of May 22, 1959, Kovacs on Music, Kovacs began by saying, "I have never really understood classical music, so I would like to take this opportunity to explain it to others." He presented a gorilla version of Swan Lake which differed from the usual performance only in the persona of the dancers, along with giant paper clips moving to music and other sketches.
He also served as host on a jazz album to benefit the American Cancer Society in 1957, Listening to Jazz with Ernie Kovacs. It was a 15-minute recording featuring some of the celebrities of the art, including pianist Jimmy Yancey and old original New Orleans Jazz Trumpeter Bunk Johnson, soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet, guitarist Django Reinhardt, composer/pianist/bandleader Duke Ellington and longtime Ellington trumpeter Cootie Williams. Both the Library of Congress and the National Library of Canada have copies of this recording in their collections.
In print
Kovacs wrote a novel, Zoomar: A Sophisticated Novel about Love and TV (Doubleday, 1957), based on television pioneer Pat Weaver; it took Kovacs only 13 days to write. The book took its title from the Zoomar brand zoom lenses frequently used on television cameras at the time. In a 1960 interview, Edie Adams related that the novel was written after Kovacs' experiences with network television while he was preparing to broadcast the Silent Show. The 1961 British edition was retitled T.V. Medium Rare by its London-based publisher, Transworld.
While he worked on several other book projects, Kovacs's only other published title was How to Talk at Gin, published posthumously in 1962. He intended part of the book's proceeds to benefit Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. During 1955–58, he wrote for Mad (his favorite humor magazine), including the feature "Strangely Believe It!" (a parody of Ripley's Believe It or Not! that was a regular feature of his television shows) and Gringo, a board game with ridiculously complicated rules that was renamed Droongo for the television show. Kovacs also wrote the introduction to the 1958 collection Mad For Keeps: A Collection of the Best from Mad Magazine.
Television guest star
Kovacs and Edie Adams guest starred on what turned out to be the final episode of The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show, (syndicated as The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour or We Love Lucy) "Lucy Meets the Moustache", which was in rehearsals during the week of February 28 and filmed on March 3 for an April 1, 1960 network broadcast. "Lucy Meets the Moustache" was the last time Arnaz and Ball worked together and the last time their famous characters appeared in a first-run broadcast. According to Adams, Ball and Arnaz 'avoided contact and barely talked to each other in rehearsals and in-between scenes'. Adams also said that they were not told their episode was the last or that the famous couple was to divorce (Ball entered the uncontested divorce request March 4, 1960).
Kovacs also appeared in roles on other television programs. For General Electric Theater's "I Was a Bloodhound" in 1959, Kovacs played the role of detective Barney Colby, whose extraordinary sense of smell helped him solve many seemingly-impossible cases. Colby was hired by a foreign country to recover its symbol of royalty, a baby elephant, who was being held for ransom.
Films
Kovacs found Hollywood success as a character actor, often typecast as a swarthy military officer (almost always a "Captain" of some sort) in such films as Operation Mad Ball, Wake Me When It's Over and Our Man in Havana. While working in his first film role for Operation Mad Ball, Kovacs was filming a wild party scene after midnight; it was decided to use real champagne for realism. After a few hours of work, someone came up to Kovacs and remarked that he had been having quite a good time chasing starlets all night. Kovacs told the stranger to go to hell, since he was following the script; he later learned the stranger was Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures. Kovacs and Cohn later became friends despite the way they had met, with Cohn giving Kovacs roles in Bell, Book and Candle (1958) and It Happened to Jane (1959).
He garnered critical acclaim for film roles such as the perennially-inebriated writer in Bell, Book and Candle and as the cartoonishly-evil head of a railroad company (who resembled Orson Welles' title character in Citizen Kane) in It Happened to Jane, where he had his head shaved and his remaining hair dyed grey for the role. In 1960, he played the base commander Charlie Stark in the comedy Wake Me When It's Over and the con man Frankie Cannon trying to steal John Wayne's gold mine in the western comedy, North to Alaska. His own personal favorite was said to have been the offbeat Five Golden Hours (1961), in which he portrayed a larcenous professional mourner who meets his match in a professional widow played by Cyd Charisse. Kovacs's last movie, Sail a Crooked Ship (also 1961), was released one month before his death.
Personal life
First marriage
Kovacs and his first wife, Bette Wilcox, were married on August 13, 1945. When the marriage ended, he fought for custody of their children, Elizabeth ("Bette") and Kip Raleigh ("Kippie"). The court awarded Kovacs full custody upon determining that his former wife was mentally unstable. The decision was extremely unusual at the time, setting a legal precedent. Wilcox subsequently kidnapped the children, taking them to Florida. After a long and expensive search, Kovacs regained custody. These events were portrayed in the television movie Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter (1984), which garnered an Emmy Award nomination for its writer, April Smith. Kovacs was portrayed by Jeff Goldblum.
Kovacs's first wife made a legal attempt to gain custody of her two daughters soon after his death. She began August 2, 1962, by claiming $500,000 was her share of Kovacs's estate and charging that her ex-husband had abducted the girls in 1955; Kovacs had been granted legal custody of his daughters in 1952. On August 30, Wilcox filed an affidavit claiming that Kovacs's widow, Edie Adams, the stepmother to the girls, was "unfit" to care for them. Both daughters, Bette and Kippie, testified that they wanted to stay with their stepmother, Edie. Kippie's testimony was very emotional; in it she referred to Edie as "Mommy" and her birth mother as "the other lady." Upon hearing the verdict that the girls would remain in their home, Adams wept, saying, "This is what Ernie would have wanted. Now I can smile." Elizabeth Kovacs's reaction was "I'm so happy I can hardly express myself", after learning she and her sister would not be forced to leave Edie.
Second marriage
Kovacs and Adams met in 1951 when she was hired to work for his WPTZ show, Three to Get Ready. Her appearance on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts caught the eye of Kovacs's producer, and he asked her to audition for the program. A classically-trained singer, she was able to perform only three popular songs. Edie said later, "I sang them all during the audition, and if they had asked to hear another, I never would have made it." Quoting Kovacs, "I wish I could say I was the big shot that hired her, but it was my show in name only – the producer had all the say. Later on I did have something to say and I said it: 'Let's get married.'"
After the couple's first date, Kovacs proceeded to buy a Jaguar car, telling Adams he wanted to take her out in style. He was seriously taken with the beautiful and talented young woman, courting her with imagination and flair. Kovacs's attempts to win Adams' affection included hiring a mariachi band to serenade her backstage at the Broadway musical she was performing in and the sudden gift of a diamond engagement ring, telling her to wear it until she made up her mind. Kovacs continued this romantic quest after the show went out of town.
Adams booked a six-week European cruise, which she hoped would let her make up her mind whether or not to marry Kovacs. After only three days away and many long-distance telephone calls, she curtailed her trip and returned to say "yes". They eloped and were married on September 12, 1954, in Mexico City. The ceremony was presided over by former New York City mayor William O'Dwyer and was performed in Spanish, which neither Kovacs nor Adams understood; O'Dwyer had to prompt each of them to say "Sí" at the "I do" portion of the vows. Adams, who had a middle-class upbringing, was smitten by Kovacs's quirky ways; the couple remained together until his death. (She later said about Kovacs, "He treated me like a little girl, and I loved it—Women's Lib be damned!")
Adams also aided Kovacs's struggle to reclaim his two older children after the kidnapping by their mother. She also was a regular partner on his television shows. Kovacs usually introduced or addressed her in a businesslike way, as "Edith Adams". Adams was usually willing to do anything he envisioned, whether it was singing seriously, performing impersonations (including a well-regarded impression of Marilyn Monroe) or taking a pie in the face or a pratfall if and when needed. The couple had one daughter, Mia Susan Kovacs, born June 20, 1959.
Kovacs and his family shared a 16-room apartment in Manhattan on Central Park West that seemed perfect until he went to California for his first film role in Operation Mad Ball. The experience of the totally different, laid-back lifestyle of Hollywood made a big impression on him. He realized he was working too much in New York; in California he would be able to work fewer hours, do just as well or better and have more time for Edie and his daughters. At the time, he was working most of the time and sleeping about two or three hours a night. Kovacs claimed that he realized it was time for a change when he was telling his girls a bedtime story and found himself thinking of using it for a show instead. Kovacs relocated his family there in 1957, after Edie finished work for the Broadway play Li'l Abner.
Death
In the early morning hours of January 13, 1962, Kovacs lost control of his Chevrolet Corvair station wagon while turning quickly and crashed into a power pole in Beverly Hills. He was thrown halfway out the vehicle's passenger side and died almost instantly from chest and head injuries.
A photographer arrived soon after and images of Kovacs' bodywith an unlit cigar on the pavement near his outstretched handappeared in newspapers across the United States.
In keeping Kovacs's wishes, a simple service was held at the Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian Church. The pallbearers included Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Billy Wilder, and Mervyn LeRoy, and George Burns, Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Buster Keaton and Milton Berle also attended. The pastor said that Kovacs had summed up his life thus: "I was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1919 to a Hungarian couple. I've been smoking cigars ever since."
He is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads "Nothing in moderation—We all loved him."
Tax evasion
A frequent critic of the U.S. tax system, Kovacs owed the Internal Revenue Service several hundred thousand dollars in back taxes, due to his refusal to pay the bulk of them. Up to 90% of his earnings were garnished as a result. His long battles with the IRS inspired Kovacs to invest his money in a convoluted series of paper corporations in the U.S. and Canada. He would give them bizarre names, such as "The Bazooka Dooka Hicka Hocka Hookah Company". In 1961, Kovacs was served with a $75,000 lien for back taxes; that same day he bought the California Racquet Club with the apparent hope of being able to use it as a tax write-off. The property had mortgages at the time of purchase which were later paid by Edie Adams.
His tax woes also affected Kovacs's career, forcing him to take any offered work to pay his debt. This included the ABC game show Take a Good Look, appearances on variety shows such as NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford, and some of his less-memorable film roles. He also filmed an unaired 1962 pilot episode for a proposed CBS series, Medicine Man (co-starring Buster Keaton; the pilot episode titled "A Pony for Chris"). Kovacs' role was that of Dr. P. Crookshank, a traveling medicine salesman in the 1870s, who was selling Mother McGreevy's Wizard Juice, also known as "man's best friend in a bottle". This was abandoned after his death, which occurred the day after filming some scenes for the pilot in Griffith Park. CBS initially intended to broadcast the show as part of a summer replacement program, The Comedy Spot, but decided against it due to problems with Kovacs' estate. The pilot is part of the public collection of the Paley Center for Media.
Some of the issues regarding Kovacs' tax problems were still unresolved years after his death. Kovacs had purchased two insurance policies in 1951; his mother was named as the primary beneficiary of them. The IRS placed a lien against them both for their cash value in 1961. To stop the actions being taken against her, Mary Kovacs had to go to Federal court. The court's early 1966 ruling resolved the issue, with the last sentence of the document reading: "Prima facie, it looks as if, within the limits of discretion permitted the government by the relevant statutes, an injustice is being done Mary Kovacs."
Adams, who married and divorced twice after Kovacs' death, refused help from celebrity friends who planned a benefit for the purpose. "I can take care of my own children," she said, and resolved to accept offers only from those who wanted to hire her for her talents. Adams eventually paid all of Kovacs's debts.
Lost and surviving work
Most of Kovacs's early television work was performed live: few kinescopes have survived. Some videotapes of his ABC specials were preserved; others, such as his quirky game show, Take a Good Look, were available mostly in short segments until recently, with the release of some complete, videotaped episodes. After Kovacs's death, Adams discovered not only that her husband owed ABC a great deal of money, but that some networks were systematically erasing and reusing tapes of Kovacs's shows or disposing of the kinescopes and videotapes. She succeeded in purchasing the rights to surviving footage with the proceeds from Kovacs' insurance policy and her own earnings after Kovacs' IRS debts were paid. In March 1996, Adams detailed her experiences before the National Film Preservation Board.
Adams first used some of the videotapes she had purchased for a 1968 ABC television special, The Comedy of Ernie Kovacs; to produce the show, she hired Kovacs's former producer and editor. The hour-long program was sponsored by Kovacs's former sponsor, Dutch Masters.
Most of Kovacs's salvaged work is available to researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles Library's Department of Special Collections: additional material is available at the Paley Center for Media.
The 1984 television film Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter helped return Kovacs to the public's attention, though the show emphasized his bid to retrieve his kidnapped children instead of his professional life. Jeff Goldblum portrayed Kovacs, Madolyn Smith portrayed Bette and Melody Anderson portrayed Adams in the movie. Edie Adams appeared in a cameo in this film, playing Mae West; it was one of the impressions she performed in shows with Kovacs. Telecasts of edited compilations of some of his work by PBS (station WTTW, Chicago) under the title The Best of Ernie Kovacs in 1977, inspired the film. These broadcasts were made available on VHS and DVD. The DVD set features extras that are not in the VHS set. The series was narrated by Jack Lemmon.
During the early 1990s, The Comedy Channel broadcast a series of Kovacs' shows under the generic title of The Ernie Kovacs Show. The series included both the ABC specials and some of his 1950s shows from NBC. By 2008, there were no broadcast, cable, or satellite channels broadcasting any of Kovacs's television work, other than his panel appearances on What's My Line? on the Game Show Network.
On April 19, 2011, Shout! Factory released The Ernie Kovacs Collection, six DVDs spanning Kovacs's television career. The company's website also offers an extra disc with material from Tonight! and The Ernie Kovacs Show, as well as a rare color kinescope of the complete 30-minute 1957 NBC color broadcast featuring "Eugene". On October 23, 2012, Shout! Factory released The Ernie Kovacs Collection: Volume 2 on DVD.
In 1961, Kovacs recorded a record album of poetry in the character of Percy Dovetonsils named Percy Dovetonsils Thpeakth, but was unable to release it due to contractual obligations with other record companies. After he was given the masters, Kovacs donated them to a Los Angeles area hospital. Adams was able to re-acquire the tapes in 1967, and they remained part of her private collection until her death in 2008. The tapes were labeled as movie material and were thought to be such until further examination proved they were Kovacs as Percy reading his poems with no music background. The album was finally released in 2012.
Kovacs was inducted posthumously into the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia's Hall of Fame in 1992.
Partial filmography
Operation Mad Ball (1957) (with Jack Lemmon) as Capt. Paul Lock
Bell, Book and Candle (1958) (with James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Jack Lemmon as Sidney Redlitch
It Happened to Jane (1959) (with Doris Day and Jack Lemmon) as Harry Foster Malone
Our Man in Havana (1959) (with Alec Guinness and Noël Coward) as Capt. Segura
Wake Me When It's Over (1960) (with Dick Shawn) as Capt. Charlie Stark
Strangers When We Meet (1960) (with Kirk Douglas and Kim Novak) as Roger Altar
North to Alaska (1960) (with John Wayne) as Frankie Canon
Pepe (1960) (with Cantinflas) as Immigration Inspector
Five Golden Hours (1961) (with Cyd Charisse and George Sanders) as Aldo Bondi
Sail a Crooked Ship (1961, with Robert Wagner) as Bugsy G. Foglemeyer aka The Captain
Notes
References
Bibliography
via Project MUSE
Further reading
Adams, Edie (1990). Sing a Pretty Song: The "Offbeat" Life of Edie Adams, Including the Ernie Kovacs Years. William Morrow;
Barker, David Brian (1982). "Every Moment's a Gift": Ernie Kovacs in Hollywood, 1957–1962, a Master's Thesis. Available for viewing at the library at the University of Texas at Austin
Rico, Diana (1990). Kovacsland: A Biography of Ernie Kovacs. Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich;
Walley, David (1975). Nothing in Moderation. Drake Publishers; Reprinted as The Ernie Kovacs Phile by David Walley, Bolder Books, 1978 and Fireside/Simon & Schuster, 1987;
External links
The Official Ernie Kovacs Website
Ernie Kovacs Dot Net: A Tribute To Television's Original Genius
Kovacsland Online! – the Ernie Kovacs website
List of Kovacs' 16 articles for MAD magazine
Watch
The Jack Benny Program with Ernie Kovacs as guest at the Internet Archive
Operation Mad Ball Trailer (1957) at the Internet Archive
John Barbour's documentary Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius at John Barbour's World
Ernie Kovacs Dutch Masters Cigar Commercial
1919 births
1962 deaths
20th-century American male actors
American people of Hungarian descent
American comedy writers
American game show hosts
American male film actors
American male television actors
American humorists
American satirists
American comics writers
American television talk show hosts
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
Emmy Award winners
Mad (magazine) people
Male actors from New Jersey
Actors from Trenton, New Jersey
Road incident deaths in California
Trenton Central High School alumni
Writers from Trenton, New Jersey
American male comedy actors
20th-century American comedians | false | [
"Hemmeligheden (The Secret) is a Norwegian silent film from 1912 that is considered lost.\n\nPlot\nThe film was a drama in which a young woman from a coastal town gets to know an artist from Paris. They start a relationship and she has a daughter. The young woman, Elise, leaves, and on the steamship home to Norway she throws the child overboard. When she returns home, she marries Lieutenant Almeng. It turns out that the child she threw overboard did not die, but was found by a fishing couple, who have adopted the child. One day, Elise and the lieutenant meet the fisherman, and Elise breaks down and tells her husband the story of what happened. The lieutenant first takes the matter very sternly, but when he sees how unhappy this has made Elise, he goes to the fisherman and retrieves his wife's daughter, and he promises to treat her as though she were his own child.\n\nCast\n Christian Nobel as Lieutenant Almeng\n Signe Danning as Elsie Halling\n Pehr Qværnstrøm as a fisherman\n Robert Sperati as Halling the landowner\n Emmy Worm-Müller as the fisherman's wife\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n Hemmeligheden at Norsk filmografi\n\n1912 films\nNorwegian drama films\nNorwegian black-and-white films\nNorwegian silent films\nNorwegian films\n1912 drama films\nLost Norwegian films",
"Secondary consort, of the Wang clan (侧福晋 王氏, d. 1805), was princess consort of Yongxuan, Qianlong Emperor's 8th son. Her family belonged to Han Chinese Plain Yellow Banner. Her personal name was Yuying (,literally : Jade Flower).\n\nLife \nIt is not known neither when was lady Wang born nor when did she enter the Manor of Prince Yi as a servant. In 1768, she gave birth to Mianzhi, Yongxuan's first son. At that time, she was awarded a title of mistress. In 1769, Wang Yuying gave birth to the first daughter, later honoured as Lady of the Second Rank. In 1772, she birthed the second daughter, who would die prematurely in 1774. That same year, she birthed the third daughter, who would die prematurely in 1776. In 1775, she gave birth to the second son, Mianmao, who would die prematurely in 1777. In July 1785, her sole daughter married Barin Mongolian prince Gongsaishang'a of the Borjigin clan. Wang Yuying died in 1805 and was posthumously honoured as secondary consort.\n\nIssue \n\n Prince Yishun of the Second Rank Mianzhi (), first son\n Mianmao (绵懋), second son\n Lady of the Second Rank (1769-1834)\n Married Gongsaishang'a of the Barin Borjigin clan in July 1785\n Second daughter\n Third daughter\n Fourth daughter\n\nTitles \n\n lady Wang\n Mistress (庶福晋/诗妾) - from 1768\n Secondary consort (侧福晋) - from 1805 (awarded posthumously)\n\nReferences \n\nQing dynasty people\nManchu people\nQing dynasty princesses consorts\nChinese ladies-in-waiting"
] |
[
"Ernie Kovacs",
"Death",
"when did he die?",
"Kovacs was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles during the early morning hours of January 13, 1962.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"A photographer managed to arrive moments later, and graphic images of Kovacs's dead body appeared in newspapers across the United States.",
"did he have children?",
"Only one of Kovacs's three children survives: his eldest, Elizabeth, from his first marriage. Kippie, his second daughter, died on July 28, 2001 at the age of 52,",
"what did his daughter die from?",
"52, after a long illness and a lifetime of poor health."
] | C_8d50647977304f559cc6b26bd64e27fc_1 | what did he do after her death? | 5 | What did Ernie do after Kippie's death? | Ernie Kovacs | Kovacs was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles during the early morning hours of January 13, 1962. Kovacs, who had worked for much of the evening, met Adams at a baby shower given by Billy Wilder for Milton Berle and his wife, who had recently adopted a newborn baby boy. The couple left the party in separate cars. After a light southern California rainstorm, Kovacs lost control of his Chevrolet Corvair station wagon while turning quickly, and crashed into a power pole at the corner of Beverly Glen and Santa Monica Boulevards. He was thrown halfway out the passenger side, and died almost instantly from chest and head injuries. A photographer managed to arrive moments later, and graphic images of Kovacs's dead body appeared in newspapers across the United States. An unlit cigar lay on the pavement, inches from his outstretched arm. Years later, in a documentary about Kovacs, Edie Adams described telephoning the police impatiently when she learned of the crash. An official cupped his hand over the receiver, saying to a colleague, "It's Mrs. Kovacs, he's on his way to the coroner - what should I tell her?" With that, Adams's fears were confirmed, and she became inconsolable. Jack Lemmon, who also attended the Berle party, identified Kovacs's body at the morgue because Adams was too distraught to do so. After attending funerals for Hollywood friends, Kovacs had expressed his wishes to Adams that any funeral services for him be kept simple. In keeping with his request, Adams made arrangements for Presbyterian services at the Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian Church. The active pallbearers were Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Billy Wilder, Mervyn LeRoy, and Joe Mikolas. Kovacs's father and brother, Andrew and Tom, respectively, served as honorary pallbearers. The attendees included George Burns, Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Buster Keaton and Milton Berle. There was no typical Hollywood-type eulogy, but the church's pastor paid tribute to Kovacs, adding that he once summed up his life in two sentences: "I was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1919 to a Hungarian couple. I've been smoking cigars ever since." Kovacs is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads, "Nothing in moderation--We all loved him." Only one of Kovacs's three children survives: his eldest, Elizabeth, from his first marriage. Kippie, his second daughter, died on July 28, 2001 at the age of 52, after a long illness and a lifetime of poor health. Kippie and her husband, Bill Lancaster (1947-1997), a screenwriter and the son of actor Burt Lancaster, are the parents of Kovacs's only grandchild, Keigh Lancaster. His only child with Edie Adams, Mia (1959-1982), was killed on May 8, 1982, also in an automobile accident. Her gravestone reads "Daddy's little girl. We all loved her, too". Mia and Kippie are buried close to their father; when Edie died in 2008, she was buried between Mia and Kippie. CANNOTANSWER | Kovacs is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads, | Ernest Edward Kovacs (January 23, 1919 – January 13, 1962) was an American comedian, actor, and writer.
Kovacs's visually experimental and often spontaneous comedic style influenced numerous television comedy programs for years after his death. Kovacs has been credited as an influence by many individuals and shows, including Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Jim Henson, Max Headroom, Chevy Chase, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Pee-wee's Playhouse, The Muppet Show, Dave Garroway, Andy Kaufman, You Can't Do That on Television, MST3K, Uncle Floyd, among others. Chevy Chase thanked Kovacs during his acceptance speech for his Emmy award for Saturday Night Live.
While Kovacs and Adams received Emmy nominations for best performances in a comedy series during 1957, his talent was not recognized formally until after his death. The 1962 Emmy for Outstanding Electronic Camera Work and the Directors' Guild award came a short time after his fatal accident. A quarter century later, he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. Kovacs also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in television. In 1986, the Museum of Broadcasting (later to become the Museum of Television & Radio and now the Paley Center for Media) presented an exhibit of Kovacs's work, called The Vision of Ernie Kovacs. The Pulitzer Prize–winning television critic, William Henry III, wrote for the museum's booklet: "Kovacs was more than another wide-eyed, self-ingratiating clown. He was television's first significant video artist."
Early life and career
Kovacs's father, Andrew John Kovacs, was born in 1890 and emigrated from Tornaújfalu, Hungary, which is now known as Turnianska Nová Ves, Slovakia. Andrew sailed on the S.S. Würzburg via Bremen, arriving at Ellis Island on February 8, 1906, at age 16. He worked as a policeman, restaurateur, and bootlegger, the last so successfully that he moved his wife Mary, son Tom, and his half-brother Ernest Edward Kovacs into a 20-room mansion in the better part of Trenton.
Though a poor student, Kovacs was influenced by his Trenton Central High School drama teacher, Harold Van Kirk, and received an acting scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1937 with Van Kirk's help. The end of Prohibition and the onset of the Great Depression resulted in difficult financial times for the family. When Kovacs began drama school, all he could afford was a fifth-floor walk-up apartment on West 74th Street in New York City.
During this time, he watched many "Grade B" movies; admission was only ten cents. Many of these movies influenced his comedy routines later.
A 1938 local newspaper photograph shows Kovacs as a member of the Prospect Players, not yet wearing his trademark mustache. Kovacs used his class vacation time to pursue roles in summer stock companies. While working in Vermont in 1939, he became so seriously ill with pneumonia and pleurisy that his doctors didn't expect him to survive. During the next year and a half, his comedic talents developed as he entertained both doctors and patients with his antics during stays at several hospitals. While hospitalized, Kovacs developed a lifelong love of classical music by the gift of a radio, which he kept tuned to WQXR. By the time he was released his parents had separated, and Kovacs went back to Trenton, living with his mother in a two-room apartment over a store. He began work as a cigar salesman, which resulted in a lifelong tobacco-smoking habit.
Kovacs's first paid entertainment work was during 1941 as an announcer for Trenton's radio station WTTM. He spent the next nine years with WTTM, becoming the station's director of special events; in this job he did things like trying to see what it was like to be run over by a train (leaving the tracks at the last minute) and broadcasting from the cockpit of a plane for which he took flying lessons. Kovacs was also involved with local theater; a local newspaper published a photograph of him and the news that he was doing some directing for the Trenton Players Guild in early 1941. The Trentonian, a local weekly newspaper, offered Kovacs a column in June 1945; he named it "Kovacs Unlimited".
Start in television
Arriving at NBC's Philadelphia affiliate, WPTZ, for an audition wearing a barrel and shorts got Kovacs his first television job in January 1950. His first show was Pick Your Ideal, a fashion and promotional program for the Ideal Manufacturing Company. Before long, Kovacs was also the host of Deadline For Dinner and Now You're Cooking, shows featuring advice from local chefs. When Kovacs's guest chef did not arrive in time for the show, he offered a recipe for "Eggs Scavok" (Kovacs spelled backward). Kovacs seasoned the egg dish with ashes from his cigar. The sponsor was a local propane company. Hosting these shows soon resulted in his becoming host of a program named Three to Get Ready, named for WPTZ's channel 3 spot on television dials.
Premiering in November 1950, Three to Get Ready was innovative because it was the first regularly scheduled early morning (7–9am) show in a major television market, predating NBC's Today by more than a year. Prior to this, it had been assumed that few people would watch television at such an early hour. While the show was advertised as early morning news and weather, Kovacs provided this and more in an original manner. When rain was in the weather forecast, Kovacs would get on a ladder and pour water down on the staff member reading the report. Goats were auditioned for a local theater performance and tiny women appeared to walk up his arm. Kovacs also went outside of the studio for some of his skits, running through a downtown Philadelphia restaurant in a gorilla suit in one; in another, he looked into a construction pit, saying it was deep enough to see to China, when a man in Chinese clothing popped up, said a few words in the language, and ran off. Despite its popularity, the weekly prop budget for the show was just $15. Kovacs once asked his viewers to send unwanted items to Channel 3; they filled the station's lobby.
The only character no one ever saw inspired more gifts; he was Howard, the World's Strongest Ant. From the time of his WPTZ debut, Howard received more than 30,000 gifts from Kovacs's viewers, including a mink-lined swimming pool. Kovacs began his Early Eyeball Fraternal & Marching Society (EEFMS) while doing Three to Get Ready. There were membership cards with by-laws and ties; the password was a favorite phrase of Kovacs's: "It's Been Real". Kovacs continued the EEFMS on his morning show when he moved to WCBS in New York in 1952. The success of Three to Get Ready proved that people did indeed watch early-morning television, and it was one of the factors that caused NBC to create The Today Show. WPTZ did not begin broadcasting Today when it premiered on January 14, 1952; network influence caused the station to end Three to Get Ready at the end of March of that year.
During early 1952, Kovacs was also doing a late morning show for WPTZ named Kovacs on the Corner. Kovacs would walk through an imaginary neighborhood, talking with various characters such as Pete the Cop and Luigi the Barber. As with Three to Get Ready, there were some special segments. "Swap Time" was one of them: Viewers could bring their unwanted items to the WPTZ studios to trade them live on the air with Kovacs. The show made its debut on January 4, 1952, with Kovacs losing creative control of the program soon after it was begun. Kovacs on the Corner was short-lived; it ended on March 28, 1952, along with Three to Get Ready. Kovacs then began work for WCBS-TV in New York with a local morning show and a later network one. Both programs were canceled; Kovacs lost the local morning program for the same reason as Three to Get Ready—the broadcasting time was confiscated by the station's network in 1954.
Visual humor and characters
At WPTZ, Kovacs began using the ad-libbed and experimental style that would become his reputation, including video effects, superimpositions, reverse polarities and scanning, and quick blackouts. He was also noted for abstraction and carefully timed non-sequitur gags and for allowing the fourth wall to be breached. Kovacs's cameras commonly showed his viewers activity beyond the boundaries of the show set—including crew members and outside the studio itself. Kovacs also liked talking to the off-camera crew and even introduced segments from the studio control room. He frequently made use of accidents and happenstance, incorporating the unexpected into his shows. In one of Kovacs's Philadelphia broadcasts, Oscar Liebetrau, an elderly crew member who was known for often sleeping for the duration of the telecast, was introduced to the audience as "Sleeping Schwartz." Kovacs was once knocked unconscious when a pie smashed into his face still had the plate under it.
Kovacs's love of spontaneity extended to his crew, who would occasionally play on-air pranks on him to see how he would react. During one of his NBC shows, Kovacs was appearing as the inept magician Matzoh Heppelwhite. The sketch called for the magician to frequently hit a gong, which was the signal for a sexy female assistant to bring out a bottle and shot glass for a quick snort of alcohol. Stagehands substituted real liquor for the iced tea normally used for the skit. Kovacs realized that he would be called upon to drink a shot of liquor for each successive gong. He pressed on with the sketch and was quite inebriated by the end of the show.
Kovacs helped develop camera tricks still common decades after his death. His character Eugene sat at a table to eat his lunch, but as he removed items one at a time from a lunch box, he watched them inexplicably roll down the table into the lap of a man reading a newspaper at the other end. When Kovacs poured milk from a thermos bottle, the stream flowed in a seemingly unusual direction. Never seen on television before, the secret was using a tilted set in front of a camera tilted at the same angle.
He constantly sought new techniques and used both primitive and improvised ways of creating visual effects that would later be done electronically. One innovative construction involved attaching a kaleidoscope made from a toilet paper roll to a camera lens with cardboard and tape and setting the resulting abstract images to music. Another was a soup can with both ends removed fitted with angled mirrors. Used on a camera and turning it could put Kovacs seemingly on the ceiling. An underwater stunt involved cigar smoker Kovacs sitting in an easy chair, reading his newspaper and somehow smoking a cigar. Removing it from his mouth, Kovacs was able to exhale a puff of white smoke, all while floating underwater. The trick: the "smoke" was a small amount of milk which he filled his mouth with before submerging. Kovacs repeated the effect for a Dutch Masters television commercial on his ABC game show, Take A Good Look.
One of the special effects he employed made it appear as if he was able to look through his assistant, Barbara Loden's, head. The illusion was performed by placing a black patch on Loden's head and standing her against a black background while one studio camera was trained on her. A second one photographed Kovacs, who used the studio monitor to position himself exactly so that his eye would appear to be looking through a hole in her head.
He also developed such routines as an all-gorilla version of Swan Lake, a poker game set to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the skit Silent Show, in which Eugene interacts with the world accompanied solely by music and sound effects, parodies of typical television commercials and movie genres, and various musical segments with everyday items (such as kitchen appliances or office equipment) moving in sync to music. A popular recurring skit was The Nairobi Trio, three derby-hatted apes miming mechanically and rhythmically to the tune of Robert Maxwell's "Solfeggio".
Kovacs used extended sketches and mood pieces or quick blackout gags lasting only seconds. Some could be expensive, such as his famous used-car salesman routine with a jalopy and a breakaway floor: it cost $12,000 to produce the six-second gag. He was one of the first television comedians to use odd fake credits and comments between the legitimate credits and, at times, during his routines.
Kovacs reportedly disliked working in front of a live audience, as was the case with the shows he did for NBC during the 1950s. He found the presence of an audience distracting, and those in the seats frequently did not understand some of the more elaborate visual gags and special effects, which could only be appreciated by watching studio monitors instead of the stage.
