tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83438560679620993652024-03-14T01:24:30.055-07:00Ado's BlogHi there and welcome to Ado's Blog. I am obsessed with nostalgia, especially 1960s & 1970s nostalgia and I enjoy nothing more than reflecting on days and times that have sadly long since gone! So join me, as I take a nostalgic gander down Memory Lane and celebrate all things past and occasional present, both good and bad! (All images used that are copyrighted are copyrighted to their respective publishers and are only used here for review purposes.)Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.comBlogger878125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-30295588917122661582012-06-22T07:08:00.003-07:002012-06-22T07:10:37.995-07:00The Beatles - Now These Days Are Gone<img alt="The Beatles,Now These Days Are Gone - Deluxe Edition,UK,Deleted,BOOK,386273" height="438" src="http://991.com/newGallery/The-Beatles-Now-These-Days-Ar-386273.jpg" width="640" /><br /><span style="text-align: -webkit-left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">THE BEATLES Now These Days Are Gone (Fantastic 2006 UK Genesis Publications 256-page numbered limited edition superior quality book featuring previously unpublished photographs by Michael Peto, printed & hand bound in Milan on 200gsm matt-art stock. The photographs are reproduced in duotone with image varnishing & the text is printed in three separate inks, signed by Sir Alan Langlands - Yet another magnificent book to the high quality we have come to expect from Genesis) </span></span><br /><img alt="The Beatles,Now These Days Are Gone - Deluxe Edition,UK,Deleted,BOOK,386273" height="640" src="http://eil.com/Gallery/386273b.jpg" width="501" /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">When photojournalist Michael Peto died in 1970, he left the University of Dundee an incredible collection of 130,000 prints and negatives. Two years ago, while archiving the collection, the University found hundreds of photographs of the most influential band in history, none of which had ever been published before.</span><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white;">All the photos were taken in 1965 while The Beatles were shooting their second feature film, Help! Michael Peto was working for The Observer Sunday newspaper - then the UK's most prestigious publication for photojournalists. His position there ensured considerable access to The Beatles over the course of a year.</span><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white;">The book features Over 250 rare and unpublished images of The Beatles taken in 1965 at the height of their fame.<br />Renowned music journalist Paolo Hewitt contributes an essay reflecting on the pivotal importance of 1965 in Beatle history, while Professor Jim Tomlinson of the University of Dundee provides a deeper insight into the historical context of The Beatles' success.<br />Acclaimed photographer Colin Jones writes the book's Foreword.</span><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white;">Numbers 1-350 of the edition are 'Deluxe' copies, bound in full leather. These copies come with a set of three prints, suitable for framing, not included elsewhere in the book, the only photos of The Beatles that Michael Peto took in 1966. The prints feature John Lennon with legendary British comic Peter Cook filming a short sketch for the television series Not Only... But Also.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white;">Deluxe copies are also signed by Richard Lester, the director of A Hard Day's Night and Help!<br /><br />All copies are gold-blocked on the spine and front board, and are housed in a red slipcase inset with four portraits of The Beatles.<br /><br />NOW THESE DAYS ARE GONE contains 256 pages (315mm x 268mm), printed and hand-bound in Milan on 200gsm matt-art stock. The photographs are reproduced in duotone with image varnishing, and the text is printed in three separate inks.<br /><br />Every copy in the edition is signed by the Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Dundee, Sir Alan Langlands.</span></span>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-27972774747828151632012-06-14T07:31:00.004-07:002012-06-14T07:36:25.420-07:00Michael Caine's Best - Get Carter (1971)<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><img alt="File:Get Carter poster.jpg" height="473" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c1/Get_Carter_poster.jpg" width="640" /></span><br /><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><i><b>Get Carter is probably Michael Caine’s greatest movie, well, it is for me anyway!</b></i></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt;"><i><b> This 1971 British<span class="apple-converted-space"> crime movie was d</span>irected by<span class="apple-converted-space"> Mike Hodges </span>and starringalongside<span class="apple-converted-space"> Caine were</span>,<span class="apple-converted-space"> Ian Hendry</span>, Britt Eckland,<span class="apple-converted-space"> John Osbone </span>and<span class="apple-converted-space"> Bryan Mosley (Alf Roberts of Corrie)</span>The screenplay was adapted by Hodges from<span class="apple-converted-space"> TedLewis’</span> 1969 novel<span class="apple-converted-space"> Jack’s ReturnHome</span>. Producer<span class="apple-converted-space"> Michael Klinger </span>optionedthe book and made a deal for the ailing<span class="apple-converted-space"> MGM </span>studioto finance and release the film, bringing in Hodges and Caine. Caine became aco-producer of the film.Get Carter<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>wasHodges' first feature film as director, as well as marking the screen debut of<span class="apple-converted-space"> Alun Armstrong</span>. MGM were scaling backtheir European operations and the film became the last project approved beforethe American company closed its<span class="apple-converted-space"> BorehamwoodStudios</span>.</b></i></span><br /><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b><i>The story follows a London<span class="apple-converted-space"> gangster</span>,the eponymous Jack Carter played by Caine, who travels to<span class="apple-converted-space"> the North East of England </span>todiscover more about the events surrounding the supposedly accidental death ofhis brother. Suspecting foul play, he investigates and interrogates, getting afeel for the city and its hardened criminal element; with vengeance on his mindthe situation builds to a violent conclusion.</i></b><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"><img height="358" src="http://m.blog.hu/re/regifilmek/image/pics/get_carter.jpg" width="640" /></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;">Caine and Hodges hadambitions to produce a more gritty and realistic portrayal of on-screenviolence and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>criminal behaviour </span>ina British film. Caine incorporated his knowledge of real criminal acquaintancesinto his characterisation of Carter. Hodges andCinematographer<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Wolfgang Suschitzky drew heavily ontheir backgrounds in<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>documentaryfilm. This, combined with Hodges' research into the contemporarycriminal underworld of Newcastle (in particular the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>one-armed bandit murder) anduse of hundreds of local bystanders as<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>extras,as well as shooting with a long lens produced a naturalistic feel in manyscenes. The shoot was incident free and progressed speedily, despite a one daystrike by the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>ACCT Union.The production went from novel to finished film in eight months, with locationshooting in<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Newcastle and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Gateshead lasting 40 days.</i></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt;"><img height="640" src="http://d2oz5j6ef5tbf6.cloudfront.net/cd/large/Get_Carter_CMEDD017.jpg" width="640" /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;">Get Carter</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;">suffered in its promotion on two fronts, firstlyfrom MGM's problems and secondly because of the declining British filmindustry, which relied increasingly on US investment. Initial UK criticalreaction to the film was mixed, with British reviewers grudgingly appreciativeof the film's technical excellence, but dismayed by the complex plotting, theexcessive violence and amorality, in particular Carter's apparent lack ofremorse at his actions.</span> <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Despitethis the film did good business in the UK and produced a respectable profit(exact figures for the gross are not available). Conversely, US critics weregenerally more enthusiastic and praised the film, but it was poorly promoted inthe States by<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>United Artists </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">andlanguished on the</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">drive in circuitwhile MGM focused its resources on producing a</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">blaxploitation remake,</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">Hit Man. On its release thefilm received no awards and did not seem likely to be well remembered. However,despite its lack of availability on home media until 1993 it always maintaineda cult following. Endorsements from a new generation of directors such as</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">Quentin Tarantino and</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">Guy Ritchie led to acritical reappraisal which saw it recognised as one of the best British moviesof all time. In 1999,</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">Get Carter</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;"> was ranked 16th on the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>BFI Top 100 films </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">of the20th century; five years later, a survey of British film critics in</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">Total Film magazine choseit as the greatest British film of all time.</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">Get Carter</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;"> wasremade in 2000 by<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Wraner Bros </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">underthe</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">same title with</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">Sylvester Stallone starringas Jack Carter, while Caine appears in a supporting role. This remake was notwell received by critics in the USA and was not given a UK theatrical release.</span></i></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt;"><img height="436" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhug2KNsCwOHWI6kvDnhEl_ZAdFGiwb8dC7ofM9dSyWguT0WZn26EC96rboS6uPhzm5g2VX7LkjhhISIkWNGlHeVss2Eb0qpxhmI0gY8IT53CdmYLEahC-gHY_az9pjcHU-B_x_FlTnhVdO/s640/BTS_Get_Carter.jpg" width="640" /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt;"></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Newcastle born<span class="apple-converted-space"> Gangster </span>Jack Carter (MichaelCaine) has lived in London for years in the employ of<span class="apple-converted-space"> organised crime </span>bosses theFletchers (Terence Rigby and John Bindon). Jack is sleeping with Fletcher'sgirlfriend Anna (Britt Ekland) and plans to escape to South America with her.But first he must return to Newcastle and Gateshead to attend the funeral ofhis brother Frank, who died in a purported drunk driving accident. Notsatisfied with the official explaination Jack wants to investigate for himself.At the funeral Jack meets with his brother's teenage daughter Doreen andFrank's mistress Margaret (Dorothy White), who is evasive.<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Jack goes to<span class="apple-converted-space"> NewcastleRacecourse </span>seeking an old acquaintance called Albert Swift forinformation about his brother‘s death. Swift evades him, but Jack encountersanother old associate, Eric Paice, now employed as a chauffeur, although hewill not say for whom. Tailing Eric to the country house of crime boss CyrilKinnear (John Osborne), Jack bursts in on Kinnear playing poker. He meets aglamorous but drunken woman called Glenda (Geraldine Moffat). Having learnedlittle but made his presence felt Jack leaves; Eric warns him against damagingrelations between Kinnear and the Fletchers. Back in town Jack is threatened by<span class="apple-converted-space"> henchmen </span>to leave town, but hefights them off; capturing and interrogating one to find out who wanted himgone, and is given the name Brumby.<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Jack knows Cliff Brumby (Bryan Mosley) as a businessman withcontrolling interests in local seaside<span class="apple-converted-space"> amusementarcades</span>. Visiting Brumby’s house, Jack discovers Brumby knows nothingabout him; believing he has been set up, he leaves. Next morning, two of Jack'scriminal colleagues from London arrive, sent by the Fletchers to take him back,but he escapes. Jack meets Margaret to talk about Frank, but Fletcher's men arewaiting and pursue him. He is rescued by Glenda driving a sports car, who takeshim to meet Brumby at his new rooftop restaurant development atop amulti-storey car park. Brumby identifies Kinnear as Frank's killer, explainingKinnear is trying to take over his business. He offers Jack £5,000 if he willkill the crime boss, which he refuses.<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"><img height="358" src="http://dickeads.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/getcarter1.jpg" width="640" /></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Jack has sex with Glenda at herflat, where he finds and watches a pornographic film. The participants areshown to be Doreen, Glenda, Margaret and Albert Swift. Doreen is forced to havesex with Swift. Overcome with emotion, Jack is enraged and he half drownsGlenda in the bath. She tells him the film was Kinnear’s and she thinks Doreenwas 'pulled' by Eric. Forcing Glenda in the boot of her car, Jack drives off tofind Albert.<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Jack tracks Albert down in a betting shop, who confesses he toldBrumby that Doreen was Frank's daughter. Brumby showed Frank the film to incitehim to call the police on Kinnear. Eric and two of his men were responsible forFrank's death, forcing him to drink a bottle of whisky beforehand. Informationextracted, Jack knifes Albert in the stomach for being an accessory. Jack isattacked by the London gangsters and Eric, who has informed Fletcher of Jackand Anna’s affair. Jack shoots one of them dead; Eric and the others escape,pushing the sports car into the river, with Glenda still trapped inside.Returning to the car park Jack finds Brumby, beating him senseless and throwinghim over the side to his death. He then posts the porn film to the<span class="apple-converted-space"> Vice Squad </span>at<span class="apple-converted-space"> Scotland Yard </span>in London.<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Jack abducts Margaret at gunpoint. He telephones Kinnear in themiddle of a wild party, telling him he has the film and making a deal to givehim Eric in exchange for his silence. Kinnear agrees, sending Eric to an agreedlocation; however, he simultaneously phones a hitman to dispose of Jack. Jackdrives Margaret to the grounds of Kinnear's estate, kills her with a fatalinjection of<span class="apple-converted-space"> Heroin </span>andleaves her body there; then he calls the police to raid Kinnear’s party.<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Jack chases Eric along a beach until he is exhausted. He forcesEric to drink a full bottle of whisky as he did to Frank, then beats him todeath with his shotgun. As Jack is walking back along the shoreline, he is shotby the hitman with a sniper rifle. Jack's corpse lies on the beach as the waveswash around him.</i></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><img height="595" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH5F2Jl15o314InxOoIEMWn2RM6xEhgxDCWspYK_glD6TuLJTxvHsZU4DdNXhbTPINgY-1xk5G5Eu70dAhFq60-XLsic6WTSjNZP5b3fT0lp49VUN_7E_movXahpa7NXSYGOoICKCx7B8/s640/Get_Carter-1.jpg" width="640" /></span><br /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; line-height: 14.25pt;"><i>In the late 1960s<span class="apple-converted-space"> film censorship </span>relaxationproduced an increase in dark, uncompromising films, with many directors pushingthe boundaries of acceptability.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>GetCarter<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>was a film whichexplored this freedom. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>The filmwent from concept to finished film in just 10 months. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>In 1969 producer<span class="apple-converted-space"> Michael Klinger </span>devised plans fora gangster film to capitalise on public interest in the British criminalunderworld after the<span class="apple-converted-space"> Kray Twins</span> 'convictions. Klinger was invited to view a first print of<span class="apple-converted-space"> Peter Walker’s Man of Violence </span>(1969)and was unimpressed, telling the director "I'm going to make a gangsterfilm, but it's going to cost a lot more than this and it's going to be better."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>After searching many publishersfor material to adapt into a film, Klinger purchased the rights to<span class="apple-converted-space"> Ted Lewis</span>’s novel<span class="apple-converted-space"> Jack’s Return Home</span>. Andrew Spicer haswritten that "he [Klinger] sensed its potential to imbue the British crimethriller with the realism and violence of its American counterparts"</i></b><br /><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Klinger had been approached by another producer<span class="apple-converted-space"> Nat Cohen </span>to make a couple offilms for<span class="apple-converted-space"> MGM</span>. In financialtrouble and in shutting down its British operations, MGM was in the process ofclosing its<span class="apple-converted-space"> Elstree Studios </span>atBorehamwood<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and was looking tomake smaller budget films to turn a profit. At this time Klinger's friendRobert Littman had been appointed head of MGM Europe and so Klinger took hisproposal to him. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>MGM agreed areasonable but below average of 750,000 (there is some dispute as to whether itwas dollars or pounds<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>) for theproduction. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Within months ofagreeing the deal MGM had pulled out of the UK. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Klinger had seen Mike Hodges' 1969teleplays<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Suspect<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and immediately decided he was theideal candidate to direct his new project. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Hodgeshad also previously worked on current affairs programme<span class="apple-converted-space"> World in Action</span>, the arts programme<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Tempo<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and a 1968 children’s televisionserial,The Tyrant King, and all these past experiences informed hisapproach to his directorial debut.</i></b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"><img height="384" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2011/10/25/1319543368329/GET-CARTER-1971-007.jpg" width="640" /></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;">Klinger contacted Hodges onthe 27th January, 1970 with a copy of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span>Jack's Return Home<span class="apple-converted-space"> and contracted him<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span>to direct and adapt thescreenplay, paying him a flat fee of £7,000 for his services. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Hodges' original working title for thefilm was<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Carter's The Name.<sup id="cite_ref-SC23_34-0"><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Carter#cite_note-SC23-34"></a> </span></sup><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;">SteveChibnall writes: "his treatment retained the essential structure ofLewis's novel with its strong narrative drive, but introduced some minorchanges to characterisation and more fundamental alterations to<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>narratology</span>." <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>As Ted Lewis had not specified wherehis novel was set, Hodges felt free to relocate the story<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>to a place he was familiar with,considering<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Grimsby,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Lowestoft,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Hull and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>North Shields beforedeciding on Newcastle Upon Tyne. Hodges said he was influenced in his writingby the works of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Raymond Chandlerand<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Hollywood B Movies suchas<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Kiss Me Deadly asthey showed "how to use the crime story as an autopsy on society’s ills."Chibnall explains that Hodges did not employ a traditional<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>noir motif of using avoiceover to expose the characters inner feelings. He also dispensed withflashbacks to Carter's youth featured in the novel which explored hisrelationship with his brother Frank, streamlining the plot to a linearnarrative spanning a single weekend.</i></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Because of this the significanceof the double barrel shotgun as Carter's choice of weapon, or its positioningin the house are not expanded upon. In the novel Carter and Frank use it to gohunting in the countryside together, the gun symbolising family ties andCarter's memories of more innocent times.<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Carter's killing of Brumby and his own assassination were furtheralterations from the novel, emphasising the films parallels withrevenge tragdey<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and Carter's role as what Geoff Mayercalls "the<span class="apple-converted-space"> moral agent</span>... a "Knight"forced to dispense his own sense of justice in a corrupt world."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>However in his DVD commentary Hodgesimplies that he did not see Carter as morally any more justified than those hekills, and his death is intended to present his actions to the audience as morallybankrupt and futile; "I wanted him to be dealt with in exactly the sameway he dealt with other people. Now that's a sort of Christian ethic in a way[...] That was a prerequisite of the film for me, that the hitman should go[click] and that's it.<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><img height="298" src="http://www.threedonia.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/GetCarter1971_FF_300x225_061820080234.gif" width="400" /><o:p></o:p></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><b><i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">The film's premiere was held in Los Angeles on 3 February 1971, with a preview held in New York on 3 March thatyear. </span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">The film finally openedfor general release across the UK on 10 March 1971 and in the USA on 18 March,where it was rated</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;"> </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_rating#United_States" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;" title="X rating"><span style="color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;">'</span></a><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">X’rating</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">for violence and femalenudity, meaning it was for adults only. </span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">Itwas later reclassified as</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;"> </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association_of_America_film_rating_system" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;" title="Motion Picture Association of America film rating system"><span style="color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;">'</span></a><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">R’,meaning under 17's had to be accompanied by an adult. </span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">A censored edited version was releasedin West Germany on 6 August 1971, with a running time 9 minutes shorter thanthe original. Michael Klinger was involved in promotion of the film in the UK,using the experience from his background as a distributor to conduct a strongadvertising campaign.</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;"> Teaser Posters </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14.25pt;">forthe film appeared on the front of every London bus, with the tag-line 'Caine isCarter'.</span></i></b></span><br /><br /><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>The original<span class="apple-converted-space"> British QuadPosters </span>with artwork by<span class="apple-converted-space"> ArnaldoPutzo</span>, in common with many film posters, has aspects or images thatdiffer from the finished screen version. Most strikingly in this instanceCarter is depicted wearing a gaudy floral jacket, as opposed to the darkraincoat and mohair suit he wears in the film. Asked in 2006, Putzu could notremember his artistic rational for painting the floral jacket, but said he waspainting a lot of flowers in designs at that time. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Chibnall describes the<span class="apple-converted-space"> flower power </span>imagery as"what seems like a desperate and misguided attempt to suggest the hipnessof a genre which had largely fallen out of favour."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>However, poster collector SimBranaghan said "I think it's fantastic, that kind of quirkiness youwouldn't get these days." <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>JonnyTrunk of<span class="apple-converted-space"> Trunk Records </span>(along time aficionado of the film and its history) has observed that the floralpattern of Carter's jacket is taken from the distinctive pillow and matchingsheet design from the bed in the scene where<span class="apple-converted-space"> BrittEckland </span>writhes naked on the phone to Jack. The poster also placesCarter's shotgun in Eric's hands, and features a grappling man and woman whoseem to belong to a different film. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Promotionalshots and poster artwork exist from the film showing Carter holding a<span class="apple-converted-space"> pump action shotgun</span>; in the finishedfilm the only shotgun used by Carter is a<span class="apple-converted-space"> double–barrelled shot gun </span>which Carter finds on top of his brotherFrank's wardrobe.<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"><img height="457" src="http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m4/nov2009/4/9/image-1-for-michael-caine-on-the-set-of-get-carter-gallery-82643582.jpg" width="640" /></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"></div><div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>M.G.M. sold distribution rightsto the film in the U.S.A. to<span class="apple-converted-space"> UnitedArtists</span>, who promoted it poorly, amidst worries the cockney dialogue inthe opening scene would be unintelligible to US audiences. The film's releasewas delayed while parts of the film were redubbed (with no great improvement). <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>In the process of redubbing theopening, the version of the film with the original dialogue was lost. For yearsthe version shown on British television was the redubbed American cut. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>UA placed the film on the then indecline<span class="apple-converted-space"> drive in movie circuit </span>whereit played at the bottom of a double bill with<span class="apple-converted-space"> FrankSinatra Vehicle Dirty Dingus Magee</span>. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>In 1974 Michael Klinger complained topresident of UA<span class="apple-converted-space"> Erik Pleskow </span>aboutthe lacklustre promotion of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Carter,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and tried to get him to relinquish theUS rights to the film, so Klinger could find a better distributor. <o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>The film did not encounter many censorship problems, although thescene where Carter knifes Albert Swift caused concern for the censor<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>In South Africa the censor cut outBritt Ekland's phone sex scene, shortening her already brief role; her name wasstill left on the poster, leaving filmgoers to wonder why she was advertised asappearing. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>In France and Belgiumthe film was released under the title<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>LaLoi Du Milieu. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>In Germany itwas called<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Jack Rechnet Ab<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>(literal: Jack Settles Accounts),<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and in Spain and Mexico it was<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Asesino Implacable,(Implacable/Relentless Assassin)<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>whilstin Turkey the film was named<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Alacaklar<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>(payback of debts).<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>A resurgence of critical and public interest in the film in the1990s led to the<span class="apple-converted-space"> BFI </span>releasinga new print of the film in 1999. They worked with Hodges to restore the film,with Hodges sourcing another set of negatives of the original opening, whichwere found in the archives of the BBC. The team then<span class="apple-converted-space"> spliced </span>the beginning segmentonto a high quality print of the film. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Thereissue premiered at the<span class="apple-converted-space"> National FilmTheatre </span>and went on general release on 11 June 1999, showing at the<span class="apple-converted-space"> Tyneside cinema </span>in Newcastle.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>It was also re-released in Germany andGreece in 2000, and in France in 2004.<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><img height="358" src="http://www.gonemovies.com/www/wanadoofilms/misdaad/Carter1.jpg" width="640" /></span><br /><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 100%;"><b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;">Contrary to popular belief,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span>Get Carter<span class="apple-converted-space"> was not a financial failure, according to Steve Chibnall its box office takingswere "very respectable." On its opening week at<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>ABC</span>2 cinema at<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Shaftesbury Avenue, London, itbroke the house record, taking £8,188. It out-performed<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Up Pompeii which wasshowing in the larger ABC1. It also performed strongly when moved to the ABC sin<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Edgware and Fulham Road. On its general release in the North of England, Chibnall notes ithad a "very strong first week", before an unseasonal heatwave damaged cinema attendance. Chibnall writes that "Interestingly, although [the film's] downbeat and unsentimental tone is now thought to express the mood ofits times, the mass cinema audience preferred<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Love Story (Arthur Hiller 1970), which remained the most popular film in Britain throughout<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Get Carter's run."</b></i><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwQvcLF8MchFUoN9xnwXROTeftjAbQZKwp5dxzbfKCa_pGGNtEZDGLtn-2y3nmVmrl5FHfe9mhkVfY0V5hxpA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzOsGKD0VNE0w84hTFeaWcvCAqLgc9D4-B6v4oFs-Tiwr4BvRE5uH5vfHcdUpTwIxQOK19vYyiI12oALG-gEQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-28480674064544737992012-06-13T08:57:00.010-07:002012-06-13T09:16:54.479-07:00Zammo Maguire - The 80's Tucker Jenkins!....<span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><img alt=" " height="400" src="http://news.sky.com/sky-news/content/StaticFile/jpg/2008/Feb/Week1/1643817.jpg" width="400" /></span></span><br /><b style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is impossible to think about Grange Hill in the 1980s without mentioning the character of Samuel ‘Zammo’ Maguire, the cheeky chappy whose life spiralled into heroin addiction in one of children’s television’s most ground-breaking storylines. Actor Lee MacDonald played Zammo for six years and helped to make Zammo one of the iconic characters of the 1980s.</span></b><br /><span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><img height="640" src="http://www.grangehillgold.com/zammogh1.jpg" width="432" /></span></span><br /><b style="font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; ">Lee MacDonald</b><span style="font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; "> was best known for playing the part of Zammo Maguire</span><span style="font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; "> in the classic children's TV series Grange Hill</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grange_Hill" style="font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; background-image: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; text-decoration: none; " title="Grange Hill">l</a><span style="font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; "> from 1982-1987. Since then he has made cameo appearances on Birds of a Feather, The Bill</span><span style="font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; "> and a TV version of A Midsummers Night Drream</span><span style="font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; ">. He trained as a boxer, but a car crash left him unable to fight anymore. He now runs a Locksmith/key-cutting shop in Wallington, Surrey</span><span style="font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; ">. He learned this trade while filming Grange Hill, and opened his business around 1999.</span><br /><span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><img height="461" src="http://www.grangehillgold.com/_44407939_pg_zammo_bbc.jpg" width="640" /></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">He appeared in the Sky One show</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> Clique de Celebrite</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">until he was voted out on the fourth show. He was however invited back when</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> Sophie Anderton</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">left due to injury, but was again voted out on the seventh show of the series.