Next Generation Gamer, commonly abbreviated as NG-Gamer, is one of the largest gaming websites in the Benelux. It can be accessed via the extensions .eu, .be or .nl, though the latter is the main extension.  NG-Gamer is fed entirely  by volunteered work by its editors.

History
The domain for NG-Gamer was reserved back in 2004, though the actual site was founded in 2005, by Christian de Jong and Raoul Wolff. Before the website had even been firmly created, they started a search for people with interests and the needed capacities to supply a website with news and articles. After a search of several months, a crew was assembled.

NG-Gamer officially went online in November 2005. The launch of the website went as planned. Though during the course of the first several months online, several members of the crew left the team. However, NG-Gamer acquired several new crewmembers to compensate the loss. These crewmembers have supplied the website with a steady amount of newsposts, articles, screenshots, video's and more, making NG-Gamer what it is today.

NG-Gamer as a source
NG-Gamer gained some international fame due to its lengthy interview with Randy Pitchford about Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway, an interview that was spread out over three articles. Other interviews such as the interview with Miroslaw Dymek, Technical Director of Reality Pump Studios about Two Worlds also gained fame. Though these two are not the only contributions of NG-Gamer that were used as sources or references by other media.

NG-Gamer's Martijn Müller was also the first source to mention Sony's release of PlayStation Home. Details were later given by Kotaku with NG-Gamer to finally confirm the rumors. This reporter was also the first source, in 2007, to report on Electronic Arts' interest in a remake or sequel of American McGee's Alice, which was officially announced in 2009. In January 2010, NG-Gamer was the first to confirm the development of Killzone 3, 2 months before it was first officially confirmed.

In the Dutch community, NG-Gamer was one of the few outlets to be given a number of multiplayer beta codes to Halo 3.

The future of NG-Gamer
Though nobody has an actual working crystal ball to foresee the future, intentions are to implements several new functions. Amongst these are:
 A full members list.
 The ability to post comments to video's.
 An update of the forums.
 Different colors for the menu's depending on the gaming system that is being viewed.
 A rework of the reputation system.
 Addition of cheats, walkthroughs, etc.

NG-Gamer content

Screenshots and videos
Screenshots have been a part of the NG-Gamer database ever since the beginning. Video's however were introduced in May 2007. Video's from GameTrailers, iFilm and YouTube can now be seen at their corresponding gamepage. The latest video's appear on the front page and can be accessed there.

Articles
NG-Gamer is supplied by several kind of articles. These vary from columns to previews to reviews. Columns are always somewhat related to gaming, but are biased opinions of the writers. Previews and reviews however always handle a single subject, whether it's a videogame or a piece of hardware. The authors try to remain as neutral as possible whilst analyzing the subject, though a review is always just another opinion. The articles themselves can be accessed via the appropriate gamepage, though the latest articles appear on the front page with a spotlight and superlight.

Not all articles are written by the crewmembers themselves. A system has been implanted to allow users to post their own articles, for which they are awarded full credit. With the allowance of HTML tags, these articles can be supported with pictures to brighten them up and make them more attractive.

Reputation system and the community
Unlike most communities, NG-Gamer members do not gain fame by posting a lot. Instead they start with a reputation score of 10. Their reactions to newspost, articles, etc. get a score from zero to three, with three being highest. The more good scores you have, the higher your reputation gets, or vice versa. The lowest reputation score is zero whilst thirty is the highest. User's reputation score can be seen next to their username.

The reputation system is also connected to a filter. Users have the ability to filter out responses of other members by selecting the minimum score they want to see.

Although NG-Gamer has several hundreds of thousands unique visitors each month, few of them actually use the forums. These are mostly used by either the crewmembers themselves, or a group of hardcore visitors. NG-Gamer is working on a strategy to make their forums more attractive and expand their community.

One of the strategies used to attract more people to use the forums, etc. is the implementation of the previously mentioned option for users to contribute their own articles. Other options, such as a list of favorite boards, topics, newsposts, etc. are also to contribute to making NG-Gamer more appealing to users.