Like many comedians of the era, Kovacs created a rotation of recurring roles. In addition to the silent "Eugene," his most familiar characters were the fey, lisping poet Percy Dovetonsils, and the heavily accented German radio announcer, Wolfgang von Sauerbraten. Mr. Question Man, who answered viewer queries, was a satire on the long-run (1937–56) radio series, The Answer Man. Others included horror show host Auntie Gruesome, bumbling magician Matzoh Heppelwhite, Frenchman Pierre Ragout and Miklos Molnar, the sardonic Hungarian host of a cooking show. The Miklos character wasn't always confined to a kitchen; Kovacs performed a parody of The Howdy Doody Show with "Buffalo Miklos" as the host. Poet Percy Dovetonsils can be found playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata on a disappearing piano and as a "Master Detective" on the "Private Eye-Private Eye" presentation of the US Steel Hour on CBS March 8, 1961. On the same show, the Nairobi Trio abandons its instruments for a safe-cracking job; still with a background of "Solfeggio", but speaking, two of the three appear in an "Outer Space" sketch.
Kovacs became a regular on NBC Radio's program Monitor beginning during late 1958, often using his Mr. Question Man character in his radio monologues.
Kovacs never hesitated to lampoon those considered institutions of radio and television. In April 1954, he started the late-night talk show, The Ernie Kovacs Show, on DuMont Television Network's New York flagship station, WABD. Stage, screen and radio notables were often guests. Archie Bleyer, head of Cadence Records, came to chat one evening. Bleyer had been the long-time orchestra director for Arthur Godfrey's radio and television shows. He had been dismissed by Godfrey the year before, together with fellow cast member, singer Julius La Rosa. In La Rosa's case, he hired a manager, defying an unwritten Godfrey policy. With Bleyer, Godfrey was angered when he found that Bleyer's record company Cadence Records had produced spoken-word material by Don McNeill, host of ABC's Don McNeill's Breakfast Club, which Godfrey considered competition to his show. Bleyer and Kovacs were shown in split screen, with Kovacs wearing a red wig, headphones, and playing a ukulele in a Godfrey imitation, while talking with his guest.
Kovacs's television programs included Three to Get Ready (an early morning program seen on Philadelphia's WPTZ from 1950 through 1952), It's Time for Ernie (1951, his first network series), Ernie in Kovacsland, (a summer replacement show for Kukla, Fran and Ollie, 1951), The Ernie Kovacs Show (1952–56 on various networks), a twice-a-week job filling in for Steve Allen as host of The Tonight Show on Mondays and Tuesdays (1956–57), and game shows Gamble on Love, One Minute Please, Time Will Tell (all on DuMont), and Take a Good Look (1959–61). Kovacs was also the host of a program, Silents Please, which showed silent movies on network television, with serious discussion about the movies and their actors.
Kovacs had a brief stint as a celebrity panelist for the television series What's My Line?, but took his responsibilities less than seriously, often eschewing a legitimate question for the sake of a laugh. An example: Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, the founder of an automobile company, was the program's "mystery guest." Previous questioning had established that the mystery guest's name was synonymous with an automobile brand, Kovacs asked, "Are you – and this is just a wild guess – but are you Abraham Lincoln?"—a reference to the Ford Motor Company's Lincoln automobiles. When Kovacs gave an interview admitting that he was absent from the show when he wanted to go out for dinner on a Sunday, his stint on the panel show was ended.
TV specials
He also did several television specials, including the famous Silent Show (1957), featuring his character, Eugene: the first all-pantomime prime-time network program. After the end of the Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis partnership, NBC offered Lewis the opportunity to host his own 90-minute color television special. Lewis opted to use only 60 minutes, leaving the network 30 minutes to fill; no one wanted this time slot, but Kovacs was willing to have it. The program contained no spoken dialogue and contained only sound effects and music. Featuring Kovacs as the mute, Charlie Chaplin-like character "Eugene", the program contained surreal sight gags. Kovacs developed the Eugene character during the autumn of 1956, when hosting the television series The Tonight Show. Expectations were high for the Lewis program, but it was Kovacs' special that received the most attention; Kovacs received his first movie offer, had a cover story in Life magazine, and received the Sylvania Award that year.
In 1961, Kovacs and his co-director, Joe Behar, were recipients of the Directors Guild of America Award for a second version of this program broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company network.
A series of monthly half-hour specials for ABC during 1961–62 is often considered his best television work. Produced on videotape using new editing and special effects techniques, it won a 1962 Emmy Award. Kovacs and co-director Behar also won the Directors Guild of America award for an Ernie Kovacs Special based on the earlier, silent "Eugene" program. Kovacs' last ABC special was broadcast posthumously, on January 23, 1962.
The Dutch Masters cigar company became well-known during the late 1950s and early 1960s for its sponsorship of various television projects of Ernie Kovacs. The company allowed Kovacs total creative control in the creation of their television commercials for his programs and specials. He produced a series of non-speaking television commercials for Dutch Masters during the run of his television series Take A Good Look which was praised by both television critics and viewers.
While praised by critics, Kovacs rarely had a highly-rated show. The Museum of Broadcast Communications says, "It is doubtful that Ernie Kovacs would find a place on television today. He was too zany, too unrestrained, too undisciplined. Perhaps Jack Gould of The New York Times said it best for Ernie Kovacs: 'The fun was in trying'."
Other shows had greater success while using elements of Kovacs's style. George Schlatter, producer of the later television series Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, was married to actress Jolene Brand, who had appeared in Kovacs' comic troupes over the years and had been a frequent participant in his pioneering sketches. Laugh-In made frequent use of the quick blackout gags and surreal humor that marked many Kovacs projects. Another link was a young NBC staffer, Bill Wendell, Kovacs's usual announcer and sometimes a sketch participant. From 1980 to 1995, Wendell was the announcer for David Letterman, whose show and style of humor were greatly influenced by Kovacs.
The Music Man
Kovacs was also known for his eclectic musical taste. His main theme song was named "Oriental Blues" by Jack Newton. The rendition most often heard was a piano-driven trio version, but, for his primetime show during 1956, music director Harry Sosnik presented a full-blown big-band version. The German song "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer" from The Threepenny Opera (anglicized to "Mack the Knife"), frequently underscored his blackout routines. Songwriter Robert Maxwell's "Solfeggio" became associated with the derby-hatted apes, 'The Nairobi Trio'.
In the 1982 TV special Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius, Edie Adams recalled that when Kovacs first heard the melody, he immediately knew what he wanted to do with it, creating a music-box-like trio that moved in time to the tune. Kovacs was introduced to the song in 1954 by Barry Shear, his director at DuMont Television Network.
Kovacs matched an unusual treatment of "Sentimental Journey", by Mexican bandleader Juan García Esquivel, to video of an empty office in which various items (pencil sharpeners, water coolers, wall clocks) come to life in rhythm with the music; it was a variation on several famous animations of a decade earlier. The original three-minute presentation was outlined by Kovacs in a four-page, single-spaced memo to his staff. The perfectionist Kovacs describes in minute detail what had to be done and how to do it. The memo ends with this: "I don't know how the hell you're going to get this done by Sunday – but 'rots of ruck." (signed) "Ernie (with love)". Kovacs also made careful use of the shrill singer Leona Anderson—who had somewhat less than a classical (or even listenable) voice, by some estimations—in comic vignettes.
Kovacs used classical music as background for silent skits or abstract visual routines, including "Concerto for Orchestra", by Béla Bartók; music from the opera "The Love of Three Oranges", by Sergei Prokofiev; the finale of Igor Stravinsky's suite "The Firebird"; and Richard Strauss' "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks"; and, from George Gershwin, "Rialto Ripples"--the theme to his shows--as well as parts of Gershwin's "Concerto in F". He may have been known best for using Joseph Haydn's "String Quartet, Opus 3, Number 5" (the "Serenade," actually composed by Roman Hoffstetter) for a series of 1960–61 commercials he created and videotaped for his sponsor, Dutch Masters.
For the show of May 22, 1959, Kovacs on Music, Kovacs began by saying, "I have never really understood classical music, so I would like to take this opportunity to explain it to others." He presented a gorilla version of Swan Lake which differed from the usual performance only in the persona of the dancers, along with giant paper clips moving to music and other sketches.
He also served as host on a jazz album to benefit the American Cancer Society in 1957, Listening to Jazz with Ernie Kovacs. It was a 15-minute recording featuring some of the celebrities of the art, including pianist Jimmy Yancey and old original New Orleans Jazz Trumpeter Bunk Johnson, soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet, guitarist Django Reinhardt, composer/pianist/bandleader Duke Ellington and longtime Ellington trumpeter Cootie Williams. Both the Library of Congress and the National Library of Canada have copies of this recording in their collections.
In print
Kovacs wrote a novel, Zoomar: A Sophisticated Novel about Love and TV (Doubleday, 1957), based on television pioneer Pat Weaver; it took Kovacs only 13 days to write. The book took its title from the Zoomar brand zoom lenses frequently used on television cameras at the time. In a 1960 interview, Edie Adams related that the novel was written after Kovacs' experiences with network television while he was preparing to broadcast the Silent Show. The 1961 British edition was retitled T.V. Medium Rare by its London-based publisher, Transworld.
While he worked on several other book projects, Kovacs's only other published title was How to Talk at Gin, published posthumously in 1962. He intended part of the book's proceeds to benefit Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. During 1955–58, he wrote for Mad (his favorite humor magazine), including the feature "Strangely Believe It!" (a parody of Ripley's Believe It or Not! that was a regular feature of his television shows) and Gringo, a board game with ridiculously complicated rules that was renamed Droongo for the television show. Kovacs also wrote the introduction to the 1958 collection Mad For Keeps: A Collection of the Best from Mad Magazine.
Television guest star
Kovacs and Edie Adams guest starred on what turned out to be the final episode of The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show, (syndicated as The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour or We Love Lucy) "Lucy Meets the Moustache", which was in rehearsals during the week of February 28 and filmed on March 3 for an April 1, 1960 network broadcast. "Lucy Meets the Moustache" was the last time Arnaz and Ball worked together and the last time their famous characters appeared in a first-run broadcast. According to Adams, Ball and Arnaz 'avoided contact and barely talked to each other in rehearsals and in-between scenes'. Adams also said that they were not told their episode was the last or that the famous couple was to divorce (Ball entered the uncontested divorce request March 4, 1960).
Kovacs also appeared in roles on other television programs. For General Electric Theater's "I Was a Bloodhound" in 1959, Kovacs played the role of detective Barney Colby, whose extraordinary sense of smell helped him solve many seemingly-impossible cases. Colby was hired by a foreign country to recover its symbol of royalty, a baby elephant, who was being held for ransom.
Films
Kovacs found Hollywood success as a character actor, often typecast as a swarthy military officer (almost always a "Captain" of some sort) in such films as Operation Mad Ball, Wake Me When It's Over and Our Man in Havana. While working in his first film role for Operation Mad Ball, Kovacs was filming a wild party scene after midnight; it was decided to use real champagne for realism. After a few hours of work, someone came up to Kovacs and remarked that he had been having quite a good time chasing starlets all night. Kovacs told the stranger to go to hell, since he was following the script; he later learned the stranger was Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures. Kovacs and Cohn later became friends despite the way they had met, with Cohn giving Kovacs roles in Bell, Book and Candle (1958) and It Happened to Jane (1959).
He garnered critical acclaim for film roles such as the perennially-inebriated writer in Bell, Book and Candle and as the cartoonishly-evil head of a railroad company (who resembled Orson Welles' title character in Citizen Kane) in It Happened to Jane, where he had his head shaved and his remaining hair dyed grey for the role. In 1960, he played the base commander Charlie Stark in the comedy Wake Me When It's Over and the con man Frankie Cannon trying to steal John Wayne's gold mine in the western comedy, North to Alaska. His own personal favorite was said to have been the offbeat Five Golden Hours (1961), in which he portrayed a larcenous professional mourner who meets his match in a professional widow played by Cyd Charisse. Kovacs's last movie, Sail a Crooked Ship (also 1961), was released one month before his death.
Personal life
First marriage
Kovacs and his first wife, Bette Wilcox, were married on August 13, 1945. When the marriage ended, he fought for custody of their children, Elizabeth ("Bette") and Kip Raleigh ("Kippie"). The court awarded Kovacs full custody upon determining that his former wife was mentally unstable. The decision was extremely unusual at the time, setting a legal precedent. Wilcox subsequently kidnapped the children, taking them to Florida. After a long and expensive search, Kovacs regained custody. These events were portrayed in the television movie Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter (1984), which garnered an Emmy Award nomination for its writer, April Smith. Kovacs was portrayed by Jeff Goldblum.
Kovacs's first wife made a legal attempt to gain custody of her two daughters soon after his death. She began August 2, 1962, by claiming $500,000 was her share of Kovacs's estate and charging that her ex-husband had abducted the girls in 1955; Kovacs had been granted legal custody of his daughters in 1952. On August 30, Wilcox filed an affidavit claiming that Kovacs's widow, Edie Adams, the stepmother to the girls, was "unfit" to care for them. Both daughters, Bette and Kippie, testified that they wanted to stay with their stepmother, Edie. Kippie's testimony was very emotional; in it she referred to Edie as "Mommy" and her birth mother as "the other lady." Upon hearing the verdict that the girls would remain in their home, Adams wept, saying, "This is what Ernie would have wanted. Now I can smile." Elizabeth Kovacs's reaction was "I'm so happy I can hardly express myself", after learning she and her sister would not be forced to leave Edie.
Second marriage
Kovacs and Adams met in 1951 when she was hired to work for his WPTZ show, Three to Get Ready. Her appearance on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts caught the eye of Kovacs's producer, and he asked her to audition for the program. A classically-trained singer, she was able to perform only three popular songs. Edie said later, "I sang them all during the audition, and if they had asked to hear another, I never would have made it." Quoting Kovacs, "I wish I could say I was the big shot that hired her, but it was my show in name only – the producer had all the say. Later on I did have something to say and I said it: 'Let's get married.'"
After the couple's first date, Kovacs proceeded to buy a Jaguar car, telling Adams he wanted to take her out in style. He was seriously taken with the beautiful and talented young woman, courting her with imagination and flair. Kovacs's attempts to win Adams' affection included hiring a mariachi band to serenade her backstage at the Broadway musical she was performing in and the sudden gift of a diamond engagement ring, telling her to wear it until she made up her mind. Kovacs continued this romantic quest after the show went out of town.
Adams booked a six-week European cruise, which she hoped would let her make up her mind whether or not to marry Kovacs. After only three days away and many long-distance telephone calls, she curtailed her trip and returned to say "yes". They eloped and were married on September 12, 1954, in Mexico City. The ceremony was presided over by former New York City mayor William O'Dwyer and was performed in Spanish, which neither Kovacs nor Adams understood; O'Dwyer had to prompt each of them to say "Sí" at the "I do" portion of the vows. Adams, who had a middle-class upbringing, was smitten by Kovacs's quirky ways; the couple remained together until his death. (She later said about Kovacs, "He treated me like a little girl, and I loved it—Women's Lib be damned!")
Adams also aided Kovacs's struggle to reclaim his two older children after the kidnapping by their mother. She also was a regular partner on his television shows. Kovacs usually introduced or addressed her in a businesslike way, as "Edith Adams". Adams was usually willing to do anything he envisioned, whether it was singing seriously, performing impersonations (including a well-regarded impression of Marilyn Monroe) or taking a pie in the face or a pratfall if and when needed. The couple had one daughter, Mia Susan Kovacs, born June 20, 1959.
Kovacs and his family shared a 16-room apartment in Manhattan on Central Park West that seemed perfect until he went to California for his first film role in Operation Mad Ball. The experience of the totally different, laid-back lifestyle of Hollywood made a big impression on him. He realized he was working too much in New York; in California he would be able to work fewer hours, do just as well or better and have more time for Edie and his daughters. At the time, he was working most of the time and sleeping about two or three hours a night. Kovacs claimed that he realized it was time for a change when he was telling his girls a bedtime story and found himself thinking of using it for a show instead. Kovacs relocated his family there in 1957, after Edie finished work for the Broadway play Li'l Abner.
Death
In the early morning hours of January 13, 1962, Kovacs lost control of his Chevrolet Corvair station wagon while turning quickly and crashed into a power pole in Beverly Hills. He was thrown halfway out the vehicle's passenger side and died almost instantly from chest and head injuries.
A photographer arrived soon after and images of Kovacs' bodywith an unlit cigar on the pavement near his outstretched handappeared in newspapers across the United States.
In keeping Kovacs's wishes, a simple service was held at the Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian Church. The pallbearers included Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Billy Wilder, and Mervyn LeRoy, and George Burns, Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Buster Keaton and Milton Berle also attended. The pastor said that Kovacs had summed up his life thus: "I was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1919 to a Hungarian couple. I've been smoking cigars ever since."
He is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads "Nothing in moderation—We all loved him."
Tax evasion
A frequent critic of the U.S. tax system, Kovacs owed the Internal Revenue Service several hundred thousand dollars in back taxes, due to his refusal to pay the bulk of them. Up to 90% of his earnings were garnished as a result. His long battles with the IRS inspired Kovacs to invest his money in a convoluted series of paper corporations in the U.S. and Canada. He would give them bizarre names, such as "The Bazooka Dooka Hicka Hocka Hookah Company". In 1961, Kovacs was served with a $75,000 lien for back taxes; that same day he bought the California Racquet Club with the apparent hope of being able to use it as a tax write-off. The property had mortgages at the time of purchase which were later paid by Edie Adams.
His tax woes also affected Kovacs's career, forcing him to take any offered work to pay his debt. This included the ABC game show Take a Good Look, appearances on variety shows such as NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford, and some of his less-memorable film roles. He also filmed an unaired 1962 pilot episode for a proposed CBS series, Medicine Man (co-starring Buster Keaton; the pilot episode titled "A Pony for Chris"). Kovacs' role was that of Dr. P. Crookshank, a traveling medicine salesman in the 1870s, who was selling Mother McGreevy's Wizard Juice, also known as "man's best friend in a bottle". This was abandoned after his death, which occurred the day after filming some scenes for the pilot in Griffith Park. CBS initially intended to broadcast the show as part of a summer replacement program, The Comedy Spot, but decided against it due to problems with Kovacs' estate. The pilot is part of the public collection of the Paley Center for Media.
Some of the issues regarding Kovacs' tax problems were still unresolved years after his death. Kovacs had purchased two insurance policies in 1951; his mother was named as the primary beneficiary of them. The IRS placed a lien against them both for their cash value in 1961. To stop the actions being taken against her, Mary Kovacs had to go to Federal court. The court's early 1966 ruling resolved the issue, with the last sentence of the document reading: "Prima facie, it looks as if, within the limits of discretion permitted the government by the relevant statutes, an injustice is being done Mary Kovacs."
Adams, who married and divorced twice after Kovacs' death, refused help from celebrity friends who planned a benefit for the purpose. "I can take care of my own children," she said, and resolved to accept offers only from those who wanted to hire her for her talents. Adams eventually paid all of Kovacs's debts.
Lost and surviving work
Most of Kovacs's early television work was performed live: few kinescopes have survived. Some videotapes of his ABC specials were preserved; others, such as his quirky game show, Take a Good Look, were available mostly in short segments until recently, with the release of some complete, videotaped episodes. After Kovacs's death, Adams discovered not only that her husband owed ABC a great deal of money, but that some networks were systematically erasing and reusing tapes of Kovacs's shows or disposing of the kinescopes and videotapes. She succeeded in purchasing the rights to surviving footage with the proceeds from Kovacs' insurance policy and her own earnings after Kovacs' IRS debts were paid. In March 1996, Adams detailed her experiences before the National Film Preservation Board.
Adams first used some of the videotapes she had purchased for a 1968 ABC television special, The Comedy of Ernie Kovacs; to produce the show, she hired Kovacs's former producer and editor. The hour-long program was sponsored by Kovacs's former sponsor, Dutch Masters.
Most of Kovacs's salvaged work is available to researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles Library's Department of Special Collections: additional material is available at the Paley Center for Media.
The 1984 television film Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter helped return Kovacs to the public's attention, though the show emphasized his bid to retrieve his kidnapped children instead of his professional life. Jeff Goldblum portrayed Kovacs, Madolyn Smith portrayed Bette and Melody Anderson portrayed Adams in the movie. Edie Adams appeared in a cameo in this film, playing Mae West; it was one of the impressions she performed in shows with Kovacs. Telecasts of edited compilations of some of his work by PBS (station WTTW, Chicago) under the title The Best of Ernie Kovacs in 1977, inspired the film. These broadcasts were made available on VHS and DVD. The DVD set features extras that are not in the VHS set. The series was narrated by Jack Lemmon.
During the early 1990s, The Comedy Channel broadcast a series of Kovacs' shows under the generic title of The Ernie Kovacs Show. The series included both the ABC specials and some of his 1950s shows from NBC. By 2008, there were no broadcast, cable, or satellite channels broadcasting any of Kovacs's television work, other than his panel appearances on What's My Line? on the Game Show Network.
On April 19, 2011, Shout! Factory released The Ernie Kovacs Collection, six DVDs spanning Kovacs's television career. The company's website also offers an extra disc with material from Tonight! and The Ernie Kovacs Show, as well as a rare color kinescope of the complete 30-minute 1957 NBC color broadcast featuring "Eugene". On October 23, 2012, Shout! Factory released The Ernie Kovacs Collection: Volume 2 on DVD.
In 1961, Kovacs recorded a record album of poetry in the character of Percy Dovetonsils named Percy Dovetonsils Thpeakth, but was unable to release it due to contractual obligations with other record companies. After he was given the masters, Kovacs donated them to a Los Angeles area hospital. Adams was able to re-acquire the tapes in 1967, and they remained part of her private collection until her death in 2008. The tapes were labeled as movie material and were thought to be such until further examination proved they were Kovacs as Percy reading his poems with no music background. The album was finally released in 2012.
Kovacs was inducted posthumously into the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia's Hall of Fame in 1992.
Partial filmography
Operation Mad Ball (1957) (with Jack Lemmon) as Capt. Paul Lock
Bell, Book and Candle (1958) (with James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Jack Lemmon as Sidney Redlitch
It Happened to Jane (1959) (with Doris Day and Jack Lemmon) as Harry Foster Malone
Our Man in Havana (1959) (with Alec Guinness and Noël Coward) as Capt. Segura
Wake Me When It's Over (1960) (with Dick Shawn) as Capt. Charlie Stark
Strangers When We Meet (1960) (with Kirk Douglas and Kim Novak) as Roger Altar
North to Alaska (1960) (with John Wayne) as Frankie Canon
Pepe (1960) (with Cantinflas) as Immigration Inspector
Five Golden Hours (1961) (with Cyd Charisse and George Sanders) as Aldo Bondi
Sail a Crooked Ship (1961, with Robert Wagner) as Bugsy G. Foglemeyer aka The Captain
Notes
References
Bibliography
via Project MUSE
Further reading
Adams, Edie (1990). Sing a Pretty Song: The "Offbeat" Life of Edie Adams, Including the Ernie Kovacs Years. William Morrow;
Barker, David Brian (1982). "Every Moment's a Gift": Ernie Kovacs in Hollywood, 1957–1962, a Master's Thesis. Available for viewing at the library at the University of Texas at Austin
Rico, Diana (1990). Kovacsland: A Biography of Ernie Kovacs. Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich;
Walley, David (1975). Nothing in Moderation. Drake Publishers; Reprinted as The Ernie Kovacs Phile by David Walley, Bolder Books, 1978 and Fireside/Simon & Schuster, 1987;
External links
The Official Ernie Kovacs Website
Ernie Kovacs Dot Net: A Tribute To Television's Original Genius
Kovacsland Online! – the Ernie Kovacs website
List of Kovacs' 16 articles for MAD magazine
Watch
The Jack Benny Program with Ernie Kovacs as guest at the Internet Archive
Operation Mad Ball Trailer (1957) at the Internet Archive
John Barbour's documentary Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius at John Barbour's World
Ernie Kovacs Dutch Masters Cigar Commercial
1919 births
1962 deaths
20th-century American male actors
American people of Hungarian descent
American comedy writers
American game show hosts
American male film actors
American male television actors
American humorists
American satirists
American comics writers
American television talk show hosts
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
Emmy Award winners
Mad (magazine) people
Male actors from New Jersey
Actors from Trenton, New Jersey
Road incident deaths in California
Trenton Central High School alumni
Writers from Trenton, New Jersey
American male comedy actors
20th-century American comedians | false | [
"\"What Did I Do to You?\" is a song recorded by British singer Lisa Stansfield for her 1989 album, Affection. It was written by Stansfield, Ian Devaney and Andy Morris, and produced by Devaney and Morris. The song was released as the fourth European single on 30 April 1990. It included three previously unreleased songs written by Stansfield, Devaney and Morris: \"My Apple Heart,\" \"Lay Me Down\" and \"Something's Happenin'.\" \"What Did I Do to You?\" was remixed by Mark Saunders and by the Grammy Award-winning American house music DJ and producer, David Morales. The single became a top forty hit in the European countries reaching number eighteen in Finland, number twenty in Ireland and number twenty-five in the United Kingdom. \"What Did I Do to You?\" was also released in Japan.\n\nIn 2014, the remixes of \"What Did I Do to You?\" were included on the deluxe 2CD + DVD re-release of Affection and on People Hold On ... The Remix Anthology. They were also featured on The Collection 1989–2003 box set (2014), including previously unreleased Red Zone Mix by David Morales.\n\nCritical reception\nThe song received positive reviews from music critics. Matthew Hocter from Albumism viewed it as a \"upbeat offering\". David Giles from Music Week said it is \"beautifully performed\" by Stansfield. A reviewer from Reading Eagle wrote that \"What Did I Do to You?\" \"would be right at home on the \"Saturday Night Fever\" soundtrack.\"\n\nMusic video\nA music video was produced to promote the single, directed by Philip Richardson, who had previously directed the videos for \"All Around the World\" and \"Live Together\". It features Stansfield with her kiss curls, dressed in a white outfit and performing with her band on a stage in front of a jumping audience. The video was later published on Stansfield's official YouTube channel in November 2009. It has amassed more than 1,6 million views as of October 2021.\n\nTrack listings\n\n European/UK 7\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK/Japanese CD single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n UK 10\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix) – 5:52\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK 12\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 4:22\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 3:19\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:15\n\n UK 12\" promotional single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Anti Poll Tax Dub) – 6:31\n\n Other remixes\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Red Zone Mix) – 7:45\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nLisa Stansfield songs\n1990 singles\nSongs written by Lisa Stansfield\n1989 songs\nArista Records singles\nSongs written by Ian Devaney\nSongs written by Andy Morris (musician)",
"Frances Vernon (1963–1991) was a British novelist. She was the daughter of the tenth Baron Vernon.\n\nNovels\nVernon was encouraged in her writing by her first cousin, the photographer and author Michael Marten. She wrote her first novel Privileged Children (1982) at the age of sixteen. It won the Author's Club First Novel Award. She studied briefly at New Hall, Cambridge (now Murray Edwards College, Cambridge) but soon left to continue her writing. \nShe produced five more novels: Gentlemen and Players (1984), The Bohemian Girl (1985), A Desirable Husband (1987), The Marquis of Westmarch (1989) and finally The Fall of Doctor Onslow (1994), which was published three years after her death. Lucasta Miller for the Independent described it as \"both a tragic reminder of what she might have gone on to do, and a testimony to what she did achieve\".\n\nDepression and suicide\nVernon suffered from depression, which worsened towards the end of her life. She was seeing a psychotherapist for about five years before her death. She suffered in particular from a fear of travelling.\nVernon committed suicide on 11 July 1991. She had promised her psychiatrist not to use the pills he had prescribed her for her depression but instead used her own \"herbal\" concoction.\n\nNotes\n\nSources\n\n \n \n\n1963 births\nEnglish women novelists\nAlumni of New Hall, Cambridge\n20th-century English novelists\n20th-century English women writers\n1991 suicides"
] |
[
"Ernie Kovacs",
"Death",
"when did he die?",
"Kovacs was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles during the early morning hours of January 13, 1962.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"A photographer managed to arrive moments later, and graphic images of Kovacs's dead body appeared in newspapers across the United States.",
"did he have children?",
"Only one of Kovacs's three children survives: his eldest, Elizabeth, from his first marriage. Kippie, his second daughter, died on July 28, 2001 at the age of 52,",
"what did his daughter die from?",
"52, after a long illness and a lifetime of poor health.",
"what did he do after her death?",
"Kovacs is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads,"
] | C_8d50647977304f559cc6b26bd64e27fc_1 | what does his epitaph read? | 6 | What does Ernie's epitaph read? | Ernie Kovacs | Kovacs was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles during the early morning hours of January 13, 1962. Kovacs, who had worked for much of the evening, met Adams at a baby shower given by Billy Wilder for Milton Berle and his wife, who had recently adopted a newborn baby boy. The couple left the party in separate cars. After a light southern California rainstorm, Kovacs lost control of his Chevrolet Corvair station wagon while turning quickly, and crashed into a power pole at the corner of Beverly Glen and Santa Monica Boulevards. He was thrown halfway out the passenger side, and died almost instantly from chest and head injuries. A photographer managed to arrive moments later, and graphic images of Kovacs's dead body appeared in newspapers across the United States. An unlit cigar lay on the pavement, inches from his outstretched arm. Years later, in a documentary about Kovacs, Edie Adams described telephoning the police impatiently when she learned of the crash. An official cupped his hand over the receiver, saying to a colleague, "It's Mrs. Kovacs, he's on his way to the coroner - what should I tell her?" With that, Adams's fears were confirmed, and she became inconsolable. Jack Lemmon, who also attended the Berle party, identified Kovacs's body at the morgue because Adams was too distraught to do so. After attending funerals for Hollywood friends, Kovacs had expressed his wishes to Adams that any funeral services for him be kept simple. In keeping with his request, Adams made arrangements for Presbyterian services at the Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian Church. The active pallbearers were Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Billy Wilder, Mervyn LeRoy, and Joe Mikolas. Kovacs's father and brother, Andrew and Tom, respectively, served as honorary pallbearers. The attendees included George Burns, Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Buster Keaton and Milton Berle. There was no typical Hollywood-type eulogy, but the church's pastor paid tribute to Kovacs, adding that he once summed up his life in two sentences: "I was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1919 to a Hungarian couple. I've been smoking cigars ever since." Kovacs is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads, "Nothing in moderation--We all loved him." Only one of Kovacs's three children survives: his eldest, Elizabeth, from his first marriage. Kippie, his second daughter, died on July 28, 2001 at the age of 52, after a long illness and a lifetime of poor health. Kippie and her husband, Bill Lancaster (1947-1997), a screenwriter and the son of actor Burt Lancaster, are the parents of Kovacs's only grandchild, Keigh Lancaster. His only child with Edie Adams, Mia (1959-1982), was killed on May 8, 1982, also in an automobile accident. Her gravestone reads "Daddy's little girl. We all loved her, too". Mia and Kippie are buried close to their father; when Edie died in 2008, she was buried between Mia and Kippie. CANNOTANSWER | "Nothing in moderation--We all loved him." | Ernest Edward Kovacs (January 23, 1919 – January 13, 1962) was an American comedian, actor, and writer.
Kovacs's visually experimental and often spontaneous comedic style influenced numerous television comedy programs for years after his death. Kovacs has been credited as an influence by many individuals and shows, including Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Jim Henson, Max Headroom, Chevy Chase, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Pee-wee's Playhouse, The Muppet Show, Dave Garroway, Andy Kaufman, You Can't Do That on Television, MST3K, Uncle Floyd, among others. Chevy Chase thanked Kovacs during his acceptance speech for his Emmy award for Saturday Night Live.
While Kovacs and Adams received Emmy nominations for best performances in a comedy series during 1957, his talent was not recognized formally until after his death. The 1962 Emmy for Outstanding Electronic Camera Work and the Directors' Guild award came a short time after his fatal accident. A quarter century later, he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. Kovacs also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in television. In 1986, the Museum of Broadcasting (later to become the Museum of Television & Radio and now the Paley Center for Media) presented an exhibit of Kovacs's work, called The Vision of Ernie Kovacs. The Pulitzer Prize–winning television critic, William Henry III, wrote for the museum's booklet: "Kovacs was more than another wide-eyed, self-ingratiating clown. He was television's first significant video artist."
Early life and career
Kovacs's father, Andrew John Kovacs, was born in 1890 and emigrated from Tornaújfalu, Hungary, which is now known as Turnianska Nová Ves, Slovakia. Andrew sailed on the S.S. Würzburg via Bremen, arriving at Ellis Island on February 8, 1906, at age 16. He worked as a policeman, restaurateur, and bootlegger, the last so successfully that he moved his wife Mary, son Tom, and his half-brother Ernest Edward Kovacs into a 20-room mansion in the better part of Trenton.
Though a poor student, Kovacs was influenced by his Trenton Central High School drama teacher, Harold Van Kirk, and received an acting scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1937 with Van Kirk's help. The end of Prohibition and the onset of the Great Depression resulted in difficult financial times for the family. When Kovacs began drama school, all he could afford was a fifth-floor walk-up apartment on West 74th Street in New York City.
During this time, he watched many "Grade B" movies; admission was only ten cents. Many of these movies influenced his comedy routines later.
