Sammy Davis, Jr. (1925-1990)

Sammy Davis, Jr.

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This article is about the entertainer. For other persons, see Sammy Davis (disambiguation).

Sammy Davis, Jr.
Born	Samuel George Davis, Jr. December 8, 1925(1925-12-08) Harlem, New York, U.S.
Died	May 16, 1990 (aged 64) Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Occupation	Singer, tap dancer, actor, musician
Years active	1928–1990
Religion	Judaism
Spouse	Loray White (1958-1959) May Britt (1960-1968) Altovise Davis (1970-1990)
Children	Tracey (b. 1961) Mark (b. 1964) Jeff (b. 1965) Manny (b. 1988)
Parents	Sammy Davis, Sr. (father) Elvera Sanchez (mother)
Website
sammydavis-jr.com

Samuel George “Sammy” Davis, Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American entertainer.
Primarily a dancer and singer, Davis was a childhood vaudevillian, and became known for his performances on Broadway and in Las Vegas, as a recording artist, television and film star, and the only black member of Frank Sinatra‘s “Rat Pack“.
At the age of three Davis began his career in vaudeville with his father and “uncle” as the Will Mastin Trio, toured nationally, and after military service, returned to the trio. Davis became an overnight sensation following a nightclub performance at Ciro’s after the 1951 Academy Awards, with the trio, became a recording artist, and made his first film performances as an adult later that decade. Losing his left eye in a car accident in 1954, he converted to Judaism and appeared in the first Rat Pack movie, Ocean’s 11, in 1960. After a starring role on Broadway in 1956’s Mr Wonderful, Davis returned to the stage in 1964’s Golden Boy, and in 1966 had his own TV variety show, The Sammy Davis Jr. Show. Davis’s career slowed in the late sixties, but he had a hit record with “The Candy Man“, in 1972, and became a star in Las Vegas.
As an African-American, Davis was the victim of racism throughout his life, and was a large financial supporter of civil rights causes. Davis had a complex relationship with the black community, and attracted criticism after physically embracing Richard Nixon in 1970. One day on a golf course with Jack Benny, he was asked what his handicap was. “Handicap?” he asked. “Talk about handicap — I’m a one-eyed Negro Jew.”^[1][2] This was to become a signature comment, recounted in his autobiography, and in countless articles.^[3]
After reuniting with Sinatra and Dean Martin in 1987, Davis toured with them and Liza Minnelli internationally, before dying of throat cancer in 1990. He died in debt to the Internal Revenue Service, and his estate was the subject of legal battles.
Davis was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP, and was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award for his television performances. He was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 1987, and in 2001, he was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Contents [show] 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Career 1.3 Car Accident and Conversion 1.4 Marriages 1.5 Political Beliefs 1.6 Death 2 Portrayals 3 Honors and awards 3.1 Grammy Awards 3.2 Emmy Awards 3.3 Other honors 4 Discography 5 Hit Records 5.1 Reprise Records 5.2 Decca Records 5.3 Verve Records 5.4 Motown Records 5.5 MGM Records 6 Filmography 7 Stage 8 TV 9 See also 10 References 11 Further reading 11.1 Autobiographies 11.2 Biographies 11.3 Other 12 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Samuel George Davis, Jr. was born in New York City, New York, to Sammy Davis, Sr. (1900–1988), an African-American entertainer, and his wife Elvera Sanchez (1905–2000),^[4] a tap dancer. During his lifetime, Davis, Jr. stated that his mother was Puerto Rican and born in San Juan; however, in the 2003 biography In Black and White, author Wil Haygood writes that Davis, Jr.’s mother was born in New York City to Cuban American parents, and that Davis, Jr. claimed he was Puerto Rican because he feared anti-Cuban backlash would hurt his record sales.^[5][6][7]
Davis’s parents were vaudeville dancers. As an infant, he was raised by his paternal grandmother. When he was three years old, his parents separated. His father, not wanting to lose custody of his son, took him on tour. Davis learned to dance from his father and his “uncle” Will Mastin, who led the dance troupe his father worked for. Davis joined the act as a child and they became the Will Mastin Trio. Throughout his career, Davis included the Will Mastin Trio in his billing. Mastin and his father shielded him from racism. Snubs were explained as jealousy, for instance. When Davis served in the United States Army during World War II, however, he was confronted by strong racial prejudice. He later said, “Overnight the world looked different. It wasn’t one color any more. I could see the protection I’d gotten all my life from my father and Will. I appreciated their loving hope that I’d never need to know about prejudice and hate, but they were wrong. It was as if I’d walked through a swinging door for eighteen years, a door which they had always secretly held open.”

[edit] Career

The Army assigned Davis to an integrated entertainment Special Services unit, and he found that the spotlight lessened the prejudice. “My talent was the weapon, the power, the way for me to fight. It was the one way I might hope to affect a man’s thinking,” he said.^[8]

Sammy Davis, Jr. (left) with Walter Reuther (center) and Roy Wilkins (right) at the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C.

After his discharged at the war’s end, Davis rejoined his family dance act, which played at clubs around Portland, Oregon. He began to achieve success on his own and he was singled out for praise by critics, releasing several albums.^[9] This led to his appearance in the Broadway play Mr. Wonderful in 1956.
In 1959, Davis became a member of the famous “Rat Pack”, led by his friend Frank Sinatra, which included fellow performers such as Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford, and Shirley MacLaine. Initially, Sinatra called the gathering “the Clan”, but Sammy voiced his opposition, saying that it reminded people of the racist Ku Klux Klan. Sinatra renamed the group “the Summit”, but the media referred to them as the Rat Pack.
Davis was a headliner at The Frontier Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, but he was required (as were all black performers in the 1950s) to stay in a rooming house on the west side of the city, instead of sleeping in the hotels as his white entertainers did. No dressing rooms were provided for black performers, and they had waited outside by the swimming pool between acts.^[10]
During his early years in Las Vegas, Davis and other African-American artists could entertain, but usually could neither stay at the hotels where they performed, gamble in the casinos, nor dine or drink in the hotel restaurants and bars. Davis later refused to work at places which practiced racial segregation. His demands would lead to the integration of Miami Beach nightclubs and Las Vegas casinos, an accomplishment Davis justly took pride in.^[11]
In 1964, Davis was starring in Golden Boy at night and shooting his own New York-based afternoon talk show during the day. When he could get a day off from the theater, he would be in the studio recording new songs, or performing live, often at charity benefits as far away as Miami, Chicago and Las Vegas, or doing television variety specials in Los Angeles. Davis knew he was cheating his family of his company, but he could not help himself; as he later said, he was incapable of standing still.
Although he was still a draw in Las Vegas, Davis’s musical career had sputtered by the latter 1960s, although he had a #11 hit (#1 on the Easy Listening singles chart) with “I’ve Gotta Be Me” in 1969. To update his sound and reconnect with younger people resulted in some embarrassing “hip” musical efforts with the Motown record label.^[12] But then, even as his career seemed at its nadir, Sammy had an unexpected hit with “Candy Man“. Although he did not particularly care for the song and was chagrined that he was now best known for it, Davis made the most of his opportunity and revitalized his career. Although he enjoyed no more Top 40 hits, he did enjoy popularity with his performance of the theme song from the T.V. series Baretta (1975–1978) which was not released as a single but was given radio play and he remained a live act beyond Vegas for his career. He occasionally landed television and film parts, including cameo visits to the All in the Family (during which he kisses Archie Bunker (Carrol O’Connor) on the cheek) and, with wife Altovise Davis, on Charlie’s Angels. In the 1970s, he appeared in commercials in Japan for Suntory whiskey.
On December 11, 1967, NBC broadcast a musical-variety special entitled Movin’ With Nancy. In addition to the Emmy Award-winning musical performances, the show is notable for Nancy Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. greeting each other with a kiss, one of the first black-white kisses in U.S. television history.^[13]
In Japan, Davis appeared in television commercials for coffee, and in the U.S. he joined Sinatra and Martin in a radio commercial for a Chicago car dealership.
Davis was a fan of the daytime soap operas, particularly the shows produced by the American Broadcasting Company. This led to his making a cameo appearance on General Hospital and playing the recurring character Chip Warren on One Life to Live for which he received a Daytime Emmy nomination in 1980. He was featured on the CBS News with Walter Cronkite in a profile filed by current CBS News political correspondent Jeff Greenfield about the finale episode of Love of Life in 1980.^{[citation needed]} He was a game show fan, making a cameo on the ABC version of Family Feud in 1979, and hosting a question with Richard Dawson watching from the sidelines. He appeared on Tattletales with third wife Altovise Davis in the 1970s. He made a cameo during an episode of the NBC version of Card Sharks in 1981.
Davis was an avid photographer who enjoyed shooting family and acquaintances. His body of work was detailed in a 2007 book by Burt Boyar. “Jerry [Lewis] gave me my first important camera, my first 35 millimeter, during the Ciro’s period, early ’50s”, Boyar quotes Davis. “And he hooked me.” Davis used a medium format camera later on to capture images. Again quoting Davis, “Nobody interrupts a man taking a picture to ask… ‘What’s that nigger doin’ here?’ “. His catalogue of photos include rare shots of his father dancing onstage as part of the Will Mastin Trio and intimate snapshots of close friends Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, James Dean, Nat “King” Cole, and Marilyn Monroe. His political affiliations also were represented, in his images of Robert Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. His most revealing work comes in photographs of wife May Britt and their three children, Tracey, Jeff and Mark.
Davis was an enthusiastic shooter and gun owner. He participated in fast-draw competition and was said to be capable of drawing and firing a Colt Single Action revolver in less than a quarter of a second. Davis was skilled at fast and fancy gun spinning, and appeared on T.V. variety shows showing off this skill. He appeared in western films and as a guest star on several “Golden Age” T.V. westerns.

[edit] Car Accident and Conversion

Davis nearly died in an automobile accident on November 19, 1954 in San Bernardino, California, as he was making a return trip from Las Vegas to Los Angeles.^[14] The accident occurred at a fork in U.S. Highway 66 at Cajon Blvd and Kendall Drive. Davis lost his left eye as a result, and wore an eye patch for at least six months following the accident.^[15][16] He appeared on What’s My Line wearing the patch.^[17] Later, he was fitted for a glass eye, which he wore for the rest of his life. While in the hospital, his friend Eddie Cantor told him about the similarities between the Jewish and black cultures. Prompted by this conversation, Davis — who was born to a Catholic mother and Protestant father — began studying the history of Jews and converted to Judaism several years later.^[1][18] One passage from his readings, describing the endurance of the Jewish people, intrigued him in particular: “The Jews would not die. Three millennia of prophetic teaching had given them an unwavering spirit of resignation and had created in them a will to live which no disaster could crush”.^[19] In many ways, the accident marked a turning point in Davis’s career, taking him from a well-known entertainer to a national celebrity and icon.^[14]

[edit] Marriages

In the mid-1950s, Sammy was involved with Kim Novak, a star under contract to Columbia Studios. The head of the studio, Harry Cohn, was worried about the negative effect this would have on the studio because of the prevailing taboo against miscegenation. He called his friend, the mobster Johnny Roselli, who was asked to tell Davis that he had to stop the affair with Novak. Roselli arranged for Davis to be kidnapped for a few hours to throw a scare into him. His hastily arranged and soon-dissolved marriage to black dancer Loray White in 1958 was an attempt to quiet the controversy.^[20]
In 1960, Davis caused controversy when he married white Swedish-born actress May Britt. Davis received hate mail while starring in the Broadway musical adaptation of Golden Boy from 1964-1966 (for which he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor). At the time Davis appeared in the play, interracial marriages were forbidden by law in 31 US states, and only in 1967 were those laws ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court. The couple had one daughter and adopted two sons. Davis performed almost continuously and spent little time with his wife. They divorced in 1968, after Davis admitted to having had an affair with singer Lola Falana. That year, Davis started dating Altovise Gore, a dancer in Golden Boy. They were married on May 11, 1970 by the Reverend Jesse Jackson. They adopted a child, and remained married until Davis’s death in 1990.