PSP-, PDA- and mobile phone versions
NG-Gamer has several versions of its website up and running. All of these versions are custom made so that they can be used in an optimal way with the corresponding platform. The PSP version of NG-Gamer went live on February 27, 2006. The PDA and mobile phone versions went live at launch.

The NG-Gamer crew

The original crewmembers
 Christian de Jong : General Manager	(left the team October 2007)
 Raoul Wolff : Communications Manager	(left the team early 2006)
 Alex Klein : Editor			(left the team early 2006)
 Dominique Pijnenburg : Editor
 Francis van Hulle : Editor		(got fired July 2008))
 Jalke Peters : Editor			(left the team early 2006)
 Joeri Crauwels : Editor		(left the team in April 2012)
 Kenny Lammers : Editor		(left the team early 2007)
 Michiel Hanswijk : Editor		(left the team January 2008)
 Michel van Zanten : Editor		(left the team early 2006)
 Niels Slotboom : Editor		(left the team early 2006)
 Patrick van der Weide : Editor	(left the team early 2006)
 Ron van de graaf : Editor		(left the team early 2006)
 Tamara van Staalduinen : Editor	(left the team June 2007, rejoined April 2008 but quit again early 2009)

Additional members
 Wesley Winterswijk : Editor		(joined January 2006, left the team June 2008)
 Martijn Müller : Editor		(joined February 2006)
 Mattias Vercauteren : Editor		(joined February 2006, left the team June 2007)
 Christof Aerts : Editor		(joined March 2006, left the team April 2008)
 Jurgen Van den Abbeele : Editor	(joined July 2006, got fired in August 2007)
 Christophe Joye : Editor		(joined June2007)
 Rudemir Cousino : Editor		(joined June2007)
 Robert Wittenaar : Editor		(joined August 2007)
 Daniël de Jaeger : Editor		(joined August 2007, left April 2008)
 Daan de Jong : General Manager	(joined October 2007)
 Sander Schetters : General Manager	(joined October 2007, left early 2008)
 Edwin van Dalen : Editor		(joined February 2008)
 Andreeas Firoiu : Editor		(joined March 2008, left in september 2010)
 Patrick de Gussem : Editor		(joined July 2008)
 Leroy van den Broek : Editor		(joined July 2008, left September 2008)
 Daan van Dee : Editor			(joined October 2008)
 David Henry : Editor			(joined October 2008)
 Tim Leegstra : Editor (joined March 2009, left February 2012)

General Management, PR-management and Editors in Chief

Raoul Wolff and Christian de Jong
Along with Christian de Jong, Raoul Wolff was the founding member of NG-Gamer. He left early 2006 due to disagreement with Christian about the policy of NG-Gamer. His function as General Manager would not be succeeded. Christian kept his position as General Manager until his departure in October 2007. Christian no longer had the time or motivation to invest into NG-Gamer. Hence, he sold the website to Daan de Jong and Sander Schetters.

Daan de Jong and Sander Schetters
Daan de Jong would pick up his function as General Manager in October 2007 when he and Sander Schetters bought NG-Gamer from Christian de Jong. Sander however, left the team in early 2008 due to unknown reasons.

Michiel Hanswijk
It was clear from the beginning that an Editor in Chief was needed. Therefore, Michiel Hanswijk was assigned this function in January 2006. During the course of the year he would also get assigned the job of PR-contact. He would keep fulfilling these functions until his departure in December 2007. The reason for this was that Michiel no longer saw the possibility to combine his personal life with his function as he simply did not have enough spare time to invest into NG-Gamer. His function would then be assigned to Dominique Pijnenburg. Michiel rejoined the crew though in June 2008. After the departure of Wesley Winterswijk, he would pick up his old function as PR-contact, which he would soon drop once again. This time it's because he has completely lost the time, being sponsored as a skater.