A 1938 local newspaper photograph shows Kovacs as a member of the Prospect Players, not yet wearing his trademark mustache. Kovacs used his class vacation time to pursue roles in summer stock companies. While working in Vermont in 1939, he became so seriously ill with pneumonia and pleurisy that his doctors didn't expect him to survive. During the next year and a half, his comedic talents developed as he entertained both doctors and patients with his antics during stays at several hospitals. While hospitalized, Kovacs developed a lifelong love of classical music by the gift of a radio, which he kept tuned to WQXR. By the time he was released his parents had separated, and Kovacs went back to Trenton, living with his mother in a two-room apartment over a store. He began work as a cigar salesman, which resulted in a lifelong tobacco-smoking habit.
Kovacs's first paid entertainment work was during 1941 as an announcer for Trenton's radio station WTTM. He spent the next nine years with WTTM, becoming the station's director of special events; in this job he did things like trying to see what it was like to be run over by a train (leaving the tracks at the last minute) and broadcasting from the cockpit of a plane for which he took flying lessons. Kovacs was also involved with local theater; a local newspaper published a photograph of him and the news that he was doing some directing for the Trenton Players Guild in early 1941. The Trentonian, a local weekly newspaper, offered Kovacs a column in June 1945; he named it "Kovacs Unlimited".
Start in television
Arriving at NBC's Philadelphia affiliate, WPTZ, for an audition wearing a barrel and shorts got Kovacs his first television job in January 1950. His first show was Pick Your Ideal, a fashion and promotional program for the Ideal Manufacturing Company. Before long, Kovacs was also the host of Deadline For Dinner and Now You're Cooking, shows featuring advice from local chefs. When Kovacs's guest chef did not arrive in time for the show, he offered a recipe for "Eggs Scavok" (Kovacs spelled backward). Kovacs seasoned the egg dish with ashes from his cigar. The sponsor was a local propane company. Hosting these shows soon resulted in his becoming host of a program named Three to Get Ready, named for WPTZ's channel 3 spot on television dials.
Premiering in November 1950, Three to Get Ready was innovative because it was the first regularly scheduled early morning (7–9am) show in a major television market, predating NBC's Today by more than a year. Prior to this, it had been assumed that few people would watch television at such an early hour. While the show was advertised as early morning news and weather, Kovacs provided this and more in an original manner. When rain was in the weather forecast, Kovacs would get on a ladder and pour water down on the staff member reading the report. Goats were auditioned for a local theater performance and tiny women appeared to walk up his arm. Kovacs also went outside of the studio for some of his skits, running through a downtown Philadelphia restaurant in a gorilla suit in one; in another, he looked into a construction pit, saying it was deep enough to see to China, when a man in Chinese clothing popped up, said a few words in the language, and ran off. Despite its popularity, the weekly prop budget for the show was just $15. Kovacs once asked his viewers to send unwanted items to Channel 3; they filled the station's lobby.
The only character no one ever saw inspired more gifts; he was Howard, the World's Strongest Ant. From the time of his WPTZ debut, Howard received more than 30,000 gifts from Kovacs's viewers, including a mink-lined swimming pool. Kovacs began his Early Eyeball Fraternal & Marching Society (EEFMS) while doing Three to Get Ready. There were membership cards with by-laws and ties; the password was a favorite phrase of Kovacs's: "It's Been Real". Kovacs continued the EEFMS on his morning show when he moved to WCBS in New York in 1952. The success of Three to Get Ready proved that people did indeed watch early-morning television, and it was one of the factors that caused NBC to create The Today Show. WPTZ did not begin broadcasting Today when it premiered on January 14, 1952; network influence caused the station to end Three to Get Ready at the end of March of that year.
During early 1952, Kovacs was also doing a late morning show for WPTZ named Kovacs on the Corner. Kovacs would walk through an imaginary neighborhood, talking with various characters such as Pete the Cop and Luigi the Barber. As with Three to Get Ready, there were some special segments. "Swap Time" was one of them: Viewers could bring their unwanted items to the WPTZ studios to trade them live on the air with Kovacs. The show made its debut on January 4, 1952, with Kovacs losing creative control of the program soon after it was begun. Kovacs on the Corner was short-lived; it ended on March 28, 1952, along with Three to Get Ready. Kovacs then began work for WCBS-TV in New York with a local morning show and a later network one. Both programs were canceled; Kovacs lost the local morning program for the same reason as Three to Get Ready—the broadcasting time was confiscated by the station's network in 1954.
Visual humor and characters
At WPTZ, Kovacs began using the ad-libbed and experimental style that would become his reputation, including video effects, superimpositions, reverse polarities and scanning, and quick blackouts. He was also noted for abstraction and carefully timed non-sequitur gags and for allowing the fourth wall to be breached. Kovacs's cameras commonly showed his viewers activity beyond the boundaries of the show set—including crew members and outside the studio itself. Kovacs also liked talking to the off-camera crew and even introduced segments from the studio control room. He frequently made use of accidents and happenstance, incorporating the unexpected into his shows. In one of Kovacs's Philadelphia broadcasts, Oscar Liebetrau, an elderly crew member who was known for often sleeping for the duration of the telecast, was introduced to the audience as "Sleeping Schwartz." Kovacs was once knocked unconscious when a pie smashed into his face still had the plate under it.
Kovacs's love of spontaneity extended to his crew, who would occasionally play on-air pranks on him to see how he would react. During one of his NBC shows, Kovacs was appearing as the inept magician Matzoh Heppelwhite. The sketch called for the magician to frequently hit a gong, which was the signal for a sexy female assistant to bring out a bottle and shot glass for a quick snort of alcohol. Stagehands substituted real liquor for the iced tea normally used for the skit. Kovacs realized that he would be called upon to drink a shot of liquor for each successive gong. He pressed on with the sketch and was quite inebriated by the end of the show.
Kovacs helped develop camera tricks still common decades after his death. His character Eugene sat at a table to eat his lunch, but as he removed items one at a time from a lunch box, he watched them inexplicably roll down the table into the lap of a man reading a newspaper at the other end. When Kovacs poured milk from a thermos bottle, the stream flowed in a seemingly unusual direction. Never seen on television before, the secret was using a tilted set in front of a camera tilted at the same angle.
He constantly sought new techniques and used both primitive and improvised ways of creating visual effects that would later be done electronically. One innovative construction involved attaching a kaleidoscope made from a toilet paper roll to a camera lens with cardboard and tape and setting the resulting abstract images to music. Another was a soup can with both ends removed fitted with angled mirrors. Used on a camera and turning it could put Kovacs seemingly on the ceiling. An underwater stunt involved cigar smoker Kovacs sitting in an easy chair, reading his newspaper and somehow smoking a cigar. Removing it from his mouth, Kovacs was able to exhale a puff of white smoke, all while floating underwater. The trick: the "smoke" was a small amount of milk which he filled his mouth with before submerging. Kovacs repeated the effect for a Dutch Masters television commercial on his ABC game show, Take A Good Look.
One of the special effects he employed made it appear as if he was able to look through his assistant, Barbara Loden's, head. The illusion was performed by placing a black patch on Loden's head and standing her against a black background while one studio camera was trained on her. A second one photographed Kovacs, who used the studio monitor to position himself exactly so that his eye would appear to be looking through a hole in her head.
He also developed such routines as an all-gorilla version of Swan Lake, a poker game set to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the skit Silent Show, in which Eugene interacts with the world accompanied solely by music and sound effects, parodies of typical television commercials and movie genres, and various musical segments with everyday items (such as kitchen appliances or office equipment) moving in sync to music. A popular recurring skit was The Nairobi Trio, three derby-hatted apes miming mechanically and rhythmically to the tune of Robert Maxwell's "Solfeggio".
Kovacs used extended sketches and mood pieces or quick blackout gags lasting only seconds. Some could be expensive, such as his famous used-car salesman routine with a jalopy and a breakaway floor: it cost $12,000 to produce the six-second gag. He was one of the first television comedians to use odd fake credits and comments between the legitimate credits and, at times, during his routines.
Kovacs reportedly disliked working in front of a live audience, as was the case with the shows he did for NBC during the 1950s. He found the presence of an audience distracting, and those in the seats frequently did not understand some of the more elaborate visual gags and special effects, which could only be appreciated by watching studio monitors instead of the stage.
Like many comedians of the era, Kovacs created a rotation of recurring roles. In addition to the silent "Eugene," his most familiar characters were the fey, lisping poet Percy Dovetonsils, and the heavily accented German radio announcer, Wolfgang von Sauerbraten. Mr. Question Man, who answered viewer queries, was a satire on the long-run (1937–56) radio series, The Answer Man. Others included horror show host Auntie Gruesome, bumbling magician Matzoh Heppelwhite, Frenchman Pierre Ragout and Miklos Molnar, the sardonic Hungarian host of a cooking show. The Miklos character wasn't always confined to a kitchen; Kovacs performed a parody of The Howdy Doody Show with "Buffalo Miklos" as the host. Poet Percy Dovetonsils can be found playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata on a disappearing piano and as a "Master Detective" on the "Private Eye-Private Eye" presentation of the US Steel Hour on CBS March 8, 1961. On the same show, the Nairobi Trio abandons its instruments for a safe-cracking job; still with a background of "Solfeggio", but speaking, two of the three appear in an "Outer Space" sketch.
Kovacs became a regular on NBC Radio's program Monitor beginning during late 1958, often using his Mr. Question Man character in his radio monologues.
Kovacs never hesitated to lampoon those considered institutions of radio and television. In April 1954, he started the late-night talk show, The Ernie Kovacs Show, on DuMont Television Network's New York flagship station, WABD. Stage, screen and radio notables were often guests. Archie Bleyer, head of Cadence Records, came to chat one evening. Bleyer had been the long-time orchestra director for Arthur Godfrey's radio and television shows. He had been dismissed by Godfrey the year before, together with fellow cast member, singer Julius La Rosa. In La Rosa's case, he hired a manager, defying an unwritten Godfrey policy. With Bleyer, Godfrey was angered when he found that Bleyer's record company Cadence Records had produced spoken-word material by Don McNeill, host of ABC's Don McNeill's Breakfast Club, which Godfrey considered competition to his show. Bleyer and Kovacs were shown in split screen, with Kovacs wearing a red wig, headphones, and playing a ukulele in a Godfrey imitation, while talking with his guest.
Kovacs's television programs included Three to Get Ready (an early morning program seen on Philadelphia's WPTZ from 1950 through 1952), It's Time for Ernie (1951, his first network series), Ernie in Kovacsland, (a summer replacement show for Kukla, Fran and Ollie, 1951), The Ernie Kovacs Show (1952–56 on various networks), a twice-a-week job filling in for Steve Allen as host of The Tonight Show on Mondays and Tuesdays (1956–57), and game shows Gamble on Love, One Minute Please, Time Will Tell (all on DuMont), and Take a Good Look (1959–61). Kovacs was also the host of a program, Silents Please, which showed silent movies on network television, with serious discussion about the movies and their actors.
Kovacs had a brief stint as a celebrity panelist for the television series What's My Line?, but took his responsibilities less than seriously, often eschewing a legitimate question for the sake of a laugh. An example: Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, the founder of an automobile company, was the program's "mystery guest." Previous questioning had established that the mystery guest's name was synonymous with an automobile brand, Kovacs asked, "Are you – and this is just a wild guess – but are you Abraham Lincoln?"—a reference to the Ford Motor Company's Lincoln automobiles. When Kovacs gave an interview admitting that he was absent from the show when he wanted to go out for dinner on a Sunday, his stint on the panel show was ended.
TV specials
He also did several television specials, including the famous Silent Show (1957), featuring his character, Eugene: the first all-pantomime prime-time network program. After the end of the Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis partnership, NBC offered Lewis the opportunity to host his own 90-minute color television special. Lewis opted to use only 60 minutes, leaving the network 30 minutes to fill; no one wanted this time slot, but Kovacs was willing to have it. The program contained no spoken dialogue and contained only sound effects and music. Featuring Kovacs as the mute, Charlie Chaplin-like character "Eugene", the program contained surreal sight gags. Kovacs developed the Eugene character during the autumn of 1956, when hosting the television series The Tonight Show. Expectations were high for the Lewis program, but it was Kovacs' special that received the most attention; Kovacs received his first movie offer, had a cover story in Life magazine, and received the Sylvania Award that year.
In 1961, Kovacs and his co-director, Joe Behar, were recipients of the Directors Guild of America Award for a second version of this program broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company network.
A series of monthly half-hour specials for ABC during 1961–62 is often considered his best television work. Produced on videotape using new editing and special effects techniques, it won a 1962 Emmy Award. Kovacs and co-director Behar also won the Directors Guild of America award for an Ernie Kovacs Special based on the earlier, silent "Eugene" program. Kovacs' last ABC special was broadcast posthumously, on January 23, 1962.
The Dutch Masters cigar company became well-known during the late 1950s and early 1960s for its sponsorship of various television projects of Ernie Kovacs. The company allowed Kovacs total creative control in the creation of their television commercials for his programs and specials. He produced a series of non-speaking television commercials for Dutch Masters during the run of his television series Take A Good Look which was praised by both television critics and viewers.
While praised by critics, Kovacs rarely had a highly-rated show. The Museum of Broadcast Communications says, "It is doubtful that Ernie Kovacs would find a place on television today. He was too zany, too unrestrained, too undisciplined. Perhaps Jack Gould of The New York Times said it best for Ernie Kovacs: 'The fun was in trying'."
Other shows had greater success while using elements of Kovacs's style. George Schlatter, producer of the later television series Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, was married to actress Jolene Brand, who had appeared in Kovacs' comic troupes over the years and had been a frequent participant in his pioneering sketches. Laugh-In made frequent use of the quick blackout gags and surreal humor that marked many Kovacs projects. Another link was a young NBC staffer, Bill Wendell, Kovacs's usual announcer and sometimes a sketch participant. From 1980 to 1995, Wendell was the announcer for David Letterman, whose show and style of humor were greatly influenced by Kovacs.
The Music Man
Kovacs was also known for his eclectic musical taste. His main theme song was named "Oriental Blues" by Jack Newton. The rendition most often heard was a piano-driven trio version, but, for his primetime show during 1956, music director Harry Sosnik presented a full-blown big-band version. The German song "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer" from The Threepenny Opera (anglicized to "Mack the Knife"), frequently underscored his blackout routines. Songwriter Robert Maxwell's "Solfeggio" became associated with the derby-hatted apes, 'The Nairobi Trio'.
In the 1982 TV special Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius, Edie Adams recalled that when Kovacs first heard the melody, he immediately knew what he wanted to do with it, creating a music-box-like trio that moved in time to the tune. Kovacs was introduced to the song in 1954 by Barry Shear, his director at DuMont Television Network.
Kovacs matched an unusual treatment of "Sentimental Journey", by Mexican bandleader Juan García Esquivel, to video of an empty office in which various items (pencil sharpeners, water coolers, wall clocks) come to life in rhythm with the music; it was a variation on several famous animations of a decade earlier. The original three-minute presentation was outlined by Kovacs in a four-page, single-spaced memo to his staff. The perfectionist Kovacs describes in minute detail what had to be done and how to do it. The memo ends with this: "I don't know how the hell you're going to get this done by Sunday – but 'rots of ruck." (signed) "Ernie (with love)". Kovacs also made careful use of the shrill singer Leona Anderson—who had somewhat less than a classical (or even listenable) voice, by some estimations—in comic vignettes.
Kovacs used classical music as background for silent skits or abstract visual routines, including "Concerto for Orchestra", by Béla Bartók; music from the opera "The Love of Three Oranges", by Sergei Prokofiev; the finale of Igor Stravinsky's suite "The Firebird"; and Richard Strauss' "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks"; and, from George Gershwin, "Rialto Ripples"--the theme to his shows--as well as parts of Gershwin's "Concerto in F". He may have been known best for using Joseph Haydn's "String Quartet, Opus 3, Number 5" (the "Serenade," actually composed by Roman Hoffstetter) for a series of 1960–61 commercials he created and videotaped for his sponsor, Dutch Masters.
For the show of May 22, 1959, Kovacs on Music, Kovacs began by saying, "I have never really understood classical music, so I would like to take this opportunity to explain it to others." He presented a gorilla version of Swan Lake which differed from the usual performance only in the persona of the dancers, along with giant paper clips moving to music and other sketches.
He also served as host on a jazz album to benefit the American Cancer Society in 1957, Listening to Jazz with Ernie Kovacs. It was a 15-minute recording featuring some of the celebrities of the art, including pianist Jimmy Yancey and old original New Orleans Jazz Trumpeter Bunk Johnson, soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet, guitarist Django Reinhardt, composer/pianist/bandleader Duke Ellington and longtime Ellington trumpeter Cootie Williams. Both the Library of Congress and the National Library of Canada have copies of this recording in their collections.
In print
Kovacs wrote a novel, Zoomar: A Sophisticated Novel about Love and TV (Doubleday, 1957), based on television pioneer Pat Weaver; it took Kovacs only 13 days to write. The book took its title from the Zoomar brand zoom lenses frequently used on television cameras at the time. In a 1960 interview, Edie Adams related that the novel was written after Kovacs' experiences with network television while he was preparing to broadcast the Silent Show. The 1961 British edition was retitled T.V. Medium Rare by its London-based publisher, Transworld.
While he worked on several other book projects, Kovacs's only other published title was How to Talk at Gin, published posthumously in 1962. He intended part of the book's proceeds to benefit Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. During 1955–58, he wrote for Mad (his favorite humor magazine), including the feature "Strangely Believe It!" (a parody of Ripley's Believe It or Not! that was a regular feature of his television shows) and Gringo, a board game with ridiculously complicated rules that was renamed Droongo for the television show. Kovacs also wrote the introduction to the 1958 collection Mad For Keeps: A Collection of the Best from Mad Magazine.
Television guest star
Kovacs and Edie Adams guest starred on what turned out to be the final episode of The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show, (syndicated as The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour or We Love Lucy) "Lucy Meets the Moustache", which was in rehearsals during the week of February 28 and filmed on March 3 for an April 1, 1960 network broadcast. "Lucy Meets the Moustache" was the last time Arnaz and Ball worked together and the last time their famous characters appeared in a first-run broadcast. According to Adams, Ball and Arnaz 'avoided contact and barely talked to each other in rehearsals and in-between scenes'. Adams also said that they were not told their episode was the last or that the famous couple was to divorce (Ball entered the uncontested divorce request March 4, 1960).
Kovacs also appeared in roles on other television programs. For General Electric Theater's "I Was a Bloodhound" in 1959, Kovacs played the role of detective Barney Colby, whose extraordinary sense of smell helped him solve many seemingly-impossible cases. Colby was hired by a foreign country to recover its symbol of royalty, a baby elephant, who was being held for ransom.
Films
Kovacs found Hollywood success as a character actor, often typecast as a swarthy military officer (almost always a "Captain" of some sort) in such films as Operation Mad Ball, Wake Me When It's Over and Our Man in Havana. While working in his first film role for Operation Mad Ball, Kovacs was filming a wild party scene after midnight; it was decided to use real champagne for realism. After a few hours of work, someone came up to Kovacs and remarked that he had been having quite a good time chasing starlets all night. Kovacs told the stranger to go to hell, since he was following the script; he later learned the stranger was Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures. Kovacs and Cohn later became friends despite the way they had met, with Cohn giving Kovacs roles in Bell, Book and Candle (1958) and It Happened to Jane (1959).
He garnered critical acclaim for film roles such as the perennially-inebriated writer in Bell, Book and Candle and as the cartoonishly-evil head of a railroad company (who resembled Orson Welles' title character in Citizen Kane) in It Happened to Jane, where he had his head shaved and his remaining hair dyed grey for the role. In 1960, he played the base commander Charlie Stark in the comedy Wake Me When It's Over and the con man Frankie Cannon trying to steal John Wayne's gold mine in the western comedy, North to Alaska. His own personal favorite was said to have been the offbeat Five Golden Hours (1961), in which he portrayed a larcenous professional mourner who meets his match in a professional widow played by Cyd Charisse. Kovacs's last movie, Sail a Crooked Ship (also 1961), was released one month before his death.
Personal life
First marriage
Kovacs and his first wife, Bette Wilcox, were married on August 13, 1945. When the marriage ended, he fought for custody of their children, Elizabeth ("Bette") and Kip Raleigh ("Kippie"). The court awarded Kovacs full custody upon determining that his former wife was mentally unstable. The decision was extremely unusual at the time, setting a legal precedent. Wilcox subsequently kidnapped the children, taking them to Florida. After a long and expensive search, Kovacs regained custody. These events were portrayed in the television movie Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter (1984), which garnered an Emmy Award nomination for its writer, April Smith. Kovacs was portrayed by Jeff Goldblum.
Kovacs's first wife made a legal attempt to gain custody of her two daughters soon after his death. She began August 2, 1962, by claiming $500,000 was her share of Kovacs's estate and charging that her ex-husband had abducted the girls in 1955; Kovacs had been granted legal custody of his daughters in 1952. On August 30, Wilcox filed an affidavit claiming that Kovacs's widow, Edie Adams, the stepmother to the girls, was "unfit" to care for them. Both daughters, Bette and Kippie, testified that they wanted to stay with their stepmother, Edie. Kippie's testimony was very emotional; in it she referred to Edie as "Mommy" and her birth mother as "the other lady." Upon hearing the verdict that the girls would remain in their home, Adams wept, saying, "This is what Ernie would have wanted. Now I can smile." Elizabeth Kovacs's reaction was "I'm so happy I can hardly express myself", after learning she and her sister would not be forced to leave Edie.
Second marriage
Kovacs and Adams met in 1951 when she was hired to work for his WPTZ show, Three to Get Ready. Her appearance on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts caught the eye of Kovacs's producer, and he asked her to audition for the program. A classically-trained singer, she was able to perform only three popular songs. Edie said later, "I sang them all during the audition, and if they had asked to hear another, I never would have made it." Quoting Kovacs, "I wish I could say I was the big shot that hired her, but it was my show in name only – the producer had all the say. Later on I did have something to say and I said it: 'Let's get married.'"
After the couple's first date, Kovacs proceeded to buy a Jaguar car, telling Adams he wanted to take her out in style. He was seriously taken with the beautiful and talented young woman, courting her with imagination and flair. Kovacs's attempts to win Adams' affection included hiring a mariachi band to serenade her backstage at the Broadway musical she was performing in and the sudden gift of a diamond engagement ring, telling her to wear it until she made up her mind. Kovacs continued this romantic quest after the show went out of town.
Adams booked a six-week European cruise, which she hoped would let her make up her mind whether or not to marry Kovacs. After only three days away and many long-distance telephone calls, she curtailed her trip and returned to say "yes". They eloped and were married on September 12, 1954, in Mexico City. The ceremony was presided over by former New York City mayor William O'Dwyer and was performed in Spanish, which neither Kovacs nor Adams understood; O'Dwyer had to prompt each of them to say "Sí" at the "I do" portion of the vows. Adams, who had a middle-class upbringing, was smitten by Kovacs's quirky ways; the couple remained together until his death. (She later said about Kovacs, "He treated me like a little girl, and I loved it—Women's Lib be damned!")
Adams also aided Kovacs's struggle to reclaim his two older children after the kidnapping by their mother. She also was a regular partner on his television shows. Kovacs usually introduced or addressed her in a businesslike way, as "Edith Adams". Adams was usually willing to do anything he envisioned, whether it was singing seriously, performing impersonations (including a well-regarded impression of Marilyn Monroe) or taking a pie in the face or a pratfall if and when needed. The couple had one daughter, Mia Susan Kovacs, born June 20, 1959.
Kovacs and his family shared a 16-room apartment in Manhattan on Central Park West that seemed perfect until he went to California for his first film role in Operation Mad Ball. The experience of the totally different, laid-back lifestyle of Hollywood made a big impression on him. He realized he was working too much in New York; in California he would be able to work fewer hours, do just as well or better and have more time for Edie and his daughters. At the time, he was working most of the time and sleeping about two or three hours a night. Kovacs claimed that he realized it was time for a change when he was telling his girls a bedtime story and found himself thinking of using it for a show instead. Kovacs relocated his family there in 1957, after Edie finished work for the Broadway play Li'l Abner.
Death
In the early morning hours of January 13, 1962, Kovacs lost control of his Chevrolet Corvair station wagon while turning quickly and crashed into a power pole in Beverly Hills. He was thrown halfway out the vehicle's passenger side and died almost instantly from chest and head injuries.
A photographer arrived soon after and images of Kovacs' bodywith an unlit cigar on the pavement near his outstretched handappeared in newspapers across the United States.
In keeping Kovacs's wishes, a simple service was held at the Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian Church. The pallbearers included Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Billy Wilder, and Mervyn LeRoy, and George Burns, Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Buster Keaton and Milton Berle also attended. The pastor said that Kovacs had summed up his life thus: "I was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1919 to a Hungarian couple. I've been smoking cigars ever since."
He is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads "Nothing in moderation—We all loved him."
Tax evasion
A frequent critic of the U.S. tax system, Kovacs owed the Internal Revenue Service several hundred thousand dollars in back taxes, due to his refusal to pay the bulk of them. Up to 90% of his earnings were garnished as a result. His long battles with the IRS inspired Kovacs to invest his money in a convoluted series of paper corporations in the U.S. and Canada. He would give them bizarre names, such as "The Bazooka Dooka Hicka Hocka Hookah Company". In 1961, Kovacs was served with a $75,000 lien for back taxes; that same day he bought the California Racquet Club with the apparent hope of being able to use it as a tax write-off. The property had mortgages at the time of purchase which were later paid by Edie Adams.
His tax woes also affected Kovacs's career, forcing him to take any offered work to pay his debt. This included the ABC game show Take a Good Look, appearances on variety shows such as NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford, and some of his less-memorable film roles. He also filmed an unaired 1962 pilot episode for a proposed CBS series, Medicine Man (co-starring Buster Keaton; the pilot episode titled "A Pony for Chris"). Kovacs' role was that of Dr. P. Crookshank, a traveling medicine salesman in the 1870s, who was selling Mother McGreevy's Wizard Juice, also known as "man's best friend in a bottle". This was abandoned after his death, which occurred the day after filming some scenes for the pilot in Griffith Park. CBS initially intended to broadcast the show as part of a summer replacement program, The Comedy Spot, but decided against it due to problems with Kovacs' estate. The pilot is part of the public collection of the Paley Center for Media.
Some of the issues regarding Kovacs' tax problems were still unresolved years after his death. Kovacs had purchased two insurance policies in 1951; his mother was named as the primary beneficiary of them. The IRS placed a lien against them both for their cash value in 1961. To stop the actions being taken against her, Mary Kovacs had to go to Federal court. The court's early 1966 ruling resolved the issue, with the last sentence of the document reading: "Prima facie, it looks as if, within the limits of discretion permitted the government by the relevant statutes, an injustice is being done Mary Kovacs."
Adams, who married and divorced twice after Kovacs' death, refused help from celebrity friends who planned a benefit for the purpose. "I can take care of my own children," she said, and resolved to accept offers only from those who wanted to hire her for her talents. Adams eventually paid all of Kovacs's debts.
Lost and surviving work
Most of Kovacs's early television work was performed live: few kinescopes have survived. Some videotapes of his ABC specials were preserved; others, such as his quirky game show, Take a Good Look, were available mostly in short segments until recently, with the release of some complete, videotaped episodes. After Kovacs's death, Adams discovered not only that her husband owed ABC a great deal of money, but that some networks were systematically erasing and reusing tapes of Kovacs's shows or disposing of the kinescopes and videotapes. She succeeded in purchasing the rights to surviving footage with the proceeds from Kovacs' insurance policy and her own earnings after Kovacs' IRS debts were paid. In March 1996, Adams detailed her experiences before the National Film Preservation Board.
Adams first used some of the videotapes she had purchased for a 1968 ABC television special, The Comedy of Ernie Kovacs; to produce the show, she hired Kovacs's former producer and editor. The hour-long program was sponsored by Kovacs's former sponsor, Dutch Masters.
Most of Kovacs's salvaged work is available to researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles Library's Department of Special Collections: additional material is available at the Paley Center for Media.
The 1984 television film Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter helped return Kovacs to the public's attention, though the show emphasized his bid to retrieve his kidnapped children instead of his professional life. Jeff Goldblum portrayed Kovacs, Madolyn Smith portrayed Bette and Melody Anderson portrayed Adams in the movie. Edie Adams appeared in a cameo in this film, playing Mae West; it was one of the impressions she performed in shows with Kovacs. Telecasts of edited compilations of some of his work by PBS (station WTTW, Chicago) under the title The Best of Ernie Kovacs in 1977, inspired the film. These broadcasts were made available on VHS and DVD. The DVD set features extras that are not in the VHS set. The series was narrated by Jack Lemmon.
During the early 1990s, The Comedy Channel broadcast a series of Kovacs' shows under the generic title of The Ernie Kovacs Show. The series included both the ABC specials and some of his 1950s shows from NBC. By 2008, there were no broadcast, cable, or satellite channels broadcasting any of Kovacs's television work, other than his panel appearances on What's My Line? on the Game Show Network.
On April 19, 2011, Shout! Factory released The Ernie Kovacs Collection, six DVDs spanning Kovacs's television career. The company's website also offers an extra disc with material from Tonight! and The Ernie Kovacs Show, as well as a rare color kinescope of the complete 30-minute 1957 NBC color broadcast featuring "Eugene". On October 23, 2012, Shout! Factory released The Ernie Kovacs Collection: Volume 2 on DVD.
In 1961, Kovacs recorded a record album of poetry in the character of Percy Dovetonsils named Percy Dovetonsils Thpeakth, but was unable to release it due to contractual obligations with other record companies. After he was given the masters, Kovacs donated them to a Los Angeles area hospital. Adams was able to re-acquire the tapes in 1967, and they remained part of her private collection until her death in 2008. The tapes were labeled as movie material and were thought to be such until further examination proved they were Kovacs as Percy reading his poems with no music background. The album was finally released in 2012.
Kovacs was inducted posthumously into the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia's Hall of Fame in 1992.