</span></span><br /><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">In October 2008, Lee appeared in Three's Celebrity Scissorhands</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">, where celebrities learn to cut hair and do other beauty treatments, raising money for BBC</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"> Children In Need</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">.</span></div><div class="separator" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; clear: both; text-align: center; "><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBb1hHTaUrXUcU4Rf6XzMZEl7tNezsHZcmoEhuZ_cl_wwqfSJF1q4yRCXV7t_6I07yLDjOMoNJ-0fyXX4gVQ8tbKuX1GGDoSQrKazui7p86ygGKXYESHePBIwJQ2iGMyGpkKFFfVWl6ebq/s1600/Presentation1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBb1hHTaUrXUcU4Rf6XzMZEl7tNezsHZcmoEhuZ_cl_wwqfSJF1q4yRCXV7t_6I07yLDjOMoNJ-0fyXX4gVQ8tbKuX1GGDoSQrKazui7p86ygGKXYESHePBIwJQ2iGMyGpkKFFfVWl6ebq/s1600/Presentation1.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="background-color: white; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="background-color: white; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="background-color: white; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="background-color: white; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="background-color: white; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="background-color: white; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="background-color: white; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="background-color: white; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Zammo was the new school hero, the boy everyone wanted to be. His early years at Grange Hill were a riotous mischief-fest with stooge Jonah and others. A cheeky chappie, Zammo never took school life seriously but was sensitive to others' feelings. He would stick up for Roland when he was getting a hard time. But the later years would be more difficult for Zammo. The spectre of Bronson and the Jackie-Banksie love triangle became too much to bear and Zammo descended into heroin addiction. With the support of family and friends Zammo pulled back from the brink and returned to the sixth form looking to the future</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><img height="323" src="http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk125/nnobster/zammo_just_say_no.gif" width="640" /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">Without doubt Grange Hill's most controversial storyline was that of Zammo's heroin addiction in 1986. When plans for a "junkie" character were first announced there was tabloid outrage. But Zammo's plight did much to raise awareness of drug-related issues. The cast released a single, </span><b style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">"Just Say No"</b><span style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">, in April 1986 and it peaked at No. 5 in the charts, raising over £103,000 for the Standing Conference on Drug Abuse (SCODA).</span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><img alt="Just Say No - the single" height="400" src="http://www.grangehillfans.co.uk/history/images/justsayno.jpg" width="400" /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">The Grange Hill cast went on an anti-drugs tour across the country and </span><b style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">Lee MacDonald</b><span style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">, who played Zammo, found himself particularly in demand. But the icing on the cake was an invitation to the White House by America's First Lady, </span><b style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">Nancy Reagan</b><span style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">, in May 1986. Mrs Reagan was involved in the American "Just Say No" project and had heard about Grange Hill's campaign. So the cast and crew jetted off to Washington, along with producer </span><b style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">Ronald Smedley</b><span style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">. Sadly the credibility of "Just Say No!" has been tarnished in recent years; actor </span><b style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">Mmloki Chrystie</b><span style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"> confirmed in a 2005 Grange Hill reunion special that the he took drugs while in the States to promote the campaign.</span></span><br style="background-color: #f0f0f0; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">Drugs would feature in less high-profile storylines. 1995 saw </span><b style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">Anna Wright</b><span style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"> selling them for her brother Gordon and four years later, </span><b style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">Sarah-Jane Webster</b><span style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"> found herself addicted to temazepam</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><div style="text-align: justify;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dy7TfqwdTrGle2NHbcXQu0PnT29L1k2bfjQpmYUWtEDU_UzG5RHRKVsacpZtguJ0NIk4rAo-xB7MWA3j-_Wkw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div></div>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-45995058830554712662012-06-03T04:21:00.005-07:002012-06-03T04:25:40.987-07:00Corrie Criticised For Attacking Christianity on Easter Sunday (2009)<img alt="A Coronation street Easter special has drawn dozens of complaints to Ofcom after Ken Barlow accused the Christian faith of targeting " height="400" src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01384/Ken-Barlow_1384082c.jpg" width="640" /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Back in 2009 Coronation Street caused an outcry when stalwart Ken Barlow was heard criticising Christianity to Grandson Simon. This is how the story was reported</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br /><div class="firstPar" style="background-color: white; color: #282828;"><div style="line-height: 1.48em; padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ken Barlow, played by Bill Roach, made a string of outbursts against Christianity. He also accused his grandson Simon's school of indoctrinating him to Christianity before vowing to tell the youngster "the truth" about religion.</span></div></div><div class="secondPar" style="background-color: white; color: #282828;"><div style="line-height: 1.48em; padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"He is already being indoctrinated. I went to his assembly last week and they had paintings on the wall depicting creation. He is being taught creationism," he said.</span></div></div><div class="thirdPar" style="background-color: white; color: #282828;"><div style="line-height: 1.48em; padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ITV message boards have been inundated by viewers labelling the comments "completely unacceptable".</span></div></div><div class="fourthPar" style="background-color: white; color: #282828;"><div style="line-height: 1.48em; padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An ITV spokesperson said: "Coronation Street is a soap opera set in modern society and therefore represents views from all side of the religious spectrum.</span></div></div><div class="fifthPar" style="background-color: white; color: #282828;"><div style="line-height: 1.48em; padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"At the moment we have a very positive story involving Sophie Webster and her new found interest in religion, Emily Bishop has also always been seen as a very positive representation of Christianity. Likewise Ken Barlow's different views on religion have always been a strong aspect of his character".</span></div></div><div class="body" style="background-color: white; color: #282828;"><div style="line-height: 1.48em; padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One viewer called Johnandy posted the message: "It was utterly outrageous that Ken should make the outright attacks on the Christian faith which he did during Sunday's episode.</span></div><div style="line-height: 1.48em; padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Corrie has always, as far as I could tell, been absolutely neutral on the issue of religion/faith and I have to wonder where the Sophie-story is going.</span></div><div style="line-height: 1.48em; padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"When it comes to atheistic/agnostic/humanist views being propounded in the pre-eminent soap opera in the UK, and on Easter Sunday to boot, that is completely unacceptable.</span></div><div style="line-height: 1.48em; padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"In case it has escaped the minds of the writers, producers and directors of this extremely popular programme, in the last census over seventy per cent of respondents claimed to have some Christian adherence."</span></div><div style="line-height: 1.48em; padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another web user, by the name of charley26, added: "As an individual who has not watched Coronation Street for the last few years I was shocked to retune and find the programme portraying the Christian faith in such a derogatory manner</span></div><div style="line-height: 1.48em; padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"For Ken Barlow of all people to disregard creationism in schools, which is probably the only time children are exposed to any form of religion at an early age, was uncalled for"</span></div><div style="line-height: 1.48em; padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Church is a comfort to many people and is an integral part of our British history.</span></div><div style="line-height: 1.48em; padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"I was both shocked and appalled by what I was watching on TV, let alone on Coronation St and on Easter Sunday. "</span></div><div style="line-height: 1.48em; padding: 0px 0px 0.7em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last week it was disclosed that the programme intends to portray a 'born-again Christian' character to embark on a lesbian affair in a bid to make the soap more reflective of modern Britain. Sophie Webster, a 16-year-old character, may begin the relationship with another girl from her Bible study group.</span></div></div>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-50087213559158188352012-06-01T12:20:00.004-07:002012-06-01T12:20:51.320-07:00Sylvia's Mother - Dr Hook (1972)<span style="font-size: 100%;"><img alt="Dr Hook,Sylvia's Mother,UK,Deleted,LP RECORD,350798" height="599" src="http://991.com/newGallery/Dr-Hook-Sylvias-Mother-350798.jpg" width="640" /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 100%;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">"</span><b style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">Sylvia's Mother</b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">" was a 1972 single by Dr. Hook</span><a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Hook_%26_The_Medicine_Show" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; line-height: 19px; text-decoration: none;" title="Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show"> & </a>The Medicine Show<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> and the group's first hit song. It was written by Shel Silverstein</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> and was highly successful in the United States</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">, reaching No5 on the Billboard</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> singles chart,</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> as well as No1 in Ireland</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> and No2 in the </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 12px;">United Kingdom.</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> It also spent 3 weeks at No1 on the Australian music charts,</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> making it the 15th ranked single in Australia</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> for 1972. It appeared on the group's first album, </span><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">Doctor Hook.</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: 100%;"><img alt="Dr Hook,Sylvia's Mother,Japan,Promo,Deleted,7" height="640" src="http://eil.com/Gallery/507047b.jpg" width="634" /></span><br /><span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">"</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 100%; line-height: 19px;">Sylvia's Mother" is autobiographical, with songwriter Shel Silverstein drawing upon his unsuccessful attempt to revive a failed relationship. Silverstein had been in love with a woman named Sylvia Pandolfi, but she would later be engaged to another man. Desperate to continue the relationship, Silverstein called Pandolfi's mother, Louisa, but she instead told him that the love had ended.</span><br /><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The lyrics tell the story in much the same way: A young man, despondent and near tears after learning that his ex-girlfriend (Sylvia Avery, with whom he had an earlier bad breakup) is leaving town, tries to telephone her to say one last good-bye, or at least try to get a suitable explanation as to why their relationship failed and maybe try to rekindle things. However, Sylvia's mother (Mrs. Avery) tells him that Sylvia is engaged to be married, and is trying to start a new life in Galveston. She asks the man not to say anything to her because she might start crying and want to stay. She tells the man Sylvia is hurrying to catch a 9:00 train. In an aside, she then tells Sylvia to take an umbrella, because "Sylvie, it's starting to rain". She then returns to the conversation, thanks the (unidentified) man for calling, and asks him to call back again. The pathos lies in Sylvia's mother being aware of both conversations, but the lovers only "pass in the night". Throughout the phone conversation, an operator cuts in to ask for more money ("<i>40 cents more for the next three minutes</i>") to continue the call.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"><img alt="Dennis Locorriere,Sylvia's Mother,UK,Deleted,5" height="640" src="http://991.com/newGallery/Dennis-Locorriere-Sylvias-Mother-369395.jpg" width="637" /></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1972, about the same time the Dr. Hook version was on the chart, country singer Bobby Bare recorded a cover version. Bare's version became a hit, reaching No. 12 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart that October. One of his last hit records during his stay at Mercury Records, "Sylvia's Mother" became the first of many Silverstein-penned songs Bare had success with, and would foreshadow both an entire album dedicated to Silverstein-penned songs (1973's <i>Bobby Bare Sings Lullabys, Legends and Lies</i>) and hit records written by Silverstein, including "Marie Laveaue," "The Winner," "Rosalie's Good Eats Café", "The Mermaid", "The Winner", "Warm and Free" and others. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 100%; line-height: 19px;">"Sylvia's Mother" was also covered by Bon Jovi on This Left Feels Right Live </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 100%; line-height: 19px;">.</i></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A sequel titled "Mrs. Avery" has been written and performed by British folk rockers The Men They Couldn't Hang. The song begins years later when the main character of "Sylvia's Mother" is divorced, has children of his own, and happens to find an old picture of Sylvia which prompts him to call her mother again.</span></div><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dw4_n2YecMZdl14JNwmglqXW8K3cLhFrmJUs4jCpd2dRjI4E5V-JvFsKD6g2qskVQwvUWlAaDxts2R6YOsTsg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-79061513091248350962012-05-31T06:47:00.004-07:002012-05-31T06:48:16.484-07:00Sue Barker on the Radio Times (1977)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2nhnrUKwl6djc345q4U2eesxFqbVfIF9v1CaAsA-acb90piQRYCk4S8KuzO2DGIYW4-QW1FKCd7LJp24aK88shWsZAD2NonxmFTthyofqkPpMRLUvi91oL7f2A_1N7MWIOC9V2j0zw-RN/s1600/4605312700_4dcd93e531_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2nhnrUKwl6djc345q4U2eesxFqbVfIF9v1CaAsA-acb90piQRYCk4S8KuzO2DGIYW4-QW1FKCd7LJp24aK88shWsZAD2NonxmFTthyofqkPpMRLUvi91oL7f2A_1N7MWIOC9V2j0zw-RN/s640/4605312700_4dcd93e531_z.jpg" width="464" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With Wimbledon just around the corner and after my earlier post featuring 1970s Wimbledon icon Bjorn Borg I thought I'd post this cover of the Radio Times from Wimbledon 1977 featuring Sue Barker who was beaten in the semis by American <b style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">Ann Kiyomura-Hayashi.</b></span></div>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-7387415746986997472012-05-31T03:18:00.006-07:002012-05-31T03:25:24.135-07:00Swimming for Gold - David Wilkie<span><img height="636" src="http://www.goggleblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/David-Wilkie.jpg" width="640" /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; font-size: 100%; ">David Wilkie MBE was born in Sri Lanka, the offspring of Scottish parents who were stationed in that country.</span><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He was a pupil of Daniel Stewart's College in Edinburgh, and while a student there he joined the Warrender Baths Club, one of Scotland's most prestigious swimming and water polo clubs. It was there that he began to develop his specialist stroke, the breaststroke.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wilkie first came to the public's attention when he won bronze in front of his home crowd in the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh in the 200 metre breaststroke.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He wore a swim cap for that event during the commonwealth games, making him the first elite swimmer to wear one in a major competition.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><img height="391" src="http://dearscotland.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/wilkie-pool.jpg" width="640" /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Wilkie's world breakthrough came as a surprise to many when he won silver in the 200 m breaststroke at the Munich Olympics</span><span style="line-height: 19px;"> in 1972. He had acquired the reputation of avoiding hard work and not being sufficiently committed. However, it was clear from this performance that he had outstanding natural ability.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He trained hard in Florida, and his battle with Hencken was revisited again and again in various meets over the years. In that time Wilkie had won the World 200m breaststroke title in 1973, before breaking the world record and regaining the title in 1975. He also picked up two golds and one silver at the Commonwealth Games in Christchurch in 1974, and added the European title to his collection.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">However, it was after several years of intensive training, at the University of Miami</span><span style="line-height: 19px;">, that Wilkie's finest hour came. He won gold in the 200 metre breaststroke at the Montreal Olympics</span><span style="line-height: 19px;"> in 1976, in a world-record time and preventing an American Sweep of the Men's swimming gold medals. He later added a 100 metre silver medal to his collection. </span><span style="line-height: 19px;">In 1977 he was appointed MBE</span><span style="line-height: 19px;">.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><img height="420" src="http://www.scotland-placestovisit.com/twv/content_images/2/David%20Wilkie.jpg" width="640" /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">According to the British Olympic coach Dave Haller, Hencken was always more likely to be stronger over 100m, as his rapid arm movements were more suited to a sprint race, while Wilkie’s longer, more rhythmic strokes meant he was fancied over the longer distance. </span><span style="line-height: 19px;">As it turned out, it was honours even for the pair. Hencken, as expected, triumphed in the shorter race, squeezing Wilkie into second, earning the Scot his second Olympic silver medal.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; border: none; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But in the 200m, as the race edged towards the last of four laps in the 50m pool, there was only going to be one winner. Side by side in lanes three and four, Hencken led for the first 100m. Wilkie, with his now legendary white cap, goggles and moustache combo, (he was the first swimmer to wear a cap and goggle together in competitive racing) realised it was do-or-die time in his quest for a gold. <span style="line-height: 19px;">In the remaining 100m, his stamina and power came through. He took the lead towards the end of lap 3, and coasted to victory in the final length, winning by more than two seconds, cementing his place his history as a Scottish Olympic Legend.</span></span></div><span><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzionMzHytNB3jvtq2LuJMqegpaZlKUBpYttSWfyVcIckBWBpHqwVZ7_fm6an_gTbGRoz8rbr4mOJp3udORbQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></span>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-62888533112113159372012-05-30T15:15:00.007-07:002012-05-30T15:23:42.722-07:00Roger Moore & The Muppets (1980)<img alt="Rogermoore.jpg" height="640" src="http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20060307165307/muppet/images/7/72/Rogermoore.jpg" width="607" /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;">Kermit calls the Secret Service to hire real spies for Roger's</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"> closing number. (They're listed in the <i>Yellow Pages</i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;">.) However, Roger wants to do a cute, cuddly version of "Talk to the Animals". The spies, anxious for a chance to rub out James Bond</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;">, pose as fluffy animals to infiltrate the number in this the final Muppet Show from 1980.</span></span><br /><img alt="524-1.jpg" height="492" src="http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100427165029/muppet/images/thumb/b/bf/524-1.jpg/564px-524-1.jpg" width="640" /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;">Roger Moore arrives and Pops</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"> instantly recognizes him as James Bond</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;">. Roger points out that secret agents and spies are "all make believe." Once Roger has departed, "Agent" Pops calls for control to inform them that "007" has arrived. Roger catches Pops in the middle of his call, and demands to know who this "agent" is working for. "The frog! The frog!" Pops calls out. Roger releases Pops when he reveals that he too is working for "the frog."</span></span><br /><img alt="316-2.jpg" height="489" src="http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100209041153/muppet/images/thumb/6/6a/316-2.jpg/569px-316-2.jpg" width="640" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;">"The Muppet Show theme. Gonzo's</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"> trumpet sounds like a coach's whistle, and so a soccer ball is thrown at him, pushing the trumpet down his throa.</span></span> <img alt="524-3.jpg" height="486" src="http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100427165031/muppet/images/thumb/e/ee/524-3.jpg/250px-524-3.jpg" width="640" /><br /><img alt="524-2.jpg" height="486" src="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100427165030/muppet/images/thumb/b/b1/524-2.jpg/250px-524-2.jpg" width="640" /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span><img alt="524-4.jpg" height="491" src="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100427165032/muppet/images/thumb/6/6a/524-4.jpg/250px-524-4.jpg" width="640" /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;">For the opening number</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;">, a group of Viking pigs</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"> (described as "gentle, quaint, fun-loving old charmers" at the insistence of The Swedish Chef</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"> sing "In The Navy</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;">" as they pillage a coastal town.</span></span><br /><img alt="524-5.jpg" height="487" src="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100427165032/muppet/images/thumb/7/7a/524-5.jpg/570px-524-5.jpg" width="640" /><br /><img alt="524 pie 1.jpg" height="489" src="http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100427020309/muppet/images/thumb/9/9c/524_pie_1.jpg/568px-524_pie_1.jpg" width="640" /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;">Backstage,Scooter</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"> and Beauregard</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"> show Kermit</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"> the pies</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"> they got for the closing number. Kermit corrects them, he wanted</span><i style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">spies</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"> for the closing number, as it was to be James Bond-themed. When he tells them to toss the pies away, Beauregard takes him literally and tosses his entire tray. Kermit is hit with one of the flying desserts.</span></span><br /><img alt="524-6.jpg" height="490" src="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100427165033/muppet/images/thumb/8/80/524-6.jpg/566px-524-6.jpg" width="640" /><br /><img alt="524-7.jpg" height="494" src="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100427165033/muppet/images/thumb/5/59/524-7.jpg/563px-524-7.jpg" width="640" /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;">Miss Piggy sings a flirtatious "On a Slow Boat to China</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;">" to Roger. Roger protests, claiming he is not Piggy's type, but she continues to woo him. The song is ended shortly before Roger's date arrives, and it is none other than Piggy's rival, Annie Sue</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;">. Roger reveals that they are going to the opening of <i> Hamlet..</i></span></span><br /><img alt="524-8.jpg" height="489" src="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100427165034/muppet/images/thumb/1/1c/524-8.jpg/568px-524-8.jpg" width="640" /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;">As Roger returns backstage, he stops to ask Kermit if they use pies on the show. "Spies?" Kermit asks. But Roger actually does mean </span><i style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">pies</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"> for he's just "trod in one."</span></span><br /><img alt="524-9.jpg" height="489" src="http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100427165034/muppet/images/thumb/e/e6/524-9.jpg/569px-524-9.jpg" width="640" /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;">Lew Zealand and his singing fish sing a wet version of "You Light Up My Life</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;">" until he's pulled offstage by Piggy's Vaudevillian Hook</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;">.</span></span><br /><img alt="524-10.jpg" height="489" src="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100427165036/muppet/images/thumb/6/6c/524-10.jpg/568px-524-10.jpg" width="640" /><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Backstage, Piggy and Lew duke it out with hook and barracuda. Piggy insists the show have more class than Lew's fish act. When Lew has chased Miss Piggy off stage with Fred (the barracuda), Roger Moore approaches Kermit to ask if the show is always filled with such craziness. Kermit tells him that they're actually having a rather quiet night with no unforeseen disasters. Kermit is then instantly trampled by the cast of Vet's Hospital... but that was a foreseen disaster.</span></span><br /><img alt="524-11.jpg" height="492" src="http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100427165358/muppet/images/thumb/a/aa/524-11.jpg/564px-524-11.jpg" width="640" /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;">Dr Bob and his crew operate on a Viking from the opening number. He talks of his ancestor, the Viking, who "blundered at his plundering and was stupid with his pillaging." Dr. Bob ends the sketch with a new take on Roy Rogers</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"> trademark sign-off: "Good night, and may the good Lord take a Viking to you!"</span></span><br /><img alt="524-14.jpg" height="489" src="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100427165361/muppet/images/thumb/2/22/524-14.jpg/569px-524-14.jpg" width="640" /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;">Kermit calls the secret service for a bunch of spies. They arrive in an instant! When asked how he got the secret service's number, Kermit reveals that it was in the <i>Yellow Pages</i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;">. Kermit then explains that he was looking for spies for their closing number, a big spy spectacular featuring James Bond. At the mention of James Bond's name, the spies</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"> are all too eager to perform, or rather to "fix him." </span></span><br /><img alt="524-15.jpg" height="490" src="http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100427165361/muppet/images/thumb/d/dc/524-15.jpg/567px-524-15.jpg" width="640" /><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When Kermit tries to tell Roger about the closing number, Roger reveals that he will be performing a "cute" number, surrounded by "oodles of cute, fluffy little creatures." The spies overhear this information, and since they are masters of disguise, dress up as cute, fluffy animals.</span></span><br /><img alt="524-17.jpg" height="489" src="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100427165403/muppet/images/thumb/3/3a/524-17.jpg/568px-524-17.jpg" width="640" /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Muppet News flash. The News Man reports on an international spy ring trying to sneak ridiculous stories into the news. His very next news story is on a black and yellow striped mackerel being elected King. The Newsman doesn't believe it, of course, until the King arrives.</span></span><br /><img alt="524-18.jpg" height="489" src="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100427165403/muppet/images/thumb/2/29/524-18.jpg/568px-524-18.jpg" width="640" /><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kermit informs Scooter that the spies of snuck in amongst the animals. Scooter announces to the animals, "There are no spies in the closing number! Spies go home!" But no one does go home.</span></span><br /><img alt="524-19.jpg" height="492" src="http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100427165404/muppet/images/thumb/8/85/524-19.jpg/565px-524-19.jpg" width="640" /><br /><img alt="524-20.jpg" height="492" src="http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100427165404/muppet/images/thumb/f/f5/524-20.jpg/564px-524-20.jpg" width="640" /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;">Roger sings "Talk to the Animals</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;">" in the closing number, but is forced to fight numerous spies when they try to assassinate him during the song with appropriately changed lyrics for the situation. Roger comes out victorious, and the animals rejoice.</span></span><br /><img alt="524-21.jpg" height="492" src="http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100427165619/muppet/images/thumb/6/64/524-21.jpg/565px-524-21.jpg" width="640" /><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the closing, Roger informs Kermit that he has learned his lesson. He's through with "cute, cuddly little animals," and will instead stick to the "sick, weird, disgusting animals" that he trusts.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; line-height: 21px;"></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 21px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 21px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 21px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #3a3a3a; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 21px;"></span><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzpDdJVKzh4oN7qEHssBnrBuQRvhpNqpqCLNfq_BiXX6jFojZbriLAIOvkCiIwXvOTumfjm96XTkyAudjVOrQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><div><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxKgcTNn7w_nFmv0CUGHnjhgmT51-lKWAr-YACOH5paFqMbPCH1WHGoyjtR0VnozZ9fOQ-5uYr2O90DTheZFQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-79572481684409211082012-05-30T07:01:00.003-07:002012-05-30T07:02:41.075-07:00Jimmy Edwards - This Is Your Life (1958)<span ><span style="line-height: 13.5pt;"><img height="394" src="http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j129/tony4b/THIS%20IS%20YOUR%20LIFE/jimmywm.jpg" style="line-height: 13.5pt;" width="640" /></span></span><br /><span style="line-height: 13.5pt; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; color: rgb(66, 66, 66); "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jimmy Edwards, comedy actor and script writer, was surprised byEamonn Andrews at the BBC’s Piccadilly 1 Studio. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; font-size: 100%; color: rgb(66, 66, 66); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">Jimmy is perhaps best known as Pa Glum in BBC radio’s Take ItFrom Here and as the headmaster ‘Professor’ in BBC TV’s Whack-O.</span><br /><div class="paragraphstyle" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0cm; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><span style="background-color: white; color: #424242; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="paragraphstyle" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0cm; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "></div><div class="paragraphstyle16" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0cm; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><span style="color: #584d4d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This account of Jimmy Edwards This Is Your Life is taken fromGus Smith’s biography of Eamonn Andrews...When Eamonn was asked for hisdefinition of the ideal Life subject, he said thoughtfully, ‘The basicrequirement is a good story, a varied story, and if you can add to that apleasant, bubbling personality then you have something else going.’ He could not have looked for a more bubblingsubject than comedian Jimmy Edwards. Regarded as a larger-than-life individual,and a healthy mocker of false emotions, he posed an undoubted challenge toEamonn. Would the presenter try to match his ebullience? Or would he be contentto stick to his script and let the irrepressible Edwards poke his wicked funwithout provoking him?</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><!--EndFragment--><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 13.5pt; font-size: 100%; color: rgb(88, 77, 77); "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The comedian had been born in Barnes in 1920 and served as apilot in the war with the RAF and was awarded the DGFC. It was a gamble whetherhe would become a school teacher or go on the stage. Deciding on the stage, in1946 he made his debut at London’ Windmill Theatre, the famous training groundfor most of the country’s comics. However, it was in the radio series Take ItFrom Here that he eventually made his name. Eamonn made no secret of the factthat he was a fan of the programme</span></span><span style="line-height: 13.5pt; color: rgb(88, 77, 77); font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; ">.