Kenny Lammers
Kenny Lammers started as PR-contact for NG-Gamer in January 2006. He supplied the website with review copies of games, goodies and games to give away, interviews with developers, etc. Due to his excellent work as PR-contact, he was also assigned the function of Editor in Chief in July 2006. Due to a hectic personal life, Kenny resigned from this function. His PR-contacts were taken over by Editor in Chief Michiel Hanswijk. Joeri Crauwels gained Kenny's function as Editor in Chief.

In January 2008, former PR-contact and Editor in Chief Kenny Lammers got into a car accident. While his car ended up a complete wreck, he and his girlfriend got out with a scare and some bruises. According to Kenny, someone above must have been watching over him. The circumstances involving the accident are unknown, but fatigue was certainly amongst the causes.

Joeri Crauwels
Joeri would pick up Kenny's function as Editor in Chief after his departure in March 2007. Joeri would keep fulfilling this function until his departure in January 2008. However, Joeri rejoined the crew in June 2008. As of September 2008 he would reprise his role as Editor in Chief alongside Dominique Pijnenburg until April 2012.

Dominque Pijnenburg
Dominique applied for free spot of Editor in Chief after the departure of Michiel. He was assigned this function several weeks later.

References and sources

Video game news websites
Internet properties established in 2005

NG-Gamer


Ronald Torbert is an American football official in the National Football League (NFL). He has been an official since the 2010 NFL season. He wears uniform number 62.

Early life
Torbert graduated from Michigan State University and attended Harvard Law School earning a Juris doctor.

Career
Torbert began his NFL officiating career in 2010 as a side judge before becoming a referee in the 2014 NFL season after Scott Green and Ron Winter announced they were retiring. Torbert is one of only eight African-American referees in NFL history, after Johnny Grier, Mike Carey, Jerome Boger, and Don Carey; he preceded Shawn Smith, Adrian Hill, and Tra Blake.

Torbert was the alternate referee for Super Bowl LIII. He is also featured in the NFL 100 year anniversary video which aired during that Super Bowl.

On January 25, 2022, Torbert was named the referee for Super Bowl LVI.

2023 crew
 R: Ron Torbert
 U: Barry Anderson
 DJ: Max Causey
 LJ: Maia Chaka
 FJ: Ryan Dickson
 SJ: Keith Washington
 BJ: Tony Josselyn
 RO: Artenzia Young-Seigler
 RA: Desiree Abrams

Personal life
Outside of his NFL officiating job, Torbert is an attorney, as is his fellow referee Clete Blakeman.

References

Living people
National Football League officials
Michigan State University alumni
African-American sports officials
Year of birth missing (living people)
Harvard Law School alumni
21st-century African-American people

Ronald Torbert


Milk Money is a 1994 American romantic comedy movie. In this movie, Melanie Griffith plays Eve, also called "V". The movie is about three suburban boys who want to see a naked woman. They go into the city to find a prostitute.

The movie got negative reviews from critics. It was released on August 31, 1994.

1994 romantic comedy movies
American romantic comedy movies
1990s English-language movies
Movies about prostitution

Milk Money


The Casablanca Group, sometimes known as the 'Casablanca bloc', was a short-lived, informal association of African states with a shared vision of the future of Africa and of Pan-Africanism in the early 1960s. The group was composed of seven states led by left-wing leaders — Algeria, Egypt, Ghana,  Guinea, Libya, Mali, and Morocco. The conflict and eventual compromise between the Casablanca Group and the Monrovia Group led to the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity.

History

The group first met in 1961 in the Moroccan port city of Casablanca, hence the alliance's name. This conference brought together some of the continent's most prominent statesmen like Gamal Abdel-Nasser of Egypt, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Sékou Touré of Guinea.

