Buster Keaton

circa 1925: American film comedian Buster Keaton (1895 – 1966).

Buster Keaton (born Joseph Frank Keaton, October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966) was an American silent film comic actor and filmmaker. His trademark was physical comedy with a stoic, deadpan expression on his face, earning him the nickname “The Great Stone Face” (referencing the Nathaniel Hawthorne story about the “Old Man of the Mountain”).

His career as a performer and director is widely regarded to be among the most innovative and important work in the history of cinema. He was recognized as the seventh greatest director of all time by Entertainment Weekly. In his highly influential and groundbreaking book, The American Cinema: Directors and Directions, 1929-1968, leading film critic Andrew Sarris included Keaton in his Pantheon of American film directors.
Biography
Early life in vaudeville

Buster Keaton was born into the world of vaudeville. His father was Joseph Hallie Keaton, a native of Vigo County, Indiana, known in the show business world as Joe Keaton. Joe Keaton owned a traveling show with Harry Houdini called the Mohawk Indian Medicine Company, which performed on stage and sold patent medicine on the side. Joseph Frank Keaton was born on October 4, 1895 in Piqua, Kansas, the small town where his mother, Myra Edith Cutler, happened to go into labor.

The name “Buster” was acquired in his youth. Popular legend has it that one day before a vaudeville performance, a very young Keaton was walking down a flight of stairs, but tripped and fell down the entire flight and broke his nose. Keaton got right back up, and upon seeing this the famous magician Harry Houdini, who was in the performance, said to Keaton’s mother that he was “quite the little buster.” Although Houdini did tour with the Keatons, he did not join up with them until Buster Keaton was well beyond infancy. It is more likely that the nickname was given by a fellow vaudevillian whose name has been lost to history.

At the age of three, he began performing with his parents in The Three Keatons; the storyline of the act concerned how to raise a small child. Myra played the saxophone on one side while Joe and Buster performed on center stage. The young Keaton would goad his father by disobeying him, and the elder Keaton would respond by throwing him against the scenery, into the orchestra pit, or even into the audience. A suitcase handle was even sewn into Keaton’s clothing to aid with the constant tossing. The act evolved as Keaton learned to take trick falls safely. He was rarely injured or bruised on stage. Nevertheless, this knockabout style of comedy led to accusations of child abuse. Decades later, Keaton said that he was never abused by his father and that the falls and physical comedy were a matter of proper technical execution. In fact, Keaton would have so much fun, he would begin laughing as his father threw him across the stage. This drew fewer laughs from the audience, so he adopted his famous deadpan expression whenever he was working.

The act ran up against laws banning child performers in vaudeville. When one official saw Keaton in full costume and makeup, he asked a stagehand how old that performer was. The stagehand shrugged and pointed to the boy’s mother, saying “I don’t know, ask his wife!” Despite tangles with the law and a disastrous tour of English music halls, Keaton was a rising star in the theater, so much so that even when his parents tried to introduce the other children into the act, he remained the central attraction.

By the time Keaton was 21, his father’s alcoholism threatened the reputation of the family act, so he and his mother left Joe in Los Angeles. Keaton traveled to New York, where his performing career moved from vaudeville to film.

Although he did not see active combat, he served in World War I, during which time he lost some of his hearing.
Marriages

In 1921, he married Natalie Talmadge, sister-in-law of his boss, Joseph Schenck, and sister of actresses Norma Talmadge and Constance Talmadge. During the first three years of the marriage, the couple had two sons, James (1922-2007) and Robert (1924-), but after the birth of Robert, the relationship began to suffer.

According to Keaton in his autobiography, Natalie turned him out of their bedroom and sent detectives to follow him to see who he was dating behind her back. She also spent enormous sums of money. During the early 1920s, as per his autobiography, he dated actress Kathleen Key, and upon ending the affair, Key flew into a rage, tearing up his dressing room. Not until 1932, did Natalie bitterly divorce Keaton, at which time the court awarded her custody of both sons and substantial financial support. She refused to allow any contact between Keaton and his sons, whose last name she had changed to Talmadge. Keaton was reunited with them about eight years later when the older son turned 18. The failure of his marriage, along with the loss of his independence as a filmmaker, led Keaton into a period of serious alcoholism.

In 1933, Keaton married his nurse Mae Scriven during an alcoholic binge about which he afterward claimed to remember nothing (Keaton himself later called that period an “alcoholic blackout”). Scriven herself would later claim that she didn’t even know Keaton’s real first name until after the marriage. When they divorced in 1936, the court awarded her half of everything they owned.

In 1940, Keaton married Eleanor Norris, who was 23 years his junior. She saved his life from his spiral of alcoholism and helped to salvage his career. All of their friends advised them against marrying, but the marriage lasted until his death. Between 1947 and 1954, they appeared regularly in the Cirque Medrano in Paris, in a highly-regarded double act. She came to know his routines so well that she often participated in them on TV revivals. She outlived him by 32 years, dying in 1998.
Death

Keaton died of lung cancer on February 1, 1966, at the age of 70. Although he was diagnosed with the disease, he was never told that he was terminally ill. In a documentary on his career, his wife told Thames Television that Keaton played cards with friends the night before he died.
Career
Silent film era

In February 1917, Keaton met Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle at the Talmadge Studios in New York City, where Arbuckle was under contract to Joseph M. Schenck. Joe Keaton disapproved of films, thinking them to be little more than a fad. Buster Keaton was also unsure of the medium. During his first meeting with Arbuckle, he asked to borrow one of the cameras to get a feel for how it worked. He promptly took the camera back to his hotel room, dismantled it, and reassembled it. With this rough understanding of the mechanics of the moving pictures, he returned the next day, camera in hand, asking for work. He was hired as a co-star and gag-man, making his first appearance in The Butcher Boy (1917). Keaton and Arbuckle became close friends. Keaton later claimed that he was soon Arbuckle’s second director and his entire gag department.

After Keaton’s successful work with Arbuckle, Schenck gave him his own production unit, Buster Keaton Studios. He made a series of two-reel comedies, including One Week (1920), Cops (1922), The Electric House (1922), and The Playhouse (1921). Based on the success of these shorts, Keaton moved to full-length features.

His most enduring feature-length films include Our Hospitality (1923), The Navigator (1924), Sherlock Jr. (1924), The Cameraman (1928), Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928), and The General (1927). This last film, set during the American Civil War, is considered his masterpiece, combining physical comedy with Keaton’s love for trains. Many of his most well-known films performed poorly at the box office at the time.

Years later, rival director Leo McCarey talked about the freewheeling days of making slapstick comedies: “All of us tried to steal each other’s gagmen. But we had no luck with Keaton, because he thought up his best gags himself and we couldn’t steal him!” Keaton also habitually performed his own stunts, sometimes at great physical risk; during the railroad watertank scene in Sherlock Jr., Keaton broke his neck and did not realize it until years afterwards.

In addition, the technical side of filmmaking fascinated him and he was forward thinking enough that, when they began to become technically practical and popular, he wanted to direct sound films. The fact that he had a good voice and years of stage experience promised an easier adjustment than Charlie Chaplin’s silent Tramp character, who could not survive sound. Keaton’s loss of independence as a filmmaker coincided with the coming of sound films and mounting personal problems, and his full potential in the early sound era was never realized.
Sound era and television

Keaton signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1928, a business decision that he would later call the worst of his life. He realized too late that the studio system MGM represented would prove to be a far more restrictive atmosphere than the freedom he had known previously, severely limiting his prior creative independence. From then on he would (for the first time) be forced to use a stunt double during some of his more dangerous scenes, as MGM wanted badly to protect its investment. He also stopped directing, but continued to perform and made some of his most financially successful films for the studio. MGM tried teaming the laconic Keaton with the rambunctious Jimmy Durante in a series of movies including The Passionate Plumber, Speak Easily, and What! No Beer? Although the two comedians never quite meshed as a team, the films proved popular.

What! No Beer? was Keaton’s last starring feature in America. Behind the scenes, Keaton’s world was in chaos, with divorce proceedings contributing to his alcoholism, which in turn caused production delays and unpleasant incidents at the studio. Keaton was so depleted during the filming of What! No Beer? that MGM released him from his contract, despite the film’s resounding success. In 1934 Keaton accepted an offer to make an independent film in Paris, Le Roi des Champs-Élysées. During this period he made one other film in Europe, The Invader (released in America as An Old Spanish Custom in 1936).

Upon his return to Hollywood, he made a screen comeback in a series of 16 two-reel comedies for Educational Pictures. Most of these are simple visual comedies, with many of the gags supplied by Keaton himself. The high point in the Educational series is Grand Slam Opera, featuring Buster in his own screenplay as an amateur-hour contestant. When the series lapsed in 1937, Keaton returned to MGM as a gag writer, particularly for Red Skelton and the Marx Brothers–including At the Circus (1939), and Go West (1940).

In 1939, Columbia Pictures hired Keaton to star in two-reel comedies; the series ran for two years. The director was usually Jules White, whose emphasis on slapstick made most of these films resemble White’s Three Stooges comedies. Keaton’s personal favorite of the ten Columbia films was directed not by White but by Mack Sennett veteran Del Lord: Pest from the West (1939), a two-reel remake of Keaton’s feature The Invader. Moviegoers and exhibitors welcomed Keaton’s Columbia comedies, which were successful enough to be re-released again and again through the 1960s.

Keaton’s personal life had stabilized with his 1940 marriage, and now he was taking life a little easier, abandoning Columbia for the less strenuous field of feature films. Throughout the 1940s Keaton played character roles in both “A” features and “B” films. Critics rediscovered Keaton in 1949 and producers hired him for bigger pictures. He guest-starred in such films as Sunset Boulevard (1950), Around the World in 80 Days (1956), It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966). He appeared in Chaplin’s Limelight (1952), recalling the vaudeville of The Playhouse. Limelight was the only time in which the two giants of silent comedy would appear together on film.

Keaton had a successful series on Los Angeles television, The Buster Keaton Show (1950). An attempt to recreate the first series on film as Life with Buster Keaton (1951), which allowed it to be broadcast nationwide, was less well-received, although veteran actress Marcia Mae Jones and gagman Clyde Bruckman made contributions. A theatrical feature film, The Misadventures of Buster Keaton, was fashioned from the series. Keaton said he canceled the filmed series himself because he was unable to create enough fresh material to produce a new show each week.

Keaton also appeared on Ed Wynn’s variety show. At the age of 55, he successfully recreated one of the stunts of his youth, in which he propped one foot onto a table, then swung the second foot up next to it, and held the awkward position in midair for a moment before crashing to the stage floor. I’ve Got a Secret host Garry Moore recalled, “I asked (Keaton) how he did all those falls, and he said, ‘I’ll show you’. He opened his jacket and he was all bruised. So that’s how he did it – it hurt – but you had to care enough not to care.” At the age of 70, Keaton suggested a piece of physical comedy for his appearance in the 1965 movie Sergeant Deadhead, in which he ran past the end of a firehose into a six-foot-high flip and crash. When director Norman Taurog balked, expressing concerns for Keaton’s health, Keaton said, “I won’t hurt myself, Norm, I’ve done it for years!”

Keaton’s silent films saw a revival in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1961 he starred in The Twilight Zone episode “Once Upon a Time,” which included both silent and sound sequences. Keaton also found steady work as an actor in TV commercials, including a popular series of silent ads for Simon Pure Beer in which he revisited some of his favorite sight gags from his silent film days.

Keaton starred in a short film called The Railrodder [sic] (1965) [for the National Film Board of Canada. Wearing his traditional porkpie hat, he traveled from one end of Canada to the other on a motorized handcar, performing gags similar to those in films he made 50 years before. The film is also notable as Keaton’s last silent screen performance. The Railrodder was made in tandem with a behind-the-scenes documentary about Keaton’s life and times, called Buster Keaton Rides Again–also made for the National Film Board. He played the central role in Samuel Beckett’s Film (1965), directed by Alan Schneider. Keaton’s last film appearance was in the musical farce A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966).
Legacy

Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and, to a lesser extent, Harold Lloyd are remembered as the greatest comic innovators of the silent film era. It should be noted that Chaplin’s films have always been more accessible than those of Keaton in both senses of that term: emotionally and artistically accessible to nearly everyone, as well as more widely available.

Keaton’s films have been more difficult to find and view than those of Chaplin. Many of them did not make much money at the box office, and many were lost for years until they were found again and restored in the 1960s. Although Chaplin has always been better known and his films more often seen, there are critics and commentators—the great Spanish director Luis Buñuel for one—who have preferred the work of Keaton to that of Chaplin. In the one scene in which they ever appeared together in any film, in Chaplin’s Limelight, Keaton succeeded in stealing the scene from Chaplin.

Although both were giants of silent film, there is a distinct difference in the tone and content of the films of Keaton and Chaplin. Chaplin’s films dealt primarily with human relations: The Tramp as a character found and created comedic situations as an interactor with and a foil for the foibles of other humans. Chaplin’s comedy was primarily a comedy of human interactions, and the films are frequently sentimental. Chaplin was the Tramp, an easily understood human clown. Keaton was a stoic dealing with an absurd universe.

Keaton’s comedy was that of a human, mostly alone, dealing with an absurd universe made up of recalcitrant and even perverse nature and machines. He produced an existential comedy of a human being dealing, in his stoic and stone-faced way, with the vagaries of wind, rain, water, and human artifacts—machines, boats, trains—that usually seem to conspire against him, but that he ultimately survives and overcomes, sometimes through Rube Goldberg-like constructions.

Keaton’s was a strongly physical-based comedy in which he did his own stunts. In a famous shot from Steamboat Bill Jr., for example, Keaton stands in a field next to a building. The entire wall of the building is blown down and collapses over him but Keaton is unscathed because he is standing in the exact spot where the single window of that wall of the building goes around him. Had Keaton missed that spot by just an inch or so, he would likely have been crushed by the falling wall, so exact planning as well as total faith in and commitment to the calculations of where he needed to stand to get the shot were necessary.

Keaton’s career as a performer and director is widely regarded to be among the most innovative and important work in the history of cinema. He was recognized as the seventh greatest director of all time by Entertainment Weekly and ranked twentieth in MovieMaker Magazine’s 2002 ranking of the 25 Most Influential Directors of All Time.

Keaton has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: 6619 Hollywood Boulevard (for motion pictures); and 6321 Hollywood Boulevard (for television). In 1994, his image appeared on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.

A 1957 bio-pic The Buster Keaton Story, starring Donald O’Connor as Keaton, was based on his life but contained many errors of fact and merged his three wives into one character. The 1987 documentary Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow, which won two Emmy Awards, is considered a much more accurate telling of Keaton’s story.

Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando, Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was a prominent American actor who transformed Hollywood with his innovative practice of method acting that inspired the likes of James Dean and Robert De Niro. He brought the techniques of method acting to prominence in the films A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront, both directed by Elia Kazan in the early 1950s. He was nominated for Best Actor by the Academy for four straight years for: A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Viva Zapata (1952), Julius Caesar (1953), and On the Waterfront (1954). Brando won the Best Actor Oscar in 1954 and 1973 (The Godfather).

In the 1960s Brando was one of the first actor-activists to march for civil rights and Native American rights. He refused to accept his Oscar for “The Godfather,” in protest of discrimination against Native Americans in the film industry and in government policy.

In 1999 the American Film Institute named him the Fourth Greatest Male Star of All Time. In his latter years he came to be known as much for his bizarre behavior as for his acting.

Early life

Marlon Brando was the youngest of three children born to Marlon Brando Sr. (1895-1965) and Dorothy Pennebaker Brando (1897-1954). His elder sisters were Jocelyn Brando (1919) and Frances Brando (1922). Marlon Brando’s childhood was spent in Omaha, Nebraska until 1935 when his parents separated. Dorothy kept all three children and took them to live with her mother in Santa Ana, California. After two years in California, Marlon Sr. and Dorothy reconciled and reunited the family, settling in a small town close to Chicago called Libertyville, Illinois.

Brando’s early life was neither stable nor particularly easy. His mother, though known as a talented and kindhearted person, suffered from the effects of alcoholism. She worked long hours and was often gone from home. Dorothy Brando worked at the local theater and is known for helping Henry Fonda begin his acting career. Brando and his sister, Jocelyn, spent many hours at the theater and their mother encouraged an interest in acting. From a young age he was able to mimic many different people.

His childhood was marked by a rebellious nature and he was expelled from his high school in Liberty. As a result his father sent Brando to the Shattuck Military Academy in Faribault, Minnesota when Brando was 16 years old. Marlon Sr. had attended this same school when he was younger. It was at Shattuck that Marlon flourished in theater. He also began to do well in academics, the rigorous structure proving to be just what he needed. During his final year of high school, 1943, his rebellious attitude again got the better of him. He was put on probation for talking back to an officer and expelled for breaking his probation. The students, who loved Brando, were angered and fought for him to come back. The school finally invited him back for the end of his education, but Brando decided not to finish.

Brando left Illinois and moved to New York City. Both of his sisters were living in New York, and Jocelyn had already performed on Broadway. Brando enrolled at the American Theatre Wing Professional School, New School Dramatic Workshop, and the Actors’ Studio. While at the New School’s Dramatic Workshop, Brando had an experience that would change his life. It was here that he met Stella Adler and studied the methods of the Stanislavski System.

Career

His dedication to method acting landed him a role on Broadway in the 1944 drama I Remember Mama. After much acclaim in the role he followed up by starring in Truckline Café, where he portrayed a disheartened, paraplegic veteran, and although the play was a financial failure, critics voted him “Broadway’s Most Promising Actor.” His next role as Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire gave Brando the break that launched him to stardom. The play opened in 1947 and was directed by the famed Elia Kazan. Brando wanted the part so badly that he drove to Provincetown, Massachusetts to give an audition for Williams himself. Williams would later say that as soon as he opened the door, he knew he had his ideal Stanley.

After the success of this play Hollywood came calling at Brando’s door. They asked him to do a screen test for Warner Brothers Studios, who then offered Brando a contract for six years. Brando was skeptical about a long term contract so he turned it down. The screen test can be seen on the 2006 DVD release of Streetcar as a special feature. In 1950 he won the role of a bitter and crippled war veteran in The Men and prepared by spending a month in bed at a veteran’s hospital.

Brando impressed the cinema-going public the same way he did those who watched him nightly in A Streetcar Named Desire. He won the film role of Stanley Kowalski and worked with director Elia Kazan for the second time. When the film premiered in 1951 Brando received his first nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actor. He went on to receive nominations for his next three roles: Viva Zapata! in 1952, Julius Caesar in 1953, and On the Waterfront in 1954. He finally won on the fourth try while once again working with Kazan. With each new performance Brando gained more respect and his performances were soon hailed as the work of a genius.

In 1953 he also starred in Lee Falk’s play Arms and the Man. It would be the last time he ever acted in a stage play. It was a busy year for Brando as he also appeared as Johnny Strabler in The Wild One. His portrayal of a motorcycle rebel set the standard for rebellious characters and found a large audience in the nation’s teenage population. The movie had a big impact on the sale of motorcycles, leather jackets, and jeans. Elvis Presley was so impressed by the performance that he imitated Brando’s look and character in his rock and roll performances, and also copied the character of Johnny for his character of Vince in the 1957 film Jailhouse Rock.

Throughout the 1950s Brando continued to take on roles that enabled him to challenge himself in many areas. In Guys and Dolls he took on a singing role. In The Teahouse of the August Moon he played a Japanese interpreter named Sakini in postwar Japan. Then he played an Air Force officer in Sayonara and won his sixth Oscar nomination. To finish off the 1950s, Brando played a Nazi officer in The Young Lions.