[edit] Political Beliefs

Sammy Davis, Jr. in the Yellow Oval Room of the White House with President Richard Nixon, March 4, 1973

Although Davis had been voting Democratic, he had felt a lack of respect from the John F. Kennedy White House. He had been removed from the bill of the inaugural party hosted by Sinatra for the new President because of Davis’s recent interracial marriage to May Britt on November 13, 1960.^[21]
In the early 1970s, Davis supported Republican President Richard M. Nixon (and gave the startled President a hug on live TV). The incident was controversial, and Davis was given a hostile reception by his peers, despite the intervention of Jesse Jackson. Previously he had won their respect with his performance as Joe Wellington Jr. in Golden Boy and his participation in the Civil Rights Movement. Nixon invited Davis to sleep in the White House in 1973, which is believed to be the first time an African-American was invited to do so. Davis spent the night in the Queen’s Bedroom.^[22] Unlike Frank Sinatra, Davis voted Democratic for president again after the Nixon administration, supporting the campaigns of Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988.

[edit] Death

Davis died in Beverly Hills, California on May 16, 1990, of complications from throat cancer. Earlier, when he was told he could be saved by surgery, Davis replied he would rather keep his voice than have a part of his throat removed; he subsequently was treated with a combination of chemotherapy and radiation.^[23] However, a few weeks prior to his death his entire larynx was removed during surgery.^[24] He was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California next to his father and Will Mastin. Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets, coincidentally died the same day as Davis.
On May 18, 1990, two days after Davis’s death, the neon lights of the Las Vegas strip were darkened for ten minutes, as a tribute to him.

[edit] Portrayals

Davis was portrayed by Don Cheadle in the HBO movie The Rat Pack, a made-for-TV movie about the pack of entertainers. Cheadle won a Golden Globe award for his performance.
Davis was repeatedly portrayed by Billy Crystal on Saturday Night Live.
Davis was portrayed on the popular sketch comedy show In Living Color by Tommy Davidson, notably a parody of the movie Ghost, in which the ghost of Davis enlists the help of Whoopi Goldberg to communicate with his wife.
David Raynr also portrayed Davis in the miniseries Sinatra, a TV movie about the life of Frank Sinatra.
Davis was portrayed by Keith Powell in an episode of 30 Rock entitled “Subway Hero“.
In the 1993 film Wayne’s World 2, Tim Meadows portrays Davis in the dream sequence with Michael A. Nickles as Jim Morrison.
He was portrayed by Paul Sharma in the 2003 West End production Rat Pack Confidential.^[25]
In September 2009, the musical Sammy: Once in a Lifetime premiered at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego with book, music and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse, and additional songs by Bricusse and Anthony Newley. The title role was played by Broadway Tony Award nominee Obba Babatundé.
Davis was mentioned in British singer Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black album on the song Me and Mr. Jones. The lyrics are as follows “Side from Sammy you’re my best black Jew.”
Midwest radio personality Kevin Matthews impersonated Sammy Davis, Jr. many times on his radio show.

[edit] Honors and awards

[edit] Grammy Awards

Year	Category	Song	Result	Notes
2002	Grammy Hall of Fame Award	“What Kind of Fool Am I?“	Inducted	Recorded in 1962
2001	Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award		Winner
1972	Pop Male Vocalist	“Candy Man“	Nominee
1962	Record of the Year	“What Kind of Fool Am I“	Nominee
1962	Male Solo Vocal Performance	“What Kind of Fool Am I“	Nominee

[edit] Emmy Awards

Year	Category	Program	Result
	Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy	Sammy Davis Jr.’s 60th Anniversary Celebration	Winner[26]
1989	Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series	The Cosby Show	Nominee
1980	Outstanding Cameo Appearance in a Daytime Drama Series	One Life to Live	Nominee
1966	Outstanding Variety Special	The Swinging World of Sammy Davis Jr.	Nominee
1956	Best Specialty Act — Single or Group	Sammy Davis Jr.	Nominee

[edit] Other honors

Year	Category	Organization	Program	Result
2008	International Civil Rights Walk of Fame	Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site		Inducted
2006	Las Vegas Walk of Stars[27]	front of Riviera Hotel		Inducted
1989	NAACP Image Award	NAACP		Winner
1987	Kennedy Center Honors	John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts		Honoree
1977	Best TV Actor — Musical/Comedy	Golden Globe	Sammy and Company (1975)	Nominee
1974	Special Citation Award	National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences		Winner
1968	NAACP Spingarn Medal Award	NAACP		Winner
1965	Best Actor — Musical	Tony Award	Golden Boy	Nominee
1960[28]	Hollywood Walk of Fame			Star at 6254 Hollywood Blvd.

[edit] Discography

This section has no content. You can help Wikipedia by introducing information to it. (July 2010)

[edit] Hit Records

Year	Single	Chart positions
		U.S.	U.S. AC	Country	UK
1954	“Hey There”	16			19
	“The Red Grapes”	28
1955	“Something’s Gotta Give”	9			11
	“Love Me Or Leave Me”	12			8
	“That Old Black Magic”	13			16
	“I’ll Know”	87
1956	“Five”	71
	“Earthbound”	46
	“New York’s My Home”	59
	“In a Persian Market”				28
	“All of You”				28
1960	“Happy To Make Your Acquaintance”(with Carmen McRae)				46
1962	“What Kind of Fool Am I”	17	6		26
	“Gonna Build a Mountain”				flip
	“Me and My Shadow”(with Frank Sinatra)	64	18		20
	“Sam’s Song”(with Dean Martin)	94
1963	“As Long As She Needs Me”	59	19
	“The Shelter of Your Arms”	17	6
1964	“Choose”	112
	“Be Bom”	135
	“Don’t Shut Me Out”	106
1965	“If I Ruled the World”	135
	“No One Can Live Forever”	117	33
1967	“Don’t Blame the Children”	37
1968	“Lonely Is the Name”	93	12
	“Break My Mind”	106
	“I’ve Gotta Be Me”	11	1
1969	“Rhythm of Life”	124
	“I Have But One Life To Live”	119
1972	“The Candy Man”	1	1
	“The People Tree”	92	16
1973	“I’d Be a Legend In My Time”	116	29
1974	“Singin’ In the Rain”		16
	“That’s Entertainment”		41
1975	“Chico and the Man”		24
	“Song and Dance Man”		32
1976	“Baretta’s Theme”	101	42
1982	“Smoke, Smoke, Smoke”			89

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

[edit] Reprise Records 1961 The Wham of Sam! 1962 Sammy Davis, Jr. Belts the Best of Broadway 1962 The Sammy Davis, Jr. All-Star Spectacular 1962 What Kind of Fool Am I – and Other Show-Stoppers 1963 As Long as She Needs Me 1963 Sammy Davis, Jr. at the Cocoanut Grove 1964 Sammy Davis, Jr. Salutes the Stars of the London Palladium 1964 The Shelter of Your Arms 1964 California Suite 1964 Sammy Davis, Jr. Sings the Big Ones for Young Lovers 1965 When the Feeling Hits You! (With Sam Butera and the Witnesses) 1965 If I Ruled the World 1965 The Nat King Cole Songbook 1965 Sammy’s Back on Broadway 1966 The Sammy Davis, Jr. Show 1966 A Man Called Adam 1966 The Sounds of ’66 1966 Sammy Davis, Jr. Sings and Laurindo Almeida Plays 1966 That’s All! 1967 Sammy Davis, Jr. Sings the Complete ‘Dr. Dolittle’ 1968 Lonely Is the Name 1968 I’ve Gotta Be Me 1968 Sammy Davis Jr.’s Greatest Hits – The Top Twelve 1969 The Goin’s Great

[edit] Decca Records 1955 Starring Sammy Davis, Jr. 1955 Just for Lovers 1956 Mr Wonderful 1956 Here’s Looking at You 1957 Sammy Swings 1957 It’s All Over but the Swingin’ 1957 Boy Meets Girl (with Carmen McRae) 1958 Mood to Be Wooed 1958 Mr. Entertainment 1958 All The Way…and Then Some! 1959 Sammy Davis, Jr. at Town Hall 1959 Porgy And Bess (With Carmen McRae) 1960 Sammy Awards 1960 I Gotta Right To Swing 1963 Forget-Me-Nots For First Nighters 1965 Try a Little Tenderness [edit] Verve Records 1965 Our Shining Hour (with The Count Basie Orchestra) [edit] Motown Records 1970 Something for Everyone 1984 Hello Detroit (12 inch single) [edit] MGM Records 1972 Sammy Davis Jr. Now 1974 That’s Entertainment! 1977 In Person ’77 1979 Hearin’ Is Believin’

[edit] Filmography

Rufus Jones for President (1933) Seasoned Greetings (1933) Sweet and Low (1947) Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956) Anna Lucasta (1959) Porgy and Bess (1959) Ocean’s Eleven (1960) Pepe (1960) Sergeants 3 (1962) The Threepenny Opera (1962) Convicts 4 (1962) Johnny Cool (1963) Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964) Nightmare in the Sun (1965) The Second Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World (1965)(title song) A Man Called Adam (1966) Alice in Wonderland (or What’s a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?) (1966) Salt and Pepper (1968) The Fall (1969)

Sweet Charity (1969) One More Time (1970) Elvis: That’s the Way It Is (1970) Diamonds Are Forever (1971; deleted scene) Save the Children (1973) Gone with the West (1975) Sammy Stops the World (1978) The Cannonball Run (1981) Heidi’s Song (1982) Cracking Up (1983) Broadway Danny Rose (1984) Cannonball Run II (1984) Alice in Wonderland (1985 film) (1985) That’s Dancing! (1985) Knights of the City (1986) The Perils of P.K. (1986) Moon Over Parador (1988) Tap (1989) The Kid Who Loved Christmas (1990, last role)

[edit] Stage

• Mr. Wonderful (1957), musical
• Golden Boy (1964), musical – Tony Nomination for Best Actor in a Musical
• Sammy (1974), special performance featuring Davis with the Nicholas Brothers
• Stop the World – I Want to Get Off (1978) musical revival

[edit] TV

• Ben Casey – 1963 – Davis portrays Allie Burns, a professional baseball player who loses his eye in an accident.
• The Patty Duke Show – 1965 – Davis plays himself. Patty needs to arrange for a Hollywood Star to perform at her high school prom. Sammy notices Patty wearing a sandwich sign asking for help from any Hollywood star. Sammy wants to help Patty out but Sammy’s agent does not like the idea and does not contact Patty. Sammy contacts Patty by phone but she does not believe it is him. He then shows up at the prom and puts on a show.
• I Dream of Jeannie – 1967 – on the episode “The Greatest Entertainer in the World”. Tony needs Sammy Davis Jr. to entertain for General Peterson’s 10th anniversary at NASA, but he is previously booked. Jeannie comes to the rescue by creating a duplicate of Sammy.
• All in the Family – 1972 – Sammy Davis plays himself. In the episode, he leaves his briefcase in Archie Bunker’s cab and goes to Archie’s house to retrieve it. He meets Archie, Edith, Mike, Gloria, and Lionel Jefferson. When Sammy Davis Jr. and Archie talk, Sammy quickly discovers that Archie is prejudiced, even though Archie believes that he is not. During a family conversation Archie has before Sammy arrives, Archie tells the others to avoid mentioning Sammy’s glass eye. Archie then asks Sammy, “Would you like cream and sugar in your eye?” meaning to say coffee. At the end of the show, Munson, the owner of the cab who brings back the briefcase, takes a photo of Archie and Sammy. Right before the flash goes off, Sammy kisses Archie on the cheek, to Archie’s surprise.
• The Jeffersons – 1984 Sammy Davis plays himself, where he is staying at an apartment directly next door to The Jeffersons’. Only Louise knows he is there, and Sammy asks her to hide his presence until he leaves.
• Gimme a Break – 1985 Sammy Davis played a guest starring role in this classic sitcom.
• The Cosby Show – 1989 Sammy Davis plays Ray Palomino, the father of one of Dr. Huxtable’s patients; Ray turns out to be hiding the fact that he is illiterate.