What united them was a belief in the need for African political unification or federation. They believed that only significant, deep integration, as has since occurred in Europe through the European Union, would enable Africa to defeat colonialism, achieve peace, foster cultural dialogue, increase the continent's geopolitical influence and promote economic development. In other words, they believed in the transfer of many powers from national governments to a supranational, pan-African authority. Nkrumah even argued for the establishment of a pan-African army which could be deployed to fight colonialism or white minority rule across the continent. His famous Pan-Africanist slogan was 'Africa Must Unite!'

However, the Casablanca Group was ultimately unsuccessful. Most other African leaders did not support such radical change. The ideas of its rival, the so-called Monrovia Group—which also believed in Pan-Africanism but not at the expense of nationalism and independent statehood—prevailed. In 1963, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was established. All the members of both the Casablanca and Monrovia groups joined, putting their differences to one side. The OAU, now the African Union, has only achieved limited integration and unity of its member states. It is a reflection of the values of the Monrovia Group and a repudiation of the ideas of the Casablanca Group.

As well as disagreeing on the nature of African unity, the groups also took up conflicting positions on the then conflicts in Algeria and Congo. While the Casablanca Group's members pledged to support the Front de Liberation Nationale in its efforts fighting for Algerian independence from France, the Monrovia Group backed their enemies, the French.

See also
 African Union

References

Decolonization
Organizations established in 1961
History of Casablanca
1961 establishments in Africa
1963 disestablishments in Africa
Pan-African organizations
Organizations disestablished in 1963

Casablanca Group


Willy Hagara (4 June 1927 – 15 May 2015) was an Austrian schlager pop singer and actor.

Born in Vienna, he worked for the Austrian postal service before winning a talent competition in the Vienna Konzerthaus in 1946.  Credited at the time as "the best jazz singer in Vienna", he took singing and acting lessons and began a career as a popular baritone singer and entertainer.  His song "Casetta in Canada" reached number 3 on the German pop chart in 1958.  He made numerous television appearances, and appeared in popular West German films such as Weißer Holunder, Der Haus-Tyrann, and Paprika.

He largely gave up his career in entertainment in the late 1960s after the deaths of both his wife and father, from whom he received a large inheritance.  He lived quietly in retirement, and made his final public appearance in 2002.  He died in 2015, aged 87.

References

External links
 Willy Hagara at IMDb

1927 births
2015 deaths

Willy Hagara


Dattening  is a small town in the Shire of Pingelly, between Boddington and Pingelly in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia.

During the 1890s a farmer named Norris Taylor sunk a well in the locality and the area was initially known as Taylor's Well. By 1906 the local progress association petitioned for a townsite to be surveyed and blocks were subdivided in 1907. Blocks were sold in 1908 with 20 "working men's blocks" being put on the market with prices between £8 and £14.
The name, Dattening, was suggested as an alternative to Taylor's Well after this name had been rejected because it duplicated the name of a town in South Australia. The Morambine Road Board suggested the name Dattening, being the Aboriginal name of a spring in the vicinity of the well. The meaning of the name is unknown. The town was gazetted in 1908.

The town residents petitioned for the name of the town to be changed to Taylor's Well in 1925 and 1929 but were unsuccessful on both occasions.

References

Towns in Western Australia
Shire of Pingelly

Dattening, Western Australia


Sanjay Raul  (born 6 October 1976) is an Indian cricketer. He is a right-handed batsman and a right-arm offbreak bowler.

Sanjay Raul is a strokeful middle order batsman who started his international debut as part of India 'A' tour of Pakistan in early 1998. He played both of his ODIs against Pakistan at Skating & Curling Club, Toronto in 1998, but failed to perform well in the two matches. His best domestic season was in 1996/97, when he made 644 runs and took 37 wickets, and topped the batting and bowling averages for Odisha. Now he is a professional match referee on OCA. He has also played domestic cricket for Tripura. He was the Captain of India national under-19 cricket team in the year 1995/96. He was also the Captain of Odisha cricket team.

