title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: In China's system of labor prisons (formerly called laogai), millions of prisoners have been subject to forced, unpaid labor. The laogai system is estimated to currently house between 500,000 and 2 million prisoners, and to have caused tens of millions of deaths. In parallel with laogai, China operated the smaller re-education through labor system of prisons up until 2013. In addition to both of these, China is also operating forced labor camps in Xinjiang, imprisoning hundreds of thousands (possibly as many as a million) of Muslims, Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities and political dissidents.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: In North Korea, tens of thousands of prisoners may be held in forced labor camps. Prisoners suffer harsh conditions and have been forced to dig their own graves and to throw rocks at the dead body of another prisoner. At Yodok Concentration Camp, children and political prisoners were subject to forced labor. Yodok closed in 2014 and its prisoners were transferred to other prisons.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: In the UK there are three key types of prison labour. Firstly, prisoners can be made to maintain the jail—for example cleaning, maintenance, or working in the kitchens. Second, prisoners have the option to do mundane/repetitive work for external companies; this includes tasks such as bagging nails and packing boxes. Finally, prisoners can work in specialist workshops run by third parties, in which the prisoners can do tasks such as building window-frames, graphic design and other tasks requiring some form of machinery. Reports suggest prisoners in the UK can earn as little as £10 for a 40-hour week's worth of work.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: In Australia, prison labour occurs in at least New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory. Some prisoners work for private companies. In NSW some are paid as little as $0.82 per hour, while in the NT some are paid as much as $16 per hour (compared to $35 per hour for a regular union employee in the same job).


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: Bonded labor, also known as debt bondage and peonage, occurs when people give themselves into slavery as a security against a loan or when they inherit a debt from a relative. The cycle begins when people take extreme loans under the condition that they work off the debt. The "loan" is designed so that it can never be paid off, and is often passed down for generations. People become trapped in this system working ostensibly towards repayment though they are often forced to work far past the original amount they owe. They work under the force of threats and abuse. Sometimes the debts last a few years, and sometimes the debts are even passed onto future generations.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: Bonded labor is used across a variety of industries in order to produce products for consumption around the world. It is most common in India, Pakistan and Nepal.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: In India, the majority of bonded laborers are Dalits (Untouchables) and Adivasis (indigenous tribespeople). Puspal, a former brick kiln worker in Punjab, India, stated in an interview to antislavery.org; "We do not stop even if we are ill – what if our debt is increasing? So we don't dare to stop." In India, when compared to the price of land, paid labor or oxen, the price of slaves is currently 95% less than it was in the past.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: People may be enticed to migrate with the promise of work, only to have their documents seized and be forced to work under the threat of violence to them or their families. Undocumented immigrants may also be taken advantage of, as without legal residency they often have no legal recourse. Along with sex slavery, this is the form of slavery most often encountered in wealthy countries such as the United States, in Western Europe, and in the Middle East.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: In the United Arab Emirates, some foreign workers are exploited and more or less enslaved. The majority of the UAE resident population are foreign migrant workers rather than local Emirati citizens, with there being over 1.7 million migrant workers, making up 90% of Qatar's constructive workforce. The country has a kafala system which is associated with outdated laws and procedures, which ties migrant workers to local Emirati sponsors with very little government oversight. This has often led to forced labor and human trafficking. In 2017, the UAE is pushing towards a better labor system as it has recently passed laws to protect the rights of domestic workers.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: Allegations of forced migrant labor have been highlighted within the preparations of stadiums for the Qatar FIFA 2022 World Cup. There have been over 6,500 recorded migrant deaths during the construction of the stadiums. Amnesty International researched into the construction of the stadiums and found 3,200 migrant workers work on the stadiums everyday, in which at least 224 of them have reported abusive and exploitative behaviour. Workers reported issues of expensive recruitment fees, poor living conditions, false salaries, delayed payments of salary, being unable to leave the stadium or camp, being unable to leave the country or change jobs, being threatened, and most importantly forced labour.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: In October 2019 Qatar abolished Kafala system and introduced basic minimum wage and wage protection system for migrant workers. Under these reforms workers can change jobs without employer’s permission and are now paid basic minimum wage regardless of their nationality. The basic minimum wage is set to 1,000 QAR and allowances for food and accommodation must be provided by employers which is 300 QAR and 500 QAR respectively. Moreover Qatar introduced a wage protection system to ensure the employers are complying with the reforms. The wage protection system monitors the workers in the private sector. This new system has reduced wage abuses and disputes among migrant labours.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: Additionally in the UK two individuals in Kent were found guilty of trafficking six Lithuanian men. They were forced to work back to back 8 hour shifts working as chicken catchers. Further investigations into this highlighted the farms these individuals were working at were supplying eggs to large supermarket chains such as Tesco's, Asda and M&S.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: Vietnamese teenagers are trafficked to the United Kingdom and forced to work in illegal cannabis farms. When police raid the cannabis farms, trafficked victims are typically sent to prison.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: In the United States, various industries have been known to take advantage of forced migrant labor. During the 2010 New York State Fair, 19 migrants who were in the country legally from Mexico to work in a food truck were essentially enslaved by their employer. The men were paid around ten percent of what they were promised, worked far longer days than they were contracted to, and would be deported if they had quit their job as this would be a violation of their visas. A 2021 multi-agency federal investigation dubbed "Operation Blooming Onion" revealed that a years long human trafficking ring forced migrant workers from Mexico and Central America into "modern day slavery" on various agricultural sites in southern Georgia. The indictment alleges that in the fields the migrant workers were forced at gunpoint to dig for onions with their bare hands for 20 cents per bucket. They were held in work camps surrounded by electrified fences and subjected to squalid and crammed living conditions, with no access to safe food or water.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: Reports of migrant abuse and neglect surfaced in Kenya in early September 2022, when pictures of a frail looking young Kenyan worker from Saudi, Diana Chepkemoi went viral. Following growing pressure from public, the government repatriated Chepkemoi along with a few other domestic workers facing a similar fate in the Kingdom. Among those rescued was Joy Simiyu, who went to Saudi to work as a domestic help, but within months returned to Kenya with a harrowing, but known tale of abuse by her employer. According to reports, migrant housekeepers complained of being subjected to physical, mental as well as sexual abuse while working in the Gulf state.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: Along with migrant slavery, forced prostitution is the form of slavery most often encountered in wealthy regions such as the United States, in Western Europe, and in the Middle East. It is the primary form of slavery in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, particularly in Moldova and Laos. Many child sex slaves are trafficked from these areas to the West and the Middle East. An estimated 20% of slaves to date are active in the sex industry. Sexual exploitation can also become a form of debt bondage when enslavers insist that victims work in the sex industry to pay for basic needs and transportation.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: In 2005, the "Gulf Times" reported that boys from Nepal had been lured to India and enslaved for sex. Many of these boys had also been subject to male genital mutilation (castration).


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: Many of those who become victims of sex slavery initially do so willingly under the guise that they will be performing traditional sex work, only to become trapped for extended periods of time, such as those involved in Nigeria's human trafficking circuit.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: Mainly driven by the culture in certain regions, early or forced marriage is a form of slavery that affects millions of women and girls all over the world. When families cannot support their children, the daughters are often married off to the males of wealthier, more powerful families. These men are often significantly older than the girls. The females are forced into lives whose main purpose is to serve their husbands. This often fosters an environment for physical, verbal and sexual abuse.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: Forced marriages also happen in developed nations. In the United Kingdom there were 3,546 reports to the police of forced marriage over three years from 2014 to 2016.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: In the United States over 200,000 minors were legally married from 2002 to 2017, with the youngest being only 10 years old. Most were married to adults. Currently 48 US states, as well as D.C. and Puerto Rico, allow marriage of minors as long as there is judicial consent, parental consent or if the minor is pregnant. In 2017–2018, several states began passing laws to either restrict child marriage or ban it altogether.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: Bride-buying is the act of purchasing a bride as property, in a similar manner to chattel slavery. It can also be related to human trafficking.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: Children comprise about 26% of the slaves today. Although children can legally engage in certain forms of work, children can also be found in slavery or slavery-like situations; although child labor isn't considered slavery, it inevitably hinders their education. Forced begging is a common way that children are forced to participate in labor without their consent. Most are domestic workers or work in cocoa, cotton or fishing industries. Many are trafficked and sexually exploited. Forced child labor is the dominant form of slavery in Haiti.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: In war-torn countries, children have been kidnapped and sold to political parties to use as child soldiers. Child soldiers are children who may be trafficked from their homes and forced or coerced by armed forces. The armed forces could be government armed forces, paramilitary organizations, or rebel groups. While in these groups the children may be forced to work as cooks, guards, servants or spies. It is common for both boys and girls to be sexually abused while in these groups.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: According to Human Rights Watch, Thailand's billion-dollar fish export industry remains plagued with human rights maltreatment in spite of government vows to stamp out servitude in its angling industry. Human Rights Watch conducted interviews with 248 fishermen, it documented the forced labor of trafficked workers in the Thai fishing industry. Trafficking victims are often tricked by brokers' false promises of "good" factory jobs, then forced onto fishing boats where they are trapped, bought and sold like livestock, and held against their will for months or years at a time, forced to work grueling 22-hour days in dangerous conditions. Those who resist or try to run away are beaten, tortured, and often killed. This is commonplace because of the disposability of unfree laborers.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: Despite some improvements, the situation has not changed much since a large-scale survey of almost 500 fishers in 2012, that found almost one in five "reported working against their will with the penalty that would prevent them from leaving".