[edit] See also

• Rat Pack
• Jews and Judaism in the African diaspora
• List of notable Hispanics from the United States

Lost in Space

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Jump to: navigation, search

For other uses, see Lost in Space (disambiguation).

Lost in Space
Publicity photo (1967) for Lost in Space: shows cast members: Angela Cartwright, Mark Goddard, Marta Kristen, Bob May (Robot), Jonathan Harris, June Lockhart, Guy Williams & Billy Mumy.
Genre	Science fiction
Created by	Irwin Allen
Directed by	Irwin Allen Robert Douglas Alvin Ganzer Harry Harris Leonard Horn Nathan H. Juran Sobey Martin Irving J. Moore Leo Penn Don Richardson Seymour Robbie Sutton Roley Alexander Singer Paul Stanley Ezra Stone
Starring	(See article)
Narrated by	Dick Tufeld
Theme music composer	John Williams
Composer(s)	John Williams Herman Stein Richard LaSalle Leith Stevens Joseph Mullendore Cyril Mockridge Alexander Courage
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	3
No. of episodes	83 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Guy Della Cioppa (for Van Bernard Productions)
Producer(s)	Irwin Allen
Camera setup	Clyde Taylor Winton Hoch
Running time	1 hour
Production company(s)	Irwin Allen Productions Van Bernard Productions Jodi Productions 20th Century-Fox Television CBS
Broadcast
Original channel	CBS
Picture format	black and white (1965-1966) color (1966-1968)
Audio format	mono
Original run	September 15, 1965 – March 6, 1968
Chronology
Related shows	Lost in Space (film)

Lost in Space is a science fiction TV series created and produced by Irwin Allen, filmed by 20th Century Fox Television, and broadcast on CBS. The show ran for three seasons, with 83 episodes airing between September 15, 1965, and March 6, 1968. Their first TV season was filmed in black and white, but the rest of them were filmed in color. In 1998, a Lost in Space movie, based on the TV series, was released. Though the TV series centered around the “Robinson” family, storylines focused primarily on Jonathan Harris as Dr. Zachary Smith; originally an utterly evil would-be killer who as the first season progressed became a sympathetic anti-hero, providing comic relief to the TV show (and causing most of the episodic problems).

Contents [show] 1 Production 2 Plot 3 Cast 4 Episodes 5 Technology and equipment 6 Series history 7 Ratings and popularity 8 Cancellation 8.1 Budget too high 8.2 Budget was cut 8.3 Show disliked by an executive 8.4 Declining ratings and escalating costs 8.5 Diminishing interest among cast and crew 9 Music 10 Legal questions 11 References in popular culture 12 Guest stars 13 Spin-offs 13.1 Comics 13.2 Cartoon 13.3 Feature film 13.4 Novel 13.5 Second TV series 14 DVD releases 15 Title in other languages 16 Trivia 17 References 18 External links

[edit] Production

The TV series is an adaptation of the novel The Swiss Family Robinson. The astronaut family of Dr. John Robinson, accompanied by an air force pilot and also a robot, set out from an overpopulated Earth in the spaceship Jupiter 2 to visit a planet circling the star Alpha Centauri with hopes of colonizing it. Their mission in 1997 (the official launch date of the Jupiter 2 was October 16, 1997) is immediately sabotaged by Dr. Zachary Smith, who slips aboard their spaceship and reprograms the robot to destroy the ship and crew. Smith is trapped aboard, saving himself by prematurely reviving the crew from suspended animation. They save the ship, but consequent damage leaves them lost in space. Eventually they crash on an alien world, later identified as Priplanis, where they must survive a host of adventures. Smith (whom Allen originally intended to kill off) remains through the series as a source of comedic cowardice and villainy, exploiting the forgiving (or forgetful) nature of the Robinsons.

At the start of the second season, the repaired Jupiter 2 launches again, but after two episodes the Robinsons crash on another planet and spend the season there. This replicated the feel of the first season, although by this time the focus of the series was more on humor than straight action/adventure.

In the third season, the Robinson Family wasn’t restricted to one world. The now mobile Jupiter-2 would travel to other worlds in an attempt to return to Earth or to settle on Alpha Centauri. The Space Pod was added as a means of transportation between the ship and planets. This season had a dramatically different opening credits sequence.

Following the format of Allen’s first TV series, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, fantasy-oriented adventure stories were emphasized. The show delivered a visual assault of special effects, explosions, monstrous aliens, spaceships, and exotic sets and costumes drenched in the bright, primary colors that were typical of early color television.

[edit] Plot

It is October 16, 1997 and the United States is proceeding towards the launch of one of history’s great adventures: man’s colonization of deep space. The Jupiter 2 (called Gemini 12 in the pilot episode), a futuristic saucer-shaped spaceship, stands on its launch pad undergoing final preparations. Its mission is to take a single family on a five and a half year journey (stated as 98 years in the pilot episode) to a planet of the nearby star Alpha Centauri (the pilot episode refers to the planet itself as Alpha Centauri), which space probes reveal possesses ideal conditions for human life. The Robinson family was selected from among 2 million volunteers for this mission. The family includes Professor John Robinson (Guy Williams), his wife, Maureen (June Lockhart), their children, Judy (Marta Kristen), Penny (Angela Cartwright), and Will (Billy Mumy). They will be accompanied by their pilot, US Space Corp Major Donald West (Mark Goddard), who is trained to fly the ship in the unlikely event that its sophisticated automatic guidance system malfunctions.

Other nations are racing the United States in the effort to colonize space, and they would stop at nothing, even sabotage, to stop the US effort. Dr. Zachary Smith (Jonathan Harris), a medical doctor and environmental control expert, is actually a foreign secret agent. He reprograms the Jupiter 2′s B-9 environmental control robot (voiced by Dick Tufeld) to destroy critical systems on the spaceship eight hours after launch. Smith is trapped aboard at launch and his extra weight throws the Jupiter 2 off course, causing it to encounter a meteor storm. The robot’s rampage causes the ship to become lost.

The Robinsons are often placed in danger by Smith, whose self-centered actions and laziness endanger the family. In the second and third seasons, Smith’s role assumes a less evil overtone – although he continues to display many character defects. In “The Time Merchant”, Smith travels back in time to the day of the Jupiter 2 launch, with hope of changing his fate. He learns that without his weight altering the ship’s course, it would be destroyed by an uncharted asteroid. In an act of redemption, Smith elects to re-board the ship, thus saving the Robinsons’ lives.

[edit] Cast

• Doctor, John Robinson: (Guy Williams) The expedition commander, a pilot, and the father of the Robinson children. He is an astrophysicist who also specializes in applied planetary geology.

• Doctor, Maureen Robinson: (June Lockhart) John’s biochemist wife. Her role in the series is often to prepare meals, tend the garden and help with light construction, while adding a voice of compassion. Her status as a doctor is mentioned only in the first episode.

• Major, Don West: (Mark Goddard) The military pilot of the Jupiter 2, he is Dr. Smith’s handsome long-suffering space partner, intemperate and intolerant adversary. His mutual romantic interest with Judy was not developed beyond the first few episodes. In the un-aired pilot, “Doctor Donald West” was a graduate student astrophysicist and expert in interplanetary geology, rather than a military man.

• Judy Robinson: (Marta Kristen) The oldest child, about 19 years old at the outset of the series. She planned a career in musical theater but went with her family instead.

• Penny Robinson: (Angela Cartwright) An 11-year-old, she loves animals and classical music. She acquires a chimpanzee-like alien pet that made one sound, “Bloop”. While it is sometimes remembered by that name,^[1] Penny had named the creature Debbie. Most of Penny’s adventures have a fairy-tale quality, underscoring her innocence.

• Will Robinson: (Billy Mumy) A 9-year-old child prodigy in electronics. Often, he is a friend to Smith when no one else is. Will is also the member of the family closest to the Robot.

• Doctor, Zachary Smith: (Jonathan Harris) A Doctor of intergalactic environmental psychology,^[2] expert in Cybernetics and an enemy agent, roles that are rarely mentioned after the initial episodes. In the pilot episode, he is shown in uniform with colonel‘s eagles but is invariably addressed by his academic, vice military, rank. His attempt to sabotage the mission strands him aboard the Jupiter 2 and results in its becoming lost. By the end of the first season the character becomes permanently established as a foolish, self-serving, impulsive, scheming coward but not at the degree displayed in the latter two seasons. His maudlin ways and clever dialogue add a unique dimension. His best lines are in response to the “straight man” Robot. Despite having a Special Guest Star appearance for every episode, Smith is the pivotal character of the series.

• The Robot: The Robot is a Class M-3 Model B9, General Utility Non-Theorizing Environmental Control Robot, which had no given name. Although a machine endowed with superhuman strength and futuristic weaponry, he often displayed human characteristics such as laughter, sadness, and mockery as well as singing and playing the guitar. The Robot was performed by Bob May in a prop costume built by Bob Stewart. The voice was dubbed by Dick Tufeld, who was also the series’ narrator. The Robot was designed by Robert Kinoshita, whose other cybernetic claim to fame is as the designer of Forbidden Planet‘s Robby the Robot. Robby appears in LIS #20 “War of the Robots”, and the first episode of season three; “Condemned of space”.

V (1983 miniseries)

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This article is about the original 1983 miniseries. For other versions, see V (science fiction).

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V
2001 DVD cover
Genre	Science fiction
Written by	Kenneth Johnson
Directed by	Kenneth Johnson
Starring	Marc Singer Faye Grant Jane Badler Frank Ashmore Richard Herd Michael Wright Robert Englund Andrew Prine Richard Lawson
Composer(s)	Joe Harnell
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of episodes	2
Production
Executive producer(s)	Kenneth Johnson
Producer(s)	Chuck Bowman
Cinematography	John McPherson
Running time	197 min
Broadcast
Original channel	NBC
Original run	May 1, 1983 – May 2, 1983
Chronology
Followed by	V: The Final Battle V: The Second Generation (novel)

V (or V: The Original Miniseries) is a two-part science fiction television miniseries, written and directed by Kenneth Johnson. First shown in 1983, it initiated the science fiction franchise concerning aliens known as “The Visitors” trying to gain control of Earth.

Contents [show] 1 Plot summary 2 Origins 3 Influences 4 Legacy 5 Cast 6 Releases 7 Novelization 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Plot summary

A race of aliens arrive on Earth in a fleet of 50 huge, saucer-shaped motherships, which hover over major key cities across the world. They reveal themselves on the roof of the United Nations building in New York City, appearing human but requiring special glasses to protect their eyes and having a distinctive resonance to their voices. Referred to as the Visitors, they reach out in friendship, ostensibly seeking the help of humans to obtain chemicals and minerals needed to aid their ailing world. In return, the Visitors promise to share their advanced technology with humanity. The governments of Earth accept the arrangement, and the Visitors, commanded by their leader John and his deputy Diana, begin to gain considerable influence with human authorities.

Strange events begin to occur and scientists become objects of increasing media hostility. They experience government restrictions on their activities and movements. Others, particularly those keen on examining the Visitors more closely, begin to disappear or are discredited. Noted scientists confess to subversive activities; some of them exhibit other unusual behaviors, such as suddenly demonstrating an opposite hand preference to the one they were known to have.

Television journalist cameraman Michael Donovan covertly boards one of the Visitors’ motherships and discovers that beneath their human-like facade (they wear a thin, synthetic skin and human-like contact lenses in public), the aliens are actually carnivorous reptilian humanoids preferring to eat live food such as rodents and birds. Donovan records some of his findings on videotape and escapes from the mothership with the evidence, but just as the exposé is about to air on television, the broadcast is interrupted by the Visitors who have taken control of the media. Their announcement makes Donovan a fugitive, pursued by both the police and the Visitors.