External links

India One Day International cricketers
Indian cricketers
Odisha cricketers
East Zone cricketers
Tripura cricketers
1976 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Cuttack
Cricketers from Odisha

Sanjay Raul


For the nearby rail bridge, see Forth Rail Bridge.
The Forth Road Bridge is a suspension bridge crossing the Firth of Forth in Scotland. It connects the city of Edinburgh to Fife. The bridge carries cars and pedestrians across the Firth. It was built in 1963. Trains use the nearby Forth Rail Bridge, a historic railroad bridge built in 1890. The bridge was designed by architect Richard Gilbert Scott.

Repairs
Even though the bridge was built so recently, it has had some serious repairs done. A report into the failure of nine heavy-duty nuts on the Forth Road Bridge said all 1,888 similar nuts on the crossing should be replaced.

All the cable band nuts and bolts were replaced in the late 1990s as part of a large project to replace the hanger ropes. Ten years later, a report found serious defects. Bridge authority FETA investigated when inspectors found the nine cracked nuts. Engineers FaberMaunsell carried out lab tests and a study of similar issues on suspension bridges across the world. The nuts are used to secure 192 'cable bands' to the bridge's main cables.

The report also found workmen had not placed washers correctly. This may have led to uneven pressure on the nuts. The protective coating on the nuts was poor, and allowed moisture to cause damage.

Engineers have now replaced all nuts and bolts which were cracked.

Notes

Bridges in Scotland
Steel bridges
Suspension bridges
1963 establishments in the United Kingdom
20th-century establishments in Scotland

Forth Road Bridge


Otto Ferdinand Muller von Czernicki, Jr (March 13, 1909 in Magetan, Dutch East Indies – 1998) was a Dutch field hockey player who competed in the 1928 Summer Olympics. He had a professional career as agricultural engineer, was married to Lilie van Thiel (born 1913), and was the son of Otto Ferdinand Muller von Czernicki, Sr and Anna Catharina Cramer.

He was a squad member of the Dutch field hockey team, which won the silver medal in the 1928 Olympics. He was a reserve player and did not play a single match.

He played from 1926 to 1930 as back in the hockey teams of Bloemendaal, H.H.C (1930), the Netherlands National Student Hockey Team, and the Netherlands men's national field hockey team. He also played lawn tennis and rowed at WSR Argo in 1936.

After graduating in 1937 from Wageningen University with a degree in tropical agriculture, Muller von Czernicki eventually became the CEO of Rubber Cultuur Maatschappij "Amsterdam" (RCMA), now Amsterdam Commodities (Acomo), a company with thousands of employees that, until 1957 when Indonesia nationalized all plantations, primarily managed rubber and palm oil plantations.

External links

genealogy

1909 births
1998 deaths
Dutch male field hockey players
Olympic field hockey players for the Netherlands
Field hockey players at the 1928 Summer Olympics
Olympic silver medalists for the Netherlands
20th-century Dutch businesspeople
Sportspeople from East Java
Wageningen University and Research alumni
Medalists at the 1928 Summer Olympics

Otto Muller von Czernicki


Gyrinops is a genus of nine species of trees, called lign aloes or lign-aloes trees, in the family Thymelaeaceae. They are native to Southeast Asia and the Indian Subcontinent.

The genus Gyrinops is closely related to Aquilaria and in the past all species were considered to belong to Aquilaria.

Agarwood production
Together with Aquilaria the genus is best known as the principal producer of the resin-suffused agarwood. The depletion of wild trees from indiscriminate cutting for agarwood has resulted in the trees being listed and protected as an endangered species.

Projects are currently underway in some countries in southeast Asia to infect cultivated trees artificially to produce agarwood in a sustainable manner. In Indonesia, for example, there have been proposals to encourage the planting of gahara, as it is known as locally, in eastern Indonesia, particularly in the province of Papua.