</span><br /><!--EndFragment--><img height="640" src="http://www.bigredbook.info/Tiyl/JIMMY_EDWARDS_files/jimmy%20edwards.jpg" width="483" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; " /><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(88, 77, 77); background-color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; font-size: 100%; ">It was now 1958. Jimmy Edwards was being described as ‘a gruffbachelor, whose prowess on the hunting, shooting and polo fields were as wellknown as the shape of his moustache.’ When not working, he liked to retire tohis 400-acre farm in Sussex and keep an eye on the dairy herd and horses. The fun began as Eamonn led the comic,protesting loudly, to the stage of the Shepherd’s Bush Theatre. As his friendsin the business were paraded before him, Edwards ran his fingers lightlythrough his moustache and poked fun at all and sundry. Eamonn kept resolutelyto his prepared script and refused to be drawn into verbal combat. It seemedthe only course he could take, otherwise his words would be lost in the welterof audience laughter. Meanwhile, thereal drama was taking place behind the scenes. The Life team had been experiencing considerable trouble in locatingJimmy Edwards’ sister in Australia, but eventually contacted her. When theyexplained to her the reason for the call, she said enthusiastically, ‘I’d loveto be a guest in the show. I know Jimmy would love it also. But how do I getover at such short notice?</span></div><div class="paragraphstyle17" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0cm; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><span style="color: #584d4d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="paragraphstyle17" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0cm; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "></div><div class="paragraphstyle17" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0cm; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><span style="color: #584d4d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">‘We’ll fly you over.’ The Life researcher told her. It meantsome hectic, last-minute flight arrangements, and when she eventually arrivedit was only hours before the show, or just enough time for flowers to bedelivered to her hotel room in Lancaster Gate. When Eamonn introduced her atthe climax of the show there was spontaneous applause from the audience. EvenJimmy, a compulsive talker, was almost lost for words. At the outset, he said he had anticipated aprogramme of such sentimental impact that there wouldn’t be a dry eye betweenLand’s End and Val Parnell. He was wrong. As one critic observed, ‘There wereno dry eyes last night. They were wet with laughter.’ And he added, ‘Edwardsmade wicked fun of Andrews. Andrews, playing himself, saw his programme rippedto shreds.’ Leslie Jackson disagreed. He felt that Eamonn, as presenter of theshow, coped admirably with the comedian’s non-stop wise-cracking. ‘It was a funprogramme and Eamonn helped to make it so by refusing to take on Jimmy.’</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="paragraphstyle17" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0cm; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><span style="color: #584d4d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="paragraphstyle17" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0cm; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "></div><div class="paragraphstyle17" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 13.5pt; margin: 0cm; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><span style="color: #584d4d;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Off-stage, Eamonn and Jimmy were friends. Eamonn, a radio man tohis finger tips, admired the comedian’s technique and how he disguised it socleverly behind his large moustache. To radio listeners he came across, as onecritic put it, ‘with the subtlety of a battering ram, flattening resistance andsweeping the audience on wave after wave of hilarity,’ but to Eamonn, Jimmyknew how to make an audience laugh and sound extremely funny on radio.</span></span></div>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-78436518104253600662012-05-30T05:19:00.005-07:002012-05-30T05:44:48.222-07:00Bjorn Borg - When He Was King!<img src="http://gaygroom.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/borg.jpg" /><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They called him the ice man, but there was so much more to Björn Borg than cool detachment and a wispy beard. Thirty Two years after the Swede's last and greatest Wimbledon triumph and with Wimbledon just around the corner,I offer a remarkable portrait of the rebellious teenager who became an accidental Nordic mystic - and an all-time great.</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><br /><div style="background-color: white; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Björn's greatest victory was not the way he came to master his ground strokes, but the change he underwent, with terrible determination, to tame his passionate spirit.' Lennart Bergelin, Borg's coach</span></div><div style="background-color: white; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Was ever a great champion so misunderstood, even in the broad light of his glory, as Björn Borg? By the time of the Wimbledon championships of 1980, when he was 24, he had won the grass-court competition each of the four preceding years, as well as the French Open, on clay, five times. On contrasting surfaces that required radically different approaches, this was an achievement without precedent. And yet the calm young master was widely regarded as an automaton, a robot. The Swede had is i magen: ice in his stomach. In the British press he was the 'Iceberg'. His admirers no less than his critics described a man with cold blood running through his veins.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><img height="480" src="http://marshallmatlock.com/wp-content/gallery/the-mans-man-xli-bjorn-borg/bjorn-borg-serve-tennis.jpg" width="640" /></div><div style="background-color: white; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">How wrong they were. Borg was not blessed with abundant talent, but the talent he had he surrendered to, with the devotion of an instinctive faith, until he achieved liberation. Borg was an inspiration and I wondered how others could not see that his heart was filled with joy for this game and that he hid this joy not to deny it, but rather to nurture its presence within him.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Born on 6 June 1956, Borg was brought up in Södertälje, an industrial town of 100,000 people 30 minutes drive south-west of Stockholm, the only child of Margarethe and Rune, a clothes-shop assistant. He first appeared at Wimbledon in 1972, winning the junior title, a lanky Swedish youth with a straggle of blond brown hair. He had blue eyes that were so close together they appeared slightly crossed. He kept them averted from other people, betraying the shy evasion of a teenager who believes everyone is looking at him - the one object he focused on was a tennis ball when about to hit it. He had a sharp nose in a thin, feral face, with a long pointed chin; his wide shoulders were stooped and he walked with a rolling gait. And yet everywhere he went he was pursued by mobs of schoolgirls. Less a Viking, really, than an Arthurian knight, Borg was embraced by England. We were drawn to his modesty.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">Out wide at the back of the court, Borg hits a top-spin forehand and scuttles back to the middle, to a spot a couple of feet behind the baseline. He gets his balance. As his opponent makes to strike the ball, Borg jumps three inches off the ground. The balls of both rubber-soled feet make contact with Wimbledon's Centre Court at the same moment as his opponent's racket, 20 metres away, makes contact with the white ball: Borg springs, launching himself as soon as it is physically possible to do so in the right direction to make his next shot.</div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">This minor detail is something his more observant young admirers will emulate on the tennis courts of clubs and public parks, this return to optimum position for every shot of every point; the little jump to land on the soles of one's feet at the precise moment; the blast off. The shaggy-haired youth of Seventies England will play endless rallies, through long hot afternoons and on, into the twilight of summer evenings, thinking only of their feet. Of the return to the centre. Of the jump in readiness to explode right or left or forward.</div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">Occasionally, after a while, they may realise they're hitting the ball without thinking about it. And then those scrawny boys and gasping girls, with their warped rackets and scuffed shoes, they know for a moment what it is to numb yourself. To be both there, playing shots as good as you can play, and here, watching your feet scamper across, come back, hit the ground, jump.</div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><img height="640" src="http://marshallmatlock.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/tennis-bjorn-borg-wimbledon-win.jpg" width="469" /></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">'I'm two people,' Borg would one day tell John McEnroe. He was divided - the one hitting and the one watching the hitter - as are we all. The difference was that Borg had found, on a tennis court, both apprehension of this duality and, in play, its paradoxical resolution.</div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">Before Borg, tennis was a straightforward affair. Two chaps strode on to court and bashed the ball at each other in a sporting duel of athleticism and accuracy. It was an amateur approach that had been little changed by the advent of professionalism in the 1960s: players shared the same fundamental style and what separated them came down to the odd degree of intelligence, skill, consistency. It was the same style seen at all levels of the sport, around the world. Rod Laver, the finest player of his era, didn't play a different game from an average club player; he just played it with exquisite feel for the ball on the racket.</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">In 1974, Jimmy Connors, a strutting young braggart who used his racket like a cudgel, bludgeoned his way to the final of Wimbledon. Ken Rosewall, an Australian gentleman of graceful accomplishment, was bullied off the court in three humiliating sets. In 1975, a repeat was expected, only for Connors to find his power neutralised by the intelligence of fellow American Arthur Ashe, who sliced and chopped and dollied his returns with such audacious unpredictability that Connors, in his rage, blasted them into the net or out of court.</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">Borg, meanwhile, was rising fast. He had already won the French Open twice when he came to Wimbledon in 1976, aged 20. He scorched through the fortnight without dropping a set. It was the hottest summer of the 20th century - the final was played in 41°C - and the baked turf, giving the ball a higher, truer bounce, helped the young baseliner. In the final he met the gifted trickster Ilie Nastase. After a nervous beginning, when he went three games to love down, Borg found his range. He chased down every drop shot and passed Nastase with ease. At one point, Borg was at the net and the frustrated Nastase, sensing his last chance of the championship being tugged away from him, belted the ball straight at his opponent. Borg barely flinched as it flew past his ear, and out; he stared at Nastase, who had turned towards the baseline before he registered what Borg was doing and so then conducted a comical doubletake, to turn back to face him again.</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><img alt="bjorn-borg-balcony" height="640" src="http://marshallmatlock.com/wp-content/gallery/the-mans-man-xli-bjorn-borg/thumbs/thumbs_bjorn-borg-balcony.jpg" width="415" /></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'What the bloody hell you looking at?' Nastase growled. Borg carried on gazing at Nastase for another second or so, long enough to communicate: 'You hit that ball at me. You know you did and I do not take kindly to it.' Then Borg turned and walked back to his baseline. He'd made his point, in a small but telling display, not of machismo but of a quiet, contained manliness. He thumped Nastase in straight sets, 6-4 6-2 9- 7. He was Wimbledon champion.</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">What was so very hard, what would take us a long time to understand, was that the drama of his performance was not merely in the shots he made, the points we saw played. It was going on somewhere deeper as well. There was a big clue, or a series of small clues, right there in front of us. He was always fidgeting with something. Adjusting one of his sweatbands, maybe, or fingering the gold chain around his neck, a birthday present from his girlfriend, Romanian tennis player Mariana Simionescu. At the end of each point he checked his racket and, if necessary, plucked at the strings, returning the grid of gut to a fussy perfection. Before a serve he compared two spruce balls and relegated the apparently inferior one to his pocket.</div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">Borg fretted over small things to keep his mind off the big things. He kicked the back of his shoes against his racket, to knock off chalk or soil. He checked the white tape on his hands. While his opponent prepared to serve, he blew on his fingers. Borg seemed to be seeking, like a Method actor, the reality of the moment. The match, the championship, is not real. What's real is the sheen of sweat in the palm of my hand, this hair I need to tuck into my headband, this plaster on my blistered finger.</div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">It looked as if he was trying to distract himself and in a sense he was. This was concentration in action, sport as yoga, what the Hindu sage Patanjali defined as 'control of the fluctuations of the mindstuff '.</div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><img alt="Bjorn-Borg-PreSun-Ad-1980s" height="640" src="http://marshallmatlock.com/wp-content/gallery/the-mans-man-xli-bjorn-borg/thumbs/thumbs_Bjorn-Borg-PreSun-Ad-1980s.jpg" width="480" /></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">In footage of Borg coming off court, you can see he's not really there, basking in the applause; he's preoccupied by something else. Never had an audience seemed less necessary for a great sportsman</div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Borg's style was both utilitarian and exotic. He favoured long rallies from the back of the court, though the shots he manufactured there looked all askew. It's hard now to remember how unnatural his style appeared. For the forehand he withdrew the racket high behind him and brought → his arm down and then up to the ball in a wide cartwheeling whirl of top spin, following through so far that the racket flew beyond his left ear. The backhand was a copy, except it was two-handed, which may have provided extra power but limited his reach: any opponent's serve or shot in open play that swung the ball wide to Borg's backhand sent him catastrophically far beyond the tramlines to get his racket around it.</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One's first impression was that young Bjorn simply hadn't played enough. Like an unpractised dancer, he expended an absurd amount of energy on every shot: observers, including twice Wimbledon champion John Newcombe, regretted that the young Swede's wrists and shoulders would be worn out within a couple of years.</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A little further observation, however, confirmed the opposite: Borg had played too much. He had spent far too many hours hitting a ball at a garage wall with those same two shots, an autistic metronome. The boy had got into bad habits and now he couldn't get out of them.</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This supposition turned out to be correct: Borg's father was a fine ping-pong player whose prize for winning one competition had been an adult tennis racket, which he gave to his nine-year-old son. Björn began playing tennis as if it was ping-pong on a bigger table, using his wrist to whip the ball back, but he did so with a racket that was far too heavy for him, which he had to hold with both hands. Everyone advised him to let go of what could only be a severe handicap, but the young Borg was stubborn: he drilled himself repetitively, his shots the whispered mantras of a novice monk, purifying his game to the point where the rehearsed and the natural melded into one.</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As for the volley, which is where the true touch of talent expresses itself, Borg approached the net as if it gave him vertigo. 'Coming to the net is like being at the frontier,' his coach, Lennart Bergelin, would say. 'You're fighting the unknown.'</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bergelin was a stern, brooding figure, his craggy features masking the torment of the coach, who is impotent to do anything out there where it matters. They met when, at the age of 15, Björn joined Sweden's Davis Cup team. Bergelin was captain and he oversaw the last flickerings of defiance from the bad boy of Swedish tennis.</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'I was a real nutcase,' Borg has said. 'I swore, threw my racket around and cheated.' Eventually he was suspended for six months by Sweden's tennis authorities, banned even from practising at his club. For Borg it was 'a devastating experience'. It was at this point, however, that he determined to control his mind and emotion on a tennis court, as no one had before.</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><img alt="Bjorn-Borg-by-Walter-Iooss-Jr" height="640" src="http://marshallmatlock.com/wp-content/gallery/the-mans-man-xli-bjorn-borg/thumbs/thumbs_Bjorn-Borg-by-Walter-Iooss-Jr.jpg" width="577" /></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">'</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I used to call him the Martian,' Ilie Nastase once said, 'because whenever he came off court, if you were in the locker room, you could never tell whether he'd won or lost. He'd come in, peel off those tight Fila outfits he wore, fold them into a neat pile, and shuffle off to the showers.'</span></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Borg had an abnormally slow pulse rate. He could doze in airports or locker rooms and had the great gift for an athlete of being able to sink into dreamless restoration in a strange hotel bed on the night before a big match. 'He needs to sleep nine or 10 hours,' Mariana said, 'not necessarily because he is physically tired. His nervous cells need charging.'</span></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Borg kept his weight during a tournament at 73 kilos: a hectogram up or down and he'd feel either bloated or weak. He was a Gemini, the sign of the twins, and a superstitious one. During Wimbledon fortnight he stayed in the same suite in the same Hampstead hotel each year, was driven across London on the same route, practised on the same court for two hours each morning. He neither shaved nor indulged in sex as long as he kept winning. By the final he had a wispy beard and his small blue eyes seemed to have moved even closer together in their concentration, so intently had he been watching the ball.</span></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'That meditator becomes eternally free,' according to the Bhagavad Gita, 'who is able to withdraw from external phenomena by fixing his gaze within the mid-spot of the eyebrows; and to control his sensory mind and his intellect; to free himself from desire, fear and anger.'</span></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">By the time Borg was 20 he needed no more coaching, but Lennart Bergelin accompanied him to all the major tournaments: he made travel arrangements, planned meals, organised practice schedules and partners, put Björn to bed and woke him up in the morning. He also took care of the rackets.</div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">Until the development of synthetic heads in the 1980s, rackets were the same instruments that had been used for more than 100 years: a wooden handle and oval head, strung with gut or nylon. Borg liked his rackets strung at 80lb pressure, which was incredibly tight, almost impossible to achieve without breaking a string or twisting the wooden frame. At such pressure, the rackets were extremely vulnerable: one year Borg broke strings on 60 rackets during the French Open.</div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">There was only one stringer in the world Borg trusted, a fellow Swede called Mats Laftman. Even though one or two other technicians could string Borg's rackets to the right pressure, they always felt, and sounded, odd to him. So he and Bergelin had to plan their transatlantic flights with stopovers in Copenhagen, where they'd pick up and drop off batches of rackets for express delivery to or from Stockholm.</div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">Guardianship of these high-strung rackets became one of Bergelin's most important services for his charge. He hoarded them in his hotel room. At night, while Björn slept in peace, Lennart would be woken by a high-pitched popping noise: a string had snapped. Bergelin would get out of bed and sort through the entire batch of rackets until he found the one on which a string had pinged, then he would cut .out the rest of the strings, so that the frame didn't warp. Then he would return to bed.</div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><img alt="bjorn-borg-arthur-ashe-wimbledon-1975" height="515" src="http://marshallmatlock.com/wp-content/gallery/the-mans-man-xli-bjorn-borg/thumbs/thumbs_bjorn-borg-arthur-ashe-wimbledon-1975.jpg" width="640" /></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">The first week of Wimbledon, with the grass green, lush and fast, was more precarious for Borg than the second, when the surface became worn and hard. He was almost tripped up by Mark Edmondson in 1977, Victor Amaya in '78, Vijay Amritraj in '79, but clung on to sneak through in five sets, then carried on to win the title.</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">Borg won almost every five-set match he played, partly because he was a superb athlete, with both speed and stamina, and partly because he won the crucial points. 'He thrashed me 6-0 6-1,' a bewildered Billy Martin once complained, 'but I had game point in nine games.'</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">It wasn't that Borg raised his game for the big points; it was more that he refused to acknowledge that they were significant. He applied Kipling's advice to treat the twin imposters of triumph and disaster the same - reproduced on a large sign at the players' entrance to Wimbledon's Centre Court - not just to the results of matches, but to every single moment within a match: what for his opponent was a nerve-shredding point, Borg played like any other.</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">And then, whatever had happened in a point, Borg left it behind: I like to think he disciplined himself to dismiss as vanity the voice in one's head that excoriates oneself for errors made, opportunities missed. Spiritual paths within Buddhism seek to overcome, according to Namkhai Norbu, 'the problem that has arisen as the individual enters into dualism, developing a subjective self, or ego, that experiences a world out there as other, continually trying to manipulate that world in order to gain satisfaction and security.'</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">Of the surfaces on which tennis is played - clay, hard court, carpet, synthetic - grass suits above all the serve-and-volley game. A player's aim in every rally is to hit the ball deep into one of his opponent's corners and rush in to claim the net. From there the point is his. His desperate opponent returns a weak shot or a lob, either of which he puts away with careless bravado. Borg turned this guiding principle on its head. He made the baseline his fortress and sucked his opponents towards the net. That was where he wanted them, so that he could pass them at will. It looked as if, unable to stop themselves, they were being drawn ineluctably forward: striking a good approach shot hard and deep to the furthest corner of Borg's backhand court, they followed in, and were lost.</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><img alt="bjorn-borg-celebrate-1979-tennis" height="640" src="http://marshallmatlock.com/wp-content/gallery/the-mans-man-xli-bjorn-borg/thumbs/thumbs_bjorn-borg-celebrate-1979-tennis.jpg" width="557" /></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">Gradually, as Borg won one Wimbledon title after another, familiarity with his unique style - that of a nine-year-old pingpong player given a man's heavy tennis racket - bred disdain. Even some of his fellow players managed to use the ineptitude of his volleying to explain his success on grass. 'The surface looks after his volleys and makes them better than they are,' John McEnroe would say. 'Balls that he hits short or mishits - flub volleys - are great volleys on grass,' said Vitas Gerulaitis.</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">Detractors claimed that Borg's game was hobbled by caution. 'My passing shots often look spectacular,' he said himself, unapologetically, 'but there's a huge safety factor built into them.' The ferocious topspin he used achieved depth while keeping a much wider margin for error than a flat stroke. It seemed that no one else had worked out the odds before. 'But my percentages have more to do with my mind than my strokes,' he pointed out. 'I try to make my challenger believe he can't outsteady me. My cold attitude on court helps. I never applaud or acknowledge an opponent's good shot. I just go about the business of the next point. This, in a sense, is saying, "I don't care how spectacular one shot is, you'll have to hit two thousand to beat me".'</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">The champion had no interest in hitting fine winners. All he wanted was 'to hit one more ball in court than my rival hits'. Each victory justified his approach, but it seemed disillusioning to those who saw sport as being about more than winning.</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">In 1979 he met Roscoe Tanner in the final. Tanner was a big-hitter with a tightly curled mop of sun-bleached hair. Borg withstood his one, extraordinary weapon, a serve of minimal backlift and formidable speed. At 5-4 in the fifth set, 40-0 up on his own serve, for the first time in front of us, Borg faltered. His knees trembled, his racket arm started shaking, revealing in his weakness a glimpse of his passion. He lost power and control, netting one nervous volley, being passed off another, as Tanner came back to deuce. But then Tanner fell apart and Borg squeezed two more points for victory: his fourth title in a row, overtaking Fred Perry's prewar hat-trick.</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If Borg hypothesised a new approach to tennis, rehearsed and concentrated to the point of detachment, his antithesis arrived on cue. In 1977, the year of the Queen's Jubilee, Borg won his second Wimbledon, Virginia Wade won the women's title, and a wised-up kid from Queens, New York, made it through the qualifiers and reached the semi-finals. John McEnroe was a child savant of the tennis court. He had incredible touch and eye, feathering the ball one moment, punching it away the next. He found angles that didn't seem to have existed before, his performances intuitive interrogations of the laws of geometry.</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In contrast to Borg, McEnroe embodied an amateur ethos. He preferred playing doubles to the metronomic tedium of the practice court. He was able to acknowledge shots that beat him, with an audible 'Yup!'. His game was an improvisation. His one, gross drawback was that at any provocation, real or imagined, he was apt to have a tantrum, behaviour he justified by claiming that he put himself off more than his opponents. What was astonishing was that, at Wimbledon anyway, none of them ever walked off court. Not that Borg would have reason to. 'I never acted like a jerk against him,' McEnroe would admit. 'I had too much respect.'</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><img alt="Bjorn-Borg-French-Open-1981-ivan-lendl" height="480" src="http://marshallmatlock.com/wp-content/gallery/the-mans-man-xli-bjorn-borg/thumbs/thumbs_Bjorn-Borg-French-Open-1981-ivan-lendl.jpg" width="640" /></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is a commonplace that sport is war without violence. It is also art with competition. Ilie Nastase tells the story of when his friend Jimmy Connors played in the 1991 US Open, aged 39. He was losing badly to his young fellow American Aaron Krickstein on a hot and humid day, but dug in, fought back and prevailed, in five exhausting sets. 'After the match,' Nastase says, 'Jimmy was dead. He went on a drip on the massage table, with doctors swarming around. I asked him , "Are you crazy? What's wrong with you, you've won this tournament five times. Now you're old, you want to die on the court?"</span></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'He looked at me and said, "Nastase, you understand nothing. You're European, you're a bullshitter like all Europeans. For me, the five wins don't count. It's the last one that counts. This one. I'm still here ".'</span></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How players respond to pressure determines the standard they reach even more than their talent. Borg and McEnroe responded in different ways. McEnroe, cursed with inexplicable skill that obliged him to grapple with equally powerful egos in front of thousands of spectators, externalised the pressure he felt, to a histrionic degree. He was a character from one of John Cassavetes's emotional movies, a mess of a human being, his rants a way to authenticity. 'I believe in the validity of a person's inner desires,' Cassavetes said. 'And those inner desires, whether ugly or beautiful, are pertinent to each of us and are probably the only things worth a damn.'</span></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Swede, on the other hand, was like one of the actors, or 'human models', in Robert Bresson's austere, spiritual films: 'The thing that matters is not what they show me but what they hide from me and, above all, what they do not suspect is in them ... It is the flattest and dullest parts that have in the end the most life.' To McEnroe's complexity, Borg offered depth.</span></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Borg and McEnroe had such perfectly contrasting styles of play and of character that, as they progressed towards their inevitable meeting at Wimbledon, in the 1980 final, fans were divided in their preference. It was easy to imagine that this was in some way a moral choice. That it came down to whether one felt McEnroe was rebelling against the establishment - so eagerly represented by English tennis - or merely bullying a flustered fellow in a blazer from middle England. It's a pleasant incongruity that McEnroe has since become a fully blazered member of that establishment himself, while Borg remains aloof. He has revisited Wimbledon only once since his retirement, for the millennial Parade of Champions.</span></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just as this opponent who acted out all his inner conflict enabled us to see what was hidden in Borg's game of supplicatory patience, so Borg needed the challenge of a player who was both his equal and his opposite - McEnroe being a gambler with finesse and spontaneity - to define his place at the summit.</span></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><i>The 1980 Wimbledon Men's Final</i></b></span></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><img height="384" src="http://www.sportsbully.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/9cyPFQbgCpqd41tcOPNHgGQOo1_500.jpg" width="640" /></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"></div><div style="background-color: white; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 1980 Wimbledon men's final went in waves. McEnroe walked onto Centre Court with that disgruntled slouch of his, then began with exemplary shots, as if resuming some interrupted display of his prodigious gifts. Borg, by contrast, was playing stiffly, like a man with flu, his muscles not just tight but aching. McEnroe broke Borg and held for 3-0, Borg then scraped a service game, but McEnroe broke again and served out the first set, 6-1.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">McEnroe gave the usual impression that he had a grudge against a few people in the crowd, he wasn't yet sure which ones, but he was playing serve-and-volley tennis of the highest calibre. His service action was absurd: he leaned forward from the waist until his torso was parallel to the ground. Or maybe he was just hiding behind the net, ready to pop up and surprise his opponent with sliced balls that swung way out of Borg's reach.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The second set continued like the first. Borg kept saving one break point after another and hanging on to his own serve by his fingertips, to inch ahead, only for McEnroe to draw level with imperious play. Borg was unable to sustain a rally of more than three shots, to work himself into a rhythm. If they were pugilists, the bout might have been stopped in that set..</span></div><div style="background-color: white; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><img height="480" src="http://sportige.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Bjorn-Borg.jpg" width="640" /></div><div style="background-color: white; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then, at 6-5, Borg broke McEnroe and the set was his. Owing to the caprice of tennis's scoring system, McEnroe had dominated the first two sets, yet by letting slip a couple of points at the vital moment found the match tied at one set all. Downcast, he began the third set with his lower lip quivering and spent the rest of it twitching with bewildered resentment. Borg took that one 6-3.</span></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Borg was now improving calmly game by game, his serve harder, ground strokes accurate, his volleying competent. The final was, however, a match of poor quality. At no time during the first four sets did either player flourish at the same time. It was hugely inferior to the semi-final Borg had played against his friend and practice partner Vitas Gerulaitis in 1977, five sets of superlative tennis.</span></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By the fourth set McEnroe had recovered himself, only to find Borg now beyond his reach. There's a particular exhilaration in sport that occurs when great athletes cast off the burden of hope and expectation on their shoulders, and perform freely, in time for glory. One thinks of Cathy Freeman opening up to win the 400 metres on home ground at the Sydney Olympics of 2000; of Ronaldo finding redemption from the wilderness in the 2002 World Cup. So it was with Björn Borg in that fourth set: he played with uninhibited ease. At 4-4 he broke McEnroe. Serving for the championship at 5-4, he reached 40-15.