In the 1960s Brando starred in films such as One-Eyed Jacks (1961), a western that would be the only film Brando would ever direct; Mutiny on the Bounty (1962); Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), portraying a repressed gay army officer; and Burn! (1969), which Brando would later claim as his personal favorite, although it was a commercial failure. By the end of the decade his career was in decline as his reputation as a difficult star and his long string of commercial failures took a toll on his box-office appeal.

The Godfather

By 1972 Brando had a string of 11 straight commercial film failures. That string was broken with his performance as Vito Corleone in The Godfather. It was director Francis Ford Coppola who convinced Brando to submit to a “make-up” test for a role in his film. Brando submitted to a makeup test, but it was makeup he applied to himself. His makeup would include cotton balls to puff his cheeks out. Coppola was mesmerized by the performance and begged the studio to allow the casting of Brando as the head of the famous crime family. The role resulted in his second Academy Award for Best Actor.

He would end up using the occasion of receiving his second Oscar to protest the poor treatment of Native Americans in film and television. He boycotted the ceremony and he sent actress Sacheen Littlefeather to refuse the award on his behalf. (Later she was revealed to be an actress named Maria Cruz, a former winner of the 1970 Miss American Vampire competition.)

Despite his protest, Brando’s performance in Last Tango in Paris (1972), directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, was also nominated for best actor.

Superman

As Brando’s career declined his demands to appear and his bizarre behavior made more headlines than his portrayals. He demanded a large sum of money for a very small part as Jor-El in the first Superman movie in 1978. His conditions included not reading the script beforehand or auditioning for anyone and his lines had to be written down and displayed on cards off screen.

Brando filmed scenes for Superman II, but when the studio refused to pay him what he asked, he refused permission to use the footage in the film. Thus the world had to wait until Brando’s death to see the film as intended by Richard Donner in the 2006 re-cut, Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut. That same footage was also used in the newer version made in 2006 Superman Returns. In addition to the footage used, Brando’s recorded voice-overs were used throughout the film.

Final roles

In 1979 he demanded and received one million dollars a week to play Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. He was supposed to show up slim, fit, and to have read the book Heart of Darkness. He showed up weighing around 220 pounds and hadn’t read the book.

Despite announcing his retirement from acting in 1980, he decided to play supporting roles A Dry White Season (for which he was again nominated for an Oscar in 1989), The Freshman in 1990 and Don Juan DeMarco in 1995 (during which time he met and befriended Johnny Depp). In his final film, The Score (2001), he starred with Robert De Niro.

Activism

Outside the studios Brando was an activist who participated in the African-American Civil Rights Movement, and the effort to acknowledge Native American rights.

In the early 1960s Brando contributed thousands of dollars to both the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and to a scholarship fund established for the children of slain Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers. By this time, Brando was already involved in films that carried messages about human rights: “Sayonara,” which addressed interracial romance, and the “The Ugly American“, depicting the conduct of American officials abroad and its deleterious effect on the citizens of foreign countries.

Shortly after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s death in 1968, Brando announced that he was bowing out of the lead role of a major film (The Arrangement) in order to devote himself to the civil rights movement. He participated in many marches and boycotts.

Brando also participated in “Free Huey” protests after Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton was tried in 1968 for allegedly killing an Oakland, California policeman.

Personal Life

Marriages

In 1957 Brando married his first wife, actress Anna Kashfi. Brando thought she was of Asian Indian descent, and Anna, knowing that Brando had a reputation for liking exotic women, kept up the charade. In truth, she was an Irish Roman Catholic from Wales named Joan O’Callaghan. The marriage ended in 1959 with the couple having one son, Christian Brando.

In 1960, Brando married another actress, Movita Castaneda, who was seven years older than Brando. They had two children.

In 1962 while filming Mutiny on the Bounty Brando met the Tahitian beauty Tarita Teriipia, who played his love interest in the film. She was 18 years younger than him and became his third wife. He had two children with her.

Brando also had three children with his maid Christina Maria Ruiz who lived with him in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Brando also adopted three children.

Family tragedies

In 1990 Brando’s son Christian was arrested for the murder of his sister’s boyfriend, Dag Drollet. He pleaded guilty and received a ten year sentence. The sister he defended, Cheyenne, committed suicide in 1995.

After the deaths of family and friends he fell into depression and became quite obese. He spent the last decade of his life the object of media curiosity.

Final years and death

On July 1, 2004, at 6:30 p.m. local time, Brando died at the age of 80. He died at the UCLA Medical Center of respiratory failure brought on by pulmonary fibrosis. Brando had also been diagnosed with liver cancer, as well as simultaneously suffering from congestive heart failure. In 2006, it was known that Brando had suffered from dementia in the final years of his life.

Brando was cremated and his ashes were scattered in two places. Part of his ashes were scattered in Tahiti and part of his ashes were scattered in Death Valley.

Mark David Chapman

Mark David Chapman (born May 10, 1955) is an American prison inmate who pled guilty to murdering John Lennon on December 8, 1980. Chapman shot Lennon outside The Dakota apartment building in New York City. Chapman fired at Lennon five times, hitting him four times in his back. Chapman remained at the scene reading J. D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye until the police arrived and arrested him. Chapman repeatedly said that the novel was his statement.
Chapman’s legal team put forward an insanity defense based on expert testimony that he was in a delusional and possibly psychotic state at the time, but nearing the trial, Chapman instructed his lawyer that he wanted to plead guilty, based on what he had decided was the will of God. Judge Edwards allowed the plea change without further psychiatric assessment after Chapman denied hearing voices, and sentenced him to a prison term of twenty years to life with a stipulation that mental health treatment be provided. Chapman was imprisoned in 1981 and has been denied parole eight times amidst campaigns against his release.
Personal background
Chapman was born in Fort Worth, Texas. His father, David Curtis Chapman, was a staff sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, and his mother, Diane Elizabeth (née Pease), was a nurse. His younger sister, Susan, was born seven years later. Chapman stated that as a boy, he lived in fear of his father, who he said was physically abusive towards his mother and unloving towards him. Chapman began to fantasize about having king-like power over a group of imaginary “little people” who lived in the walls of his bedroom. Chapman attended Columbia High School in Decatur, Georgia. By the time he was fourteen, Chapman was using drugs, skipping classes, and he once ran away from home to live on the streets of Atlanta for two weeks. He said that he was bullied at school because he was not a good athlete.
In 1971, Chapman became a born again Presbyterian and distributed Biblical tracts. He met his first girlfriend, another Christian named Jessica Blankenship. He began work as a YMCA summer camp counselor; he was very popular with the children, who nicknamed him “Nemo”. He won an award for Outstanding Counselor and was made assistant director. Those who knew him in the caretaking professions unanimously called him an outstanding worker. A friend recommended The Catcher in the Rye to Chapman, and the story eventually took on great personal significance for him, to the extent that he reportedly wished to model his life after its protagonist, Holden Caulfield.[5] After graduating from Columbia High School, Chapman moved for a time to Chicago and played guitar in churches and Christian nightspots while his friend did impersonations. He worked successfully for World Vision with Vietnamese refugees at a resettlement camp at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas, after a brief visit to Lebanon for the same work. He was named an area coordinator and a key aide to the program director, David Moore, who later said that Chapman cared deeply for the children and worked hard. Chapman accompanied Moore to meetings with government officials, and President Gerald Ford shook his hand.
Chapman joined his girlfriend, Jessica Blankenship, as a student at Covenant College, an evangelical Presbyterian liberal arts college in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. However, Chapman fell behind in his studies and became obsessed with guilt over having an affair. He started having suicidal thoughts and began to feel like a failure. He dropped out of Covenant College, and his girlfriend broke off their relationship soon after. He returned to work at the resettlement camp, but left after an argument. Chapman worked as a security guard, eventually taking a week-long course to qualify as an armed guard. He again attempted college but dropped out. He went to Hawaii and then began contemplating suicide. In 1977, Chapman attempted suicide by carbon monoxide asphyxiation. He connected a hose to his car’s exhaust pipe, but the hose melted and the attempt failed. A psychiatrist admitted him to Castle Memorial Hospital for clinical depression. Upon his release, he began working at the hospital. His parents began divorce proceedings, and his mother joined Chapman in Hawaii.
In 1978, Chapman went on a six-week trip around the world, inspired partly by the film Around the World in Eighty Days, visiting Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Delhi, Beirut, Geneva, London, Paris and Dublin. He began a relationship with his travel agent, a Japanese-American woman named Gloria Abe. They married on June 2, 1979. Chapman went to work at Castle Memorial Hospital as a printer, working alone rather than with staff and patients. He was fired by the Castle Memorial Hospital, rehired, then got into a shouting match with a nurse and quit. He took a job as a night security guard and began drinking heavily. Chapman developed a series of obsessions, including artwork, The Catcher in the Rye, music, and John Lennon. He also started talking with the imaginary ‘little people’ again. In September 1980, he wrote a letter to a friend, Lynda Irish, in which he stated, “I’m going nuts.” He signed the letter, “The Catcher in the Rye”. Chapman had no criminal convictions up to this point.
Plan to murder John Lennon
Three months prior to the murder Chapman allegedly started planning to kill Lennon.
He had been a big Beatles fan, idolizing Lennon, and played guitar himself, but turned on him after becoming born-again; he was angered at Lennon’s comment that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus.” In the South there were demonstrations, album burnings, boycotts, and projectiles were thrown. Some members of Chapman’s prayer group at Columbia High had sung a twisted version of Imagine referring to Lennon being dead. Chapman’s childhood friend Miles McManushe recalls him referring to the song as “communist”. Jan Reeves, sister of one of Chapman’s best friends, reports that Chapman “seemed really angry toward John Lennon, and he kept saying he could not understand why John Lennon had said it [that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus]. According to Mark, there should be nobody more popular than the Lord Jesus Christ. He said it was blasphemy.”
Chapman had later also been influenced by reading in a library book (John Lennon: One Day at a Time by Anthony Fawcett) about Lennon’s life in New York. According to his wife Gloria, “He was angry that Lennon would preach love and peace but yet have millions [of dollars].” Chapman later said that “He told us to imagine no possessions, and there he was, with millions of dollars and yachts and farms and country estates, laughing at people like me who had believed the lies and bought the records and built a big part of their lives around his music.”
He said that he chose Lennon after seeing him on the cover of The Beatles’ album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. He also recalls having listened to Lennon’s John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album in the weeks before the murder and has stated: “I would listen to this music and I would get angry at him, for saying that he didn’t believe in God… and that he didn’t believe in the Beatles. This was another thing that angered me, even though this record had been done at least 10 years previously. I just wanted to scream out loud, ‘Who does he think he is, saying these things about God and heaven and the Beatles?’ Saying that he doesn’t believe in Jesus and things like that. At that point, my mind was going through a total blackness of anger and rage. So I brought the Lennon book home, into this The Catcher in the Rye milieu where my mindset is Holden Caulfield and anti-phoniness.”
Chapman also said that he had a further list of people in mind, including Johnny Carson, Marlon Brando, Walter Cronkite, Elizabeth Taylor, George C. Scott, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, but that John Lennon seemed to be the easiest to find. He separately said that he was particularly infatuated by Lennon. He also considered committing suicide by jumping from the Statue of Liberty. Chapman’s planning has been described as ‘muddled’. Chapman went to New York in October 1980, intending to kill Lennon. He left for a short while in order to obtain ammunition from his unwitting friend in Atlanta, Dana Reeves, and returned to New York in November.
After being inspired by the film Ordinary People, Chapman returned to Hawaii, telling his wife he had been obsessed with killing Lennon. He showed her the gun and bullets, but she did not inform the police or mental health services. He made an appointment to see a clinical psychologist, but before it occurred he flew back to New York, on December 6, 1980. Chapman says that the message “Thou Shalt Not Kill” flashed on the TV at him, and was also on a wall hanging put up by his wife in their apartment; on the night before the murder, Chapman and his wife discussed on the phone about getting help with his problems by first working on his relationship with God.
On December 7, 1980, the day before the killing, Chapman accosted singer-songwriter James Taylor at the 72nd Street subway station. According to Taylor, “The guy had sort of pinned me to the wall and was glistening with maniacal sweat and talking some freak speak about what he was going to do and his stuff with how John was interested, and he was going to get in touch with John Lennon.” He also reportedly offered cocaine to a taxi driver.
Murder of John Lennon
On December 8, 1980, Chapman left his room at the Sheraton Hotel, leaving personal items behind which the police would later find, and bought a copy of The Catcher in the Rye in which he wrote “This is my statement”, signing it “Holden Caulfield”. He then spent most of the day near the entrance to The Dakota apartment building where Lennon and Yoko Ono lived, talking to fans and the doorman. Early in the morning, a distracted Chapman missed seeing Lennon step out of a cab and enter the Dakota. Later in the morning, Chapman met Lennon’s housekeeper who was returning from a walk with their five-year-old son Sean. Chapman reached in front of the housekeeper to shake Sean’s hand and said that he was a beautiful boy, quoting Lennon’s song “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)”.
Around 5:00 p.m., Lennon and Ono left The Dakota for a recording session at Record Plant Studios. As they walked toward their limousine, Chapman shook hands with Lennon and asked for him to sign a copy of his album, Double Fantasy. Photographer Paul Goresh took a photo of Lennon signing Chapman’s album. Chapman reported that, “At that point my big part won and I wanted to go back to my hotel, but I couldn’t. I waited until he came back. He knew where the ducks went in winter, and I needed to know this” (a reference to The Catcher in the Rye).
Around 10:49 p.m., the Lennons’ limousine returned to the Dakota. Lennon and Ono got out, passed Chapman and walked toward the archway entrance of the building. From the street behind them, Chapman fired five shots from a .38 special revolver, four of which hit Lennon in the back and left shoulder. The death certificate gives the following description: “Multiple gunshot wounds of left shoulder and chest; Left lung and left subclavian artery; External and internal hemorrhage. Shock.”
At the time, one newspaper reported that, before firing, Chapman softly called out “Mr. Lennon” and dropped into a crouched position. Chapman said that he does not recall saying anything and that Lennon did not turn around.
Chapman remained at the scene, appearing to be reading The Catcher in the Rye, until the police arrived. The New York City Police Department officers who first responded, recognizing that Lennon’s wounds were severe, decided to transport him to Roosevelt Hospital. Chapman was arrested without incident. In his statement to police three hours later, Chapman stated, “I’m sure the big part of me is Holden Caulfield, who is the main person in the book. The small part of me must be the Devil.” Lennon was pronounced dead by Dr. Stephan Lynn at 11:07 p.m. at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center.
Legal process
Chapman was charged with second degree murder. Gloria Chapman, who had known of Chapman’s preparations for killing Lennon, hired an attorney who stated at a press conference: “Gloria did not do anything or participate in any way in this trip in a knowing way or in a way in which she did consciously in any way lend any support to Mark’s actions”.
Mental state assessment
More than a dozen psychologists and psychiatrists studied Chapman in the six months to the scheduled trial – three for the prosecution, six for the defense and several more on behalf of the court – involving batteries of tests and over 200 hours of clinical interviews. None concluded that he was feigning or malingering. In fact Chapman cooperated more with the prosecution experts than the defense. The court experts who examined Chapman at Bellevue Hospital concluded that he was delusional yet competent to stand trial. However their report stated that he “may continue to have psychotic episodes” and warned of “fluctuations of mood and…cooperation” with his legal counsel.
The six defense experts declared that Chapman was psychotic (five making a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia and one of psychotic manic depression) while the three prosecution experts declared that his delusions fell short of psychosis and instead diagnosed various personality disorders.
Chapman was also seen by religious officials. Initially by Rev. Charles McGowan, pastor of Chapman’s old church Chapel Woods Presbyterian, which resulted in Chapman renewing his belief in God and Satan. However they fell out when McGowan released personal details to the media, and for the time being Chapman returned to emphasizing The Catcher in the Rye and wanting a trial to publicize it further.
Plea
Lawyer Herbert Adlerberg was assigned to represent Chapman but, amid threats of lynching, withdrew. Police feared that Lennon fans might storm the hospital so they transferred Chapman to Rikers Island.
In January 1981, at the initial hearing, Chapman’s new lawyer, Jonathan Marks, entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. In February, Chapman sent a handwritten statement to The New York Times urging everyone to read The Catcher in the Rye, calling it an “extraordinary book that holds many answers.” The defense team sought to establish witnesses as to Chapman’s mental state at the time of the killing. It was reported they were confident he would be found not guilty by reason of insanity, in which case he would have been committed to a state mental hospital and received treatment.
However, in June, Chapman told Marks he wanted to drop the insanity defense and plead guilty. Marks objected with “serious questions” over Chapman’s sanity, and legally challenged his competence to make this decision. In the pursuant hearing on June 22, Chapman said that God had told him to plead guilty and that he would not change his plea or ever appeal, regardless of his sentence. Marks told the court that he opposed Chapman’s change of plea but that Chapman would not listen to him. Judge Dennis Edwards refused a further assessment, saying that Chapman had made the decision of his own free will, and declared him competent to plead guilty.
Sentencing
On August 24, 1981 the sentencing hearing took place. Two experts gave evidence on Chapman’s behalf. Judge Edwards interrupted Dorothy Otnow Lewis, a research psychiatrist then relatively inexperienced in the courtroom, indicating that the purpose of the hearing was to determine the sentence and that there was no question of Chapman’s criminal responsibility. Lewis has maintained that Chapman’s decision to change his plea did not appear reasonable or explicable, and she implies the judge did not want to allow an independent competency assessment. The district attorney argued that Chapman committed the murder as an easy route to fame. When Chapman was asked if he had anything to say, he rose and read the passage from The Catcher in the Rye, when Holden tells his little sister, Phoebe, what he wants to do with his life:
Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around – nobody big, I mean – except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.
The judge ordered psychiatric treatment in prison and sentenced Chapman to 20-years-to-life, 5 years less than the maximum sentence of 25-years-to-life. Chapman was given five years less than the maximum because he pled guilty to second degree murder, thereby avoiding the time and expense of a trial.
Imprisonment
In 1981, Chapman was imprisoned at Attica, outside of Buffalo, New York. After Chapman fasted for 26 days in February 1982, the New York State Supreme Court authorized the state to force feed him. Martin Von Holden, the director of the Central New York Psychiatric Center, said that Chapman still refused to eat with other inmates but agreed to take liquid nutrients. Chapman was confined to a Special Handling Unit (SHU) for violent and at-risk prisoners, in part due to concern that he might be harmed by Lennon’s fans in the general population. There were 105 prisoners in the building who were “not considered a threat to him,” according to the New York State Department of Correctional Services. He had his own prison cell, but spent “most of his day outside his cell working on housekeeping and in the library.”
Chapman worked in the prison as a legal clerk and kitchen helper. He was barred from participating in the Cephas Attica workshops, a charitable organization which helps inmates to adjust to life outside prison. He was also prohibited from attending the prison’s violence and anger management classes due to concern for his safety. Chapman reportedly likes to read and write short stories. In his parole board hearing in 2004 he described his plans; “I would immediately try to find a job, and I really want to go from place to place, at least in the state, church to church, and tell people what happened to me and point them the way to Christ.” He also said that he thought that there was a possibility he could find work as a farmhand or return to his previous trade as a printer. The Daily Mirror reported he wanted to set up a church with his wife.
Chapman is in the Family Reunion Program, and is allowed one conjugal visit a year with his wife, since he accepted solitary confinement. The program allows him to spend up to 42 hours alone with his wife in a specially built prison home. He also gets occasional visits from his sister, clergy, and a few friends. In 2004, James Flateau, a spokesman for the state’s Department of Correctional Services, said that Chapman had been involved in three “minor incidents” between 1989 and 1994 for delaying an inmate count and refusing to follow an order. Chapman was transferred to the Wende Correctional Facility in Alden, New York, which is east of Buffalo, on May 15, 2012.
Parole applications and campaigns
As a result of his 20-year sentence, Chapman first became eligible for parole in 2000; he is entitled to a hearing every two years. Since that time, Chapman has been denied parole eight times by a three-member board. Before Chapman’s first hearing, Yoko Ono sent a letter to the board resisting his release. In addition, State Senator Michael Nozzolio, chairman of the Senate Crime Victims, Crime and Correction Committee, wrote to Parole Board Chairman Brion Travis saying, “It is the responsibility of the New York State Parole Board to ensure that public safety is protected from the release of dangerous criminals like Chapman.”
At the 50-minute hearing in 2000, Chapman said that he was not a danger to society. The parole board concluded that releasing Chapman would “deprecate the seriousness of the crime and serve to undermine respect for the law” and that Chapman’s granting of media interviews represented a continued interest in “maintaining your notoriety.” They noted that although Chapman had a good disciplinary record while in prison, he had been in the SHU and didn’t access “anti-violence and/or anti-aggression programming.” Robert Gangi, a lawyer for the Correctional Association of New York, said that he thought it unlikely Chapman would ever be freed because the board would not risk the “political heat” of releasing Lennon’s killer. In 2002, the parole board stated again that releasing Chapman after 22 years in prison would “deprecate the seriousness” of the crime, and that while his behavioral record continued to be positive, it was no predictor of his potential community behavior. The parole board held a third hearing in 2004, and declined parole yet again. One of the reasons given by the board was having subjected Ono to “monumental suffering by her witnessing the crime.” Another factor was concern for Chapman’s safety; several Lennon fans had threatened to kill him if he were released. Ono’s letter opposing his release stated that Chapman would not be safe outside of prison. The board reported that its decision was based on the interview, a review of records and deliberation. Around 6,000 people had signed an online petition against Chapman’s release by this time.
In October 2006, the parole board held a 16-minute hearing and concluded that his release would not be in the best interest of the community or his own personal safety. On December 8, 2006, the 26th anniversary of Lennon’s death, Yoko Ono published a one-page advertisement in several newspapers saying that December 8 should be a “day of forgiveness,” and that she was not yet sure if she was ready to forgive Chapman. Chapman’s fifth hearing was on August 12, 2008. He was denied parole “due to concern for the public safety and welfare.” On July 27, 2010, in advance of Chapman’s scheduled sixth parole hearing, Ono said that she would again oppose parole for Chapman stating that her safety, that of John’s sons, and Chapman’s would be at risk. She added, “I am afraid it will bring back the nightmare, the chaos and confusion [of that night] once again.” On August 11, 2010, the parole board postponed the hearing until September, stating that it was awaiting the receipt of additional information to complete Chapman’s record. On September 7, the board denied Chapman’s latest parole application, with the panel stating “release remains inappropriate at this time and incompatible with the welfare of the community.”
It was announced on August 18, 2012, that Chapman would have his seventh parole hearing the week beginning August 20. However, Chapman was denied parole by a three-member board who stated, “Despite your positive efforts while incarcerated, your release at this time would greatly undermine respect for the law and tend to trivialize the tragic loss of life which you caused as a result of this heinous, unprovoked, violent, cold and calculated crime.” Chapman’s eighth parole application was denied on August 22, 2014. Chapman’s next scheduled parole hearing will be in August 2016.
Impact
Following the murder, and for the first six years in Attica, Chapman refused all requests for interviews. James R. Gaines interviewed him and wrote a three-part, 18,000-word People magazine series in February and March 1987. Chapman told the parole board he regretted the interview. Chapman later gave a series of audio-taped interviews to Jack Jones of the Democrat and Chronicle. In 1992 Jones published a book, Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman, the Man Who Killed John Lennon.
Also in 1992, Chapman gave two television interviews. On December 4, 1992, 20/20 aired an interview that he gave to Barbara Walters, his first television interview since the shooting. On December 17, 1992, Larry King interviewed Chapman on his program Larry King Live. In 2000, with his first parole hearing approaching, Jack Jones asked Chapman to tell his story for Mugshots, a CourtTV program. Chapman refused to go on camera but, after praying over it, consented to tell his story in a series of audiotapes.
Chapman’s experiences during the weekend on which he committed the murder have been turned into a feature-length movie called Chapter 27, in which he was played by Jared Leto. The film was written and directed by Jarrett Schaefer and is based on the Jones book. The film’s title is a reference to The Catcher in the Rye, which has 26 chapters. Chapter 27 premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2007 and received polarized reactions from critics. The film had a limited release in theaters in the United States in March 2008. Chapter 27 was released widely onto DVD on September 30, 2008. Another film was made before the feature film entitled The Killing of John Lennon starring Jonas Ball as Chapman, which documents Chapman’s life before and up to the murder and portrays Chapman in a somewhat sympathetic light. The film features Ball as Chapman narrating the film and states that all the words are Chapman’s own.
A number of conspiracy theories have been published, based on CIA and FBI surveillance of Lennon due to his left-wing activism, and on the actions of Mark Chapman in the murder or subsequent legal proceedings. Journalist Fenton Bresler raised the idea in a book published in 1990. Liverpool playwright Ian Carroll, who has staged a drama conveying the theory that Chapman was manipulated by a rogue wing of the CIA, suggests Chapman wasn’t so crazy that he couldn’t manage a long trip from Hawaii to New York shortly prior to the murder. Claims include that Chapman was a Manchurian candidate, including speculation on links to the CIA’s Project MKULTRA. At least one author has argued that forensic evidence proves Chapman did not commit the murder, while others have criticized the theories as based on possible or suspected connections and circumstances.
In 1982, Rhino Records released a compilation of Beatles-related novelty and parody songs, called Beatlesongs. It featured a cover caricature of Chapman by William Stout. Following its release, Rhino recalled the record and replaced it with another cover. New York based band Mindless Self Indulgence released a track entitled “Mark David Chapman” on their album If. Irish band The Cranberries recorded a song called “I Just Shot John Lennon,” for their 1996 album To the Faithful Departed. It cites events that took place outside the Dakota on the night of Lennon’s murder. The title of the song comes from Chapman’s own words.
Austin, Texas-based art rock band …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead have also released a song called “Mark David Chapman” from their 1999 album Madonna. Julian Cope’s 1988 album Autogeddon contains a song called “Don’t Call Me Mark Chapman” whose lyrics suggest it is told from the point of view of Lennon’s murderer. Filipino band Rivermaya released a song called “Hangman (I Shot the Walrus)” on their album Atomic Bomb (1997), supposedly written from Mark Chapman’s point of view.
Chapman’s obsession with the central character and message of the The Catcher in the Rye added to controversy about the novel. Some links have been drawn between Chapman’s and the book’s themes of adolescent sensitivity and depression on the one hand, and anti-social and violent thoughts on the other. This connection was made in the play Six Degrees of Separation and its film adaptation by the character played by Will Smith.
Links have sometimes been drawn between Chapman’s actions and those of other killers or attempted killers. John Hinckley, who only months later tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, was also associated with The Catcher in the Rye. More recently, a writer who experienced mental illness in the same city as Jared Loughner has suggested that examples such as Chapman’s show the need to challenge stigma about mental health problems and ensure there are good community mental health services including crisis intervention.