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: Victims of human trafficking can be made to beg on the streets with the earnings being given back to the traffickers. It has been suggested many children across Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East are forced to beg on the streets.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: In addition to sex slavery, modern slaves are often forced to work in certain occupations. Common occupations include:


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: Signs that someone may have been forced into slavery include a lack of identity documents, lack of personal possessions, clothing that is unsuitable or has seen much wear, poor living conditions, a reluctance to make eye contact, unwillingness to talk, and unwillingness to seek help. In the UK, people are encouraged to report suspicions to a modern-slavery telephone helpline.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: The European Parliament condemned, 386 — 236 with 59 abstentions, the humanitarian practice of sending Cuban doctors to fight the COVID-19 pandemic around the world as human trafficking and modern slavery.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: The United Nations have defined human trafficking as follows:The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: According to United States Department of State data, as of 2013, an "estimated 600,000 to 820,000 men, women, and children [are] trafficked across international borders each year, approximately 70 percent are women and girls and up to 50 percent are minors. The data also illustrates that the majority of transnational victims are trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation." However, "the alarming enslavement of people for purposes of labor exploitation, often in their own countries, is a form of human trafficking that can be hard to track from afar". It is estimated that 50,000 people are trafficked every year in the United States.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: In recent years, the internet and popular social networking sites have become tools that traffickers use to find vulnerable people who they can then exploit. A 2017 "Reuters" report discusses how a woman is suing Facebook for negligence as she speculated that executives were aware of a situation that occurred back in 2012 where she was sexually abused and trafficked by someone posing as her "friend". Social media and smartphone apps are also used to sell the slaves.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: In 2016, a "Washington Post" article exposed that the Obama administration placed migrant children with human traffickers. They failed to do proper background checks of adults who claimed the children, allowed sponsors to take custody of multiple unrelated children, and regularly placed children in homes without visiting the locations. Several Guatemalan teens were found being held captive by traffickers and forced to work at a local egg farm in Ohio.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: In the last two decades, as slavery has become more widely recognized as a formidable global epidemic, multiple governmental organizations have begun taking action to address the problem. The US State Department's annual Trafficking In Persons Report assigns grades to every nation in a tier-system based "not on the size of the country’s problem but on the extent of governments’ efforts to meet the TVPA's minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking".


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: The governments credited with the strongest response to modern slavery are the Netherlands, the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Australia, Portugal, Croatia, Spain, Belgium, Germany and Norway.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: In the United Kingdom, the British government passed the Modern Slavery Act 2015, supported by major reforms in the legal system instituted through the Criminal Finances Act 2017, effective from September 30, 2017. Under the latter act, there is transparency in regards to interbank information sharing with law enforcement agencies to help to crack down on money laundering agencies related to contemporary slavery. The Act also aims at reducing the incidence of tax evasion attributed to the modern slave trade conducted under the domain of the law. Despite this, the government has been refusing asylum and deporting children trafficked to the UK as slaves. Several British charities have claimed this puts the deportees at risk of being subject to control by slavery gangs a second time, and deters child victims from coming forward with information.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: The British government has taken specific steps to ensure that modern slavery risks are identified and managed in government supply chains. The government also initiated a nationwide campaign against modern slavery: the "Modern slavery is closer than you think" campaign.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: In contrast, the governments accused of taking the least action against it are North Korea, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Hong Kong, Central African Republic, Papua New Guinea, Guinea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: The highest court in UK stripped off diplomats with a history of domestic worker abuse from claiming diplomatic immunity, saving them from compensatory claims. The July 2022 ruling concerned the case of a London-based Saudi diplomat, Khalid Basfar, who allegedly treated a Filipino staff member hired by him, to slavery; forcing her to wear a bell throughout the day to be available at for his “family’s beck and call”. The employee, Josephine Wong, was first hired by the Basfar household in November 2015 in Saudi Arabia and brought to the UK to work for him in August 2016. According to court’s hearing, Wong was confined to the house except to take the rubbish out. She was allegedly subjected to incessant shouting, offensive names and given leftover food only. The court was requested to judge the issue and determine whether Basfar’s treatment of Wong was protected by diplomatic immunity or not, if the case did amount to modern slavery. The concluded that Ms Wong’s was a case of modern slavery.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: In September 2013, the three anti-slavery donors, the Legatum Foundation, Humanity United and the Walk Free Foundation founded the Freedom Fund. As of December 2019, the Freedom Fund is reported to have impacted 686,468 lives, liberated 27,397 people from modern slavery and helped 56,181 previously out-of-school children to receive either formal or non-formal education, in Nepal, Ethiopia, India and Thailand. Meanwhile, in October 2014, the Freedom Fund, Polaris and the Walk Free Foundation launched the Global Modern Slavery Directory, which was the first publicly searchable database of over 770 organisations working to end forced labor and human trafficking. BT also teamed up with anti-modern slavery campaigners free the unseen.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: Modern slavery is a multibillion-dollar industry with just the forced labor aspect generating US$150 billion each year. The Global Slavery Index (2018) estimated that roughly 40.3 million individuals are currently caught in modern slavery, with 71% of those being female, and 1 in 4 being children. As of 2018, the countries with the most slaves were: India (8 million), China (3.86 million), Pakistan (3.19 million), North Korea (2.64 million), Nigeria (1.39 million), Indonesia (1.22 million), Democratic Republic of the Congo (1 million), Russia (794,000) and the Philippines (784,000).


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: Various jurisdictions now require large commercial organizations to publish a slavery and human trafficking statement in regard to their supply chains each financial year (e.g. California, UK, Australia). The Walk Free Foundation reported in 2018 that 40.3 million people worldwide live in conditions that can be described as slavery. According to the foundation, more than 400,000 of those are in the United States. Andrew Forrest, founder of the organisation, was quoted as saying that "the United States is one of the most advanced countries in the world yet has more than 400,000 modern slaves working under forced labor conditions". In March 2020, released British police records showed that the number of modern slavery offences recorded has increased by more than 50%, from 3,412 cases in 2018 to 5,144 cases in 2019. This coincided with a 68% increase in calls and submissions to the modern slavery helpline over the same time period.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an impact on the global supply chains including factories in Malaysia providing PPE to the NHS in the UK, and an influx of online clothing shopping which has led factories in third world countries to rapidly expand to deal with the influx of demand. A result of this rapid increase in demand for clothes and PPE has led to some companies using the pandemic as an excuse to exploit vulnerable workers, even forcing them to work through the pandemic putting them at risk of contracting the disease. The pandemic has led to multiple impacts across the globe.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: Self-isolation and social isolation is a major aspect of the pandemic, and it may increase the chances for young people to be vulnerable to grooming and abuse due to a lack of contact with friends and family. Ordinarily some Quranic schools in West Africa practice forced begging. Since many of the pupils are now residing within the school premises due to the pandemic, they are subject to further abuse/punishment as a result of them not bringing in as much income.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: Wealthy families in Mauritania have exploited the pandemic as well, by firing Haratine domestic workers, or allowing them to work on the condition they are confined within the workplace to avoid travel. This entraps the Haratine people, since if they don't take the work they starve, but if they continue to work they leave their families without resources.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: The use of lockdowns has been implemented to attempt to stop the spread of the virus. This has led to mass firings as a result of global brands cancelling orders resulting in factories shutting down. By March over 1 million workers in Bangladesh have been fired or suspended. Workers in Cambodia, India, Myanmar and Vietnam have experienced similar problems. A lack of government support for citizens has led to an increase of human trafficking as a result of people turning to bonded labour for survival.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: Victims of modern-day slavery are often hesitant to go to the authorities for help due to a fear of being criminalised, detained or deported rather than being treated as victims of a crime. Victims of modern-day slavery often live in cramped conditions in which the Covid virus can spread quickly. This, along with the combination of being fearful to get help from the authorities such as the NHS, leads to victims catching diseases and potentially dying as a result.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: Since most countries have adopted lockdowns, this has led to limited operations of anti-slavery organisations since people were not allowed to meet up during the lockdown. Anti-slavery support services and educational centres have also shut down as a result of the lockdown.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: The Home Office has stated the number of suspected modern slavery victims in the UK has fallen for the first time in 4 years, as a result of the pandemic. Officials say this is due to the restrictions implemented in the UK and an increase of self-isolation and businesses shutting.


title: Slavery in the 21st century

text: The national referral mechanism has recorded 2,871 referrals of potential modern day slavery victims in the 1st quarter of 2020, which is a 14% fall from the previous 3 months. There has been an increase of child victims "partially driven" by an increase of county lines.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was an American late-night talk show hosted by Johnny Carson on NBC, the third iteration of the "Tonight Show" franchise. The show debuted on October 1, 1962, and aired its final episode on May 22, 1992. Ed McMahon served as Carson's sidekick and the show's announcer.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: For its first decade, Johnny Carson's "The Tonight Show" was based at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York City, with some episodes recorded at NBC Studios in Burbank, California; on May 1, 1972, the show moved to Burbank as its main venue and remained there exclusively after May 1973 until Carson's retirement. The show's house band, the NBC Orchestra, was led by Skitch Henderson, until 1966 when Milton Delugg took over, who was succeeded by Doc Severinsen less than a year later.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: The series has been ranked as one of the greatest TV shows of all time in polls from both 2002 and 2013.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show" established the modern format of the late-night talk show: a monologue sprinkled with a rapid-fire series of 16 to 22 one-liners (Carson had a rule of no more than three on the same subject) was followed by sketch comedy, then moving on to guest interviews and performances by musicians and stand-up comedians. Occasionally, Carson interviewed prominent politicians such as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Robert F. Kennedy, and Hubert Humphrey, however Carson refused to discuss his personal political views on the show out of concern it might alienate his audience. Other regulars were selected for their entertainment or information value, in contrast to those who offered more cerebral conversation;