</span></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">McEnroe was one shot from defeat. He might have been expected to curse and pout his way to the exit. Instead he simply, without apparent decision or effort, began abruptly to hit thrilling winners. Within moments a match that seemed to have been over was six games all in the fourth set..</span></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><img height="640" src="http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2008/01/24/majmcenroe_narrowweb__300x465,0.jpg" width="413" /></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The tie break that followed has lifted the 1980 final into myth. At this time and place, with every other point from 5-5 either a championship point to Borg or a set point to McEnroe, the two men exchanged shots of courage and beauty, until they were not so much competing as collaborating. Each had met his destiny in the other.</span></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That tiebreak went on for almost 25 minutes. Eventually, at 18-16, it was over, and the winner was McEnroe. He had tied the match at two sets all. To have had seven championship points and not won a single one of them, and to find himself in a fifth, exhausting set, should have been a mortal blow for Borg. McEnroe, on the other hand, could barely restrain himself from crowing. He knew that Wimbledon was his: the king was dying. The great champion's reign was almost over. It was as inevitable as it was poignant.</span></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'And then there follows,' as Tim Adams has written in On Being John McEnroe, 'a moment which must rank among the greatest in sport. It is the moment when Borg walks out to serve once more, two sets all, one set to play, as if nothing had happened.'</span></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Instead of cracking, Borg simply played as he always played. That is, he refused to acknowledge what had gone before: his concentration focused until he saw only one thing, the ball that he was about to hit. A mirror image of the second set - though the quality of play was immeasurably higher - in the fifth Borg won his serve with regal authority, while McEnroe clung to his. He saved seven break points in all. But Borg was playing peerlessly. He had moved beyond a place where his opponent could find him. He won the final set 8-6.</span></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><img height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-xx_GCvYU40m5rVQINzX77dvl0YG7iHQUnEJG9Zn9h5pCRuqRkp1T928ai3NpSMZdf_xUotMzG6ocmUHNFX_a2nZZaC-5WFan79-NWtbZauq781BpKfYEaRmNfZ6-affrWpNb_11TxUw/s640/Borg.jpg" width="560" /></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">'</span>The final capacity of self-liberation,' wrote Namkhai Norbu, 'is called Randrol, which means "Of itself it liberates itself ". The separation of subject and object collapses, and one's habitual vision, the limited cage, the trap of ego, opens out into a spacious vision of what is. One enters the dance and play of energies, without limit.'</div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">Two weeks after the final, on 24 July 1980, Borg and Simionescu were married in Bucharest. He was tennis's King of Kings and his reign would soon be over. He was 24 years old and he was burning out, from too many air flights, meaningless exhibition matches, injuries, drugs taken for injuries. The following year he lost the 1981 Wimbledon final, to McEnroe, who would say: 'When we shook hands, Björn looked oddly relieved.'</div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">Borg couldn't quite comprehend what was happening. 'I didn't have that sparkling feeling,' he said.</div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;">Later that year, after the final of the US Open, which he also lost to McEnroe, Borg picked up his bag and walked off court before the awards ceremony took place and out of the stadium, straight to a waiting car, which drove him to the airport in his tennis gear. Soon afterwards he announced his retirement from tennis. His great challenger, curiously, would never quite attain the greatness his talent promised: the reason, McEnroe lamented, was that he remained 'in a kind of continued mourning for Borg'.</div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"></div><div style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'Freed from self,' wrote the 14th-century mystic Meister Eckhart, 'you are self self-possessed. And as you are self-possessed you possess God and all creation.'</span></div><div style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'It should be joy,' Borg has said, explaining his retirement. 'It should be in the heart.'</span></div><div style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If it is given to certain athletes to move between normal consciousness and a state of grace, then what do they do, what can they hope for, once their bodies let them down from Olympian heights? The saint may be ready to dissolve his body into the essence of the elements and enter the Body of Light. It's not so easy for the accidental mystic.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some, perhaps, are destined to follow the path of an Augustine or Siddhartha, of dissolution before enlightenment, but in reverse. From his tax haven in Monaco Borg embraced the life of an international playboy, mingling with the jet set and selling himself to ad campaigns. His marriage broke down when he fell for a 17-year-old girl, Jannike Björling, with whom he had a son, Robin. They would split amid accusations against him of cocaine addiction, against her of serial infidelity. A second marriage to an Italian singer 10 years his senior soon floundered. His company, Björn Borg Design Group, fell apart and he was forced to sell his Swedish home, speedboat and three life-insurance policies to pay off millions of dollars in tax and business debt.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sporting comebacks have never been a good idea. 'It would be unique to have a successful one,' sports historian Bert Sugar has said. 'But great athletes think they are immortal; they don't know when enough is enough.'</span></div><div style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><img height="640" src="http://www.famouspeopleinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Bjorn-Borg-3.jpg" width="512" /></div><div style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1991, at the age of 34, Borg returned to tennis, in the Monte Carlo Open. He stepped into the curious spotlight wearing the same tight outfit of his heyday, wielding one of his old wooden Donnay rackets, as if nothing had changed in tennis in the past decade. It fell to a little known Spaniard, Jordi Arrese, wielding a graphite racket, to send the great champion scrabbling all over the court, chasing after missiles he was powerless to return. Soundly beaten in a succession of first-round ties over the next two years, Borg once more withdrew.</span></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perhaps he needed that jolt of reality. Borg, reclusive now, began to spend ever more time in Sweden. Married for a third time in 2002 to Swede Patricia Oestfeldt, he became a father again as well as stepfather to her two other children. They live in Stockholm where, still playing tennis himself for an hour a day, Borg now also coaches talented young players. Though no one knows for sure what goes on deep in the heart of any man, today Björn Borg appears at ease with himself; a mortal, reconciled finally to our divided existence.</span></div><div style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzkaTwXcPhhdcJlQm501KmrWfbCIvBIRhmYsWNPzlgE9RHS0DOPvP9TacYT5ymlz-OUbjwXj2b39XW5dtsTEw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-55893452618050113522012-05-29T01:29:00.003-07:002012-05-29T01:30:35.016-07:00Our Hilda Speaks Out - The Street has Lost Its Soul To Sex, Violence and Downright Nastiness!<img alt="Story Image" height="482" src="http://images.dailyexpress.co.uk/img/dynamic/10/285x214/319562_1.jpg" width="640" /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This article was printed in the Daily Express on May 12th this year and sees former Street Legend Jean Alexander (Hilda Ogden) speaking out on the shite that is today's Coronation Street..</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-weight: bold; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">Hilda Ogden left Coronation Street 25 years ago singing “Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye” in her trilling, trademark voice. It was Christmas Day, 1987, and it remains the most watched episode in the soap’s history. As Hilda left to start a new life in Derbyshire a record 27 million tuned in to wave her off.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">Now, as a new musical about Britain’s longest-running TV soap opera hit the stage in Manchester Arena this week, veteran actress Jean Alexander, who played Hilda for 23 years, wishes the show well – but won’t be going to see it. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">Street Of Dreams, hosted by Paul O’Grady, brings together stars of the show, past and present, in an all- singing, all-dancing celebration of the soap’s history and unforgettable characters, with cast members such as Julie Goodyear (Bet Lynch), William Roache (Ken Barlow) and Kevin Kennedy (Curly Watts) recreating their iconic roles.</span><br /><img height="640" src="http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01181/corrie-main_1181284a.jpg" width="459" /><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">But not Jean Alexander. “I am afraid I shall miss the show,” she said from her home in Southport. “It would mean trains, taxis and a night in a hotel... Not much fun these days.” </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">At 85, after 61 years as an actress, she says: “I’m tired. That’s why I am announcing I am officially retired. All my life I have rushed around to fit in with other people’s schedules. Now I can suit myself.” </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">Suiting herself won’t mean watching nightly episodes of Coronation Street. She’s no longer a big fan because she says it has lost its way from the days when it represented a gritty northern back street.. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">CORONATION Street, she says, has sold its soul to sex: “Everyone in the Street seems to be having an affair. Some of them have been round the Street four times already. “I cannot comment on East- Enders because I never watch it but I am so disappointed in Coronation Street. In the relentless battle for ratings it has sold its soul to sex, scandal and downright nastiness. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">“Things have to move on, I know, but in the days of Hilda Ogden, Annie Walker and Co, the Street was gentle, funny and human. The humour has all but gone out of it these days.</span><br /><img height="446" src="http://www.virginmedia.com/images/Coronation-Street-best-moments-Hilda-Ogden-leaving-party-431x300.jpg" width="640" /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">“We had a lot of fun making Coronation Street and the fans let us know they had fun watching it. There were heartbreaking moments but we also tried to make people laugh. </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">“Today it’s all sex, doom and gloom and it’s all taken far too seriously.</span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">“The Street always tried to be relevant to the way people lived, especially in a northern working-class district. </span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">Nowadays I suppose it still reflects what is going on because life seems to be all about titillation in a world where kids grow up at 10 or 11. Perhaps that is why they all have to behave like that in the soaps.” Jean cannot name many of the actors in the Street, nor does she know much about the plotlines because she tunes in only about once a month.</span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">Of all the “newcomers”, Jean is most impressed with Jennie McAlpine, who has played Fiz Brown (now Fiz Stape) since 2001. Jean says Jennie, a Greater Manchester lass and one- time stand-up comedian, would have fitted nicely into the Street in the days of Hilda Ogden. “She has that northern grit and the original elbows out, hands-on-hip attitude. She’s a tough cookie. She is a real character and very noticeable. The characters are missing from Coronation Street these days,” she says.</span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">Of all today’s TV soaps Jean reckons Emmerdale has remained most true to its roots. “It is far more gentle and set in lovely countryside. The characters are more lifelike and they are not always going over the top. I love Emmerdale.”</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></span><br /><img height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwPCTNsbGswUfHkzXzLE7qVkIsgV3TFFyv6saV_LDRPKGn9vndBBynDKIsrBYXeNayVaXLw1uPdVkBscJwJhrbhuaJ74abY6ABt6Kk7r2kejzbi11xd2Py5-hr0WXArKC3OiZoAkxMcTM/s640/Eddie+Yeats+%26+Hilda+Ogden+12.png" width="640" /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">But her favourite programme is Midsomer Murders because, she says, there’s less violence than in Coronation Street or EastEnders!</span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">Jean Alexander has not worked since Last Of The Summer Wine ended in 2010. For 20 years she played Auntie Wainwright, a role she loved and a character she far preferred to Hilda Ogden. “She was my favourite so I reckon I ended on a high,” says Jean.</span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">The woman who won the heart of the nation as the curlers-and-head- scarf-wearing Hilda Ogden is still remarkably modest about her amazing success, even though she has sacrificed her personal life to her career. Jean Alexander has never married, still lives in the mod- est semi-detached home she bought with her late mum and only recently bought a DVD player. She has never driven or owned a car and one of her biggest indulgences is to take a taxi back from her local supermarket in Southport on her twice-weekly shopping expeditions. “I do get the bus there, though,” she says.</span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">She has won five major awards – including a TV Times award for All Time Favourite Soap Star – and performed before the Queen during her Silver Jubilee in 1977. And though in her stage career she was sick with fright before every performance it was receiving awards that struck her with terror.</span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">“That is because I was going out there as myself. I had no character to hide behind and I had to make up my own speech. I didn’t have someone else’s script to rely on,” she says.</span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">But she is still recognised and stopped in the street by fans, though nowadays the reactions are less violent. “I have been battered black and blue by excited women who’ve pinned me against a supermarket market shelf shrieking, ‘It’s you, it’s you, isn’t it?’ These days people don’t ask for autographs, they ask if they can be photographed with me on their mobile phones.</span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">“I don’t mind a bit as long as I am not eating a meal in a restaurant. It was the fans who made me what I am today and I owe them a great deal. So I have always tried to make time for them.”</span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">She also receives regular fan mail from around the world, mainly because of re-runs of Last Of The Summer Wine in various countries.</span></span><br /><img alt="Secret of love: Corrie's Stan and Hilda" height="511" src="http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/resources/images/266907/?type=articleLandscape" width="640" /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">One of her latest “fan” letters came from Ghana: “Dear Jean, I am a great fan of your music. I would love to attend the London Olympics. Please send me return airfare and provide food and accommodation as well as Olympic tickets... ” It’s one of the few letters she will not be replying to. </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px; text-align: justify;">So how will she spend her retirement? “Doing my own thing. No more traipsing down to a studio at 6am and spending hours being tarted up. I’ve enjoyed my career but it’s been long and hard. It’s left me tired so I think it’s time to take it easy.”</span></span>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-83346686156536586352012-05-27T06:49:00.004-07:002012-05-27T07:08:23.280-07:00Steptoe and Son - Fifty Years of Magic<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; min-height: 1px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Forget the laughter. It was the tears, a trickle of real grief, that announced a new kind of comedy on television half a century ago. One Friday evening in January 1962, an episode of the BBC’s Comedy Playhouse series changed the face of sitcom for ever. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Previous shows in the series, by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, had featured comedians such as Eric Sykes and Stanley Baxter. This episode was different: it starred two theatre actors, one a veteran of provincial rep, the other a devotee of the Method School of acting. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett were cast as father and son, scraping a living from the rubbish people threw out, surviving on cold, tinned food and the dregs of bottles they collected from behind restaurants. They wore rags salvaged from the bags of clothes they picked up on their rounds, traipsing the streets of London with a horse and cart.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; min-height: 1px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; "><img alt="Poignant: Harry H Corbett and Wilfrid Brambell, right, in Steptoe and Son, which marks its 50th anniversary " height="626" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/09/article-0-0279EE830000044D-957_468x458.jpg" width="640" /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; min-height: 1px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the beginning of the Sixties, when Kennedy was U.S. President and the British had ‘never had it so good’, there was no future for the rag ’n’ bone man. And Corbett’s character knew it: he had to escape from the junkyard and his drunken, idle father. But he had nowhere to go. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The final, achingly poignant scene has Corbett straining between the shafts of the cart, desperate to drag his possessions away from the ‘rathole’ where he was born. The cart is too heavy to move, and his father refuses to let him borrow the horse. Slowly, Corbett breaks down, screwing up his face and sobbing, then throwing himself face forward on the cart. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">‘We couldn’t believe what we were seeing,’ Galton says, 50 years on. ‘I nudged Alan and told him: “Those are genuine tears. He’s really crying!” We were used to comics who would turn their backs and shake their shoulders, boo-hoo-hoo.’ </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The BBC commissioned a series, Steptoe And Son, based on this pilot. The first run, in the summer of 1962, was so popular the six episodes were immediately repeated. Galton and Simpson were in Spain working on a movie script, when Corbett flew out to see them. ‘It’s incredible,’ he told them. ‘We’ve started a national sensation!’</span></div><span ><img alt="Writers and Creators of the BBC series Ray Galton and Alan Simpson" height="400" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/09/article-0-005E4DB300000258-422_224x423.jpg" width="211" /> <img alt="Writers and Creators of the BBC series Ray Galton and Alan Simpson" height="400" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/09/article-0-005E4DB300000258-555_224x423.jpg" width="211" /></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 100%; ">[Popular: Writers and Creators of the BBC series Ray Galton, left, and Alan Simpson, right.]</span><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: left; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: -webkit-auto; "><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; min-height: 1px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Steptoe And Son laid the rules for all the best sitcoms over the next decades. Its characters were trapped by their own flaws, convinced they were born for better things, but doomed to repeat their mistakes. Harold Steptoe could barely read, yet he longed to be an intellectual, a boulevardier. Instead, he had to look after the one person he despised most, his dad.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; min-height: 1px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">One early Steptoe episode shows Harold returning from the rounds to find his father soaking in a tin bath in front of the fire, his dinner balanced on his knees. ‘I got a bird coming round tonight,’ protests the younger man, and Albert smirks: he knows; that’s why he’s doing it.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; min-height: 1px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">‘You shouldn’t be eating your dinner in the bath,’ Harold scolds him. ‘Whichever way you look at it, to fish pickled onions out of your bath and put them back in the jar is an act of extreme dirtiness.’ Their antagonism reaches its highest pitch in perhaps the best-loved episode, Divided We Stand, where they build a plywood wall through their house and hurl insults over it. Even then, they can’t escape from each other — a kitchen fire starts, and they end up in hospital beds, side by side. Their fates and their flaws have twisted them together.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; min-height: 1px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><img alt="Steptoe counts money on the kitchen table in a scene that typifies the grumpiness of the old man " height="456" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/09/article-0-000F1D0200000258-141_468x334.jpg" style="text-align: -webkit-auto;" width="640" /><span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; min-height: 1px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><img alt="Antagonism: Harold Steptoe, left, had to look after the one person he despised most, his dad" height="464" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/09/article-0-0055926B00000258-245_468x341.jpg" style="text-align: -webkit-auto;" width="640" /></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; min-height: 1px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><img alt="Rag 'n' bone men: Steptoe and son with their horse and cart. The series was an instant hit and shaped comedy for years to come " height="475" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/09/article-0-02F02E7F0000044D-641_468x349.jpg" width="640" /></div></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; min-height: 1px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; ">Count how many times, and in how many ways, that set-up has been mirrored in Britain’s favourite comedies. Dad’s Army’s Captain Mainwaring, desperate for respect but always feeling inferior to his deputy bank manager, the public school-educated Sgt Wilson; Basil Fawlty, loathing the wife who keeps him cringeing under her thumb. Del Boy, forever promising he’ll be a millionaire ‘this time next year’, though he knows he’ll never be anything but a small-time crook and David Brent, who tries to disguise his incompetence with jokes and jargon, and cannot quite grasp why his staff detest him. Sometimes the claustrophobia is real, like Fletch’s prison cell in Porridge or Father Ted’s island priest-hole. Sometimes it is self-imposed, like the Royle family’s living room. And sometimes it’s all in the mind, like Victor Meldrew’s persecution complex.</div><span ><img alt="The set-up of Steptoe and Son has been mirrored in Britain's favourite comedies, including Fawlty Towers, pictured " height="448" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/09/article-0-003E35FB00000258-830_468x328.jpg" width="640" /> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; text-align: left; "><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; ">These situations are tragic, not funny. They are rooted in poverty, crime, age, class, greed and lack of education. So why do we laugh? </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; ">When TV comedy started, it was modelled on the variety acts of the music halls. Galton and Simpson were 21-year-old novice gag-writers, friends who had spent their teens in a sanatorium recovering from tuberculosis, when they were hired by BBC radio to script comedy hours for the Light Programme.</span><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; "><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; min-height: 1px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">They had a radical ambition, which they shared with comedian Tony Hancock — to create hilarious shows with no stand-up jokes, no punchlines, no silly voices, no guest stars and no sketches . . . just a single storyline with believable characters. All the comedy would be in the situation. They worked with Hancock for seven years — more than 100 radio episodes of Hancock’s Half Hour, 60 TV shows and a movie — before the comedian split from them, years later committing suicide. The BBC’s head of entertainment, Tom Sloan, was determined not to lose his star writers and made them an astonishing proposition. If they agreed to write a series of short comic plays, they could pick any subjects they wanted, hire any actors they liked, be the directors or even the stars if they felt like it.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; min-height: 1px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; min-height: 1px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">‘That’s how Comedy Playhouse started,’ Simpson says today. ‘No other TV writers had ever been given such freedom, and I’m sure it could never happen now.’ <span style="font-size: 100%; ">W hen they han-ded the Playhouse concept over to other comedy writers, two years later, the series became a launchpad for great sitcoms, including Last Of The Summer Wine, The Liver Birds and Are You Being Served?</span></div><img alt="Partner: Tony Hancock worked with Alan Simpson and Ray Galton " height="640" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/09/article-0-03B2A3D00000044D-465_233x423.jpg" width="351" /> </div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">Its most controversial success was Till Death Us Do Part. The star was a bigoted, foul-mouthed, bullying racist called Alf Garnett, who became one of TV’s most perversely popular characters. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;">Alan Simpson believes personalities such as Alf, or Albert Steptoe, spring from the same collective British consciousness that supplied the best-loved names in literature: ‘Dickens knew how to write characters with deep human failings who were unforgettably comic: Uriah Heep, Fagin, Mrs Gamp, Scrooge.’</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; min-height: 1px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Classical sources or not, the new wave of radical Sixties sitcom upset a lot of people. Mary Whitehouse, the self-appointed guardian of public morals, sued Till Death’s writer, Johnny Speight (he had called her a fascist). Steptoe went one better — questions were asked in the Commons after the B-word was broadcast in an episode about a piano. Harold and Albert are summoned to a penthouse to collect a baby grand. It’s too wide and heavy to remove. In the end, Harold declares: ‘What goes up can bleedin’ well stay up!’ Dr Donald Johnson, Tory MP for Carlisle, complained about this offensive ‘expletive’ and asked for the government to take action to ensure it was never broadcast again. </div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; min-height: 1px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; min-height: 1px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">The Speaker, Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, ruled that no explanation could be forthcoming because it would involve ‘unparliamentary language’. Compare that to today, where the grossness of the language is the sum total of much that passes for comedy. Old Man Steptoe’s non-stop rants offended some because they highlighted how deeply injustice still ran in post-war Britain. Watch Inbetweeners or Benidorm and you’ll hunt in vain for a political point. The brand of intelligent comedy they pioneered is rare now, but Ray Galton, 81, and Alan Simpson, 82, are still around. They meet every Monday to drink coffee and swap stories. ‘We complement each other,’ Alan says. ‘He helps me up stairs, and I tell him what day it is.’ Ray grins, and puffs on his roll-up. ‘That’s fine, but he still thinks George V is on the throne.’ They both chuckle. Clearly, comedy writers might grow old but they never grow up.</div></div></div><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dyf_JR_a32ky551IHcW1z0SiaOBLNd0pcdZEsprDxYVV_mPfSQRTPiRdkiaunDxltV8AaSAY2RHQD6YDZN36g' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-9902793099711907912012-05-26T23:54:00.004-07:002012-05-27T00:03:18.565-07:00Classic Brookside - Remembering Damon Grant (1982 - 1987)<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; "><img height="400" src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01054/Brookie_1054001c.jpg" width="640" /></span><br /><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 100%; "><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;">Damon Grant</span></b><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 100%; "><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;"> wa</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;">s the first heart throb<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>in the now defunct<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>British soap opera Brookside and was played by</span> Simon O'Brien. The character was part of the initial cast,appearing from episode one in 1982 until 1987. At the time of the soap'sinception, Damon was the youngest son of</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 100%; "> Bobby</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 100%; "> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 100%; ">and</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 100%; "> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 100%; ">SheilasGrant, with an older brother,</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 100%; "> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 100%; ">Barry and older sister,</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 100%; "> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 100%; ">Karen. </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">Damon was introduced after having broken into the Collins' house in the first episode on 2 November 1982, aged 14. When ques tioned about the theft of a lavatory and vandalism that occurs by Paul Collins</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">, Bobby lashes out at Damon. Barry defends Damon after the occurrence, pointing out that he did not have the tools to remove the lavatory in the way it had been done and that the graffiti could not have been Damon either as "he only spells 'bollocks' with one 'l'".</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "><img height="534" src="http://www.brooksidesoapbox.co.uk/DAMON.jpg" width="640" /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Brookside soap opera wasregarded as tackling social issues,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>andthis was no less true when dealing with the Grant family, and Damon. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>One of the first of the show's manyteenage characters to capture the viewing public's imagination,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>the role saw O'Brien catapulted tofame as a teen heart throb,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>andhis adoption of the "mullet" hairstyle proved to be in keeping withthe<span class="apple-converted-space"> zeitgeist </span>of the times,and saw the character further entrenched as a cultural reference point. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Storylines saw Grant presented initially as a cheeky, lovablecharacter, with a close group of friends. The manner of Grant'scharacterisation, both by the writers, directors and by O'Brien,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>led Jane Root, writing in<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Open the Box: About Television</i>,to cite the character as evidence of "complex male characters andmasculine storylines". Root saw this focus as different from establishedsoap operas. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt; "><img alt="File:Damon Grant.jpg" height="640" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/71/Damon_Grant.jpg" width="614" /></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt; "></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">As the character grew olderand left school, the writers used storylines to comment on life in<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Thatcher</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">'</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">s Britain.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Unemployment was a serioussocial issue, especially in a<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>dock citysuch as<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Liverpool, andGrant's character struggled to find work.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Eventually he took a position as a<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>painter & decorator throughthe recently introduced<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>YTS scheme,the writers depicting the excitement and later despair when Grant'sparticipation failed to lead to a full-time job to great effect.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt; "><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The character was then shown todevelop a relationship with<span class="apple-converted-space"> DebbieMcGrath</span>, played by<span class="apple-converted-space"> GillianKearney</span>. McGrath was an underage school girl, and the relationshipcaught the heart of viewers. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>WhenO'Brien decided to leave the show, the producers of Brookside decided to spinthis plotline into a separate show,<span class="apple-converted-space"> Damon& Debbie</span>, broadcast in a later timeslot than that in which Brooksidewas shown. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt; "><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">This three part series, credited as the first 'soap bubble'.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>moves the character out from Liverpoolin search of work. In the first episode the couple squat on a boat on theRiverOuse<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>in<span class="apple-converted-space"> York</span>, in the second episode they moveto<span class="apple-converted-space"> Morecambe </span>and then<span class="apple-converted-space"> Bradford</span>, where Damon gets a job as agroundsman at<span class="apple-converted-space"> Valley </span>(thestadium of<span class="apple-converted-space"> Bradford City </span>footballclub) before they finally return to York in the third episode. Ultimately, thecharacter is stabbed by Crosby actor Jonathan Comer, and dies at the end of theseries at O'Brien's request,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>amove which sparked upset and outrage amongst fans of the show, and added toboth Brookside's fame and notoriety.