RuPaul

RuPaul Andre Charles (born November 17, 1960), best known mononymously as RuPaul, is an American actor, drag queen, model, author, and recording artist, who first became widely known in the 1990s when he appeared in a wide variety of television programs, films, and musical albums. Previously, he was a fixture on the Atlanta and New York City club scenes. Usually billed as RuPaul Charles, he has played men in a number of roles, and makes public appearances both in and out of drag.

RuPaul is noted among drag queens for his indifference toward the gender-specific pronouns used to address him—both “he” and “she” have been deemed acceptable, as he has said: “You can call me he. You can call me she. You can call me Regis and Kathie Lee; I don’t care! Just as long as you call me.” He hosted a short-running talk show on VH1, and currently hosts the reality television show RuPaul’s Drag Race. RuPaul is also known for his hit song “Supermodel (You Better Work)”.

Biography

1960–92: Early life and career

RuPaul was born in San Diego, California in 1960. His name was given to him by his mother, a Louisiana native. The “Ru” came from roux, an ingredient used in gumbo. RuPaul struggled as a musician and filmmaker in Atlanta, Georgia during the 1980s. He participated in underground cinema, helping create the low-budget film Star Booty, and an album by the same name. In Atlanta, RuPaul often performed at the Celebrity Club (managed by Larry Tee) as a bar dancer or with his band, Wee Wee Pole. RuPaul also performed as a backup singer to Glen Meadmore along with drag queen Vaginal Davis. RuPaul’s first prominent national exposure came in 1989 with an extra role dancing in the video for “Love Shack” by The B-52’s.

In the early 1990s, RuPaul worked the Georgia club scene and was known by his full birth name. Initially participating in genderfuck-style performances, RuPaul performed solo and in collaboration with other bands at several New York nightclubs, most notably the Pyramid Club. He played opposite New York City drag performer, Mona Foote (Nashom Benjamin) in the one act Sci-Fi parody “My Pet Homo” written and directed by Jon Michael Johnson for Cooper Square Productions. He appeared for many years at the annual Wigstock drag festival and appeared in the documentary Wigstock: The Movie. In the 1990s, RuPaul was known in the UK for his appearances on the Channel 4 series Manhattan Cable, a weekly series produced by World of Wonder and presented by American Laurie Pike about New York’s wild and wacky public-access television system.

1993–97: Supermodel of the World, Foxy Lady, and Ho, Ho, Ho

In 1993 RuPaul recorded dance/house albums which included Supermodel of the World. They were released through the rap label Tommy Boy, spawning the dance track hit “Supermodel (You Better Work)”. The music video was an unexpected success on MTV channels, as grunge and gangsta rap were popular at the time. The song peaked at #45 on the Billboard Hot 100. It further charted on the UK Singles Chart, peaking on the top 40 at #39. The song found the most success peaking at number 2 on the U.S. dance music charts (known as the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart). Airplay, heavy rotation of the music video on the MTV network and television appearances on popular programs like The Arsenio Hall Show popularized the song.

His next two singles/videos, “Back to My Roots” and “A Shade Shady (Now Prance)” both went #1 on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart and furthered his campy persona. Between them, “House of Love” was released without a video. It failed to place on any U.S. charts, despite rising to #68 on the UK Singles Chart.

RuPaul caused a controversy at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards when he presented an award with actor Milton Berle, who performed a different type of drag early in his career. The two had conflicts back-stage, and when Berle touched RuPaul’s false breasts, RuPaul ad-libbed the line “So you used to wear gowns, but now you’re wearing diapers”. A surprised Berle replied, “Oh, we’re going to ad lib? I’ll check my brain and we’ll start even”. The press portrayed the exchange as a crack in the “love everyone” message RuPaul presented, and as a young newcomer treating a legend poorly. RuPaul would later describe the situation in his autobiography, describing Berle’s behavior backstage as sexually inappropriate and rude. He did regret the situation, saying: “Of course, what I should have done backstage is told him ‘Get your dirty hands off of me, you motherfucker!’, and then gone out there and been Miss Black America”. That same year would also mark his biggest hit on the UK Singles Chart, a remake of “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” with Elton John, which went to number seven. It was around this time that RuPaul co-hosted the BRIT Awards in London, also with Elton John.

RuPaul was signed to a modeling contract for MAC Cosmetics, making him the first drag queen supermodel. Various billboards featured him in full drag, often with the text “I am the MAC girl”. He also released his autobiography, Lettin’ It All Hang Out. He promoted that book in part with a 1995 guest appearance on ABC’s All My Children, in a storyline that put it on the set of Erica Kane’s talk show “The Cutting Edge”.

The next year he landed a talk show of his own on VH1, called The RuPaul Show, interviewing celebrity guests and musical acts. Diana Ross, Nirvana, Duran Duran, Pat Benatar, Mary J. Blige, Bea Arthur, Dionne Warwick, Cyndi Lauper, Olivia Newton-John, Beenie Man, Pete Burns, Bow Wow Wow, and the Backstreet Boys were notable guests. His co-host was Michelle Visage, with whom he also co-hosted on WKTU radio. On one episode, RuPaul featured guests Chi Chi LaRue and Tom Chase speaking about the gay porn industry.

Later in the year he released his second album, Foxy Lady, this time on the L.A.-based Rhino Records label. Despite his growing celebrity, he failed to chart within the Billboard 200. However, the first single “Snapshot” found success in the dance market and went to number four on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. It also enjoyed limited mainstream success, charting at number 95 on the Billboard Hot 100 (which was his second and only other Hot 100 entry to date). The second single “Little Bit of Love” only charted at number 28 on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. The album featured covers of a 1981 Diana Ross song “Work That Body”, co-written by Paul Jabara and “If You Were a Woman and I Was a Man”, originally recorded by Bonnie Tyler. Because of his strong fan base within the gay community, RuPaul has performed at gay pride events and numerous gay clubs. During this time RuPaul helped launch the return of WKTU radio in New York City and would serve as host (with Michelle Visage) of the morning show until 1998.

In 1997 he released his third album, a Christmas album entitled Ho, Ho, Ho. He has had guest appearances in many films, including both Brady Bunch movies, in which he played Jan’s female guidance counselor. In 1997 RuPaul teamed with Martha Wash to remake the classic disco anthem, “It’s Raining Men”. The song was included on the 1998 compilation CD RuPaul’s Go Go Box Classics, which was a collection of some of his favorite dance songs by other artists; this would be his third and final release through Rhino Records and a major record label. It was during this time that he appeared in Webex TV commercials and magazine ads. In 2002 he recorded with Brigitte Nielsen, credited as Gitta, the Eurodance track “You’re No Lady”.

2004–07: Red Hot, ReWorked, and Starrbooty

In 2004, RuPaul released his fourth album, Red Hot on his own RuCo Inc. Music label. It received some dance radio and club play, but very little press coverage. On his blog, RuPaul discussed how he felt betrayed by the entertainment industry, particularly the gay press. In one incident, it was noted that the magazine Entertainment Weekly refused to review the album, instead asking him to make a comedic contribution to a fashion article. He likened the experience to “a black person being invited to a party, but only if they’ll serve.” Despite his apparent dissatisfaction with the release, Red Hot showed RuPaul returning to the top of the dance charts in the US with the lead off single “Looking Good, Feeling Gorgeous” hitting number two on the dance chart. The second, “WorkOut”, peaked at number five. The third and final single from the album “People Are People” a duet with Tom Trujillo peaked at number 10. The album itself only charted on the Top Electronic Albums chart, where it hit number nine. When asked about this in an interview, RuPaul said, “Well, betrayed might be the wrong word. ‘Betrayed’ alludes to an idea that there was some kind of a promise made to me, and there never was. More so, I was disappointed. I don’t feel like it was a betrayal. Nobody promises anything in show business and you understand that from day one. But, I don’t know what happened. It seemed I couldn’t get press on my album unless I was willing to play into the role that the mainstream press has assigned to gay people, which is as servants of straight ideals.”

On June 13, 2006, RuPaul released ReWorked, his first remix album and fifth album overall. It features reworked versions of songs from his back catalog, as well as new recordings. The only single released from the album is a re-recording of “Supermodel (You Better Work)”, reaching number 21 on the U.S. dance chart. June 20, 2007, saw the release of Starrbooty (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) in the United States. The single “Call Me Starrbooty” was digitally released in 2007. The album contains new tracks from the singer as well as interludes with dialogue from the movie. The film was released on DVD in October 2007.

2008–10: RuPaul’s Drag Race and Champion

In mid-2008, RuPaul began producing RuPaul’s Drag Race, a reality television game show which aired on Logo in February 2009. The premise of the program has several drag queens compete to be selected by RuPaul and a panel of judges as “America’s next drag superstar”. The first season’s winner was BeBe Zahara Benet, and first runner-up Nina Flowers was chosen by fans as “Miss Congeniality” through voting via the show’s official website. In publicity preparation for the new show, RuPaul made appearances as a guest on several other shows in 2008 including as a guest judge on episode 6 of season 5 of Project Runway and as a guest “chef” on Paula’s Party.

In March 2009, RuPaul released the album Champion. The album peaked at number 12 on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums as well as number 26 on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart. It features the dance singles “Cover Girl” and “Jealous of My Boogie”, both anthems from the reality show RuPaul’s Drag Race. Logo’s second annual NewNowNext Awards in 2009 were hosted by RuPaul. There he performed “Jealous of My Boogie (Gomi & RasJek Edit)”. In March 2010, RuPaul released his second remix album, Drag Race. The album features remixes of songs from the 2009 album Champion.

2011–13: Glamazon, make-up and perfume line

In April 2011, coinciding with the finale of season 3 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, RuPaul released his fifth studio album Glamazon, produced by Revolucian, who previously worked with RuPaul on his album Champion. The album charted on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart and the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart at #11 and #8 respectively. In July 2011, RuPaul released another remix EP entitled SuperGlam DQ, which features remixes of tracks from Glamazon, remixes of the “Drag U Theme Song”, and a new song, “Sexy Drag Queen”. Starting in June 2011, the second season of RuPaul’s Drag U aired. In late 2011, promotions for season 4 of Drag Race began. RuPaul made appearances on The Rosie Show and The Chew, and also attended a Drag Race NY Premiere party at Patricia Field’s store in New York. Season 4 of RuPaul’s Drag Race premiered on Logo on January 30, 2012, with RuPaul returning as the main host and judge. After season 4 ended, TV.com declared that it was the best reality TV show on television.

In the fall of 2012, the spin-off RuPaul’s All Stars Drag Race premiered after a large fan demand. The show featured past contestants of the previous four seasons to compete. Season 5 of RuPaul’s Drag Race premiered on January 28, 2013, with a 90-minute special and RuPaul returning as the main host and judge. On April 30, 2013, RuPaul released a single “Lick It Lollipop” featuring Lady Bunny, who RuPaul previously collaborated with on Champion. On October 25, 2013 RuPaul reported via Twitter that the new album will be released in January 2014.

In fall of 2013, RuPaul joined forces with cosmetic manufacturers Colorevolution to launch his debut make-up line featuring ultra-rich pigment cosmetics and a beauty collection. Released alongside the line was a unisex perfume entitled “Glamazon”. Talking to World of Wonder, RuPaul said: “Glamazon is for women and men of all ages and preferences who share one thing in common: They are not afraid to be fierce. For me, glamour should be accessible to all, and I am committed to helping the world look and smell more beautiful.” The line was exclusively sold on the Colorevolution website in various gift sets.

2014: Born Naked and What’s The Tee?

RuPaul and Revolucian had both confirmed through their Twitter and Instagram accounts that they had been working on an upcoming sixth studio album. Born Naked was released on February 24, 2014 to coincide with the premiere of the 6th season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Prior to the premiere, an album of RuPaul cover songs performed by the Season 6 cast was released on January 28, 2014. The covers album is titled RuPaul Presents The CoverGurlz and contains RuPaul songs from 2009–2013. To further promote the Drag Race season premiere, RuPaul, representing Logo TV (and parent company Viacom) was chosen to ring the NASDAQ closing bell on February 24, 2014. The week of its release, Born Naked reached number one on the iTunes dance album chart. The following week it placed at number 4 on the US Billboard dance chart and number 85 on the Billboard 200 chart. In a profile by The New York Times it was revealed that RuPaul is currently working on a porcelain statuette of his likeness. On April 9, 2014 RuPaul and Michelle Visage released the first episode of their podcast, RuPaul: What’s the Tee? with Michelle Visage.