Partial filmography
Operation Mad Ball (1957) (with Jack Lemmon) as Capt. Paul Lock
Bell, Book and Candle (1958) (with James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Jack Lemmon as Sidney Redlitch
It Happened to Jane (1959) (with Doris Day and Jack Lemmon) as Harry Foster Malone
Our Man in Havana (1959) (with Alec Guinness and Noël Coward) as Capt. Segura
Wake Me When It's Over (1960) (with Dick Shawn) as Capt. Charlie Stark
Strangers When We Meet (1960) (with Kirk Douglas and Kim Novak) as Roger Altar
North to Alaska (1960) (with John Wayne) as Frankie Canon
Pepe (1960) (with Cantinflas) as Immigration Inspector
Five Golden Hours (1961) (with Cyd Charisse and George Sanders) as Aldo Bondi
Sail a Crooked Ship (1961, with Robert Wagner) as Bugsy G. Foglemeyer aka The Captain
Notes
References
Bibliography
via Project MUSE
Further reading
Adams, Edie (1990). Sing a Pretty Song: The "Offbeat" Life of Edie Adams, Including the Ernie Kovacs Years. William Morrow;
Barker, David Brian (1982). "Every Moment's a Gift": Ernie Kovacs in Hollywood, 1957–1962, a Master's Thesis. Available for viewing at the library at the University of Texas at Austin
Rico, Diana (1990). Kovacsland: A Biography of Ernie Kovacs. Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich;
Walley, David (1975). Nothing in Moderation. Drake Publishers; Reprinted as The Ernie Kovacs Phile by David Walley, Bolder Books, 1978 and Fireside/Simon & Schuster, 1987;
External links
The Official Ernie Kovacs Website
Ernie Kovacs Dot Net: A Tribute To Television's Original Genius
Kovacsland Online! – the Ernie Kovacs website
List of Kovacs' 16 articles for MAD magazine
Watch
The Jack Benny Program with Ernie Kovacs as guest at the Internet Archive
Operation Mad Ball Trailer (1957) at the Internet Archive
John Barbour's documentary Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius at John Barbour's World
Ernie Kovacs Dutch Masters Cigar Commercial
1919 births
1962 deaths
20th-century American male actors
American people of Hungarian descent
American comedy writers
American game show hosts
American male film actors
American male television actors
American humorists
American satirists
American comics writers
American television talk show hosts
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
Emmy Award winners
Mad (magazine) people
Male actors from New Jersey
Actors from Trenton, New Jersey
Road incident deaths in California
Trenton Central High School alumni
Writers from Trenton, New Jersey
American male comedy actors
20th-century American comedians | false | [
"An epitaph is an inscription honoring a deceased person, usually on a tombstone or plaque.\n\nEpitaph may also refer to:\n\nFilm\n Epitaph (2007 film), a 2007 South Korean film\n Epitaph (2015 film), a 2015 Mexican film\n\nPublishing\n The Tombstone Epitaph, a former newspaper and current magazine published in Tombstone, Arizona\n\nMusic\n Epitaph Records, an American record label\n Epitaph (band), a German rock band\n\nClassical\nEpitaph, composition by Hans Werner Henze\n The Epitaph, Надгробное письмо 1894 song by Mussorgsky\n\"Epitaph\", song by Phyllis Tate (1911-1985)\n\"An Epitaph\", song by Ivor Gurney\n\nAlbums\n Epitaph World Tour, a 2011 farewell tour by Judas Priest\n Epitaph (Charles Mingus composition)\n Epitaph (King Crimson album)\n Epitaph (Front Line Assembly album)\n Epitaph (Necrophagist album)\n\nSongs\n\"Epitaph\" (King Crimson song), a song by King Crimson from their 1969 album In the Court of the Crimson King\n\"Epitaph\", a song by Trees from their 1970 album The Garden of Jane Delawney\n\"Epitaph (Black and Blue)\", a song by Kris Kristofferson from his 1971 album The Silver Tongued Devil and I\n \"Epitaph\", a song by Camel from their 1975 album The Snow Goose\n\"Epitaph\", a song by Judas Priest from their 1976 album Sad Wings of Destiny\n\"Epitaph\", a 1981 single by The Wall\n \"Epitaph\", a song by Badly Drawn Boy from his 2000 album The Hour of Bewilderbeast\n \"Epitáfio\", a song by Brazilian rock band Titãs from 2002 album A Melhor Banda de Todos os Tempos da Última Semana\n \"Epitaph\", a song by Hey Rosetta! from their 2006 album Plan Your Escape\n \"Epitaph\", a song by Hippo Campus from their 2017 album Landmark\n\nSee also\n Epitafios, an Argentine TV series\n Epitaphios (disambiguation)",
"The Second Three Years is a compilation album by singer-songwriter Frank Turner, released 18 November 2011 through Xtra Mile Recordings and 16 January 2012 through Epitaph Records.\n\nThe album compiles material recorded after the release of Turner's first compilation, The First Three Years, that does not appear on either of Turner's two successive studio albums, including tracks from EPs, singles, covers and unreleased material.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\nFrank Turner albums\nEpitaph Records albums\n2011 compilation albums"
] |
[
"Ernie Kovacs",
"Death",
"when did he die?",
"Kovacs was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles during the early morning hours of January 13, 1962.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"A photographer managed to arrive moments later, and graphic images of Kovacs's dead body appeared in newspapers across the United States.",
"did he have children?",
"Only one of Kovacs's three children survives: his eldest, Elizabeth, from his first marriage. Kippie, his second daughter, died on July 28, 2001 at the age of 52,",
"what did his daughter die from?",
"52, after a long illness and a lifetime of poor health.",
"what did he do after her death?",
"Kovacs is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads,",
"what does his epitaph read?",
"\"Nothing in moderation--We all loved him.\""
] | C_8d50647977304f559cc6b26bd64e27fc_1 | when did he die? | 7 | When did Ernie Kovacs die? | Ernie Kovacs | Kovacs was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles during the early morning hours of January 13, 1962. Kovacs, who had worked for much of the evening, met Adams at a baby shower given by Billy Wilder for Milton Berle and his wife, who had recently adopted a newborn baby boy. The couple left the party in separate cars. After a light southern California rainstorm, Kovacs lost control of his Chevrolet Corvair station wagon while turning quickly, and crashed into a power pole at the corner of Beverly Glen and Santa Monica Boulevards. He was thrown halfway out the passenger side, and died almost instantly from chest and head injuries. A photographer managed to arrive moments later, and graphic images of Kovacs's dead body appeared in newspapers across the United States. An unlit cigar lay on the pavement, inches from his outstretched arm. Years later, in a documentary about Kovacs, Edie Adams described telephoning the police impatiently when she learned of the crash. An official cupped his hand over the receiver, saying to a colleague, "It's Mrs. Kovacs, he's on his way to the coroner - what should I tell her?" With that, Adams's fears were confirmed, and she became inconsolable. Jack Lemmon, who also attended the Berle party, identified Kovacs's body at the morgue because Adams was too distraught to do so. After attending funerals for Hollywood friends, Kovacs had expressed his wishes to Adams that any funeral services for him be kept simple. In keeping with his request, Adams made arrangements for Presbyterian services at the Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian Church. The active pallbearers were Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Billy Wilder, Mervyn LeRoy, and Joe Mikolas. Kovacs's father and brother, Andrew and Tom, respectively, served as honorary pallbearers. The attendees included George Burns, Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Buster Keaton and Milton Berle. There was no typical Hollywood-type eulogy, but the church's pastor paid tribute to Kovacs, adding that he once summed up his life in two sentences: "I was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1919 to a Hungarian couple. I've been smoking cigars ever since." Kovacs is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads, "Nothing in moderation--We all loved him." Only one of Kovacs's three children survives: his eldest, Elizabeth, from his first marriage. Kippie, his second daughter, died on July 28, 2001 at the age of 52, after a long illness and a lifetime of poor health. Kippie and her husband, Bill Lancaster (1947-1997), a screenwriter and the son of actor Burt Lancaster, are the parents of Kovacs's only grandchild, Keigh Lancaster. His only child with Edie Adams, Mia (1959-1982), was killed on May 8, 1982, also in an automobile accident. Her gravestone reads "Daddy's little girl. We all loved her, too". Mia and Kippie are buried close to their father; when Edie died in 2008, she was buried between Mia and Kippie. CANNOTANSWER | Kovacs was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles during the early morning hours of January 13, 1962. | Ernest Edward Kovacs (January 23, 1919 – January 13, 1962) was an American comedian, actor, and writer.
Kovacs's visually experimental and often spontaneous comedic style influenced numerous television comedy programs for years after his death. Kovacs has been credited as an influence by many individuals and shows, including Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Jim Henson, Max Headroom, Chevy Chase, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Pee-wee's Playhouse, The Muppet Show, Dave Garroway, Andy Kaufman, You Can't Do That on Television, MST3K, Uncle Floyd, among others. Chevy Chase thanked Kovacs during his acceptance speech for his Emmy award for Saturday Night Live.
While Kovacs and Adams received Emmy nominations for best performances in a comedy series during 1957, his talent was not recognized formally until after his death. The 1962 Emmy for Outstanding Electronic Camera Work and the Directors' Guild award came a short time after his fatal accident. A quarter century later, he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. Kovacs also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in television. In 1986, the Museum of Broadcasting (later to become the Museum of Television & Radio and now the Paley Center for Media) presented an exhibit of Kovacs's work, called The Vision of Ernie Kovacs. The Pulitzer Prize–winning television critic, William Henry III, wrote for the museum's booklet: "Kovacs was more than another wide-eyed, self-ingratiating clown. He was television's first significant video artist."
Early life and career
Kovacs's father, Andrew John Kovacs, was born in 1890 and emigrated from Tornaújfalu, Hungary, which is now known as Turnianska Nová Ves, Slovakia. Andrew sailed on the S.S. Würzburg via Bremen, arriving at Ellis Island on February 8, 1906, at age 16. He worked as a policeman, restaurateur, and bootlegger, the last so successfully that he moved his wife Mary, son Tom, and his half-brother Ernest Edward Kovacs into a 20-room mansion in the better part of Trenton.
Though a poor student, Kovacs was influenced by his Trenton Central High School drama teacher, Harold Van Kirk, and received an acting scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1937 with Van Kirk's help. The end of Prohibition and the onset of the Great Depression resulted in difficult financial times for the family. When Kovacs began drama school, all he could afford was a fifth-floor walk-up apartment on West 74th Street in New York City.
During this time, he watched many "Grade B" movies; admission was only ten cents. Many of these movies influenced his comedy routines later.
A 1938 local newspaper photograph shows Kovacs as a member of the Prospect Players, not yet wearing his trademark mustache. Kovacs used his class vacation time to pursue roles in summer stock companies. While working in Vermont in 1939, he became so seriously ill with pneumonia and pleurisy that his doctors didn't expect him to survive. During the next year and a half, his comedic talents developed as he entertained both doctors and patients with his antics during stays at several hospitals. While hospitalized, Kovacs developed a lifelong love of classical music by the gift of a radio, which he kept tuned to WQXR. By the time he was released his parents had separated, and Kovacs went back to Trenton, living with his mother in a two-room apartment over a store. He began work as a cigar salesman, which resulted in a lifelong tobacco-smoking habit.
Kovacs's first paid entertainment work was during 1941 as an announcer for Trenton's radio station WTTM. He spent the next nine years with WTTM, becoming the station's director of special events; in this job he did things like trying to see what it was like to be run over by a train (leaving the tracks at the last minute) and broadcasting from the cockpit of a plane for which he took flying lessons. Kovacs was also involved with local theater; a local newspaper published a photograph of him and the news that he was doing some directing for the Trenton Players Guild in early 1941. The Trentonian, a local weekly newspaper, offered Kovacs a column in June 1945; he named it "Kovacs Unlimited".
Start in television
Arriving at NBC's Philadelphia affiliate, WPTZ, for an audition wearing a barrel and shorts got Kovacs his first television job in January 1950. His first show was Pick Your Ideal, a fashion and promotional program for the Ideal Manufacturing Company. Before long, Kovacs was also the host of Deadline For Dinner and Now You're Cooking, shows featuring advice from local chefs. When Kovacs's guest chef did not arrive in time for the show, he offered a recipe for "Eggs Scavok" (Kovacs spelled backward). Kovacs seasoned the egg dish with ashes from his cigar. The sponsor was a local propane company. Hosting these shows soon resulted in his becoming host of a program named Three to Get Ready, named for WPTZ's channel 3 spot on television dials.
Premiering in November 1950, Three to Get Ready was innovative because it was the first regularly scheduled early morning (7–9am) show in a major television market, predating NBC's Today by more than a year. Prior to this, it had been assumed that few people would watch television at such an early hour. While the show was advertised as early morning news and weather, Kovacs provided this and more in an original manner. When rain was in the weather forecast, Kovacs would get on a ladder and pour water down on the staff member reading the report. Goats were auditioned for a local theater performance and tiny women appeared to walk up his arm. Kovacs also went outside of the studio for some of his skits, running through a downtown Philadelphia restaurant in a gorilla suit in one; in another, he looked into a construction pit, saying it was deep enough to see to China, when a man in Chinese clothing popped up, said a few words in the language, and ran off. Despite its popularity, the weekly prop budget for the show was just $15. Kovacs once asked his viewers to send unwanted items to Channel 3; they filled the station's lobby.
The only character no one ever saw inspired more gifts; he was Howard, the World's Strongest Ant. From the time of his WPTZ debut, Howard received more than 30,000 gifts from Kovacs's viewers, including a mink-lined swimming pool. Kovacs began his Early Eyeball Fraternal & Marching Society (EEFMS) while doing Three to Get Ready. There were membership cards with by-laws and ties; the password was a favorite phrase of Kovacs's: "It's Been Real". Kovacs continued the EEFMS on his morning show when he moved to WCBS in New York in 1952. The success of Three to Get Ready proved that people did indeed watch early-morning television, and it was one of the factors that caused NBC to create The Today Show. WPTZ did not begin broadcasting Today when it premiered on January 14, 1952; network influence caused the station to end Three to Get Ready at the end of March of that year.
During early 1952, Kovacs was also doing a late morning show for WPTZ named Kovacs on the Corner. Kovacs would walk through an imaginary neighborhood, talking with various characters such as Pete the Cop and Luigi the Barber. As with Three to Get Ready, there were some special segments. "Swap Time" was one of them: Viewers could bring their unwanted items to the WPTZ studios to trade them live on the air with Kovacs. The show made its debut on January 4, 1952, with Kovacs losing creative control of the program soon after it was begun. Kovacs on the Corner was short-lived; it ended on March 28, 1952, along with Three to Get Ready. Kovacs then began work for WCBS-TV in New York with a local morning show and a later network one. Both programs were canceled; Kovacs lost the local morning program for the same reason as Three to Get Ready—the broadcasting time was confiscated by the station's network in 1954.
Visual humor and characters
At WPTZ, Kovacs began using the ad-libbed and experimental style that would become his reputation, including video effects, superimpositions, reverse polarities and scanning, and quick blackouts. He was also noted for abstraction and carefully timed non-sequitur gags and for allowing the fourth wall to be breached. Kovacs's cameras commonly showed his viewers activity beyond the boundaries of the show set—including crew members and outside the studio itself. Kovacs also liked talking to the off-camera crew and even introduced segments from the studio control room. He frequently made use of accidents and happenstance, incorporating the unexpected into his shows. In one of Kovacs's Philadelphia broadcasts, Oscar Liebetrau, an elderly crew member who was known for often sleeping for the duration of the telecast, was introduced to the audience as "Sleeping Schwartz." Kovacs was once knocked unconscious when a pie smashed into his face still had the plate under it.
Kovacs's love of spontaneity extended to his crew, who would occasionally play on-air pranks on him to see how he would react. During one of his NBC shows, Kovacs was appearing as the inept magician Matzoh Heppelwhite. The sketch called for the magician to frequently hit a gong, which was the signal for a sexy female assistant to bring out a bottle and shot glass for a quick snort of alcohol. Stagehands substituted real liquor for the iced tea normally used for the skit. Kovacs realized that he would be called upon to drink a shot of liquor for each successive gong. He pressed on with the sketch and was quite inebriated by the end of the show.
Kovacs helped develop camera tricks still common decades after his death. His character Eugene sat at a table to eat his lunch, but as he removed items one at a time from a lunch box, he watched them inexplicably roll down the table into the lap of a man reading a newspaper at the other end. When Kovacs poured milk from a thermos bottle, the stream flowed in a seemingly unusual direction. Never seen on television before, the secret was using a tilted set in front of a camera tilted at the same angle.
He constantly sought new techniques and used both primitive and improvised ways of creating visual effects that would later be done electronically. One innovative construction involved attaching a kaleidoscope made from a toilet paper roll to a camera lens with cardboard and tape and setting the resulting abstract images to music. Another was a soup can with both ends removed fitted with angled mirrors. Used on a camera and turning it could put Kovacs seemingly on the ceiling. An underwater stunt involved cigar smoker Kovacs sitting in an easy chair, reading his newspaper and somehow smoking a cigar. Removing it from his mouth, Kovacs was able to exhale a puff of white smoke, all while floating underwater. The trick: the "smoke" was a small amount of milk which he filled his mouth with before submerging. Kovacs repeated the effect for a Dutch Masters television commercial on his ABC game show, Take A Good Look.
One of the special effects he employed made it appear as if he was able to look through his assistant, Barbara Loden's, head. The illusion was performed by placing a black patch on Loden's head and standing her against a black background while one studio camera was trained on her. A second one photographed Kovacs, who used the studio monitor to position himself exactly so that his eye would appear to be looking through a hole in her head.
He also developed such routines as an all-gorilla version of Swan Lake, a poker game set to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the skit Silent Show, in which Eugene interacts with the world accompanied solely by music and sound effects, parodies of typical television commercials and movie genres, and various musical segments with everyday items (such as kitchen appliances or office equipment) moving in sync to music. A popular recurring skit was The Nairobi Trio, three derby-hatted apes miming mechanically and rhythmically to the tune of Robert Maxwell's "Solfeggio".
Kovacs used extended sketches and mood pieces or quick blackout gags lasting only seconds. Some could be expensive, such as his famous used-car salesman routine with a jalopy and a breakaway floor: it cost $12,000 to produce the six-second gag. He was one of the first television comedians to use odd fake credits and comments between the legitimate credits and, at times, during his routines.
Kovacs reportedly disliked working in front of a live audience, as was the case with the shows he did for NBC during the 1950s. He found the presence of an audience distracting, and those in the seats frequently did not understand some of the more elaborate visual gags and special effects, which could only be appreciated by watching studio monitors instead of the stage.
Like many comedians of the era, Kovacs created a rotation of recurring roles. In addition to the silent "Eugene," his most familiar characters were the fey, lisping poet Percy Dovetonsils, and the heavily accented German radio announcer, Wolfgang von Sauerbraten. Mr. Question Man, who answered viewer queries, was a satire on the long-run (1937–56) radio series, The Answer Man. Others included horror show host Auntie Gruesome, bumbling magician Matzoh Heppelwhite, Frenchman Pierre Ragout and Miklos Molnar, the sardonic Hungarian host of a cooking show. The Miklos character wasn't always confined to a kitchen; Kovacs performed a parody of The Howdy Doody Show with "Buffalo Miklos" as the host. Poet Percy Dovetonsils can be found playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata on a disappearing piano and as a "Master Detective" on the "Private Eye-Private Eye" presentation of the US Steel Hour on CBS March 8, 1961. On the same show, the Nairobi Trio abandons its instruments for a safe-cracking job; still with a background of "Solfeggio", but speaking, two of the three appear in an "Outer Space" sketch.
Kovacs became a regular on NBC Radio's program Monitor beginning during late 1958, often using his Mr. Question Man character in his radio monologues.
Kovacs never hesitated to lampoon those considered institutions of radio and television. In April 1954, he started the late-night talk show, The Ernie Kovacs Show, on DuMont Television Network's New York flagship station, WABD. Stage, screen and radio notables were often guests. Archie Bleyer, head of Cadence Records, came to chat one evening. Bleyer had been the long-time orchestra director for Arthur Godfrey's radio and television shows. He had been dismissed by Godfrey the year before, together with fellow cast member, singer Julius La Rosa. In La Rosa's case, he hired a manager, defying an unwritten Godfrey policy. With Bleyer, Godfrey was angered when he found that Bleyer's record company Cadence Records had produced spoken-word material by Don McNeill, host of ABC's Don McNeill's Breakfast Club, which Godfrey considered competition to his show. Bleyer and Kovacs were shown in split screen, with Kovacs wearing a red wig, headphones, and playing a ukulele in a Godfrey imitation, while talking with his guest.
Kovacs's television programs included Three to Get Ready (an early morning program seen on Philadelphia's WPTZ from 1950 through 1952), It's Time for Ernie (1951, his first network series), Ernie in Kovacsland, (a summer replacement show for Kukla, Fran and Ollie, 1951), The Ernie Kovacs Show (1952–56 on various networks), a twice-a-week job filling in for Steve Allen as host of The Tonight Show on Mondays and Tuesdays (1956–57), and game shows Gamble on Love, One Minute Please, Time Will Tell (all on DuMont), and Take a Good Look (1959–61). Kovacs was also the host of a program, Silents Please, which showed silent movies on network television, with serious discussion about the movies and their actors.
Kovacs had a brief stint as a celebrity panelist for the television series What's My Line?, but took his responsibilities less than seriously, often eschewing a legitimate question for the sake of a laugh. An example: Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, the founder of an automobile company, was the program's "mystery guest." Previous questioning had established that the mystery guest's name was synonymous with an automobile brand, Kovacs asked, "Are you – and this is just a wild guess – but are you Abraham Lincoln?"—a reference to the Ford Motor Company's Lincoln automobiles. When Kovacs gave an interview admitting that he was absent from the show when he wanted to go out for dinner on a Sunday, his stint on the panel show was ended.
TV specials
He also did several television specials, including the famous Silent Show (1957), featuring his character, Eugene: the first all-pantomime prime-time network program. After the end of the Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis partnership, NBC offered Lewis the opportunity to host his own 90-minute color television special. Lewis opted to use only 60 minutes, leaving the network 30 minutes to fill; no one wanted this time slot, but Kovacs was willing to have it. The program contained no spoken dialogue and contained only sound effects and music. Featuring Kovacs as the mute, Charlie Chaplin-like character "Eugene", the program contained surreal sight gags. Kovacs developed the Eugene character during the autumn of 1956, when hosting the television series The Tonight Show. Expectations were high for the Lewis program, but it was Kovacs' special that received the most attention; Kovacs received his first movie offer, had a cover story in Life magazine, and received the Sylvania Award that year.
In 1961, Kovacs and his co-director, Joe Behar, were recipients of the Directors Guild of America Award for a second version of this program broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company network.
A series of monthly half-hour specials for ABC during 1961–62 is often considered his best television work. Produced on videotape using new editing and special effects techniques, it won a 1962 Emmy Award. Kovacs and co-director Behar also won the Directors Guild of America award for an Ernie Kovacs Special based on the earlier, silent "Eugene" program. Kovacs' last ABC special was broadcast posthumously, on January 23, 1962.
The Dutch Masters cigar company became well-known during the late 1950s and early 1960s for its sponsorship of various television projects of Ernie Kovacs. The company allowed Kovacs total creative control in the creation of their television commercials for his programs and specials. He produced a series of non-speaking television commercials for Dutch Masters during the run of his television series Take A Good Look which was praised by both television critics and viewers.
While praised by critics, Kovacs rarely had a highly-rated show. The Museum of Broadcast Communications says, "It is doubtful that Ernie Kovacs would find a place on television today. He was too zany, too unrestrained, too undisciplined. Perhaps Jack Gould of The New York Times said it best for Ernie Kovacs: 'The fun was in trying'."
Other shows had greater success while using elements of Kovacs's style. George Schlatter, producer of the later television series Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, was married to actress Jolene Brand, who had appeared in Kovacs' comic troupes over the years and had been a frequent participant in his pioneering sketches. Laugh-In made frequent use of the quick blackout gags and surreal humor that marked many Kovacs projects. Another link was a young NBC staffer, Bill Wendell, Kovacs's usual announcer and sometimes a sketch participant. From 1980 to 1995, Wendell was the announcer for David Letterman, whose show and style of humor were greatly influenced by Kovacs.
The Music Man
Kovacs was also known for his eclectic musical taste. His main theme song was named "Oriental Blues" by Jack Newton. The rendition most often heard was a piano-driven trio version, but, for his primetime show during 1956, music director Harry Sosnik presented a full-blown big-band version. The German song "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer" from The Threepenny Opera (anglicized to "Mack the Knife"), frequently underscored his blackout routines. Songwriter Robert Maxwell's "Solfeggio" became associated with the derby-hatted apes, 'The Nairobi Trio'.
In the 1982 TV special Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius, Edie Adams recalled that when Kovacs first heard the melody, he immediately knew what he wanted to do with it, creating a music-box-like trio that moved in time to the tune. Kovacs was introduced to the song in 1954 by Barry Shear, his director at DuMont Television Network.
Kovacs matched an unusual treatment of "Sentimental Journey", by Mexican bandleader Juan García Esquivel, to video of an empty office in which various items (pencil sharpeners, water coolers, wall clocks) come to life in rhythm with the music; it was a variation on several famous animations of a decade earlier. The original three-minute presentation was outlined by Kovacs in a four-page, single-spaced memo to his staff. The perfectionist Kovacs describes in minute detail what had to be done and how to do it. The memo ends with this: "I don't know how the hell you're going to get this done by Sunday – but 'rots of ruck." (signed) "Ernie (with love)". Kovacs also made careful use of the shrill singer Leona Anderson—who had somewhat less than a classical (or even listenable) voice, by some estimations—in comic vignettes.
Kovacs used classical music as background for silent skits or abstract visual routines, including "Concerto for Orchestra", by Béla Bartók; music from the opera "The Love of Three Oranges", by Sergei Prokofiev; the finale of Igor Stravinsky's suite "The Firebird"; and Richard Strauss' "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks"; and, from George Gershwin, "Rialto Ripples"--the theme to his shows--as well as parts of Gershwin's "Concerto in F". He may have been known best for using Joseph Haydn's "String Quartet, Opus 3, Number 5" (the "Serenade," actually composed by Roman Hoffstetter) for a series of 1960–61 commercials he created and videotaped for his sponsor, Dutch Masters.
For the show of May 22, 1959, Kovacs on Music, Kovacs began by saying, "I have never really understood classical music, so I would like to take this opportunity to explain it to others." He presented a gorilla version of Swan Lake which differed from the usual performance only in the persona of the dancers, along with giant paper clips moving to music and other sketches.
He also served as host on a jazz album to benefit the American Cancer Society in 1957, Listening to Jazz with Ernie Kovacs. It was a 15-minute recording featuring some of the celebrities of the art, including pianist Jimmy Yancey and old original New Orleans Jazz Trumpeter Bunk Johnson, soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet, guitarist Django Reinhardt, composer/pianist/bandleader Duke Ellington and longtime Ellington trumpeter Cootie Williams. Both the Library of Congress and the National Library of Canada have copies of this recording in their collections.
In print
Kovacs wrote a novel, Zoomar: A Sophisticated Novel about Love and TV (Doubleday, 1957), based on television pioneer Pat Weaver; it took Kovacs only 13 days to write. The book took its title from the Zoomar brand zoom lenses frequently used on television cameras at the time. In a 1960 interview, Edie Adams related that the novel was written after Kovacs' experiences with network television while he was preparing to broadcast the Silent Show. The 1961 British edition was retitled T.V. Medium Rare by its London-based publisher, Transworld.
While he worked on several other book projects, Kovacs's only other published title was How to Talk at Gin, published posthumously in 1962. He intended part of the book's proceeds to benefit Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. During 1955–58, he wrote for Mad (his favorite humor magazine), including the feature "Strangely Believe It!" (a parody of Ripley's Believe It or Not! that was a regular feature of his television shows) and Gringo, a board game with ridiculously complicated rules that was renamed Droongo for the television show. Kovacs also wrote the introduction to the 1958 collection Mad For Keeps: A Collection of the Best from Mad Magazine.
Television guest star
Kovacs and Edie Adams guest starred on what turned out to be the final episode of The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show, (syndicated as The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour or We Love Lucy) "Lucy Meets the Moustache", which was in rehearsals during the week of February 28 and filmed on March 3 for an April 1, 1960 network broadcast. "Lucy Meets the Moustache" was the last time Arnaz and Ball worked together and the last time their famous characters appeared in a first-run broadcast. According to Adams, Ball and Arnaz 'avoided contact and barely talked to each other in rehearsals and in-between scenes'. Adams also said that they were not told their episode was the last or that the famous couple was to divorce (Ball entered the uncontested divorce request March 4, 1960).
Kovacs also appeared in roles on other television programs. For General Electric Theater's "I Was a Bloodhound" in 1959, Kovacs played the role of detective Barney Colby, whose extraordinary sense of smell helped him solve many seemingly-impossible cases. Colby was hired by a foreign country to recover its symbol of royalty, a baby elephant, who was being held for ransom.
Films
Kovacs found Hollywood success as a character actor, often typecast as a swarthy military officer (almost always a "Captain" of some sort) in such films as Operation Mad Ball, Wake Me When It's Over and Our Man in Havana. While working in his first film role for Operation Mad Ball, Kovacs was filming a wild party scene after midnight; it was decided to use real champagne for realism. After a few hours of work, someone came up to Kovacs and remarked that he had been having quite a good time chasing starlets all night. Kovacs told the stranger to go to hell, since he was following the script; he later learned the stranger was Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures. Kovacs and Cohn later became friends despite the way they had met, with Cohn giving Kovacs roles in Bell, Book and Candle (1958) and It Happened to Jane (1959).
He garnered critical acclaim for film roles such as the perennially-inebriated writer in Bell, Book and Candle and as the cartoonishly-evil head of a railroad company (who resembled Orson Welles' title character in Citizen Kane) in It Happened to Jane, where he had his head shaved and his remaining hair dyed grey for the role. In 1960, he played the base commander Charlie Stark in the comedy Wake Me When It's Over and the con man Frankie Cannon trying to steal John Wayne's gold mine in the western comedy, North to Alaska. His own personal favorite was said to have been the offbeat Five Golden Hours (1961), in which he portrayed a larcenous professional mourner who meets his match in a professional widow played by Cyd Charisse. Kovacs's last movie, Sail a Crooked Ship (also 1961), was released one month before his death.
Personal life
First marriage
Kovacs and his first wife, Bette Wilcox, were married on August 13, 1945. When the marriage ended, he fought for custody of their children, Elizabeth ("Bette") and Kip Raleigh ("Kippie"). The court awarded Kovacs full custody upon determining that his former wife was mentally unstable. The decision was extremely unusual at the time, setting a legal precedent. Wilcox subsequently kidnapped the children, taking them to Florida. After a long and expensive search, Kovacs regained custody. These events were portrayed in the television movie Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter (1984), which garnered an Emmy Award nomination for its writer, April Smith. Kovacs was portrayed by Jeff Goldblum.
Kovacs's first wife made a legal attempt to gain custody of her two daughters soon after his death. She began August 2, 1962, by claiming $500,000 was her share of Kovacs's estate and charging that her ex-husband had abducted the girls in 1955; Kovacs had been granted legal custody of his daughters in 1952. On August 30, Wilcox filed an affidavit claiming that Kovacs's widow, Edie Adams, the stepmother to the girls, was "unfit" to care for them. Both daughters, Bette and Kippie, testified that they wanted to stay with their stepmother, Edie. Kippie's testimony was very emotional; in it she referred to Edie as "Mommy" and her birth mother as "the other lady." Upon hearing the verdict that the girls would remain in their home, Adams wept, saying, "This is what Ernie would have wanted. Now I can smile." Elizabeth Kovacs's reaction was "I'm so happy I can hardly express myself", after learning she and her sister would not be forced to leave Edie.
Second marriage
Kovacs and Adams met in 1951 when she was hired to work for his WPTZ show, Three to Get Ready. Her appearance on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts caught the eye of Kovacs's producer, and he asked her to audition for the program. A classically-trained singer, she was able to perform only three popular songs. Edie said later, "I sang them all during the audition, and if they had asked to hear another, I never would have made it." Quoting Kovacs, "I wish I could say I was the big shot that hired her, but it was my show in name only – the producer had all the say. Later on I did have something to say and I said it: 'Let's get married.'"
After the couple's first date, Kovacs proceeded to buy a Jaguar car, telling Adams he wanted to take her out in style. He was seriously taken with the beautiful and talented young woman, courting her with imagination and flair. Kovacs's attempts to win Adams' affection included hiring a mariachi band to serenade her backstage at the Broadway musical she was performing in and the sudden gift of a diamond engagement ring, telling her to wear it until she made up her mind. Kovacs continued this romantic quest after the show went out of town.
Adams booked a six-week European cruise, which she hoped would let her make up her mind whether or not to marry Kovacs. After only three days away and many long-distance telephone calls, she curtailed her trip and returned to say "yes". They eloped and were married on September 12, 1954, in Mexico City. The ceremony was presided over by former New York City mayor William O'Dwyer and was performed in Spanish, which neither Kovacs nor Adams understood; O'Dwyer had to prompt each of them to say "Sí" at the "I do" portion of the vows. Adams, who had a middle-class upbringing, was smitten by Kovacs's quirky ways; the couple remained together until his death. (She later said about Kovacs, "He treated me like a little girl, and I loved it—Women's Lib be damned!")
Adams also aided Kovacs's struggle to reclaim his two older children after the kidnapping by their mother. She also was a regular partner on his television shows. Kovacs usually introduced or addressed her in a businesslike way, as "Edith Adams". Adams was usually willing to do anything he envisioned, whether it was singing seriously, performing impersonations (including a well-regarded impression of Marilyn Monroe) or taking a pie in the face or a pratfall if and when needed. The couple had one daughter, Mia Susan Kovacs, born June 20, 1959.
Kovacs and his family shared a 16-room apartment in Manhattan on Central Park West that seemed perfect until he went to California for his first film role in Operation Mad Ball. The experience of the totally different, laid-back lifestyle of Hollywood made a big impression on him. He realized he was working too much in New York; in California he would be able to work fewer hours, do just as well or better and have more time for Edie and his daughters. At the time, he was working most of the time and sleeping about two or three hours a night. Kovacs claimed that he realized it was time for a change when he was telling his girls a bedtime story and found himself thinking of using it for a show instead. Kovacs relocated his family there in 1957, after Edie finished work for the Broadway play Li'l Abner.
Death
In the early morning hours of January 13, 1962, Kovacs lost control of his Chevrolet Corvair station wagon while turning quickly and crashed into a power pole in Beverly Hills. He was thrown halfway out the vehicle's passenger side and died almost instantly from chest and head injuries.
A photographer arrived soon after and images of Kovacs' bodywith an unlit cigar on the pavement near his outstretched handappeared in newspapers across the United States.
In keeping Kovacs's wishes, a simple service was held at the Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian Church. The pallbearers included Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Billy Wilder, and Mervyn LeRoy, and George Burns, Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Buster Keaton and Milton Berle also attended. The pastor said that Kovacs had summed up his life thus: "I was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1919 to a Hungarian couple. I've been smoking cigars ever since."
He is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads "Nothing in moderation—We all loved him."
Tax evasion
A frequent critic of the U.S. tax system, Kovacs owed the Internal Revenue Service several hundred thousand dollars in back taxes, due to his refusal to pay the bulk of them. Up to 90% of his earnings were garnished as a result. His long battles with the IRS inspired Kovacs to invest his money in a convoluted series of paper corporations in the U.S. and Canada. He would give them bizarre names, such as "The Bazooka Dooka Hicka Hocka Hookah Company". In 1961, Kovacs was served with a $75,000 lien for back taxes; that same day he bought the California Racquet Club with the apparent hope of being able to use it as a tax write-off. The property had mortgages at the time of purchase which were later paid by Edie Adams.