<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt; "><img height="403" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d5/Damon_and_debbie.jpg" width="640" /></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt; "></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt; "><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>Within the Brookside show thecharacter's death was used as a catalyst for again exploring a number ofissues, including the grief of the character's mother, played by<span class="apple-converted-space"> Sue Johnston</span>, and that of the character's father, Bobby Grant, played by<span class="apple-converted-space"> RickyTomlinson</span>, who was shown as blaming the death upon his unemployment.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Ultimately, Damon's death led to thesplintering of the Grant family within Brookside. </b><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt; "><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The character's funeral was watched by 7 million viewers,against<span class="apple-converted-space"> Channel 4’</span>s record ratingof 8.4 million set in 2005,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>andin<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Daily Mirror</i>,critic Clare Raymond claimed it to be one of the "most touching soapscenes". <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>In 2001, JimShelley, writing for<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>TheObserver</i>, claimed the character's death to be one of two contenders for themoment where it all went wrong for Brookside,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>whilein 2002, with the announcement that Brookside was to end, the funeral scene waslisted as the fourth greatest episode in the soap's history by<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Daily Mirror</i>.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>In 2003, producer<span class="apple-converted-space"> Phil Redmond </span>discussed plans tocontinue the show through a series of<span class="apple-converted-space"> DVD</span>'s,with one planned storyline involving '"Brookside's greatest untoldstory" -what would happen if Barry caught up with Damon's killers<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal; line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 4.8pt 0cm 6pt; "><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dydbLWI7dJF41r_zDsvAW7ATOah_tBRQhPsYCsXnCjVjnfcNJo4jY4TCNIf1ggNextXn8jayOyh86f2-SBQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-51668230463173259562012-05-26T09:35:00.006-07:002012-05-26T09:37:03.386-07:00Coronation Street - the 1970s<span><img height="400" src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02027/Betty_669487jd_2027758i.jpg" width="640" /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">The 1970s saw </span><cite style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">Coronation Street</cite><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">'s production team dealing with problems routinely besetting long-running soaps - how to write and structure the show when a favourite character leaves or dies, and how to manage audience reaction. When, in 1970, </span><cite class="party" style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">Arthur Leslie</cite><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;"> (who played the genial Rovers landlord, Jack Walker) died suddenly, his character was laid to rest too. </span><cite class="party" style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">Anne Reid</cite><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;"> determined to leave the show in 1971, and was written out, electrocuting herself with a faulty hairdryer. </span><cite class="party" style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">Granada</cite><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">'s strategy to cope with these losses was to introduce new residents and allow established but smaller characters to step into the limelight. The characters of Bet Lynch, Deirdre Hunt and Mavis Riley were developed between 1972 and '73, while Gail Potter, Jack and Vera Duckworth and Rovers pot man Fred Gee all made their debuts during the decade.</span></span><br /><span><img height="360" src="http://d01.www.itv.com/corrie50moments/1970s/3260bd97-03d1-48eb-bbc9-980af810557a/PreviewFile.jpg.ashx?q=90&v=1&w=640&h=360" width="640" /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">In June 1970 the show celebrated its 1000th episode, and was being sold to ten countries including Sierra Leone, Hong Kong, Holland and Greece (with sometimes dubious subtitling). Colour came to the </span><cite style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">Street</cite><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;"> in mid-1972, and sets were expanded to allow viewers to see the houses' roofs and back gardens. In 1976 </span><cite class="party" style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">Bill Podmore</cite><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">, the </span><cite style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">Street</cite><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">'s longest serving producer, joined the team, replacing </span><cite class="party" style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">Susi Hush</cite><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">. He immediately sought out the areas "crying out for a facelift or even a face change". </span><cite class="party" style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">Podmore</cite><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">inherited such experienced writers as </span><cite class="party" style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">Adele Rose</cite><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">, </span><cite class="party" style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">Leslie Duxbury</cite><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;"> and</span><cite class="party" style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">Harry Kershaw</cite><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">, and his production background in television comedies ensured that humour became a stronger ingredient of the show. </span></span><br /><span><img height="640" src="http://images.wikia.com/coronationstreet/images/4/4a/Kenbarlow_1971.JPG" width="614" /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.4; font-size: 100%; ">Legendary couples Stan and Hilda Ogden and Jack and Vera Duckworth's marital spats frequently bordered on music hall turns, while other comic characters - including brassy and brittle Ivy Tilsley, with her background in cabaret, and Eddie Yeats, the ex-con turned bin man with a heart of gold - were brought to the fore.</span><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 10px; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The staple diet of births, ill-fated marriages and violent deaths continued. Storylines included the birth, in 1977, of Tracy Langton, the marriage of Brian Tilsley and Gail Potter in 1979, and the murder of Ernie Bishop during a robbery at the factory in 1978.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 1.4; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 10px; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;">Despite the growing popularity of the daytime soap </span><cite style="line-height: 15px;">Crossroads</cite><span style="line-height: 15px;"> (ITV, 1964-88; 2001-03), the </span><cite style="line-height: 15px;">Street</cite><span style="line-height: 15px;"> had little competition, retaining its primetime slot and increasing its ratings. Novelist </span><cite class="party" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 15px;">John Braine</cite><span style="line-height: 15px;">, writing in</span><cite style="line-height: 15px;">TV Times</cite><span style="line-height: 15px;"> in 1970, accounted for the show's longevity: "the most important character in the Street is the Street itself. No matter who comes and goes, the Street remains".</span></span></div>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-60549468754131015722012-05-26T06:19:00.002-07:002012-05-26T06:34:03.639-07:00Doing his Porridge - Remembering Lennie Godber<span ><img height="640" src="http://www.eylence.az/blogs/media/blogs/eylence/2008/02/Richard%20Beckinsale.jpg" width="457" /></span><br /><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; font-size: 100%; ">Leonard Arthur</b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; font-size: 100%; "> "</span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; font-size: 100%; ">Lennie</b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; font-size: 100%; ">" </span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; font-size: 100%; ">Godber</b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; font-size: 100%; "> was played by the late, great Richard Beckinsale in the classic BBC sit-com Porridge.</span><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Godber is from Birmingham and supports Aston Villa F.C., has an <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Level" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="O Level">O </a>Level in Geography, and studies for a History O Level while in prison. Before he was arrested he shared a flat with his girlfriend Denise in nearby Cheswick in the West Midslands. In an effort to get her a gift, Godber broke into a neighbour's flat. He was caught, and it was for this that he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. Denise later broke up with Godber through a Dear John Letter.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the first episode, Lennie arrives at Slade Prison, along with Fletch. However, unlike Fletch, who has spent several five-year spells in prison, this is Godber's first stretch of 'porridge'. Fletcher felt strongly about someone of Godber's age being in prison. However, when Godber announces that upon his release he plans to 'go straight', Fletch is perplexed, announcing:</span></div><blockquote style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; "><div style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Twenty-three and you want to go straight? What kind of talk is that? You've got your whole life before you!"</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></div></blockquote><span > <img height="420" src="http://phdblog.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/porridge.jpg" width="640" /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; font-size: 100%; ">Fletch and Godber later become cell-mates, and Fletch is quick to take the naïve Godber under his wing, who learns much from him, and by the end of the series has inherited much of his cunning.</span><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Godber also often came into conflict with the ever suspicious Mr Mackay, who appeared to find it very hard to believe that Lennie was not up to something. Even when he was, MacKay found it very hard to pin anything on him, thanks to Godber's penchant for dramatics, and occasionally to the cover-up efforts of Fletch and the sympathetic Mr Barrowclough.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Godber works in the prison kitchen where he has ample opportunities to steal valuable commodities such as butter and pineapple chunks for Fletcher. Godber also briefly took up a career as a Boxer in the prison, although this was short-lived when he got involved in match fixing.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><img height="396" src="http://www.nostalgiacentral.com/images_tv/comedy/porridge.jpg" width="640" /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Doe-eyed, optimistic Godber was the perfect sidekick for grouchy, world-weary Fletcher, and the banter between the two became one of the main attractions of the series. This was arguably best illustrated in the ambitious episode "A Night In", a bottle episode set entirely in relative darkness within the confines of their cell, with only the pair's conversation for entertainment.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This concept has been imitated by many other sitcoms, such as <i>Friends</i> ("The One Where No One's Ready") and <i>Bottom</i> ("Hole"). However, few, if any of these have managed to recreate the minimalistic feel of the original, falling back on other comedy devices (the former had several characters, each with their own storyline, and the latter was set atop a Ferris Wheel, and much of the comedy derived from this setting).</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the follow-up series <i>Going Straight</i>, Godber is a long-distance lorry driver, engaged to Fletch's daughter Ingrid (whom he began writing to shortly after Denise broke up with him). They were married in the final episode.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><img height="640" src="http://www.comedy.co.uk/images/library/people/180x200/g/going_straight_godber.jpg" width="576" /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Due to Richard Beckinsale's premature death, Godber does not appear in the 2003 mocumentary Life Beyond the Box Norman Stanley Fletcher, al</span><span style="line-height: 19px;">though Ingrid receives a phone call from him, saying he's stuck on a motorway. They have one son, named Norman after his grandfather.</span></span></div><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwG67NX5B8Krja_-J3qOZi9xwT75Mw3Ngt_x-b1aG3jaWJGUm3n4jgrxr6HE2zi1n-lXsci9kzMEnmuFTYoew' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><div><div><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzyMxl15PIxPNtLqanShlIaUt1os_Q6AHrptIdiKI-TDO0UlBBwkbfMVMogzXfU5n4k5P9JPW6UmSaXETmFNA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div></div>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-24528329798261727162012-05-26T03:51:00.004-07:002012-05-26T03:55:24.567-07:00America's Finest - The Saturday Evening Post<img alt="Saturday Evening Post 1902-01-18" height="640" src="http://www.magazineart.org/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=19671&g2_serialNumber=2" width="506" /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"><b>The Saturday Evening Post</b></i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> is a bimonthly American magazine</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.</span></span><br /><div style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;">While the publication traces its historical roots to Benjamin Franklin, <i>Pennsylvania Gazette</i> was first published in 1728 by Samuel Keimer. The following year (1729), Franklin acquired the Gazette from Keimer for a small sum and turned it into the largest circulation newspaper in all the colonies. It continued publication until 1815. The Saturday Evening Post was founded in 1821 and grew to become the most widely circulated weekly magazine in America. The magazine gained prominent status under the leadership of its longtime editor George Horace Lorimer (1899–1937)</div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The Saturday Evening Post</i> published current event articles, editorials, human interest pieces, humor, illustrations, a letter column, poetry (with contributions submitted by readers), single-panel gag cartoons (including <i>Hazel</i> by Ted Key) and stories by the leading writers of the time. It was known for commissioning lavish illustrations and original works of fiction. Illustrations were featured on the cover and embedded in stories and advertising. Some <i>Post</i> illustrations became popular and continue to be reproduced as posters or prints, especially those by Norman Rockwell.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Curtis Publishing Co. stopped publishing the <i>Post</i> in 1969 after the company lostlandmark defamation suit and was ordered to pay over $3 million in damages. The <i>Post</i>was revived in 1971 as a quarterly publication. As of the late 2000s, the <i>Saturday Evening Post</i> magazine is published six times a year by the "Saturday Evening Post Society", which purchased the magazine in 1982.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"><img alt="Saturday Evening Post 1902-02-22" height="640" src="http://www.magazineart.org/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28162&g2_serialNumber=3" width="492" /></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"></div><div style="line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1916, <i>Saturday Evening Post</i> editor George Horace Lorimer discovered Norman Rockwell<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Rockwell" style="background-image: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Norman Rockwell">l</a>, then an unknown 22-year-old New York artist. Lorimer promptly purchased two illustrations from Rockwell, using them as covers, and commissioned three more drawings. Rockwell's illustrations of the American family and rural life of a bygone era became icons. During his 50-year career with the <i>Post</i>, Rockwell painted more than 300 covers.</span></div><div style="line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The <i>Post</i> also employed Nebraska artist John Philip Falter, who became known "as a painter of Americana with an accent of the Middle West," who "brought out some of the homeliness and humor of Middle Western town life and home life." He produced 120 covers for the <i>Post</i>between 1943 and 1968, ceasing only when the magazine began displaying photographs on its covers. Other popular cover illustrators include the artists John Clymer, W.HD. Koerner, J.C Leyendecker, Charles Archibald Maclellan, John. E. Sheridan, and N.C Wyeth</span></div><div style="line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The magazine's line-up of cartoonists included Bob Barnes, Irwin Caplan Tom Henderson, Al Johns, Clyde Lamb, Jerry Marcus, Frank O'Neal, B. Tobey, Pete Wyma and Bill Yates. The magazine ran Ted Key's cartoon panel series <i>Hazell</i> from 1943 to 1969.</span></div><div style="line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"><img alt="Saturday Evening Post 1903-12-05" height="640" src="http://www.magazineart.org/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=11452&g2_serialNumber=2" width="512" /></div><div style="line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Each issue featured several original short stories and often included an installment of a serial appearing in successive issues. Most of the fiction was written for mainstream tastes by popular writers, but some literary writers were featured. The opening pages of stories featured paintings by the leading magazine illustrators. The </span><i style="line-height: 19px;">Post</i><span style="line-height: 19px;"> published stories and essays by H.E. Bates</span><span style="line-height: 19px;">, Ray Bradbury</span><span style="line-height: 19px;">, Kay Boyle</span><span style="line-height: 19px;">, Agatha Christie</span><span style="line-height: 19px;">, Brian Cleese</span><span style="line-height: 19px;">, William Faulkner</span><span style="line-height: 19px;">, F. Scott Fitzgerald</span><span style="line-height: 19px;">, C.O. Forester</span><span style="line-height: 19px;">, Ernest Haycox &</span><span style="line-height: 19px;"> Robert. A Heinlein. </span><span style="line-height: 19px;">, </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"><img alt="Saturday Evening Post 1926-03-20" height="640" src="http://www.magazineart.org/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=28484&g2_serialNumber=3" width="489" /></div><div style="line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">The </span><i style="line-height: 19px;">Post</i><span style="line-height: 19px;"> readership began to decline in the late 1950s and 1960s. In general, the decline of general interest magazines was blamed on television</span><span style="line-height: 19px;">, which competed for advertisers and readers' attention. The </span><i style="line-height: 19px;">Post</i><span style="line-height: 19px;"> had problems retaining readers: The public's taste in fiction was changing, and the </span><i style="line-height: 19px;">Post</i><span style="line-height: 19px;"> 's conservative politics and values remained controversial. Content by popular writers became harder to obtain. Prominent authors drifted away to newer magazines offering more money and status. As a result, the </span><i style="line-height: 19px;">Post</i><span style="line-height: 19px;"> published more articles on current events and cut costs by replacing illustrations with photographs for covers and advertisements.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">At a March 1969 postmortem on the magazine's closing, Emerson stated that </span><i style="line-height: 19px;">The Post</i><span style="line-height: 19px;"> "was a damn good vehicle for advertising" with competitive renewal rates and readership reports and expressed what <i>The New York Times</i></span><span style="line-height: 19px;"> called "understandable bitterness" in wishing "that all the one-eyed critics will lose their other eye".</span><span style="line-height: 19px;"> Otto Friedrich, the magazine's last managing editor, blamed the death of </span><i style="line-height: 19px;">The Post</i><span style="line-height: 19px;"> on Curtis. In his </span><i style="line-height: 19px;">Decline and Fall</i><span style="line-height: 19px;"> (Harper & Row, 1970), an account of the magazine's final years (1962–69), he argued that corporate management was unimaginative and incompetent. Friedrich acknowledges that </span><i style="line-height: 19px;">The Post</i><span style="line-height: 19px;"> faced challenges as the tastes of American readers changed over the course of the 1960s, but he insisted that the magazine maintained a standard of good quality and was appreciated by readers.</span></span></div>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-65347032844389258142012-05-25T13:19:00.005-07:002012-05-25T13:23:37.656-07:00That Was The News That Was: John Alford Guilty on Drugs Charges (1999)<span style="font-size: 100%; "><img height="466" src="http://static.whatsontv.co.uk/images/09515_101421_PA1321645.jpg" width="640" /></span><br /><span style="font-size: 100%; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">Back in the 1990s I was a huge fan of London's Burning and was saddened and shocked when actor John Alford (Billy Ray) was arrested for offering to supply drugs to someone he believed was an Arab! <span style="background-color: white;">A jury at London's Snaresbrook Crown Court found him guilty of one count of supplying 2.036 grammes of cocaine to an investigative reporter, as well as a similar charge involving 11.9 grammes of cannabis resin.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 100%; "><img height="640" src="http://www.virginmedia.com/images/londons-burning-john-alford-then-290x400.jpg" width="464" /></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; ">Judge Stephen Robbins remanded Alford in custody until May 26 and told him that a prison term</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica; font-size: x-small; "> </span><span style="font-size: 100%; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span style="background-color: white;">was 'inevitable'. </span><span style="background-color: white;">The verdict was greeted by gasps from the packed public gallery, and Alford's girlfriend, Tina Mahon, was seen to tremble and hold back tears. </span><span style="background-color: white;">In August 1997, Alford had been lured to the Savoy Hotel in central London by a journalist posing as an Arabian prince and secretly filmed supplying cocaine and cannabis. </span><span style="background-color: white;">The court heard Alford, 27, was so taken in by the "elaborate ... well-planned subterfuge" he even bowed to the bogus royal, who was in fact News of the World investigative editor Mazher Mahmood. </span><span style="background-color: white;">The prosecution said Alford had acted out of "greed" after being offered the chance to join a celebrity line-up at the fake sheikh's nightspot opening in Duba</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica; font-size: x-small; ">i.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 100%; "><img height="640" src="http://members.chello.at/mobius/johna2.JPG" width="613" /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: white; font-size: 100%; ">Alford, from Hadley Wood, Hertfordshire, represented himself during the 10-day trial.</span><br /><div style="font-size: 100%; font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He told the judge: "I respect the verdict of the jury and I thank your honour for your tolerance of my inexperience in these matters." Before they delivered their verdict, Judge Robbins warned the five women and seven men trying the case they should not make decisions based on "emotion".</span></div><div style="font-size: 100%; font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After the story broke, Alford was sacked from his £50,000-a-year role in the ITV television drama, based on the lives of a team of firemen.</span></div>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-9070938484367360332012-05-21T07:59:00.002-07:002012-05-21T08:02:52.849-07:00Robin Gibb (1949 - 2012)<div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"><div style="font-size: 100%;"><img alt="File:Robin Gibb (Bee Gees) - TopPop 1973 1.png" height="640" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Robin_Gibb_%28Bee_Gees%29_-_TopPop_1973_1.png" width="638" /></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sad news reaches us today of the passing of former Bee Gee, Robin Gibb. Robin Hugh Gibb</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, CBE was born on 22nd December 1949 and is best known as a member of the Bee Gees, co-founded with his twin brother Maurice and older brother Barry. He had another younger brother, Andy Gibb, who was also a very popular solo singer.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Born in the Isle of Man to English parents, the family later moved to Manchester before settling in Brisbane, Australia. Gibb began his career as part of the family trio and when the group found their first success they returned to the United Kingdom where they achieved worldwide fame. In 2004, the Bee Gees received their CBEs from the Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace for their "contribution to music". With record sales estimated in excess of 200 million units, the Bee Gees became one of the most successful pop groups of all time. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After a career spanning six decades, Gibb last performed on stage in February 2012 supporting injured British servicemen and women at a charity concert at the </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 10px;">London Palladium.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> On 20 May 2012, Gibb died after a lengthy battle with colorectal cancer.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img alt="Bee Gees,Number Ones,Thailand,CD/DVD SET,318797" height="640" src="http://991.com/newGallery/Bee-Gees-Number-Ones-318797.jpg" width="621" /> </span></div><div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Born to Barbara and Hugh Gibb in the Isle of Man, Gibb was the fraternal twin brother of Maurice Gibb, and the elder of the two, born 35 minutes before Maurice. The third-born of five children, Gibb had one older sister, Lesley (born 1945), and three brothers: Barry (born 1946), twin Maurice (1949–2003), and Andy (1958–1988).</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gibb was the subject of an edition of the BBC Genealogy documentary series Who Do You Think You Are? first broadcast on 21 September 2011. The programme revealed that Gibb's paternal great-grandfather was born into poverty in Paisley and went on to become a decorated soldier and his paternal great-grandmother was a midwife.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gibb's mother Barbara was born in Worsley, Salford and in the 1950s the family returned to Manchester, England. The family lived on Keppel Road, Chorlton-cum Hardy and it was here that the young Gibb brothers sang together and performed in local theatres. In late 1958, the family moved to Brisbane, Australia. The family travelled to Australia on the same ship as Australian musician Red Symons. The brothers' music careers began in Australia and flourished when they returned to England in 1967.</span></div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img alt="Bee Gees,Saturday Night Fever,USA,Deleted,DOUBLE LP,324463" height="640" src="http://991.com/newGallery/Bee-Gees-Saturday-Night-Fe-324463.jpg" width="612" /> </span></div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; text-align: -webkit-auto;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Traditionally, Gibb's role in the Bee Gees was lead singer, for which he vied with Barry during the group's first period of British success in the late 1960s. This rivalry eventually prompted Gibb to leave the group and begin a solo career. The final irritant was when Gibb’s song "Lamplight" was relegated to the B-Side of Barry's song "First of May". Meanwhile, there were rumours during this period that Gibb was dealing with drug abuse problems, leading Gibb's parents to allegedly threaten legal action to make him a ward of court (the UK age of majority at that time being 21, and he was only 19).</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In his solo career, Gibb was initially successful with a Number 2 UK hit, "Saved by the Bell", which sold over one million copies and received a Gold disc. However, Gibb's first solo album, <i>Robin's Reign</i>, was less successful and he soon found that being a solo artist was unsatisfying. Maurice played bass guitar on the song "Mother and Jack", but was subsequently removed from the project by producer Robert Stigwood. Despite having almost completed a second solo album, <i>Sing Slowly Sisters</i>, Gibb reunited with his brothers, who then revived the Bee Gees. The group came back on a high note, reaching No. 3 on the US charts with the song "Lonely Days" in 1970. In 1971, the Bee Gees had their first US No.1 hit, "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart", but after that their popularity started to ebb.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1974, with new producer Arif Mardin, the Bee Gees reinvented themselves with the song "Blue-Eyed Soul,". The group now entered their second period of phenomenal success in the disco-era late 1970s.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1978, Gibb performed on the <i>Sesame Street Fever</i> album for the Sesame Street children's TV program. On the "Sesame Street Fever" title track, he sang a song called "Trash" for the character Oscar the Grouch, and spoke on at least one other song.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">While continuing in the Bee Gees, Gibb also promoted his new solo career. During the 1980s, Gibb released three solo albums (</span><i>How old are you?</i>, Secxret Agent, and <i style="font-style: normal;">Walls Have Eyes</i>). These three albums were more successful in Europe than in the UK or US, with<i style="font-style: normal;">How Old Are You?</i> spawning the hit single "Juliet". However, Gibb's 1984 single "Boys Do Fall in Love" did reach the Billboard Magazine top 40 list of hits. Gibb also recorded several extended versions of dance songs, including "Boys Do Fall in Love", "Secret Agent", "Like a Fool" and the rarest, "You Don't Say Us Anymore"; many of these extended versions were released to radio Disc Jockeys only.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img height="512" src="http://www.inquisitr.com/wp-content/2011/11/Bee-Gees.jpg" width="640" /> </span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On 27 January 2003, fifteen days after Maurice died, Gibb released a new solo album, <i>Magnet</i> in Germany on SPV GMBV, and worldwide shortly afterwards. <i>Magnet</i> featured the Bee Gees song "Wish You Were Here" (from the 1989 album <i>One</i>) in a new acoustic version. The lead single, "Please", had coincidental lyrics about "loss". After Maurice's death, Gibb and Barry again disbanded the Bee Gees; however, in late 2009, the two brothers announced that they would reform and perform again as the Bee Gees whenever they could. In recent years, Gibb sang the vocals to the opening titles to the British ITV show <i>The Dame Edna Treatment</i>.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On 18 May 2008, Gibb released the song "Alan Freeman Days" in tribute to the Australian DJ Alan Freeman. The song was issued as a download only track, although a promotional CD was issued by Academy Recordings. In December 2008, "Alan Freeman Days" was followed by another downloadable song entitled "Wing and a Prayer", which shared the same name as a song from the 1989 One album. However, the new song was actually a reworking of the song, "Sing Slowly Sisters", that had remained unreleased since 1970. Later in December, Gibb issued another song, "Ellan Vannin (Home Coming Mix)", featuring the King William's College Choir from the Isle of Man. ("Ellan Vannin" is the Manx name for the Isle of Man.)</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 2008, Gibb completed a new solo album entitled <i>50 St. Catherine's Drive</i>, but it was never released. However, in August 2009, a 50-second video clip of "Instant Love" from <i>50 St. Catherine's Drive</i> appeared as a preview. "Instant Love" was a collaboration with Gibb's son Robin-John. A second version of "Instant Love" featuring Robin-John on vocals appeared in a short film called <i>Bloodtype: The Search</i> in which Robin-John appeared.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Gibb and Robin-John also wrote the score for </span><i style="line-height: 19px;">The Titanic Requiem</i><span style="line-height: 19px;">, recorded by Royal Philarmonic Orchestra for the 2012 100th Anniversary of the </span><span style="line-height: 10px;">sinking of the Titanic</span><span style="line-height: 19px;"> Gibb was due to attend the piece's premier on 10 April 2012, but his failing health kept him away.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img height="444" src="http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/RTX5JQ9.jpg" width="640" /> </span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 2010, Gibb was also a guest mentor on the Australian version of <i>The X Factor</i>, alongside Australian TV host Kyle Sandilands, Australian actor/singer Natalie Imbruglia, Irish singer Ronan Keating, and Australian singer Guy Sebastian.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In August 2003, Gibb announced the release of a new single of "My Lover's Prayer", a song first recorded by the Bee Gees in 1997, with vocals by Gibb and singers Wanya Morris and Lance Bass. "My Lover's Prayer" was played on the radio, but was never actually released. In October 2003, Gibb recorded a second version of this song as a duet with singer Alistair Giffin, a runner-up in the UK television program <i>Fame Academy</i> on which Gibb had appeared as a judge. In January 2004, the new "My Lover's Prayer" was released in the UK as a double A side CD single. It eventually reached number 5 in the UK music charts.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In January 2005, Robin joined his brother Barry and several other artists under the name <i>One World Project</i> to record a charity single in aid of Asian tsunami relief, titled "Grief Never Grows Old". Other artists who performed on the single included Boy George, Steve Winwood, Jon Anderson, Rick Wakeman, Sir Cliff Richard, Bill Wyman, America, Kenny Jones, Chicago, Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, Russell Watson and Davy Spillane.