 

Buffy Sainte-Marie

Buffy Sainte-Marie, (born February 20, 1941) is a Canadian-American Cree singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. Throughout her career in all of these areas, her work has focused on issues of Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Her singing and writing repertoire also includes subjects of love, war, religion, and mysticism.
She founded the Cradleboard Teaching Project, an educational curriculum devoted to better understanding Native Americans. She has won recognition and many awards and honours for both her music and her work in education and social activism.
Personal life
She was born Beverly Sainte-Marie in 1941 on the Piapot Cree First Nations Reserve in the Qu’Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan, Canada. She was orphaned and later adopted, growing up in Wakefield, Massachusetts with parents Albert and Winifred Sainte-Marie, who were related to her biological parents. She attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, earning degrees (BA 1963 and PhD 1983) in teaching and Oriental philosophy. and graduating in the top ten of her class.
In 1964 on a return trip to the Piapot Cree reserve in Canada for a Powwow she was welcomed and (in a Cree Nation context) adopted by the youngest son of Chief Piapot, Imu Piapot and his wife, who added to Sainte-Marie’s cultural value of, and place in, native culture.
In 1968 she married surfing teacher Dewain Bugbee of Hawaii; they divorced in 1971. She married Sheldon Wolfchild from Minnesota in 1975; they have a son, Dakota “Cody” Starblanket Wolfchild. That union also ended and she married, thirdly, to Jack Nitzsche in the early 1980s, but her current partner is Chuck Wilson (since 1993). She currently lives on Kauai.
She became an active friend of the Bahá’í Faith by the mid-1970s when she is said to have appeared in the 1973 Third National Baha’i Youth Conference at the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and has continued to appear at concerts, conferences and conventions of that religion since then. In 1992, she appeared in the musical event prelude to the Bahá’í World Congress, a double concert “Live Unity: The Sound of the World” in 1992 with video broadcast and documentary. In the video documentary of the event Sainte-Marie is seen on the Dini Petty Show explaining the Bahá’í teaching of Progressive revelation. She also appears in the 1985 video “Mona With The Children” by Douglas John Cameron.
Career
Sainte-Marie played piano and guitar, self-taught, in her childhood and teen years. In college some of her songs, “Ananias”, the Indian lament, “Now That the Buffalo’s Gone” and “Mayoo Sto Hoon” (in Hindi) were already in her repertoire.
1960s
By 1962, in her early twenties, Sainte-Marie was touring alone, developing her craft and performing in various concert halls, folk music festivals and Native Americans reservations across the United States, Canada and abroad. She spent a considerable amount of time in the coffeehouses of downtown Toronto’s old Yorkville district, and New York City’s Greenwich Village as part of the early to mid-1960s folk scene, often alongside other emerging Canadian contemporaries, such as Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, and Joni Mitchell (she also introduced Joni to Eliot Roberts, who became Joni’s manager).
She quickly earned a reputation as a gifted songwriter, and many of her earliest songs were covered, and often turned into chart-topping hits, by other artists including Chet Atkins, Janis Joplin and Taj Mahal. One of her most popular songs, “Until It’s Time for You to Go”, has been recorded by artists as diverse as Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Michael Nesmith, Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra, Roberta Flack, Françoise Hardy, Cher, Maureen McGovern, and Bobby Darin, while “Piney Wood Hills” was made into a country music hit by Bobby Bare. Her vocal style features a frequently recurring, insistent, unusually sustained vibrato, one more prominent than can be found in the music of any other well-known popular music performer.
In 1963, recovering from a throat infection Sainte-Marie became addicted to codeine and recovering from the experience became the basis of her song “Cod’ine”, later covered by Donovan, Janis Joplin, The Charlatans, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Man, the Litter, The Leaves, Jimmy Gilmer, Gram Parsons, Charles Brutus McClay, The Barracudas (spelt “Codeine”), The Golden Horde, and more recently by Courtney Love. Also in 1963 Sainte-Marie witnessed wounded soldiers returning from Vietnam at a time when the U.S. government was denying involvement – this inspired her protest song “Universal Soldier” which was released on her debut album, It’s My Way on Vanguard Records in 1964, and later became a hit for Donovan. She was subsequently named Billboard Magazine’s Best New Artist. Some of her songs such as “My Country ‘Tis of Thy People You’re Dying” (1964, included on her 1966 album) addressing the mistreatment of Native Americans created a lot of controversy at the time.
In 1967, Sainte-Marie released the album Fire and Fleet and Candlelight, which contained her interpretation of the traditional Yorkshire dialect song “Lyke Wake Dirge”. Sainte-Marie’s other well-known songs include “Mister Can’t You See”, (a Top 40 U.S. hit in 1972); “He’s an Indian Cowboy in the Rodeo”; and the theme song of the popular movie Soldier Blue. Perhaps her first appearance on TV was as herself on To Tell the Truth in January 1966. She also appeared on Pete Seeger’s Rainbow Quest with Pete Seeger in 1965 and several Canadian Television productions from the 1960s through to the 1990s, and other TV shows such as American Bandstand, Soul Train, The Johnny Cash Show and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson; and sang the opening song “The Circle Game” (written by Joni Mitchell) in Stuart Hagmann’s film The Strawberry Statement (1970).
In the late sixties, Sainte-Marie used a Buchla synthesizer to record the album Illuminations, which did not receive much notice. “People were more in love with the Pocahontas-with-a-guitar image,” she commented in a 1998 interview.
1970s
In late 1975, Sainte Marie received a phone call from Dulcy Singer, then Associate Producer of Sesame Street, to appear on the show. According to Sainte-Marie, Singer wanted her to count and recite the alphabet like everyone else, but instead, she wanted to teach the show’s young viewers that “Indians still exist”. Sainte-Marie had been invited earlier that year to appear on another children’s TV show which she would not name, but turned the invitation down since the program ran commercials for G.I. Joe war toys.
Sainte-Marie regularly appeared on Sesame Street over a five-year period from 1976 to 1981, along with her first son, Dakota Starblanket Wolfchild, whom she breast-fed in one episode. Sesame Street even aired a week of shows from her home in Hawaii in December 1977; where Sainte-Marie and her family were joined by Bob (Bob McGrath), Maria (Sonia Manzano), Mr. Hooper (Will Lee), Olivia (Alaina Reed Hall, who was Sainte-Marie’s closest friend from the Sesame Street cast), Big Bird and Oscar (both portrayed by Caroll Spinney).
In 1979 the film Spirit of the Wind, featuring Sainte-Marie’s original musical score including the song “Spirit of the Wind”, was one of three entries that year at Cannes, along with The China Syndrome and Norma Rae. The film is a docudrama of George Attla, the ‘winningest dog musher of all time,’ as the film presents him, with all parts played by Native Americans except one by Slim Pickens. The film was shown on cable TV in the early 1980s and was released in France in 2003. Sainte-Marie’s musical score has been described as ‘inspiring’, ‘haunting’, and ‘perfection’.
1980s
Sainte-Marie began using Apple Inc. Apple II and Macintosh computers as early as 1981 to record her music and later some of her visual art. The song “Up Where We Belong” (which Sainte-Marie co-wrote with Will Jennings and musician Jack Nitzsche) was performed by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes for the film An Officer and a Gentleman. It received the Academy Award for Best Song in 1982. The song was later covered by Cliff Richard and Anne Murray on Cliff’s album of duets, Two’s Company.
In the early 1980s one of her native songs was used as the theme song for the CBC’s native series Spirit Bay. She was cast for the TNT 1993 telefilm The Broken Chain. It was shot entirely in Virginia. In 1989 she wrote and performed the music for Where the Spirit Lives, a film about native children being abducted and forced into residential schools.
1990s
Sainte-Marie voiced the Cheyenne character, Kate Bighead, in the 1991 made-for-TV movie Son of the Morning Star, telling the Indian side of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where Lt. Col. George Custer was killed.
In 1992, after a sixteen-year recording hiatus, Sainte-Marie released the album Coincidence and Likely Stories. Recorded in 1990 at home in Hawaii on her computer and transmitted via modem through the early Internet to producer Chris Birkett in London, England, the album included the politically charged songs “The Big Ones Get Away” and “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” (which mentions Leonard Peltier), both commenting on the ongoing plight of Native Americans (see also the book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.) Also in 1992, Sainte-Marie appeared in the television film The Broken Chain with Pierce Brosnan along with fellow First Nations Bahá’í Phil Lucas. Her next album followed up in 1996 with Up Where We Belong, an album on which she re-recorded a number of her greatest hits in more unplugged and acoustic versions, including a re-release of “Universal Soldier”. Sainte-Marie has exhibited her art at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Emily Carr Gallery in Vancouver and the American Indian Arts Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
In 1969 she started a philanthropic non-profit fund Nihewan Foundation for American Indian Education devoted to improving Native American students participation in learning. She founded the Cradleboard Teaching Project in October 1996 using funds from her Nihewan Foundation and with a two-year grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek, Michigan. With projects across Mohawk, Cree, Ojibwe, Menominee, Coeur D’Alene, Navajo, Quinault, Hawaiian, and Apache communities in eleven states, partnered with a non-native class of the same grade level for Elementary, Middle, and High School grades in the disciplines of Geography, History, Social Studies, Music and Science and produced a multimedia curriculum CD, Science: Through Native American Eyes.
2000s
In 2000, Sainte-Marie gave the commencement address at Haskell Indian Nations University. In 2002 she sang at the Kennedy Space Center for Commander John Herrington, USN, a Chickasaw and the first Native American astronaut. In 2003 she became a spokesperson for the UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network in Canada.
In 2002, a track written and performed by Sainte-Marie, entitled “Lazarus”, was sampled by Hip Hop producer Kanye West and performed by Cam’Ron and Jim Jones of The Diplomats. The track is called “Dead or Alive”. In June 2007, she made a rare U.S. appearance at the Clearwater Festival in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.
In 2008, a two-CD set titled Buffy/Changing Woman/Sweet America: The Mid-1970s Recordings was released, compiling the three studio albums that she recorded for ABC Records and MCA Records between 1974 and 1976 (after departing her long-time label Vanguard Records). This was the first re-release of this material. In September 2008, Sainte-Marie made a comeback onto the music scene in Canada with the release of her latest studio album Running For The Drum. It was produced by Chris Birkett (producer of her 1992 and 1996 best of albums). Sessions for this latest project commenced in 2006 in Sainte-Marie’s home studio in Hawaii and in part in France. They continued until spring 2007.
Censorship
Sainte-Marie claimed in a 2008 interview at the National Museum of the American Indian that she had been blacklisted and that she, along with Native Americans and other native people in the Red Power movements, were put out of business in the 1970s.
“I found out 10 years later, in the 1980s, that President Lyndon B. Johnson had been writing letters on White House stationery praising radio stations for suppressing my music”, Sainte-Marie said in a 1999 interview at Diné College given to Brenda Norrel, a staff writer with Indian Country Today … “In the 1970s, not only was the protest movement put out of business, but the Native American movement was attacked.” According to Norrel, this article was initially censored by Indian Country Today, and finally published only in part in 2006.
Awards and honors
In 1997, Sainte-Marie won a Gemini Award for her 1996 variety special, Up Where We Belong.
In 1983–4, the song “Up Where We Belong” (music by Jack Nitzsche and Buffy Sainte-Marie; lyrics by Will Jennings) from An Officer and a Gentleman won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a BAFTA Film Award for Best Original Song.
In 2010, she received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award.
Honorary degrees
In 1996 she received an honorary Doctor of Laws Honoris Causa degree from the University of Regina in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. She then gave the convocation address to the administration, education, and engineering graduates. As part of the address, Sainte-Marie sang a song about the Canadian Indian residential school system.
In 2007 she received an honorary Doctor of Letters from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. On 13 June 2008, she received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Carleton University, in Ottawa, Canada, an honorary Doctor of Music from The University of Western Ontario on June 10, 2009, in London, Ontario, and an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the Ontario College of Art & Design on June 4, 2010, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. On May 23, 2012 she received an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia.

 

Anne Murray

Morna Anne Murray (born June 20, 1945), known professionally as Anne Murray, is a Canadian singer in pop, country, and adult contemporary music whose albums have sold over 54 million copies worldwide as of 2012.

Murray was the first Canadian female solo singer to reach No. 1 on the U.S. charts, and also the first to earn a Gold record for one of her signature songs, “Snowbird” (1970). She is often cited as the one who paved the way for other international Canadian success stories such as Alanis Morissette, Nelly Furtado, Céline Dion, Sarah McLachlan, and Shania Twain. She is also the first woman and the first Canadian to win “Album of the Year” at the 1984 Country Music Association Awards for her 1983 album A Little Good News.

Murray has received four Grammys, a record 24 Junos, three American Music Awards, three Country Music Association Awards, and three Canadian Country Music Association Awards. She has been inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame, the Juno Hall of Fame, and The Songwriters Hall of Fame. She is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame Walkway of Stars in Nashville, and has her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles and on Canada’s Walk of Fame in Toronto.

In 2011, Billboard ranked her 10th on their list of the 50 Biggest AC Artists Ever.

Early life

Morna Anne Murray was born in the coal-mining town of Springhill, Nova Scotia. Her father, James Carson Murray, was the town doctor. Her mother, Marion Margaret (née Burke) Murray, was a registered nurse who focused her life on raising her family and community charity work. Murray has five brothers. Murray’s father died in 1980 at the age of 72 from complications from leukemia. Her mother died April 10, 2006, at the age of 92 after suffering a series of strokes during heart surgery.

After expressing an early interest in music, she studied piano for six years. By 15 she was taking voice lessons. Every Saturday morning, she took a bus ride from Springhill to Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, for singing lessons. One of her earliest performances was of the song “Ave Maria” at her high school graduation in 1962. Following high school, Murray attended Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax for one year. She later studied Physical Education at University of New Brunswick in Fredericton. After receiving her degree in 1966 she taught physical education at a high school in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, for one year.

Career

Early years

In 1965, Murray appeared on the University of New Brunswick student project record “The Groove” (500 pressed). She sang two songs on the record – “Unchained Melody” and “Little Bit of Soap”. On the label her name was misspelled “Anne Murry”. While there, she was encouraged to audition for the 1960s CBC musical variety television show Singalong Jubilee, but was not offered a singing position. Two years later she received a call from Singalong Jubilee co-host and associate producer, Bill Langstroth, and was asked to return for a second audition. Following that second audition, Murray was cast for the show.

After a summer of singing in local venues across the Maritimes, Murray began teaching physical education at a high school in Summerside, Prince Edward Island. After one year of teaching, she was offered a spot on the television show Let’s Go, and returned to Singalong Jubilee. As a regular member of the “Singalong Jubilee” cast, Murray appeared on the Singalong Jubilee Vol. III soundtrack and Our Family Album – The Singalong Jubilee Cast records released by Arc Records. The show’s musical director, Brian Ahern, advised Murray that she should move to Toronto and record a solo album. Her first album, What About Me, was produced by Ahern in Toronto and released in 1968 on the Arc label.

Success

Anne Murray’s debut album was on the Canadian Arc label, titled What About Me (Arc AS 782). The lead single, the title cut, was written by Scott McKenzie and was a sizable Canadian radio hit. The project was produced by Brian Ahern, and covered songs by Joni Mitchell, Ken Tobias, and John Denver. After a year-long stint on Arc, Murray switched to Capitol Records in 1969 to record her second album, This Way Is My Way, which was released in the fall of 1969. It featured the single that launched her career, “Snowbird”, which became a No. 1 hit in Canada. “Snowbird” became a surprise hit on the U.S. charts as well, reaching No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970. It was also the first of her eight No. 1 Adult Contemporary hits. “Snowbird” was the first Gold record ever given to a Canadian artist in the United States (RIAA certified Gold on November 16, 1970). As one of the most successful female artists at that time, she became in demand for several television appearances in Canada and the United States, eventually becoming a regular on the hit U.S. TV series The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour.

After the success of “Snowbird”, she had a number of subsequent singles that charted both pop and country simultaneously. During the 1970s and 80s, her hits included Kenny Loggins’s “Danny’s Song” (1972) (peaked at No. 7 on the Hot 100) and “A Love Song” (1973); “He Thinks I Still Care” and her Top 10 cover of The Beatles’ “You Won’t See Me” (1974); her all-time biggest Hot 100 hit “You Needed Me” (1978) — though, the biggest hit of her career (and her personal favorite) peaked at No. 4 country and No. 3 AC; “I Just Fall in Love Again”, “Shadows in the Moonlight”, and “Broken Hearted Me” (1979); her revival of The Monkees’ 1967 No. 1 hit “Daydream Believer” and “Could I Have This Dance” from the Urban Cowboy motion picture soundtrack (1980); “Blessed Are the Believers” (1981); “Another Sleepless Night” (1982); “A Little Good News” (1983); 1984’s “Just Another Woman in Love” and “Nobody Loves Me Like You Do” (a duet with Dave Loggins of 1974’s “Please Come to Boston” fame and cousin of Kenny Loggins); and “Time, Don’t Run Out On Me” (1985).

She performed “O Canada” at the first American League baseball game played in Canada on April 7, 1977, when the Toronto Blue Jays played the Chicago White Sox at Exhibition Stadium. She reprised the Canadian national anthem prior to Game 3 of the 1992 World Series at the SkyDome. Following the last game at Maple Leaf Gardens, she concluded the arena’s closing ceremony by singing “The Maple Leaf Forever” at center ice wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey.

Murray was a celebrity corporate spokeswoman for The Bay, and she also did commercials and sang the company jingle (“You Can Count on the Commerce”) for the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC).

Murray’s last Hot 100 hit was “Now and Forever (You and Me)” from 1986; it also was her last No. 1 on both the American and Canadian country chart. Her last charting single in the U.S. was 1991’s “Everyday”, which appeared in Billboard’s Country Singles chart, and her last charting single in Canada was 2000’s “What a Wonderful World”.

1990s to present

In 1996, Murray signed on with a new manager, Bruce Allen, who also has managed careers for Bryan Adams, Michael Bublé, Martina McBride, and Jann Arden. She recorded her first live album in 1997 and in 1999, she released What a Wonderful World, a platinum inspirational album, which went to No. 1 Contemporary Christian, No. 4 Country and No. 38 pop. She released Country Croonin’ in 2002, the follow-up to her successful 1993 album, Croonin’. In 2004, she released I’ll Be Seeing You in Canada only, which features a collection of songs from the early 20th century through to the mid-1940s. The American version, titled All of Me, features a bonus disc containing many of her hit singles, followed in 2005. The album is dedicated to her friend Cynthia McReynolds who died of cancer.

On December 26, 2004, Murray joined other Canadian music stars in the Canada for Asia Telethon, a three-hour, tsunami relief concert broadcast on CBC Television (January 13, 2005) to support CARE Canada’s efforts. Bryan Adams and Murray closed the show with a duet, “What Would It Take”.

Anne Murray Duets: Friends & Legends was released in November 2007 in Canada and January 2008 in the U.S. The album comprised seventeen tracks that included many of Murray’s biggest hits over her four-decade career, re-recorded as duets with other established, rising, and – in one case – deceased female singers. These artists included Céline Dion, Shania Twain, k.d. lang, Nelly Furtado, Jann Arden, Québec’s Isabelle Boulay, Murray’s daughter Dawn Langstroth, Olivia Newton-John, Emmylou Harris, Martina McBride, Shelby Lynne, Amy Grant, Carole King, the Indigo Girls, Irish sextet Celtic Woman, Dusty Springfield, and Sarah Brightman. The duet with soprano Brightman was of her 1970 hit song, “Snowbird”.