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: His preference for access to Hollywood stars caused the show's move to the West Coast on May 1, 1972; "The Tonight Show" would not return to New York until 2014 when Jimmy Fallon took the hosting reins. When asked about intellectual conversation on "The Tonight Show", Carson and his staff invariably cited "Carl Sagan, Paul Ehrlich, Margaret Mead, Gore Vidal, Shana Alexander, Madalyn Murray O'Hair" as guests; one television critic stated, however, "he always presented them as if they were spinach for your diet when he did [feature such names]." Family therapist Carlfred Broderick appeared on the show ten times, and psychologist Joyce Brothers was one of Carson's most frequent guests. Carson, in general, did not feature prop comedy acts (Carson was not averse to using prop comedy himself); such acts, with Gallagher being a prominent example, more commonly appeared when guest hosts helmed the program.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: Carson almost never socialized with guests before or after the show; frequent interviewee Orson Welles recalled that "Tonight Show" employees were astonished when Carson visited Welles's dressing room to say hello before a show. Unlike his avuncular counterparts Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas, and Dick Cavett, Carson was a comparatively "cool" host who only laughed when genuinely amused and abruptly cut short monotonous or embarrassingly inept interviewees. Mort Sahl recalled, "The producer crouches just off camera and holds up a card that says, 'Go to commercial.' So Carson goes to a commercial and the whole team rushes up to his desk to discuss what had gone wrong, like a pit stop at Le Mans." Actor Robert Blake once compared being interviewed by Carson to "facing the death squad" or "Broadway on opening night." The publicity value of appearing on "The Tonight Show" was so great, however, that most guests were willing to subject themselves to the risk.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: The series' announcer and Carson's sidekick was Ed McMahon, who from the first show would introduce Carson with a drawn-out ""Here's Johnny!"" (something McMahon was inspired to do by the overemphasized way he had introduced reporter Robert Pierpoint on the NBC Radio Network program "Monitor"). The catchphrase was heard nightly for 30 years, and ranked top of the TV Land poll of U.S. TV catchphrases and quotes in 2006; it has been referenced in all media going from "The Shining" to Johnny Bravo to a "Weird Al" Yankovic album cut; it was even used for the character Johnny Cage in the video game series "Mortal Kombat".


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: McMahon, who held the same role in Carson's ABC game show "Who Do You Trust?" for five years previously, would remain standing to the side as Carson did his monologue, laughing (sometimes obsequiously) at his jokes, then join him at the guest chair when Carson moved to his desk. The two would usually interact in a comic spot for a short while before the first guest was introduced.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: McMahon stated in a 1978 profile of Carson in "The New Yorker" that "the 'Tonight Show' is my staple diet, my meat and potatoes—I'm realistic enough to know that everything else stems from that." After a 1965 incident in which he ruined Carson's joke on the air McMahon was careful to, as he said, "never to go where [Carson]'s going." He wrote in his 1998 autobiography:


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: "The Tonight Show" had a live big band for nearly all of its existence. The NBC Orchestra during Carson's reign was originally led by Skitch Henderson (who had previously led the band during "Tonight Starring Steve Allen"), followed briefly by Milton DeLugg. Starting in 1967 and continuing until Jay Leno took over, the band was led by Doc Severinsen, with Tommy Newsom filling in for him when he was absent or filling in for McMahon as the announcer (this usually happened when a guest host substituted for Carson, which generally gave McMahon the night off as well). The series' instrumental theme music, "Johnny's Theme," was a re-arrangement of the Paul Anka composition "Toot Sweet," which Anka and Annette Funicello had separately recorded, with lyrics, as "It's Really Love." During shows when Newsom filled in for Severinsen, the band played a slightly truncated version of the theme that transitioned from the bridge to the closing phrase without reprising the first few notes of the main melody. The NBC Orchestra was the last in-house studio orchestra to perform on American television.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: Behind the scenes, motion picture director/producer Fred de Cordova joined "The Tonight Show" in 1970 as producer, graduating to executive producer in 1984. Unlike many people of his position, de Cordova often appeared on the show, bantering with Carson from his chair off-camera (though occasionally a camera would be pointed in his direction).


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: If the laughter fell short when a line bombed (as it often did), "Carnac" would face the audience with mock seriousness and bestow a comic curse: ""May a diseased yak befriend your sister!"" or ""May a rabid holy man bless your nether regions with a power tool!""


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: Jack Paar's last appearance was on March 29, 1962, and due to Carson's commitment to the ABC game show "Who Do You Trust?", he could not take over until October 1 (the day his ABC contract expired). His first guests were Rudy Vallée, Tony Bennett, Mel Brooks, and Joan Crawford. Carson inherited from Paar a show that was 1 3/4 hours (105 minutes) long. The show broadcast two openings, one starting at 11:15 p.m. and including the monologue, the other that listed the guests and re-announced the host, starting at 11:30 p.m. The two openings gave affiliates the option of screening either a fifteen-minute or thirty-minute local newscast preceding Carson. Since 1959, the show had been videotaped earlier the same broadcast day.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: As more affiliates introduced thirty minutes of local news, Carson's monologue was being seen by fewer people. To rectify this situation, Ed McMahon and Skitch Henderson co-hosted the first fifteen minutes of the show between February 1965 and December 1966 without Carson, who then took over at 11:30. Finally, because he wanted the show to start when he came on, at the beginning of January 1967 Carson insisted the 11:15 segment be eliminated (which, he claimed in a monologue at the time, "no one actually watched except the Armed Forces and four Navajos in Gallup, New Mexico").


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: By the mid-1970s "Tonight" was the most profitable show on television, making NBC $50 to $60 million ($ to $ million in ) each year. Carson influenced the scheduling of reruns (which typically aired under the title "The Best of Carson") in the mid-1970s and, in 1980, the length of each evening's broadcast, by threatening NBC with, in the first case, moving to another network, and in the latter, retiring altogether.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: In order to work fewer days each week, Carson began to petition network executives in 1974 that reruns on the weekends be discontinued, in favor of showing them on one or more nights during the week. In response to his demands, NBC created a new comedy/variety series to feed to affiliates on Saturday nights that debuted in October 1975, "Saturday Night Live".


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: In 1980, Carson renewed his contract with the stipulation that the show lose its last half-hour. On the last 90-minute show (September 12, 1980), Carson explained that by going to an hour, the show would feel more fast-paced, and have a greater selection of guests.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: For a year, Tom Snyder's existing talk show, "Tomorrow", was expanded to 90 minutes and forced to change its format, adding gossip reporter Rona Barrett as a co-host and taking on the name "Tomorrow Coast to Coast". This was short-lived as a year and a half later, Snyder had quit and "Tomorrow Coast to Coast" had been canceled. Carson was given authority to fill the vacant time slot and used it to create "Late Night with David Letterman" (1982–1993). Today, "The Tonight Show" remains one hour in length and is still followed by "Late Night", currently under the title "Late Night with Seth Meyers" (2014–).