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In June 2005, Gibb joined X Factor runner up band G4 at a sell-out concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London, singing the Bee Gees song "First of May". In December 2005, a recording of this performance was released as part of a double A side single, credited as "G4 feat Robin Gibb" together with G4's cover version of the Johnny Mathis song "When a Child is Born". "First of May" also appeared on the platinum selling album <i>G4 & Friends</i>, which reached number 6 in the UK album charts.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img height="640" src="http://www.ukbeegees.com/beegees_files/Bee%20Gees%20hi%20res%202.jpg" width="640" /> </span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In November 2006, Gibb released an album of Christmas carols called <i>Robin Gibb – My Favourite Carols</i>, backed by the Serlo consort, a London choir. The Serlo Consort. The album also featured a new song by Gibb called "Mother of Love", which was released in Europe as a download single. The song was inspired by Maurice and was Robin's first new composition since Maurice died. Gibb donated all royalties from "Mother of Love" to the "Janki Foundation for Global Healthcare", and dedicated the song to Dad Janki, the organisation's spiritual leader. Gibb dedicated the album to his mother, Barbara Gibb. <i>Robin Gibb – My Favourite Carols </i>has a bonusDVD disc titled <i>A Personal Christmas Moment with Robin Gibb</i>.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Gibb went back to the top of the UK charts in 2009 when he collaborated with singers Ruth Jones, Rob Brydon, and Tom Jones on a new version of "Islands in the Stream", written by Robin, Barry, and Maurice. The new version, inspired by the BBC comedy TV show </span><i style="line-height: 19px;">Gavin & Stacey</i><span style="line-height: 19px;">, was created to benefit the charity </span><span style="line-height: 10px;">Comic Relief.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In September 2011, Gibb recorded the Bee Gees classic "I've Gotta Get a Message To You" with British Army men The Soldiers for a charity single in the UK, the video for which was produced by Vintage TV.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; line-height: 19px; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img height="640" src="http://img.karaoke-lyrics.net/img/artists/9446/bee-gees-201581.jpg" width="528" /> </span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"></div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In late 2004, Gibb embarked on a solo tour of Germany, Russia and Asia, with singer Alistair Griffin as the opening act. On his return to the UK, Gibb released a CD and DVD of live recordings from the German leg of the tour, backed by the Frankfurt Nueue Philarmonic<a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt,_Germany" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Frankfurt, Germany">, </a>Germany. In 2005, Gibb made a solo tour of Latin America.</span></div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On 20 February 2006, Gibb and Barry performed at a concert for the Diabetes Research Institute of the University of Miami in Hollywood<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood,_Florida" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Hollywood, Florida">, </a>Florida. This was their first joint performance since Maurice's death. In March 2006, Gibb announced plans for more solo concerts in Shanghai<a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai,_China" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Shanghai, China">, </a>China and Portgual. In May 2006, Gibb took part in the Princes' Trust 30th Birthday Concert at the Tower of London along with Barry. They sang three songs: "Jive Talkin<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jive_Talkin%27" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Jive Talkin'">'</a>", "To Love Somebody" and "You Should Be Dancing". In September 2006, Gibb performed "Stayin' Alive" at the Miss World 2006 contest finals in Warsaw, Poland. In November 2006, Gibb performed a solo concert, entitled "Bee Gees – Greatest Hits", at the Araneta<a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Araneta_Coliseum" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Araneta Coliseum"> </a>Coliseum in Manila, the Philippines.</span></div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gibb marked his return to his birthplace by playing a concert at the Isle of Man<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Man_TT" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Isle of Man TT"> TT</a> festival in 2007. The Peel Bay TT Festival– 12 February 2007. Gibb donated all of his share of the money from this concert to the children's ward at Noble's Hospital, Isle of Man, and invited all emergency service staff and marshals for the TT to attend for free.</span></div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On 8 September 2007, Gibb performed a concert in Salt Lake City<a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Lake_City,_Utah" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Salt Lake City, Utah">, </a>Utah Energy Solutions Arena for the Nu Skin Enterprises Convention, singing a set of Bee Gees hits.</span></div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On 25 October 2007, Gibb performed a concert at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia, Bulgaria and sang the Bee Gees' most famous songs.</span></div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On 25 October 2008, to mark the 30th anniversary of the song "Saturday Night Fever" topping the UK charts, Gibb performed with special guests including Ronan Keating, Stephen Gateley, Sam Sparro, Sharleen Spireti, Gabriella Climi and Bryn Christopher at the London music festival BBC Electric Proms.</span></div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On 30 January 2012, Gibb announced his intention to appear on stage at the Coming Home Concert at the London Palladium in February to benefit British soldiers returning home from Afghanistan; "I’m looking forward to appearing if possible and being able to continue my support for our servicemen and women. We owe a debt of gratitude to the dedication and professionalism of our armed forces.” It would be his last performance on stage.</span></div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img height="380" src="http://news.sky.com/sky-news/content/StaticFile/jpg/2012/May/Week3/16232004.jpg" width="640" /> </span></div><div style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; text-align: -webkit-auto;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On 14 August 2010, while performing in Belgium, Gibb began to feel abdominal pains. On 18 August, he was rushed to a hospital in Oxford, England and underwent emergency surgery for a blocked intestine, the same condition that killed Maurice. Gibb recovered and returned to perform concerts in New Zealand and Australia. During this time, Gibb was also involved in promoting fund-raising for the memorial dedicated to RAF Bomber Command in Green Park<a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Park,_London" style="background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" title="Green Park, London">, </a>London. Gibb also wrote <i style="font-style: normal;">The Titanic Requiem</i> with his son Robin-John, which was recorded by the Royal Philarmonic Orchestra to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic in 2012. Gibb continued to make television appearances and other events following his surgery, but in April 2011 he was forced by health problems to cancel his tour of Brazil. Another concert in Paris was cancelled in October 2011. On 14 October, Gibb was due to perform the charity single with The Soldiers, but was again rushed to hospital with severe abdominal pains. On 18 October, following his release from the hospital, Gibb appeared on <i>ITV's The Alan Titchmarsh Show</i> looking gaunt and frail.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On 27 October 2011, Gibb cancelled an appearance only minutes before he was due to perform at the Poppy Appeal Concert in London. Later the same week however, Gibb was seen in London and quoted as saying he felt "absolutely great".</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On 20 November, it was revealed that Gibb had been battling liver cancer diagnosed several months earlier. A source close to the singer stated that his condition was "not good" and his wife, Dwina, had not left his bedside. His brother Barry and his wife Linda, as well as their mother Barbara and Robin's children, Melissa and Spencer, flew to the UK to be with him.</span><br /><img height="384" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Music/Pix/pictures/2009/1/29/1233250939203/The-Bee-Gees-002.jpg" width="640" /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">On 4 March it was announced that Gibb was in</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> remission</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">from cancer.</span><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-39" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Gibb#cite_note-39" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;">]</a></sup><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">On 28 March, Gibb's publicist announced that he had been hospitalised for intestinal surgery and was recovering and cancelled scheduled appearances.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On 14 April, it was reported that Gibb was "fighting for his life" after contracting pnuemonia and was in a coma in a Chelsea hospital. Gibb's two oldest children, his wife Dwina, his brother Barry and his mother were at his bedside.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Donnelly_2012_43-0" style="line-height: 1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Gibb#cite_note-Donnelly_2012-43" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;">]</a></sup> On 20 April, it was reported that Gibb was out of his coma and was making remarkable progress, according to his family. On 22 April, however, it was reported that he had advanced Colorectal Cancer.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-SMH_45-0" style="line-height: 1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Gibb#cite_note-SMH-45" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;">]</a></sup> He died in London on 20 May 2012 at the age of 62.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-bbc_death_46-0" style="line-height: 1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Gibb#cite_note-bbc_death-46" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;">]</a></sup></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Music historian Paul Gambacini described Gibb as "one of the major figures in the history of British music" and "one of the best white soul voices ever", while he noted that the Bee Gees were "second only to Lennon and McCartney as the most successful songwriting unit in British popular music". Gibb's death left his brother Barry as the only surviving original member of the Bee Gees.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;clear: both; "><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dw2VFHA7zAhLQqw09xfEswOF0py1gDWbxvhYNVnCq0g1LR3bHEGSpDF_fQizt9YR92c1pl_U7-VNgkqd_s_Ig' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dyomVh5UXS6Ef13iVAiH6TfenbSB80FSOuK0KSpX9w2g1Eby6QSYjesQKtU9mdq_NKrHiqeZNF61gVA21ZLQA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div></div></div>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-46956211204986537082012-05-19T12:33:00.004-07:002012-05-19T12:37:41.407-07:00<div class="separator" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; clear: both; text-align: center; "><a href="http://www.fiftiesweb.com/dead/gone-but.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Dead actors" border="0" height="275" src="http://www.fiftiesweb.com/dead/gone-but.gif" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span ><img alt="Dead people" height="320" src="http://www.fiftiesweb.com/dead/dead-group.jpg" width="306" /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><b style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">Roy Rogers</b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">, born </span><b style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">Leonard Franklin Slye</b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> (November 5, 1911 – July 6, 1998), was an American singer and cowboy actor, one of the most heavily marketed and merchandised stars of his era, as well as being the namesake of the Roy Rogers Restaurants</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> franchised chain. He and his wife Dale Evans</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">, his golden Palomino</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">, Trigger</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">, and his German Shepherd Dog</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">, Bullet, were featured in more than 100 movies and <i>The Roy Rogers Show</i></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">. The show ran on radio for nine years before moving to television from 1951 through 1957. His productions usually featured a sidekick</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">, often either Pat Brady</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> (who drove a Jeep</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> called "Nellybelle"), Andy Devine</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">, or the crotchety George</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_%22Gabby%22_Hayes" style="background-color: white; background-image: none; color: #0b0080; line-height: 19px; text-decoration: none;" title="George "Gabby" Hayes"> </a>"Gabby" Hayes<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">. Rogers's nickname was </span><b style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">"King of the Cowboys"</b><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">. Evans's nickname was "Queen of the West."</span></span><br /><span ><img alt="File:RoyRogersperformingKBF.jpg" height="640" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/RoyRogersperformingKBF.jpg" width="494" /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; font-size: 100%; ">Leonard Franklin Slye was born to Andrew ("Andy") and Mattie (Womack) Slye in Cincinatti, Ohio, where his family lived in a tenement building on 2nd Street. (Riverfont Stadium was constructed at this location in 1970 and Leonard would later joke that he had been born at second base.) Dissatisfied with his job and city life, Andy Slye and his brother Will built a 12-by-50-foot houseboat from salvage lumber, and, in July 1912, the Slye family floated up the Ohio River towards Portsmouth, Ohio. Desiring a more stable existence in Portsmouth, the Slyes purchased land on which to build a home, but the flood of 1913 allowed them to move the houseboat to their property and continue living in it on dry land.</span><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1919, the Slyes purchased a farm in Duck Run, located near Lucasville, Ohio about 12 miles north of Portsmouth. There they built a six-room home. Leonard's father soon realized that the farm alone would provide insufficient income for his family, so he took a job at a shoe factory in Portsmouth. He lived there during the week and returned home on the weekends, bearing gifts for the family following paydays. One notable gift was a horse on which Leonard learned the basics of horsemanship.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After completing the eighth grade, Leonard attended high school in McDermot<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDermott,_Ohio" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="McDermott, Ohio">, </a>Ohio. When he was 17, his family returned to Cincinnati, where his father began work at another shoe factory. He soon decided on the necessity to help his family financially, so he quit high school, joined his father at the shoe factory, and began attending night school. After being ridiculed for falling asleep in class, however, he quit school and never returned.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Leonard and his father felt imprisoned by their factory jobs. In 1929, his older sister, Mary, moved to Lawndale<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawndale,_California" style="background-image: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Lawndale, California">, </a>California with her husband. Father and son decided to quit their shoe factory jobs. The family packed their 1923 Dodge for a visit with Mary and stayed four months before returning to Ohio. Almost immediately afterward, Leonard had the opportunity to travel to California with Mary's father-in-law, and the rest of the family followed in the spring of 1930.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><img alt="File:Roy Rogers in The Carson City Kid.jpg" height="640" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Roy_Rogers_in_The_Carson_City_Kid.jpg" width="604" /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Slyes rented a small house near Mary. Leonard and his father immediately found employment as truck drivers for a highway construction project. They reported to work one morning, however, to learn their employer had gone bankrupt. The economic hardship of the Great Depression had followed them west, and the Slyes soon found themselves among the economic refugees traveling from job to job picking fruit and living in worker campsites. (He would later read <i>John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath</i> and marvel at its accuracy.) One day, Andy Slye was told of a shoe factory hiring in Los Angeles and asked Leonard to join him in applying there for work. Leonard, having seen the joy that his guitar and singing had brought to the destitute around the campfires, hesitantly told his father that he was going to pursue a living in music. With his father's blessing, he and cousin Stanley Slye went to Los Angeles and sought musical engagements as The Slye Brothers.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1932, Leonard, now known as "Len," met Lucille Ascolese while on tour. That same year, a palomino colt was foaled in Santa Cietro, CA, named "Golden Cloud", and later renamed "Trigger" in 1938 after he was acquired by Roy. In May 1933, Len, 21, proposed to Lucille, 19, via a radio broadcast. Len then went on tour with the "O-Bar-O Cowboys" and in June 1933 met Grace Arline Wilkins at a Roswell, New Mexico radio station. She traded Len a lemon pie for his singing "Swiss Yodel" over the air. By August 1934, Len and Lucille had separated as she was reportedly jealous and tired of being a musician's wife. Len and Lucille's divorce was granted on May 28, 1935, and became final on June 8, 1936. Having corresponded since their first meeting, Len and Grace Arline Wilkins were married in Roswell, New Mexico, on June 11, 1936.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1941, the couple adopted a girl, Cheryl Darlene. Two years later, Arline bore a daughter, Linda Lou.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rogers and Arline had a son, Roy Jr. ("Dusty") in 1946, but Arline died of complications from the birth a few days afterward on November 3. Rogers had met Dale Evans in 1944 when she was cast in a movie with Rogers. Following Arline's death, Rogers and Evans soon fell in love, and Rogers proposed to her during a rodeo at Chicago Stadium. They married on New Year's Eve in 1947 at the Flying L Ranch in Davis, Oklahoma, where a few months earlier they had filmed <i>Home in Oklahoma</i>. Rogers and Evans remained married until Rogers's death in 1998.</span></div><span ><img alt="File:Sons-of-the-Pioneers-1946.jpg" height="297" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Sons-of-the-Pioneers-1946.jpg" width="400" /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; font-size: 100%; ">Leonard Slye moved to California to become a singer. After four years of little success, he formed The Sons of the Pioneers with Bob Nolan and Tim Spencer, a Western Cowboy Musical group, in 1934. The group hit it big with songs like "Cool Water" and "Tumbling Tumbleweeds". From his first film appearance in 1935, he worked steadily in Western films, including a large supporting role as a singing cowboy while still billed as "Leonard Slye" in a Gene Autry movie. In 1938, when Autry temporarily walked out on his movie contract, Slye was immediately rechristened "Roy Rogers." Slye's stage name was suggested by Republic Picture's staff after Will Rogers and the shortening of Leroy. and assigned the lead in </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; font-size: 100%; ">Under Western Stars</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; font-size: 100%; ">. Rogers became a matinee idol and American legend. A competitor for Gene Autry as the nation's favorite singing Cowboy was suddenly born. In addition to his own movies, Rogers played a supporting role in the John Wayne classic </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; font-size: 100%; ">Dark Command</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; font-size: 100%; "> (1940). Rogers became a major box office attraction.</span><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: white; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the <i>Motion Picture Herald</i> Top Ten Money-Making Western Stars poll, Rogers was listed for 15 consecutive years from 1939 to 1954, holding first place from 1943 to 1954. He appeared in the similar <i>Box Office</i> poll from 1938 to 1955, holding first place from 1943 to 1952. (In the final three years of that poll he was second only to Randolph Scott.) Although these two polls are really an indication only of the popularity of series stars, Rogers also appeared in the <i>Top Ten Money Makers Poll</i> of all films in 1945 and 1946.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rogers was an idol for many children through his films and television shows. Most of his postwar films were in Trucolor during an era when almost all other B-Movies were black-and-white. Some of his movies would segue into animal adventures, in which Rogers's horse Trigger would go off on his own for a while, with the camera following him.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With money from not only Rogers' films but his own public appearances going to Republic Pictures, Rogers brought a clause into a 1940 contract with the studio where he would have the right to his likeness, voice and name for merchandising. There were Roy Rogers action figures, cowboy adventure novels, and playsets, as well as a comic strip, a long-lived Dell Comics comic book series (<i>Roy Rogers Comics</i>) written by Gaylord Du Bois, and a variety of marketing successes. Roy Rogers was second only to Walt Disney in the amount of items featuring his name. The Sons of the Pioneers continued their popularity, and they have never stopped performing from the time Rogers started the group, replacing members as they retired or passed away (all original members are deceased). Although Rogers was no longer an active member, they often appeared as Rogers' backup group in films, radio, and television, and Rogers would occasionally appear with them in performances up until his death. In August 1950, Evans and Rogers had a daughter, Robin Elizabeth, who had Down Syndrome and died of complications with mumps shortly before her second birthday. Evans wrote about losing their daughter in her book <i>Angel Unaware</i>.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><img alt="File:RoyRogersDaleEvansKBF1970s.jpg" height="640" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8f/RoyRogersDaleEvansKBF1970s.jpg/403px-RoyRogersDaleEvansKBF1970s.jpg" width="429" /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rogers and Evans were also well known as advocates for adoption and as founders and operators of children's charities. They adopted several children. Both were outspoken Christians. In Apple Valley, California, where they made their home, numerous streets and highways as well as civic buildings have been named after them in recognition of their efforts on behalf of homeless and handicapped children. Rogers was an active Freemason and a Shriner, and was noted for his support of their charities.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rogers and Evans's famous theme song, "Happy Trails", was written by Evans; they sang it as a duet to sign off their television show. In the fall of 1962, the couple co-hosted a comedy-western-variety program, The Roy Rogers & Dale Evans Show<i>,</i> aired on ABC. It was cancelled after three months, losing in the ratings to <i>The Jackie Gleason Show</i> on CBS. He also made numerous cameo or guest appearances on other popular television shows, starring as himself or other cowboy-type characters, such as in an episode of Wonder Woman called "The Bushwackers" Rogers also owned a Hollywood production company which handled his own series. It also filmed other undertakings, including the 1955-1956 CBS western series <i>Brave Eagle</i> starring Keith Larsen as a young peaceful Cheyenne chief, Kim Winona as Morning Star, his romantic interest, and the Hopi Indian Anthony<a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Numkena" style="background-image: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Anthony Numkena"> </a>Numkena as Keena, Brave Eagle's foster son.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><img alt="File:Roy Rogers and Dale Evans at the 61st Academy Awards.jpg" height="547" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6c/Roy_Rogers_and_Dale_Evans_at_the_61st_Academy_Awards.jpg/700px-Roy_Rogers_and_Dale_Evans_at_the_61st_Academy_Awards.jpg" width="640" /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">In 1968 Rogers licensed his name to the Marriot corporation, which converted its Hot Shoppes locations to Roy Rogers Restaurants, with which Rogers otherwise had no involvement. Rogers owned a Thoroughbread Racehorse named Triggairo, who won 13 career races including the 1975 El Encino Stakes at </span><span style="line-height: 10px;">Santa Anita Park. W</span><span style="line-height: 19px;">hen Rogers died of</span><span style="line-height: 19px;"> congestive heart failure</span><span style="line-height: 19px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 19px;">on July 6, 1998, he was residing in</span><span style="line-height: 19px;"> Apple Valley,</span><span style="line-height: 19px;"> California. He was interred at Sunset Hills Cemetery</span><span style="line-height: 19px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 19px;">in Apple Valley, as was his wife, Dale Evans, three years later.</span></span></div>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-21569610138227418682012-05-18T08:54:00.001-07:002012-05-18T08:54:25.585-07:00It's A Knockout - Series Guide 1976<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Having reached the BBC retirement age of sixty, British p<span style="color: black;">roducer Barney Colehan stepped aside after ten years with <i>It's A Knockout</i> and <i>Jeux Sans Frontières</i>, his position taken by Cecil Korer. The tenth anniversary of the British domestic series was marked by a special feature in <i>Radio Times</i> magazine and original series personnel Charlie Chester and McDonald Hobley made a special appearance in the opening heat. New costume characters introduced into the Domestic series this year were the Tweedles and the Giants. In a new development, winning teams from the<i>It's A Knockout</i> heats competed for the Knockout Trophy in a special event, <i>It's A Championship Knockout</i>. </span>On the international stage, RTP of Portugal join the list of broadcasters, but at this point, Portuguese teams do not participate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">In addition to the by now traditional summer <i>Jeux Sans Frontières</i> competition, two countries got together to host the fifth series of <i>Interneige</i>, a version of JSF staged in the snows of winter, the first such competition since 1968. Two towns each from Switzerland and France competed for the Winter JSF Trophy. Competitors were generally sourced from specialist ski resorts and clubs. </span>At the end of the year, the West Germans enjoyed the spoils by winning their sixth <i>Jeux Sans Frontières</i> Golden Trophy, the first in seven years, with an outstanding score of 52pts (just four points short of the maximum achievable).</span></div>
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<img alt="Radio Times article, 15th - 21st May 1976" src="http://jsfnet.co.uk/images/radiotimes/1970s/rt1976_15-210576_p14.gif" />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: red;">It's A Knockout 1976</span></b>Great British Domestic Series</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Presenters: </b>Stuart Hall and Eddie Waring / <b>Referee: </b>Arthur Ellis</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Scoregirls:</b> Dinah May, Hazel Lyons, Leena Skoog and Marie Worth</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Games Arranger: </b>Paul Trerise<br /><b>Designer:</b> Paul Montague <b><br />Producer: </b>Cecil Korer / <b>Director: </b>Geoffrey Wilson<br /><b>A BBC North West Production</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;"><b>GB</b></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;">It's A Knockout 1976</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;"><b>Heat 1</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Event Staged:</b> Sunday 4th April 1976<br /><b>Venue: </b>Promenade, Morecambe, Lancashire</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Transmission:<br />BBC1 (GB): </b>Friday 21st May 1976, 8.00-9.00pm</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Special Guests:</b> Charlie Chester and McDonald Hobley</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Teams:</b> Blackpool v. Liverpool v. Morecambe</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Team Members included:<br /><i>Blackpool -</i> </b>Bob Battersby (Team Captain), Sharon Hull, Mike Lomas, Janina Slusarski,Stuart Thompson, Cheryl Whitham;<br /><i><b>Liverpool - </b></i>Vaughan Thomas (Team Coach), Dave Jones, John O'Brien;<br /><i><b>Morecambe -</b></i> Ian Robson (Men’s Team Captain), Margaret Berry (Ladies’ Team Captain), Maurice Albon, Brian Bonney, Michael Driscoll, Karen Evans, Mark Evans, David Holleley, Mark Milner, Peter Nolan, Alice Robinson, Alina Ross, Denise Shorrock, Phil Sutcliffe, Stuart Whiteley, Janice Wyatt.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Result:</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Team:</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Points:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>1st</b><br />2nd<br />3rd</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> <b>Blackpool</b><br /> Morecambe<br /> Liverpool</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>21</b><br />20<br />16</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Blackpool</b> qualified for <b>Jeux Sans Frontières</b> at Nîmes, France:<br />staged on Wednesday 2nd June 1976</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Did You Know?</b><br />Original <i>It's A Knockout</i> presenters McDonald Hobley and Charlie Chester returned for this programme in a special one-off appearance to mark the 10th anniversary of the Domestic Series. The first two teams to appear in the original series - Blackpool and Morecambe - were invited back to compete (along with Liverpool) in this celebratory edition. After the debacle of the previous hosting in 1966, when the tide came in and flooded the games’ area, the BBC took no chances and staged the programme on the resort’s promenade adjacent to the western pier.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">When the winning team’s name of Blackpool was placed on the scoreboard, the venue for the International Heat was shown as the city of Lyon. This was shown for three weeks until at the end of Heat 4, the correct venue of Nîmes had taken its place on the scoreboard.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Despite the final score, this competition was much closer than it might appear. The team of Liverpool had been leading throughout most of the programme due to the fact that both Blackpool and Morecambe did not play their Jokers until the last game. After the Marathon points were allocated, Morecambe were leading with 16pts, and both Liverpool and Blackpool had 15pts each. This situation now meant that Liverpool could not stop either of the other teams from being victorious as both were playing their Jokers. The game itself proved to be very close with Blackpool crossing the line just ahead of Morecambe, and a place in <i>Jeux Sans Frontières</i> (as well as the new <i>It’s A Championship Knockout</i>) had been secured.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The team of Blackpool trained regularly at the Derby Baths for this event. Although this may not sound out of the ordinary, in 1981 it was to be the venue for the first-ever indoor British Domestic Heat, when Blackpool hosted the programme for a second time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Blackpool team captain Bob Battersby had previously participated in the series in 1971 as team manager of the Blackpool team.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Radio Times</i> magazine ran a feature to mark the anniversary, comprising interviews with Eddie Waring, Charlie Chester, David Vine, McDonald Hobley and Stuart Hall.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Eighteen year old Liverpool team member John O'Brien would return to participate again twenty-three years later as a competitor, when the city participated in the revamped 1999 <i>It's A Knockout</i>series.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Made in Colour • <b>This programme exists in the BBC Archives</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;"><b>GB</b></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;">It's A Knockout 1976</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;"><b>Heat 2</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Event Staged:</b> Sunday 11th April 1976<br /><b>Venue: </b>The Bowling Green, Hanley Park, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Transmission:<br />BBC1 (GB): </b>Friday 28th May 1976, 8.00-9.00pm</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Teams:</b> Birmingham v. Stoke-on-Trent v. Tamworth</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Team Members included:<br /><i>Stoke-on-Trent -</i></b> Norman Harrison (Team Manager), Graham Kirk (Men’s Team Captain), Susan Massey (Ladies’ Team Captain), Julie Baskeyfield, Paul Bilbie, Anthony Brindley, Jennifer Frost, Glen Gordon, Bill Jackson, Jack Jackson, Terence Jones, Pauline Kemp, Trudie McDonald, Lynne Meredith, Diane Morris, Robert Wain, Geoffrey Ward, David Wells, John Wiggins;<br /><i><b>Tamworth -</b></i> Geoff Beales (Men’s Team Captain), Barbara ‘Bunny’ Culclough (Ladies’ Team Captain), Stanley Ashmore, Martin Baker, Denise Battersby, Keith Bowater, Natalie Burrows, Wendy Chappell, John Davis, Ralph Graham, Stephanie Heal, Ann Lyth, Brian Mandry, Petra Morgan, Michael Pointon, John Sedgwick, Dawn Sewell, Chris Shilton, Jenny Smale, Steve Walters, Bob Wesley, Sue Wileman.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Result:</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Team:</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Points:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>1st</b><br />2nd<br />3rd</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> <b>Tamworth</b><br /> Birmingham<br /> Stoke-on-Trent</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>21</b><br />20<br />18</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Tamworth</b> qualified for <b>Jeux Sans Frontières</b> at Milano, Italy:<br />staged on Wednesday 16th June 1976</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Did You Know?