Species
Gyrinops caudata
Gyrinops decipiens
Gyrinops ledermanii
Gyrinops moluccana
Gyrinops podocarpus
Gyrinops salicifolia
Gyrinops versteegii
Gyrinops vidalii
Gyrinops walla

References

Thymelaeoideae
Malvales genera

Gyrinops


Lee Williams (born 3 April 1974) is a British actor, Voice Over artist, director, screenwriter and former model from Bangor, Wales.

He was discovered by Steven Meisel in Paris when he was working for Vivienne Westwood. Represented by Models One, he went on to model with top photographers Mario Testino, Bruce Webber, David Bailey, Paolo Roversi, Meisel, Nick Knight - who shot him for the album cover 'Coming up' for the band Suede. He was the 'it' male model of the 90's, where he modelled with Kate Moss for W magazine, as well as numerous appearances in The Face, Sky, Elle, Vogue, Vogue Homme, L'uomo Vogue and Runway Shows and Campaigns for CK Jeans, Versace, D&G, Dries Van Notes, Yohji Yamamoto, Thierry Mugler, Lagerfeld, Anne Demeulemeester, Raf Simmons. He was friends with Alexander McQueen and featured in his first two fashion shows wearing the infamous 'bumsters', and the mannequin company 'Adele Rootstein' immortalised him as a shop mannequin where he was seen in the windows of Liberty, Selfridges and Harvey Nichols.

As an actor he's best known for playing Jon Forsyte in 'The Forsyte Saga', Ewan in Channel 4's 'Teachers', Jack the manager of 'Hotel Babylon', as well as starring roles in numerous other tv shows. He was nominated for a Gemini award ( Canadian equivalent of an Oscar) for best Lead Actor in 'No Night is Too Long' alongside Marc Warren.

Williams most recently directed an adaptation of Kafka's 'The Trial' at the Edinburgh Festival and has been part of the writers programme at The Marlow Theatre in Canterbury, where his first play won a competition and they commissioned him to write a new original piece called 'SNUFF'. He has numerous television and film scripts in development.

Early life
Lee Williams was born in Bangor, Wales. Early in his life he lived in Holyhead with his mother and grandmother and grandfather. He went to a comprehensive school in Warrington in England. He did an art foundation at Lancaster College, then enrolled to study fine art and fashion at Central Saint Martin's College of Art and Fashion in London. It was whilst working for Vivienne Westwood, where he worked at The Worlds End shop and then helping in her designer shows in Paris; it was here that the photographer Steven Meisel encouraged Lee to pursue modelling.

Modelling
Williams worked as a model for two and a half years at the time when the heroin chic look was in popular demand and was being popularised by Kate Moss, and used in Calvin Klein advertisements. He was tall, skinny, had long hair and looked androgynous; a perfect candidate to model. Williams worked in many big magazines and was used as a model for The Face, I-D, Arena, Vogue, Elle, L'uomo. He also worked with top photographers such as Mario Testino, Bruce Weber and David Bailey. He did campaigns for Calvin Klein and fashion shows for Versace and Dolce and Gabbana. During his modelling career he lived in Japan, New York City and Paris. He is on the cover of Suede's album 'Coming Up', photographed by Nick Knight.

Acting
Williams was encouraged by his drama teacher to pursue acting, but instead chose to attend an art school in London, putting acting on hold. He eventually trained at The Neighbourhood Playhouse in New York and The Actors Centre in London, where he focused on The Meisner Technique. He was lucky enough to work consistently throughout his career, racking up over 40 acting credits, many of them leading roles in some critically acclaimed programmes and films. He auditioned for the role of Tom Riddle in the film Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets but lost out to Christian Coulson in the final stages. It was also between him and James Mcavoy  for the role of 'Mr Tumnus' in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. In 2011, he played Henry Mynors in Helen Edmundson's adaptation of Anna of the Five Towns on BBC Radio 4. The same year he appeared in Four Nights in Knaresborough (Morville) at the Southwark Playhouse.
Williams lives in Kent.

Voice Overs

Williams is also a prolific voice over artist, represented by the agency Yakety yak in London. Clients include Virgin, HMV, Rimmel, VO5, Nivea, Dove men, Alton Towers, DHL, as well as many documentaries and promos for the BBC, ITV, Disney and the History Channel.