His tax woes also affected Kovacs's career, forcing him to take any offered work to pay his debt. This included the ABC game show Take a Good Look, appearances on variety shows such as NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford, and some of his less-memorable film roles. He also filmed an unaired 1962 pilot episode for a proposed CBS series, Medicine Man (co-starring Buster Keaton; the pilot episode titled "A Pony for Chris"). Kovacs' role was that of Dr. P. Crookshank, a traveling medicine salesman in the 1870s, who was selling Mother McGreevy's Wizard Juice, also known as "man's best friend in a bottle". This was abandoned after his death, which occurred the day after filming some scenes for the pilot in Griffith Park. CBS initially intended to broadcast the show as part of a summer replacement program, The Comedy Spot, but decided against it due to problems with Kovacs' estate. The pilot is part of the public collection of the Paley Center for Media.
Some of the issues regarding Kovacs' tax problems were still unresolved years after his death. Kovacs had purchased two insurance policies in 1951; his mother was named as the primary beneficiary of them. The IRS placed a lien against them both for their cash value in 1961. To stop the actions being taken against her, Mary Kovacs had to go to Federal court. The court's early 1966 ruling resolved the issue, with the last sentence of the document reading: "Prima facie, it looks as if, within the limits of discretion permitted the government by the relevant statutes, an injustice is being done Mary Kovacs."
Adams, who married and divorced twice after Kovacs' death, refused help from celebrity friends who planned a benefit for the purpose. "I can take care of my own children," she said, and resolved to accept offers only from those who wanted to hire her for her talents. Adams eventually paid all of Kovacs's debts.
Lost and surviving work
Most of Kovacs's early television work was performed live: few kinescopes have survived. Some videotapes of his ABC specials were preserved; others, such as his quirky game show, Take a Good Look, were available mostly in short segments until recently, with the release of some complete, videotaped episodes. After Kovacs's death, Adams discovered not only that her husband owed ABC a great deal of money, but that some networks were systematically erasing and reusing tapes of Kovacs's shows or disposing of the kinescopes and videotapes. She succeeded in purchasing the rights to surviving footage with the proceeds from Kovacs' insurance policy and her own earnings after Kovacs' IRS debts were paid. In March 1996, Adams detailed her experiences before the National Film Preservation Board.
Adams first used some of the videotapes she had purchased for a 1968 ABC television special, The Comedy of Ernie Kovacs; to produce the show, she hired Kovacs's former producer and editor. The hour-long program was sponsored by Kovacs's former sponsor, Dutch Masters.
Most of Kovacs's salvaged work is available to researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles Library's Department of Special Collections: additional material is available at the Paley Center for Media.
The 1984 television film Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter helped return Kovacs to the public's attention, though the show emphasized his bid to retrieve his kidnapped children instead of his professional life. Jeff Goldblum portrayed Kovacs, Madolyn Smith portrayed Bette and Melody Anderson portrayed Adams in the movie. Edie Adams appeared in a cameo in this film, playing Mae West; it was one of the impressions she performed in shows with Kovacs. Telecasts of edited compilations of some of his work by PBS (station WTTW, Chicago) under the title The Best of Ernie Kovacs in 1977, inspired the film. These broadcasts were made available on VHS and DVD. The DVD set features extras that are not in the VHS set. The series was narrated by Jack Lemmon.
During the early 1990s, The Comedy Channel broadcast a series of Kovacs' shows under the generic title of The Ernie Kovacs Show. The series included both the ABC specials and some of his 1950s shows from NBC. By 2008, there were no broadcast, cable, or satellite channels broadcasting any of Kovacs's television work, other than his panel appearances on What's My Line? on the Game Show Network.
On April 19, 2011, Shout! Factory released The Ernie Kovacs Collection, six DVDs spanning Kovacs's television career. The company's website also offers an extra disc with material from Tonight! and The Ernie Kovacs Show, as well as a rare color kinescope of the complete 30-minute 1957 NBC color broadcast featuring "Eugene". On October 23, 2012, Shout! Factory released The Ernie Kovacs Collection: Volume 2 on DVD.
In 1961, Kovacs recorded a record album of poetry in the character of Percy Dovetonsils named Percy Dovetonsils Thpeakth, but was unable to release it due to contractual obligations with other record companies. After he was given the masters, Kovacs donated them to a Los Angeles area hospital. Adams was able to re-acquire the tapes in 1967, and they remained part of her private collection until her death in 2008. The tapes were labeled as movie material and were thought to be such until further examination proved they were Kovacs as Percy reading his poems with no music background. The album was finally released in 2012.
Kovacs was inducted posthumously into the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia's Hall of Fame in 1992.
Partial filmography
Operation Mad Ball (1957) (with Jack Lemmon) as Capt. Paul Lock
Bell, Book and Candle (1958) (with James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Jack Lemmon as Sidney Redlitch
It Happened to Jane (1959) (with Doris Day and Jack Lemmon) as Harry Foster Malone
Our Man in Havana (1959) (with Alec Guinness and Noël Coward) as Capt. Segura
Wake Me When It's Over (1960) (with Dick Shawn) as Capt. Charlie Stark
Strangers When We Meet (1960) (with Kirk Douglas and Kim Novak) as Roger Altar
North to Alaska (1960) (with John Wayne) as Frankie Canon
Pepe (1960) (with Cantinflas) as Immigration Inspector
Five Golden Hours (1961) (with Cyd Charisse and George Sanders) as Aldo Bondi
Sail a Crooked Ship (1961, with Robert Wagner) as Bugsy G. Foglemeyer aka The Captain
Notes
References
Bibliography
via Project MUSE
Further reading
Adams, Edie (1990). Sing a Pretty Song: The "Offbeat" Life of Edie Adams, Including the Ernie Kovacs Years. William Morrow;
Barker, David Brian (1982). "Every Moment's a Gift": Ernie Kovacs in Hollywood, 1957–1962, a Master's Thesis. Available for viewing at the library at the University of Texas at Austin
Rico, Diana (1990). Kovacsland: A Biography of Ernie Kovacs. Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich;
Walley, David (1975). Nothing in Moderation. Drake Publishers; Reprinted as The Ernie Kovacs Phile by David Walley, Bolder Books, 1978 and Fireside/Simon & Schuster, 1987;
External links
The Official Ernie Kovacs Website
Ernie Kovacs Dot Net: A Tribute To Television's Original Genius
Kovacsland Online! – the Ernie Kovacs website
List of Kovacs' 16 articles for MAD magazine
Watch
The Jack Benny Program with Ernie Kovacs as guest at the Internet Archive
Operation Mad Ball Trailer (1957) at the Internet Archive
John Barbour's documentary Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius at John Barbour's World
Ernie Kovacs Dutch Masters Cigar Commercial
1919 births
1962 deaths
20th-century American male actors
American people of Hungarian descent
American comedy writers
American game show hosts
American male film actors
American male television actors
American humorists
American satirists
American comics writers
American television talk show hosts
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
Emmy Award winners
Mad (magazine) people
Male actors from New Jersey
Actors from Trenton, New Jersey
Road incident deaths in California
Trenton Central High School alumni
Writers from Trenton, New Jersey
American male comedy actors
20th-century American comedians | false | [
"Hagen Friedrich Liebing (18 February 1961 – 25 September 2016), nicknamed \"The Incredible Hagen\", was a German musician and journalist, best known as the bassist for the influential punk band Die Ärzte. \n\nIn 1986, drummer Bela B invited him to join Die Ärzte. The two knew each other from early Berlin punk days. The band disbanded in 1988. Liebing tried his hand at journalism shortly thereafter. He wrote several articles for Der Tagesspiegel, and was the senior music editor of Tip Berlin since the mid-1990s. \n\nWhen Die Ärzte reunited in 1993, Liebing did not join them. However, he did join them on stage as a special guest in 2002. In 2003, he published his memoirs The Incredible Hagen – My Years with Die Ärzte. From 2003 to 2010, he headed the Press and Public Relations at the football club Tennis Borussia Berlin. \n\nLiebing died in Berlin on 25 September 2016, after a battle with a brain tumor.\n\nReferences\n\n1961 births\n2016 deaths\nMusicians from Berlin\nGerman male musicians\nGerman journalists\nDeaths from cancer in Germany\nDeaths from brain tumor",
"Johann Karl Wezel (October 31, 1747 in Sondershausen, Germany – January 28, 1819 in Sondershausen), also Johann Carl Wezel, was a German poet, novelist and philosopher of the Enlightenment.\n\nLife\nBorn the son of domestic servants, Wezel studied Theology, Law, Philosophy and Philology at the University of Leipzig. Early philosophical influences include John Locke and Julien Offray de La Mettrie. After positions as tutor at the courts of Bautzen and Berlin, Wezel lived as a freelance writer. A short stay in Vienna did not result in him getting employed by the local national theater. He thus moved back to Leipzig and, in 1793, to Sondershausen, which he did not leave again until his death in 1819.\n\nAlthough his works were extremely successful when they were published, Wezel was almost forgotten when he died. His rediscovery in the second half of the 20th century is mainly due to German author Arno Schmidt who published a radio essay about him in 1959.\n\nWorks\n Filibert und Theodosia (1772)\n Lebensgeschichte Tobias Knauts, des Weisen, sonst der Stammler genannt: aus Familiennachrichten gesammelt (1773–1776)\n Der Graf von Wickham (1774)\n Epistel an die deutschen Dichter (1775)\n Belphegor oder die wahrscheinlichste Geschichte unter der Sonne (1776)\n Herrmann und Ulrike (1780)\n Appellation der Vokalen an das Publikum (1778)\n Die wilde Betty (1779)\n Zelmor und Ermide (1779)\n Tagebuch eines neuen Ehmanns (1779)\n Robinson Krusoe. Neu bearbeitet (1779)\n Ueber Sprache, Wißenschaften und Geschmack der Teutschen (1781)\n Meine Auferstehung (1782)\n Wilhelmine Arend oder die Gefahren der Empfindsamkeit (1782)\n Kakerlak, oder Geschichte eines Rosenkreuzers aus dem vorigen Jahrhunderte (1784)\n Versuch über die Kenntniß des Menschen (1784–1785)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\n1747 births\n1819 deaths\nPeople from Sondershausen\n\nGerman male writershuort escrouesr"
] |
[
"Ernie Kovacs",
"Death",
"when did he die?",
"Kovacs was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles during the early morning hours of January 13, 1962.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"A photographer managed to arrive moments later, and graphic images of Kovacs's dead body appeared in newspapers across the United States.",
"did he have children?",
"Only one of Kovacs's three children survives: his eldest, Elizabeth, from his first marriage. Kippie, his second daughter, died on July 28, 2001 at the age of 52,",
"what did his daughter die from?",
"52, after a long illness and a lifetime of poor health.",
"what did he do after her death?",
"Kovacs is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads,",
"what does his epitaph read?",
"\"Nothing in moderation--We all loved him.\"",
"when did he die?",
"January 13, 1962."
] | C_8d50647977304f559cc6b26bd64e27fc_1 | did he have a wife? | 8 | Did Ernie Kovacs have a wife? | Ernie Kovacs | Kovacs was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles during the early morning hours of January 13, 1962. Kovacs, who had worked for much of the evening, met Adams at a baby shower given by Billy Wilder for Milton Berle and his wife, who had recently adopted a newborn baby boy. The couple left the party in separate cars. After a light southern California rainstorm, Kovacs lost control of his Chevrolet Corvair station wagon while turning quickly, and crashed into a power pole at the corner of Beverly Glen and Santa Monica Boulevards. He was thrown halfway out the passenger side, and died almost instantly from chest and head injuries. A photographer managed to arrive moments later, and graphic images of Kovacs's dead body appeared in newspapers across the United States. An unlit cigar lay on the pavement, inches from his outstretched arm. Years later, in a documentary about Kovacs, Edie Adams described telephoning the police impatiently when she learned of the crash. An official cupped his hand over the receiver, saying to a colleague, "It's Mrs. Kovacs, he's on his way to the coroner - what should I tell her?" With that, Adams's fears were confirmed, and she became inconsolable. Jack Lemmon, who also attended the Berle party, identified Kovacs's body at the morgue because Adams was too distraught to do so. After attending funerals for Hollywood friends, Kovacs had expressed his wishes to Adams that any funeral services for him be kept simple. In keeping with his request, Adams made arrangements for Presbyterian services at the Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian Church. The active pallbearers were Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Billy Wilder, Mervyn LeRoy, and Joe Mikolas. Kovacs's father and brother, Andrew and Tom, respectively, served as honorary pallbearers. The attendees included George Burns, Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Buster Keaton and Milton Berle. There was no typical Hollywood-type eulogy, but the church's pastor paid tribute to Kovacs, adding that he once summed up his life in two sentences: "I was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1919 to a Hungarian couple. I've been smoking cigars ever since." Kovacs is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads, "Nothing in moderation--We all loved him." Only one of Kovacs's three children survives: his eldest, Elizabeth, from his first marriage. Kippie, his second daughter, died on July 28, 2001 at the age of 52, after a long illness and a lifetime of poor health. Kippie and her husband, Bill Lancaster (1947-1997), a screenwriter and the son of actor Burt Lancaster, are the parents of Kovacs's only grandchild, Keigh Lancaster. His only child with Edie Adams, Mia (1959-1982), was killed on May 8, 1982, also in an automobile accident. Her gravestone reads "Daddy's little girl. We all loved her, too". Mia and Kippie are buried close to their father; when Edie died in 2008, she was buried between Mia and Kippie. CANNOTANSWER | "It's Mrs. Kovacs, he's on his way to the coroner - what should I tell her?" | Ernest Edward Kovacs (January 23, 1919 – January 13, 1962) was an American comedian, actor, and writer.
Kovacs's visually experimental and often spontaneous comedic style influenced numerous television comedy programs for years after his death. Kovacs has been credited as an influence by many individuals and shows, including Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Jim Henson, Max Headroom, Chevy Chase, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Pee-wee's Playhouse, The Muppet Show, Dave Garroway, Andy Kaufman, You Can't Do That on Television, MST3K, Uncle Floyd, among others. Chevy Chase thanked Kovacs during his acceptance speech for his Emmy award for Saturday Night Live.
While Kovacs and Adams received Emmy nominations for best performances in a comedy series during 1957, his talent was not recognized formally until after his death. The 1962 Emmy for Outstanding Electronic Camera Work and the Directors' Guild award came a short time after his fatal accident. A quarter century later, he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. Kovacs also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in television. In 1986, the Museum of Broadcasting (later to become the Museum of Television & Radio and now the Paley Center for Media) presented an exhibit of Kovacs's work, called The Vision of Ernie Kovacs. The Pulitzer Prize–winning television critic, William Henry III, wrote for the museum's booklet: "Kovacs was more than another wide-eyed, self-ingratiating clown. He was television's first significant video artist."
Early life and career
Kovacs's father, Andrew John Kovacs, was born in 1890 and emigrated from Tornaújfalu, Hungary, which is now known as Turnianska Nová Ves, Slovakia. Andrew sailed on the S.S. Würzburg via Bremen, arriving at Ellis Island on February 8, 1906, at age 16. He worked as a policeman, restaurateur, and bootlegger, the last so successfully that he moved his wife Mary, son Tom, and his half-brother Ernest Edward Kovacs into a 20-room mansion in the better part of Trenton.
Though a poor student, Kovacs was influenced by his Trenton Central High School drama teacher, Harold Van Kirk, and received an acting scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1937 with Van Kirk's help. The end of Prohibition and the onset of the Great Depression resulted in difficult financial times for the family. When Kovacs began drama school, all he could afford was a fifth-floor walk-up apartment on West 74th Street in New York City.
During this time, he watched many "Grade B" movies; admission was only ten cents. Many of these movies influenced his comedy routines later.
A 1938 local newspaper photograph shows Kovacs as a member of the Prospect Players, not yet wearing his trademark mustache. Kovacs used his class vacation time to pursue roles in summer stock companies. While working in Vermont in 1939, he became so seriously ill with pneumonia and pleurisy that his doctors didn't expect him to survive. During the next year and a half, his comedic talents developed as he entertained both doctors and patients with his antics during stays at several hospitals. While hospitalized, Kovacs developed a lifelong love of classical music by the gift of a radio, which he kept tuned to WQXR. By the time he was released his parents had separated, and Kovacs went back to Trenton, living with his mother in a two-room apartment over a store. He began work as a cigar salesman, which resulted in a lifelong tobacco-smoking habit.
Kovacs's first paid entertainment work was during 1941 as an announcer for Trenton's radio station WTTM. He spent the next nine years with WTTM, becoming the station's director of special events; in this job he did things like trying to see what it was like to be run over by a train (leaving the tracks at the last minute) and broadcasting from the cockpit of a plane for which he took flying lessons. Kovacs was also involved with local theater; a local newspaper published a photograph of him and the news that he was doing some directing for the Trenton Players Guild in early 1941. The Trentonian, a local weekly newspaper, offered Kovacs a column in June 1945; he named it "Kovacs Unlimited".
Start in television
Arriving at NBC's Philadelphia affiliate, WPTZ, for an audition wearing a barrel and shorts got Kovacs his first television job in January 1950. His first show was Pick Your Ideal, a fashion and promotional program for the Ideal Manufacturing Company. Before long, Kovacs was also the host of Deadline For Dinner and Now You're Cooking, shows featuring advice from local chefs. When Kovacs's guest chef did not arrive in time for the show, he offered a recipe for "Eggs Scavok" (Kovacs spelled backward). Kovacs seasoned the egg dish with ashes from his cigar. The sponsor was a local propane company. Hosting these shows soon resulted in his becoming host of a program named Three to Get Ready, named for WPTZ's channel 3 spot on television dials.
Premiering in November 1950, Three to Get Ready was innovative because it was the first regularly scheduled early morning (7–9am) show in a major television market, predating NBC's Today by more than a year. Prior to this, it had been assumed that few people would watch television at such an early hour. While the show was advertised as early morning news and weather, Kovacs provided this and more in an original manner. When rain was in the weather forecast, Kovacs would get on a ladder and pour water down on the staff member reading the report. Goats were auditioned for a local theater performance and tiny women appeared to walk up his arm. Kovacs also went outside of the studio for some of his skits, running through a downtown Philadelphia restaurant in a gorilla suit in one; in another, he looked into a construction pit, saying it was deep enough to see to China, when a man in Chinese clothing popped up, said a few words in the language, and ran off. Despite its popularity, the weekly prop budget for the show was just $15. Kovacs once asked his viewers to send unwanted items to Channel 3; they filled the station's lobby.
The only character no one ever saw inspired more gifts; he was Howard, the World's Strongest Ant. From the time of his WPTZ debut, Howard received more than 30,000 gifts from Kovacs's viewers, including a mink-lined swimming pool. Kovacs began his Early Eyeball Fraternal & Marching Society (EEFMS) while doing Three to Get Ready. There were membership cards with by-laws and ties; the password was a favorite phrase of Kovacs's: "It's Been Real". Kovacs continued the EEFMS on his morning show when he moved to WCBS in New York in 1952. The success of Three to Get Ready proved that people did indeed watch early-morning television, and it was one of the factors that caused NBC to create The Today Show. WPTZ did not begin broadcasting Today when it premiered on January 14, 1952; network influence caused the station to end Three to Get Ready at the end of March of that year.
During early 1952, Kovacs was also doing a late morning show for WPTZ named Kovacs on the Corner. Kovacs would walk through an imaginary neighborhood, talking with various characters such as Pete the Cop and Luigi the Barber. As with Three to Get Ready, there were some special segments. "Swap Time" was one of them: Viewers could bring their unwanted items to the WPTZ studios to trade them live on the air with Kovacs. The show made its debut on January 4, 1952, with Kovacs losing creative control of the program soon after it was begun. Kovacs on the Corner was short-lived; it ended on March 28, 1952, along with Three to Get Ready. Kovacs then began work for WCBS-TV in New York with a local morning show and a later network one. Both programs were canceled; Kovacs lost the local morning program for the same reason as Three to Get Ready—the broadcasting time was confiscated by the station's network in 1954.
Visual humor and characters
At WPTZ, Kovacs began using the ad-libbed and experimental style that would become his reputation, including video effects, superimpositions, reverse polarities and scanning, and quick blackouts. He was also noted for abstraction and carefully timed non-sequitur gags and for allowing the fourth wall to be breached. Kovacs's cameras commonly showed his viewers activity beyond the boundaries of the show set—including crew members and outside the studio itself. Kovacs also liked talking to the off-camera crew and even introduced segments from the studio control room. He frequently made use of accidents and happenstance, incorporating the unexpected into his shows. In one of Kovacs's Philadelphia broadcasts, Oscar Liebetrau, an elderly crew member who was known for often sleeping for the duration of the telecast, was introduced to the audience as "Sleeping Schwartz." Kovacs was once knocked unconscious when a pie smashed into his face still had the plate under it.
Kovacs's love of spontaneity extended to his crew, who would occasionally play on-air pranks on him to see how he would react. During one of his NBC shows, Kovacs was appearing as the inept magician Matzoh Heppelwhite. The sketch called for the magician to frequently hit a gong, which was the signal for a sexy female assistant to bring out a bottle and shot glass for a quick snort of alcohol. Stagehands substituted real liquor for the iced tea normally used for the skit. Kovacs realized that he would be called upon to drink a shot of liquor for each successive gong. He pressed on with the sketch and was quite inebriated by the end of the show.
Kovacs helped develop camera tricks still common decades after his death. His character Eugene sat at a table to eat his lunch, but as he removed items one at a time from a lunch box, he watched them inexplicably roll down the table into the lap of a man reading a newspaper at the other end. When Kovacs poured milk from a thermos bottle, the stream flowed in a seemingly unusual direction. Never seen on television before, the secret was using a tilted set in front of a camera tilted at the same angle.
He constantly sought new techniques and used both primitive and improvised ways of creating visual effects that would later be done electronically. One innovative construction involved attaching a kaleidoscope made from a toilet paper roll to a camera lens with cardboard and tape and setting the resulting abstract images to music. Another was a soup can with both ends removed fitted with angled mirrors. Used on a camera and turning it could put Kovacs seemingly on the ceiling. An underwater stunt involved cigar smoker Kovacs sitting in an easy chair, reading his newspaper and somehow smoking a cigar. Removing it from his mouth, Kovacs was able to exhale a puff of white smoke, all while floating underwater. The trick: the "smoke" was a small amount of milk which he filled his mouth with before submerging. Kovacs repeated the effect for a Dutch Masters television commercial on his ABC game show, Take A Good Look.
One of the special effects he employed made it appear as if he was able to look through his assistant, Barbara Loden's, head. The illusion was performed by placing a black patch on Loden's head and standing her against a black background while one studio camera was trained on her. A second one photographed Kovacs, who used the studio monitor to position himself exactly so that his eye would appear to be looking through a hole in her head.
He also developed such routines as an all-gorilla version of Swan Lake, a poker game set to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the skit Silent Show, in which Eugene interacts with the world accompanied solely by music and sound effects, parodies of typical television commercials and movie genres, and various musical segments with everyday items (such as kitchen appliances or office equipment) moving in sync to music. A popular recurring skit was The Nairobi Trio, three derby-hatted apes miming mechanically and rhythmically to the tune of Robert Maxwell's "Solfeggio".
Kovacs used extended sketches and mood pieces or quick blackout gags lasting only seconds. Some could be expensive, such as his famous used-car salesman routine with a jalopy and a breakaway floor: it cost $12,000 to produce the six-second gag. He was one of the first television comedians to use odd fake credits and comments between the legitimate credits and, at times, during his routines.
Kovacs reportedly disliked working in front of a live audience, as was the case with the shows he did for NBC during the 1950s. He found the presence of an audience distracting, and those in the seats frequently did not understand some of the more elaborate visual gags and special effects, which could only be appreciated by watching studio monitors instead of the stage.
Like many comedians of the era, Kovacs created a rotation of recurring roles. In addition to the silent "Eugene," his most familiar characters were the fey, lisping poet Percy Dovetonsils, and the heavily accented German radio announcer, Wolfgang von Sauerbraten. Mr. Question Man, who answered viewer queries, was a satire on the long-run (1937–56) radio series, The Answer Man. Others included horror show host Auntie Gruesome, bumbling magician Matzoh Heppelwhite, Frenchman Pierre Ragout and Miklos Molnar, the sardonic Hungarian host of a cooking show. The Miklos character wasn't always confined to a kitchen; Kovacs performed a parody of The Howdy Doody Show with "Buffalo Miklos" as the host. Poet Percy Dovetonsils can be found playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata on a disappearing piano and as a "Master Detective" on the "Private Eye-Private Eye" presentation of the US Steel Hour on CBS March 8, 1961. On the same show, the Nairobi Trio abandons its instruments for a safe-cracking job; still with a background of "Solfeggio", but speaking, two of the three appear in an "Outer Space" sketch.
Kovacs became a regular on NBC Radio's program Monitor beginning during late 1958, often using his Mr. Question Man character in his radio monologues.
Kovacs never hesitated to lampoon those considered institutions of radio and television. In April 1954, he started the late-night talk show, The Ernie Kovacs Show, on DuMont Television Network's New York flagship station, WABD. Stage, screen and radio notables were often guests. Archie Bleyer, head of Cadence Records, came to chat one evening. Bleyer had been the long-time orchestra director for Arthur Godfrey's radio and television shows. He had been dismissed by Godfrey the year before, together with fellow cast member, singer Julius La Rosa. In La Rosa's case, he hired a manager, defying an unwritten Godfrey policy. With Bleyer, Godfrey was angered when he found that Bleyer's record company Cadence Records had produced spoken-word material by Don McNeill, host of ABC's Don McNeill's Breakfast Club, which Godfrey considered competition to his show. Bleyer and Kovacs were shown in split screen, with Kovacs wearing a red wig, headphones, and playing a ukulele in a Godfrey imitation, while talking with his guest.
Kovacs's television programs included Three to Get Ready (an early morning program seen on Philadelphia's WPTZ from 1950 through 1952), It's Time for Ernie (1951, his first network series), Ernie in Kovacsland, (a summer replacement show for Kukla, Fran and Ollie, 1951), The Ernie Kovacs Show (1952–56 on various networks), a twice-a-week job filling in for Steve Allen as host of The Tonight Show on Mondays and Tuesdays (1956–57), and game shows Gamble on Love, One Minute Please, Time Will Tell (all on DuMont), and Take a Good Look (1959–61). Kovacs was also the host of a program, Silents Please, which showed silent movies on network television, with serious discussion about the movies and their actors.
Kovacs had a brief stint as a celebrity panelist for the television series What's My Line?, but took his responsibilities less than seriously, often eschewing a legitimate question for the sake of a laugh. An example: Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, the founder of an automobile company, was the program's "mystery guest." Previous questioning had established that the mystery guest's name was synonymous with an automobile brand, Kovacs asked, "Are you – and this is just a wild guess – but are you Abraham Lincoln?"—a reference to the Ford Motor Company's Lincoln automobiles. When Kovacs gave an interview admitting that he was absent from the show when he wanted to go out for dinner on a Sunday, his stint on the panel show was ended.
TV specials
He also did several television specials, including the famous Silent Show (1957), featuring his character, Eugene: the first all-pantomime prime-time network program. After the end of the Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis partnership, NBC offered Lewis the opportunity to host his own 90-minute color television special. Lewis opted to use only 60 minutes, leaving the network 30 minutes to fill; no one wanted this time slot, but Kovacs was willing to have it. The program contained no spoken dialogue and contained only sound effects and music. Featuring Kovacs as the mute, Charlie Chaplin-like character "Eugene", the program contained surreal sight gags. Kovacs developed the Eugene character during the autumn of 1956, when hosting the television series The Tonight Show. Expectations were high for the Lewis program, but it was Kovacs' special that received the most attention; Kovacs received his first movie offer, had a cover story in Life magazine, and received the Sylvania Award that year.
In 1961, Kovacs and his co-director, Joe Behar, were recipients of the Directors Guild of America Award for a second version of this program broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company network.
A series of monthly half-hour specials for ABC during 1961–62 is often considered his best television work. Produced on videotape using new editing and special effects techniques, it won a 1962 Emmy Award. Kovacs and co-director Behar also won the Directors Guild of America award for an Ernie Kovacs Special based on the earlier, silent "Eugene" program. Kovacs' last ABC special was broadcast posthumously, on January 23, 1962.
The Dutch Masters cigar company became well-known during the late 1950s and early 1960s for its sponsorship of various television projects of Ernie Kovacs. The company allowed Kovacs total creative control in the creation of their television commercials for his programs and specials. He produced a series of non-speaking television commercials for Dutch Masters during the run of his television series Take A Good Look which was praised by both television critics and viewers.
While praised by critics, Kovacs rarely had a highly-rated show. The Museum of Broadcast Communications says, "It is doubtful that Ernie Kovacs would find a place on television today. He was too zany, too unrestrained, too undisciplined. Perhaps Jack Gould of The New York Times said it best for Ernie Kovacs: 'The fun was in trying'."
Other shows had greater success while using elements of Kovacs's style. George Schlatter, producer of the later television series Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, was married to actress Jolene Brand, who had appeared in Kovacs' comic troupes over the years and had been a frequent participant in his pioneering sketches. Laugh-In made frequent use of the quick blackout gags and surreal humor that marked many Kovacs projects. Another link was a young NBC staffer, Bill Wendell, Kovacs's usual announcer and sometimes a sketch participant. From 1980 to 1995, Wendell was the announcer for David Letterman, whose show and style of humor were greatly influenced by Kovacs.
The Music Man
Kovacs was also known for his eclectic musical taste. His main theme song was named "Oriental Blues" by Jack Newton. The rendition most often heard was a piano-driven trio version, but, for his primetime show during 1956, music director Harry Sosnik presented a full-blown big-band version. The German song "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer" from The Threepenny Opera (anglicized to "Mack the Knife"), frequently underscored his blackout routines. Songwriter Robert Maxwell's "Solfeggio" became associated with the derby-hatted apes, 'The Nairobi Trio'.
In the 1982 TV special Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius, Edie Adams recalled that when Kovacs first heard the melody, he immediately knew what he wanted to do with it, creating a music-box-like trio that moved in time to the tune. Kovacs was introduced to the song in 1954 by Barry Shear, his director at DuMont Television Network.
Kovacs matched an unusual treatment of "Sentimental Journey", by Mexican bandleader Juan García Esquivel, to video of an empty office in which various items (pencil sharpeners, water coolers, wall clocks) come to life in rhythm with the music; it was a variation on several famous animations of a decade earlier. The original three-minute presentation was outlined by Kovacs in a four-page, single-spaced memo to his staff. The perfectionist Kovacs describes in minute detail what had to be done and how to do it. The memo ends with this: "I don't know how the hell you're going to get this done by Sunday – but 'rots of ruck." (signed) "Ernie (with love)". Kovacs also made careful use of the shrill singer Leona Anderson—who had somewhat less than a classical (or even listenable) voice, by some estimations—in comic vignettes.
Kovacs used classical music as background for silent skits or abstract visual routines, including "Concerto for Orchestra", by Béla Bartók; music from the opera "The Love of Three Oranges", by Sergei Prokofiev; the finale of Igor Stravinsky's suite "The Firebird"; and Richard Strauss' "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks"; and, from George Gershwin, "Rialto Ripples"--the theme to his shows--as well as parts of Gershwin's "Concerto in F". He may have been known best for using Joseph Haydn's "String Quartet, Opus 3, Number 5" (the "Serenade," actually composed by Roman Hoffstetter) for a series of 1960–61 commercials he created and videotaped for his sponsor, Dutch Masters.
For the show of May 22, 1959, Kovacs on Music, Kovacs began by saying, "I have never really understood classical music, so I would like to take this opportunity to explain it to others." He presented a gorilla version of Swan Lake which differed from the usual performance only in the persona of the dancers, along with giant paper clips moving to music and other sketches.
He also served as host on a jazz album to benefit the American Cancer Society in 1957, Listening to Jazz with Ernie Kovacs. It was a 15-minute recording featuring some of the celebrities of the art, including pianist Jimmy Yancey and old original New Orleans Jazz Trumpeter Bunk Johnson, soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet, guitarist Django Reinhardt, composer/pianist/bandleader Duke Ellington and longtime Ellington trumpeter Cootie Williams. Both the Library of Congress and the National Library of Canada have copies of this recording in their collections.
In print
Kovacs wrote a novel, Zoomar: A Sophisticated Novel about Love and TV (Doubleday, 1957), based on television pioneer Pat Weaver; it took Kovacs only 13 days to write. The book took its title from the Zoomar brand zoom lenses frequently used on television cameras at the time. In a 1960 interview, Edie Adams related that the novel was written after Kovacs' experiences with network television while he was preparing to broadcast the Silent Show. The 1961 British edition was retitled T.V. Medium Rare by its London-based publisher, Transworld.
While he worked on several other book projects, Kovacs's only other published title was How to Talk at Gin, published posthumously in 1962. He intended part of the book's proceeds to benefit Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. During 1955–58, he wrote for Mad (his favorite humor magazine), including the feature "Strangely Believe It!" (a parody of Ripley's Believe It or Not! that was a regular feature of his television shows) and Gringo, a board game with ridiculously complicated rules that was renamed Droongo for the television show. Kovacs also wrote the introduction to the 1958 collection Mad For Keeps: A Collection of the Best from Mad Magazine.