</b>This heat was held on the bowling green of Stoke-on-Trent’s Hanley Park. The park itself was opened on 20th June 1897 and occupies around 63 acres of land. The area on which it stands previously comprised a large waste ground called Stoke Fields. In addition to the bowling green, the park also consists of a basketball court, a football pitch, four separate children’s play areas and a bandstand. At the western end of the park, there is a small 12-acre area known as Cauldron Park.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The start of this competition was delayed due to electrical failure of one of the BBC’s cameras. The actual start time of the recording was 30 minutes later than expected at 5.15 pm, and the programme finished just before 6.30 pm. Producer Cecil Korer had expressed his worries to the local press after the programme that there would not be enough light available for the final games. Fortunately, the sunny conditions had just held out long enough for the cameras to get acceptable pictures.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">After the Tamworth team had won this heat, local coach firm Arnold’s was offering trips to Milan for £85. Leaving Tamworth on Sunday 13th June and returning to Tamworth on Saturday 19th June, the trip included five overnight stops and channel crossing by hovercraft!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Made in Colour • <b>This programme exists in the BBC Archives</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;"><b>GB</b></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;">It's A Knockout 1976</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;"><b>Heat 3</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Event Staged:</b> Sunday 18th April 1976<br /><b>Venue: </b>Sudeley Castle, Winchcombe, Gloucestershire</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Transmission:<br />BBC1 (GB): </b>Friday 4th June 1976, 8.00-9.00pm</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Teams:</b> Cirencester v. Newbury v. Winchcombe</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Team Members included:<br /><i>Cirencester -</i> </b>Walter Gray-Brown (Men’s Team Captain), June Lock (Ladies’ Team Captain), Sarah Acres, Penelope Allberry, Kenneth Anthony, Shaun Barron, Debbie Bates, Peter Britton, Edward Butler, Anne Crane, Anthony Crane, Barry Gardner, Patricia Harris, Andrew Hughes, Kevin Magee, Anita Newnham, Paul Perry, David Williams, Joy Williams<b><br /><i>Newbury -</i> </b>John Norgate (Team Manager), Mike Hart (Team Coach and Men’s Team Captain), Sue Robertson (Ladies’ Team Captain), John Bauer, Hilary Bowden, Timothy Cornish, Susan Grantham, Paul Heggis, Julian Hendy, Melvin Kastelnik, Rachel King, Mark Morris, Louise O’Neill, John Rice, Wenda Rice, Alisdair Ross, Douglas Smith, Richard Smith, Colin Street, Moyna Turner<b><br /><i>Winchcombe -</i> </b>Barrie Lewis (Team Coach), Ken Dancer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Games:</b> Get a Sack!, You’re Hoopless, What a Knight!, Goals of Victory, Hungry Henry, Knights of Favour and The Castle’s Riches;<br /><b>Marathon:</b> Bursting to Win.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Result:</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Team:</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Points:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>1st</b><br />2nd<br />2nd</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> <b>Newbury</b><br /> Cirencester<br /> Winchcombe</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>23</b><br />18<br />18</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Newbury</b> qualified for <b>Jeux Sans Frontières</b> at Caslano Malcantone, Switzerland:<br />staged on Wednesday 23rd June 1976</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Did You Know?</b>This heat was held in the grounds of the Elizabethan Sudeley Castle. Dating back to the 10th century, the castle is noted for its gardens, and its chapel is the final resting place of Queen Catherine Parr, the sixth and final wife of King Henry VIII. The castle remains in use as a full-time residence and is only open on specific dates. The castle is said to be haunted by a tall woman wearing a green Tudor-styled dress. Local folklore states that the Lady in Green who looks out of a window and walks through the Queen's garden is thought to be the ghost of Catherine Parr.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">With its historical setting, the games at this heat had a medieval theme with knights and armour. Although Newbury had finished in third place during the morning rehearsals, the other teams were somewhat dubious of their credibility. Despite this, the team were still lying in last place after five games, some 6pts behind the leaders. But the team pulled out all the stops to win their Joker game and the Marathon, and incredibly had attained enough points to have secured victory before the final game, leading Winchcombe by 3pts!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Newbury team player Wenda Rice had been a member of local football team Newbury Ladies FC, and during a match against Southampton in December 1976, four members of the team including Wenda, were badly injured and they ended up in Reading Hospital. Wenda had been kicked in the stomach and had to be taken for X-rays to ensure that no serious injury had occurred.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">In July 2011, Newbury team coach and captain Mike Hart celebrated 40 years of keeping his local residents fit and healthy. Mike, 64 and still working as a physical education teacher at St. Bartholomew’s School, was at the centre of a special event for people, past and present, who had participated in his keep-fit classes over the years. Commenting on his classes which he started back in 1971 after working out to music, Mike said, "I liked the idea of bouncing around to music. I keep my keep-fit simple and basic. Some of the people here have been coming [to my classes] for 35 years, so I must be doing something right. I’ve still got another 15 years left in me still".</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Made in Colour • <b>This programme exists in the BBC Archives</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;"><b>GB</b></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;">It's A Knockout 1976</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;"><b>Heat 4</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Event Staged:</b> Sunday 2nd May 1976<br /><b>Venue: </b>Princess Mary Playing Fields, Littletown,<br />Liversedge, (Cleckheaton), West Yorkshire</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Transmission:<br />BBC1 (GB): </b>Friday 11th June 1976, 8.00-9.00pm</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Teams:</b> Doncaster v. Kirklees v. Leeds</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Team Members included:<br /><i>Kirklees -</i></b> Rob Blackshaw (Team Coach and Captain), Janet Fidler (Ladies' Team Captain), Karen Athey, Julie Athey, Eddie Berry, Kim Booth, Alan Conroy, Jonathan Crossland, Paul Dallas, Gillian Gaskin, Brian Hayhurst, Barry Hodgson, Ian Jowett, Barry Kenny, David Laverick, Tony Lees, Julie Mallalieu, Eileen Marchant, Dave Millman, Graham Overhead, Lesley Rowell, Lynette Thompson and Janet Williams (<b><a href="http://jsfnet.co.uk/pdf/1976_kirklees_squad.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: red;">Original Team Sheet - PDF</span></a></b>).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Games:</b> In the Ring, Brolly Ball, Catapulting Bags, Give Me A Ring, Goal-Creeping, Filled to the Brim and Carrying the Can;<br /><b>Marathon:</b> Post the Ball.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Result:</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Team:</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Points:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Final Scoreboard:</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>1st</b><br />2nd<br />3rd</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> <b>Kirklees</b><br /> Leeds<br /> Doncaster</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>25</b><br />24<br />13</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Kirklees</b> qualified for <b>Jeux Sans Frontières</b> at Leeds, Great Britain:<br />staged on Wednesday 14th July 1976</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Did You Know? </b>This heat was held on the Princess Mary Playing Fields in Liversedge, south of Cleckheaton, adjacent to the field which was the scene of a pivotal event in 19th century British history with the Luddite rising. One of the most serious Luddite attacks took place at Rawfold’s Mill near Brighouse in Yorkshire. William Cartwright, the owner of Rawfold’s Mill, had been using cloth-finishing machinery since 1811. Local croppers began losing their jobs and after a meeting at Saint Crispin public house, they decided to try and destroy the cloth-finishing machinery at Rawfold’s Mill. Cartwright was suspecting trouble and arranged for the mill to be protected by armed guards. Led by George Mellor, a young cropper from Huddersfield, the attack on Rawfold’s Mill took place on 11th April, 1812. The Luddites failed in gaining entry and by the time they left, two of the croppers had been mortally wounded. Seven days later, the Luddites killed William Horsfall, another large mill-owner in the area. The authorities rounded up over a hundred suspects. Of these, sixty-four were indicted. Three men were executed for the murder of Horsfall and another fourteen were hung for the attack on Rawfold’s Mill.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">When Stuart Hall introduced Eddie Waring he referred to him as the King Luddite - in reference to the Luddite rising.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">When interviewed for the <i>Huddersfield Daily Examiner</i> in 2010, Kirklees team member, Eddie Berry, 60, recalled: "Leeds were favourite to win the first round held at Cleckheaton. The winner went through to the European heat to be held in Roundhay Park and we were sure that the BBC favoured Leeds to be the ‘home’ team. The Leeds team were made up from physical education students at Carnegie College and therefore were considered to suit this programme perfectly. However, the selection process of Kirklees meant that our team was a balance of members with a range of attributes in speed, strength, stamina and suppleness. In the rehearsals, we never set out to win – once we found the best way to do a particular competition the instructions were to mess it up so as not to give anything away. It was a lot of fun, but when it came to the competition, we took it very seriously."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Doncaster and Leeds took the lead at different stages but gradually Kirklees caught up. Their master-stroke was in playing the Kirklees Joker on the sixth game, which they won with ex-British gymnast and Huddersfield youth worker Brian Hayhurst first past the finish line. Before the final game - 'Carrying the Can' - Leeds were in the lead and Kirklees hopes again rested with Brian Hayhurst. After the Leeds team member fell off the cans, victory belonged to Brian and the Kirklees team.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Also interviewed were Dave Millman and Eileen Marchant. Dave, 60, then a Physical Education instructor at Huddersfield Sports Centre, recalled: "I think there were 200 people who applied and the trials went on for a week. After I won a place on the team I was in training at the Sports Centre three nights a week for the three weeks leading up to the programme. The BBC had sent us diagrams and explanations of the games we were to play at the Yorkshire heat in Cleckheaton. [At the end of the competition] it was very close, but we beat Leeds by just one point. They were devastated and they were asking for re-runs because Leeds was hosting the British International Heat. [The borough of Kirklees] hadn’t been going very long at that stage so it was sweet to beat Leeds".<br /><br />Eileen, 65, now an Almondbury magistrate said, "I remember it absolutely poured down from start to finish in Cleckheaton. There was one game which involved throwing flour bags over a net which was quite difficult in the rain."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The team were supported by a group of cheerleaders which included Jane Morton and Anita Steven, wand the team's mascot was Kenny the Lamb. The event was reported as being attended by in excess of 4,000 spectators.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Amateur cine film of this event was shot by what was then called the Huddersfield Cine Club (now The Huddersfield Film Makers Club). Club treasurer Trevor Spencer was also interviewed by the<i>Huddersfield Daily Examiner</i> and commented: "On the day of the competition at Cleckheaton, everyone got very wet when halfway through it poured down. All the crew had to put on their waterproofs and they even had coats for the cameras. We were granted very good access to the competition, the only instructions being 'keep out of the way of the cameras and don't stray from the footboards'."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">This amateur behind-the-scenes footage was included as part of an excellent feature on the BBC regional programme <i>Inside Out</i> on Monday 12th December 2011. Forming one third of a half an hour programme the <i>It's A Knockout</i> item featured Stuart Hall returning to the scene of the 1976 IAK heat from Liversedge (Cleckheaton) and being reintroduced to former members of the Kirklees team. The item built up to an <i>It's A Knockout</i> competition between the Kirklees team members in the Liversedge swimming pool. Team members taking part in the feature were Team Coach/Captain Rob Blackshaw, Jonathan Crossland, Paul Dallas, David Laverick, Tony Lees, Eileen Marchant and Dave Millman. Sadly, between the making of the programme and its broadcast, team member Jonathan Crossland had died. He had won the mini-<i>It's A Knockout</i>competition in the <i>Inside Out</i> programme. Our sincere condolences to his family and friends.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Kirklees was created under the Local Government Act of 1972, and includes the towns of Cleckheaton, Dewsbury, Holmfirth and Huddersfield.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Made in Colour • <b>This programme exists in the BBC Archives</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;"><b>GB</b></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;">It's A Knockout 1976</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;"><b>Heat 5</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Event Staged:</b> Sunday 9th May 1976<br /><b>Venue: </b>Harlow Sportcentre, Harlow, Essex</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Transmission:<br />BBC1 (GB): </b>Friday 18th June 1976, 8.00-9.00pm</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Teams:</b> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Harlow v. Lee Valley Park v. Thurrock</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Team Members included:<br /><i>Harlow -</i></b> Mike Orshourn (Team Manager), Dave Patey (Team Coach), Ken Walton (Assistant Team Coach), John Beer, Carol Bull, Barry Burton, Veronica Cullen, Alan Dainton, Alan Green, Michael Hall, Alison Harkin, Colin Hendrie, John Jackson, Peter Jesse, Karen Larn, Sue Mapstone, Craig Mitchinson, John Rickards, Christopher Saunders, James Sullivan, Janet Unwin, Alison White and Stephen Wilson;<br /><i><b>Thurrock -</b></i> Malcolm Gow (Team Manager), Terry Lax (Team Captain), Julie Bannister, Jack Benton, Michael Brightwell, Costa Buller, Trevor Burge, Malcolm Burton, Geoffrey Cave, John Chapman, Colin Elsden, Andrea Eustace, Geraldine Gray, David Groom, Tony Hills, Alan Jousiffe, Susan Jousiffe, Susan Kane, Gloria Kemp, Michael ‘Doc’ Leckenby, Valerie McCormack, Kay Meiklejohn, Erica Morris, Ray ‘The Star’ Page, Jack Palmer, Colin Paxman, Ray Smallcombe, William Smith, Gary Telfer, Bob Williams.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Games:</b> The Stilted Walk, Steady Hands, Netball Obstacle Race, The Dynamic Dumpteys,Quadruplet Rings, Pancake Throwing and Stack-dem-Sacks;<br /><b>Marathon:</b> The Cymbalists.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Result:</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Team:</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Points:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>1st</b><br />2nd<br />2nd</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> <b>Thurrock</b><br /> Harlow<br /> Lee Valley Park</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>23</b><br />19<br />19</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Thurrock</b> qualified for <b>Jeux Sans Frontières</b> at Liège, Belgium:<br />staged on Wednesday 11th August 1976</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Did You Know? </b>Opened in 1960, Harlow Sportcentre was the first community sport centre in the UK. Since that time, it earned a deserved reputation for its outstanding range of facilities, clubs, coaching programmes and school and community links. As well as a comprehensive range of indoor facilities, the centre boasted floodlit tennis courts and a cricket and athletics field. It also had its own all-weather ski-slope. The track surrounding the football pitch of Harlow Town FC was in such a poor state of repair that after 1995 no further meetings were staged there. By the beginning of 2000, plans were on the table to build a new leisure centre in the town, but work on it did not start until 2009. The £25 million Leisurezone facility, which includes a 25 metre eight-lane swimming pool, tennis and squash courts and a new home for Harlow Town Football Club, finally opened in June 2010 at which time the old Sportcentre closed its doors to the public for the last time. The site has since been demolished and the land will be used for additional car parking for the town, as well as a new housing development.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Starting this year and until 1981, the BBC scheduled a Domestic heat as close to London as possible around the first or second Saturday in May. The reason for this was that <i>It’s A Knockout</i>commentator Eddie Waring would be in London on commentary duties at the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final (held on one of the aforementioned Saturdays) and as he had now reached the age of 66, the BBC assisted in reducing his travelling commitments.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Lee Valley (Regional) Park is a 26 mile (42 km) long area, running through the North East of London from the River Thames to Ware in Hertfordshire, through areas such as Hackney, Camden, Tottenham, Enfield, Cheshunt, Broxbourne and Hoddesdon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Thurrock was created under the Local Government Act of 1972, and includes the towns of Gray’s Thurrock and Tilbury.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Made in Colour • <b>This programme exists in the BBC Archives</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;"><b>GB</b></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;">It's A Knockout 1976</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;"><b>Heat 6</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Event Staged:</b> Sunday 16th May 1976<br /><b>Venue: </b>Seafront Boating Lake, Redcar, Cleveland</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Transmission:<br />BBC1 (GB): </b>Friday 25th June 1976, 8.00-9.00pm</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Teams:</b> Carlisle v. Durham v. Redcar</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Team Members included:<br /><i>Carlisle -</i> </b>Dick ‘Wellie’ Bell, Joy Calvert, Barbara Davidson, Philippa Dodd, Judith Harrison, Norman Leighton, Peter Reay, Joe Smith, Olive Smith;<br /><i><b>Durham -</b></i> George Wardle (Team Coach), Barbara Power (Team Captain), Shirley Armstrong, Geoffrey Bell, Janet Bowman, Linda Brown, Cliff Featherstone, Stanley Gelson, Bill Hofman, Geoffrey Kershaw, Jackie King, Fred Lowes, Andrea Riddell, David Ritchie, Michael Roberts, Ernest Sarfield, Malcolm Thomas, Alan Walton, Janis Wilton;<br /><i><b>Redcar -</b></i> Fred Proctor (Men’s Team Captain), Denise Appleby (Ladies’ Team Captain), Clive Birkbeck, Peter Howe, Ann Miller, Corinne Miller and Alex Vickers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Games:</b> When the Tub Comes In, Hello Sailor!, Frog-Marching (on Stilts), Making Light Work of It, The Gravy Boats, They’re Flagging and Over the Board Walk!;<br /><b>Marathon:</b> The Mallet Balloon Burst Balance.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Result:</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Team:</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Points:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>1st</b><br />2nd<br />3rd</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> <b>Redcar</b><br /> Durham<br /> Carlisle</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>25</b><br />19<br />15</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Redcar</b> qualified for <b>Jeux Sans Frontières</b> at Bad Mergentheim, West Germany:<br />staged on Wednesday 25th August 1976</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Did You Know? </b>This heat was held at one of the smallest towns to host the programme. Redcar had originated as a fishing town in the early 14th century, trading with the larger adjacent town of Coatham. It was not until the mid-19th century, with the opening of the Middlesbrough to Redcar Railway in 1846 that the town emerged as a seaside tourist destination. A major £700,000 refurbishment programme of the boating lake itself was originally planned to begin in 2008 which involved draining the lake and excavating the whole area. This work was put on hold until early 2009 due to council elections and bad weather. Finally completed, the boating lake was re-opened on Friday 23rd October 2009 and included a large circular mosaic depicting the Rt. Hon. Mo Mowlam (1949-2005), who was MP for Redcar for almost 14 years (1987-2001) surrounded by images including the beach where she used to walk, racehorses to depict Redcar Racecourse where she celebrated her wedding, the steelworks, the Zetland lifeboat, hands clasped for peace and doves to depict the Northern Ireland peace process (for which she instigated and saw through the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998) and the Houses of Parliament.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The opening shots of this heat show presenter Stuart Hall wearing a waterproof suit aboard a small craft on the boating lake, and as he is introducing the programme buckets of water are continuously thrown at him to give the illusion of being at sea in rough weather. However, it did not take much to give the illusion, as the weather had changed drastically to those days leading up to the contest!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The resort had enjoyed two days of glorious warm weather leading up to the day of the contest, but the conditions changed dramatically on the day of competition. A westerly gale force wind blew in from the North Sea and as the games were all held inside or on the water, it caused havoc for the teams. The winds were so strong that the BBC had to change the format for the games throughout the filming so as not to disadvantage any teams. After the recording, series producer Cecil Korer stated, “The weather has certainly caused us [the BBC] some problems today. We had to play each game by ear, because we did not want any of these wonderful teams to feel that their opponents had been treated advantageously. This resulted in changing many of the original game ideas right up to the last minute, because as most of the games were played on the water’s surface, the wind could have disadvantaged some more than others”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Made in Colour • <b>This programme exists in the BBC Archives</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;"><b>GB</b></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;">It's A Knockout 1976</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;"><b>Heat 7</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Event Staged:</b> Sunday 23rd May 1976<br /><b>Venue: </b>Kings Park, Stirling, Central Scotland, Scotland</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Transmission:<br />BBC1 (GB): </b>Friday 2nd July 1976, 8.00-9.00pm</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Teams:</b> Edinburgh v. Linlithgow v. Stirling</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Team Members included:<br /><i>Edinburgh -</i></b> Charlie Jackson and Anna Munroe;<br /><i><b>Linlithgow -</b></i> Douglas Forman (Team Manager), Douglas Ball (Co-Team Coach), Donald Ford (Co-Team Coach), Jackie McFadyen (Co-Team Coach), Graeme Harvey (Men’s Team Captain), Rosemary French (Ladies’ Team Captain), Ronald Bamberry, Dale Couper, Norman Cummings, John Forgan, Diana Gilmore, Bill Henderson, Robert Hogg, Derek Isles, Gerard Keating, Glen McFee, Susan McMaster, Derek Marshall, Kathleen Pedie, Michael Tierney.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Games included:</b> Wheelbarrow Balance, Over the Humps, Beat the Goalie, The Castle Turrets and Posting the Letters.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Result:</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Team:</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Points:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>1st</b><br />2nd<br />3rd</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> <b>Edinburgh</b><br /> Linlithgow<br /> Stirling</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>22</b>19<br />18</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Edinburgh</b> qualified for <b>Jeux Sans Frontières</b> at Groningen, Netherlands:<br />staged on Wednesday 8th September 1976</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Did You Know?</b>The venue for this heat had caused some stirrings by Linlithgow MP, Tam Dalyell (later to become Father of the House). Ever since the team had been chosen as one of the three teams, he had campaigned tirelessly to get the BBC to change its mind and hold the heat in Linlithgow. His wish was to have had it staged on Linlithgow Peel, a small green area located next to Linlithgow Palace which stands overlooking the shore of Linlithgow Loch. The BBC remained adamant that the venue in the grounds of Stirling Castle (in fact it was to be the main car park outside the castle) was not going to be changed. However, just three weeks before the actual event, the BBC switched venues and announced that the event would take place in Kings Park, albeit still in Stirling!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Kings Park is Stirling’s biggest and best used park. It offers many amenities and leisure activities and during the summer months (and particularly when there is good weather), the park is usually heaving with locals relaxing and spending time with their families. Amongst these amenities can be found Crazy Golf, a putting green, a giant draught and chess board with similar-sized playing pieces, tennis courts, climbing frames, trampolines and there is even a permanent helter-skelter. In more recent times, an additional ‘wheelie park’ has been added, catering for all things on wheels i.e. skateboards, skates and BMX bikes. While there’s plenty of space to run around and to explore, the park’s proximity to the golf course means that visitors still have to look out for low flying golf balls!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Interestingly, the competing teams’ local newspapers had contrasting scores of the final result. The Stirling Gazette published the final result ending Edinburgh 21 pts, Stirling 17 pts and Linlithgow 12 pts. The Linlithgow Courier showed the town’s down-hearted team captain, Graeme Harvey standing in front of the final scoreboard with the correct scores of those shown above.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The Stirling team mascot was Humperdinck, an Arabian camel from the Blair Drummond Safari Park, which is located about 5 miles north-east of Stirling city centre.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Made in Colour • <b>This programme exists in the BBC Archives</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;"><b>GB - F</b></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;">It's A Championship Knockout 1976</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;"><b>Domestic</b></span><b><span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;"> </span></b><span style="color: white; font-size: x-small;"><b>Final</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Event Staged:</b> Sunday 27th June 1976<br /><b>Venue: </b>Arena North, Park Hall, Charnock Richard, Lancashire</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Transmission:<br />BBC1 (GB): </b>Wednesday 4th August 1976, 7.15-8.30pm</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Radio Times Trophy presented by:</b> John Inman of <i>Are You Being Served?</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Teams:</b> Blackpool v. Edinburgh v. Kirklees v. Newbury v. Redcar v. Tamworth v. Thurrock</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Team Members included:<br /><i>Blackpool -</i> </b>Bob Battersby (Team Captain), Sharon Hull, Mike Lomas, Janina Slusarski, Stuart Thompson, Cheryl Whitham;<b><br /><i>Edinburgh -</i></b> Charlie Jackson and Anna Munroe;<br /><b><i>Kirklees -</i></b> Rob Blackshaw (Team Coach and Captain), Karen Athey, Julie Athey, Eddie Berry, Kim Booth, Alan Conrey, Jonathan Crossland, Paul Dallas, Janet Fidler, Gillian Gaskin, Brian Hayhurst, Barry Hodgson, Ian Jowett, Barry Kenny, David Laverick, Tony Lees, Julie Mallalieu, Eileen Marchant, Dave Millman, Graham Overhead, Lesley Rowell, Lynette Thompson and Janet Williams (<b><a href="http://jsfnet.co.uk/pdf/1976_kirklees_squad.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: red;">Original Team Sheet - PDF</span></a></b>);<br /><i><b>Newbury -</b></i> John Norgate (Team Manager), Mike Hart (Team Coach & Men’s Team Captain), Sue Robertson (Ladies’ Team Captain), John Bauer, Hilary Bowden, Timothy Cornish, Susan Grantham, Paul Heggis, Julian Hendy, Melvin Kastelnik, Rachel King, Mark Morris, Louise O’Neill, John Rice, Linda Rice, Alisdair Ross, Douglas Smith, Richard Smith, Colin Street, Moyna Turner;<br /><i><b>Redcar -</b></i> Fred Proctor (Men’s Team Captain), Denise Appleby (Ladies’ Team Captain), Clive Birkbeck, Peter Howe, Ann Miller, Corinne Miller and Alex Vickers;<br /><i><b>Tamworth -</b></i> Geoff Beales (Men’s Team Captain), Barbara ‘Bunny’ Culclough (Ladies’ Team Captain), Stanley Ashmore, Martin Baker, Denise Battersby, Keith Bowater, Natalie Burrows, Wendy Chappell, John Davis, Ralph Graham, Stephanie Heal, Ann Lyth, Brian Mandry, Petra Morgan, Michael Pointon, John Sedgwick, Dawn Sewell, Chris Shilton, Jenny Smale, Steve Walters, Bob Wesley, Sue Wileman;<br /><i><b>Thurrock -</b></i> Malcolm Gow (Team Manager), Terry Lax (Team Captain), Julie Bannister, Jack Benton, Michael Brightwell, Costa Buller, Trevor Burge, Malcolm Burton, Geoffrey Cave, John Chapman, Colin Elsden, Andrea Eustace, Geraldine Gray, David Groom, Tony Hills, Alan Jousiffe, Susan Jousiffe, Susan Kane, Gloria Kemp, Michael ‘Doc’ Leckenby, Valerie McCormack, Kay Meiklejohn, Erica Morris, Ray ‘The Star’ Page, Jack Palmer, Colin Paxman, Ray Smallcombe, William Smith, Gary Telfer, Bob Williams.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Games:</b> Over the Nets, Over the Hurdles, Balloons over Pool, Tweedles, Dropping Sails, Under the Mats, Balancing on Trolley and Giants;<br /><b>Marathon: </b>Collecting Eggs.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Result:</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Team:</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Points:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>1st</b><br />2nd<br />3rd<br />3rd<br />5th<br />6th<br />7th</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> <b>Blackpool</b><br /> Edinburgh<br /> Tamworth<br /> Thurrock<br /> Kirklees<br /> Newbury<br /> Redcar</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>41</b><br />40<br />38<br />38<br />31<br />29<br />26</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Did You Know?</b><br />Previously awarded to the team scoring the highest number of points in the domestic heats, the Knockout Trophy is, from here on, awarded to the winner of a massive head-to-head between all the winners from the year's domestic heats.</span></div>
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<img alt="Radio Times article, 15th - 21st May 1976" src="http://jsfnet.co.uk/images/radiotimes/1970s/rt1976_15-210576_p15.gif" />