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: In May 1991, following positive viewer reception during tests in St. Louis (KSDK) and Dallas–Fort Worth (KXAS), NBC reached an agreement with Carson Productions to delay the show's start time by five minutes beginning September 2, allowing its stations to include more commercials during their local newscasts. (The timeshift would also affect "Late Night", "Later with Bob Costas", and station-programmed overnight syndicated shows.) NBC executives had been proposing the five-minute delay idea to Carson since 1988, only to be repeatedly rebuffed, amid concerns that some of its affiliates—particularly those that had unsuccessfully sought permission to delay the "Tonight Show" by a half-hour—would begin preempting the program entirely and replace it with syndicated reruns to generate extra revenue from local advertising.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: In an onscreen eulogy to Carson in 2005, David Letterman said that every talk show host owes his livelihood to Johnny Carson during his "Tonight Show" run.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: In 1979, when Fred Silverman was the head of NBC, Carson took the network to court, claiming that he had been a free agent since April of that year because his most recent contract had been signed in 1972. Carson cited a California law barring certain contracts from lasting more than seven years. NBC claimed that it had signed three agreements since then and Carson was bound to the network until April 1981. While the case was settled out of court, the friction between Carson and the network remained and Carson was actively courted by rival network ABC, which was willing to double Carson's salary and offer him a lighter work schedule and ownership of the show. NBC, in turn, was ready to offer "The Tonight Show" to Carson's most frequent guest host at the time, Richard Dawson.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: Eventually, Carson reached an agreement that paid $25 million a year while reducing his workload from 90 to 60 minutes, with new shows airing only three nights a week 37 weeks a year (a guest host would appear Monday nights and for most of Carson's 15 weeks of vacation and "Best of Carson" reruns would air Tuesdays) and also give him ownership of the show, as well as its back catalog, and of the time slot following the "Tonight Show" which became "Late Night with David Letterman" produced by Carson Productions. In September 1980, Carson's eponymous production company gained ownership of the show after owning it from 1969 to the early 1970s.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: Only 33 complete episodes of Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show" that had originally aired prior to May 1, 1972 are known to exist. All other shows during this period, including Carson's debut as host, are now considered lost. Carson's shows were preserved by NBC into the early 1970s, but then thrown out to free storage space after the show moved to Burbank, California. When Carson later learned of their destruction, he was furious.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: Other surviving material from the era has been found on kinescopes held in the archives of the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, or in the personal collections of guests of the program, while a few moments such as Tiny Tim's wedding, were preserved. New York meteorologist Dr. Frank Field, an occasional guest during the years he was weather forecaster for WNBC-TV, showed several clips of his appearances with Carson in a 2002 career retrospective on WWOR-TV; Field had maintained the clips in his own personal archives. There are also two appearances by Judy Garland in 1968 that still survive. John Lennon and Paul McCartney's joint appearance on the May 14, 1968 episode guest-hosted by Joe Garagiola, with a guest appearance by Tallulah Bankhead (one of her last), was preserved on poor-quality home kinescope and audiotape in separate recordings by Beatles fans. Similarly, the Supremes' May 22, 1967 appearance survives on poor-quality kinescope and an audio recording of their April 5, 1968 appearance honoring the recently slain Martin Luther King Jr. was preserved.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: The program archive is virtually complete from 1973 to 1992. Carson Productions has also made clips available on YouTube and Antenna TV.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: Although no footage is known to remain of Carson's first broadcast as host of "The Tonight Show" on October 1, 1962, photographs taken that night survive, including Carson being introduced by Groucho Marx, as does an audio recording of Marx's introduction and Carson's first monologue . One of his first jokes upon starting the show (after receiving a few words of encouragement from Marx, one of which was, "Don't go to Hollywood!") was to pretend to panic and say, "I want my nana!" (This recording was played at the start of Carson's final broadcast on May 22, 1992.) The oldest surviving video recording of the show is dated November 1962, while the oldest surviving color recording is from April 1964, when Carson interviewed Jake Ehrlich Sr. as his guest.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: The 30-minute audio recordings of many of the "missing" episodes are contained in the Library of Congress in the Armed Forces Radio collection. Many 1970s-era episodes have been licensed to distributors that advertise mail-order offers on late-night TV. The later shows that exist in full were stored by Carson in a bomb-proof underground salt mine outside Hutchinson, Kansas.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: The non-tape archives pertaining to Carson's show are held by the Elkhorn Valley Museum in Carson's hometown of Norfolk, Nebraska. Beginning in 2020, the museum began working with the National Comedy Center to preserve the archive.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: A large amount of material from Carson's first two decades of "The Tonight Show" (1962–1982), much of it not seen since it had first aired, appeared in a half hour "clip/compilation" syndicated program known as "Carson's Comedy Classics" that aired in 1983. Audio clips from the show were featured nightly on WHO-AM in Des Moines, Iowa in the mid-2000s. In 2014, Turner Classic Movies would begin rerunning select interviews from the program for a new series called "Carson on TCM" presented by Conan O'Brien, who himself hosted "The Tonight Show" briefly.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: The digital multicast network Antenna TV acquired rerun rights to whole episodes of the series in August 2015. Unlike the previous clip shows, Antenna TV's airings feature full broadcasts as they were originally seen, with the only edits being removal of "The Tonight Show" name, with the show being renamed simply as "Johnny Carson" (as of January 2018, the broadcasts air opposite the current edition of "The Tonight Show" in much of the United States, and NBC still owns the trademark on that name), and with bumpers, walk-on music and the closing theme being replaced by generic music cues from the Warner/Chappell Production Music library. Most musical guest segments are also removed. Antenna TV began airing the show seven days a week beginning January 1, 2016. Currently, sixty-minute episodes (from September 1980-May 1992) air Monday through Friday nights, and ninety-minute episodes (from 1972-September 12, 1980) Saturday and Sunday nights.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: Selected episodes of Carson's show are available on NBC's Peacock streaming service. Shout! Factory launched a 24/7 streaming channel devoted to the series in August 2020, which is distributed through free over-the-top platforms including Stirr, Xumo and Pluto TV. Recently, The Roku Channel began streaming JohnnyCarsonTV on its multi-channel platform LiveTV.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: Jack Paar had often asked Carson to guest-host "Tonight" in its earliest years and repeatedly claimed he had been responsible for NBC's selection of Carson in 1962 as his replacement. Steve Allen also utilized guest hosts, including Carson and Ernie Kovacs, particularly after he began hosting "The Steve Allen Show" in prime time in 1956 and needed to reduce his workload on "Tonight".


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" had guest hosts for entire weeks during Carson's vacations and other nights he had off. Many guest hosts were already large names in their own right, among them Frank Sinatra, Burt Reynolds and Don Rickles. Comedian Woody Allen guest hosted three times between 1966 and 1971. The following is a list of those who guest-hosted at least fifty times during the first 21 years of the show's run:


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: Sammy Davis Jr. guest hosted in April 1965, becoming the first African-American to host a talk show. Harry Belafonte guest hosted for a week in February 1968, and among Belafonte's guests were Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., just months before both men were assassinated (King in April, Kennedy in June).


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: On April 2, 1979, Kermit the Frog was guest host. In addition, many other Muppets appeared for skits and regular segments: Frank Oz voiced Fozzie Bear and Animal, while Jerry Nelson performed Uncle Deadly, a Vincent Price-inspired Muppet during a segment with the real Price. Richard Dawson guest hosted 14 times during 1979 and 1980, and was being considered as a full-time replacement should Carson have retired during his 1980 contract dispute with NBC.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: Carson's contract, that took effect in 1981, reduced his work schedule to three nights a week, 37 weeks a year. "Best of Carson" reruns aired on Tuesdays in the weeks that Carson was hosting new shows. Monday night shows and shows for most of the 15 weeks that Carson had off were hosted by guest hosts. Due to the frequent need for substitutes, starting in 1983 permanent guest hosts were hired in order to give the program more stability. The permanent guest hosts were Joan Rivers (1983–1986), then, after about a year where a wide range of guest hosts were used, Garry Shandling alternating with Jay Leno (1987–1988) and finally Leno alone (1988–1992) after Shandling left to focus on his Showtime series "It's Garry Shandling's Show". Leno, who first guest hosted in 1986, would do so 333 times before becoming the next "Tonight Show" host in 1992. Though the concept of using "permanent" guest hosts was fairly strictly adhered to, occasionally illness or some other situation necessitated a substitute guest host, as when David Brenner filled in for Joan Rivers on October 31 and November 1, 1985, when Rivers's husband was briefly hospitalized.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: During the show's run, its cast and crew collaborated with a number of NBC sitcoms to produce spoof episodes of the "Tonight Show." These spoofs typically ran in the sitcom's usual spot on the broadcast schedule and featured one of the sitcom's main characters as the guest host.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: In September 1983, Joan Rivers was designated Carson's permanent guest host, a role she had been essentially filling for the previous year. In 1986, after years as a guest and 190 total appearances as guest host, she left the program for her own show on the then-new Fox Network. According to Carson, Rivers never personally informed him of the existence of her show. Rivers, on the other hand, disagreed. Nevertheless, Rivers' new show was quickly canceled, and she never again appeared on "The Tonight Show" with Carson. Nor did she appear on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", a ban maintained by Leno out of respect for Carson. She also never appeared during Conan O'Brien's seven-month run. After Carson's death in 2005, Rivers told CNN that Carson never forgave her for leaving, and never spoke to her again, even after she wrote him a note following the accidental death of Carson's son Ricky in June 1991. On February 17, 2014, Rivers returned to the "Tonight Show" as part of a skit in which numerous celebrities paid new host, Jimmy Fallon, after having lost the bet that he would never become the host of the program. Rivers appeared for a full-length interview segment on March 27, 2014.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: The program of July 26, 1984, with guest host Joan Rivers, was the first MTS stereo broadcast in U.S. television history, though not the first television broadcast with stereophonic sound. Only NBC's flagship local station in New York City, WNBC, had stereo broadcast capability at that time. NBC transmitted "The Tonight Show" in stereo sporadically through 1984 and on a regular basis beginning in 1985.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: According to Skepticism activist James Randi, Carson invited Uri Geller, who claimed paranormal powers, onto the "Tonight Show" specifically to disprove the Israeli performer's claims. Randi later wrote, "that Johnny had been a magician himself", so prior to the date of taping, Randi was asked "to help prevent any trickery." Per Randi's advice, the show prepared their own props without informing Geller, and did not let Geller or his staff "anywhere near them." When Geller joined Carson on stage, he appeared surprised that he was not going to be interviewed, but instead was expected to display his abilities using the provided articles. Geller said "This scares me." and "I'm surprised because before this program your producer came and he read me at least 40 questions you were going to ask me." Geller was unable to display any paranormal abilities, saying "I don't feel strong" and he expressed his displeasure at feeling like he was being "pressed" to perform by Carson. According to Adam Higginbotham's Nov. 7, 2014 article in the "New York Times":


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: However, this appearance on "The Tonight Show", which Carson and Randi had orchestrated to debunk Geller's claimed abilities, backfired. According to Higginbotham,


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: As his retirement approached, Carson tried to avoid sentimentality but would periodically show clips of some of his favorite moments and again invited some of his favorite guests. He told his crew, "Everything comes to an end; nothing lasts forever. Thirty years is enough. It's time to get out while you're still working on top of your game, while you're still working well."


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: Carson hosted his penultimate show, featuring guests Robin Williams and Bette Midler, on May 21, 1992. The last of Carson's monologues was delivered on this episode and was written by Jim Mulholland, Steven Kunes and Rift Fournier. Once underway, the atmosphere was electric and Carson was greeted with a sustained, two-minute intense standing ovation. Williams was especially uninhibited with his trademark manic energy and stream-of-consciousness lunacy. Midler was more emotional. When the conversation turned to Johnny's favorite songs, "I'll Be Seeing You" and "Here's That Rainy Day," Midler mentioned that she knew a chorus of the latter. She began singing the song, and after the first line, Carson joined in and turned it into an impromptu duet. Midler finished her appearance from center stage, where she slowly sang the pop standard "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)." Carson became unexpectedly tearful, and a shot of the two of them was captured by a camera angle from across the set that had never before been used on the show. The audience became tearful as well and called the three performers out for a second bow after the taping was completed. This show was immediately recognized as a television classic that Midler considered one of the most emotional moments of her life and eventually won an Emmy for her role in it.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: Carson had no guests on his final episode of "The Tonight Show" on May 22, 1992, which was instead a retrospective show taped before an invitation-only studio audience of family, friends, and crew. More than fifty million people tuned in for this finale, which ended with Carson sitting on a stool alone at center stage, similar to Jack Paar's last show. He said these final words in conclusion:


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: A few weeks after the final show aired, it was announced that NBC and Carson had struck a deal to develop a new series. Ultimately, however, Carson chose not to return to television. He gave only two major interviews after his retirement: one to "The Washington Post" in 1993, and the other to "Esquire" magazine in 2002. Carson hinted in his 1993 interview that he did not think he could top what he had already accomplished. He rarely appeared elsewhere after retiring, providing only a guest voice on an episode of "The Simpsons," which included him performing feats of strength and featured Bette Midler as well. Carson's final television appearance was cameo on the May 13, 1994, "Late Show with David Letterman" where he handed over a copy of a Top 10 List and sat in Dave's chair for a minute. He was prepared to say a few words, but the crowd's cheering was so loud and so sustained, that he humorously decided to leave without saying anything -- although as he exited, he could be heard saying "Thank you, good night!"