Television guest star
Kovacs and Edie Adams guest starred on what turned out to be the final episode of The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show, (syndicated as The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour or We Love Lucy) "Lucy Meets the Moustache", which was in rehearsals during the week of February 28 and filmed on March 3 for an April 1, 1960 network broadcast. "Lucy Meets the Moustache" was the last time Arnaz and Ball worked together and the last time their famous characters appeared in a first-run broadcast. According to Adams, Ball and Arnaz 'avoided contact and barely talked to each other in rehearsals and in-between scenes'. Adams also said that they were not told their episode was the last or that the famous couple was to divorce (Ball entered the uncontested divorce request March 4, 1960).
Kovacs also appeared in roles on other television programs. For General Electric Theater's "I Was a Bloodhound" in 1959, Kovacs played the role of detective Barney Colby, whose extraordinary sense of smell helped him solve many seemingly-impossible cases. Colby was hired by a foreign country to recover its symbol of royalty, a baby elephant, who was being held for ransom.
Films
Kovacs found Hollywood success as a character actor, often typecast as a swarthy military officer (almost always a "Captain" of some sort) in such films as Operation Mad Ball, Wake Me When It's Over and Our Man in Havana. While working in his first film role for Operation Mad Ball, Kovacs was filming a wild party scene after midnight; it was decided to use real champagne for realism. After a few hours of work, someone came up to Kovacs and remarked that he had been having quite a good time chasing starlets all night. Kovacs told the stranger to go to hell, since he was following the script; he later learned the stranger was Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures. Kovacs and Cohn later became friends despite the way they had met, with Cohn giving Kovacs roles in Bell, Book and Candle (1958) and It Happened to Jane (1959).
He garnered critical acclaim for film roles such as the perennially-inebriated writer in Bell, Book and Candle and as the cartoonishly-evil head of a railroad company (who resembled Orson Welles' title character in Citizen Kane) in It Happened to Jane, where he had his head shaved and his remaining hair dyed grey for the role. In 1960, he played the base commander Charlie Stark in the comedy Wake Me When It's Over and the con man Frankie Cannon trying to steal John Wayne's gold mine in the western comedy, North to Alaska. His own personal favorite was said to have been the offbeat Five Golden Hours (1961), in which he portrayed a larcenous professional mourner who meets his match in a professional widow played by Cyd Charisse. Kovacs's last movie, Sail a Crooked Ship (also 1961), was released one month before his death.
Personal life
First marriage
Kovacs and his first wife, Bette Wilcox, were married on August 13, 1945. When the marriage ended, he fought for custody of their children, Elizabeth ("Bette") and Kip Raleigh ("Kippie"). The court awarded Kovacs full custody upon determining that his former wife was mentally unstable. The decision was extremely unusual at the time, setting a legal precedent. Wilcox subsequently kidnapped the children, taking them to Florida. After a long and expensive search, Kovacs regained custody. These events were portrayed in the television movie Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter (1984), which garnered an Emmy Award nomination for its writer, April Smith. Kovacs was portrayed by Jeff Goldblum.
Kovacs's first wife made a legal attempt to gain custody of her two daughters soon after his death. She began August 2, 1962, by claiming $500,000 was her share of Kovacs's estate and charging that her ex-husband had abducted the girls in 1955; Kovacs had been granted legal custody of his daughters in 1952. On August 30, Wilcox filed an affidavit claiming that Kovacs's widow, Edie Adams, the stepmother to the girls, was "unfit" to care for them. Both daughters, Bette and Kippie, testified that they wanted to stay with their stepmother, Edie. Kippie's testimony was very emotional; in it she referred to Edie as "Mommy" and her birth mother as "the other lady." Upon hearing the verdict that the girls would remain in their home, Adams wept, saying, "This is what Ernie would have wanted. Now I can smile." Elizabeth Kovacs's reaction was "I'm so happy I can hardly express myself", after learning she and her sister would not be forced to leave Edie.
Second marriage
Kovacs and Adams met in 1951 when she was hired to work for his WPTZ show, Three to Get Ready. Her appearance on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts caught the eye of Kovacs's producer, and he asked her to audition for the program. A classically-trained singer, she was able to perform only three popular songs. Edie said later, "I sang them all during the audition, and if they had asked to hear another, I never would have made it." Quoting Kovacs, "I wish I could say I was the big shot that hired her, but it was my show in name only – the producer had all the say. Later on I did have something to say and I said it: 'Let's get married.'"
After the couple's first date, Kovacs proceeded to buy a Jaguar car, telling Adams he wanted to take her out in style. He was seriously taken with the beautiful and talented young woman, courting her with imagination and flair. Kovacs's attempts to win Adams' affection included hiring a mariachi band to serenade her backstage at the Broadway musical she was performing in and the sudden gift of a diamond engagement ring, telling her to wear it until she made up her mind. Kovacs continued this romantic quest after the show went out of town.
Adams booked a six-week European cruise, which she hoped would let her make up her mind whether or not to marry Kovacs. After only three days away and many long-distance telephone calls, she curtailed her trip and returned to say "yes". They eloped and were married on September 12, 1954, in Mexico City. The ceremony was presided over by former New York City mayor William O'Dwyer and was performed in Spanish, which neither Kovacs nor Adams understood; O'Dwyer had to prompt each of them to say "Sí" at the "I do" portion of the vows. Adams, who had a middle-class upbringing, was smitten by Kovacs's quirky ways; the couple remained together until his death. (She later said about Kovacs, "He treated me like a little girl, and I loved it—Women's Lib be damned!")
Adams also aided Kovacs's struggle to reclaim his two older children after the kidnapping by their mother. She also was a regular partner on his television shows. Kovacs usually introduced or addressed her in a businesslike way, as "Edith Adams". Adams was usually willing to do anything he envisioned, whether it was singing seriously, performing impersonations (including a well-regarded impression of Marilyn Monroe) or taking a pie in the face or a pratfall if and when needed. The couple had one daughter, Mia Susan Kovacs, born June 20, 1959.
Kovacs and his family shared a 16-room apartment in Manhattan on Central Park West that seemed perfect until he went to California for his first film role in Operation Mad Ball. The experience of the totally different, laid-back lifestyle of Hollywood made a big impression on him. He realized he was working too much in New York; in California he would be able to work fewer hours, do just as well or better and have more time for Edie and his daughters. At the time, he was working most of the time and sleeping about two or three hours a night. Kovacs claimed that he realized it was time for a change when he was telling his girls a bedtime story and found himself thinking of using it for a show instead. Kovacs relocated his family there in 1957, after Edie finished work for the Broadway play Li'l Abner.
Death
In the early morning hours of January 13, 1962, Kovacs lost control of his Chevrolet Corvair station wagon while turning quickly and crashed into a power pole in Beverly Hills. He was thrown halfway out the vehicle's passenger side and died almost instantly from chest and head injuries.
A photographer arrived soon after and images of Kovacs' bodywith an unlit cigar on the pavement near his outstretched handappeared in newspapers across the United States.
In keeping Kovacs's wishes, a simple service was held at the Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian Church. The pallbearers included Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Billy Wilder, and Mervyn LeRoy, and George Burns, Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Buster Keaton and Milton Berle also attended. The pastor said that Kovacs had summed up his life thus: "I was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1919 to a Hungarian couple. I've been smoking cigars ever since."
He is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads "Nothing in moderation—We all loved him."
Tax evasion
A frequent critic of the U.S. tax system, Kovacs owed the Internal Revenue Service several hundred thousand dollars in back taxes, due to his refusal to pay the bulk of them. Up to 90% of his earnings were garnished as a result. His long battles with the IRS inspired Kovacs to invest his money in a convoluted series of paper corporations in the U.S. and Canada. He would give them bizarre names, such as "The Bazooka Dooka Hicka Hocka Hookah Company". In 1961, Kovacs was served with a $75,000 lien for back taxes; that same day he bought the California Racquet Club with the apparent hope of being able to use it as a tax write-off. The property had mortgages at the time of purchase which were later paid by Edie Adams.
His tax woes also affected Kovacs's career, forcing him to take any offered work to pay his debt. This included the ABC game show Take a Good Look, appearances on variety shows such as NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford, and some of his less-memorable film roles. He also filmed an unaired 1962 pilot episode for a proposed CBS series, Medicine Man (co-starring Buster Keaton; the pilot episode titled "A Pony for Chris"). Kovacs' role was that of Dr. P. Crookshank, a traveling medicine salesman in the 1870s, who was selling Mother McGreevy's Wizard Juice, also known as "man's best friend in a bottle". This was abandoned after his death, which occurred the day after filming some scenes for the pilot in Griffith Park. CBS initially intended to broadcast the show as part of a summer replacement program, The Comedy Spot, but decided against it due to problems with Kovacs' estate. The pilot is part of the public collection of the Paley Center for Media.
Some of the issues regarding Kovacs' tax problems were still unresolved years after his death. Kovacs had purchased two insurance policies in 1951; his mother was named as the primary beneficiary of them. The IRS placed a lien against them both for their cash value in 1961. To stop the actions being taken against her, Mary Kovacs had to go to Federal court. The court's early 1966 ruling resolved the issue, with the last sentence of the document reading: "Prima facie, it looks as if, within the limits of discretion permitted the government by the relevant statutes, an injustice is being done Mary Kovacs."
Adams, who married and divorced twice after Kovacs' death, refused help from celebrity friends who planned a benefit for the purpose. "I can take care of my own children," she said, and resolved to accept offers only from those who wanted to hire her for her talents. Adams eventually paid all of Kovacs's debts.
Lost and surviving work
Most of Kovacs's early television work was performed live: few kinescopes have survived. Some videotapes of his ABC specials were preserved; others, such as his quirky game show, Take a Good Look, were available mostly in short segments until recently, with the release of some complete, videotaped episodes. After Kovacs's death, Adams discovered not only that her husband owed ABC a great deal of money, but that some networks were systematically erasing and reusing tapes of Kovacs's shows or disposing of the kinescopes and videotapes. She succeeded in purchasing the rights to surviving footage with the proceeds from Kovacs' insurance policy and her own earnings after Kovacs' IRS debts were paid. In March 1996, Adams detailed her experiences before the National Film Preservation Board.
Adams first used some of the videotapes she had purchased for a 1968 ABC television special, The Comedy of Ernie Kovacs; to produce the show, she hired Kovacs's former producer and editor. The hour-long program was sponsored by Kovacs's former sponsor, Dutch Masters.
Most of Kovacs's salvaged work is available to researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles Library's Department of Special Collections: additional material is available at the Paley Center for Media.
The 1984 television film Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter helped return Kovacs to the public's attention, though the show emphasized his bid to retrieve his kidnapped children instead of his professional life. Jeff Goldblum portrayed Kovacs, Madolyn Smith portrayed Bette and Melody Anderson portrayed Adams in the movie. Edie Adams appeared in a cameo in this film, playing Mae West; it was one of the impressions she performed in shows with Kovacs. Telecasts of edited compilations of some of his work by PBS (station WTTW, Chicago) under the title The Best of Ernie Kovacs in 1977, inspired the film. These broadcasts were made available on VHS and DVD. The DVD set features extras that are not in the VHS set. The series was narrated by Jack Lemmon.
During the early 1990s, The Comedy Channel broadcast a series of Kovacs' shows under the generic title of The Ernie Kovacs Show. The series included both the ABC specials and some of his 1950s shows from NBC. By 2008, there were no broadcast, cable, or satellite channels broadcasting any of Kovacs's television work, other than his panel appearances on What's My Line? on the Game Show Network.
On April 19, 2011, Shout! Factory released The Ernie Kovacs Collection, six DVDs spanning Kovacs's television career. The company's website also offers an extra disc with material from Tonight! and The Ernie Kovacs Show, as well as a rare color kinescope of the complete 30-minute 1957 NBC color broadcast featuring "Eugene". On October 23, 2012, Shout! Factory released The Ernie Kovacs Collection: Volume 2 on DVD.
In 1961, Kovacs recorded a record album of poetry in the character of Percy Dovetonsils named Percy Dovetonsils Thpeakth, but was unable to release it due to contractual obligations with other record companies. After he was given the masters, Kovacs donated them to a Los Angeles area hospital. Adams was able to re-acquire the tapes in 1967, and they remained part of her private collection until her death in 2008. The tapes were labeled as movie material and were thought to be such until further examination proved they were Kovacs as Percy reading his poems with no music background. The album was finally released in 2012.
Kovacs was inducted posthumously into the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia's Hall of Fame in 1992.
Partial filmography
Operation Mad Ball (1957) (with Jack Lemmon) as Capt. Paul Lock
Bell, Book and Candle (1958) (with James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Jack Lemmon as Sidney Redlitch
It Happened to Jane (1959) (with Doris Day and Jack Lemmon) as Harry Foster Malone
Our Man in Havana (1959) (with Alec Guinness and Noël Coward) as Capt. Segura
Wake Me When It's Over (1960) (with Dick Shawn) as Capt. Charlie Stark
Strangers When We Meet (1960) (with Kirk Douglas and Kim Novak) as Roger Altar
North to Alaska (1960) (with John Wayne) as Frankie Canon
Pepe (1960) (with Cantinflas) as Immigration Inspector
Five Golden Hours (1961) (with Cyd Charisse and George Sanders) as Aldo Bondi
Sail a Crooked Ship (1961, with Robert Wagner) as Bugsy G. Foglemeyer aka The Captain
Notes
References
Bibliography
via Project MUSE
Further reading
Adams, Edie (1990). Sing a Pretty Song: The "Offbeat" Life of Edie Adams, Including the Ernie Kovacs Years. William Morrow;
Barker, David Brian (1982). "Every Moment's a Gift": Ernie Kovacs in Hollywood, 1957–1962, a Master's Thesis. Available for viewing at the library at the University of Texas at Austin
Rico, Diana (1990). Kovacsland: A Biography of Ernie Kovacs. Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich;
Walley, David (1975). Nothing in Moderation. Drake Publishers; Reprinted as The Ernie Kovacs Phile by David Walley, Bolder Books, 1978 and Fireside/Simon & Schuster, 1987;
External links
The Official Ernie Kovacs Website
Ernie Kovacs Dot Net: A Tribute To Television's Original Genius
Kovacsland Online! – the Ernie Kovacs website
List of Kovacs' 16 articles for MAD magazine
Watch
The Jack Benny Program with Ernie Kovacs as guest at the Internet Archive
Operation Mad Ball Trailer (1957) at the Internet Archive
John Barbour's documentary Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius at John Barbour's World
Ernie Kovacs Dutch Masters Cigar Commercial
1919 births
1962 deaths
20th-century American male actors
American people of Hungarian descent
American comedy writers
American game show hosts
American male film actors
American male television actors
American humorists
American satirists
American comics writers
American television talk show hosts
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
Emmy Award winners
Mad (magazine) people
Male actors from New Jersey
Actors from Trenton, New Jersey
Road incident deaths in California
Trenton Central High School alumni
Writers from Trenton, New Jersey
American male comedy actors
20th-century American comedians | false | [
", son of Konoe Iehiro and adopted son of Takatsukasa Kanehiro, was a kugyō or Japanese court noble of the Edo period (1603–1868). He did not hold regent positions sesshō and kampaku. He and his wife did not have a son, but they adopted one Hisasuke.\n\nReferences\n \n\n1710 births\n1730 deaths\nFujiwara clan\nTakatsukasa family",
"The Elf Maiden is a Sámi fairy tale, collected by J. C. Poestion in Lapplandische Märchen. Andrew Lang included it in The Brown Fairy Book.\n\nSynopsis\n\nOnce upon a time, two men fell in love with the same maiden. One day, on a fishing expedition to an island, one of them noticed she favored the other, and so he tricked the other into staying behind. \n\nThe man, stranded on the island, survived there until Christmas, when he saw a small boat approach, on which were two young women, who were better dressed than the others. The two young maidens saw the man sitting by a bundle of sticks, and one of them, to find out what he was made of, pinched him. As she did, her fingers caught a pin, and it drew blood. The rest of the company fled, leaving behind the maiden and a ring of keys. The maiden told the man that he had drawn her blood and now must marry her. The man objected, arguing that they could not survive on this island, but the maiden promised to provide for them both. Thus he agreed to married her, and she kept her word, and did provide for them, though he never saw how.\n\nWhen the man's people returned to fish, they landed on the far side of the island at night. The maiden, now the man's wife, told him not to stir no matter what he heard. A great clatter, like carpentry, arose, and the man nearly jumped up before he remembered. In the morning the man found that a fine house had been built for them. His wife then told him to pick a place for a cow-shed though they had no cows, and, the following morning, he found it was built in the same manner.\n\nHis wife then took him to visit her parents. The man and his wife were made welcome, but when it came time to leave, the man's wife warned him to jump quickly over the threshold, and not turn around until he was inside their home, whatever he heard. The man did, though as he did, his wife's father threw a hammer at him that would have broken his legs if he had not moved quickly. Even though he heard cattle following, the man did not look back. When he had his hand on the door, he thought he was safe, and looked, but by then half of the cows had vanished. Still, there were enough for them both to be rich.\n\nThe man's wife vanished from time to time. When the man asked her why, his wife told him that she went against her will, but if he drove a nail into the threshold, she would remain all the time, so he did. And so she did. And they lived happily ever after.\n\nExternal links\nThe Elf Maiden\n\nSámi fairy tales\nElves\nFemale characters in fairy tales"
] |
[
"Ernie Kovacs",
"Death",
"when did he die?",
"Kovacs was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles during the early morning hours of January 13, 1962.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"A photographer managed to arrive moments later, and graphic images of Kovacs's dead body appeared in newspapers across the United States.",
"did he have children?",
"Only one of Kovacs's three children survives: his eldest, Elizabeth, from his first marriage. Kippie, his second daughter, died on July 28, 2001 at the age of 52,",
"what did his daughter die from?",
"52, after a long illness and a lifetime of poor health.",
"what did he do after her death?",
"Kovacs is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads,",
"what does his epitaph read?",
"\"Nothing in moderation--We all loved him.\"",
"when did he die?",
"January 13, 1962.",
"did he have a wife?",
"\"It's Mrs. Kovacs, he's on his way to the coroner - what should I tell her?\""
] | C_8d50647977304f559cc6b26bd64e27fc_1 | what did they tell her? | 9 | What did the people speaking to Ernie's wife tell Mrs. Kovacs? | Ernie Kovacs | Kovacs was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles during the early morning hours of January 13, 1962. Kovacs, who had worked for much of the evening, met Adams at a baby shower given by Billy Wilder for Milton Berle and his wife, who had recently adopted a newborn baby boy. The couple left the party in separate cars. After a light southern California rainstorm, Kovacs lost control of his Chevrolet Corvair station wagon while turning quickly, and crashed into a power pole at the corner of Beverly Glen and Santa Monica Boulevards. He was thrown halfway out the passenger side, and died almost instantly from chest and head injuries. A photographer managed to arrive moments later, and graphic images of Kovacs's dead body appeared in newspapers across the United States. An unlit cigar lay on the pavement, inches from his outstretched arm. Years later, in a documentary about Kovacs, Edie Adams described telephoning the police impatiently when she learned of the crash. An official cupped his hand over the receiver, saying to a colleague, "It's Mrs. Kovacs, he's on his way to the coroner - what should I tell her?" With that, Adams's fears were confirmed, and she became inconsolable. Jack Lemmon, who also attended the Berle party, identified Kovacs's body at the morgue because Adams was too distraught to do so. After attending funerals for Hollywood friends, Kovacs had expressed his wishes to Adams that any funeral services for him be kept simple. In keeping with his request, Adams made arrangements for Presbyterian services at the Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian Church. The active pallbearers were Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Billy Wilder, Mervyn LeRoy, and Joe Mikolas. Kovacs's father and brother, Andrew and Tom, respectively, served as honorary pallbearers. The attendees included George Burns, Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Buster Keaton and Milton Berle. There was no typical Hollywood-type eulogy, but the church's pastor paid tribute to Kovacs, adding that he once summed up his life in two sentences: "I was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1919 to a Hungarian couple. I've been smoking cigars ever since." Kovacs is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads, "Nothing in moderation--We all loved him." Only one of Kovacs's three children survives: his eldest, Elizabeth, from his first marriage. Kippie, his second daughter, died on July 28, 2001 at the age of 52, after a long illness and a lifetime of poor health. Kippie and her husband, Bill Lancaster (1947-1997), a screenwriter and the son of actor Burt Lancaster, are the parents of Kovacs's only grandchild, Keigh Lancaster. His only child with Edie Adams, Mia (1959-1982), was killed on May 8, 1982, also in an automobile accident. Her gravestone reads "Daddy's little girl. We all loved her, too". Mia and Kippie are buried close to their father; when Edie died in 2008, she was buried between Mia and Kippie. CANNOTANSWER | With that, Adams's fears were confirmed, and she became inconsolable. | Ernest Edward Kovacs (January 23, 1919 – January 13, 1962) was an American comedian, actor, and writer.
Kovacs's visually experimental and often spontaneous comedic style influenced numerous television comedy programs for years after his death. Kovacs has been credited as an influence by many individuals and shows, including Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Jim Henson, Max Headroom, Chevy Chase, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Pee-wee's Playhouse, The Muppet Show, Dave Garroway, Andy Kaufman, You Can't Do That on Television, MST3K, Uncle Floyd, among others. Chevy Chase thanked Kovacs during his acceptance speech for his Emmy award for Saturday Night Live.
While Kovacs and Adams received Emmy nominations for best performances in a comedy series during 1957, his talent was not recognized formally until after his death. The 1962 Emmy for Outstanding Electronic Camera Work and the Directors' Guild award came a short time after his fatal accident. A quarter century later, he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. Kovacs also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in television. In 1986, the Museum of Broadcasting (later to become the Museum of Television & Radio and now the Paley Center for Media) presented an exhibit of Kovacs's work, called The Vision of Ernie Kovacs. The Pulitzer Prize–winning television critic, William Henry III, wrote for the museum's booklet: "Kovacs was more than another wide-eyed, self-ingratiating clown. He was television's first significant video artist."
Early life and career
Kovacs's father, Andrew John Kovacs, was born in 1890 and emigrated from Tornaújfalu, Hungary, which is now known as Turnianska Nová Ves, Slovakia. Andrew sailed on the S.S. Würzburg via Bremen, arriving at Ellis Island on February 8, 1906, at age 16. He worked as a policeman, restaurateur, and bootlegger, the last so successfully that he moved his wife Mary, son Tom, and his half-brother Ernest Edward Kovacs into a 20-room mansion in the better part of Trenton.
Though a poor student, Kovacs was influenced by his Trenton Central High School drama teacher, Harold Van Kirk, and received an acting scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1937 with Van Kirk's help. The end of Prohibition and the onset of the Great Depression resulted in difficult financial times for the family. When Kovacs began drama school, all he could afford was a fifth-floor walk-up apartment on West 74th Street in New York City.
During this time, he watched many "Grade B" movies; admission was only ten cents. Many of these movies influenced his comedy routines later.
A 1938 local newspaper photograph shows Kovacs as a member of the Prospect Players, not yet wearing his trademark mustache. Kovacs used his class vacation time to pursue roles in summer stock companies. While working in Vermont in 1939, he became so seriously ill with pneumonia and pleurisy that his doctors didn't expect him to survive. During the next year and a half, his comedic talents developed as he entertained both doctors and patients with his antics during stays at several hospitals. While hospitalized, Kovacs developed a lifelong love of classical music by the gift of a radio, which he kept tuned to WQXR. By the time he was released his parents had separated, and Kovacs went back to Trenton, living with his mother in a two-room apartment over a store. He began work as a cigar salesman, which resulted in a lifelong tobacco-smoking habit.
Kovacs's first paid entertainment work was during 1941 as an announcer for Trenton's radio station WTTM. He spent the next nine years with WTTM, becoming the station's director of special events; in this job he did things like trying to see what it was like to be run over by a train (leaving the tracks at the last minute) and broadcasting from the cockpit of a plane for which he took flying lessons. Kovacs was also involved with local theater; a local newspaper published a photograph of him and the news that he was doing some directing for the Trenton Players Guild in early 1941. The Trentonian, a local weekly newspaper, offered Kovacs a column in June 1945; he named it "Kovacs Unlimited".
Start in television
Arriving at NBC's Philadelphia affiliate, WPTZ, for an audition wearing a barrel and shorts got Kovacs his first television job in January 1950. His first show was Pick Your Ideal, a fashion and promotional program for the Ideal Manufacturing Company. Before long, Kovacs was also the host of Deadline For Dinner and Now You're Cooking, shows featuring advice from local chefs. When Kovacs's guest chef did not arrive in time for the show, he offered a recipe for "Eggs Scavok" (Kovacs spelled backward). Kovacs seasoned the egg dish with ashes from his cigar. The sponsor was a local propane company. Hosting these shows soon resulted in his becoming host of a program named Three to Get Ready, named for WPTZ's channel 3 spot on television dials.
Premiering in November 1950, Three to Get Ready was innovative because it was the first regularly scheduled early morning (7–9am) show in a major television market, predating NBC's Today by more than a year. Prior to this, it had been assumed that few people would watch television at such an early hour. While the show was advertised as early morning news and weather, Kovacs provided this and more in an original manner. When rain was in the weather forecast, Kovacs would get on a ladder and pour water down on the staff member reading the report. Goats were auditioned for a local theater performance and tiny women appeared to walk up his arm. Kovacs also went outside of the studio for some of his skits, running through a downtown Philadelphia restaurant in a gorilla suit in one; in another, he looked into a construction pit, saying it was deep enough to see to China, when a man in Chinese clothing popped up, said a few words in the language, and ran off. Despite its popularity, the weekly prop budget for the show was just $15. Kovacs once asked his viewers to send unwanted items to Channel 3; they filled the station's lobby.
The only character no one ever saw inspired more gifts; he was Howard, the World's Strongest Ant. From the time of his WPTZ debut, Howard received more than 30,000 gifts from Kovacs's viewers, including a mink-lined swimming pool. Kovacs began his Early Eyeball Fraternal & Marching Society (EEFMS) while doing Three to Get Ready. There were membership cards with by-laws and ties; the password was a favorite phrase of Kovacs's: "It's Been Real". Kovacs continued the EEFMS on his morning show when he moved to WCBS in New York in 1952. The success of Three to Get Ready proved that people did indeed watch early-morning television, and it was one of the factors that caused NBC to create The Today Show. WPTZ did not begin broadcasting Today when it premiered on January 14, 1952; network influence caused the station to end Three to Get Ready at the end of March of that year.
During early 1952, Kovacs was also doing a late morning show for WPTZ named Kovacs on the Corner. Kovacs would walk through an imaginary neighborhood, talking with various characters such as Pete the Cop and Luigi the Barber. As with Three to Get Ready, there were some special segments. "Swap Time" was one of them: Viewers could bring their unwanted items to the WPTZ studios to trade them live on the air with Kovacs. The show made its debut on January 4, 1952, with Kovacs losing creative control of the program soon after it was begun. Kovacs on the Corner was short-lived; it ended on March 28, 1952, along with Three to Get Ready. Kovacs then began work for WCBS-TV in New York with a local morning show and a later network one. Both programs were canceled; Kovacs lost the local morning program for the same reason as Three to Get Ready—the broadcasting time was confiscated by the station's network in 1954.
Visual humor and characters
At WPTZ, Kovacs began using the ad-libbed and experimental style that would become his reputation, including video effects, superimpositions, reverse polarities and scanning, and quick blackouts. He was also noted for abstraction and carefully timed non-sequitur gags and for allowing the fourth wall to be breached. Kovacs's cameras commonly showed his viewers activity beyond the boundaries of the show set—including crew members and outside the studio itself. Kovacs also liked talking to the off-camera crew and even introduced segments from the studio control room. He frequently made use of accidents and happenstance, incorporating the unexpected into his shows. In one of Kovacs's Philadelphia broadcasts, Oscar Liebetrau, an elderly crew member who was known for often sleeping for the duration of the telecast, was introduced to the audience as "Sleeping Schwartz." Kovacs was once knocked unconscious when a pie smashed into his face still had the plate under it.
Kovacs's love of spontaneity extended to his crew, who would occasionally play on-air pranks on him to see how he would react. During one of his NBC shows, Kovacs was appearing as the inept magician Matzoh Heppelwhite. The sketch called for the magician to frequently hit a gong, which was the signal for a sexy female assistant to bring out a bottle and shot glass for a quick snort of alcohol. Stagehands substituted real liquor for the iced tea normally used for the skit. Kovacs realized that he would be called upon to drink a shot of liquor for each successive gong. He pressed on with the sketch and was quite inebriated by the end of the show.
Kovacs helped develop camera tricks still common decades after his death. His character Eugene sat at a table to eat his lunch, but as he removed items one at a time from a lunch box, he watched them inexplicably roll down the table into the lap of a man reading a newspaper at the other end. When Kovacs poured milk from a thermos bottle, the stream flowed in a seemingly unusual direction. Never seen on television before, the secret was using a tilted set in front of a camera tilted at the same angle.
He constantly sought new techniques and used both primitive and improvised ways of creating visual effects that would later be done electronically. One innovative construction involved attaching a kaleidoscope made from a toilet paper roll to a camera lens with cardboard and tape and setting the resulting abstract images to music. Another was a soup can with both ends removed fitted with angled mirrors. Used on a camera and turning it could put Kovacs seemingly on the ceiling. An underwater stunt involved cigar smoker Kovacs sitting in an easy chair, reading his newspaper and somehow smoking a cigar. Removing it from his mouth, Kovacs was able to exhale a puff of white smoke, all while floating underwater. The trick: the "smoke" was a small amount of milk which he filled his mouth with before submerging. Kovacs repeated the effect for a Dutch Masters television commercial on his ABC game show, Take A Good Look.
One of the special effects he employed made it appear as if he was able to look through his assistant, Barbara Loden's, head. The illusion was performed by placing a black patch on Loden's head and standing her against a black background while one studio camera was trained on her. A second one photographed Kovacs, who used the studio monitor to position himself exactly so that his eye would appear to be looking through a hole in her head.
He also developed such routines as an all-gorilla version of Swan Lake, a poker game set to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the skit Silent Show, in which Eugene interacts with the world accompanied solely by music and sound effects, parodies of typical television commercials and movie genres, and various musical segments with everyday items (such as kitchen appliances or office equipment) moving in sync to music. A popular recurring skit was The Nairobi Trio, three derby-hatted apes miming mechanically and rhythmically to the tune of Robert Maxwell's "Solfeggio".
Kovacs used extended sketches and mood pieces or quick blackout gags lasting only seconds. Some could be expensive, such as his famous used-car salesman routine with a jalopy and a breakaway floor: it cost $12,000 to produce the six-second gag. He was one of the first television comedians to use odd fake credits and comments between the legitimate credits and, at times, during his routines.
Kovacs reportedly disliked working in front of a live audience, as was the case with the shows he did for NBC during the 1950s. He found the presence of an audience distracting, and those in the seats frequently did not understand some of the more elaborate visual gags and special effects, which could only be appreciated by watching studio monitors instead of the stage.
Like many comedians of the era, Kovacs created a rotation of recurring roles. In addition to the silent "Eugene," his most familiar characters were the fey, lisping poet Percy Dovetonsils, and the heavily accented German radio announcer, Wolfgang von Sauerbraten. Mr. Question Man, who answered viewer queries, was a satire on the long-run (1937–56) radio series, The Answer Man. Others included horror show host Auntie Gruesome, bumbling magician Matzoh Heppelwhite, Frenchman Pierre Ragout and Miklos Molnar, the sardonic Hungarian host of a cooking show. The Miklos character wasn't always confined to a kitchen; Kovacs performed a parody of The Howdy Doody Show with "Buffalo Miklos" as the host. Poet Percy Dovetonsils can be found playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata on a disappearing piano and as a "Master Detective" on the "Private Eye-Private Eye" presentation of the US Steel Hour on CBS March 8, 1961. On the same show, the Nairobi Trio abandons its instruments for a safe-cracking job; still with a background of "Solfeggio", but speaking, two of the three appear in an "Outer Space" sketch.
Kovacs became a regular on NBC Radio's program Monitor beginning during late 1958, often using his Mr. Question Man character in his radio monologues.
Kovacs never hesitated to lampoon those considered institutions of radio and television. In April 1954, he started the late-night talk show, The Ernie Kovacs Show, on DuMont Television Network's New York flagship station, WABD. Stage, screen and radio notables were often guests. Archie Bleyer, head of Cadence Records, came to chat one evening. Bleyer had been the long-time orchestra director for Arthur Godfrey's radio and television shows. He had been dismissed by Godfrey the year before, together with fellow cast member, singer Julius La Rosa. In La Rosa's case, he hired a manager, defying an unwritten Godfrey policy. With Bleyer, Godfrey was angered when he found that Bleyer's record company Cadence Records had produced spoken-word material by Don McNeill, host of ABC's Don McNeill's Breakfast Club, which Godfrey considered competition to his show. Bleyer and Kovacs were shown in split screen, with Kovacs wearing a red wig, headphones, and playing a ukulele in a Godfrey imitation, while talking with his guest.