Anne Murray Duets: Friends and Legends was recorded in four cities – Toronto, Nashville, New York and Los Angeles. According to Billboard magazine, the album reached No. 2 on the Canadian pop album charts and was certified Double Platinum in Canada after merely two months, representing sales of over 200,000 units. The album was the second-highest debuting CD on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart for the week ending February 2, 2008. It entered the chart at No. 42, making it her highest-charting U.S. CD release since 1999’s What a Wonderful World, which peaked at No. 38 on the Top 200 and was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Also for the week ending February 2, 2008, the CD debuted at No. 8 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart and at No. 3 on its Top Internet Albums chart. Murray was nominated for the 2008 Juno Award for Album of the Year and Pop Album of the Year.

Murray’s album What a Wonderful World was re-released in July 2008 in North America as a 14-song package. A new Christmas album, titled Anne Murray’s Christmas Album with bonus DVD was released in October 2008. Sony BMG Music also released an Elvis Presley Christmas album, titled Elvis Presley Christmas Duets, on October 14, 2008 featuring a virtual duet of “Silver Bells” with Murray.

On October 10, 2007, Murray announced that she would embark on her final major tour. She toured in February and March 2008 in the U.S., followed by the “Coast-to-Coast – One Last Time” tour in April and May in Canada. Murray’s final public concert was held at the Sony Centre in Toronto on May 23, 2008.

On August 25, 2008 Murray appeared on the popular TV program Canadian Idol as a mentor. On February 12, 2010, Murray was one of the eight Canadians who carried the Olympic flag during the opening ceremonies of the XXI Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver.

Television

Murray has had five highly rated US specials on CBS (over 40 million viewers each) and several Canadian specials on CBC including Anne Murray in Nova Scotia, Intimate Evening with Anne Murray, Anne Murray RSVP, A Special Anne Murray Christmas, Legends & Friends, Greatest Hits II, What A Wonderful World, Ladies Night Show, Anne Murray in Walt Disney World and Anne Murray’s Classic Christmas. Her 2008 television special, Family Christmas, garnered a 43 per cent share on CBC with 4.2 million viewers.

She has appeared on Solid Gold, Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Dean Martin Summer Show, Singalong Jubilee, Dinah!, The Today Show, Dolly!, The Mike Douglas Show, Christmas in Washington, Boston Pops, The Helen Reddy Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, 20/20, CNN, Perry Como’s Christmas in New Mexico, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, Night of a 100 Stars, Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, The Pat Sajak Show, Royal Canadian Air Farce and Good Morning America. Her 2005 CBC special Anne Murray: The Music of My Life broke ratings records for a Thursday night, with more than 7 million Canadian viewers tuned in.

Personal life

In 2009, Murray released her autobiography, All of Me, and embarked on a 15-city book signing tour, starting in Nashville on October 27, 2009 and ending in Ottawa on November 24, 2009. The tour also included a special In Conversation interview with Michael Posner at the International Festival of Authors in Toronto on October 30, 2009.

Marriage and children

Murray married music producer Bill Langstroth in 1975. They have two children – William (born 1976) and Dawn (born 1979), a singer/songwriter and artist who has recorded with her mother a number of times, including the duet “Let There Be Love” in 1999 for Murray’s What a Wonderful World album. Murray and Dawn were featured in a mother-daughter duet of “Nobody Loves Me Like You Do” on Murray’s hit 2008 U.S. CD (released in late 2007 in Canada), Anne Murray Duets: Friends & Legends. Murray and Langstroth separated in 1997 and divorced the following year. Langstroth died in May 2013.

In January 1998, Murray and her daughter Dawn performed at a benefit concert for Sheena’s Place, an eating disorder treatment center in Toronto. Murray and her daughter have spoken publicly about Dawn’s struggle with anorexia nervosa, which developed when Dawn was 10 years old. Dawn has since sought treatment and continues to pursue a career in music.

Philanthropy

Murray has always kept ties with her hometown, Springhill, Nova Scotia, located about an hour south of Moncton, New Brunswick, and two hours north of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Anne Murray Centre, located in Springhill, houses a collection of memorabilia from both her personal life and professional career in a series of displays. The Anne Murray Centre, which opened on July 28, 1989, is a registered Canadian charity. As a non-profit association, all the revenue generated from its operation is used to provide employment for local people and for its ongoing maintenance. The Anne Murray Centre aims to foster tourism in the area and promote awareness of the music of Nova Scotia and Canada.

Murray was involved in the construction of the Dr. Carson and Marion Murray Community Centre in Springhill, Nova Scotia. She served as the honorary chair of the fundraising campaign to replace the town arena that collapsed after a peewee hockey game in 2002. Named for her parents, the Dr. Carson and Marion Murray Community Centre sports an NHL-size ice sheet with seating for 800 people, a walking track, multi-purpose room, community room with seating for up to 300, and a gym. The Dr. Carson and Marion Murray Community Centre has become an integral part of the Springhill community since opening on September 15, 2004.

Murray has also been involved in a variety of charitable organizations. In addition to being the Honorary National Chairperson of the Canadian Save The Children Fund, she has served as a spokeswoman for many charities throughout her career – most recently Colon Cancer Canada. On May 20, 2009, Colon Cancer Canada launched the inaugural Anne Murray Charity Golf Classic. Over $150,000 was raised through the event.

Murray has been a public supporter of Canadian environmentalist and geneticist David Suzuki’s Nature Challenge.

Hobbies

A longtime golf enthusiast, Murray made history in October 2003 at the Turning Stone Resort & Casino in Verona, New York, by becoming the first woman to score a hole-in-one on the 108-yard, par 3, 17th hole at the Kaluhyat Golf Club. On May 11, 2007, Golf For Women magazine named Murray the world’s best female celebrity golfer, noting her 11 handicap.

Discography

Since 1968, Murray has had 32 studio albums (15 of which have gone multi-platinum, platinum, or gold in the U.S.) and 15 compilation albums.

Awards and honours

Anne Murray is the winner of four Grammys (including one in the pop category), three American Music Awards, three CMA Awards, and a record 24 Juno Awards.

Murray was ranked No. 24 in Country Music Television’s 40 Greatest Women of Country Music in 2002.

Murray is a Companion of the Order of Canada, the second highest honor that can be awarded to a Canadian civilian. She was a recipient of the Order of Nova Scotia in its inaugural year.

In 2006, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame chose her and Leonard Cohen as recipients of the Legacy Award for their contributions to and support of the Canadian songwriting industry. Murray was recognized for her support of Canada’s songwriters, through her performances and her recordings.

On June 29, 2007, Canada Post issued the limited edition Anne Murray stamp. She was recognized along with three other Canadian recording artists: Paul Anka, Gordon Lightfoot, and Joni Mitchell.

In popular culture

On February 17, 2013, Family Guy devoted the “Chris Cross” episode to Murray. In the episode, Stewie and Brian become obsessed with Murray’s music. Murray also appears in animated form contributing her voice. She is also named prominently in the song Blame Canada from the movie South Park.

 

Christopher (“Kit”) Marlowe

Christopher (“Kit”) Marlowe (baptized February 26, 1564 – May 30, 1593) was an English dramatist, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe is considered to be the only playwright of the Elizabethan period whose talents were equal to those of William Shakespeare. Were it not for his untimely death at an early age, some speculate that it might be Marlowe—and not Shakespeare—who would have garnered the reputation as the single greatest writer in the English language. Marlowe is known to have pioneered all of the traditions of the Elizabethan stage. Marlowe was the first writer to introduce blank verse (that is, unrhymed iambic pentameter) to the modern English language, and it was by borrowing and imitating the traditions Marlowe introduced that Shakespeare, Milton, and all the other great epic dramatists of England would find their own poetic voices.

As an educated man of ideas closely connected to the court (some have speculated that Marlowe may have been a secret agent of the queen), Marlowe was the most cerebral poet and playwright of his day. His plays can at times seem to be incredibly spare, without any of the exhaustive decorousness we expect from an Elizabethan. In this sense he reads, as Shakespeare, like a strikingly modern writer. Marlowe is not so much interested in the conventions of classical theater as he is in the minds of his characters and the ideas that they confront. In Dr. Faustus, Marlowe’s greatest play, he directly addresses the issue of the rise of science and rational inquiry in an age of superstition; and we see Marlowe, mirrored in the play’s main character: a restless, probing thinker with the acuity of a philosopher and the artistry of one of the greatest poets of his or any era.

Background

Born in Canterbury the son of a shoemaker, he attended The King’s School, Canterbury and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge on a scholarship, receiving his bachelor of arts degree in 1584. In 1587 the university hesitated to award him his master’s degree because of a rumor that he had converted to Catholicism and gone to the English college at Rheims to prepare for the priesthood. However, his degree was awarded on schedule when the Privy Council intervened on his behalf, commending him for his “faithful dealing” and “good service” to the queen. The nature of Marlowe’s service was not specified by the council, but their letter to the Cambridge authorities has provoked much sensational speculation, notably the theory that Marlowe was operating as a secret agent working for Sir Francis Walsingham’s intelligence service. No direct evidence supports this theory, although Marlowe obviously did serve the queen in some capacity.

Literary career

The brief Dido, Queen of Carthage seems to be Marlowe’s first extant dramatic work, possibly written at Cambridge with Thomas Nashe.

Marlowe’s first known play to be performed on the London stage was 1587’s Tamburlaine, a story of the conqueror Timur. The first English play to make effective dramatic use of blank verse, it marks the beginning of the mature phase of Elizabethan Theatre. It was a smashing success, and Tamburlaine Part II soon followed. The sequence of his remaining plays is unknown. All were written on controversial themes. The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, based on the recently published German Faustbuch, was the first dramatic version of the Faust legend of a scholar’s deal with the devil. The Jew of Malta, depicting a Maltese Jew’s barbarous revenge against the city authorities, featured a prologue delivered by Machiavelli himself. Edward the Second was an English history play about the dethronement of Edward II by his dissatisfied barons and his French queen. (The possibility that Elizabeth I might be dethroned by pro-Catholic forces was very real at the time). The Massacre at Paris was a short, sketchy play portraying the events surrounding the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572, an event that English Protestants frequently invoked as the blackest example of Catholic treachery.

His other works include the first book of the minor epic Hero and Leander (published with a continuation by George Chapman in 1598), the popular lyric The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, and translations of Ovid’s Amores and the first book of Lucan’s Pharsalia.

The two parts of Tamburlaine were published in 1590; all his other works were published posthumously. In 1599 his translation of Ovid was banned and copies publicly burned as part of Archbishop Whitgift’s crackdown on offensive material.

Marlowe’s plays were enormously successful, thanks in part, no doubt, to the imposing stage presence of Edward Alleyn. He was unusually tall for the time, and the haughty roles of Tamburlaine, Faustus, and Barabas were probably written especially for him. Marlowe’s plays were the foundation of the repertoire of Alleyn’s company, the Admiral’s Men, throughout the 1590s.

The Marlowe Legend

As with other writers of the period, such as Shakespeare, little is known about Marlowe. Most of the evidence is contained in legal records and other official documents that tell us little about him. This hasn’t stopped writers of both fiction and non-fiction speculating about his activities and character. Marlowe has often been regarded as a spy, a brawler, a heretic, and a homosexual. The evidence for some of these claims is slight. The bare facts of Marlowe’s life have been embellished by many writers into colorful, and often fanciful, narratives of the Elizabethan underworld. Unfortunately, these speculations and flights of fancy are the closest thing we have to a biography of the poet.

Marlowe the Spy

The only evidence that Marlowe worked for the government is the letter of the Privy Council mentioned above. The nature of this work is unknown. In an obscure incident in the Netherlands in 1592, Marlowe was apprehended at Flushing, then an English possession, after being accused of involvement in counterfeiting money. Marlowe confessed, but was not punished on his return to England. This has suggested to some that he was working for the secret service again, but it could be that the authorities accepted the story he told the governor of Flushing—that he had only wanted “to see the goldsmith’s cunning.”

Marlowe the Brawler

Although the fight that resulted in his death in 1593 is the only occasion where there is evidence of Marlowe assaulting a person, he had a history of trouble with the law.

Marlowe was arrested in Norton Folgate near Shoreditch in September 1589 following a brawl in which Thomas Watson killed a man named William Bradley. A jury found that Marlowe had no involvement in Bradley’s death and Watson was found to have acted in self-defense. In Shoreditch in May 1592, he was required to provide a guarantee that he keep the peace, the reason is unknown. In September 1592 in Canterbury, he was charged with damaging property. He subsequently counter-sued the plaintiff, alleging assault. Both cases appear to have been dropped.

Marlowe the Atheist

Marlowe had a reputation for atheism. The only contemporary evidence for this is from Marlowe’s accuser in Flushing, an informer called Richard Baines. The governor of Flushing had reported that both men had accused one another of instigating the counterfeiting and of intention to go over to the Catholic side, “both as they say of malice one to another.” Following Marlowe’s arrest on a charge of atheism in 1593, Baines submitted to the authorities a “note containing the opinion of one Christopher Marly concerning his damnable judgment of religion, and scorn of God’s word.” Baines attributes outrageously blasphemous ideas to Marlowe, such as “Christ was a bastard and his mother dishonest unchaste,” “the woman of Samaria and her sister were whores and that Christ knew them dishonestly,” and “St John the Evangelist was bedfellow to Christ and leaned always in his bosom” (cf. John 13:23-25), and “that he used him as the sinners of Sodom.” He also claims that Marlowe had Catholic sympathies. Other passages are merely skeptical in tone: “he persuades men to atheism, willing them not to be afraid of bugbears and hobgoblins.” Similar statements were made by Thomas Kyd after his imprisonment and possible torture; both Kyd and Baines connect Marlowe with the mathematician Thomas Harriot and Walter Raleigh’s circle of skeptics. Another document claims that Marlowe had read an “atheist lecture” before Raleigh. Baines ends his “note” with the ominous statement: “I think all men in Christianity ought to endeavour that the mouth of so dangerous a member may be stopped.”

Some critics believe that Marlowe sought to disseminate these views in his work and that he identified with his rebellious and iconoclastic protagonists. However, plays had to be approved by the Master of the Revels before they could be performed, and the censorship of publications was under the control of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Presumably these authorities did not consider any of Marlowe’s works to be unacceptable (apart from the Amores).

Marlowe the Homosexual

Marlowe is often described today as homosexual, although the evidence for this is inconclusive. Much like other aspects of Marlowe’s biography, speculation on his sex-life abounds while evidence is nowhere to be found. A number of Marlowe’s enemies, most notably the aforementioned Richard Baines, made numerous lewd suggestions about Marlowe. Likewise, after his death, many hardliner Anglicans wrote fiery sermons citing Marlowe as a sinner who got his just deserts.

Marlowe as Shakespeare

Given the murky inconsistencies concerning the account of Marlowe’s death, an ongoing conspiracy theory has arisen centered on the notion that Marlowe may have faked his death and then continued to write under the assumed name of William Shakespeare. Authors who have propounded this theory include:

• Wilbur Gleason Zeigler, It Was Marlowe (1895)
• Calvin Hoffman, The Murder of the Man Who Was Shakespeare (1955)
• Louis Ule, Christopher Marlowe (1564-1607): A Biography
• A.D. Wraight, The Story that the Sonnets Tell (1994)

Although it is necessary to mention Marlowe’s connection with this conspiracy theory due to its ongoing popularity and marginal influence on interpretations of both Marlowe and Shakespeare, no strong evidence that Marlowe and Shakespeare were the same person has ever emerged, while the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.

Marlowe’s Death

In early May 1593 several bills were posted about London threatening Protestant refugees from France and the Netherlands who had settled in the city. One of these, the “Dutch church libel” [6], written in blank verse, contained allusions to several of Marlowe’s plays and was signed “Tamburlaine.” On May 11, the Privy Council ordered the arrest of those responsible for the libels. The next day, Marlowe’s colleague Thomas Kyd was arrested. Kyd’s lodgings were searched and a fragment of a heretical tract was found. Kyd asserted, possibly under torture, that it had belonged to Marlowe. Two years earlier they had both been working for an aristocratic patron, probably Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange, and Kyd speculated that while they were sharing a workroom the document had found its way among his papers. Marlowe’s arrest was ordered on May 18. Marlowe was not in London, but was staying with Thomas Walsingham, the cousin of the late Sir Francis Walsingham. However, he duly appeared before the Privy Council on May 20 and was instructed to “give his daily attendance on their Lordships, until he shall be licensed to the contrary.” On May 30, Marlowe was murdered.

Various versions of events were current at the time. Francis Meres says Marlowe was “stabbed to death by a bawdy serving-man, a rival of his in his lewd love” as punishment for his “epicurism and atheism.” In 1917, in the Dictionary of National Biography, Sir Sidney Lee wrote that Marlowe was killed in a drunken fight, an account which is often repeated even today.

The facts only came to light in 1925 when the scholar Leslie Hotson discovered the coroner’s report on Marlowe’s death in the Public Record Office. Marlowe, together with three men, Ingram Frizer, Nicholas Skeres and Robert Poley, had spent all day in a house (not a tavern) in Deptford, owned by the widow Eleanor Bull. All three had been employed by the Walsinghams. Skeres and Poley had helped snare the conspirators in the Babington plot. Frizer was a servant of Thomas Walsingham. Witnesses testified that Frizer and Marlowe had earlier argued over the bill, exchanging “divers malicious words.” Later, while Frizer was sitting at a table between the other two and Marlowe was lying behind him on a couch, Marlowe snatched Frizer’s dagger and began attacking him. In the ensuing struggle, according to the coroner’s report, Marlowe was accidentally stabbed above the right eye, killing him instantly. The coroner concluded that Frizer acted in self-defense, and he was promptly pardoned. Marlowe was buried in an unmarked grave in the churchyard of St. Nicholas, Deptford, on June 1, 1593.

Marlowe’s death is still considered to be suspicious by some for the following reasons:

1. The three men who were in the room with him when he died all had links to the intelligence service as well as to the London underworld. Frizer and Skeres also had a long record as loan sharks and con men, as shown by court records.
2. Their story that they were on a day’s pleasure outing to Deptford is implausible. In fact, they spent the whole day closeted together, deep in discussion. Also, Robert Poley was carrying confidential dispatches to the queen, who was nearby at Greenwich. Instead of delivering them, he spent the day with Marlowe and the other two.
3. It seems too much of a coincidence that Marlowe’s death occurred only a few days after his arrest for heresy.
4. The unusual way in which his arrest for heresy was handled by the Privy Council. He was released in spite of prima facie evidence, and even though the charges implicitly connected Sir Walter Raleigh and the Earl of Northumberland with the heresy. This strongly suggests that the Privy Council considered the heresy charge to be a set-up, and/or that it was connected with a power struggle within the Privy Council itself.

For these reasons and others, it seems likely that there was more to Marlowe’s death than emerged at the inquest. However, on the basis of our current knowledge, it is not possible to draw any firm conclusions about what happened or why. There are many different theories, of varying degrees of probability, but no solid evidence.

Since we have only written documents on which to base our conclusions, and since it is probable that the most crucial information about Marlowe’s death was never committed to writing at all, the full circumstances of Marlowe’s death will likely never be fully known.

Marlowe’s Contemporary Reputation

Whatever the particular focus of modern critics, biographers, and novelists, Marlowe was above all an admired and influential artist for his contemporaries in the literary world. Within weeks of his death, George Peele referred to him as “Marley, the Muses’ darling”; Michael Drayton noted that he “Had in him those brave translunary things/That the first poets had,” and Ben Jonson wrote of “Marlowe’s mighty line.” Thomas Nashe wrote warmly of his friend, “poor deceased Kit Marlowe.” So too did the publisher Edward Blount, in the dedication of Hero and Leander to Sir Thomas Walsingham.