Scientists around the world continue to be persecuted, both to discredit them (as the part of the human population most likely to discover the Visitors’ secrets) and to distract the rest of the population with a scapegoat to whom they could attribute their fears. Key human individuals are subjected to Diana’s special mind control process called “conversion”, which turned them into the Visitors’ pawns, leaving only subtle behavioral clues to this manipulation. Others become subjects of Diana’s horrifying biological experiments.

Some humans (including Mike Donovan’s mother, Eleanor Dupres) willingly collaborate with the Visitors, seduced by their power. Daniel Bernstein, a grandson of a Jewish Holocaust survivor, joins the Visitor Youth and reveals the location of a scientist family to the alien cause. One teenager, Robin Maxwell, the daughter of a well-known scientist who went into hiding, has sex with a male Visitor named Brian, who impregnates her as one of Diana’s “medical experiments”.

A resistance movement is formed, determined to expose and oppose the Visitors. The Los Angeles cell leader is Julie Parrish. Donovan later joins the group and, again sneaking aboard a mothership, he learns from a Visitor named Martin that the story about the Visitors needing waste chemicals was a false story. The true purpose of the Visitors’ arrival on Earth was to conquer and subdue the planet, steal all of the Earth’s water, and harvest the human race as food, leaving only a few as slaves and cannon fodder for the Visitors’ wars with other alien races. Martin is one of many dissidents among the Visitors (later known as the Fifth Column) who oppose their leader’s plans and would rather co-exist peacefully with the humans. Martin befriends Donovan and promises to aid the Resistance, and gives Donovan access to one of their sky-fighter ships, which he quickly learns how to pilot. He escapes from the mothership along with Robin, who was a prisoner there, and a man named Sancho.

The members of the Resistance strike their first blows against the Visitors, while procuring laboratory equipment and modern military weapons from National Guard armories to carry on the fight. The symbol of the resistance is a blood-red letter V (for victory), spray-painted over posters promoting Visitor friendship among humans. The symbol was inspired by Abraham Bernstein, another Holocaust survivor and grandfather of Daniel.

The mini-series ends with the Visitors now virtually controlling the Earth, and Julie and Elias sending a transmission into space to ask for help to defeat the Visitors from other alien races.

[edit] Origins

Inspired by the Sinclair Lewis novel about fascism in the United States, It Can’t Happen Here (1935), director–producer Kenneth Johnson wrote an adaptation titled Storm Warnings, in 1982. The script was presented to NBC for production as a television mini-series, but the NBC executives rejected the initial version, claiming it was too “cerebral” for the average American viewer. To make the script more marketable, the American fascists were re-cast as man-eating extraterrestrials, taking the story into the realm of science fiction to capitalize on the popularity of science-fiction franchises such as Star Wars. The new, re-cast story was the mini-series V, which premiered on May 1, 1983.^[1][2]

[edit] Influences

Aside from It Can’t Happen Here, several scenes from the original TV pilot resemble the Bertolt Brecht play The Private Life of the Master Race. A short story by Damon Knight entitled To Serve Man (later adapted into an episode of The Twilight Zone) had a similar theme suggesting that deceptively friendly aliens were secretly cultivating humans as food.

The story became a Nazi allegory, right down to the Swastika-like emblem used by the Visitors and their SS-like uniforms. There is a youth auxiliary movement called the “Friends of the Visitors” with obvious similarities to the Hitler Youth, and Visitor broadcasts mimic Nazi-era propaganda. The show’s portrayal of human interaction with the Visitors bears a striking resemblance to stories from Occupied Europe during World War II with some citizens choosing collaboration and others choosing to join underground resistance movements.

Where the Nazis persecuted primarily Jews, the Visitors were instead depicted to persecute scientists, their families, and anyone associating with them. They also distribute propaganda in an effort to hide their true identity. Some of the main characters in the initial series were from a Jewish family and the grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, frequently commented on the events of the past again unfolding. Once they are in a position to do so, the Visitors later declare martial law to control the scientists (and resistance fighters) as well.

[edit] Legacy

The two-part miniseries ran for 200 minutes; the first part earned a 25.4 rating or more than 40 million viewers.^[3]V: The Final Battle, which was meant to conclude the story. In spite of the apparent conclusion, this itself was then followed by a weekly television series, V: The Series, from 1984 to 1985 that continued the story a year after The Final Battle. Johnson left V during The Final Battle due to disagreements with NBC over how the story should progress.^[4] Its success spawned a sequel,

In November 2005, Entertainment Weekly named V one of the ten best miniseries on DVD.^[5] The article noted, “As a parable about it-can-happen-here fascism, V was far from subtle, but it carved a place for lavish and intelligent sci-fi on TV. Its impact can still be felt in projects like Taken and The 4400.”^[5] In December 2008, Entertainment Weekly put V on its list “The Sci-Fi 25: The Genre’s Best Since 1982”, and called Visitor leader Diana‘s devouring a guinea pig “one of the best TV reveals ever.”^[6]

A reimagining of V premiered on ABC on November 3, 2009.^[7][8] Though Johnson is not involved and the new series features all new characters, executive producer Scott Peters says that it will nod to the most iconic moments from the original franchise and may potentially include actors from the original in different roles. Johnson has also said he is still moving ahead with his plans for a big screen version of the original franchise.^[9][10]

[edit] Cast

Humans Character Actor Mike Donovan Marc Singer Juliet Parrish Faye Grant Robert Maxwell Michael Durrell Daniel Bernstein David Packer Eleanor Dupres Neva Patterson Robin Maxwell Blair Tefkin Elias Taylor Michael Wright Lynn Bernstein Bonnie Bartlett Abraham Bernstein Leonardo Cimino Dr. Ben Taylor Richard Lawson Caleb Taylor Jason Bernard Kristine Walsh Jenny Sullivan Harmony Moore Diane Civita Josh Brooks Tommy Petersen Sean Donovan Eric Johnston

Visitors Character Actor Diana Jane Badler Lydia June Chadwick John Richard Herd Steven Andrew Prine Martin Frank Ashmore Willie Robert Englund Brian Peter Nelson Barbara Jenny Neumann Visitor Captain Stack Pierce

[edit]

The Walt Disney Company

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“Disney” redirects here. For other uses, see Disney (disambiguation).

The Walt Disney Company

Type	Public (NYSE: DIS) Dow Jones Industrial Average Component
Industry	Conglomerate
Founded	Los Angeles, California, U.S..[1] (October 16, 1923)
Founder(s)	Walt and Roy Disney
Headquarters	Burbank, California, U.S.
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Robert Iger (President & CEO) John E. Pepper, Jr. (Chairman) Steve Jobs (Shareholder & Board Member) Anne Sweeney (President, Disney-ABC Television Group; Co-Chair, Disney Media Networks)
Revenue	▲ US$36.1 Billion (FY 2009)[2]
Operating income	▲ US$5.78 Billion (FY 2009)[2]
Net income	▲ US$3.31 Billion (FY 2009)[2]
Total assets	▲ US$63.1 Billion (FY 2009)[3]
Total equity	▲ US$33.7 Billion (FY 2009)[3]
Employees	150,000 (2008)[4]
Divisions	Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group Disney Music Group Disney-ABC Television Group Walt Disney Theatrical Radio Disney ESPN Inc. (majority owner) Disney Interactive Media Group Disney Consumer Products Walt Disney Parks and Resorts
Website	Disney.com

The Walt Disney Studios, the headquarters of The Walt Disney Company

The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) is the largest media and entertainment conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue.^[5] Founded on October 16, 1923 by brothers Walt Disney and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, the company was reincorporated as Walt Disney Productions in 1929. Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into live-action film production, television, and travel. Taking on its current name in 1986, The Walt Disney Company expanded its existing operations and also started divisions focused upon theatre, radio, publishing, and online media. In addition, it has created new divisions of the company in order to market more mature content than it typically associates with its flagship family-oriented brands.

The company is best known for the products of its film studio, the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, today one of the largest and best-known studios in Hollywood. Disney also owns and operates the ABC broadcast television network; cable television networks such as Disney Channel, ESPN, and ABC Family; publishing, merchandising, and theatre divisions; and owns and licenses 11 theme parks around the world. The company has been a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average since May 6, 1991. An early and well-known cartoon creation of the company, Mickey Mouse, is the official mascot of The Walt Disney Company.

Contents [show] 1 Corporate history 1.1 1923-28: The silent era 1.2 1934-45: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and World War II 1.3 1946-54: Post-war and television 1.4 1955-65: Disneyland 1.5 1966-71: The deaths of Walt and Roy Disney and Walt Disney World 1.6 1972-84: Theatrical malaise and new leadership 1.7 1985-2004: The Eisner era 1.8 2005-present 2 Company divisions 3 Executive Management 4 Financial Data 4.1 Revenues 4.2 Net income 5 Criticism 6 Full acquisitions 7 See also 8 References 9 Further reading 10 External links

[edit] Corporate history

See also: Timeline of The Walt Disney Company

[edit] 1923-28: The silent era

In 1923, Kansas City, Missouri animator Walt Disney created a short film entitled Alice’s Wonderland, which featured child actress Virginia Davis interacting with animated characters. Film distributor Margaret J. Winkler contacted Disney with plans to distribute a whole series of Alice Comedies based upon Alice’s Wonderland. The contract signed, Walt and his brother Roy Disney moved to Los Angeles, California and set up shop in their uncle Robert Disney’s garage, marking the beginning of the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio.^[6] Within a few months, the company moved into the back of a realty office in downtown Los Angeles, where production continued on the Alice Comedies until 1927.^[7] In 1926, the studio moved to a newly constructed studio facility on Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles.^[7]

After the demise of the Alice comedies, Disney developed an all-cartoon series starring his first original character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, which was distributed by Winkler Pictures through Universal Pictures. Disney only completed 26 Oswald shorts before losing the contract when Winkler’s husband Charles Mintz, who had taken over their distribution company, hired away many of Disney’s animators to start his own animation studio.^[6]

[edit] 1934-45: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and World War II

The honorary Academy AwardWalt Disney for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. given to

Deciding to push the boundaries of animation even further, Disney began production of his first feature-length animated film in 1934. Taking three years to complete, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, based upon the Grimm Brothers‘ fairy tale, premiered in December 1937 and became the highest-grossing film of that time by 1939.^[8] Snow White was released through RKO Radio Pictures, which had assumed distribution of Disney’s product in July 1937,^[9] after United Artists attempted to attain future television rights to the Disney shorts. ^[10]

Using the profits from Snow White, Disney financed the construction of a new 51-acre studio complex in Burbank, California. The new Walt Disney Studios, in which the company is headquartered to this day, was completed and open for business by the end of 1939. The following year, Walt Disney Productions had its initial public offering.

The studio continued releasing animated shorts and features, such as Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942). With the onset of World War II, box-office profits began to dry up. When the United States entered the war after the attack on Pearl Harbor, many of Disney’s animators were drafted into the armed forces, and the studio itself was temporarily commandeered by the U.S. military. The U.S. government commissioned the studio to produce training and propaganda films, which provided Disney with needed funds. Films such as the feature Victory Through Air Power and the short Education for Death (both 1943) were meant to galvanize public support for the war effort. Even the studio’s characters joined the effort, as Donald Duck appeared in a number of comical propaganda shorts, including the Academy Award-winning Der Fuehrer’s Face (1943).

[edit] 1946-54: Post-war and television

With limited staff and little operating capital during and after the war, Disney’s feature films during much of the 1940s were “package films,” or collections of shorts, such as The Three Caballeros (1943) and Melody Time (1947), which performed poorly at the box-office. At the same time, the studio began producing live-action films and documentaries. Song of the South (1946) and So Dear to My Heart (1949) featured animated segments, while the True-Life Adventures series, which included such films as Seal Island (1948) and The Vanishing Prairie (1954), were also popular and won numerous awards.