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: In 2005, after Carson's death, it was revealed that he had made a habit of sending jokes to Dave Letterman via fax machine which Letterman would then sometimes incorporate into his monologues. The January 31, 2005, episode of the "Late Show with David Letterman", which featured a tribute to Carson, began with a monologue by Letterman composed entirely of jokes written by Carson himself after his retirement.


title: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

text: In 2011, the last Carson "Tonight" show was ranked No. 10 on the TV Guide Network special, "TV's Most Unforgettable Finales".


title: Blue Beetle (film)

text: Blue Beetle is an upcoming American superhero film based on the DC Comics character Jaime Reyes / Blue Beetle. It is intended to be the 14th film in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). The film is directed by Angel Manuel Soto from a screenplay by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, and stars Xolo Maridueña as Reyes alongside Bruna Marquezine, Belissa Escobedo, George Lopez, Adriana Barraza, Elpidia Carrillo, Damián Alcázar, Raoul Trujillo, and Susan Sarandon. It is produced by DC Studios, Entertainment One, S&K Pictures, and the Safran Company, and set for distribution by Warner Bros. Pictures,


title: Blue Beetle (film)

text: Development of a film featuring Reyes began by the end of November 2018 with Dunnet-Alcocer attached. Soto was hired to direct the film in February 2021 for the streaming service HBO Max. Maridueña was cast that August, and the film was changed to have a theatrical release in December. Further casting took place in early 2022, before filming took place from late May to mid-July in the Atlanta metropolitan area at Wilder Studios in Decatur, Georgia, as well as in El Paso, Texas and Puerto Rico.


title: Blue Beetle (film)

text: Warner Bros. Pictures and DC Films were developing a film based on Jaime Reyes / Blue Beetle by the end of November 2018, with Mexican-born Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer writing the screenplay. Zev Foreman was executive producing the project for Warner Bros., which was set to be the first DC Extended Universe (DCEU) film starring a Latino lead. By December 2020, DC Films was planning to release several mid-budget films a year exclusively on the streaming service HBO Max, rather than in theaters, as part of new DC Films president Walter Hamada's plan for the DCEU, with "Blue Beetle" listed as one such project in 2021. Puerto Rican Angel Manuel Soto was hired to direct the film in February 2021. In April, "Blue Beetle" was included on DC's slate of films that were expected to be released in 2022 or 2023. John Rickard was producing the film for HBO Max by that August, when filming was expected to begin in early 2022. In December 2021, Warner Bros. revealed that the film would be receiving a theatrical release in August 2023 instead of being produced directly for HBO Max. In mid-April 2022, Soto and cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski visited El Paso, Texas, to meet with local artists, muralists, musicians, and historians to understand the feel of the city. Peter Safran also serves as a producer. Entertainment One, S&K Pictures, and the Safran Company co-produce the film alongside DC Films.


title: Blue Beetle (film)

text: In October 2021, Soto said Dunnet-Alcocer's script featured "the Latino family at its core", while star Xolo Maridueña said in August 2022 that the family aspect of the film and character were "inherent to the comics" and felt had not been explored as much with other superhero films. Fellow star Susan Sarandon revealed the following month that the film would have several scenes spoken in Spanish, with subtitles being provided. The final writing credits were given to Dunnet-Alcocer, with off-screen additional literary credit given to Gary Dauberman.


title: Blue Beetle (film)

text: Xolo Maridueña was Soto's first choice to portray Reyes, with Soto explaining that he "couldn't stop seeing [Maridueña] as the character" since he was hired to direct the film. Soto and Warner Bros. offered the role to Maridueña on August 1, 2021, he was publicly revealed to be in talks for the film the next day, and his casting was officially confirmed later that day at the premiere for the DCEU film "The Suicide Squad". When learning of the role, Maridueña was most excited that Reyes is a Latino character and he could bring Latino representation to a superhero project.


title: Blue Beetle (film)

text: In early March, Bruna Marquezine was cast as Reyes's love interest, Penny, with Belissa Escobedo playing Reyes's sister Milagros, and Harvey Guillén cast in an undisclosed role. Later that month, the rest of Reyes's family was cast: George Lopez as uncle Rudy, Adriana Barraza as Nana, Elpidia Carrillo as Rocio, and Damián Alcázar as Alberto. Soto said he wanted to create an authentic Mexican family with real accents and experiences, and also wanted the elder members of the family to be portrayed by "beloved" Mexican actors from Latin American cinema who had also crossed over to United States cinema and paved the way for members of the younger generation, such as Maridueña and Escobedo. By the end of March, Sharon Stone was in talks to play the villain Victoria Kord, an original creation for the film which was believed to be the wife of Ted Kord, the second Blue Beetle in the comics. Raoul Trujillo also joined the cast then as Carapax the Indestructible Man. In mid-April, Susan Sarandon was cast as Victoria Kord after negotiations with Stone ended.


title: Blue Beetle (film)

text: Principal photography began by May 25, 2022, taking place in the Atlanta metropolitan area, primarily at Wilder Studios in Decatur, Georgia, using the working title "Mofongo". Pawel Pogorzelski served as the cinematographer. Filming also occurred in El Paso and Puerto Rico. Sarandon completed filming her scenes by the end of June, and Trujillo said in early July that filming was almost complete. Filming wrapped on July 18 in Puerto Rico.


title: Blue Beetle (film)

text: Soto, Dunnet-Alcocer, and Maridueña promoted the film at the virtual DC FanDome event in October 2021, where they discussed their preparation for filming and revealed concept art for the film.


title: Blue Beetle (film)

text: "Blue Beetle" is scheduled for theatrical release in the United States on August 18, 2023. A screening in El Paso is also planned. It was originally intended to be an HBO Max exclusive original streaming film.


title: Body Heat

text: Body Heat is a 1981 American neo-noir erotic thriller film written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan in his directorial debut. It stars William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, and Richard Crenna, and features Ted Danson, J. A. Preston, and Mickey Rourke. The film was inspired by "Double Indemnity" (1944).


title: Body Heat

text: The film launched Turner's career—"Empire" magazine cited the film in 1995 when it named her one of the "100 Sexiest Stars in Film History". "The New York Times" wrote in 2005 that, propelled by her "jaw-dropping movie debut [in] "Body Heat" ... she built a career on adventurousness and frank sexuality born of robust physicality".


title: Body Heat

text: In the heat of a relentless summer, Ned Racine (William Hurt), an inept South Florida lawyer, meets and begins an affair with Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner). Matty's wealthy husband, Edmund, is always away on business during the week. Late one night, Ned arrives at the Walker mansion and, seeing Matty in the gazebo, playfully propositions her. The woman is actually Mary Ann Simpson, Matty's old high school friend who physically resembles her and who is briefly in town. Soon after, Matty tells Ned she wants a divorce, but a prenuptial agreement would leave her almost nothing. When she wishes Edmund was dead, Ned suggests murdering him so Matty can inherit his wealth. Ned consults a shady former client, Teddy Lewis (Mickey Rourke), an explosives expert, who provides Ned a small incendiary device though he advises Ned to abandon his plans.


title: Body Heat

text: After murdering Edmund, Ned and Matty move his body to an abandoned building that Edmund owns. Ned detonates the bomb to make it appear as if Edmund accidentally died during a botched arson attempt. Soon after, Edmund's lawyer contacts Ned about a new will that Ned supposedly drafted for Edmund and which was witnessed by Mary Ann Simpson. The new will was improperly prepared, making it null and void and results in Matty inheriting Edmund's entire fortune, while disinheriting his sister. Despite Ned's previous warning against making any estate changes, Matty had forged the new will, exploiting Ned's past malpractice issues, knowing it would be nullified and leaving her the sole beneficiary. Ned knows the police will consider the new will suspicious. A prominent plot point centers on a complicated and often misunderstood legal rule known as the rule against perpetuities.


title: Body Heat

text: Two of Ned's friends, assistant deputy prosecutor Peter Lowenstein and police detective Oscar Grace, suspect Ned may be involved in Edmund's death. Evidence includes Edmund's missing eyeglasses, which he always wore. On the night of the murder, hotel phone records show that repeated calls to Ned's room went unanswered, thereby weakening his alibi. Also, police are unable to locate Mary Ann Simpson.


title: Body Heat

text: Increasingly nervous over the mounting evidence and questioning Matty's loyalty, Ned happens upon a lawyer acquaintance who says he recommended Ned to Matty Walker. He admits telling her about Ned's limited legal skills. Later, Teddy tells Ned about a woman wanting an incendiary device, and says he showed her how to booby trap a door. Teddy also says the police have been asking him questions about the apparent arson.


title: Body Heat

text: Matty calls Ned and says that Edmund's glasses are in her boathouse. Ned arrives late that night and spots a wire attached to the boathouse door. Matty arrives, and, following a confrontation, Ned asks her to retrieve the glasses. Meanwhile, Oscar Grace arrives and observes their interaction. To prove herself, Matty walks toward the boathouse and disappears from view; the boathouse then explodes. A body found inside is identified as Matty Walker (née Tyler).