The most famous tribute to Marlowe was paid by Shakespeare in his only reference to a contemporary writer, in As You Like It, where he not only quotes a line from Hero and Leander (“Dead Shepherd, now I find thy saw of might/’Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?’) but also gives to the clown Touchstone the words “When a man’s verses cannot be understood, nor a man’s good wit seconded with the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room.” It would appear from the reference that Shakespeare had read the official inquest document.

Recent Marlowe controversies

In November 2005 a production of Tamburlaine at the Barbican Arts Centre in London was accused of deferring to Muslim sensibilities by amending a section of the play in which the title character burns the Qur’an and excoriates the prophet Muhammad; the sequence was changed so that Tamburlaine instead defiles books representing all religious texts. The director (in the view of many, mendaciously) denied censoring the play, stating that the change was a “purely artistic [decision] to focus the play away from anti-Turkish pantomime to an existential epic.” This, however, shifts a considerable degree of focus from a number of anti-theist (and specifically anti-Muslim) points within the play and changes, significantly, the tone and tenor of the work.

Works

The Elizabethan stage begins with Marlowe. All of the conventions (in poetic technique and rhetorical tone) of Elizabethan theater were set down conclusively by his first two major plays Tamburlaine and Doctor Faustus. Prior to Marlowe, most dramatic verse had been rhymed in couplets, following the example of Chaucer, who himself had followed the trends of other European poets of his time. In other European languages (Italian or French, for example) rhyme is more common in everyday speech, making a rhymed dramatic narrative sound more natural, but in English the result is strained. (Other Elizabethan plays staged in rhyme, even Shakespeare’s early comedy, Love’s Labour Lost, can strike the viewer as odd, and at times irritating.) Marlowe was the first to see this and to borrow from an earlier English tradition of unrhymed blank verse (blank verse exists in English as far back as the pre-historical period of Old English). He reinvigorated English theater to such a degree that, for centuries afterwards, when Europeans thought of English literature, their first thought was directed toward English drama.

Tamburlaine

Tamburlaine (written in two parts) was based loosely on the historical conqueror Timur the Lame and was immensely popular in Marlowe’s time, turning him into an instant celebrity.

The play is about a great and almost superhuman leader who conquers most of the kingdoms of the Orient. Profound religious questions are raised when Tamburlaine arrogates for himself a role as the “scourge of God” (an epithet originally applied to Attila the Hun). Some readers have taken this stance to be indicative of Marlowe’s atheism and rejection of the Christian message. Others have been more concerned with an apparently anti-Muslim thread of the play, which is highlighted in a scene in which the main character burns the Qur’an. There is little doubt that the play challenges some tenets of conventional religious belief.

In relation to this, it has been argued that the play carries a Cabalistic subtext in which the protagonist embodies the fifth Sephira on the Tree of Life, Gevurah (the merciless ‘left hand’ of God). If so, it would indicate a fascination with esoteric philosophy that later found more overt expression in the play Doctor Faustus. The Hermeticists Henry Cornelius Agrippa and Giordano Bruno are perceived as having had a considerable influence on Marlowe in this respect.

Doctor Faustus

Doctor Faustus is a story based on an earlier German legend about an incredibly gifted scholar, Doctor Faustus, whose thirst for knowledge is endless. After learning everything there is to know from books (Faustus becomes a master scientist, orator, tactician, politician, and theologian, and is still unsatisfied) he makes a pact with the devil to be granted infinite knowledge, at the cost of his soul. The allegorical commentary on the rise of rationalism in the sixteenth century is clear: Faustus represents the rational mind, and while reason grants him more knowledge than he could ever have dreamed of, it also strips him of his humanity.

Like Tamburlaine, Faustus was incredibly popular in Marlowe’s time. Like Tamburlaine, it was also incredibly controversial. Although it is commonplace in contemporary culture to criticize religion, especially religious superstition in the name of rationality, no one prior to Marlowe had the sheer audacity to address the problematic aspects of the relationship between human rationality and religion. And, despite the routine nature of such criticism, no one before Marlowe or since has addressed the issue with his level of insight and succinctness. His example would inspire not only other English writers adopting the Faust legend (such as, two hundred years later, Mary Shelley in her Frankenstein) but even German authors, in whose cultural tradition the Faustus legend originated. Generations of German poets, among them Goethe and the twentieth century German novelist Thomas Mann would all owe a conscious debt to Marlowe’s pithy and probing tale.

 

“Rowdy” Roddy Piper

Roderick “Roddy” George Toombs (born April 17, 1954), better known by his ring name “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, is a retired Canadian professional wrestler, film actor, and podcast host signed to WWE. In professional wrestling, he is best known for his work with the WWF. Although he is Canadian, due to his Scottish heritage he was billed as coming from Glasgow in Scotland and was known for his signature kilt and bagpipe entrance music. He earned the nickname “Rowdy” by displaying his trademark “Scottish” rage, spontaneity and quick wit. Despite being a crowd favorite for his rockstar-like persona, he often played the villain. He was also nicknamed “Hot Rod”. Toombs headlined several major pay-per-view events and accumulated 34 championships in various promotions during his career; he participated in the main events of WrestleMania I and WrestleMania X – as a special guest referee in the latter. Piper was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2005. Piper briefly hosted a podcast titled “The Rod Pod”.

Early life

Toombs was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He is of majority Scottish descent, with some Irish on his mother’s side. He attended Windsor Park Collegiate. His father was an officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police while they lived in The Pas, Manitoba. After being expelled from junior high and having a falling out with his father, Piper hit the road and stayed in youth hostels wherever he could find them and picked up odd jobs at local gyms running errands for several pro wrestlers. As a young man Roddy became proficient in playing the bagpipes, though he has repeatedly stated that he’s unsure exactly where he picked them up. His childhood (and now lifelong) best friend is ex NHL player and Stanley Cup winner Cam Connor.

Professional wrestling career

By the age of 14, he made his pro debut in Winnipeg, against Larry Hennig. When Roddy made his way to the ring playing the bagpipes (his gimmick) the ring-announcer introduced him as “Roddy the Piper”, the fans in attendance heard it as “Roddy Piper” and the name stuck. Piper lost the match in ten seconds. He was a boxer and an amateur wrestler before he started to become a pro wrestler. He won the Golden Gloves boxing championship. He was awarded a Black Belt in Judo from Gene LeBell, American Judo champion, instructor, stuntman, and professional wrestler.

American Wrestling Association (1973–1975)

From 1973 to 1975, Piper was a jobber in the AWA, Kansas City, the Maritimes, and Texas working for Paul Boesch’s NWA Houston Wrestling promotion and in Dallas working for Fritz Von Erich’s Big Time Rasslin. What was supposed to be a brief run in California, however, turned out to be a long term stint as booker Leo Garibaldi and publicist Jeff Walton were impressed with Piper and saw the money making possibilities he had as a villain.

National Wrestling Alliance (1975–1980)

By late 1975 and early 1976, Piper was a top villain for Mike and Gene LeBell’s NWA Hollywood Wrestling. In 1977–78, he also started to work for Roy Shire’s NWA San Francisco Wrestling in addition to remaining with the L.A. office. Los Angeles was where Piper developed his Rowdy character and became one of the most hated villains in Los Angeles since the days of Classy Freddy Blassie. During this time, he made continuous insults directed at the area’s Mexican community; he later promised to amend by playing the Mexican national anthem on his bagpipes only to anger the fans further by playing “La Cucaracha” instead. Piper also served as manager for several villains in Los Angeles and worked as a referee from time to time. Piper feuded with all the fan favorites in the area and had a long feud with Chavo Guerrero, Sr..

As part of the L.A. storyline, Roddy Piper feuded with Chavo and the whole Guerrero family for about three years in the L.A. territory going so far as to routinely wear a T-Shirt to the ring reading “Conqueror of the Guerreros”. The feud started during a TV bout in early 1976 where Chavo was defending the Jules Strongbow Memorial Scientific Trophy against Piper. Late in this match, Gory Guerrero (who had been in Chavo’s corner giving him advice throughout the match) was slapped by Piper. Chavo “lost his cool” and starting punching Piper, getting DQ’ed and losing the Scientific Trophy for “breaking the rules”. A short time later, Piper then defeated Chavo for the Americas Heavyweight Title; the two competed in the top feud in Los Angeles for the better part of three years. They main evented against each other often during this era (1976 through 1978). The hair match gimmick was one of the top stipulations between these two, resulting in Piper getting his head shaved. Another top stipulation was when Chavo beat Piper in a loser leave town match and Piper immediately reappeared as The Masked Canadian. In his first televised match as The Masked Canadian, Piper actually teamed with Chavo to battle the Americas Tag Team Champions (Gordman and Goliath) and Piper turned on Chavo late in the match, causing Chavo to get pinned. Piper wrestled as The Masked Canadian for several months until he was unmasked by Hector Guerrero.

By late 1978-early 1979, Buddy Rose talked Piper into leaving the California promotions for even more fame in Don Owen’s Pacific Northwest Territory where he teamed with Killer Tim Brooks, Rick Martel, and Mike Popovich to win the NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team Championship. Piper also won the NWA Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Championship with victories over both Lord Jonathan Boyd and “Playboy” Buddy Rose.

Georgia Championship Wrestling and Mid-Atlantic (1980–1983)

In late 1970s, Piper ventured to the Mid-Atlantic territory. He beat Jack Brisco for the Mid-Atlantic title and Ric Flair for the US belt which turned into a huge feud. From 1981-82, Piper served as an arrogant commentator on Georgia Championship Wrestling (which would be renamed World Championship Wrestling in July) and feuded with the likes of Bob Armstrong, Dick Slater, and Tommy Rich. On TV, Piper often spoke highly of evil manager Gary Hart, calling him the one man who may have a higher IQ than him. During the summer of 1982, Piper became a fan favorite after knocking out Don Muraco and Ole Anderson, and famously saving broadcast partner Gordon Solie from Muraco, who grew angry at Solie questioning his tactics. Piper would battle Abdullah the Butcher after Ole brought him in to take down Piper, who heard the cheers of the fans but admitted he was no “goody two-shoes” and still did things his way. Piper would then leave Georgia for the Mid-Atlantic territory. Piper returned to the Georgia area in the summer of 1983 to aid Tommy Rich against Buzz Sawyer.

In 1982, due to showing up late for a match, he was fired and reportedly blackballed from the Georgia territory. Piper maintains this in his book, but others dispute this. He did receive an offer from Gary Hart to go to World Class Championship Wrestling but the money was not good enough. Instead, he went to Puerto Rico for a month or so and was able to get booked by Jim Barnett shortly thereafter. In Wrestling to Rasslin’, Gerald W. Morton and George M. O’Brien described the transformation: “the drama finally played itself out on television when one of his [Piper’s] hired assassins, Don Muraco, suddenly attacked the commentator Gordon Solie. Seeing Solie hurt, Piper unleashed his Scottish fury on Muraco. In the week that followed, like Achilles avenging Patroklas, he slaughtered villain after villain…. In the arenas fans chanted his name throughout his matches.” Eventually, Piper moved back to Jim Crockett Promotions. As a fan favorite, Piper feuded with Sgt. Slaughter, Ric Flair, and Greg Valentine. Piper’s feud with Valentine culminated in a dog collar match at the first Starrcade. Valentine broke Piper’s left eardrum during the match with the collar’s chain, causing Piper to permanently lose fifty percent of his hearing.

World Wrestling Federation

Piper told Arda Ocal of The Score Television Network in an interview that before entering the World Wrestling Federation full-time in 1984, Piper had a match with the WWWF under Vince McMahon Sr in the mid 70s at Madison Square Garden. As a rib to Piper, Freddie Blassie stuffed his bagpipes with toilet paper, so they wouldn’t play in front of the Garden crowd. Piper was not invited back for several years.

Bob Backlund defeated Piper and retained the WWF title at the Olympic Auditorium on July 28, 1978.

1984–1987

Heel run

Around this time World Wrestling Federation (WWF) owner Vince McMahon contacted Piper, who insisted on serving out his contract with Jim Crockett. Piper started in the WWF in late 1983 and at the same time fulfilled dates with Crockett. On his way out of Crockett’s promotion he became a heel, which set the stage for his WWF run in 1984. He started as a manager at first, due to the injuries he sustained during his dog collar match with Greg Valentine, but soon started wrestling full-time. Piper came in as the manager for “Dr. D” David Schultz and “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff, and soon began to wrestle with Orndorff as well.

Later that year, he was given his own interview segment called Piper’s Pit, in which he talked to other superstars and which frequently ended in a fight between Piper and his guest. The Piper’s Pit segments helped create the feuds Piper had with other wrestlers. According to Piper’s autobiography, Piper’s Pit was completely unscripted and was in fact so popular that it was taken on the road. In addition to pleasing many of his fans who wanted to see the Pit in person, it accomplished other things: it gave Piper the opportunity to heal some nagging injuries while still retaining his heat with the fans. An early guest on Piper’s Pit was his Mid-Atlantic nemesis Valentine, who also arrived to the WWF. In a rare occurrence for WWF programming at the time, the two made reference to their history in the rival organization and hinted at rekindling it, but as the two were now top villains, they both agreed that they had mutual respect for each other, and it was left at that. In one Piper’s Pit, Piper had an interview with Jimmy Snuka. Piper started insulting Snuka’s Polynesian heritage by bringing out pineapples, bananas, and dropping coconuts onto the table; this was to make Snuka “feel at home” in an act of “remorse” after Snuka was not given much time to speak the previous times he was on Piper’s Pit. Snuka took offense to this and Piper then attacked Snuka by smashing him over the head with a coconut and shoving a banana in his face. He followed this up by whipping Snuka with his belt. Snuka was legitimately knocked woozy allowing Piper to leave before Snuka, now seriously enraged, could fight back. This incident led to a long feud between the two. Piper also insulted Bruno Sammartino during a Piper’s Pit which led to a feud between the two, ending in a steel cage match which Piper lost.

Another feud, this time between Piper and Hulk Hogan erupted soon after and became what was at the time the highest-profile feud in wrestling history, thanks to the involvement of pop singer Cyndi Lauper, where Piper kicked Lauper in the head—and even attacked Captain Lou Albano—with Hogan seeking revenge as a result. In 1985, MTV broadcast The War to Settle the Score, featuring a main-event matchup between Piper and Hogan, who was accompanied to the ring by Albano, Lauper, and Mr. T. This event set up the very first WrestleMania, which pitted Piper and Paul Orndorff against Hogan and Mr. T. Orndorff was pinned by Hogan when Piper’s bodyguard “Cowboy” Bob Orton interfered and mistakenly struck Orndorff instead of Hogan with his trademark “injured” arm covered in a plaster cast. In Born to Controversy, Piper recalled how he had to keep Mr. T busy with tie-ups and other shoot wrestling moves to keep Mr. T’s lack of wrestling ability from being seen by the fans, thus ruining the match. From this situation, Piper and Mr. T’s real-life relationship became hostile, leading to the inevitable conclusion that they be put into a feud with one another. It was on Right After Wrestling in March 2011, hosted by Arda Ocal and Jimmy Korderas, that Piper explained why WrestleMania didn’t feature a 1-on-1 main event. He said it was because that match happened at the War to Settle the Score, before the WrestleMania event actually happened. Piper once again faced Mr. T, this time alone, in a boxing match at WrestleMania 2 in 1986. Piper lost the match by disqualification after bodyslamming Mr. T.

Face run

Following a leave of absence from the WWF, Piper returned during a TV taping on WWF Superstars in 1986 against jobber A.J. Petrucci and received a thunderous ovation from the audience. After being slapped in the face by Petrucci twice, Piper placed one hand behind his back and beat his opponent to a pulp.

During Piper’s 1986 face run, Piper’s Pit played key roles in two storylines memorable to fans: Piper’s feud with Adrian Adonis, and the set-up of the Hulk Hogan-André the Giant match at WrestleMania III.

In the Piper-Adonis feud, the returning Piper was distressed to find his Piper’s Pit segment replaced by The Flower Shop, a segment hosted by Adonis, who was using an effeminate-wrestler gimmick. Piper spent weeks crashing Adonis’ show and trading insults, leading to a “showdown” between the two segments that ended with Piper being assaulted and humiliated by Adonis, Piper’s former bodyguard Orton (now in Adonis’ employ), and Don Muraco. The trio left Piper with his face covered in red lipstick lying in the middle of the remnants of the Piper’s Pit set, which had been destroyed. In response, Piper stormed the set of Adonis’ show and destroyed it with a baseball bat. This led to their Hair vs Hair match at WrestleMania III, which was billed as Piper’s retirement match from wrestling before he left to become an actor full-time. Piper won the match with the assistance of Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake, who had been sheared by Adonis shortly before the match.

The first Piper’s Pit used to build up the Hogan-André feud came when Hogan was invited on the show to receive a trophy for being the WWF Champion for three years. Shortly after presenting Hogan with the trophy, André – Hogan’s “long-time friend” – came out to congratulate Hogan, but closed the segment by simply stating: “Three years to be world champion….it’s a long time.” After saying this, Andre went to shake Hogan’s hand, apparently placing a little too much pressure causing Hogan to wince in pain. The following week, Hogan attempted to return the favor by presenting Andre with a trophy for being undefeated for 15 years, and unwittingly took over the interview. Although the attempt was sincere, Andre couldn’t help but notice that the trophy was noticeably smaller than the one Hogan received the week before, and grew irritated when Hogan became the focal point of the spotlight once again. As Hogan was attempting to congratulate Andre, the Frenchman abruptly stormed off the Pit set. The following week, Piper attempted to get some answers and Jesse “The Body” Ventura interrupted the segment, agreeing with Piper that something was amiss in the Hogan/Andre situation; both Ventura and Piper held true to promises to bring Andre and Hogan, respectively, onto the show the following week. On that subsequent program, Hogan was stunned when André appeared with his long-time nemesis, Bobby “The Brain” Heenan, at his side; Hogan pleaded with André to explain why Heenan was at his side, and André replied simply, “I’m here for one reason, to challenge you to a world championship match at Wrestlemania.” Hogan attempted to keep the peace, only to have Heenan order André to attack Hogan to show how serious he was in his challenge; André responded by ripping off Hogan’s shirt and gold crucifix necklace, leaving Hogan in hurt and shock and with Piper of all people trying to console his former enemy. In the process of tearing off Hogan’s shirt, André’s fingernail accidentally scratched Hogan’s skin, causing Hogan to bleed, leading Piper to tell Hogan, “You’re bleeding.” Piper then brought Hogan back the following week to get Hogan to respond to André’s challenge. When Hogan sidestepped the issue for several minutes, Piper put it to him bluntly: “Yes or no? Are you or are you not going to face André the Giant for the WWF championship at Wrestlemania? YES OR NO?!!” Hogan paused for a brief second only to respond with a thunderous “YES!”