The release of Cinderella in 1950 proved that feature-length animation could still succeed in the marketplace. Other releases of the period included Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Peter Pan (1953), both in production before the war began, and Disney’s first all-live action feature, Treasure Island (1950). Other early all-live-action Disney films included The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952),The Sword and the Rose (1953), and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954). Disney ended its distribution contract with RKO in 1953, forming its own distribution arm, Buena Vista Distribution.^[9]

In December 1950, Walt Disney Productions and The Coca-Cola Company teamed up for Disney’s first venture into television, the NBC television network special An Hour in Wonderland. In October 1954, the ABC network launched Disney’s first regular television series, Disneyland, which would go on to become one of the longest-running primetime series of all time.^[11] Disneyland allowed Disney a platform to introduce new projects and broadcast older ones, and ABC became Disney’s partner in the financing and development of Disney’s next venture, located in the middle of an orange grove near Anaheim, California.

[edit] 1955-65: Disneyland

Walt Disney opens Disneyland, July 1955.

In 1954, Walt Disney used his Disneyland series to unveil what would become Disneyland Park, an idea conceived out of a desire for a place where parents and children could both have fun at the same time. On July 18, 1955, Walt Disney opened Disneyland to the general public. On July 17, 1955 Disneyland was previewed with a live television broadcast hosted by Art Linkletter and Ronald Reagan. After a shaky start, Disneyland continued to grow and attract visitors from across the country and around the world. A major expansion in 1959 included the addition of America’s first monorail system.

For the 1964 New York World’s Fair, Disney prepared four separate attractions for various sponsors, each of which would find its way to Disneyland in one form or another. During this time, Walt Disney was also secretly scouting out new sites for a second Disney theme park. In November 1965, “Disney World” was announced, with plans for theme parks, hotels, and even a model city on thousands of acres of land purchased outside of Orlando, Florida.

Disney continued to focus its talents on television throughout the 1950s. Its weekday afternoon children’s program The Mickey Mouse Club, featuring its roster of young “Mouseketeers”, premiered in 1955 to great success, as did the Davy Crockett miniseries, starring Fess Parker and broadcast on the DisneylandZorro series would prove just as popular, running for two seasons on ABC, as well as separate episodes on the Disneyland series. Despite such success, Walt Disney Productions invested little into television ventures in the 1960s, with the exception of the long-running anthology series, later known as The Wonderful World of Disney. anthology show. Two years later, the

Disney’s film studios stayed busy as well, averaging five to six releases per year during this period. While the production of shorts slowed significantly during the 1950s and 1960s, the studio released a number of popular animated features, like Lady and the Tramp (1955), Sleeping Beauty (1959) and One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), which introduced a new xerography process to transfer the drawings to animation cels. Disney’s live-action releases were spread across a number of genres, including historical fiction (Johnny Tremain, 1957), adaptations of children’s books (Pollyanna, 1960) and modern-day comedies (The Shaggy Dog 1959). Disney’s most successful film of the 1960s was a live action/animated musical adaptation of Mary Poppins, which received five Academy Awards, including Best Actress Julie Andrews.

[edit] 1966-71: The deaths of Walt and Roy Disney and Walt Disney World

On December 15, 1966, Walt Disney died of lung cancer, and Roy Disney took over as chairman, CEO, and president of the company. One of his first acts was to rename Disney World as “Walt Disney World,” in honor of his brother and his vision.

In 1967, the last two films Walt actively followed were released: the animated feature The Jungle Book and the musical The Happiest Millionaire. The studio released a number of comedies in the late 1960s, including The Love Bug (1968) and The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), which starred another young Disney discovery, Kurt Russell. The 1970s opened with the release of Disney’s first “post-Walt” animated feature, The Aristocats, followed by a return to fantasy musicals in 1971’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

On October 1, 1971, Walt Disney World opened to the public, with Roy Disney dedicating the facility in person later that month. Two months later, on December 20, 1971, Roy Disney died of a stroke, leaving the company under control of Donn Tatum, Card Walker, and Walt’s son-in-law Ron Miller, each trained by Walt and Roy.^[12]

[edit] 1972-84: Theatrical malaise and new leadership

The current logo of Disney Channel.

While Walt Disney Productions continued releasing family-friendly films throughout the 1970s, such as Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) and Freaky Friday (1976), the films did not fare as well at the box office as earlier material. The animation studio, however, saw success with Robin Hood (1973), The Rescuers (1977), and The Fox and the Hound (1981).

Inspired by the popularity of Star Wars, the Disney studio produced the science-fiction adventure The Black Hole in 1979.The Black Hole was one of the first Disney releases to carry a PG rating, the first being Take Down, also released in 1979. The releases of these and other PG-rated Disney films such as Tron (1982) led Disney CEO Ron Miller to create Touchstone Pictures as a brand for Disney to release more adult-oriented material. Touchstone’s first release was the comedy Splash (1984), which was a box office success.

With The Wonderful World of Disney remaining a prime-time staple, Disney returned to television in the 1970s with syndicated programing such as the anthology series The Mouse Factory and a brief revival of the Mickey Mouse Club. In 1980, Disney launched Walt Disney Home Video to take advantage of the newly-emerging videocassette market. On April 18, 1983, The Disney Channel debuted as a subscription-level channel on cable systems nationwide, featuring its large library of classic films and TV series, along with original programming and family-friendly third-party offerings.

Walt Disney World received much of the company’s attention through the 1970s and into the 1980s. In 1978, Disney executives announced plans for the second Walt Disney World theme park, EPCOT Center, which would open in October 1982. Inspired by Walt Disney’s dream of a futuristic model city, EPCOT Center was built as a “permanent World’s Fair”, complete with exhibits sponsored by major American corporations, as well as pavilions based on the cultures of other nations. In Japan, the Oriental Land Company partnered with Walt Disney Productions to build the first Disney theme park outside of the United States, Tokyo Disneyland, which opened in April 1983.

Despite the success of the Disney Channel and its new theme park creations, Walt Disney Productions was financially vulnerable. Its film library was valuable, but offered few current successes, and its leadership team was unable to keep up with other studios, particularly the works of Don Bluth, who defected from Disney in 1979. In 1984, financier Saul Steinberg launched a hostile takeover bid for Walt Disney Productions, with the intent of selling off its various assets. Disney successfully fought off the bid with the help of friendly investors, and Sid Bass and Roy Disney’s son Roy Edward Disney brought in Michael Eisner and Jeffrey KatzenbergParamount Pictures and Frank Wells from Warner Bros. Pictures to head up the company. from

[edit] 1985-2004: The Eisner era

In 1984, Love Leads the Way was released, and on the same year, Where the Toys Come From was also released. In June of 1994, The Lion King was released. The Lion King turned out to be the highest rated Disney animated movie. A Goofy Movie was released In 1995. In the same year, Toy Story was also released. In 1998, The Lion King II, Simba’s Pride, a sequel to The Lion King was also released. In 1999-2004 the following was released: Toy Story 2, (1999) Air Bud 3: World pup, (2000) Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp’s Adventure, (2001) Monsters, Inc (2001), Lilo and Stitch, (2002) Finding Nemo, (2003) Freaky Friday, (2003) 101 Dalmations 2: Patch’s London Adventure, (2003) and The Lion King 1 1/2,(2004)

[edit] 2005-present

This section requires expansion.

On July 8, 2005, Walt Disney’s nephew, Roy E. Disney returned to The Walt Disney Company as a consultant and with the new title of Non Voting Director, Emeritus. Walt Disney Parks and ResortsDisneyland Park on July 17, and opened Hong Kong Disneyland on September 12. Walt Disney Feature Animation released Chicken Little, the company’s first film using 3-D animation. On October 1, Robert A. Iger replaced Michael D. Eisner as CEO. Mr. Eisner also waived contractual rights and perks which included use of a corporate jet and an office at the Burbank studio. Miramax co-founders Bob Weinstein and Harvey Weinstein also departed the company to form their own studio. celebrated the 50th Anniversary of

Aware that Disney’s relationship with Pixar was wearing thin, President and CEO Robert Iger began negotiations with leadership of Pixar Animation Studios, Steve Jobs and Ed Catmull, regarding possible merger. On January 23, 2006, it was announced that Disney would purchase Pixar in an all-stock transaction worth $7.4 billion. The deal was finalized on May 5, and made Apple CEO Steve Jobs Disney’s largest individual shareholder at 7% and a Director of the company. Ed Catmull and John Lasseter became President of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios.

After a long time working in the company as a senior executive and large shareholder, Director Emeritus Roy E. Disney died from stomach cancer on December 16, 2009. At the time of his death, he had roughly 1% of all Disney shares which amounted to 16 million. He is seen to be the last member of the Disney family to be actively involved in the running of the company and working in the company altogether.

On December 31, 2009, Disney Company acquired the Marvel Entertainment, Inc. for $4.24 billion. Disney has stated that their acquisition of the company will not affect Marvel’s products, neither will the nature of any Marvel characters be transformed.^[13]

In May 2010, the company sold the Power Rangers brand, as well as its 700-episode library, back to Haim Saban because of the show doing so poorly in the ratings.

Freddie Mercury

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Freddie Mercury
Mercury performing in New Haven, CT, 1977
Background information
Birth name	Farrokh Bulsara
Born	5 September 1946(1946-09-05) Stone Town, Zanzibar
Origin	London, England, UK[1]
Died	24 November 1991 (aged 45) Kensington , London, England, United Kingdom
Genres	Rock, Hard rock
Occupations	Musician, singer-songwriter, record producer
Instruments	Vocals, piano, keyboards, guitar
Years active	1969–91
Labels	Columbia, Polydor, EMI, Parlophone, Hollywood Records
Associated acts	Queen, Wreckage/Ibex, Montserrat Caballé

Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara (Gujarati: ફ્રારુક બુલ્સારા‌), 5 September 1946 – 24 November 1991)^[2] was a British musician, best known as the lead vocalist and a songwriter of the rock band Queen. As a performer, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and powerful vocals over a four-octave range.^[3][4][5] As a songwriter, Mercury composed many hits for Queen, including “Bohemian Rhapsody“, “Killer Queen“, “Somebody to Love“, “Don’t Stop Me Now“, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and “We Are the Champions“. In addition to his work with Queen, he led a solo career, penning hits such as “Barcelona“, “I Was Born to Love You” and “Living on My Own“. Mercury also occasionally served as a producer and guest musician (piano or vocals) for other artists.

Mercury, who was a Parsi born in Zanzibar and grew up there and in India until his mid-teens, has been referred to as “Britain’s first Asian rock star”.^[6] He died of bronchopneumonia brought on by AIDS on 24 November 1991, only one day after publicly acknowledging he had the disease. In 2006, Time Asia named him as one of the most influential Asian heroes of the past 60 years,^[7] and he continues to be voted one of the greatest singers in the history of popular music. In 2005, a poll organised by Blender and MTV2 saw Mercury voted the greatest male singer of all time.^[8] In 2009, a Classic Rock poll saw him voted the greatest rock singer of all time.^[9] In 2008, Rolling Stone editors ranked him number 18 on their list of the 100 greatest singers of all time.^[4] Allmusic has characterised Mercury as “one of the most dynamic and charismatic frontmen in rock history.”^[10]

Contents [show] 1 Early life 2 Career 2.1 Singer 2.2 Songwriter 2.3 Live performer 2.4 Instrumentalist 2.5 Solo career 3 Personal life 4 Illness and death 5 Criticism and controversy 5.1 Sexual orientation and HIV 5.2 Other controversies 6 Legacy 6.1 Continued popularity 6.2 Tributes 6.3 Importance in AIDS history 6.4 Appearances in lists of influential individuals 6.5 Portrayal in film 7 Discography 8 Notes 9 References 10 Bibliography 11 External links

Early life

The house in Zanzibar where Mercury lived in his early years

Mercury was born in the British protectorate of Zanzibar, East Africa. His parents, Bomi and Jer Bulsara,^[a]Parsis from the Gujarat region of the then province of Bombay Presidency in British India.^[11][b] The family surname is derived from the town of Bulsar (also known as Valsad) in southern Gujarat. As Parsis, Freddie and his family practised the Zoroastrian religion.^[12] The Bulsara family had moved to Zanzibar in order for his father to continue his job as a cashier at the British Colonial Office. He had one younger sister, Kashmira.^[13] were

In 1954, at the age of eight, Mercury was sent to study at St. Peter’s School,^[14] an English style boarding school for boys in Panchgani near Bombay (now Mumbai), India.^[15] At school, he formed a popular school band, The Hectics, for which he played piano. A friend from the time recalls that he had “an uncanny ability to listen to the radio and replay what he heard on piano”.^[16] It was also at St. Peter’s where he began to call himself “Freddie”. Mercury remained in India for most of his childhood, living with his grandmother and aunt. He completed his education in India at St. Mary’s School, Bombay.^[17]

At the age of 17, Mercury and his family fled from Zanzibar for safety reasons due to the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution.^[6] The family moved into a small house in Feltham, Middlesex, England. Mercury enrolled at Isleworth Polytechnic (now West Thames College) in West London where he studied art. He ultimately earned a Diploma in Art and Graphic Design at Ealing Art College, later using these skills to design the Queen crest. Mercury remained a British citizen for the rest of his life.