title: Body Heat

text: Now in prison, Ned, having realized Matty duped him, tries to convince Oscar Grace that she is still alive. He believes that "Matty" assumed the real Matty Tyler's identity in order to marry and murder Edmund. Ned surmises the "Mary Ann Simpson" that Ned previously met had discovered the scheme and was blackmailing Matty, only to be murdered and her body used to identify her as Edmund's wife. Had Ned been killed in the boathouse explosion as Matty likely intended, he reasons the police would have found both suspects' bodies.


title: Body Heat

text: In the epilogue, Ned, in prison, obtains a copy of Matty's high school yearbook: in it are photos of Mary Ann Simpson and Matty Tyler, confirming his suspicion that Mary Ann assumed Matty Walker's identity. Below Mary Ann's photo is the nickname "The Vamp" and "Ambition—To be rich and live in an exotic land".


title: Body Heat

text: In the final scene, the real Mary Ann (Matty) is seen lounging on a tropical beach. A man beside her makes a remark about the heat, and she acknowledges. She does not look happy.


title: Body Heat

text: Kasdan "wanted this film to have the intricate structure of a dream, the density of a good novel, and the texture of recognizable people in extraordinary circumstances." George Lucas acted as executive producer following successful collaborations with Kasdan as a scriptwriter on "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "The Empire Strikes Back".


title: Body Heat

text: A substantial portion of the film was shot in east-central Palm Beach County, Florida, including downtown Lake Worth and in the oceanside enclave of Manalapan. Additional scenes were shot on Hollywood Beach, Florida, such as the scene set in a band shell.


title: Body Heat

text: There was originally more graphic and extensive sex scene footage, but this was shown only in an early premiere, including in West Palm Beach, the area where it was filmed, and was later edited out for wider distribution. In an interview, "Body Heat" film editor Carol Littleton says, "Obviously, there was more graphic footage. But we felt that less was more."


title: Body Heat

text: In late 1980, Lawrence Kasdan met with four composers whose works he had admired, but only John Barry presented ideas which were close to the director's own. 10 demos were recorded on March 31 and Barry wrote the whole score during April and early May 1981. The composer provided several themes and leitmotifs—the most memorable was "Main Theme", heard during the main titles and representing Matty.


title: Body Heat

text: Barry worked closely with recording sessions engineer Dan Wallin to mix the soundtrack album, but for several reasons J.S Lasher (who produced the limited-edition LP and CD) remixed multitracks himself without Barry's or Wallin's participation.


title: Body Heat

text: J.S Lasher's album was released several times: as a 45 RPM (Southern Cross LXSE 1.002) in 1983 and as a CD (Label X LXCD 2) in 1989. Both editions also included 'Ladd Company Logo' composed and conducted by John Williams.


title: Body Heat

text: In 1998, Varèse Sarabande released a re-recording by Joel McNeely and the London Symphony Orchestra. This CD contained several new tracks (versus J.S Lasher's editions), but still was not complete.


title: Body Heat

text: In August 2012, "Film Score Monthly" released a definitive two-disc edition: the complete score with alternate, unused, and source cues on disc 1, and the original, Barry-authorized album and theme demos on disc 2.


title: Body Heat

text: "Body Heat" was a commercial success. Produced on a budget of $9 million, it grossed $24 million at the domestic box office.


title: Body Heat

text: Upon its release, Richard Corliss wrote ""Body Heat" has more narrative drive, character congestion and sense of place than any original screenplay since "Chinatown", yet it leaves room for some splendid young actors to breathe, to collaborate in creating the film's texture"; it is "full of meaty characters and pungent performances—Ted Danson as a tap-dancing prosecutor, J.A. Preston as a dogged detective, and especially Mickey Rourke as a savvy young ex-con who looks and acts as if he could be Ned's sleazier twin brother." "Variety" magazine wrote ""Body Heat" is an engrossing, mightily stylish meller [melodrama] in which sex and crime walk hand-in-hand down the path to tragedy, just like in the old days. Working in the imposing shadow of the late James M. Cain, screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan makes an impressively confident directorial debut". Roger Ebert included the film on his "10 Best List" for the year.


title: Body Heat

text: Janet Maslin wrote that "Body Heat" was "skillfully, though slavishly, derived" from 1940s film noir classics; she stated that, "Mr. Hurt does a wonderful job of bringing Ned to life," but was not impressed by Turner's performance:Sex is all-important to "Body Heat", as its title may indicate. And beyond that there isn't much to move the story along or to draw these characters together. A great deal of the distance between [Ned and Matty] can be attributed to the performance of Miss Turner, who looks like the quintessential forties siren, but sounds like the soap-opera actress she is. Miss Turner keeps her chin high in the air, speaks in a perfect monotone, and never seems to move from the position in which Mr. Kasdan has left her.


title: Body Heat

text: Pauline Kael dismissed the film, citing its "insinuating, hotted-up dialogue that it would be fun to hoot at if only the hushed, sleepwalking manner of the film didn't make you cringe or yawn". Ebert responded to Kael's negative review when he added the film to his "Great Movies" list: Yes, Lawrence Kasdan's "Body Heat" (1981) is aware of the films that inspired it—especially Billy Wilder's "Double Indemnity" (1944). But it has a power that transcends its sources. It exploits the personal style of its stars to insinuate itself; Kael is unfair to Turner, who in her debut role played a woman so sexually confident that we can believe her lover (William Hurt) could be dazed into doing almost anything for her. The moment we believe that, the movie stops being an exercise and starts working.


title: Body Heat

text: In a home video review for Turner Classic Movies, Glenn Erickson called it "arguably the first conscious Neo Noir"; he wrote "Too often described as a quickie remake of "Double Indemnity", "Body Heat" is more detailed in structure and more pessimistic about human nature. The noir hero for the Reagan years is ...more like the self-defeating Al Roberts of Edgar Ulmer's "Detour"". "Body Heat" received mostly positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 98% approval rating based on 42 reviews, and an average rating of 8.10/10. The site's consensus states, "Made from classic noir ingredients and flavored with a heaping helping of steamy modern spice, "Body Heat" more than lives up to its evocative title."


title: Body Heat

text: Rourke earned critical acclaim for his performance, which helped him evolve from character actor to movie star.


title: Body Heat

text: Warner Bros. released a 25th-anniversary Deluxe Edition DVD of "Body Heat", including a documentary about the film by Laurent Bouzereau, a "number of rightfully deleted scenes", and a trailer.


title: Woodlouse

text: A woodlouse (plural woodlice) is an isopod crustacean from the polyphyletic suborder Oniscidea within the order Isopoda. They get their name from often being found in old wood.


title: Woodlouse

text: The first woodlice were marine isopods which are presumed to have colonised land in the Carboniferous, though the oldest known fossils are from the Cretaceous period. They have many common names and although often referred to as terrestrial isopods, some species live semiterrestrially or have recolonised aquatic environments. Woodlice in the families Armadillidae, Armadillidiidae, Eubelidae, Tylidae and some other genera can roll up into a roughly spherical shape (conglobate) as a defensive mechanism; others have partial rolling ability, but most cannot conglobate at all.


title: Woodlouse

text: Woodlice have a basic morphology of a segmented, dorso-ventrally flattened body with seven pairs of jointed legs, specialised appendages for respiration and like other peracarids, females carry fertilised eggs in their marsupium, through which they provide developing embryos with water, oxygen and nutrients. The immature young hatch as mancae and receive further maternal care in some species. Juveniles then go through a series of moults before reaching maturity.


title: Woodlouse

text: While the broader phylogeny of the Oniscideans has not been settled, eleven infraorders/sections are agreed on with 3,937 species validated in scientific literature in 2004 and 3,710 species in 2014 out of an estimated total of 5,000–7,000 species extant worldwide. Key adaptations to terrestrial life have led to a highly diverse set of animals; from the marine littoral zone and subterranean lakes to arid deserts and desert slopes above sea-level, woodlice have established themselves in most terrestrial biomes and represent the full range of transitional forms and behaviours for living on land.


title: Woodlouse

text: Woodlice are widely studied in the contexts of evolutionary biology, behavioural ecology and nutrient cycling. They are popular as terrarium pets because of their varied colour and texture forms, conglobating ability and ease of care.


title: Woodlouse

text: Common names for woodlice vary throughout the English-speaking world. A number of common names make reference to the fact that some species of woodlice can roll up into a ball. Other names compare the woodlouse to a pig. The collective noun is a quabble of woodlice.


title: Woodlouse

text: The woodlouse has a shell-like exoskeleton, which it must progressively shed as it grows. The moult takes place in two stages; the back half is lost first, followed two or three days later by the front. This method of moulting is different from that of most arthropods, which shed their cuticle in a single process.


title: Woodlouse

text: A female woodlouse will keep fertilised eggs in a marsupium on the underside of her body, which covers the under surface of the thorax and is formed by overlapping plates attached to the bases of the first five pairs of legs. They hatch into offspring that look like small white woodlice curled up in balls, although initially without the last pair of legs. The mother then appears to "give birth" to her offspring. Females are also capable of reproducing asexually.


title: Woodlouse

text: Despite being crustaceans like lobsters or crabs, woodlice are said to have an unpleasant taste similar to "strong urine".


title: Woodlouse

text: Pillbugs (woodlice of the family Armadillidiidae, also known as pill woodlice) can be confused with pill millipedes of the order Glomerida. Both of these groups of terrestrial segmented arthropods are about the same size. They live in very similar habitats, and they can both roll up into a ball. Pill millipedes and pillbugs appear superficially similar to the naked eye. This is an example of convergent evolution.