Kovacs's television programs included Three to Get Ready (an early morning program seen on Philadelphia's WPTZ from 1950 through 1952), It's Time for Ernie (1951, his first network series), Ernie in Kovacsland, (a summer replacement show for Kukla, Fran and Ollie, 1951), The Ernie Kovacs Show (1952–56 on various networks), a twice-a-week job filling in for Steve Allen as host of The Tonight Show on Mondays and Tuesdays (1956–57), and game shows Gamble on Love, One Minute Please, Time Will Tell (all on DuMont), and Take a Good Look (1959–61). Kovacs was also the host of a program, Silents Please, which showed silent movies on network television, with serious discussion about the movies and their actors.
Kovacs had a brief stint as a celebrity panelist for the television series What's My Line?, but took his responsibilities less than seriously, often eschewing a legitimate question for the sake of a laugh. An example: Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, the founder of an automobile company, was the program's "mystery guest." Previous questioning had established that the mystery guest's name was synonymous with an automobile brand, Kovacs asked, "Are you – and this is just a wild guess – but are you Abraham Lincoln?"—a reference to the Ford Motor Company's Lincoln automobiles. When Kovacs gave an interview admitting that he was absent from the show when he wanted to go out for dinner on a Sunday, his stint on the panel show was ended.
TV specials
He also did several television specials, including the famous Silent Show (1957), featuring his character, Eugene: the first all-pantomime prime-time network program. After the end of the Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis partnership, NBC offered Lewis the opportunity to host his own 90-minute color television special. Lewis opted to use only 60 minutes, leaving the network 30 minutes to fill; no one wanted this time slot, but Kovacs was willing to have it. The program contained no spoken dialogue and contained only sound effects and music. Featuring Kovacs as the mute, Charlie Chaplin-like character "Eugene", the program contained surreal sight gags. Kovacs developed the Eugene character during the autumn of 1956, when hosting the television series The Tonight Show. Expectations were high for the Lewis program, but it was Kovacs' special that received the most attention; Kovacs received his first movie offer, had a cover story in Life magazine, and received the Sylvania Award that year.
In 1961, Kovacs and his co-director, Joe Behar, were recipients of the Directors Guild of America Award for a second version of this program broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company network.
A series of monthly half-hour specials for ABC during 1961–62 is often considered his best television work. Produced on videotape using new editing and special effects techniques, it won a 1962 Emmy Award. Kovacs and co-director Behar also won the Directors Guild of America award for an Ernie Kovacs Special based on the earlier, silent "Eugene" program. Kovacs' last ABC special was broadcast posthumously, on January 23, 1962.
The Dutch Masters cigar company became well-known during the late 1950s and early 1960s for its sponsorship of various television projects of Ernie Kovacs. The company allowed Kovacs total creative control in the creation of their television commercials for his programs and specials. He produced a series of non-speaking television commercials for Dutch Masters during the run of his television series Take A Good Look which was praised by both television critics and viewers.
While praised by critics, Kovacs rarely had a highly-rated show. The Museum of Broadcast Communications says, "It is doubtful that Ernie Kovacs would find a place on television today. He was too zany, too unrestrained, too undisciplined. Perhaps Jack Gould of The New York Times said it best for Ernie Kovacs: 'The fun was in trying'."
Other shows had greater success while using elements of Kovacs's style. George Schlatter, producer of the later television series Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, was married to actress Jolene Brand, who had appeared in Kovacs' comic troupes over the years and had been a frequent participant in his pioneering sketches. Laugh-In made frequent use of the quick blackout gags and surreal humor that marked many Kovacs projects. Another link was a young NBC staffer, Bill Wendell, Kovacs's usual announcer and sometimes a sketch participant. From 1980 to 1995, Wendell was the announcer for David Letterman, whose show and style of humor were greatly influenced by Kovacs.
The Music Man
Kovacs was also known for his eclectic musical taste. His main theme song was named "Oriental Blues" by Jack Newton. The rendition most often heard was a piano-driven trio version, but, for his primetime show during 1956, music director Harry Sosnik presented a full-blown big-band version. The German song "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer" from The Threepenny Opera (anglicized to "Mack the Knife"), frequently underscored his blackout routines. Songwriter Robert Maxwell's "Solfeggio" became associated with the derby-hatted apes, 'The Nairobi Trio'.
In the 1982 TV special Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius, Edie Adams recalled that when Kovacs first heard the melody, he immediately knew what he wanted to do with it, creating a music-box-like trio that moved in time to the tune. Kovacs was introduced to the song in 1954 by Barry Shear, his director at DuMont Television Network.
Kovacs matched an unusual treatment of "Sentimental Journey", by Mexican bandleader Juan García Esquivel, to video of an empty office in which various items (pencil sharpeners, water coolers, wall clocks) come to life in rhythm with the music; it was a variation on several famous animations of a decade earlier. The original three-minute presentation was outlined by Kovacs in a four-page, single-spaced memo to his staff. The perfectionist Kovacs describes in minute detail what had to be done and how to do it. The memo ends with this: "I don't know how the hell you're going to get this done by Sunday – but 'rots of ruck." (signed) "Ernie (with love)". Kovacs also made careful use of the shrill singer Leona Anderson—who had somewhat less than a classical (or even listenable) voice, by some estimations—in comic vignettes.
Kovacs used classical music as background for silent skits or abstract visual routines, including "Concerto for Orchestra", by Béla Bartók; music from the opera "The Love of Three Oranges", by Sergei Prokofiev; the finale of Igor Stravinsky's suite "The Firebird"; and Richard Strauss' "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks"; and, from George Gershwin, "Rialto Ripples"--the theme to his shows--as well as parts of Gershwin's "Concerto in F". He may have been known best for using Joseph Haydn's "String Quartet, Opus 3, Number 5" (the "Serenade," actually composed by Roman Hoffstetter) for a series of 1960–61 commercials he created and videotaped for his sponsor, Dutch Masters.
For the show of May 22, 1959, Kovacs on Music, Kovacs began by saying, "I have never really understood classical music, so I would like to take this opportunity to explain it to others." He presented a gorilla version of Swan Lake which differed from the usual performance only in the persona of the dancers, along with giant paper clips moving to music and other sketches.
He also served as host on a jazz album to benefit the American Cancer Society in 1957, Listening to Jazz with Ernie Kovacs. It was a 15-minute recording featuring some of the celebrities of the art, including pianist Jimmy Yancey and old original New Orleans Jazz Trumpeter Bunk Johnson, soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet, guitarist Django Reinhardt, composer/pianist/bandleader Duke Ellington and longtime Ellington trumpeter Cootie Williams. Both the Library of Congress and the National Library of Canada have copies of this recording in their collections.
In print
Kovacs wrote a novel, Zoomar: A Sophisticated Novel about Love and TV (Doubleday, 1957), based on television pioneer Pat Weaver; it took Kovacs only 13 days to write. The book took its title from the Zoomar brand zoom lenses frequently used on television cameras at the time. In a 1960 interview, Edie Adams related that the novel was written after Kovacs' experiences with network television while he was preparing to broadcast the Silent Show. The 1961 British edition was retitled T.V. Medium Rare by its London-based publisher, Transworld.
While he worked on several other book projects, Kovacs's only other published title was How to Talk at Gin, published posthumously in 1962. He intended part of the book's proceeds to benefit Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. During 1955–58, he wrote for Mad (his favorite humor magazine), including the feature "Strangely Believe It!" (a parody of Ripley's Believe It or Not! that was a regular feature of his television shows) and Gringo, a board game with ridiculously complicated rules that was renamed Droongo for the television show. Kovacs also wrote the introduction to the 1958 collection Mad For Keeps: A Collection of the Best from Mad Magazine.
Television guest star
Kovacs and Edie Adams guest starred on what turned out to be the final episode of The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show, (syndicated as The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour or We Love Lucy) "Lucy Meets the Moustache", which was in rehearsals during the week of February 28 and filmed on March 3 for an April 1, 1960 network broadcast. "Lucy Meets the Moustache" was the last time Arnaz and Ball worked together and the last time their famous characters appeared in a first-run broadcast. According to Adams, Ball and Arnaz 'avoided contact and barely talked to each other in rehearsals and in-between scenes'. Adams also said that they were not told their episode was the last or that the famous couple was to divorce (Ball entered the uncontested divorce request March 4, 1960).
Kovacs also appeared in roles on other television programs. For General Electric Theater's "I Was a Bloodhound" in 1959, Kovacs played the role of detective Barney Colby, whose extraordinary sense of smell helped him solve many seemingly-impossible cases. Colby was hired by a foreign country to recover its symbol of royalty, a baby elephant, who was being held for ransom.
Films
Kovacs found Hollywood success as a character actor, often typecast as a swarthy military officer (almost always a "Captain" of some sort) in such films as Operation Mad Ball, Wake Me When It's Over and Our Man in Havana. While working in his first film role for Operation Mad Ball, Kovacs was filming a wild party scene after midnight; it was decided to use real champagne for realism. After a few hours of work, someone came up to Kovacs and remarked that he had been having quite a good time chasing starlets all night. Kovacs told the stranger to go to hell, since he was following the script; he later learned the stranger was Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures. Kovacs and Cohn later became friends despite the way they had met, with Cohn giving Kovacs roles in Bell, Book and Candle (1958) and It Happened to Jane (1959).
He garnered critical acclaim for film roles such as the perennially-inebriated writer in Bell, Book and Candle and as the cartoonishly-evil head of a railroad company (who resembled Orson Welles' title character in Citizen Kane) in It Happened to Jane, where he had his head shaved and his remaining hair dyed grey for the role. In 1960, he played the base commander Charlie Stark in the comedy Wake Me When It's Over and the con man Frankie Cannon trying to steal John Wayne's gold mine in the western comedy, North to Alaska. His own personal favorite was said to have been the offbeat Five Golden Hours (1961), in which he portrayed a larcenous professional mourner who meets his match in a professional widow played by Cyd Charisse. Kovacs's last movie, Sail a Crooked Ship (also 1961), was released one month before his death.
Personal life
First marriage
Kovacs and his first wife, Bette Wilcox, were married on August 13, 1945. When the marriage ended, he fought for custody of their children, Elizabeth ("Bette") and Kip Raleigh ("Kippie"). The court awarded Kovacs full custody upon determining that his former wife was mentally unstable. The decision was extremely unusual at the time, setting a legal precedent. Wilcox subsequently kidnapped the children, taking them to Florida. After a long and expensive search, Kovacs regained custody. These events were portrayed in the television movie Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter (1984), which garnered an Emmy Award nomination for its writer, April Smith. Kovacs was portrayed by Jeff Goldblum.
Kovacs's first wife made a legal attempt to gain custody of her two daughters soon after his death. She began August 2, 1962, by claiming $500,000 was her share of Kovacs's estate and charging that her ex-husband had abducted the girls in 1955; Kovacs had been granted legal custody of his daughters in 1952. On August 30, Wilcox filed an affidavit claiming that Kovacs's widow, Edie Adams, the stepmother to the girls, was "unfit" to care for them. Both daughters, Bette and Kippie, testified that they wanted to stay with their stepmother, Edie. Kippie's testimony was very emotional; in it she referred to Edie as "Mommy" and her birth mother as "the other lady." Upon hearing the verdict that the girls would remain in their home, Adams wept, saying, "This is what Ernie would have wanted. Now I can smile." Elizabeth Kovacs's reaction was "I'm so happy I can hardly express myself", after learning she and her sister would not be forced to leave Edie.
Second marriage
Kovacs and Adams met in 1951 when she was hired to work for his WPTZ show, Three to Get Ready. Her appearance on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts caught the eye of Kovacs's producer, and he asked her to audition for the program. A classically-trained singer, she was able to perform only three popular songs. Edie said later, "I sang them all during the audition, and if they had asked to hear another, I never would have made it." Quoting Kovacs, "I wish I could say I was the big shot that hired her, but it was my show in name only – the producer had all the say. Later on I did have something to say and I said it: 'Let's get married.'"
After the couple's first date, Kovacs proceeded to buy a Jaguar car, telling Adams he wanted to take her out in style. He was seriously taken with the beautiful and talented young woman, courting her with imagination and flair. Kovacs's attempts to win Adams' affection included hiring a mariachi band to serenade her backstage at the Broadway musical she was performing in and the sudden gift of a diamond engagement ring, telling her to wear it until she made up her mind. Kovacs continued this romantic quest after the show went out of town.
Adams booked a six-week European cruise, which she hoped would let her make up her mind whether or not to marry Kovacs. After only three days away and many long-distance telephone calls, she curtailed her trip and returned to say "yes". They eloped and were married on September 12, 1954, in Mexico City. The ceremony was presided over by former New York City mayor William O'Dwyer and was performed in Spanish, which neither Kovacs nor Adams understood; O'Dwyer had to prompt each of them to say "Sí" at the "I do" portion of the vows. Adams, who had a middle-class upbringing, was smitten by Kovacs's quirky ways; the couple remained together until his death. (She later said about Kovacs, "He treated me like a little girl, and I loved it—Women's Lib be damned!")
Adams also aided Kovacs's struggle to reclaim his two older children after the kidnapping by their mother. She also was a regular partner on his television shows. Kovacs usually introduced or addressed her in a businesslike way, as "Edith Adams". Adams was usually willing to do anything he envisioned, whether it was singing seriously, performing impersonations (including a well-regarded impression of Marilyn Monroe) or taking a pie in the face or a pratfall if and when needed. The couple had one daughter, Mia Susan Kovacs, born June 20, 1959.
Kovacs and his family shared a 16-room apartment in Manhattan on Central Park West that seemed perfect until he went to California for his first film role in Operation Mad Ball. The experience of the totally different, laid-back lifestyle of Hollywood made a big impression on him. He realized he was working too much in New York; in California he would be able to work fewer hours, do just as well or better and have more time for Edie and his daughters. At the time, he was working most of the time and sleeping about two or three hours a night. Kovacs claimed that he realized it was time for a change when he was telling his girls a bedtime story and found himself thinking of using it for a show instead. Kovacs relocated his family there in 1957, after Edie finished work for the Broadway play Li'l Abner.
Death
In the early morning hours of January 13, 1962, Kovacs lost control of his Chevrolet Corvair station wagon while turning quickly and crashed into a power pole in Beverly Hills. He was thrown halfway out the vehicle's passenger side and died almost instantly from chest and head injuries.
A photographer arrived soon after and images of Kovacs' bodywith an unlit cigar on the pavement near his outstretched handappeared in newspapers across the United States.
In keeping Kovacs's wishes, a simple service was held at the Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian Church. The pallbearers included Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Billy Wilder, and Mervyn LeRoy, and George Burns, Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Buster Keaton and Milton Berle also attended. The pastor said that Kovacs had summed up his life thus: "I was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1919 to a Hungarian couple. I've been smoking cigars ever since."
He is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads "Nothing in moderation—We all loved him."
Tax evasion
A frequent critic of the U.S. tax system, Kovacs owed the Internal Revenue Service several hundred thousand dollars in back taxes, due to his refusal to pay the bulk of them. Up to 90% of his earnings were garnished as a result. His long battles with the IRS inspired Kovacs to invest his money in a convoluted series of paper corporations in the U.S. and Canada. He would give them bizarre names, such as "The Bazooka Dooka Hicka Hocka Hookah Company". In 1961, Kovacs was served with a $75,000 lien for back taxes; that same day he bought the California Racquet Club with the apparent hope of being able to use it as a tax write-off. The property had mortgages at the time of purchase which were later paid by Edie Adams.
His tax woes also affected Kovacs's career, forcing him to take any offered work to pay his debt. This included the ABC game show Take a Good Look, appearances on variety shows such as NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford, and some of his less-memorable film roles. He also filmed an unaired 1962 pilot episode for a proposed CBS series, Medicine Man (co-starring Buster Keaton; the pilot episode titled "A Pony for Chris"). Kovacs' role was that of Dr. P. Crookshank, a traveling medicine salesman in the 1870s, who was selling Mother McGreevy's Wizard Juice, also known as "man's best friend in a bottle". This was abandoned after his death, which occurred the day after filming some scenes for the pilot in Griffith Park. CBS initially intended to broadcast the show as part of a summer replacement program, The Comedy Spot, but decided against it due to problems with Kovacs' estate. The pilot is part of the public collection of the Paley Center for Media.
Some of the issues regarding Kovacs' tax problems were still unresolved years after his death. Kovacs had purchased two insurance policies in 1951; his mother was named as the primary beneficiary of them. The IRS placed a lien against them both for their cash value in 1961. To stop the actions being taken against her, Mary Kovacs had to go to Federal court. The court's early 1966 ruling resolved the issue, with the last sentence of the document reading: "Prima facie, it looks as if, within the limits of discretion permitted the government by the relevant statutes, an injustice is being done Mary Kovacs."
Adams, who married and divorced twice after Kovacs' death, refused help from celebrity friends who planned a benefit for the purpose. "I can take care of my own children," she said, and resolved to accept offers only from those who wanted to hire her for her talents. Adams eventually paid all of Kovacs's debts.
Lost and surviving work
Most of Kovacs's early television work was performed live: few kinescopes have survived. Some videotapes of his ABC specials were preserved; others, such as his quirky game show, Take a Good Look, were available mostly in short segments until recently, with the release of some complete, videotaped episodes. After Kovacs's death, Adams discovered not only that her husband owed ABC a great deal of money, but that some networks were systematically erasing and reusing tapes of Kovacs's shows or disposing of the kinescopes and videotapes. She succeeded in purchasing the rights to surviving footage with the proceeds from Kovacs' insurance policy and her own earnings after Kovacs' IRS debts were paid. In March 1996, Adams detailed her experiences before the National Film Preservation Board.
Adams first used some of the videotapes she had purchased for a 1968 ABC television special, The Comedy of Ernie Kovacs; to produce the show, she hired Kovacs's former producer and editor. The hour-long program was sponsored by Kovacs's former sponsor, Dutch Masters.
Most of Kovacs's salvaged work is available to researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles Library's Department of Special Collections: additional material is available at the Paley Center for Media.
The 1984 television film Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter helped return Kovacs to the public's attention, though the show emphasized his bid to retrieve his kidnapped children instead of his professional life. Jeff Goldblum portrayed Kovacs, Madolyn Smith portrayed Bette and Melody Anderson portrayed Adams in the movie. Edie Adams appeared in a cameo in this film, playing Mae West; it was one of the impressions she performed in shows with Kovacs. Telecasts of edited compilations of some of his work by PBS (station WTTW, Chicago) under the title The Best of Ernie Kovacs in 1977, inspired the film. These broadcasts were made available on VHS and DVD. The DVD set features extras that are not in the VHS set. The series was narrated by Jack Lemmon.
During the early 1990s, The Comedy Channel broadcast a series of Kovacs' shows under the generic title of The Ernie Kovacs Show. The series included both the ABC specials and some of his 1950s shows from NBC. By 2008, there were no broadcast, cable, or satellite channels broadcasting any of Kovacs's television work, other than his panel appearances on What's My Line? on the Game Show Network.
On April 19, 2011, Shout! Factory released The Ernie Kovacs Collection, six DVDs spanning Kovacs's television career. The company's website also offers an extra disc with material from Tonight! and The Ernie Kovacs Show, as well as a rare color kinescope of the complete 30-minute 1957 NBC color broadcast featuring "Eugene". On October 23, 2012, Shout! Factory released The Ernie Kovacs Collection: Volume 2 on DVD.
In 1961, Kovacs recorded a record album of poetry in the character of Percy Dovetonsils named Percy Dovetonsils Thpeakth, but was unable to release it due to contractual obligations with other record companies. After he was given the masters, Kovacs donated them to a Los Angeles area hospital. Adams was able to re-acquire the tapes in 1967, and they remained part of her private collection until her death in 2008. The tapes were labeled as movie material and were thought to be such until further examination proved they were Kovacs as Percy reading his poems with no music background. The album was finally released in 2012.
Kovacs was inducted posthumously into the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia's Hall of Fame in 1992.
Partial filmography
Operation Mad Ball (1957) (with Jack Lemmon) as Capt. Paul Lock
Bell, Book and Candle (1958) (with James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Jack Lemmon as Sidney Redlitch
It Happened to Jane (1959) (with Doris Day and Jack Lemmon) as Harry Foster Malone
Our Man in Havana (1959) (with Alec Guinness and Noël Coward) as Capt. Segura
Wake Me When It's Over (1960) (with Dick Shawn) as Capt. Charlie Stark
Strangers When We Meet (1960) (with Kirk Douglas and Kim Novak) as Roger Altar
North to Alaska (1960) (with John Wayne) as Frankie Canon
Pepe (1960) (with Cantinflas) as Immigration Inspector
Five Golden Hours (1961) (with Cyd Charisse and George Sanders) as Aldo Bondi
Sail a Crooked Ship (1961, with Robert Wagner) as Bugsy G. Foglemeyer aka The Captain
Notes
References
Bibliography
via Project MUSE
Further reading
Adams, Edie (1990). Sing a Pretty Song: The "Offbeat" Life of Edie Adams, Including the Ernie Kovacs Years. William Morrow;
Barker, David Brian (1982). "Every Moment's a Gift": Ernie Kovacs in Hollywood, 1957–1962, a Master's Thesis. Available for viewing at the library at the University of Texas at Austin
Rico, Diana (1990). Kovacsland: A Biography of Ernie Kovacs. Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich;
Walley, David (1975). Nothing in Moderation. Drake Publishers; Reprinted as The Ernie Kovacs Phile by David Walley, Bolder Books, 1978 and Fireside/Simon & Schuster, 1987;
External links
The Official Ernie Kovacs Website
Ernie Kovacs Dot Net: A Tribute To Television's Original Genius
Kovacsland Online! – the Ernie Kovacs website
List of Kovacs' 16 articles for MAD magazine
Watch
The Jack Benny Program with Ernie Kovacs as guest at the Internet Archive
Operation Mad Ball Trailer (1957) at the Internet Archive
John Barbour's documentary Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius at John Barbour's World
Ernie Kovacs Dutch Masters Cigar Commercial
1919 births
1962 deaths
20th-century American male actors
American people of Hungarian descent
American comedy writers
American game show hosts
American male film actors
American male television actors
American humorists
American satirists
American comics writers
American television talk show hosts
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
Emmy Award winners
Mad (magazine) people
Male actors from New Jersey
Actors from Trenton, New Jersey
Road incident deaths in California
Trenton Central High School alumni
Writers from Trenton, New Jersey
American male comedy actors
20th-century American comedians | false | [
"\"What Are You Gonna Tell Her?\" is a song written and recorded by American country music artist Mickey Guyton, which was released on March 6, 2020, as the first single from her third EP Bridges and was subsequently included on her debut album Remember Her Name.\n\nWriting\nGuyton was inspired to write the song when she met a young woman who had just arrived in Nashville with the intention to pursue a career in country music. She asked Guyton what she had to look forward to about following her dream and Guyton realized that she didn't have a single good thing to tell her. Additionally, while attending a Grammy party in L.A., Guyton remembers looking over at a table of female artists and wondering what they had to go through to achieve success in the male-dominated music industry. Of these two events, Guyton explained that “I remember thinking to myself, ‘We don’t own ourselves’. We are the change in these people's pocketbooks, and we are sacrificing everything for this.”\n\nFollowing the Grammys, Guyton flew back to Nashville for a songwriting session with Canadian artists Victoria Banks, Emma-Lee and Karen Kosowski. The four women started sharing stories of the difficulties they've experienced as women in both the music industry and the wider world which eventually resulted in the writing of \"What Are You Gonna Tell Her?\" Of the song, Banks stated that “I remember thinking ‘Oh man, radio is never going to play that.’ Then I was like, ‘I don’t care, because it’s more important to say it.” After completing the song, Guyton considered whether this was the end of her career in country music as she did not believe a song so raw would be accepted and, after ten years in Nashville, she still struggled to understand what the genre wanted her to be.\n\nSpeaking on the song, Guyton explained “I was trying so hard to fit into the stereotype of what country music is, that I forgot why I fell in love with country music. We’ve been in this period where it’s all about having a good time and drinking and girls. It’s so heavily male-dominated that I don’t hear myself, and I don’t see myself within it anymore. Country music is three chords and the truth. So I wrote my truth.”\n\nContent\nLyrically, the song is a ballad about gender discrimination, criticizing the injustices brought upon young women, people of color and children with big dreams. The chorus asks four simple yet devastating questions: \"What are you gonna tell her when she’s wrong?/Will you just shrug and say it’s been that way all along?/What are you gonna tell her when she figures out/That all this time you built her up just so the world can let her down? What are you gonna tell her\".\n\nLive performances\nGuyton performed the song at the Country Radio Seminar in February 2020, where she received a standing ovation. Reviewers called the song \"powerful and \"transcendent\", with Guyton's co-writer Victoria Banks tweeting “I'm still shaking. We wrote this three weeks ago from the gut. Today I watched [Guyton] bring the Ryman full of radio execs to their feet with it. God bless her for being brave enough. It was like she reached up and grabbed a giant elephant that we know is in the room, then pulled it down and showed it to everyone.”\n\nOn September 16, 2020, Guyton performed \"What Are You Gonna Tell Her?\" on stage at the Grand Ole Opry House as part of the 55th Academy of Country Music Awards with host Keith Urban backing her on piano. Guyton's performance made history as the first black woman to perform her own song solo at the ACM Awards (Rhianna previously dueted with Jennifer Nettles in 2011 and Valerie June appeared alongside Eric Church in 2013).\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\n2020s ballads\n2020 songs\nCapitol Records Nashville singles\nCountry ballads\nMickey Guyton songs\nSongs with feminist themes\nSongs written by Mickey Guyton\nSongs written by Victoria Banks",
"\"Don't Know What to Tell Ya\" is a song recorded by American singer Aaliyah. It was written by Static Major and Timbaland for her self-titled third and final studio album (2001) but failed to make the final cut. Following Aaliyah's death on August 25, 2001, it was included on her first posthumous compilation album I Care 4 U (2002). It was released as its second single on February 11, 2003 by Blackground Records and Universal Records.\n\nComposition\n\"Don't Know What to Tell Ya\" was described as having a \"noir-funk feel that evokes Blade Runner\" and it contains a sample from the Arabic song \"Batwannis Beek\" by Algerian singer Warda Al-Jazairia. On the song Aaliyah is telling a story about a failing relationship.\n\nCritical reception\nArion Berger from Rolling Stone praised Aaliyah's vocals on the song saying, \"Her sweet, strong voice whips around the ambivalence in Don't Know What to Tell Ya and melts the ends off the lines in the title song.\"\n\nTrack listing\nUK CD single\n \"Don't Know What to Tell Ya\" (edit version) – 3:03\n \"Don't Know What to Tell Ya\" (Handcuff Remix) – 5:18\n \"Miss You\" (music video)\n\nEuropean CD single\n \"Don't Know What to Tell Ya\" (radio edit) – 3:35\n \"Don't Know What to Tell Ya\" (Thomas Eriksen Mix) – 5:18\n \"Don't Know What to Tell Ya\" (Intenso Project Remix) – 6:58\n \"Don't Know What to Tell Ya\" (album version) – 5:02\n\nNote: The \"Handcuff Remix\" on the UK CD single and the \"Thomas Eriksen Mix\" on the European CD single are the same remix.\n\nCharts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2002 songs\n2003 singles\nAaliyah songs\nFunk songs\nSong recordings produced by Timbaland\nSongs written by Timbaland\nSongs written by Static Major"
] |
[
"3 Doors Down",
"Continued success: 2005-2010"
] | C_61f7b6bfa43f4590b3b5f6583174f11a_0 | What albums were released bewteen 2005-2010? | 1 | What albums for 3 Doors Down were released between 2005-2010? | 3 Doors Down | By 2005, the band had sold 12 million albums. The band's third studio album, 2005's Seventeen Days, has been certified platinum. Of the singles from it, "Let Me Go" and "Behind Those Eyes" charted with the most success. "Live for Today", "Landing in London" (on which Bob Seger sang the second verse and provided back-up vocals), and "Here by Me" were also released as singles. During the Seventeen Days tour, the band appeared alongside southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, as well as headlining many shows of their own. Later in 2005, the band released a live DVD entitled Away from the Sun: Live from Houston, Texas. The DVD was produced and directed by Academy Award nominated Alex Gibney and Doug Biro. It features songs from both The Better Life and Away from the Sun, and even some early sketches of "It's Not Me" and "Father's Son", which were both eventually released on Seventeen Days. Greg Upchurch, formerly of Puddle of Mudd, replaced Daniel Adair in 2005, when Adair left to become drummer and contributing member of Nickelback. 3 Doors Down released their self-titled fourth album on May 20, 2008. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 154,000 copies in its first week. It is the band's second consecutive No. 1 album on the chart after Seventeen Days, as well their fourth album to reach the Top Ten. The album contains the hit singles "It's Not My Time", "Train", "Let Me Be Myself" and "Citizen/Soldier", a song written as a tribute to the National Guard. In 2009, 3 Doors Down, along with The Soul Children of Chicago, released the song "In the Presence of the Lord" on the compilation album Oh Happy Day: An All-Star Music Celebration. The band recorded in 2009 a Christmas song called "Where My Christmas Lives", which was the first Christmas song Brad Arnold had ever written. It was digitally released along with seven acoustic songs on December 8. Six of these acoustic tracks were from the previous self-titled album, and one was an acoustic version of "Where my Christmas Lives". CANNOTANSWER | the band had sold 12 million albums. | 3 Doors Down is an American rock band from Escatawpa, Mississippi, formed in 1996. The band originally consisted of Brad Arnold (lead vocals, drums), Matt Roberts (lead guitar, backing vocals) and Todd Harrell (bass guitar). The band rose to international fame with their first single, "Kryptonite", which placed in the top three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The band then signed with Republic Records and released their debut album, The Better Life, in 2000. The album was the 11th-best-selling album of the year and was certified 6x platinum in the United States. The group was later joined by drummer Richard Liles, who played during the tour for their first album.
The band's second album, Away from the Sun (2002), continued the band's success; it debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 chart, went multi-platinum in the U.S. like its predecessor, and spawned the hits "When I'm Gone" and "Here Without You". The band toured extensively for two years. Daniel Adair played drums on tour from 2002 to 2006. This configuration played nearly 1,000 shows across the world following the release of Away from the Sun. In 2005, Greg Upchurch (Puddle of Mudd) joined to play drums to replace Adair. 3 Doors Down released their third album, Seventeen Days, in 2005. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart and was certified platinum within one month of release. The band continued their success with their next two albums, 3 Doors Down (2008) and Time of My Life (2011), debuting at No. 1 and No. 3 respectively on the Billboard 200 chart. Their latest album, Us and the Night, was released in 2016; they were working on new material for a seventh studio album as of 2019.
The band has been primarily described as post-grunge and alternative rock, while occasionally crossing into hard rock, and Southern rock. Their lyrical content contains overarching themes of angst, rebellion, revenge, yearning, and abandonment. 3 Doors Down has sold 30 million copies worldwide.
Original guitarist Matt Roberts departed in 2012, owing to health issues. He was replaced by Chet Roberts, who was formerly Chris Henderson's guitar tech. Harrell was fired from the band in 2013 after being charged with vehicular homicide, and was replaced by bassist Justin Biltonen.
History
Formative years: 1996–1998
3 Doors Down initially consisted of Brad Arnold as the lead vocalist and drummer, Matt Roberts as the lead guitarist and backing vocalist, and Todd Harrell as the bass guitarist. The band began to tour outside Escatawpa, Mississippi, eventually coming up with their official name during a trip to Foley, Alabama. When the three were walking through the town, they saw a building where some letters had fallen off its sign, reading "Doors Down". Since the band consisted of three people at the time, they added the "3" to create "3 Doors Down". The cover of their 2011 album Time of My Life hints at the original number of band members (3) and current band members (5); the clock on the album cover reads 3:05.
A couple of years after performing together, Todd Harrell asked rhythm guitarist Chris Henderson to join the band in 1998. 3 Doors Down recorded a demo CD of their original songs at Lincoln Recording in Pascagoula, Mississippi. When the band gave the CD to local radio station WCPR-FM, they started playing the EP version of "Kryptonite" and it became the No. 1 requested song on the station for over 15 weeks. The station's program director sent the song to manager Phin Daly who in turn showed it to Bill McGathy, his employer at In De Goot Entertainment. The band was booked in New York to perform a showcase at the CBGB music club. Daly told HitQuarters: "Once they got on stage and started playing it was apparent the magic was in the music. So we moved to sign them."
Mainstream success: 1999–2004
3 Doors Down's first studio album, The Better Life, was released on February 8, 2000 and went on to become the 11th best-selling album of the year, selling over three million copies. It has since been certified 6x platinum, thanks in large part to the international hit singles, "Kryptonite", "Loser", and "Duck and Run". A fourth single, "Be Like That" was re-recorded for the 2001 film American Pie 2, with alternate lyrics for the first three lines; this version is known as the "American Pie 2 Edit". Whilst recording the album, Brad Arnold recorded both the vocal and drum tracks. The band hired drummer Richard Liles for the tour in support of The Better Life so that Arnold could perform at the front of the stage. Liles left in late 2001.