Following graduation, Mercury joined a series of bands and sold second-hand clothes in the Kensington Market in London. He also held a job at Heathrow Airport. Friends from the time remember him as a quiet and shy young man who showed a great deal of interest in music.^[18] In 1969 he joined the band Ibex, later renamed Wreckage. When this band failed to take off, he joined a second band called Sour Milk Sea. However, by early 1970 this group broke up as well.^[19]

In April 1970, Mercury joined guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor who had previously been in a band called Smile. Despite reservations from the other members, Mercury chose the name “Queen” for the new band. He later said about the band’s name, “I was certainly aware of the gay connotations, but that was just one facet of it”.^[1] At about the same time, he changed his surname, Bulsara, to Mercury.

Career

Singer

Although Mercury’s speaking voice naturally fell in the baritone range, he delivered most songs in the tenor^[20] His vocal range extended from bass low E (E2) to coloratura soprano E-natural (E6). His belting register soaring to tenor high F (F5).^[21] Biographer David Bret described his voice as “escalating within a few bars from a deep, throaty rock-growl to tender, vibrant tenor, then on to a high-pitched, perfect coloratura, pure and crystalline in the upper reaches”.^[22] Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballé, with whom Mercury recorded an album, expressed her opinion that “the difference between Freddie and almost all the other rock stars was that he was selling the voice”.^[23] As Queen’s career progressed, he would increasingly alter the highest notes of their songs when live, often harmonising with seconds, thirds or fifths instead. Mercury suffered from vocal fold nodules and claimed never to have had any formal vocal training.^[24] range.

Songwriter

Mercury wrote 10 of the 17 songs on Queen’s Greatest Hits album: “Bohemian Rhapsody“, “Seven Seas of Rhye“, “Killer Queen“, “Somebody to Love“, “Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy“, “We Are the Champions“, “Bicycle Race“, “Don’t Stop Me Now“, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and “Play the Game“.

The most notable aspect of his songwriting involved the wide range of genres that he used, which included, among other styles, rockabilly, progressive rock, heavy metal, gospel and disco. As he explained in a 1986 interview, “I hate doing the same thing again and again and again. I like to see what’s happening now in music, film and theatre and incorporate all of those things.”^[25] Compared to many popular songwriters, Mercury also tended to write musically complex material. For example, “Bohemian Rhapsody” is acyclic in structure and comprises dozens of chords.^[26][27] He also wrote six songs from Queen II which deal with multiple key changes and complex material. “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, on the other hand, contains only a few chords. Despite the fact that Mercury often wrote very intricate harmonies, he also claimed that he could barely read music.^[28] He wrote most of his songs on the piano and used a wide variety of different key signatures.^[26]

Mercury, performing live with his bottomless microphone stand

Live performer

Mercury was noted for his live performances, which were often delivered to stadium audiences around the world. He displayed a highly theatrical style that often evoked a great deal of participation from the crowd. A writer for The Spectator described him as “a performer out to tease, shock and ultimately charm his audience with various extravagant versions of himself”.^[29] David Bowie, who performed at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert and recorded the song “Under Pressure” with Queen, praised Mercury’s performance style, saying: “Of all the more theatrical rock performers, Freddie took it further than the rest… he took it over the edge. And of course, I always admired a man who wears tights. I only saw him in concert once and as they say, he was definitely a man who could hold an audience in the palm of his hand.”^[30]

One of Mercury’s most notable performances with Queen took place at Live Aid in 1985, during which the entire stadium audience of 72,000 people clapped, sang and swayed in unison. Queen’s performance at the event has since been voted by a group of music executives as the greatest live performance in the history of rock music. The results were aired on a television program called “The World’s Greatest Gigs”.^[31][32] In reviewing Live Aid in 2005, one critic wrote, “Those who compile lists of Great Rock Frontmen and award the top spots to Mick Jagger, Robert Plant, etc all are guilty of a terrible oversight. Freddie, as evidenced by his Dionysian Live Aid performance, was easily the most godlike of them all.”^[33]

Over the course of his career, Mercury performed an estimated 700 concerts in countries around the world with Queen. A notable aspect of Queen concerts was the large scale involved.^[25] He once explained, “We’re the Cecil B. DeMille of rock and roll, always wanting to do things bigger and better.”^[25] The band were the first ever to play in South American stadiums, breaking worldwide records for concert attendance in the Morumbi Stadium in São Paulo in 1981.^[34] In 1986, Queen also played behind the Iron Curtain, when they performed to a crowd of 80,000 in Budapest.^[35] Mercury’s final live performance with Queen took place on 9 August 1986 at Knebworth Park in England and drew an attendance estimated as high as 300,000.^[36]

Instrumentalist

Freddie Mercury playing guitar during a live concert with Queen in Frankfurt, 1984.

As a young boy in India, Mercury received formal piano training up to the age of nine. Later on, while living in London, he learned guitar. Much of the music he liked was guitar-oriented: his favourite artists at the time were The Who, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, and Led Zeppelin. He was often self-deprecating about his own skills on both instruments and from the early 1980s onward began extensively using guest keyboardists for both Queen and his solo career. Most notably, he enlisted Fred Mandel (a Canadian musician who also worked for Pink Floyd, Elton John and Supertramp) for his first solo project, and from 1985 onward collaborated with Mike Moran and Spike Edney, leaving most of the keyboard work exclusively to them.

Mercury played the piano in many of Queen’s most popular songs, including “Killer Queen“, “Bohemian Rhapsody“, “Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy“, “We Are the Champions“, “Somebody To Love” and “Don’t Stop Me Now“. He used concert grand pianos and, occasionally, other keyboard instruments such as the harpsichord. From 1980 onward, he also made frequent use of synthesizers in the studio. Queen guitarist Brian May claims that Mercury was unimpressed with his own abilities at the piano and used the instrument less over time because he wanted to walk around onstage and entertain the audience.^[37] Although he wrote many lines for the guitar, Mercury possessed only rudimentary skills on the instrument. Songs like “Ogre Battle” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” were composed on the guitar; the latter featured Mercury playing acoustic guitar both on stage and in the studio.

Bewitched

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This article is about the American television sitcom. For other uses, see Bewitched (disambiguation).

Bewitched
Series title screen
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	Sol Saks
Starring	Elizabeth Montgomery Dick York Dick Sargent Agnes Moorehead David White
Theme music composer	Howard Greenfield Jack Keller
Composer(s)	Warren Barker
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	8
No. of episodes	254 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Harry Ackerman
Producer(s)	Danny Arnold Jerry Davis William Froug William Asher
Camera setup	Single-camera
Running time	approx. 25 minutes
Production company(s)	Screen Gems Ashmont Productions (1971–72)
Distributor	Columbia Pictures Television (1974-1984), Colex Enterprises (1984-1988), The Program Exchange (1980-1990, 2010-present), Columbia TriStar Domestic Television (1994-2002), Sony Pictures Television (2002-present)
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC
Picture format	Black-and-white (1964–66) Color (1966–72)
Audio format	Monaural
Original run	September 17, 1964 (1964-09-17) – July 1, 1972 (1972-07-01)
Chronology
Followed by	Tabitha

Bewitched is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for eight seasons on ABC from 1964 to 1972, starring Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York (1964–1969), Dick Sargent (1969–1972), Agnes Moorehead and David White. The show is about a witch who marries a mortal and tries to lead the life of a typical suburban housewife. Bewitched continues to be seen throughout the world in syndication and on DVD and was the longest-running supernatural-themed sitcom of the 1960s–1970s era.

Contents [show] 1 Premise and characters 1.1 Plot summary 1.2 Setting 1.3 Characters 1.3.1 Other recurring characters 1.3.2 Historical, fictional, and contemporary characters 2 Cast 3 Production 3.1 Storylines repeated from I Love Lucy 3.2 Timely topics 3.3 Sets and locations 4 In popular culture 5 Episode availability 5.1 Syndication history 5.2 Internet 5.3 DVD releases 6 Spin-offs and remakes 6.1 Tabitha and Adam and the Clown Family 6.2 Tabitha 6.3 Theatrical movie 6.4 International television remakes 7 Similar supernatural television series 7.1 Shows which aired in the same era 7.2 Shows which aired later 8 See also 9 Further reading 10 References 11 External links

[edit] Premise and characters

[edit] Plot summary

A young-looking witch named Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) meets and marries a mortal named Darrin Stephens (originally Dick York, later Dick Sargent). While Samantha pledges to forsake her powers and become a typical suburban housewife, her magical family disapproves of the mixed marriage and frequently interferes in the couple’s lives. Episodes often begin with Darrin becoming the victim of a spell, the effects of which wreak havoc with mortals such as his boss, clients, parents, and neighbors. By the epilogue, however, Darrin and Samantha most often embrace and confound the devious elements that failed to separate them.

Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York as Samantha and Darrin Stephens, from a 1967 promo.

Most female witches have names ending with the soft “-a” sound. Their male counterparts are known as “warlocks.” The witches and warlocks are very long lived; while Samantha appears to be in her twenties, many episodes suggest she is actually hundreds of years old. To keep their society secret, witches avoid showing their powers in front of mortals other than Darrin. Nevertheless, the perplexing inexplicable effects of their spells and Samantha’s attempts to hide their supernatural origin from mortals drive the plot of most episodes. Witches and warlocks usually use physical gestures along with their magical spells, and sometimes spoken incantations. Most notably, Samantha often “twitches” her nose to perform a spell. Modest but effective special visual effects are accompanied by music to highlight the magic.

[edit] Setting

The main setting for most scenes is the Stephens’ house at 1164 Morning Glory Circle (although in season 4’s “How Green Was My Grass”, house number 192 is used as a plot device). Many scenes also take place at the Madison Avenue advertising agency “McMann and Tate” for which Darrin works. The Stephens’ home is located in a nearby upper middle class suburban neighborhood, either in Westport, Connecticut or within New York State, as indicated by conflicting information presented throughout the series.^[1]

[edit] Characters

Samantha’s mother, Endora (Agnes Moorehead), is the chief antagonist. Like all witches, she never reveals her surname, indicating to Darrin that he would be unable to pronounce it. Endora loathes mortals, and disapproves of Darrin, as do many of Samantha’s relatives. Endora refuses to even use Darrin’s name, alternatively calling him “Durwood,” “What’s-his-name,” “Darwin,” “Dum-Dum,” etc., all much to his annoyance. She refers to him as “Darrin” only eight times during the entire series.^[2] Many stories revolve around Endora, or another of Darrin’s in-laws, using magic to undermine the union. Endora casts countless farcical spells on Darrin, but never attempts to outright destroy him. Endora’s ploys to provoke a breakup always fail as Samantha and Darrin’s love overcomes every obstacle. When High Priestess Hephzibah expresses surprise that Darrin has withstood years of harassment from his mother-in-law, Endora can only shrug and admit, “He loves my daughter.”