title: Woodlouse

text: Pill millipedes can be distinguished from woodlice on the basis of having two pairs of legs per body segment instead of one pair like all isopods. Pill millipedes have 12 to 13 body segments and about 18 pairs of legs, whereas woodlice have 11 segments and only seven pairs of legs. In addition, pill millipedes are smoother, and resemble normal millipedes in overall colouring and the shape of the segments.


title: Woodlouse

text: Many members of Oniscidea live in terrestrial, non-aquatic environments, breathing through trachea-like lungs in their paddle-shaped hind legs (pleopods), called pleopodal lungs. Woodlice need moisture because they rapidly lose water by excretion and through their cuticle, and so are usually found in damp, dark places, such as under rocks and logs, although one species, the desert dwelling "Hemilepistus reaumuri", inhabits "the driest habitat conquered by any species of crustacean". They are usually nocturnal and are detritivores, feeding mostly on dead plant matter.


title: Woodlouse

text: A few woodlice have returned to water. Evolutionary ancient species are amphibious, such as the marine-intertidal sea slater ("Ligia oceanica"), which belongs to family Ligiidae. Other examples include some "Haloniscus" species from Australia (family Scyphacidae), and in the northern hemisphere several species of Trichoniscidae and "Thailandoniscus annae" (family Styloniscidae). Species for which aquatic life is assumed include "Typhlotricholigoides aquaticus" (Mexico) and "Cantabroniscus primitivus" (Spain).


title: Woodlouse

text: Woodlice are eaten by a wide range of insectivores, including spiders of the genus "Dysdera", such as the woodlouse spider "Dysdera crocata", and land planarians of the genus "Luteostriata", such as "Luteostriata abundans".


title: Woodlouse

text: Woodlice are sensitive to agricultural pesticides, but can tolerate some toxic heavy metals, which they accumulate in the hepatopancreas. Thus they can be used as bioindicators of heavy metal pollution.


title: Woodlouse

text: The oldest fossils of woodlice are known from the mid-Cretaceous around 100 million years ago, from amber deposits found in Spain, France and Myanmar, These include a specimen of living genus "Ligia" from the Charentese amber of France, the genus "Myanmariscus" from the Burmese amber of Myanmar, which belongs to the Synocheta and likely the Styloniscidae, "Eoligiiscus tarraconensis" which belongs to the family Ligiidae, "Autrigoniscus resinicola" which belongs to the family Trichoniscidae, and "Heraclitus helenae" which possibly belongs to Detonidae all from Spanish amber, and indeterminate specimens Charentese amber. The widespread distribution and diversification apparent of woodlice in the mid-Cretaceous implies that the origin of woodlice predates the breakup of Pangaea, likely during the Carboniferous.


title: Woodlouse

text: Although woodlice, like earthworms, are generally considered beneficial in gardens for their role in controlling certain pests, producing compost and overturning the soil, they have also been known to feed on cultivated plants, such as ripening strawberries and tender seedlings.


title: Woodlouse

text: Woodlice can also invade homes en masse in search of moisture and their presence can indicate dampness problems. They are not generally regarded as a serious household pest as they do not spread malady and do not damage sound wood or structures. They can be easily removed with the help of vacuum cleaners, chemical sprays, insect repellents, and insect killers, or by removing the damp.


title: Woodlouse

text: Woodlice have become a popular, low-maintenance household pet for children as well as a hobby for invertebrate and insect enthusiasts or collectors. Porcellionidae (sowbugs) and Armadillidae (pillbugs) are seen often as they are the most common terrestrial isopods in Europe and North America.


title: Woodlouse

text: The isopod community has many resources for the care of the species. Many sites sell isopods for starting a colony, and to keep a bioactive vivarium clean. Isopods are also a popular species at reptile or invertebrate conventions either sold as pets or micro-feeders.


title: Woodlouse

text: Amongst those who keep woodlice as pets, many species are bred for a certain coloration or variety of a species and are often recognized by a nickname that corresponds with their variety.


title: Woodlouse

text: Popular varieties include Dalmatian ("Porcellio scaber"), Dairy Cow ("Porcellio laevis"), Montenegro ("Armadillidium klugii"), Zebra ("Armadillidium maculatum"), Magic Potion ("Armadillidium vulgare"), Powder Blue "(Porcellionides pruinosus)", Panda King and Rubber Ducky ("Cubaris" sp.), Tricolor ("Merulanella" sp.). The Rubber Ducky variety is currently to be one of the most desired and yet most expensive pillbug isopod to date, with a purchase of 6 individual specimens costing over one-hundred dollars. This popularity is likely due to its rarity and cute or innocent appearance of a duck face, having yellow bands across the back and front of its body; all "Cubaris" species have this duck-billed shape on the head, but the Rubber Ducky variety has a coincidental coloring that lines up perfectly with this shape.


title: Woodlouse

text: Many varieties also have sub-varieties that are even more rare or uncommon, such as the orange mutation or variant of Orange Dalmatian (Dalmatian), Powder Orange (Powder Blue), Pink Ducky (Rubber Ducky), and Orange Koi (Koi) which could be bred with by combining their solid orange variants with the variants in the parentheticals. Other sub-varieties include the Japanese line of Magic Potion, White Ducky, Champagne and Yellow versions of Zebra, Albinos and T-albinos, and many more.


title: Woodlouse

text: There are some terrestrial isopods, though very few, that have been known to be parthenogenic. More specifically, dwarf whites, but it is unclear whether other varieties such as dwarf purple produce the same. Because of this parthenogenesis, they reproduce quickly and can be great for use as pets or feeders in vivariums.


title: Woodlouse

text: Some coloration descriptions can be used to identify multiple species, such as Orange Dalmatian, a color-pattern combination seen in both "Armadillidium vulgare" and "Porcellio scaber".


title: Woodlouse

text: Orange Vigor or Tangerine ("Armadillidium vulgare"), Peach ("Armadillidium nasatum"), Orange ("Porcellio laevis"), Orange ("Armadillidium werneri"), Orange ("Porcellio expansus"), Orange, Orange Ember, or Spanish Orange ("Porcellio scaber"), Maple Orange ("Oniscus asellus"), Kumquat ("Agabiformius lentus"), and Persimmon ("Venezillo parvus") are all simply orange varieties of their species, and when combined with other varieties of their species can make even more uncommon colorations unique to them.


title: Woodlouse

text: Some unique species of woodlouse include the spiny isopods, though not much is known about them and there are only a few of them easily accessible for purchase online. These occasionally include "Cristarmadillidium muricatum" and a species from Thailand often referred to as simply "Thailand Spiny".


title: Woodlouse

text: Paul T. Harding & Stephen L. Sutton (1985). Woodlice in Britain and Ireland: distribution and habitat (PDF). Abbots Ripton, Huntingdon, Institute of Terrestrial Ecology. p. 151. ISBN 0-904282-85-6. accessed through the NERC Open Access Research Archive (NORA)


title: James Baker

text: James Addison Baker III (born April 28, 1930) is an American attorney, diplomat and statesman. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 10th White House Chief of Staff and 67th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Ronald Reagan and the 61st U.S. Secretary of State before returning as the 16th White House Chief of Staff under President George H. W. Bush.


title: James Baker

text: Born in Houston, Baker attended The Hill School and Princeton University before serving in the United States Marine Corps. After graduating from the University of Texas School of Law, he pursued a legal career. He became a close friend of George H. W. Bush and worked for Bush's unsuccessful 1970 campaign for the United States Senate. After the campaign, he served in various positions for President Richard Nixon. In 1975, he was appointed Under Secretary of Commerce for Gerald Ford. He served until May 1976, ran Ford's 1976 presidential campaign, and unsuccessfully sought election as the Attorney General of Texas.


title: James Baker

text: Baker ran Bush's unsuccessful campaign for the 1980 Republican presidential nomination, but made a favorable impression on the Republican nominee, Ronald Reagan. Reagan appointed Baker as his White House Chief of Staff, and Baker remained in that position until 1985, when he became the Secretary of the Treasury. As Treasury Secretary, he arranged the Plaza Accord and the Baker Plan. He resigned as Treasury Secretary to manage Bush's successful 1988 campaign for president. After the election, Bush appointed Baker to the position of Secretary of State. As Secretary of State, he helped oversee U.S. foreign policy during the end of the Cold War and dissolution of the Soviet Union, as well as during the Gulf War. After the Gulf War, Baker served another stint as White House Chief of Staff from 1992 to 1993.


title: James Baker

text: Baker remained active in business and public affairs after Bush's defeat in the 1992 presidential election. He served as a United Nations envoy to Western Sahara and as a consultant to Enron. During the Florida recount following the 2000 presidential election, he managed George W. Bush's legal team in the state. He served as the co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, which Congress formed in 2006 to study Iraq and the ongoing Iraq War. He serves on the World Justice Project and the Climate Leadership Council. Baker is the namesake of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.


title: James Baker

text: James Addison Baker III was born in Houston at 1216 Bissonnet St., the son of James A. Baker Jr. (1892–1973) and Ethel Bonner (née Means) Baker (August 6, 1894 – April 26, 1991). His father was a partner of Houston law firm Baker Botts. Baker has a sister, Bonner Baker Moffitt. His grandfather was attorney and banker Captain James A. Baker, and his great-grandfather was jurist and politician Judge James A. Baker.


title: James Baker

text: Baker attended The Hill School, a boarding school in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. He graduated "cum laude" with an A.B. in history from Princeton University in 1952 after completing a 188-page senior thesis, titled "Two Sides of the Conflict: Bevin vs. Bevan", under the supervision of Walter P. Hall. He was a member of Phi Delta Theta. Baker was a member of the United States Marine Corps from 1952 to 1954, attaining the rank of first lieutenant as a naval gunfire officer serving in the Mediterranean Sea aboard the . He remained in the Marine Corps Reserve until 1958, and rose to the rank of captain. He earned a Bachelor of Laws (1957) from the University of Texas School of Law and began to practice law in Texas.