The band's second studio album, Away from the Sun, was released on November 12, 2002 and went platinum within two months of release. The album also produced singles, including "When I'm Gone", "Here Without You", and "The Road I'm On". The album has sold four million copies worldwide, including well over three million in the U.S. Session drummer Josh Freese was hired to record drums for the album. Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson produced and performed on three tracks for the record, "Dangerous Game", "Dead Love", and "Wasted Me", but only "Dangerous Game" would appear on the finished product. The band hired Canadian Daniel Adair to play drums for the Away From the Sun tour. He would go on to record the drums for the band's next studio release, and was with the band aboard the USS George Washington (CVN-73) to film the music video "When I'm Gone".
In 2003, 3 Doors Down released a live EP entitled Another 700 Miles consisting of recordings from a live performance by the band in Chicago, Illinois. Another 700 Miles has since been certified Gold in the United States. In addition to featuring some of 3 Doors Down's hit singles from their previous two albums, the EP also contains a version of the popular 1977 Lynyrd Skynyrd song "That Smell". The group toured with Nickelback in 2004.
In 2003, the band began hosting the annual "3 Doors Down and Friends" benefit concert, through the band's own charity The Better Life Foundation. In 2006, this event was held at the Mobile Convention Center, with proceeds benefiting Hurricane Katrina survivors. As residents of Escatawpa, the members of the band saw the effects of Katrina's devastation.
Continued success: 2005–2010
By 2005, the band had sold 12 million albums. The band's third studio album, 2005's Seventeen Days, has been certified platinum. Of the singles from it, "Let Me Go" and "Behind Those Eyes" charted with the most success. "Live for Today", "Landing in London" (on which Bob Seger sang the second verse and provided back-up vocals), and "Here by Me" were also released as singles. During the Seventeen Days tour, the band appeared alongside southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, as well as headlining many shows of their own.
Later in 2005, the band released a live DVD entitled Away from the Sun: Live from Houston, Texas. The DVD was produced and directed by Academy Award-nominated Alex Gibney and Doug Biro. It features songs from both The Better Life and Away from the Sun, and even some early sketches of "It's Not Me" and "Father's Son", which were both eventually released on Seventeen Days.
Greg Upchurch, formerly of Puddle of Mudd, replaced Daniel Adair in 2005, when Adair left to become drummer and contributing member of Nickelback.
3 Doors Down released their self-titled fourth album on May 20, 2008. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 154,000 copies in its first week. It is the band's second consecutive No. 1 album on the chart after Seventeen Days, as well their fourth album to reach the Top Ten. The album contains the hit singles "It's Not My Time", "Train", "Let Me Be Myself" and "Citizen/Soldier", a song written as a tribute to the National Guard. In 2009, 3 Doors Down, along with The Soul Children of Chicago, released the song "In the Presence of the Lord" on the compilation album Oh Happy Day: An All-Star Music Celebration.
In 2009, the band recorded a Christmas song called "Where My Christmas Lives", which was the first Christmas song Brad Arnold had ever written. It was digitally released along with seven acoustic songs on December 8. Six of these acoustic tracks were from the previous self-titled album, and one was an acoustic version of "Where my Christmas Lives".
Line-up changes: 2011–2013
3 Doors Down released their fifth studio album, Time of My Life, on July 19, 2011. The band had earlier released "When You're Young" as the first single from the album on January 10, 2011. The single reached a position of 81 on the US Billboard Hot 100. A second single from the album, "Every Time You Go" was released to digital outlets on May 23, 2011. The band embarked on a tour in July 2011 across the US, Europe, and the United Kingdom in support of the album. The album debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, with 59,800 copies sold in its first week. Beginning in May 2012, the band embarked on a six-week-long 'Gang of Outlaws Tour' with headliners ZZ Top and opener Gretchen Wilson.
On May 23, 2012, Matt Roberts announced he was leaving the band to focus on his health. He told fans in a statement that "3 Doors Down will always have a special place in my heart and it saddens me to take this time off. But my health has to be my first priority". Guitarist Chris Henderson announced on Twitter that his old guitar tech Chet Roberts would be taking over from Matt Roberts on lead guitar.
After the "Gang of Outlaws" tour finished, the band said in an interview that they were entering the studio to record three or four new songs to put on their very first Greatest Hits album, which was released on November 19, 2012. During the tail end of the Gang of Outlaws tour, they debuted a new song "One Light" which was included on the band's The Greatest Hits. Guitarist Chris Henderson announced on Twitter they would be back in the studio a few weeks after the tour had ended. In late 2012, the band appeared at several smaller shows including one in Huntington, NY. The band performed at Download Festival 2013 at the Zippo Encore Stage on the Friday of the three-day festival. From the tailend of 2012 through to March 2013, 3 Doors Down went on a joint headlining tour with US rock band Daughtry to promote Daughtry's 3rd studio album release. The cover of "In the Air Tonight" was captured and uploaded to Daughtry's official YouTube channel. The band also played the Dubai Jazz Festival in February 2013.
On April 20, 2013, bassist Todd Harrell was charged with vehicular homicide for his actions the night before in Nashville, Tennessee. He was reportedly driving on I-40 at a high speed while under the influence of prescription medication when he caused an accident that killed 47-year-old Paul Howard Shoulders, Jr. The judge in the case harshly criticized the musician's doctor in the courtroom, accusing the physician of prescribing Harrell far too many pain pills. The judge stated that Harrell "got 360 Oxycodone and 60 Oxycontin pills from his doctor in less than 30 days, which is well outside the amount that is usually prescribed in the due course of medical treatment". Harrell was also charged with bringing a controlled substance into a correctional detention facility after it was discovered during the booking process at Nashville's Metro Jail that Harrell had a plastic bag hidden in his sock that contained eight Xanax pills, twenty four Oxycodone pills, and four Oxymorphone pills. Harrell's court and trial dates have been repeatedly postponed by Harrell's attorneys for various reasons, including a rehab stay. In December 2015, Harrell was sentenced to two years imprisonment followed by six years of probation.
3 Doors Down later announced that the four scheduled shows in the U.S. for April and May had been cancelled out of respect for Shoulders and his family. The European tour with Prime Circle and the summer tour dates with Daughtry, which had been announced the day after the incident in Nashville, remained intact. On May 24, a week before the start on the European tour, Justin Biltonen, formerly of The Campaign 1984, was announced as the band's new bassist. The tour, starting in Moscow, Russia began on May 31, 2013. On July 20, 2013, they played live at the 2013 National Scout Jamboree at the Summit Bechtel Reserve.
Us and the Night and death of Matt Roberts: 2014–2018
In January 2014, Chris Henderson stated that their new album would be released sometime in the year. From the end of 2013 into 2014, the band embarked on an acoustic tour entitled "Songs from the Basement" and toured around the US. In February 2014, Todd Harrell was arrested in Mississippi once again for a DUI. Afterward, the band released a statement that Harrell was permanently out of the band, and that they would continue with Justin Biltonen as his replacement. In June, Henderson announced that the new album would be titled Us and the Night. It was originally set to be released between September and November 2015. In January 2016, the album's release date was finally revealed to be March 11, 2016. The band then went on tour around North America and in festivals such as Fort rock and Carolina Rebellion. 3 Doors Down toured the UK and Europe with multiple sold-out shows.
Former guitarist Matt Roberts died on August 20, 2016 at the age of 38 from a prescription drug overdose.
3 Doors Down performed at the presidential inauguration concert of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on January 20, 2017. Arnold told TMZ that he was "proud" to perform and that he thinks it would be a "good experience". Fans of the band expressed mixed to negative feedback about it performing at the inauguration; the band received criticism and ridicule for playing at the event. 3 Doors Down's business manager, Angus Vail, explained to Vice the reasons behind the band's decision to perform by saying: "Well, 3 Doors actually played George W. Bush's inauguration. They are good Mississippi and Alabama boys — they come from conservative families. You know, they're really good guys, but they have very different political beliefs. Because they played both Bush's inaugurations, they've obviously been on the conservative radar." Vail continued that the band's choice to perform had a lot to do with their "God, guns, and country black-and-white sort of viewpoint" and that "they spend a lot of time going to Iraq, doing service, playing for the troops." In the week following the performance, the band's The Greatest Hits album reentered the Billboard 200 at a new peak of No. 94; the album had debuted and peaked at No. 100 in 2012 and had been off the chart since April 2016.
In 2018, 3 Doors Down embarked on the Rock n' Roll Express tour along with Collective Soul and opening act Soul Asylum. The tour had shows in 36 cities in the United States.
Upcoming seventh studio album: 2018–present
In July 2018, Brad Arnold stated that 3 Doors Down had been writing new material; "Who knows when we'll follow that one up. But we have been writing new songs. Maybe we'll release a single or a couple of new songs. We just might not release an album for a while. We still love creating new material — there's just not a market for it. But fans still like going out and seeing us." In August 2019, Arnold stated that the band would soon begin working on a follow-up to Us and the Night.
In July 2020, 3 Doors Down announced that they would be releasing a new single, which would have been the band's first new release since their 2016 album Us and the Night.
Other appearances
On February 9, 2010, the band released a song called "Shine", through digital media such as iTunes, which was used as a promotion for the 2010 Winter Olympics and is available through digital outlets. Billboard listed 3 Doors Down as the No. 30 band in the decade from 2000 to 2010.
On January 30, 2011, 3 Doors Down played during the 1st period intermission of the 2011 NHL All-Star Game in Raleigh, North Carolina. They played two songs: "When You're Young" followed by "Kryptonite". The band also held a free concert as part of the weekend festivities on January 28, 2011 in downtown Raleigh.
On June 28–29, 2014, 3 Doors Down played both days at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan. They played all of their greatest hits and two new songs. This was at the Americafest celebration.
The Better Life Foundation
3 Doors Down started The Better Life Foundation (TBLF) in 2003, with a goal in mind to give as many children as possible a better life. Since its inception TBLF has supported numerous charities across the US, including the Center for the Prevention of Child Abuse, and the Habitat for Humanity, as well as providing aid and assistance to the Gulf Coast region of Mississippi during Hurricane Katrina. In 2006, Brad Arnold stated that approximately $900,000 had been raised.
When the Mississippi town of Waveland took an especially hard hit from Hurricane Katrina, the charity was able to purchase three police cars and a fire truck to help with rescue efforts. Also, in connection with Wal-Mart, they were able to supply the town with three semi-trucks full of rescue supplies. There was also extensive support from TBLF in providing funding for rebuilding efforts in the town.
3 Doors Down and The Better Life Foundation host a yearly show to raise money for the charity. Beginning in 2010, the show is performed at Horseshoe Hotel and Casino, in Tunica, Mississippi. Prior to 2010, the show was performed at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi. In addition to a concert from 3 Doors Down and friends, there is also an auction, which includes numerous items from musical friends, sports icons, and other various supporters of the band and the charity. There is an average of sixty items auctioned off yearly, and proceeds are given to TBLF. As of 2016, The Better Life Foundation annual benefit concert has been held at Harrah's Cherokee Casino Resort in Cherokee, North Carolina.
Past performers at the show include Lynyrd Skynyrd, Shinedown, Alter Bridge, Staind, Hinder, Switchfoot, Tracy Lawrence, Sara Evans, and others. Past auction items include a Paul Stanley guitar played on the KISS Farewell Tour, a total of four Roger Bourget motorcycles, access to the Dale Jr. racing suite, NASCAR artwork by Brad Daley, numerous signed guitars, and sports memorabilia.
Band members
Current members
Brad Arnold – lead vocals (1996–present), drums (1996–2000)
Chris Henderson – rhythm and lead guitar (1998–present)
Greg Upchurch – drums (2005–present)
Chet Roberts – lead and rhythm guitar, backing vocals (2012–present)
Justin Biltonen – bass (2013–present)
Former members
Matt Roberts – lead guitar, backing vocals (1996–2012; died 2016)
Todd Harrell – bass (1996–2013)
Richard Liles – drums (2000–2002)
Daniel Adair – drums, backing vocals (2002–2005)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
The Better Life (2000)
Away from the Sun (2002)
Seventeen Days (2005)
3 Doors Down (2008)
Time of My Life (2011)
Us and the Night (2016)
Accolades
References
External links
The Better Life Foundation
Chet Roberts Interview NAMM Oral History Library (2019)
Articles which contain graphical timelines
Alternative rock groups from Mississippi
American hard rock musical groups
American post-grunge musical groups
Musical groups established in 1996
Musical quintets
Republic Records artists
Universal Records artists | true | [
"Alive in You is the first studio album by Christian rock band 7eventh Time Down, released on September 13, 2011.\n\nTrack listing\n\nSingles \n\n\"Alive in You\" and \"What About Tonight\" were released as singles. \"Alive in You\" charted at number 46 on the Billboard Hot Christian Songs chart, and \"What About Tonight\" charted at number 26 on the Christian rock chart.\n\nReferences \n\n2011 debut albums\n7eventh Time Down albums\nBEC Recordings albums\nTooth & Nail Records albums",
"Tree63 is Tree63's third album, released in October 24, 2000. It features songs from the first two studio albums Overflow and 63. Joy and Worldwide were originally released on Overflow, the remaining tracks were originally released on 63.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Treasure\"\n \"Joy\"\n \"Look What You've Done\"\n \"Sacrifice\"\n \"Earnestly\"\n \"Anthem\"\n \"A Million Lights\"\n \"1*0*1*\"\n \"Can I See Your Face?\"\n \"Worldwide\"\n\nSee also \nTree63\n\nChristian rock\n\nReferences \n\n2000 albums\nTree63 albums\nInpop Records albums"
] |
[
"3 Doors Down",
"Continued success: 2005-2010",
"What albums were released bewteen 2005-2010?",
"the band had sold 12 million albums."
] | C_61f7b6bfa43f4590b3b5f6583174f11a_0 | What were the titles of the albums? | 2 | What were the titles of the albums for 3 Doors Down released between 2005-2010?? | 3 Doors Down | By 2005, the band had sold 12 million albums. The band's third studio album, 2005's Seventeen Days, has been certified platinum. Of the singles from it, "Let Me Go" and "Behind Those Eyes" charted with the most success. "Live for Today", "Landing in London" (on which Bob Seger sang the second verse and provided back-up vocals), and "Here by Me" were also released as singles. During the Seventeen Days tour, the band appeared alongside southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, as well as headlining many shows of their own. Later in 2005, the band released a live DVD entitled Away from the Sun: Live from Houston, Texas. The DVD was produced and directed by Academy Award nominated Alex Gibney and Doug Biro. It features songs from both The Better Life and Away from the Sun, and even some early sketches of "It's Not Me" and "Father's Son", which were both eventually released on Seventeen Days. Greg Upchurch, formerly of Puddle of Mudd, replaced Daniel Adair in 2005, when Adair left to become drummer and contributing member of Nickelback. 3 Doors Down released their self-titled fourth album on May 20, 2008. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 154,000 copies in its first week. It is the band's second consecutive No. 1 album on the chart after Seventeen Days, as well their fourth album to reach the Top Ten. The album contains the hit singles "It's Not My Time", "Train", "Let Me Be Myself" and "Citizen/Soldier", a song written as a tribute to the National Guard. In 2009, 3 Doors Down, along with The Soul Children of Chicago, released the song "In the Presence of the Lord" on the compilation album Oh Happy Day: An All-Star Music Celebration. The band recorded in 2009 a Christmas song called "Where My Christmas Lives", which was the first Christmas song Brad Arnold had ever written. It was digitally released along with seven acoustic songs on December 8. Six of these acoustic tracks were from the previous self-titled album, and one was an acoustic version of "Where my Christmas Lives". CANNOTANSWER | 2005's Seventeen Days, | 3 Doors Down is an American rock band from Escatawpa, Mississippi, formed in 1996. The band originally consisted of Brad Arnold (lead vocals, drums), Matt Roberts (lead guitar, backing vocals) and Todd Harrell (bass guitar). The band rose to international fame with their first single, "Kryptonite", which placed in the top three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The band then signed with Republic Records and released their debut album, The Better Life, in 2000. The album was the 11th-best-selling album of the year and was certified 6x platinum in the United States. The group was later joined by drummer Richard Liles, who played during the tour for their first album.
The band's second album, Away from the Sun (2002), continued the band's success; it debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 chart, went multi-platinum in the U.S. like its predecessor, and spawned the hits "When I'm Gone" and "Here Without You". The band toured extensively for two years. Daniel Adair played drums on tour from 2002 to 2006. This configuration played nearly 1,000 shows across the world following the release of Away from the Sun. In 2005, Greg Upchurch (Puddle of Mudd) joined to play drums to replace Adair. 3 Doors Down released their third album, Seventeen Days, in 2005. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart and was certified platinum within one month of release. The band continued their success with their next two albums, 3 Doors Down (2008) and Time of My Life (2011), debuting at No. 1 and No. 3 respectively on the Billboard 200 chart. Their latest album, Us and the Night, was released in 2016; they were working on new material for a seventh studio album as of 2019.
The band has been primarily described as post-grunge and alternative rock, while occasionally crossing into hard rock, and Southern rock. Their lyrical content contains overarching themes of angst, rebellion, revenge, yearning, and abandonment. 3 Doors Down has sold 30 million copies worldwide.
Original guitarist Matt Roberts departed in 2012, owing to health issues. He was replaced by Chet Roberts, who was formerly Chris Henderson's guitar tech. Harrell was fired from the band in 2013 after being charged with vehicular homicide, and was replaced by bassist Justin Biltonen.
History
Formative years: 1996–1998
3 Doors Down initially consisted of Brad Arnold as the lead vocalist and drummer, Matt Roberts as the lead guitarist and backing vocalist, and Todd Harrell as the bass guitarist. The band began to tour outside Escatawpa, Mississippi, eventually coming up with their official name during a trip to Foley, Alabama. When the three were walking through the town, they saw a building where some letters had fallen off its sign, reading "Doors Down". Since the band consisted of three people at the time, they added the "3" to create "3 Doors Down". The cover of their 2011 album Time of My Life hints at the original number of band members (3) and current band members (5); the clock on the album cover reads 3:05.
A couple of years after performing together, Todd Harrell asked rhythm guitarist Chris Henderson to join the band in 1998. 3 Doors Down recorded a demo CD of their original songs at Lincoln Recording in Pascagoula, Mississippi. When the band gave the CD to local radio station WCPR-FM, they started playing the EP version of "Kryptonite" and it became the No. 1 requested song on the station for over 15 weeks. The station's program director sent the song to manager Phin Daly who in turn showed it to Bill McGathy, his employer at In De Goot Entertainment. The band was booked in New York to perform a showcase at the CBGB music club. Daly told HitQuarters: "Once they got on stage and started playing it was apparent the magic was in the music. So we moved to sign them."
Mainstream success: 1999–2004
3 Doors Down's first studio album, The Better Life, was released on February 8, 2000 and went on to become the 11th best-selling album of the year, selling over three million copies. It has since been certified 6x platinum, thanks in large part to the international hit singles, "Kryptonite", "Loser", and "Duck and Run". A fourth single, "Be Like That" was re-recorded for the 2001 film American Pie 2, with alternate lyrics for the first three lines; this version is known as the "American Pie 2 Edit". Whilst recording the album, Brad Arnold recorded both the vocal and drum tracks. The band hired drummer Richard Liles for the tour in support of The Better Life so that Arnold could perform at the front of the stage. Liles left in late 2001.
The band's second studio album, Away from the Sun, was released on November 12, 2002 and went platinum within two months of release. The album also produced singles, including "When I'm Gone", "Here Without You", and "The Road I'm On". The album has sold four million copies worldwide, including well over three million in the U.S. Session drummer Josh Freese was hired to record drums for the album. Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson produced and performed on three tracks for the record, "Dangerous Game", "Dead Love", and "Wasted Me", but only "Dangerous Game" would appear on the finished product. The band hired Canadian Daniel Adair to play drums for the Away From the Sun tour. He would go on to record the drums for the band's next studio release, and was with the band aboard the USS George Washington (CVN-73) to film the music video "When I'm Gone".
In 2003, 3 Doors Down released a live EP entitled Another 700 Miles consisting of recordings from a live performance by the band in Chicago, Illinois. Another 700 Miles has since been certified Gold in the United States. In addition to featuring some of 3 Doors Down's hit singles from their previous two albums, the EP also contains a version of the popular 1977 Lynyrd Skynyrd song "That Smell". The group toured with Nickelback in 2004.
In 2003, the band began hosting the annual "3 Doors Down and Friends" benefit concert, through the band's own charity The Better Life Foundation. In 2006, this event was held at the Mobile Convention Center, with proceeds benefiting Hurricane Katrina survivors. As residents of Escatawpa, the members of the band saw the effects of Katrina's devastation.
Continued success: 2005–2010
By 2005, the band had sold 12 million albums. The band's third studio album, 2005's Seventeen Days, has been certified platinum. Of the singles from it, "Let Me Go" and "Behind Those Eyes" charted with the most success. "Live for Today", "Landing in London" (on which Bob Seger sang the second verse and provided back-up vocals), and "Here by Me" were also released as singles. During the Seventeen Days tour, the band appeared alongside southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, as well as headlining many shows of their own.
Later in 2005, the band released a live DVD entitled Away from the Sun: Live from Houston, Texas. The DVD was produced and directed by Academy Award-nominated Alex Gibney and Doug Biro. It features songs from both The Better Life and Away from the Sun, and even some early sketches of "It's Not Me" and "Father's Son", which were both eventually released on Seventeen Days.
Greg Upchurch, formerly of Puddle of Mudd, replaced Daniel Adair in 2005, when Adair left to become drummer and contributing member of Nickelback.
3 Doors Down released their self-titled fourth album on May 20, 2008. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 154,000 copies in its first week. It is the band's second consecutive No. 1 album on the chart after Seventeen Days, as well their fourth album to reach the Top Ten. The album contains the hit singles "It's Not My Time", "Train", "Let Me Be Myself" and "Citizen/Soldier", a song written as a tribute to the National Guard. In 2009, 3 Doors Down, along with The Soul Children of Chicago, released the song "In the Presence of the Lord" on the compilation album Oh Happy Day: An All-Star Music Celebration.
In 2009, the band recorded a Christmas song called "Where My Christmas Lives", which was the first Christmas song Brad Arnold had ever written. It was digitally released along with seven acoustic songs on December 8. Six of these acoustic tracks were from the previous self-titled album, and one was an acoustic version of "Where my Christmas Lives".
Line-up changes: 2011–2013
3 Doors Down released their fifth studio album, Time of My Life, on July 19, 2011. The band had earlier released "When You're Young" as the first single from the album on January 10, 2011. The single reached a position of 81 on the US Billboard Hot 100. A second single from the album, "Every Time You Go" was released to digital outlets on May 23, 2011. The band embarked on a tour in July 2011 across the US, Europe, and the United Kingdom in support of the album. The album debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, with 59,800 copies sold in its first week. Beginning in May 2012, the band embarked on a six-week-long 'Gang of Outlaws Tour' with headliners ZZ Top and opener Gretchen Wilson.
On May 23, 2012, Matt Roberts announced he was leaving the band to focus on his health. He told fans in a statement that "3 Doors Down will always have a special place in my heart and it saddens me to take this time off. But my health has to be my first priority". Guitarist Chris Henderson announced on Twitter that his old guitar tech Chet Roberts would be taking over from Matt Roberts on lead guitar.
After the "Gang of Outlaws" tour finished, the band said in an interview that they were entering the studio to record three or four new songs to put on their very first Greatest Hits album, which was released on November 19, 2012. During the tail end of the Gang of Outlaws tour, they debuted a new song "One Light" which was included on the band's The Greatest Hits. Guitarist Chris Henderson announced on Twitter they would be back in the studio a few weeks after the tour had ended. In late 2012, the band appeared at several smaller shows including one in Huntington, NY. The band performed at Download Festival 2013 at the Zippo Encore Stage on the Friday of the three-day festival. From the tailend of 2012 through to March 2013, 3 Doors Down went on a joint headlining tour with US rock band Daughtry to promote Daughtry's 3rd studio album release. The cover of "In the Air Tonight" was captured and uploaded to Daughtry's official YouTube channel. The band also played the Dubai Jazz Festival in February 2013.
On April 20, 2013, bassist Todd Harrell was charged with vehicular homicide for his actions the night before in Nashville, Tennessee. He was reportedly driving on I-40 at a high speed while under the influence of prescription medication when he caused an accident that killed 47-year-old Paul Howard Shoulders, Jr. The judge in the case harshly criticized the musician's doctor in the courtroom, accusing the physician of prescribing Harrell far too many pain pills. The judge stated that Harrell "got 360 Oxycodone and 60 Oxycontin pills from his doctor in less than 30 days, which is well outside the amount that is usually prescribed in the due course of medical treatment". Harrell was also charged with bringing a controlled substance into a correctional detention facility after it was discovered during the booking process at Nashville's Metro Jail that Harrell had a plastic bag hidden in his sock that contained eight Xanax pills, twenty four Oxycodone pills, and four Oxymorphone pills. Harrell's court and trial dates have been repeatedly postponed by Harrell's attorneys for various reasons, including a rehab stay. In December 2015, Harrell was sentenced to two years imprisonment followed by six years of probation.
3 Doors Down later announced that the four scheduled shows in the U.S. for April and May had been cancelled out of respect for Shoulders and his family. The European tour with Prime Circle and the summer tour dates with Daughtry, which had been announced the day after the incident in Nashville, remained intact. On May 24, a week before the start on the European tour, Justin Biltonen, formerly of The Campaign 1984, was announced as the band's new bassist. The tour, starting in Moscow, Russia began on May 31, 2013. On July 20, 2013, they played live at the 2013 National Scout Jamboree at the Summit Bechtel Reserve.
Us and the Night and death of Matt Roberts: 2014–2018
In January 2014, Chris Henderson stated that their new album would be released sometime in the year. From the end of 2013 into 2014, the band embarked on an acoustic tour entitled "Songs from the Basement" and toured around the US. In February 2014, Todd Harrell was arrested in Mississippi once again for a DUI. Afterward, the band released a statement that Harrell was permanently out of the band, and that they would continue with Justin Biltonen as his replacement. In June, Henderson announced that the new album would be titled Us and the Night. It was originally set to be released between September and November 2015. In January 2016, the album's release date was finally revealed to be March 11, 2016. The band then went on tour around North America and in festivals such as Fort rock and Carolina Rebellion. 3 Doors Down toured the UK and Europe with multiple sold-out shows.
Former guitarist Matt Roberts died on August 20, 2016 at the age of 38 from a prescription drug overdose.
3 Doors Down performed at the presidential inauguration concert of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on January 20, 2017. Arnold told TMZ that he was "proud" to perform and that he thinks it would be a "good experience". Fans of the band expressed mixed to negative feedback about it performing at the inauguration; the band received criticism and ridicule for playing at the event. 3 Doors Down's business manager, Angus Vail, explained to Vice the reasons behind the band's decision to perform by saying: "Well, 3 Doors actually played George W. Bush's inauguration. They are good Mississippi and Alabama boys — they come from conservative families. You know, they're really good guys, but they have very different political beliefs. Because they played both Bush's inaugurations, they've obviously been on the conservative radar." Vail continued that the band's choice to perform had a lot to do with their "God, guns, and country black-and-white sort of viewpoint" and that "they spend a lot of time going to Iraq, doing service, playing for the troops." In the week following the performance, the band's The Greatest Hits album reentered the Billboard 200 at a new peak of No. 94; the album had debuted and peaked at No. 100 in 2012 and had been off the chart since April 2016.
In 2018, 3 Doors Down embarked on the Rock n' Roll Express tour along with Collective Soul and opening act Soul Asylum. The tour had shows in 36 cities in the United States.
Upcoming seventh studio album: 2018–present
In July 2018, Brad Arnold stated that 3 Doors Down had been writing new material; "Who knows when we'll follow that one up. But we have been writing new songs. Maybe we'll release a single or a couple of new songs. We just might not release an album for a while. We still love creating new material — there's just not a market for it. But fans still like going out and seeing us." In August 2019, Arnold stated that the band would soon begin working on a follow-up to Us and the Night.
In July 2020, 3 Doors Down announced that they would be releasing a new single, which would have been the band's first new release since their 2016 album Us and the Night.
Other appearances
On February 9, 2010, the band released a song called "Shine", through digital media such as iTunes, which was used as a promotion for the 2010 Winter Olympics and is available through digital outlets. Billboard listed 3 Doors Down as the No. 30 band in the decade from 2000 to 2010.
On January 30, 2011, 3 Doors Down played during the 1st period intermission of the 2011 NHL All-Star Game in Raleigh, North Carolina. They played two songs: "When You're Young" followed by "Kryptonite". The band also held a free concert as part of the weekend festivities on January 28, 2011 in downtown Raleigh.
On June 28–29, 2014, 3 Doors Down played both days at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan. They played all of their greatest hits and two new songs. This was at the Americafest celebration.
The Better Life Foundation
3 Doors Down started The Better Life Foundation (TBLF) in 2003, with a goal in mind to give as many children as possible a better life. Since its inception TBLF has supported numerous charities across the US, including the Center for the Prevention of Child Abuse, and the Habitat for Humanity, as well as providing aid and assistance to the Gulf Coast region of Mississippi during Hurricane Katrina. In 2006, Brad Arnold stated that approximately $900,000 had been raised.
When the Mississippi town of Waveland took an especially hard hit from Hurricane Katrina, the charity was able to purchase three police cars and a fire truck to help with rescue efforts. Also, in connection with Wal-Mart, they were able to supply the town with three semi-trucks full of rescue supplies. There was also extensive support from TBLF in providing funding for rebuilding efforts in the town.
3 Doors Down and The Better Life Foundation host a yearly show to raise money for the charity. Beginning in 2010, the show is performed at Horseshoe Hotel and Casino, in Tunica, Mississippi. Prior to 2010, the show was performed at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi. In addition to a concert from 3 Doors Down and friends, there is also an auction, which includes numerous items from musical friends, sports icons, and other various supporters of the band and the charity. There is an average of sixty items auctioned off yearly, and proceeds are given to TBLF. As of 2016, The Better Life Foundation annual benefit concert has been held at Harrah's Cherokee Casino Resort in Cherokee, North Carolina.
Past performers at the show include Lynyrd Skynyrd, Shinedown, Alter Bridge, Staind, Hinder, Switchfoot, Tracy Lawrence, Sara Evans, and others. Past auction items include a Paul Stanley guitar played on the KISS Farewell Tour, a total of four Roger Bourget motorcycles, access to the Dale Jr. racing suite, NASCAR artwork by Brad Daley, numerous signed guitars, and sports memorabilia.
Band members
Current members
Brad Arnold – lead vocals (1996–present), drums (1996–2000)
Chris Henderson – rhythm and lead guitar (1998–present)
Greg Upchurch – drums (2005–present)
Chet Roberts – lead and rhythm guitar, backing vocals (2012–present)
Justin Biltonen – bass (2013–present)
Former members
Matt Roberts – lead guitar, backing vocals (1996–2012; died 2016)
Todd Harrell – bass (1996–2013)
Richard Liles – drums (2000–2002)
Daniel Adair – drums, backing vocals (2002–2005)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
The Better Life (2000)
Away from the Sun (2002)
Seventeen Days (2005)
3 Doors Down (2008)
Time of My Life (2011)
Us and the Night (2016)
Accolades
References
External links
The Better Life Foundation
Chet Roberts Interview NAMM Oral History Library (2019)
Articles which contain graphical timelines
Alternative rock groups from Mississippi
American hard rock musical groups
American post-grunge musical groups
Musical groups established in 1996
Musical quintets
Republic Records artists
Universal Records artists | true | [
"The Early Four Track Recordings is a compilation album by indie rock band Of Montreal. It contains early recordings from the band, with the song titles telling a fictional story about actor Dustin Hoffman. Though the titles feature Dustin Hoffman, the album name and content have nothing to do with him, and the titles were chosen only for humor.\n\nTrack listing\n\nOf Montreal albums\n2001 compilation albums\nKindercore Records compilation albums",
"The English Panther is the self-titled debut album from The English Panther, a solo project by Travis Stever of Coheed and Cambria. It was released December 22, 2006.\n\nThe cover was designed by Skyler Stever.\n\nSome of the album's songs were leaked in early 2006 under different titles. For example, \"American Shmuck\" was leaked as \"American Cocksucker\".\n\nTrack listing \n \"Angel On the Shoulder\" – 2:46\n \"Storms\" – 3:14\n \"Wicked Sun\" – 2:43\n \"Threat\" – 1:56\n \"Live to Tell\" – 4:11\n \"Panther Medley\" – 2:50\n \"12 Hours\" – 2:49\n \"Ok I Will Drive\" – 2:34\n \"All Rite for Now\" – 2:20\n \"High Tips\" – 1:47\n \"Kiss of a Wrecking Ball – 2:03\n \"Step to the One\" – 1:26\n \"Tongue Tied\" – 2:58\n \"I Am Tired of Driving\" – 3:13\n \"American Shmuck\" – 1:45\n \"Modern Math\" – 2:04\n \"What???\" – 2:17\n\nReferences \n\n2006 debut albums\nDavenport Cabinet albums"
] |