1989–1996

Piper returned from a hiatus with a live Piper’s Pit at WrestleMania V, where he hosed down a smoking Morton Downey, Jr. with a fire extinguisher. After this, Piper began co-hosting Prime Time Wrestling with Gorilla Monsoon, providing a change of pace from the constant bickering that was caused between Monsoon and Bobby Heenan during Heenan’s tenure. Heenan insisted on having his own show opposite Prime Time called “The Bobby Heenan Show”. Which was basically used as a catalyst to insult Piper and Monsoon after leaving “Prime Time” on bad terms. Eventually, Heenan’s comments began to irritate Piper and Piper finally told Heenan to either “put up or shut up.” Shortly after this, Heenan brought “Ravishing” Rick Rude into the mix by inviting him to his show to further insult Piper. The feud reached the physical level when Piper made an appearance on “The Brother Love Show” to address his position on the matter. Brother Love provoked Piper for several minutes by questioning his courage and ring ability. Piper finally had enough and told Love he had bad hygiene. When Love questioned Piper for bringing this up, Piper pulled out a small bag of toiletries and began dousing Love with toothpaste and mouthwash. Rude made his move during this moment and attacked Piper from behind, eventually spewing mouthwash into his eyes rendering him temporarily blind. This eventually brought Piper’s return to the ring full-circle as Piper interfered in Rude’s Intercontinental Title defense against The Ultimate Warrior at SummerSlam ’89, costing Rude the belt. Rude vowed revenge and the two engaged in a very physical and violent feud that lasted the rest of the year. The feud finally came to an end when Piper defeated Rude in a match where the stipulation stated that if Piper won, Heenan would have to dress as Santa Claus for an episode of “Prime Time”. Piper was victorious, and Heenan was forced to dress as Claus the following week. Initially, Heenan seemed pleased with portraying Santa and even went so far as to imitate Claus and wish everyone a Merry Christmas. However, as the show progressed, Heenan’s true motives were revealed as he began to call Christmas “a sham”, and that the children of the world had been “scammed” by their parents. Piper snapped and attacked Heenan, ignoring pleas from Monsoon to stop the attack due to Piper’s agreement to abstain from physicality on the “Prime Time” set. Piper refused, and in turn, was fired from “Prime Time.” Piper also wrestled Bad News Brown at WrestleMania VI in 1990. The match ended with both men being counted out of the ring, but the real highlight of the match was Piper’s choice of ring attire. In true ‘Rowdy’ fashion, Piper cut a promo and came to the ring with half his body painted black in a strange attempt to play head games with Bad News.

In 1991, he supported Virgil in his feud against “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase and was present at their matches at WrestleMania VII and SummerSlam. He also renewed his feud with Ric Flair and at the 1992 Royal Rumble defeated The Mountie for his first, and only, Intercontinental Championship. He lost it soon after to Bret Hart at WrestleMania VIII. Following his title loss to Hart, Piper disappeared from the WWF. He made his return playing the bagpipes at SummerSlam. The return proved to be a cameo, as he disappeared from the WWF again, this time for nearly two years.

He reemerged in 1994 at WrestleMania X as guest referee for the WWF Championship match between Bret Hart and Yokozuna. During the match, commentator Jerry “The King” Lawler remarked that he hated Piper and continued to taunt Piper on his King’s Court segment on Monday Night Raw, eventually culminating with Lawler bringing out a skinny teenager in a Piper T-shirt and kilt and forcing him to kiss his feet. Enraged, Piper agreed to wrestle Lawler at the King of the Ring, where Piper emerged victorious. Piper wrestled as a fan favorite, saying he had “made a mess of most of his career as a heel”, and adding to the face attitude by donating part of his purse from the fight with Lawler to a children’s hospital in Ontario.

Leaving the WWF again, he soon returned in 1995 at WrestleMania XI, once again in a referee capacity, for the submission-only match between Hart and Bob Backlund. In 1996, Piper was named as interim WWF President, following Vader’s malicious assault on Gorilla Monsoon, following the Royal Rumble. As president, Piper had become the object of affection for Goldust. Enraged, Piper claimed he would “make a man” out of Goldust at WrestleMania XII, in a “Hollywood Backlot Brawl.” While the contest began in an alleyway behind the Arrowhead Pond, Goldust jumped into his gold Cadillac and ran Piper over, ultimately escaping (allegedly) onto the highways of Anaheim. Piper pursued in his white Ford Bronco, which when viewed from aerial footage looked similar to the O. J. Simpson “low-speed” chase from two years prior (the WWF had attempted to be humorous and recycle the footage with Vince McMahon quipping on commentary, “This footage looks awfully familiar”). The two eventually returned to the arena, where Piper disrobed Goldust in the ring, effectively ending the confrontation. With Gorilla Monsoon back in control of the WWF by the end of the night, Piper once again left the Federation.

World Championship Wrestling (1996–2000)

Later in 1996, Piper joined World Championship Wrestling (WCW). He appeared at Halloween Havoc to “break Hogan’s monotony.” In his first appearance, Piper asked Hogan, “Do you think [the fans] would’ve loved you so much, if they hadn’t hated me?” Piper and Hogan wrestled in a non-title match in the main event of Starrcade, WCW’s biggest pay-per-view event of the year. Piper defeated Hogan with a sleeper hold. Piper faced Hogan in a title match at SuperBrawl VII. This time, Hogan beat Piper when Randy Savage interfered and joined the New World Order (nWo). Promos showed Piper locking himself in the Alcatraz prison and vigorously exercising in order to prepare for the highly anticipated match. During the spring of 1997, Piper joined forces with Ric Flair and The Four Horsemen in their battle with the nWo. Shortly thereafter, Piper and Flair feuded before Piper disappeared from the scene. Piper briefly returned in October 1997 to face Hogan once again in a steel cage match, which Piper did win.

In early 1998, Piper once again returned to feud with Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, and Bret Hart. In early 1999, Piper had a short run as United States Champion, became WCW Commissioner, and resumed his feud with Flair over control of WCW. Piper also had a short feud with Buff Bagwell in the summer of 1999, where he was defeated by Bagwell, whose mother got involved. In late 1999, Piper was featured on WCW Television, in an angle with Vince Russo, who was now portraying himself as the “Powers That Be” (an unseen power that was controlling WCW). At Starrcade, Piper was the special referee in the WCW title match featuring Goldberg and Bret Hart. This match was otherwise notorious for Goldberg legitimately injuring Bret Hart, giving him the concussion that would eventually lead to his retirement. Forced by Russo, Piper called for the bell when Hart locked in the Sharpshooter on Goldberg, when it was apparent that Goldberg had not submitted. Piper apologized for this incident the next night on Nitro and attempted to make the save for Goldberg when Bret Hart and the nWo beat him down, but the nWo also attacked Piper. The feud between Piper and the Powers That Be ended shortly after and Piper disappeared. Piper’s last appearance in WCW was at SuperBrawl in February 2000 where he was a surprise referee in the title match between Sid Vicious, Jeff Jarrett and Scott Hall. In the fall of 2000, WCW terminated Piper’s contract, and the organization ceased to exist after being sold to WWF in March 2001.

Before going to the WWE in 2003 Piper was the figurehead and commissioner of the now defunct XWF promotion featured in its earliest live events. (Indiana, Milwaukee, Green Bay)

World Wrestling Entertainment (2003)

In November 2002, Piper’s autobiography, In the Pit with Piper: Roddy Gets Rowdy, was released. At WrestleMania XIX in Seattle, Washington, Piper ran in during the Hulk Hogan-Vince McMahon match and made his second WWE run as a villain by attacking Hogan with a steel pipe. He brought back Piper’s Pit on the April 10 episode of SmackDown!, and after aligning with Sean O’Haire, Piper smashed a coconut over the head of Rikishi, a relative of Snuka. At Backlash that month, Rikishi returned the favor to Piper. Piper was then put in a program against “Mr. America”. The storyline was Hulk Hogan had been bought off WWF television forever by McMahon. Hulk Hogan returned “incognito” although the joke was that everybody knew who he really was, which infuriated McMahon. At this point, Piper and O’Haire were portrayed as McMahon’s lackeys attempting to unmask Mr. America. Despite Piper being a heel he still got cheered due to being a legend.

Around the same time on Raw, Chris Jericho started The Highlight Reel—a show similar to ‘Piper’s Pit’. The two even verbally sparred on TV, with Jericho calling Piper fat and telling him to call him “when he lost some weight”; Piper’s retorted, “I have seen Chris Jericho wrestle. I have heard Chris Jericho talk. I have even heard Chris Jericho sing. So I’ll make you a deal: I promise you that when I lose some weight, I’ll call you. And when you get some talent, you call me.” At Judgment Day, the two met again, with Jericho telling Piper he made a wrong turn and missed the senior’s home and alluding to the incident where Piper ripped off a fan’s (later revealed to be Zach Gowen) leg and used it as a weapon, mentioning there were some midgets and lepers he could thrash, and while patting Piper’s stomach, asked if he ate the leg. Piper responded by blasting him for ripping off the Piper’s Pit idea and drilling it into the ground and called Jericho’s birth an “accident”. In June 2003, WWE decided to stop using Piper (who was working without a contract at the time) after a controversial interview with HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel in which Piper discussed the darker side of the wrestling business. On his 2006 DVD, Piper claimed that HBO took parts of his interviews out of context to make wrestling look worse.

Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (2003–2005)

In 2003, Piper appeared for the Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) promotion, hosting several In the Pit with Piper interview segments. He interviewed former rival Jimmy Snuka at the company’s first three-hour pay-per-view, Victory Road, where he dared Snuka to get revenge by hitting him with a coconut. Instead, TNA wrestler Kid Kash eventually used the coconut on Sonjay Dutt. Piper also served as a member of the National Wrestling Alliance Championship Committee, culminating in refereeing a match at Final Resolution between Scott Hall and Jeff Hardy.

The Vince Russo/TNA Controversy

One of Piper’s more controversial TNA moments came during one of its weekly pay-per-view shows. Vince Russo at the time was at the center of a massive power struggle (kayfabe) between the TNA roster and Russo’s stable of young wrestlers called Sports Entertainment Xtreme. Piper had requested a segment to plug his new book, but instead, used the time to basically shoot on Russo and his effect on the world of professional wrestling. Piper touched on subjects from the death of Owen Hart, for which Piper held Russo to blame, to the downfall of WCW amongst other touchy subjects. Russo came to the ring basically “in character” to confront Piper. But, when Piper got in Russo’s face, Russo made the comment that Piper was “a moron”. Piper not only took offense to the remark, but delivered a “potato shot” to the side of Russo’s head. Russo immediately realized that Piper’s heat with him was legitimate, and quickly backed off unsure of what Piper might do next. When The Harris Brothers hit the ring to try and cool the situation down, Russo became visibly upset as Piper continued to vehemently shoot on him. Russo got so upset that at one point in time it took both the Harrises to restrain him. Piper later said in a shoot interview that everything he had to say to Russo was real and that he was willing to get physical if Russo had taken it that far.Russo retaliated later by saying that he and Owen were very close and that Piper wasn’t even with the company the night Owen died so he had no way of knowing how upset he was with Owen’s death.

Return to World Wrestling Entertainment (2005–present)

Hall of Fame (2005)

On February 21, 2005, it was announced that Piper was to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. Piper held an episode of Piper’s Pit at WrestleMania 21 where he interviewed Stone Cold Steve Austin. The interview was interrupted by Carlito, who was promptly beaten up by both Piper and Austin.

In February 2005 at an event called WrestleReunion, Piper teamed with Jimmy Valiant and Snuka against Colonel DeBeers, “Cowboy” Bob Orton, and “Playboy” Buddy Rose.

On the July 11, 2005 episode of Raw, Piper returned as a face to host Piper’s Pit with guest Shawn Michaels, who superkicked Piper at the end of the show. This was during Michaels’ feud with Hulk Hogan. Piper once again appeared on Raw on October 3, 2005 for Raw Homecoming. He hosted Piper’s Pit with guest Mick Foley; later in the segment, Randy Orton and “Cowboy” Bob Orton appeared and attacked both Foley and Piper.

SmackDown!; Feud with The Ortons (2005)

This event sparked a mini-feud between Piper and The Ortons. On the next SmackDown! after Homecoming, Piper took on the Ortons in a handicap match. Piper won with a roll-up on Bob Orton after a distraction by The Undertaker. On October 28, Piper teamed with Batista and Eddie Guerrero to take on Randy Orton, Bob Orton, and Mr. Kennedy. Piper won after applying the sleeper hold to Bob Orton. Piper’s feud with The Ortons came to an end on the November 4, 2005 episode of SmackDown! with a DQ victory over Bob Orton.

World Tag Team Champion (2006)

Piper returned to Raw on September 11, 2006 for a six-man tag team match win with The Highlanders against the Spirit Squad. He also appeared on the Raw Family Reunion, along with Money Inc. and Arn Anderson to accompany Ric Flair ringside for a match against Mitch of the Spirit Squad. On November 5, Piper won the World Tag Team Championship with Ric Flair from The Spirit Squad at Cyber Sunday, after being chosen to be Flair’s partner by voters at WWE.com over Sgt. Slaughter and Dusty Rhodes. On the November 13, 2006 episode of Raw, Piper and Flair lost the title to Rated-RKO. Piper never made it to the ring, as he was attacked by Edge with a con-chair-to before the match. On November 17, 2006, WWE announced on their website that Piper was flown from the UK to his home state of Oregon and had surgery for what was originally believed to be kidney stones, but was speculated to be a disc problem in his back. It was later determined to be cancer. As a result of the procedure, it was announced that he was withdrawing from the Survivor Series match which would have pitted himself (as a co-captain), along with Flair, Anderson, Sgt. Slaughter, and Dusty Rhodes against the Spirit Squad. He was replaced with Ron Simmons.

Various storylines (2007–present)

He made a return to Raw on an episode taped February 12, 2007, during which he announced that his friend Dusty Rhodes was to be the first person inducted into the 2007 class of the WWE Hall of Fame. During appearance Umaga, with manager Armando Alejandro Estrada, entered the ring and laid out both men. He then returned on the June 11, 2007 episode of Raw as part of “Mr. McMahon Appreciation Night”, where he introduced a video of some of McMahon’s most embarrassing moments.

In 2008, after finishing his therapy for Hodgkin’s lymphoma, he made a brief appearance in the Royal Rumble, primarily focusing on “Superfly” Jimmy Snuka. Both men were eliminated by Kane shortly after they entered the ring. Piper returned to Raw on April 28, 2008. He was a backstage visitor, and was confronted by Santino Marella. Marella poked fun at Piper’s weight, which resulted in Santino getting slapped by Piper. The next week, Piper was a guest on Carlito’s Cabana and Carlito and Santino were about to double team Piper when they were chased off by Cody Rhodes and Cryme Tyme. On May 12, Piper’s interference stopped Santino and Carlito from beating Rhodes and Hardcore Holly for the World Tag Team Championship. Santino then threatened Piper with retaliation, culminating in a confrontation with Piper during the May 16 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!. He wrestled his presumed last match on April 18, 2008 one day after his 54th birthday at Newburgh Free Academy’s Spring Slam. On October 26, 2008, however, Piper appeared on WWE’s Cyber Sunday as one of the three choices fans could choose to face Marella for the WWE Intercontinental Championship. The other choices were Goldust and The Honky Tonk Man. Honky Tonk Man was chosen and won via a disqualification due to interference by Beth Phoenix and therefore did not win the title. Goldust then entered the ring, followed by Piper. The three candidates then fought Santino, afterwards celebrating together in the ring. Piper appeared on the October 27 episode of Raw as a special guest commentator, along with both Goldust and Honky Tonk Man, for Marella’s match against Charlie Haas.

On February 16, 2009 Piper returned to Raw to confront Chris Jericho after Jericho continued to act disrespectfully towards the Hall of Famers. After the segment, Jericho attacked Piper. One month later, on the March 16 episode of Raw, Piper would get his revenge when he, along with Ric Flair, Jimmy Snuka, and Ricky Steamboat, attacked Jericho. For the first time since Wrestlemania XII in 1996, Piper wrestled at WrestleMania XXV along with Snuka and Steamboat with Flair in their corner to go against Jericho in a three on one handicap match. Jericho won the match; Piper was the second of the three to be eliminated. Piper later guest hosted WWE Raw on November 16, 2009 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Piper challenged Vince McMahon to a street fight later in the evening only to have Randy Orton come out to fight against, then shortly after Kofi Kingston came out to stop Randy’s assault on Piper.

He inducted Wendy Richter to the 2010 WWE Hall of Fame on March 27, 2010. He also appeared the next night on Raw as one of the Legend Lumberjacks in a match that involved Christian and Ted Dibiase. Two months later, Piper turned heel for one night only by hiring DiBiase to capture guest host Quinton Jackson so he could “gain revenge on BA”, but was unsuccessful. On the July 12, 2010 episode of Raw, it was hinted that Piper could possibly be the Anonymous General Manager as on an e-mail sent to Michael Cole, the GM said “Just when you think you have all the answers, I change the questions.” The idea was abandoned on the July 24 episode of Raw when Cole said ” And if you’re not down with that I got two words for you” which was Triple H and Shawn Michaels trademark line as D-Generation X, but again this idea was dropped. On the November 15, 2010 episode of Raw, Piper quickly turned face during a return of Piper’s Pit telling John Cena to do the right thing by calling the WWE Championship match at Survivor Series between Wade Barrett and Randy Orton down the middle. He went on to point out that legends such as Ricky Steamboat, “Mr. Perfect” Curt Hennig, Jimmy Snuka, and himself had never won a World Championship in WWE.

On January 29, 2011, Piper made his debut for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG) during the WrestleReunion 5 weekend, defeating nineteen other men, last eliminating Terry Funk, to win the Legends Battle Royal. He appeared in a backstage segment at WrestleMania XXVII where he hit Zack Ryder in the back of the head with a coconut, reminiscing of what he did to Jimmy Snuka. Piper made an appearance on the June 13, 2011 episode of Monday Night Raw, hosting Piper’s Pit once again. His guests were The Miz and Alex Riley, which led to a match with The Miz with Riley as the special guest referee. He went on to win the match, and won $5,000 out of The Miz’s money per the pre-match stipulation. Roddy Piper noted that he was paid $5,000 for his appearance on the June 13th RAW for Piper’s Pit with The Miz and Alex Riley. Piper currently co-host the WWE Vintage show with Gene Okerlund. He recently made a television appearance in WWE and hosted a Piper’s Pit segment featuring John Cena on the November 28, 2011 episode of Monday Night Raw. He also appeared on November 29, 2011 special holiday edition of SmackDown.

Piper returned on the April 10, 2012 special edition of Smackdown: Blast from the Past, in which he hosted Piper’s Pit featuring Daniel Bryan and AJ Lee. Piper made an appearance on June 18, 2012 he made a segment with Cyndi Lauper and Heath Slater. He then reappeared on the 1,000 episode of Raw on July 23, 2012, where he and various other WWE Legends helped Lita take down Heath Slater. On the August 13 episode of Raw, Piper hosted another edition of Piper’s Pit with Chris Jericho, which was interrupted by Dolph Ziggler.

On the January 6, 2014 Old School Raw Piper hosted Piper’s Pit with The Shield as his guests and was about to get beat down when he was saved by CM Punk and the New Age Outlaws. Piper and Paul Orndorff appeared in a backstage segment, and shook hands with Hulk Hogan and Mr. T during WrestleMania XXX, making amends around 30 years after competing at the very first WrestleMania.

Portland Wrestling Uncut (2012–present)

In 2012, Piper, along with Don Coss, created Portland Wrestling Uncut, a revival of the original Portland Wrestling, with new and old wrestlers combined. The show, which airs on KPDX Television Channel 49 and online at KPTV FOX 12 Oregon’s website, was originally slated for 13 episodes. On January 26, 2013, Piper announced that Portland Wrestling Uncut had been picked up for another 52 weeks. Playing prominently in the show is Piper and Coss as announcers, The Grappler (Len Denton) as a manager, guest appearances by the like of Matt Borne (among others), rewind segments that show partial matches from the original Portland Wrestling (owned by Don and Barry Owen), and Piper’s son, Colt Toombs.