Agnes Moorehead as Endora.

Darrin works as an executive at the McMann and Tate advertising agency. His profit-obsessed boss Larry Tate (David White) is a regular character, but Tate’s partner, Mr. McMann, appears only twice during the series. Tate’s opinions turn on a dime to appease a client in an attempt to land a deal. Many episodes culminate in a dinner party with clients at the Stephens’ home that is humorously affected by magic. Samantha usually figures out a clever way to save the day and the account. Louise Tate (Irene Vernon, Kasey Rogers), Larry’s wife, eventually becomes Samantha’s closest mortal friend and, like Samantha, sometimes plays hostess to clients.

Across the street from Darrin and Samantha lives a retired couple, the nosy and tactless Gladys Kravitz (Alice Pearce, then Sandra Gould) and her husband Abner (George Tobias). Gladys’s snooping often results in her witnessing witchcraft or its strange side effects. She frequently tries to prove Samantha is a witch, only to fail and be branded delusional by Abner.

Samantha’s father, Maurice (Maurice Evans), is an urbane thespian much like Elizabeth Montgomery’s father, Robert Montgomery. Maurice often embellishes his entrances and exits with strained Shakespearean verse. Bewitched is unique for mid-1960s sitcoms in that it portrays Endora and Maurice as an estranged married couple, their separation being implied and subtextual. Endora once introduced Maurice as “my daughter’s father,” and another time Endora threatens to “move in” with Maurice. In the episode “Samantha’s Good News,” Endora threatens to file for an “ectoplasmic interlocutory” (i.e. divorce), only to wrangle Maurice’s affection. Maurice also refers to Darrin with incorrect names, including “Duncan” and “Dustbin,” with Endora going so far as to “correct” him, saying “That’s Durwood.”

Darrin’s parents, the straight-laced Phyllis and laid-back Frank Stephens, visit occasionally but never learn of Samantha’s supernatural powers. Phyllis (Mabel Albertson) makes inopportune surprise visits, and often complains of “a sick headache” after accidentally witnessing a spell in motion.

On Samantha’s father’s side of the family^[3] is her far-out, egocentric lookalike cousin Serena. Also played by Elizabeth Montgomery, she is credited as “Pandora Spocks” (a spin on the phrase “Pandora’s box“) from 1969 to 1972. Serena is the antithesis of Samantha, in most episodes sporting a heart-shaped beauty mark on her cheek, raven-black cropped hair, and mod mini-skirts. Ever mischievous, Serena often chases after Darrin and Larry Tate (calling the white-haired Tate “Cotton-Top”), just for sport. More progressive than typical witches or warlocks, who generally abhor mortals, Samantha’s counter-culture cousin occasionally dates some (including characters played by Jack Cassidy and Peter Lawford). Despite her wild behavior and frequent co-plotting with Endora, Serena ultimately supports Samantha and Darrin, even though she finds them both a bit “square.”

Uncle Arthur (Paul Lynde), Endora’s prank-loving brother, makes several memorable appearances. Despite many practical jokes at Darrin’s expense, Uncle Arthur seems to like him. In one episode, both Serena and Uncle Arthur go head-to-head with the Witches Council to support the Stephens’ union, only to have their own powers suspended.

The only one of Samantha’s relatives for whom Darrin regularly shows affection is the bumbling, absent-minded but lovable Aunt Clara (Marion Lorne). Though well-intentioned, Clara’s spells usually backfire, and her entrances and exits are often a grand fumble, such as entering via a chimney or colliding with a wall. She has a collection of over a thousand doorknobs (inspired by Lorne’s real-life collection). Rather than recast the role after Lorne’s death in 1968, a similar witch, the anxiety-ridden and magically inept housekeeper Esmeralda (Alice Ghostley), is introduced in 1969.

In the second season, Samantha gives birth to a daughter, Tabitha (spelled Tabatha in production credits until season 5) and later in the series has a son, Adam. Both eventually prove to have supernatural powers. The Tates’ son Jonathon is born several months before Tabitha.

A strange occurrence or condition caused by a supernatural illness is often used as a plot device. Assistance is often sought from the warlock Dr. Bombay (Bernard Fox) who is summoned by the phrase “Dr. Bombay, Dr. Bombay, emergency, come right away.” Dr. Bombay is a womanizer who often has a buxom assistant, and constantly cracks bad jokes. Help for supernatural illnesses is also occasionally sought from the unnamed witches’ apothecary (Bernie Kopell), an amorous old warlock.

[edit] Other recurring characters

• Aunt Enchantra and Aunt Hagatha, Samantha’s aunts. They occasionally ride in an antique car called “Macbeth” (sometimes driven by chauffeur Rasputin, other times operating sans driver) which enters the Stephens home through the wall. Enchantra was played by three different actresses, while Hagatha was played by five, including Reta Shaw and Ysabel MacCloskey. Starting at the end of season 4, Hagatha sometimes appears to babysit Tabitha, and later Adam.
• The “drunk guy” (Dick Wilson) shows up in various bars, jail cells and sidewalks to witness acts of witchcraft.
• Betty, the secretary at McMann and Tate, played by various actresses.
• Sheila Sommers (Nancy Kovack), Darrin’s wealthy ex-fiancée and nemesis for Samantha. Twice in the series (the premiere episode, “I, Darrin, Take This Witch, Samantha” and “Snob in the Grass”) she brazenly tries to seduce Darrin, only to be stopped by Samantha and her powers. The character also appears in the 1968 episode “If they Never Met.”
• Dave (Gene Blakely), Darrin’s “best friend” and a Morning Glory Circle councilman in the first two seasons.
• Howard McMann, Larry Tate’s business partner, played by Roland Winters in “Man of the Year” (139) and Leon Ames in “What Makes Darrin Run” (191).
• Miss Peabody, Tabitha’s 2nd grade teacher (Maudie Prickett), appears in two episodes of season 8, “Tabitha’s First Day of School” (248) and “School Days, School Daze” (251).

[edit] Historical, fictional, and contemporary characters

Thanks to witchcraft, a number of interesting characters were seen, including Benjamin Franklin, Franklin Pierce, George and Martha Washington, Paul Revere, Sigmund Freud, Julius Caesar, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Leonardo da Vinci, Napoleon, King Henry VIII, Cleopatra, Santa Claus, Jack of Jack and the Beanstalk, Mother Goose, The Artful Dodger, Hansel and Gretel, The Tooth Fairy, the Loch Ness Monster, a Leprechaun, Prince Charming, Sleeping Beauty, Willie Mays (playing himself), and Boyce and Hart (playing themselves).

[edit] Cast

Cast of Characters

Character	Actor(s)	No. of episodes
Main Characters
Samantha Stephens	Elizabeth Montgomery	254
Darrin Stephens	Dick York (1964–1969) Dick Sargent (1969–1972)	156 (York) 84 (Sargent)
Endora	Agnes Moorehead	147
Larry Tate	David White	166
Recurring Characters
Tabitha Stephens	Cynthia Black (1966) Heidi and Laura Gentry (1966) Tamar and Julie Young (1966) Diane Murphy (1966–1968) Erin Murphy (1966–1972)	116
Gladys Kravitz	Alice Pearce (1964–1966) Sandra Gould (1966–1971)	57
Abner Kravitz	George Tobias (1964–1971)	55
Louise Tate	Irene Vernon (1964–1966) Kasey Rogers (1966–1972)	46
Aunt Clara	Marion Lorne (1964–1968)	28
Serena	Elizabeth Montgomery (1966–1972) (as “Pandora Spocks“)	24
Adam Stephens	unknown (1969–1970) Greg and David Lawrence (1970–1972)	24
Phyllis Stephens	Mabel Albertson (1964–1971)	19
Dr. Bombay	Bernard Fox (1967–1972)	18
Esmeralda	Alice Ghostley (1969–1972)	15
Frank Stephens	Robert F. Simon (1964–67, 1971) Roy Roberts (1967–1970)	13
Maurice	Maurice Evans	12
Uncle Arthur	Paul Lynde (1965–1971)	10

The series is noted for having a number of major cast changes, often due to illness or death of the actors. Most notably, the actor playing Darrin was quietly replaced mid-series. The only surviving members of the regular cast are Bernard Fox and the actors who played the Stephens children. The various changes during the series and untimely deaths of several of the regular actors in the decades following its cancellation produced a mythology that the series was cursed. However, a study of the average age of death of the actors, many of whom were already past middle aged during the show’s production, reveals no unusual pattern.^[4]
Dick York was unable to continue his role as Darrin due to a severe back condition (the result of an accident during the filming of They Came To Cordura in 1959). York’s disability caused ongoing shooting delays and script rewrites. After collapsing on the set and being rushed to the hospital in January 1969, York left the show and the role went to Dick Sargent that same month.^[5]

Ghostley and Lorne together in The Graduate.

Marion Lorne appeared in 28 episodes as Aunt Clara and won a posthumous Emmy Award in 1968. Essentially replacing this character was the similarly magic-disabled Esmeralda (Alice Ghostley) in season 6. Coincidentally, Lorne and Ghostley had appeared side by side in the hotel scene of Mike Nichols’ film version of The Graduate in 1967.

Also winning a posthumous Emmy award in 1966 for her role, Alice Pearce was the first to play the character of Gladys Kravitz. After Pearce’s death from ovarian cancer, Mary Grace Canfield played Harriet Kravitz, Abner’s sister, in four episodes during the spring of 1966, and is said to be keeping house while Gladys is out of town. Sandra Gould assumed the role of Gladys Kravitz beginning in season 3.

Louise Tate was played by Irene Vernon during the first two seasons and then replaced by Kasey Rogers, who wore a short black wig to appear similar to Vernon. According to Rogers,^[6] Bill Asher noticed her tugging at the wig and asked why she was wearing it. She laughed and said, “Because you told me to.” He replied, “Why don’t you take it off!” and she played Louise with red hair for the remainder of the series.

Tabitha Stephens’s birth in the season 2 episode “And Then There Were Three” featured infant Cynthia Black in the role. For the remainder of the season, Tabitha was played by twins Heidi and Laura Gentry, followed by twins Tamar and Julie Young. Fraternal twin toddlers Diane and Erin Murphy were cast for the role at the beginning of season 3. In time, they began to look less alike, so Diane was dropped during season 4. Diane made several guest appearances in other roles, and filled in as Tabitha one last time in season 5’s “Samantha Fights City Hall,” due to Erin’s mumps.

Alice Ghostley (Esmeralda), Paul Lynde (Uncle Arthur), and Bernard Fox (Dr. Bombay) all had guest roles during the first two seasons as mortal characters before being cast as magical regulars.

[edit] Production

Ratings

Season	Rank (rating)
1) 1964–65	# 2 (31.0)
2) 1965–66	# 7 (25.9)
3) 1966–67	# 8 (23.4)
4) 1967–68	# 11 (23.5)
5) 1968–69	# 12 (23.3)
6) 1969–70	# 25 (20.6)
7) 1970–71	# 34 (15.0)
8) 1971–72	# 72 (10.0)

Inspirations for this series in which many similarities can be seen were the 1942 film I Married a Witch (from Thorne Smith‘s unfinished novel The Passionate Witch and Me), and the John Van Druten Broadway play Bell, Book and Candle that was adapted into a 1958 movie.
Sol Saks, who received credit as the creator of the show, wrote the pilot of Bewitched, although he was not involved with the show after the pilot. Initially, Danny Arnold, who helped develop the style and tone of the series as well as some of the supporting characters who did not appear in the pilot, like Larry Tate and the Kravitzes, produced and headed writing of the series. Arnold, who wrote on McHale’s Navy and other shows, thought of Bewitched essentially as a romantic comedy about a mixed marriage; his episodes kept the magic element to a minimum. One or two magical acts drove the plot, but Samantha often solved problems without magic. Many of the first season’s episodes were allegorical, using supernatural situations as metaphors for the problems any young couple would face. Arnold stated that the two main themes of the series were the conflict between a powerful woman and a husband who cannot deal with that power, and the anger of a bride’s mother at seeing her daughter marry beneath her. Though the show was a hit right from the beginning, finishing its first year as the number 2 show in the United States, ABC wanted more magic and more farcical plots, causing battles between Arnold and the network.
Arnold left the show after the first season, leaving producing duties to his friend Jerry Davis, who had already produced some of the first season’s episodes (though Arnold was still supervising the writing). The second season was produced by Davis and with Bernard Slade as head writer, with mistaken identity and farce becoming a more prevalent element, but still included a number of more low-key episodes where the magic element was not front and center.