title: James Baker

text: From 1957 to 1975, he practiced law at Andrews & Kurth after the anti-nepotism policy of his family firm, Baker Botts, prevented him from receiving a job there.


title: James Baker

text: Baker's first wife, the former Mary Stuart McHenry, was active in the Republican Party, working on the Congressional campaigns of George H. W. Bush. Originally, Baker had been a Democrat but too busy trying to succeed in a competitive law firm to worry about politics, and considered himself apolitical. His wife's influence led Baker to politics and the Republican Party. He was a regular tennis partner of George H. W. Bush at the Houston Country Club in the late 1950s. When George Herbert Walker Bush decided to vacate his Congressional seat and run for the U.S. Senate in 1970, he supported Baker's decision to run for the Congressional seat he was vacating. However, Baker changed his mind about running for Congress when his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer; she died in February 1970.


title: James Baker

text: George Herbert Walker Bush then encouraged Baker to become active in politics to help deal with the grief of his wife's death, something that George Herbert Walker Bush himself had done when his daughter, Pauline Robinson Bush (1949–1953), died of leukemia. Baker became chairman of Bush's Senate campaign in Harris County, Texas. Though Bush lost to Lloyd Bentsen in the election, Baker continued in politics, becoming the finance chairman of the Texas Republican Party in 1971. The following year, he was selected as Gulf Coast Regional Chairman for the Richard Nixon presidential campaign. In 1973 and 1974, in the wake of the Nixon Administration's implosion over Watergate, Baker returned to full-time law practice at Andrews & Kurth.


title: James Baker

text: Baker's time away from politics was very brief, however. In August 1975, he was appointed Under Secretary of Commerce by President Gerald Ford, succeeding John K. Tabor. He served until May 1976, and was succeeded by Edward O. Vetter. Baker resigned to serve as campaign manager of Ford's unsuccessful 1976 election campaign. In 1978, with George H. W. Bush as his campaign manager, Baker ran unsuccessfully for Attorney General of Texas, losing to future Texas governor Mark White.


title: James Baker

text: In 1981, Baker was named White House Chief of Staff by President Ronald Reagan, in spite of the fact that Baker managed the presidential campaigns of Gerald Ford in 1976 and of George Bush in 1980 opposing Reagan. He served in that capacity until 1985. Baker is considered to have had a high degree of influence over the first Reagan administration, particularly in domestic policy.


title: James Baker

text: In 1982, conservative activists Howard Phillips (founder of the Conservative Caucus) and Clymer Wright of Houston joined in an unsuccessful effort to convince Reagan to dismiss Baker as chief of staff. They claimed that Baker, a former Democrat and a Bush political intimate, was undermining conservative initiatives in the administration. Reagan rejected the Phillips-Wright request. Around 1983 Baker became heavily dispirited and tired due to the weight of his job; he attempted to become National Security Advisor, a change to which Reagan initially agreed, but some of Reagan's other advisers dissuaded him from naming Baker to the position. According to his wife, Baker was "so anxious to get out of [his job]" that he gave some consideration to the prospect of becoming Commissioner of Baseball, but he ultimately did not pursue that.


title: James Baker

text: Baker managed Reagan's 1984 re-election campaign in which Reagan polled a record 525 electoral votes total (of a possible 538), and received 58.8% of the popular vote to Walter Mondale's 40.6%.


title: James Baker

text: In 1985, Reagan named Baker as United States Secretary of the Treasury, in a job-swap with then-Secretary Donald Regan, a former Merrill Lynch officer who became chief of staff. Reagan rebuked Phillips and Wright for having waged a "campaign of sabotage" against Baker.


title: James Baker

text: While serving as Treasury Secretary, Baker organized the Plaza Accord of September 1985 and the Baker Plan to target international debt. He had Richard Darman of Massachusetts as his Deputy Secretary of the Treasury. Darman continued in the next administration as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.


title: James Baker

text: In 1985, Baker received the U.S. Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.


title: James Baker

text: During the Reagan administration, Baker also served on the Economic Policy Council, where he played an instrumental role in achieving the passage of the administration's tax and budget reform package in 1981. He also played a role in the development of the American Silver Eagle and American Gold Eagle coins, which both were released in 1986.


title: James Baker

text: Baker also served on Reagan's National Security Council, and remained Treasury Secretary until 1988, during which time he also served as campaign chairman for George H. W. Bush's successful presidential bid.


title: James Baker

text: President George H. W. Bush appointed Baker Secretary of State in 1989. Baker served in this role through 1992. From 1992 to 1993, he served as Bush's White House Chief of Staff, the same position that he had held from 1981 to 1985 during the first Reagan Administration.


title: James Baker

text: In May 1990, Soviet Union's reformist leader Mikhail Gorbachev visited the U.S. for talks with President Bush; there, he agreed to allow a reunified Germany to be a part of NATO. He later revealed that he had agreed to do so because James Baker promised that NATO troops would not be posted to eastern Germany and that the military alliance would not expand into Eastern Europe. Privately, Bush ignored Baker's assurances and later pushed for NATO's eastwards expansion. In the Bush administration, Baker was a proponent of the notion that the USSR should be kept territorially intact, arguing that it would be destabilizing to have the USSR's nuclear arsenal in multiple new states. Bush and US defence secretary Dick Cheney were proponents for Soviet dissolution. Soviet states forced action by holding referendums on independence.


title: James Baker

text: When Ukraine became independent, Baker sought to ensure that Ukraine would give up its nuclear weapons.


title: James Baker

text: On January 9, 1991, during the Geneva Peace Conference with Tariq Aziz in Geneva, Baker declared that "If there is any user of (chemical or biological weapons), our objectives won't just be the liberation of Kuwait, but the elimination of the current Iraqi regime..." Baker later acknowledged that the intent of this statement was to threaten a retaliatory nuclear strike on Iraq, and the Iraqis received his message.


title: James Baker

text: Baker helped to construct the 34-nation alliance that fought alongside the United States in the Gulf War.


title: James Baker

text: Baker also spent considerable time negotiating one-on-one with the parties in order to organize the Madrid Conference of October 30-November 1, 1991, in an attempt to revive the Israeli–Palestinian peace process through negotiations involving Israel and the Palestinians, as well as Arab countries, including Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.


title: James Baker

text: Before the 1988 election, he and a team of some Middle Eastern policies experts created a report detailing the Palestine-Israel interactions. His team included Dennis Ross and many others who were soon appointed to the new Bush Administration.


title: James Baker

text: Baker blocked the recognition of Palestine by threatening to cut funding to agencies in the United Nations. As far back as 1988, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) issued a "declaration of statehood" and changed the name of its observer delegation to the United Nations from the PLO to Palestine.


title: James Baker

text: Baker warned publicly, "I will recommend to the President that the United States make no further contributions, voluntary or assessed, to any international organization which makes any changes in the PLO's status as an observer organization."


title: James Baker

text: In May 1989, he gave a speech at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He called for Israel to "lay aside once and for all, the unrealistic vision of a greater Israel", cease the construction of Israeli settlements in West Bank and Gaza, forswear annexation of more territory, and to treat Palestinians "as neighbors who deserve political rights". Israeli officials and public were highly offended due to the tone of his speech, though his address called for little more than his predecessors.


title: James Baker

text: Baker soon decided that Aaron David Miller and Daniel Kurtzer would be his principal aids in Middle Eastern policies. All three have been reported as leaning toward the policies of the Israeli Labor Party.


title: James Baker

text: Baker was notable for making little and slow efforts towards improving the state of Israeli-Palestinian relations. When Bush was elected, he only received 29% of Jewish voters' support, and his reelection was thought to be imminent, so there was little pressure on the administration to make bold moves in diplomatic relations with Israel. Israeli leaders initially thought that Baker had a poor grasp of Middle Eastern issues – a perception exacerbated by his use of the term "Greater Israel" – and viewed Israel as a "problem for the United States" according to Moshe Arens. Baker proved willing to confront Israeli officials on statements they made contrary to American interests. After Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the United States of "building its policy on a foundation of distortion and lies," Baker banned Netanyahu from entering the State Department building, and refused to meet with him personally for the remainder of his tenure as secretary.


title: James Baker

text: During his first eight months under the Bush administration, there were five meetings with the PLO, which is far less than his predecessors. All serious issues that Palestine sought to discuss, such as elections and representation in the Israeli government, were delegated to Egypt for decisions to be made.


title: James Baker

text: More tensions rose in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict with a massive influx of Jewish people from the Soviet Union moved to Israel. The Israeli government decided to expand the population further into Palestinian territories. Amidst the growing support of Saddam Hussein in Palestine, due to his opposition toward Israel, and his invasion of Kuwait, and the beginning of the Gulf War, Baker decided that he would make some moves towards developing communications between Israel and Palestine.


title: James Baker

text: Baker became the first American statesman to negotiate directly and officially with Palestinians in the Madrid Conference of 1991, which was the first comprehensive peace conference that involved every party involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict and the conference was designed to address all outstanding issues.


title: James Baker

text: After this landmark event, he did not work to further improve Arab-Israeli relations. The administration forced Israel to halt the development of the 6,000 planned housing units, but the 11,000 housing units already under construction were permitted to be completed and inhabited with no penalty. In the meantime, Baker also tried to negotiate with the Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, in order to achieve a lasting peace between Israel and Syria.


title: James Baker

text: However, Baker has been criticized for spending much of his tenure in a state of inaction regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which arguably led to further infringements on Palestinian rights and the growing radicalism of Arabs and Israelis.