Other media

Piper featured in the wrestling documentary Bloodstained Memoirs. Piper was a guest on a 1985 Saturday Night Live episode, tormenting hosts Hulk Hogan and Mr. T, and has appeared as a special guest on MADtv along with Bret Hart. In 1991, the pilot episode for “Tag Team”, a television program about two ex-professional wrestlers turned police officers, starred Piper and Jesse “The Body” Ventura. Piper appeared as a wrestler loosely based on himself in an episode called “Crusader” from Walker, Texas Ranger where his name was Cody “The Crusader” Conway. Piper appeared as a prison antagonist in an episode of The Outer Limits TV series. Piper was the host of ITV’s Celebrity Wrestling in the UK. Piper appeared as a character named Commander Cash on RoboCop: The Series. Piper appeared as a choice in the “Wheel of Destiny” segment of The Man Show. Piper also starred in the 1988 John Carpenter film, They Live. Piper played a drifter turned saviour of the human race after discovering a pair of sunglasses that allow him to see the world’s elite for what they truly are, money hungry aliens with a new-world-order-like agenda. That same year, he starred in the film Hell Comes to Frogtown. He also guest-starred in an episode in the second season of the Highlander TV series.

In the 1980s, Piper also appeared in singer Cyndi Lauper’s music video for the song “The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough.” He also appeared as a guest VJ on MTV in 1988.

In the early 1990s, Roddy Piper made guest-star appearances on two episodes of “The New Zorro” on the Family Channel. In 1992, he also released a UK only single and music video for his song, “I’m Your Man”. The single came with the B-side, “Judy Come Back”.

In April 2005, Piper co-presented Celebrity Wrestling in the United Kingdom on ITV1. This Saturday evening reality show saw celebrities learn wrestling and compete in challenge matches. After a few weeks the program was to be canceled, due to a huge drop in TV ratings but instead was moved to Sunday mornings to finish its final episodes.

In 2007, Piper became the second pro-wrestler, the other being Sgt. Slaughter, to have their likeness crafted in a G.I. Joe figure. According to his filecard, he is a trainer for Destro’s Iron Grenadiers.

He appeared as Mr. Thurgood in the low-budget film The Mystical Adventures of Billy Owens in 2008 and its sequel Billy Owens and the Secret of the Runes in 2010.

Wizard’s list of the 100 Greatest Villains of All Time ranked Roddy Piper as #35.

On October 29, 2009, Piper appeared as pro-wrestler named “Da’ Maniac” on season 5 episode 7 (“The Gang Wrestles for the Troops”) of the sitcom It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, parodying Mickey Rourke’s role in The Wrestler. He reprised this role in Season 9 Episode 4.

In UGK’S “International Players Anthem” DJ Paul pokes fun at Andre 3000 asking him why is he dressed as Roddy Piper.

On March 14, 2010, Piper appeared in “One Fall”, an episode in CBS’s Cold Case, playing a wrestler named Sweet Sil.

In September 2010, Piper appeared in a FunnyorDie.com video, fighting against childhood obesity in a PSA parody. The clip included him using wrestling moves on children eating junk food and the parents who feed junk food to their kids.

In 2010 Piper was expected to appear in a reality series from Red Line Films, the producers of Dhani Tackles the Globe and Ochocinco: The Ultimate Catch.

In December 2011, Piper appeared in several segments of the Air Farce’s “Not the New Year’s Eve Special”, which aired on January 1, 2012, on the CBC Television Network in Canada.

It has been confirmed that Piper will appear on WWE Network’s WWE Legends’ House which is currently in production.

In 2012, Piper joined the ToadhopNetwork hosting a weekly Thursday night podcast, “Rod Pod”. The show later moved to the GoCastNetwork.

In 2012, Piper appeared on a Season 4 episode of Celebrity Ghost Stories, in which he conveyed a story of being visited by the ghost of Adrian Adonis.

In October 2012, Piper announced on his Twitter page that he was working as part of an upcoming wrestling game on Facebook called Warlordz of Wrestling.

In May 2013, Piper appeared in “Barry’s Angels”, episode 12 of the fourth season of the A&E reality show, Storage Wars, in which he valuated a set of Scottish kilts purchased by Barry Weiss.

In June 2013, Piper appeared on Celebrity Wife Swap, where he swapped wives with Ric Flair.

In July 2013, Piper appeared in a segment of The Haunting Of with medium Kim Russo.

In August 2013, Piper appeared in as himself in the video game Saints Row IV and there is an unlockable Roddy Piper outfit the Protagonist can wear called “Rowdy Roddy Piper Suit“.

Piper plays himself as the protagonist in the 2013 film Pro Wrestlers vs. Zombies.

Legacy

Piper is considered one of the greatest talkers and heels in wrestling history. Piper’s Pit interview segments were considered innovative, especially in an atmosphere where only the people like the World champion got to talk, and the wrestlers were the interviewees – never the interviewers. Many of the people on Piper’s Pit never got to be World champion, but were main eventers. According to Bobby “the Brain” Heenan, he could just leave Piper in a room and return twenty minutes later with Piper having done a class-A promo.

Personal life

Piper and his wife Kitty live on a mountain in Portland, Oregon, and have four children: daughters Anastacia Shea, Ariel Teal, and Falon Danika and son Colton Baird. Anastacia has a child, making Piper a grandfather. His son Colt Toombs is also an aspiring professional mixed martial arts fighter and also wrestles in Portland, Oregon, for Portland Wrestling Uncut. His daughter Ariel Teal Toombs is following her dad’s lead in Hollywood as an actress. Piper and his daughter Ariel acted together in the movie “Legion: The Final Exorcism (aka Costa Chica: Confession of an Exorcist). Piper was notable for wearing his wedding band during his matches, a rarity among professional wrestlers. On April 4, 2006 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Piper was issued an award by the Mayor, Sam Katz. On July 27, 2006, he had the honor of throwing out the first pitch of a St. Louis Cardinals/Chicago Cubs baseball game at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

On November 27, 2006, it was announced on WWE.com that Piper has Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and he finished radiation therapy on January 15, 2007. This was also confirmed on Piper’s official web site where he posted messages of thanks to all his fans and stated that had the fans not chosen him as Ric Flair’s partner at Cyber Sunday he would not have been taken to the hospital and diagnosed as having his disease in time.

In November 2008 a video spread around the internet showing Piper smoking pot and taking a hit from a bong in front of a crowd cheering him on, although he later acknowledged his use of medicinal marijuana “to alleviate the symptoms associated with cancer.” This was reiterated on a blog from Jim Ross.

On July 2, 2009 Piper was arrested on suspicion of DUI in the early morning hours in Hollywood, California. Piper was stopped by police at around 1:00 a.m. and given field sobriety tests. He was then arrested. His bond was set at $5,000.

 

Sebastian Bach

Sebastian Philip Bierk (born April 3, 1968), known professionally as Sebastian Bach, is a Canadian heavy metal singer who achieved mainstream success as frontman of Skid Row from 1987 to 1996. Since his departure from Skid Row, he has had many television roles, acted in Broadway plays, and leads a successful solo career.
Career
Kid Wikkid (1983–1985)
The members of Kid Wikkid were stationed in Peterborough. Upon hearing of the band and unaware of their ages, 14 year old Bach auditioned for the group, and was successfully hired. Kid Wikkid moved back to Toronto, and Bach’s dad eventually allowed Bach to move in with his Aunt Leslie. The event was recorded twice in the Peterborough newspaper.
Skid Row (1987–1996)
Skid Row initially formed in the late eighties with lead singer Matt Fallon. They began playing at various New Jersey clubs. Fallon would soon leave the band in 1987, leaving Skid Row without a singer. Bach was spotted singing at rock photographer Mark Weiss’s wedding at the age of 18 and the members asked him to join in early 1987. He sent them a demo of him singing “Saved By Love.” They loved it and flew him to New Jersey where they began playing gigs. Sebastian also recorded demos with Bon Jovi & Sabo’s friend Jack Ponti. (The song “She’s on Top” later came out on Jack Ponti Presents Vol. 1)
In 1991, Bach was criticized for performing wearing a T-shirt reading “AIDS Kills Fags Dead.” Later he claimed he wore it without reading it first; it had been thrown to him by a fan. Although he made light of the incident in his original apology (stating that he would’ve been offended by someone mocking his grandmother’s then-recent death with a “Cancer Kills Grandmas Dead” shirt), Bach has since repeatedly apologized for and disavowed the statement, “That was really stupid and wrong for me to wear that for one half-hour in my life. What nobody brings up is in 2000, when I was in Jekyll & Hyde, and at an auction for Broadway Cares, I donated $12,000 of my own money to fight AIDS.”
In 1990, Bach performed with Guns N’ Roses and Metallica, on the same stage, at a party held by RIP Magazine, the improvised name for the band was: The Gak. In 1992, he sang the Canadian National Anthem at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in San Diego, California.
Bach was eventually fired when he booked a show where Skid Row would have opened for KISS in 1996. Other band members told Bach that Skid Row was too big to be an opening act and that they were not going to do the show. Bach then left a message on a bandmate’s answering machine telling him that you are never too big to open up for KISS, and subsequently left the band. Ironically enough, four years later, Skid Row was one of the opening acts for the 2000 Kiss Farewell Tour, without Bach.
Broadway and other projects (1996–2006)
In 1996, Bach formed a rock band called The Last Hard Men, with Frogs guitarist Jimmy Flemion, The Breeders lead guitarist Kelley Deal, and Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin. The group recorded a full-length, self-titled album for Atlantic Records, who then opted not to release it. In 1998 it was released on Kelley Deal’s label, Nice Records, with no fanfare and a very limited pressing of 1000 CDs. This run may have been sold via mail order only. The album has since been re-released and can be purchased commercially.
In 1999 Bach released his debut solo album Bring ‘Em Bach Alive!, his first release after his departure from Skid Row. The album was mainly a live album composed of Skid Row songs of Bach’s era; however it also included five new original solo tracks (studio recordings).
In 2000, Bach began performing in Broadway productions. He made his Broadway debut with the title role in Jekyll & Hyde in April 2000. Although originally only contracted through early September, Bach received good reviews and was asked to extend until October 15. Replacing him was David Hasselhoff, whom Bach mentored slightly during rehearsals. He also appeared as Riff Raff in The Rocky Horror Show in 2001. On November 28, 2001 Bach appeared at New York Steel, a benefit concert held in response to 9/11. He appeared early in the show, left to perform on Broadway, and returned at the end when all performers gathered for a final song.
In early 2002, he became the host of VH1’s Forever Wild. In October that same year, Bach was signed to perform in the national touring production of Jesus Christ Superstar, playing the title role alongside JCS veteran Carl Anderson (who reprised his familiar role from Broadway and film of Judas Iscariot). He has said if he ever did the show again, he would like to try the role of Judas next time. A DVD video of live performances called Forever Wild was released in June 2004. That same year, he reprised the title role(s) in another showing of Jekyll and Hyde.
Sometime in 2003, Bach tried out for Velvet Revolver before the band found Scott Weiland, but was turned down because, according to Slash, “We sounded like Skid Roses!” From 2003 to 2007, Bach had a recurring role on the WB television show Gilmore Girls as “Gil”, the lead guitarist in Lane Kim’s band, Hep Alien. Members of Bach Tight Five (a project initiated by Bach in 2004, but shortly dissolved thereafter) lived with Bach and his family as documented on VH1’s I Married …Sebastian Bach, one of the “I Married …” series. Stars also included Dee Snider, of the rock band Twisted Sister.
In 2005, Bach cooperated with Henning Pauly to be the singer on the Frameshift album called An Absence of Empathy, which was released in April 2005. He was recommended to Henning by Dream Theater’s James LaBrie whom Bach is very close friends with.
On May 12 and May 14, 2006 at the Guns N’ Roses’ warmup show at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City, Bach joined Axl Rose on stage for the song “My Michelle”….. He joined Rose and gang for a third time the following night (May 15) to sing “My Michelle” once again. He also joined them for their Pre-Download Festival show in the Apollo Hammersmith, London, singing My Michelle. Rose introduced Bach by saying that the two had rekindled their friendship in the previous week after 13 years of not speaking. On June 4, 9 & 11 he again joined Rose on stage at the 2006 Gods of Metal Festival (Milan), Download Festival in RDS Dublin and in Donington, respectively. He also appeared on several other tour dates during GN’R’s European tour. On September 23, 2006, he joined Axl on stage once again at KROQ-FM’s Inland Invasion festival in California for a rendition of “My Michelle”. On July 30, 2006, Bach filled in for an ailing Axl Rose for “Nightrain” and the encore “Paradise City”.
SuperGroup and Angel Down (2006–2010)
Bach starred with Ted Nugent, Evan Seinfeld, Jason Bonham and Scott Ian on the VH1 show Supergroup in May 2006. The musicians formed a band called Damnocracy for the reality show, during which they lived in a mansion in Las Vegas for twelve days and created music.
Bach announced a partnership record label with EMI to jointly create a label owned by Bach, including his album Angel Down, which was released on November 20, 2007. Bach also recorded backing vocals for the track “Sorry” on Guns N’ Roses’ long-delayed Chinese Democracy, which was released on November 23, 2008. He spent the summer of 2008 playing with Poison and Dokken. He also did a solo Australian tour in May & has been working on new songs with Jamey Jasta from HATEBREED, for the follow-up to his Angel Down CD.
Sebastian Bach was the winner of the second season of the CMT reality show, Gone Country.”
Kicking & Screaming and Sterling’s departure (2010–2012)
Bach toured as an opening act for GNR’s “Chinese Democracy Tour” 2009–2010, and performed “My Michelle” with Axl Rose in Quebec City on February 1, 2010. On January 5, 2011, he was featured on NBC’s Jimmy Fallon Show in a live performance and a subsequent video of “We Are The Ducks”, a power ballad written for University of Oregon Ducks, set to play in the BCS national championship game Monday, January 10, 2011.
In spring 2011, Bach was interviewed by British metal band Asking Alexandria in the March/April issue of Revolver. The band are fans of Skid Row and covered two of their songs the preceding year of the interview. Bach also filmed in their music video “Closure”.
Sebastian has also provided the voice of Prince Triton, King Neptune’s rebellious son, in SpongeBob SquarePants in the episode, SpongeBob and the Clash of Triton, which premiered in early July 2010. In June 15, 2011, Sebastian revealed the title of his solo album would be Kicking & Screaming. In July 8, 2011 track list, cover art and title of the first single were revealed. It was released September 27, 2011 for North America and worldwide and September 23, 2011 for Europe on Frontiers Records.
On August 13, 2012, Nick Sterling was fired by Bach after refusing to sign an agreement to appear on an undisclosed TV show. Nick also broke rules set by Bach with regards to drinking before shows. Bach also stated in a radio interview that Nick is not allowed in Canada due to an alcohol-related incident. “Nick got into some legal trouble, having to do with alcohol, down in Arizona. Where he lives.” He was replaced later by Jeff George.
Recent events (2013–present)
On April 30, 2013, Bach confirmed via Twitter that a new studio album was in the works. He went on to say that Bob Marlette would be returning as producer. Bach had collaboration work for the upcoming album with John 5, Duff McKagan, and Steve Stevens. On January 13, 2014 the solo album entitled Give ‘Em Hell was announced with prospective release date of April 22, 2014. Electronic music producers Dada Life have announced Sebastian Bach as the vocalist on the upcoming rerelease of their single Born to Rage.
Give ‘Em Hell (2014)
Give ‘Em Hell is the upcoming fifth solo studio album from Sebastian Bach, scheduled to be released on April 22, 2014, by Frontiers Records.
Personal life
Bach lived in Lincroft, New Jersey. In August 2011 his New Jersey home was damaged by Hurricane Irene and declared uninhabitable. Several Kiss and Skid Row artifacts, including Skid Row master tapes, were destroyed but his father’s art, comic books, and the KISS gargoyles from their 1979 tour were salvaged. Currently he lives in a home in Beverly Hills.

 

June Havoc

June Havoc (November 8, 1912 – March 28, 2010) was a Canadian-born American actress, dancer, writer, and theater director. Havoc was a child Vaudeville performer under the tutelage of her mother. She later acted on Broadway and in Hollywood, and stage directed, both on and off-Broadway. She last appeared on television in 1990 on General Hospital.
Havoc was the younger sister of burlesque entertainer Gypsy Rose Lee.
Early life
She was born as either “Ellen Evangeline Hovick” or “Ellen June Hovick,” in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, probably in 1912, although some sources indicate 1913. She herself was uncertain of the year – according to The New York Times obituary, her mother forged several birth certificates. (Her mother reportedly had five birth certificates for her).
Her lifelong career in show business began when she was a child, billed as “Baby June”. Her only full sibling, Rose Louise Hovick (1911–1970), was called “Louise” by her family members. Their parents were Rose Thompson Hovick (1890–1954) and John Olaf Hovick, a Norwegian American, who worked as a newspaper advertising man.
Career
Vaudeville
Following their parents’ divorce, the two sisters earned the family’s income by appearing in vaudeville, where June’s talent often overshadowed Louise. Baby June got an audition with Alexander Pantages (1876–1936), who had come to Seattle in 1902 to build theaters up and down the west coast of the United States. Soon, she was launched in vaudeville and also appeared in Hollywood movies. She could not speak until the age of three, but the films were all silent. She would cry for the cameras when her mother told her that the family’s dog had died.
In December 1928, Havoc, in an effort to escape her overbearing mother’s ambitions for her career, eloped with Bobby Reed, a boy in the vaudeville act. Rose reported Reed to the police and he was arrested. Rose had a concealed gun on her when she met Bobby at the police station. She pulled the trigger, but the safety was on. Eventually, Reed was released and June married him, leaving both her family and the act. The marriage did not last, but the two remained on friendly terms. By the age of 17, she had an affair with an older married man, Jamie Smythe, reportedly a big-time marathon promoter. He fathered her only child, April Hyde (April 2, 1930 – December 28, 1998), who was an actress in the 1950s known as April Kent.
June’s elder sister, Louise, gravitated to burlesque and became a well-known performer using the stage name Gypsy Rose Lee.
Film and stage
June adopted the surname of Havoc, a variant of her birth name. She got her first acting break on Broadway in Sigmund Romberg’s Forbidden Melody in 1936. She later starred in Rodgers and Hart’s Pal Joey on Broadway. Havoc moved to Hollywood in the late 1940s, appearing in such movies as Gentleman’s Agreement.
Havoc and her sister continued to get demands for money and gifts from their mother until her death in 1954. After Rose’s death, the sisters then were free to write about her without risking a lawsuit. Lee’s memoir, titled Gypsy, was published in 1957 and was taken as inspirational material for the Jule Styne, Stephen Sondheim, and Arthur Laurents Broadway musical Gypsy: A Musical Fable. Havoc did not like the way she was portrayed in the piece which became a source of contention between the two. Havoc and Lee became estranged for many years, but later reconciled shortly before Lee’s death in 1970.
Havoc wrote two memoirs, Early Havoc and More Havoc. She also wrote a play entitled Marathon ’33, based on Early Havoc with elements of They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? The play starred Julie Harris, and ran briefly on Broadway.
Personal life
Havoc was married three times. Her first marriage was in 1929 to Bobby Reed, a boy in her vaudeville act. The marriage ended in divorce.
She married for a second time, in 1935, to Donald S. Gibbs; they later divorced. Her third marriage, to radio and television director and producer William Spier (1906–1973), lasted from January 25, 1948 until his death.
Havoc’s sister, Gypsy Rose Lee, died of lung cancer in 1970, aged 59, and is interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery, in Inglewood, California.
Havoc was devoted to animals, offering a caring and loving home to various creature from orphaned geese to donkeys. Her homes in Weston, Wilton and finally North Stamford, Connecticut housed animals for decades.
Death
Havoc died at her Stamford, Connecticut home on March 28, 2010, at age 97.
Honors
Havoc was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play in 1964 for Marathon ’33, which she also wrote. In 2000, Havoc was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.
Legacy
The June Havoc Theatre, housed at the Abingdon Theatre in New York City, was named for her in 2003.