With the third season and the switch to color, Davis left the show, and was replaced as producer by William Froug. Slade also left after the second season. According to William Froug’s autobiography, William Asher (who had directed many episodes) wanted to take over as producer when Jerry Davis left, but the production company was not yet ready to approve the idea. Froug, a former producer of Gilligan’s Island, was brought in as a compromise. By his own admission, Froug was not very familiar with Bewitched and found himself in the uncomfortable position of being the official producer even though Asher was making most of the creative decisions. After a year, Froug left the show, and Asher took over as full-time producer of the series for the rest of its run.

Along with Darrin now being played by Dick Sargent, the sixth season (1969–1970) also saw a significant decline in ratings. Viewership continued to dwindle in the seventh season. The show used fewer recurring characters in later episodes, the Kravitzes, Darrin’s parents, and Uncle Arthur not appearing in the final (eighth) season at all. Scripts from old episodes were also recycled more frequently, the final season having eight remade episodes. The last season began with ABC moving Bewitched’s air time from Thursdays at 8:30 to Wednesdays at 8:00. The schedule change did not help ratings as the show was now pitted against CBS’s popular The Carol Burnett Show. Filming for the season ended in December 1971, and in January 1972 the show was finally moved to Saturday night at 8:00, opposite TV’s number one show, All in the Family, and finished the year in 72nd place.

Elvis Presley

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“Elvis” redirects here. For other uses, see Elvis (disambiguation).

Elvis Presley
Publicity photo for Jailhouse Rock (1957)
Background information
Birth name	Elvis Aaron Presley
Born	January 8, 1935(1935-01-08) Tupelo, Mississippi, United States
Died	August 16, 1977 (aged 42) Memphis, Tennessee, United States
Genres	Rock and roll, pop, rockabilly, country, blues, gospel, R&B
Occupations	Musician, actor
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, piano
Years active	1954–77
Labels	Sun, RCA Victor
Associated acts	The Blue Moon Boys, The Jordanaires, The Imperials
Website	www.elvis.com

Elvis Aaron Presley^a (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the “King of Rock and Roll” or simply “the King”.

Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, Presley moved to Memphis, Tennessee, with his family at the age of 13. He began his career there in 1954 when Sun Records owner Sam Phillips, eager to bring the sound of African American music to a wider audience, saw in Presley the means to realize his ambition. Accompanied by guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, Presley was one of the originators of rockabilly, an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of country and rhythm and blues. RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker, who would manage the singer for over two decades. Presley’s first RCA single, “Heartbreak Hotel“, released in January 1956, was a number one hit. He became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll with a series of network television appearances and chart-topping records. His energized interpretations of songs, many from African American sources, and his uninhibited performance style made him enormously popular—and controversial. In November 1956, he made his film debut in Love Me Tender.

Conscripted into military service in 1958, Presley relaunched his recording career two years later with some of his most commercially successful work. He staged few concerts, however, and, guided by Parker, proceeded to devote much of the 1960s to making Hollywood movies and soundtrack albums, most of them critically derided. In 1968, after seven years away from the stage, he returned to live performance in a celebrated comeback television special that led to an extended Las Vegas concert residency and a string of profitable tours. In 1973, Presley staged the first concert broadcast globally via satellite, Aloha from Hawaii, seen by approximately 1.5 billion viewers. Prescription drug abuse severely compromised his health, and he died suddenly in 1977 at the age of 42.

Presley is regarded as one of the most important figures of 20th-century popular culture. He had a versatile voice and unusually wide success encompassing many genres, including country, pop ballads, gospel, and blues. He is the best-selling solo artist in the history of popular music.^[1][2][3][4] Nominated for 14 competitive Grammys, he won three, and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36. He has been inducted into four music halls of fame.

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Bob Crane

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For the biochemist, see Robert K. Crane.

Bob Crane
Bob Crane with future wife Sigrid Valdis on Hogan’s Heroes
Born	Robert Edward Crane July 13, 1928(1928-07-13) Waterbury, Connecticut, United States
Died	June 29, 1978 (aged 49) Scottsdale, Arizona , United States
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1950–1978
Spouse	Anne Terzian (1949-1970) Sigrid Valdis (1970-1978)
Website
http://www.bobcrane.com

Robert Edward “Bob” Crane (July 13, 1928 – June 29, 1978) was an American actor and disc jockey, best known for his performance as Colonel Robert E. Hogan in the television sitcom Hogan’s Heroes from 1965 to 1971, and for his unsolved death.
Crane was born in Waterbury, Connecticut. He dropped out of high school^[1] in 1946 and became a drummer, performing with dance bands and a symphony orchestra. That same year he also enlisted in the Army Reserve, where he was assigned the job of a clerk and given an honorable discharge a few years later.^[2] In 1949, he married high school sweetheart Anne Terzian; they had two children, Deborah Ann and Karen Leslie. Anne and Bob were briefly separated and living in different towns in the mid-1950s; after a few months they were reconciled and Anne later gave birth to their son, Robert David Crane. Bob later divorced Anne and married Patricia Olsen, an actress whose stage name was Sigrid Valdis. They had one son, Robert Scott Crane, and adopted a daughter, Ana Marie.

Contents [show] 1 Career 1.1 Early career 1.2 Hogan’s Heroes (1965-1971) 1.3 Career after Hogan’s Heroes (1973-1978) 2 Crane’s murder 2.1 A&E’s Cold Case Files account 2.2 Murder case reopened 3 Biographical film Auto Focus (2002) 4 Filmography 4.1 Television 5 Award nominations 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Career

[edit] Early career

In 1950, Crane started his broadcasting career at WLEA in Hornell, New York. He soon moved to WBIS in Bristol, Connecticut, followed by WICC in Bridgeport, Connecticut. This was a 500-watt operation where he remained until 1956, when the CBS radio network plucked Crane out to help stop his huge popularity from affecting their own station’s ratings. Crane moved his family to California to host the morning show at KNX radio in Hollywood. He filled the broadcast with sly wit, drumming, and guests such as Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, and Bob Hope. It quickly became the number-one rated morning show in the LA area, with Crane known as “The King of the Los Angeles Airwaves.”
Crane’s acting ambitions led to his subbing for Johnny Carson on the daytime game show Who Do You Trust? and appearances on The Twilight Zone, Channing, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and General Electric Theater. When Carl Reiner appeared on his show, Crane persuaded him to book him for a guest shot on The Dick Van Dyke Show, where he was noticed by Donna Reed, who suggested him for the role of neighbor Dr. Dave Kelsey in her eponymous sitcom from 1963 through 1965.

[edit] Hogan’s Heroes (1965-1971)

In 1965, Crane was offered the starring role in a television comedy pilot about a German P.O.W. camp. Hogan’s Heroes became a hit and finished in the Top Ten in its first year on the air. The series lasted six seasons, and Crane was nominated for an Emmy Award twice, in 1966 and 1967. During its run, he met Patricia Olsen who played Hilda under the stage name Sigrid Valdis. He divorced his wife of twenty years and married Olsen on the set of the show in 1970. They had a son, Scotty (Robert Scott), and adopted a daughter named Ana Marie.
In addition to playing the drums on the theme song, Crane’s ability can be seen in the sixth season episode, “Look at the Pretty Snowflakes,” where he has an extended drum solo during the prisoners’ performance of the jazz standard“Cherokee”.
In 1968, during the run of Hogan’s Heroes, Crane and series costars Werner Klemperer, Leon Askin, and John Banner appeared, with Elke Sommer, in a feature film called The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz. The setting was the divided city of Berlin inside East Germany. Paula Schultz was being tempted to defect to the West, with Crane encouraging her to do so. Klemperer and Banner were involved as East German officials trying to keep Paula in the East.

[edit] Career after Hogan’s Heroes (1973-1978)

Following the cancellation of Hogan’s Heroes in 1971, Crane was frustrated that he was offered few quality roles. He appeared in two Disney films, 1973’s Superdad with the title role and Gus from 1976 in a cameo.
In 1973, Crane purchased the rights to Beginner’s Luck, a play that he starred in and directed. The production toured for five years, predominantly at dinner theatres from Florida to California to Texas, Hawaii and Arizona in 1978.^[3] During breaks, he guest starred in a number of TV shows, including Police Woman, Quincy, M.E., and The Love Boat. A second series of his own, 1975’s The Bob Crane Show, was canceled by NBC after three months.

[edit] Crane’s murder

During the run of Hogan’s Heroes, sitcom costar Richard Dawson introduced Crane (a photography enthusiast) to John Henry Carpenter, who worked with the video department at Sony Electronics and had access to early video cassette recorder/VCRs. In later years, Carpenter photographed some of Crane’s sexual escapades with various women.
On the night of June 28, 1978, Crane is alleged to have called Carpenter to tell him that their friendship was over. The following day, Crane was discovered bludgeoned to death with a weapon that was never found (but was believed to be a camera tripod) at the Winfield Place Apartments in Scottsdale, Arizona. In Robert Graysmith‘s book The Murder of Bob Crane, he said investigators found semen on Crane’s dead body, indicating the murderer may have ejaculated on him after killing him.^[4] Crane had been appearing in Scottsdale in his Beginner’s Luck production at the Windmill Dinner Theatre (now Buzz, located at the southeast corner of Shea Boulevard and Scottsdale Road).

[edit] A&E’s Cold Case Files account

According to an episode of A&E‘s Cold Case Files, police officers who arrived at the scene of the crime noted that Carpenter called the apartment several times and did not seem surprised that the police were there. This raised suspicion, and the car Carpenter had rented the previous day was impounded. In it, several blood smears were found that matched Crane’s blood type. At that time, DNA testing did not exist to confirm whether it was Crane’s or not. Due to insufficient evidence, Maricopa County Attorney Charles F. Hyder declined to file charges.

[edit] Murder case reopened

In 1990, 12 years after the murder, the case was reopened. A 1978 attempt to test the blood found in the car Carpenter had rented resulted in a match to Bob Crane’s blood type, but it failed to produce any additional results. DNA testing in 1990 could not be completed due to an insufficient remaining sample. The detectives in charge, Barry Vassall and Jim Raines, instead hoped that additional witnesses and a picture of a possible piece of brain tissue found in the rental car^[5] (which had been lost since the original investigation) would incriminate Carpenter. He was arrested and held for trial after a preliminary hearing before a Superior Court Judge finding that evidence presented justified a trial by jury.
During Carpenter’s 1994 trial, defense attorneys attacked the prosecution case as circumstantial and inconclusive. They disputed the claim that the rediscovered photo showed brain tissue, and they noted that authorities did not have the tissue itself. Pointing out that Crane had been videotaped and photographed in compromising sexual positions with numerous women, the defense implied that a jealous person or someone fearing blackmail might have been the killer.
Carpenter was found not guilty. He maintained his innocence until his death on September 4, 1998, and the murder remains officially unsolved. However, authorities continue to believe he was the killer, and no other serious suspect has ever been mentioned in the case.
In July 1978, Bob Crane was interred in Oakwood Memorial Park in Chatsworth, California. More than 20 years later, Crane’s family had the actor’s remains exhumed and transported about 25 miles southeast, to another cemetery, Westwood Village Memorial Park, located in Westwood.