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<br />Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-59809454872341176152012-05-18T01:56:00.003-07:002012-05-18T02:05:53.344-07:00Donna Summer: 1948 - 2012 (R.I.P )<span ><img alt="File:Nobel Peace Price Concert 2009 Donna Summer3.jpg" height="640" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/Nobel_Peace_Price_Concert_2009_Donna_Summer3.jpg/417px-Nobel_Peace_Price_Concert_2009_Donna_Summer3.jpg" width="444" /></span><br /><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; font-size: 100%; ">LaDonna Adrian Gaines</b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; font-size: 100%; "> (December 31, 1948 – May 17, 2012), known by the stage name </span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; font-size: 100%; ">Donna Summer</b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; font-size: 100%; ">, was an American singer-songwriter who gained prominence during the Disco era of the 1970s. She had a Mezzo Soprano vocal range, and was a five-time Grammy Award winner. Summer was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach number one on the U.S. </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; font-size: 100%; ">Billboard</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; font-size: 100%; "> chart, and she also charted four number-one singles in the United States within a 13-month period.</span><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Donna Summer sadly passed away yesterday. The Associated Press reports that she died in the morning at her home in Key West at age 63 following a battle with cancer. The<i>Bradenton Herald</i> quotes "Sarasota County records" stating that she lived in Englewood, Florida at the time of her death. The reference did not state the place of her death.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><img alt="File:Donna Summer 1977.JPG" height="640" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3a/Donna_Summer_1977.JPG/394px-Donna_Summer_1977.JPG" width="420" /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Summer was born Ladonna Adrian Gaines on December 31, 1948 in Boston, Massachusetts to parents Andrew and Mary Gaines and was one of seven children. She and her family were raised in the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester. Her father, Andrew Gaines, was a butcher, and her mother Mary, was a schoolteacher. Summer's mother later recalled that from the time she could talk, Summer would often sing: "She literally loved to sing. She used to go through the house singing, singing. She sang for breakfast and for lunch and for supper."</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Summer's performance debut occurred at church when she was ten, when she replaced a vocalist that had failed to show up. Her priest invited Summer to perform, judging from her small frame and voice that she would be an "amusing spectacle", but instead Summer's voice recalled a voice older than her years and frame. Summer herself recalled that as she sang, "I started crying, everybody else started crying. It was quite an amazing moment in my life and at some point after I heard my voice came out I felt like God was saying to me 'Donna, you're going to be very, very famous' and I knew from that day on that I would be famous."</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Summer later attended Boston's Jeremiah E. Burke High School, where she performed in school musicals and was considered popular. She was also something of a troublemaker, skipping home to attend parties, circumventing her parents' strict curfew. In 1967, just weeks before graduation, Summer left for New York where she was a member of the blues-rock band, Crow. After they were passed by every record label, they agreed to break up. Summer stayed in New York and auditioned for a role in the counterculture musical, <i>Hair</i>. When Melba Moore was cast in the part, Summer agreed to take the role in the Munich production of the show. She moved to Munich after getting her parents' reluctant approval.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Summer remained in Munich and later learned fluent German. She participated in the musicals <i>Ich Bin Ich</i> (the German version of <i>The Nobody Knows</i>), <i>Godspell</i> and <i>Show Boat</i>. Within three years, she moved to Vienna, Austria and joined the Viennese Folk Opera. She briefly toured with an ensemble vocal group called FamilyTree, the creation of producer Guenter "Yogi" Lauke. In 1971, Summer released her first single, a cover of The Jaynetts'' "Sally Go Round The Roses", from a one-off European deal with Decca Records. In 1972, she issued the single, "If You Walkin' Alone" on </span><span style="line-height: 10px;">Philips.</span><span style="line-height: 19px;"> In 1974, she married Austrian actor Helmuth Sommer and had a daughter, Mimi, the following year. Citing marital problems caused by her affair with German artist (and future live-in boyfriend) Peter Mühldorfer, she divorced Helmuth. She kept his last name, but Anglicised it to "Summer". She provided backing vocals on producer-keyboardist Veit Marvos on his 1972 Ariola records release, </span><i style="line-height: 19px;">Nice To See You</i><span style="line-height: 19px;">, credited as "Gayn Pierre". Several subsequent singles included Summer performing with the group, but she often denied singing on any of the Marvos releases. The name "Gayn Pierre" was also used by Donna while performing in <i>Godspell</i></span><span style="line-height: 19px;"> with Helmuth Sommer during 1972.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><img alt="Donna Summer,The Best Of Donna Summer: The Christmas Collection - Sealed,USA,Deleted,CD ALBUM,485839" height="631" src="http://991.com/newGallery/Donna-Summer-The-Best-Of-Donna-485839.jpg" width="640" /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While singing background for the hit-making 1970s trio Three Dog Night, Summer met producers Giorgio<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_Moroder" style="background-image: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Giorgio Moroder"> </a>Moroder and Pete Bellotte. She eventually signed a deal with the European label Groovy Records and issued her first album, <i>Lady of the Night</i>, in 1974. The album was not released in America, but found some limited European success on the strength of the song "The Hostage", which reached number one in Belgium and number two in the Netherlands.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1975, Summer approached Moroder with an idea for a song she and Bellotte were working on for another singer. She had come up with the lyric "love to love you, baby". Moroder was interested in developing the new sound that was becoming popular and used Summer's lyric to develop the song. Moroder persuaded Summer to record what was to be a demo track for another performer. She later said that she had thought of how the song might sound if Marilyn Munroe had sung it and began cooing the lyrics. To get into the mood of recording the song, she requested Moroder turn off the lights while they sat on a sofa with him inducing her moans and groans. After hearing playback of the song, Moroder felt Summer's version should actually be released.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The song was then sent to Casablanca Records president Neil Bogart in hopes of getting an American release. Bogart informed Summer and Moroder he would release the song (now called "Love to love you baby") but requested that Moroder produce a longer version for discothèques. Moroder, Bellotte, and Summer returned with a 17 minute version and Casablanca signed Summer and released the single in November 1975. The shorter version of the single was promoted to radio stations while clubs regularly played the 17 minute version (the longer version would also appear on the album). Casablanca became one of the first record labels to popularize the 12" single format. By early 1976, "Love To Love You Baby" had reached No2 on the US Billboard Hot 100, while the parent album of the same name sold over a million copies. The song generated controversy due to Summer's moans and groans and some American and European radio stations, including the BBC, refused to play it. "Love to Love You Baby" found chart success in several European countries, and made the Top 5 in the United Kingdom despite the BBC ban. Other upcoming singles included "Try Me, I Know We can Make It", US No80; "Could it be magic", US No52; "Spring Affair", US No58; and "Winter Melody", US No43. The subsequent albums <i>Love Trilogy</i> and <i>Four Seasons of Love</i> both went gold in the US.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><img alt="Donna Summer,This Time I Know It's For Real,USA,Deleted,LP RECORD,547797" height="638" src="http://991.com/newGallery/Donna-Summer-This-Time-I-Know-547797.jpg" width="640" /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1977, Donna Summer released the concept album <i>I Remember Yesterday</i>. This album included her second top ten single, "I Feel Love", which reached number six in the US and number one in the UK. Another concept album, also released in 1977, was <i>Once Upon a Time</i>, a double album which told of a modern-day Cinderella "rags to riches" story through the elements of orchestral disco and ballads. This album would also attain gold status. In 1978, Summer released her version of the Jimmy Webb ballad, "Macarthur Park", which became her first US number one hit. The song was featured on Summer's first live album, <i>Live and More</i>, which also became her first album to hit number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, and went platinum selling over a million copies. Other studio tracks included the top ten hit, "Heaven Knows", which featured the group Brooklyn Dreams accompanying her on background and Joe 'Bean' Esposito singing alongside her on the verses. Summer would later be romantically involved with Brooklyn Dreams singer Bruce Saduno and the couple married two years after the song's release. Also in 1978, Summer acted in the film, <i>Thank God it's Friday</i>, playing a singer determined to perform at a hot disco club. The film met modest success, but a song from the film, titled "Last Dance", reached number three on the Hot 100 and resulted in Summer winning her first Grammy Award. Its writer, Paul Jabara, won an Academy Award for the composition.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1979, Summer performed at the world-televised Music for Unicef concept, joining contemporaries such as Abba, Olivia Newton-John, the Bee Gees, Andy Gibb, Rod Stewart, John Denver, Earth, Wind and Fire, Rita Coolidge and Kris Kristofferson for an hour's TV special that raised funds and awareness for the world's children. Artists donated royalties of certain songs, some in perpetuity, to benefit the cause.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><img alt="Donna Summer,Crayons,USA,Promo,Deleted,CD-R(ECORDABLE),445430" height="610" src="http://991.com/newGallery/Donna-Summer-Crayons-445430.jpg" width="640" /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Donna Summer began work on her next project with Moroder and Bellotte, <i>Bad Girls</i>, an album that had been in production for nearly two years. Summer based the whole concept on prostitution (revisiting the theme for 1974's 'Lady Of The Night'), even dressing as a hooker herself on the cover art. The album became a huge success, spawning the number one hits "Hot Stuff" and the title track and the number two "Dim All The Nights". With "MacArthur Park", "Hot Stuff", "Bad Girls", and the Barbara Striesand duet "No More Tears<a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_More_Tears_(Enough_is_Enough)" style="background-image: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="No More Tears (Enough is Enough)"> </a>(Enough is Enough)", Summer achieved four number one hits within a thirteen month period. Those aforementioned songs, along with "Heaven Knows", "Last Dance", "Dim All The Lights", and "On the Radio" (from her upcoming double-album) would give her eight US Top 5 singles within a two year period. "Hot Stuff" later won her a second Grammy in the Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, the first time the category was included. That year, Summer played eight sold-out nights at the Universal Ampitheatre in Los Angeles.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Summer released On the Radio<i><a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_The_Radio:_Greatest_Hits_Volumes_1_%26_2" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="On The Radio: Greatest Hits Volumes 1 & 2">: </a>Greatest Hits Volumes 1&2</i>, her first (international) greatest hits set in 1979. The double album reached number one in the US, becoming her third consecutive number one album. A new song from the compilation, "On the Radio", reached the US top five, selling over a million copies in the U.S. alone.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><img alt="Donna Summer,Bad Girls,UK,Deleted,12" height="400" src="http://991.com/newGallery/Donna-Summer-Bad-Girls-28040.jpg" width="374" /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After the release of the greatest hits album, Summer wanted to branch out into other musical styles in addition to disco, which led to tensions between her and Casablanca Records. Sensing that they could no longer come to terms, Summer and the label parted ways in 1980, and she signed with Geffen Records, the new label started by David Geffen.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Summer's first release on Geffen Records was <i>The Wanderer</i>, which replaced the disco sound of Summer's previous releases with more of the burgeoning New Wave sound and elements of rock, such as the material being recorded at this time by Pat Benatar. The album achieved gold status in the US, and the title track (released as the first single) peaked at No3 in the US, though subsequent singles were only moderate hits.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Summer's projected second Geffen release, entitled <i>I'm a Rainbow</i>, was shelved by Geffen Records (though two of the album's songs would surface in soundtracks of the 1980s films <i>Fast Times at Ridgemount</i> and <i>Flashdance</i>). Summer reluctantly parted company with Moroder after seven years working together as Geffen had recruited Quincy Jones to produce her next album, 1982's <i>Donna Summer</i>. The album had taken a lengthy six months to record. The album's first single, "Love is in Control<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Is_in_Control_(Finger_on_the_Trigger)" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Love Is in Control (Finger on the Trigger)"> </a>Finger on the Trigger", became an American top ten hit on the Hot 100, followed by more moderate hits "State of Independence"(No41 pop) and "The Woman in Me"(No33 pop). Problems then increased between Summer and Geffen Records after they were notified by Polygram Records, Summer's former label Casablanca was by then a wholly owned subsidiary, that she needed to deliver them one more album to fulfill her contract with them. Summer delivered the album, <i>She works hard for the Money</i>, and Polygram released it on its Mercury imprint in 1983. The title song became a hit reaching number three on the US Hot 100, and would provide Summer with a Grammy nomination. The album also featured the reggae-flavored UK Top 20 hit "Unconditional Love", which featured the British group Musical Youth who were riding high from the success of their single "Pass the Dutchie". The third US single, "Love Has A Mind of Its Own", reached the top forty of the Billboard R&B chart. The album itself was certified gold.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In late 1984, with her obligation to Polygram complete, Summer returned on Geffen Records with her next release. Geffen, wanting to keep the momentum going, enlisted <i>She Works Hard For the Money'</i>s producer Michael Omartian to produce <i>Cats Without Claws</i>. The album, however, was not as successful as <i>She Works Hard For the Money</i> and failed to attain gold status of 500,000 copies sold in the US, becoming her first album since her 1974 debut not to do so. It did include a moderate hit in "There Goes My Baby", which peaked at No21.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><img height="640" src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5450/6941101962_923f48766f_h.jpg" width="514" /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the mid 1980s, Summer was embroiled in a controversy. She had allegedly made anti-gay remarks regarding the then-relatively new disease, AIDS, which as a result had a significantly negative impact on her career and saw thousands of her records being returned to her record company by angered fans. Summer, by this time a born-again Christian, was alleged to have said that AIDS was a punishment from God for the immoral lifestyles of homosexuals. However, she denied that she had ever made any such comment and, in a letter to the AIDS campaign group ACT UP in 1989, she said that it was "a terrible misunderstanding. I was unknowingly protected by those around me from the bad press and hate letters... If I have caused you pain, forgive me." She went on to apologize for the delay in refuting the rumours and closed her letter with Bible quotes (from Chapter 13 of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Epistle_to_the_Corinthians" style="background-image: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="First Epistle to the Corinthians">1 </a>Corinthians).</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also in 1989, Summer told <i>The Advocate</i> magazine that "A couple of the people I write with are gay, and they have been ever since I met them. What people want to do with their bodies is their personal preference." A couple of years later she filed a lawsuit against <i>New York</i> magazine when it reprinted the rumours as fact just as she was about to release her album <i>Mistaken Identity</i> in 1991.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1987, Donna Summer returned with the album <i>All Systems Go</i>, which did not sell well, becoming her second consecutive album not to achieve gold status. It featured the single "Dinner with Gershwin" (written by Brenda Russell), which was only a minor US hit, though it peaked at No13 in the UK. The album's title track, "All Systems Go", was released only in the UK where it peaked at No54.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For Summer's next album, Geffen Records hired the British hit production team of Stock, Aitken Waterman (or <i>SAW</i>), who had enjoyed incredible success by writing and producing for such acts as Kylie Mynogue, Dead or Alive, Banarama, and Rick Astley among others. However, Geffen decided not to release the album, entitled <i>Another Time and Place</i>, and Summer and Geffen Records parted ways in 1988. The album was released in Europe in March 1989 on Warner Bros Records, which had been Summer's label in Europe since 1982. The single "This Time I Know it's For Real" had become a top ten hit in several countries in Europe, prompting the Warner Bros. subsidiary company Atlantic Records to sign Summer in the US and pick up the album for a North American release soon after. The single peaked at No7 on the Hot 100 in the US, and became her twelfth gold single there. It was also Summer's final Top 40 hit on the American pop charts, though she scored two more UK hits from the album, "I Don't Wanna Get Hurt" (UK No7) and "Love's About To Change My Heart" (UK No20).</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><img height="360" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7084/7219089340_1aec189244_b.jpg" width="640" /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1990, a new compilation, <i>The Best of Donna Summer</i>, was released on Warner Bros Records. It featured some of Summer's biggest hits from the 1970s and 1980s. The album achieved Gold status in the UK, where "State of Independence" had been re-released to promote it.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1991, Summer released the new jack swing style album <i>Mistaken Identity</i>. It did not sell well, but did contain the No18 R&B hit "When Love Cries".</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1993, Polygram Records released an extended greatest hits collection entitled <i>The Donna Summer Anthology</i>. It included 34 songs, totalling over two and a half hours of music. It not only included songs from the Polygram-owned labels of Casablanca and Mercury, but also material from Atlantic and Geffen Records as well.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1994, Summer return with a new album on Mercury/Polygram, a gospel-influenced Christmas album entitled <i>Christmas Spirit</i>. It included classic Christmas songs such as "O Holy Night", "Joy To The World", and "Oh Come All Ye Faithful",and a stiring rendition of Amy Grant's "Breath of Heaven", as well as some original songs.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some of Summer's dance releases including "Carry On" (her first collaboration with Moroder in a decade) and "Melody of Love<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melody_of_Love_(Wanna_Be_Loved)" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Melody of Love (Wanna Be Loved)"> </a>(Wanna Be Loved)" charted on the US Dance Chart, with "Melody of Love" reaching number one on that chart and also reaching number 21 on the UK Singles Chart.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also in 1994, Polygram would release yet another Summer compilation album entitled "Endless Summer<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endless_Summer:_Greatest_Hits" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Endless Summer: Greatest Hits">: </a>Greatest Hits", containing 18 songs which were mainly the radio versions heard at the time of their release (as opposed to the <i>Anthology</i> album the year before which contained many longer versions of the songs).</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">During this time, Summer was offered a guest role on the sitcom <i>Family Matters</i> as Steve Urkel's (Jaleel White) Aunt Oona. She made a second appearance in 1997. In 1998, Summer received a Grammy Award for Best Recording, being the first to do so, after a remixed version of her 1992 collaboration with Giorgio Moroder, "Carry On", was released in 1997. In 1999, Summer taped a live television special for VH1 titled <i>Donna Summer – Live and More Encore</i>, producing the second highest ratings that year for the network, after their annual <i>Divas</i> special. A CD of the event was released by Epic Records and featured two studio recordings, "I Will Go With You" and "Love Is The Healer" which reached number one on the Billboard Dance Charts.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><img alt="Donna Summer,The Greatest Hits Of Donna Summer,UK,Deleted,LP RECORD,229307" height="640" src="http://991.com/newGallery/Donna-Summer-The-Greatest-Hits-229307.jpg" width="615" /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Donna Summer continued to score top ten hits on Billboard's Dance Chart in the new millennium. In 2000, she also appeared on the third annual <i>Divas</i> special, dedicated to Diana Ross, though Summer sang her own material for the show.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One month before the September 11 Attacks Summer who was living in Manhattan at the time had a premonition that they would occur. For a period of time after the attacks she was unable to leave her bedroom. She was reported to have blamed her lung cancer on inhaling toxic dust from the fallen towers.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 2004, Donna Summer was inducted to the Dance Music Hall of Fame alongside The Bee Gees and Barry Gibb as an artist. Her classic song, "I Feel Love", was also inducted that night.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 2008, Summer released her first studio album of fully original material in 17 years, entitled <i>Crayons</i>. Released on the Sony BMG label Burgundy Records, it peaked at No17 on the US Top 200 Album Chart (her highest placing on the chart since 1983), and achieved modest international success. The songs "I'm a Fire", "Stamp Your Feet", and "Fame<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fame_(The_Game)" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Fame (The Game)"> </a>(The Game)" reached number one on the US Billboard Dance Chart. The ballad "Sand on My Feet" was released to adult contemporary stations and reached number thirty on that chart. While commenting on the album, Summer said "I wanted this album to have a lot of different directions on it. I did not want it to be any one baby. I just wanted it to be a sampler of flavors and influences from all over the world. There's a touch of this, a little smidgeon of that, a dash of something else...like when you're cooking." On the song "The Queen Is Back", Summer reveals her wry and witty self-awareness of her musical legacy and her public persona. "I'm making fun of myself," she admits. "There's irony, it's poking fun at the idea of being called a queen. That's a title that has followed me, followed me, and followed me. We were sitting and writing and that title kept popping up in my mind and I'm thinking, ‘Am I supposed to write this? Is this too arrogant to write?' But people call me ‘the queen,' so I guess it's ok to refer to myself as what everybody else refers to me as. We started writing the song and thought it was kind of cute and funny." Summer wrote "The Queen Is Back" and "Mr. Music" with J.R. Rotem and Evan Bogart, the son of Casablanca Records founder, Neil Bogart.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On December 11, 2009, Summer performed at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway, in honor of United States President Barack Obama. She was backed by the Norwegian Radio Orchestra.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><img alt="Donna Summer,The Donna Summer Anthology,Japan,DOUBLE CD,206848" height="354" src="http://991.com/newGallery/Donna-Summer-The-Donna-Summer-206848.jpg" width="400" /> </div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Associated Press reported that Donna Summer died on the morning of May 17, 2012 at her home in Key West<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_West,_Florida" style="background-image: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Key West, Florida">, </a>Florida at the age of 63 following a battle with cancer. The Bradenton Herald, quoting "Sarasota County records", stated that she lived in Englewood, Florida at the time of her death. The reference did not state her location at the time of her death. The New York Times reported that she died at her home in Naples, Florida. Summer is survived by her husband Bruce Sudano, their daughters Brooklyn and Amanda, as well as her daughter Mimi from a previous marriage</span></div><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dziQYwpqR0IiQHbT8RCjeByscmnxmLVeJv1OqJIkKoOx_Z6A16DQk6ci_M3A_qzF6t5Y1ujFDmUjt4oq9DL0A' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><div><br /></div><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxdMc5eJNSADu2hg7JprVwsI7trpJWi-53RsHSh38y6ESB63zTcgjz2_VYviSiMDG4TWoDkJ_pUuoPwDfw-MA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-1697083681895864522012-05-16T07:41:00.003-07:002012-05-16T07:43:26.534-07:00Jerry Lee Lewis Arrested at the Gates of Graceland (1976)<span ><span><span style="line-height: 16px; text-align: left; ">On November 23, 1976 at Graceland</span><span style="line-height: 16px; text-align: left; ">, Memphis tennessee, Elvis' cousin Harold Loyd</span><span style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 16px; text-align: left; ">, the night guard at graceland, called the police complaining of a drunk, pisto wielding man blocking the gates at Elvis Presley's home in a brand new white lincoln continental.</span></span><br /></span><div style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 100%; line-height: 16px; padding-left: 0px; padding-top: 7px; text-align: left; "><span style="background-color: white;"><span >Two police cars arrived at the scene at 2.56 A.M. to find Mr. Lloyd hiding the the gate house. He complained that the man in the car threatened him and told him he was going to 'get in, one way or another'.</span></span></div><div style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 100%; line-height: 16px; padding-left: 0px; padding-top: 7px; text-align: left; "><span style="background-color: white;"><span >Mr Lloyd had noticed that the man carried a gun in his right hand. Police approached the car cautiously. The Lincoln's sole occupant sat staring out the front window.</span></span></div><div style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 100%; line-height: 16px; padding-left: 0px; padding-top: 7px; text-align: left; "><span style="background-color: white; "><span >When the police got to the open driver's side window, they found that the man was Jerry Lee Lewis, balanced on his knee was a chrome-plated, over- under style .38 caliber derringer pistol.</span></span></div><br /><span style="font-weight: normal; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; "><img alt="Jerry Lee Lewis, Arrested at the Gates of Graceland" height="455" src="http://www.elvis.com.au/presley/uploads/1/jerry_lee_lewis_arrested_1.jpg" width="640" /></span><br /><div style="font-weight: normal; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; text-align: left; "></div><div style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 100%; line-height: 16px; padding-left: 0px; padding-top: 7px; "><span style="background-color: white; " >Mr Lewis was helped from his car and the gun was confiscated by the police. he officers noticed that Mr. Lewis was extremely unstable on his feet , his speech was slurred, and his breath smelled of alcohol.</span></div><div style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 100%; line-height: 16px; padding-left: 0px; padding-top: 7px; "><span style="background-color: white;" >Mr Lewis was apprised of his rights and was arrested for carrying a pistol and being drunk in a public place.</span></div><div style="font-size: 100%; line-height: 16px; padding-left: 0px; padding-top: 7px; "><span style="background-color: white; " >According to<b> </b>Ernst Jorgensen in his book 'Elvis Day By Day', this was the second night in a row that Jerry Lee had shown, telling Harold Loyd that he and Elvis had been trying to get together for a long time. Elvis is said to have watched the 'whole drama on his closed-circuit monitors'.</span></div><div style="font-size: 100%; line-height: 16px; padding-left: 0px; padding-top: 7px; "><span style="background-color: white; " >Here is Jerry Lee Lewis' own account of what happened, as related by Kay Martin: the president of <strong style="font-weight: normal; ">Lewis</strong>' fan club .... 'Elvis called him and asked him to come out to the house to talk to him. Jerry was out on the town and by the time he got to Elvis's house, it was much past when Elvis had expected him and Elvis was asleep. Jerry had driven up after a sheriff from MS had given him a brand new handgun, but since Jerry did not have a permit for a concealed weapon, he had it on the dashboard of his car, as the sheriff had supposedly suggested. The guard at Graceland asked Jerry what he was doing with the gun, and sarcastically Jerry said he hadn't brought it to kill Elvis, so the guy should chill out. He didn't. He called the cops. Jerry was PO'ed, but the gun stayed on the dash the whole time. The situation blew over because it was a tempest in a teapot.</span></div><div style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 100%; line-height: 16px; padding-left: 0px; padding-top: 7px; "><span style="background-color: white; " >The sheriff who had given Jerry the gun cleared it up, too'.</span></div>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-56726676286529912882012-05-06T10:52:00.000-07:002012-05-06T10:52:01.677-07:00Uncle In Paperback!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>These paperback novels based on the classic TV spy series The Man From Uncle date back to the 1960s.</i></b></span></div>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-84442101356729143252012-05-05T08:22:00.005-07:002012-05-05T08:33:44.517-07:00The Cedar Tree (1976 - 1979)<div class="separator" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; clear: both; text-align: center; "><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoRi3gpMWUuOj32A_nrEsq1grK0KG0jkslBuPwZ6O1LpDrB0EbsLsrL-bMp__Mo3Bk1mEgky8EtgFZpa2bFgjvt1yE3bdf6GWOn2O8hoE6ij51vhsA-g4ofAhrNdOaa36lUqXn8TvGY0qc/s1600/Picture1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoRi3gpMWUuOj32A_nrEsq1grK0KG0jkslBuPwZ6O1LpDrB0EbsLsrL-bMp__Mo3Bk1mEgky8EtgFZpa2bFgjvt1yE3bdf6GWOn2O8hoE6ij51vhsA-g4ofAhrNdOaa36lUqXn8TvGY0qc/s400/Picture1.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; clear: both; text-align: center; "></div><span style="font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><b><i>I vaguely remember this series from my childhood back in the good old days that were the 1970s. </i></b></span><b style="font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal; color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><i><span style="line-height: 19px; ">The Cedar Tree</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; ">was a television serial that ran from 1976-1979 on</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; "> ITV</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; "> </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; ">in the</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; "> UK</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; ">. </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; ">It involved the story of the Bourne family, hailing from an aristocratic background, before the turn of the Second World War.</span></i></b><br /><span ><span style="font-size: 100%;"><img height="472" src="http://i436.photobucket.com/albums/qq85/cornershop15/Documents/TheCedarTree-castphoto1976bmp.jpg" width="640" /></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><b><i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">The Cedar Tree</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> was an ATV</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> Production and recorded at the ATV Centre in Birmingham</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">. Two established cast members were the veteran actress Joyce Carey</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> and Susan Skipper</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">, who played one of the Bourne family's daughters.</span></i></b></span><br /><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzllhfAHV2u2892bVCjrVfzXCCrR_m0ywy4Az5X14Nd_vz9pcHXF9vWsUU0C-xf0jp1b8El3xrHez71zCr6Ng' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343856067962099365.post-40850882334956771992012-05-05T07:36:00.004-07:002012-05-05T07:41:27.421-07:00When Snooker Went Loopy (1986)<span ><img alt="Matchroom Mob With Chas And Dave - Snooker Loopy" height="632" src="http://www.chartstats.com/images/artwork/8541.jpg" width="640" /></span><br /><b style="color: rgb(11, 83, 148); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; font-size: 100%; "><i>I have just been watching the Snooker World Championship today and for some reason I got thinking about "Snooker Loopy" the humorous novelty song which was released as a single in May 1986 and entered the UK Singles chart, reaching No6. It was written and performed by cockney duo Chas and Dave and featured Snooker players Steve Davis, Dennis Taylor, Willie Thorne, Terry Griffiths and Tony Meo, as backing vocalists under the name 'The Matchroom Mob' - Matchroom Sport being the company owned by promoter Barry Hearn which employed all these snooker professionals at the time.</i></b><br /><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>The lyrics are a mild satire on the style and antics of the players involved: "old Willie Thorne; his hair's all gone" for example. The verse on Steve Davis also makes light of the famous 1985 World Snooker Championship and his missed black in the final frame.</i></b></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><img alt="Chas & Dave,Snooker Loopy,UK,Deleted,7" height="640" src="http://991.com/newGallery/Chas--Dave-Snooker-Loopy-462204.jpg" width="640" /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><img alt="Chas & Dave,Snooker Loopy,UK,Deleted,7" height="640" src="http://eil.com/Gallery/462204b.jpg" width="640" /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Chas & Dave still perform the song at their live shows with the original lyrics, even though most of the players mentioned have now retired from the game (most are still known as part of the BBC commentary team).</i></b></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; background-color: white; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em; "></div><table cellspacing="5" class="infobox vevent" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249); border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; clear: right; color: black; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.2em; padding-left: 0.2em; padding-right: 0.2em; padding-top: 0.2em; text-align: left; width: 22em; "><tbody><tr><th class="summary" colspan="2" style="background-color: khaki; font-size: 14px; text-align: center; vertical-align: top;">"Snooker Loopy"</th></tr><tr class=""><td class="" colspan="2" style="text-align: center; vertical-align: top;"><a class="image" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Snooker_Loopy_cover.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/74/Snooker_Loopy_cover.jpg/220px-Snooker_Loopy_cover.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; vertical-align: middle;" /></a></td></tr><tr><th class="" colspan="2" style="background-color: khaki; text-align: center; vertical-align: top;">Single by Chas & Dave, The Matchroom Mob</th></tr><tr class=""><th scope="row" style="vertical-align: top;">Released</th><td class="" style="vertical-align: top;">May 1986</td></tr><tr class=""><th scope="row" style="vertical-align: top;">Format</th><td class="" style="vertical-align: top;">Vinyl</td></tr><tr class=""><th scope="row" style="vertical-align: top;">Genre</th><td class="" style="vertical-align: top;">Novelty</td></tr><tr class=""><th scope="row" style="vertical-align: top;">Length</th><td class="" style="vertical-align: top;">3:49</td></tr><tr class=""><th scope="row" style="vertical-align: top;">Label</th><td class="" style="vertical-align: top;">Rockney</td></tr><tr class=""><th scope="row" style="vertical-align: top;">Writer(s)</th><td class="" style="vertical-align: top;">Chas & Dave</td></tr></tbody></table><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dyHByooHPVXCFpLYB6tYtnU_Ktp6VHplgy-STDE2N7GD7qD0hexClRNrBSb7HPAlfd2YXiego5TgCLSkyEiCw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe>Adohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18218559052267830533noreply@blogger.com0