Filmography
Grantchester (TV series) Episode #1.4 (2014)- Dominic Taylor
White Settlers (2014) – Ed
When Calls the Heart (2013) – Thomas Higgins
Delhi in a Day Feature Film – Jasper (2010)
The Tudors Robert Testwood (2009)
Hotel Babylon (2008) – Jack Harrison
Casualty (TV series) (2008–2011) – Brian
Lena: The Bride of Ice (2008) – Johnny
Kimono (2007) – Narrator
The Waiting Room – Brian
New Street Law – Joe Stevens (12 episodes, 2006–2007)
Miss Marie Lloyd – Queen of The Music Hall (2007) (TV) – Freddie
Popcorn (2007) – Emil
The Trial (TV) – Clay
No Angels – Patrick (2 episodes, 2006)
Ideal – Luke (4 episodes, 2007)
Coming Up (2006) (TV) – Clay
Stalking Pete Doherty (2005) (TV) – Narrator
Teachers  – Ewan Doherty (Series 4, 2004) (9 episodes)
Murder in Suburbia – Jamie Finch (1 episode, 2004)
The Debt (2003) (TV) – James Hilden
The Forsyte Saga: To Let (2003) (TV mini-series) – Jon Forsyte
The American Embassy – Drew Barkley (3 episodes, 2002)
No Night Is Too Long (2002) (TV) – Tim Cornish
Vallen (2001) – Lucas
Me Without You (2001) – Ben
In His Life: The John Lennon Story (2000) (TV) – Stuart Sutcliffe
Losing It (2000) (TV) – Jude
Urban Gothic – Carter (1 episode, 2000)
A Many Splintered Thing (2000) – Simon (unknown episodes)
Billy Elliot (2000) – Tutor 4
Canone Inverso (2000) – David Blau
Mauvaise passe (1999) – Customer in Cafe
Elephant Juice (1999) – George
Boyz Unlimited (1999) – Scott LeTissier (unknown episodes)
The Wolves of Kromer (1998) – Seth
Still Crazy (1998) – Young Keith
Macbeth on the Estate (1998) (TV) – Weird Child

External links
BBC Drama faces Lee Williams
Mini-profiles Lee Williams

References

1974 births
Living people
Welsh male television actors
People from Bangor, Gwynedd
Welsh male models

Lee Williams (actor)


Edward A. Thomas (April 27, 1838 – September 2, 1890) was an American jurist who served as a justice of the Territorial Wyoming Supreme Court from March 20, 1873, to December 14, 1877.

Born in Cayuga County, New York, Thomas was captain in the Union Army in the American Civil War, and was a lawyer, and later mayor in Auburn, New York.

On March 20, 1873, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Thomas, then 35 years old, to the Territorial Wyoming Supreme Court, to replace John W. Kingman. During his four years of service there, Thomas "was the compiler for the first volume of the Wyoming Supreme Court decisions".

He resigned from the court on December 14, 1877, and "returned East, where he devoted some of his time to writing", which included the authorship of several novels and a dictionary of biography. Thomas died in Norristown, Pennsylvania.

References

1838 births
1890 deaths
People from Cayuga County, New York
Union Army officers
Justices of the Wyoming Supreme Court
19th-century American judges

Edward A. Thomas


The Crest is a historic house on Eatons Neck in Suffolk County, New York.  Although on the land mass of Eatons Neck, the house today is within the jurisdiction of the Incorporated Village of Asharoken.  According to the National Register of Historic Places, on which the house is listed, it has also been known as Hasbrouk-DeLamater House and as Robinson House.  Another name for the house is Walnut Crest.

The house was built in 1902 for Oakley Ramshon DeLamater who presented the house as a gift to his wife, Elizabeth Hasbrouk DeLamater.  Oakley R. DeLamater was the grandson of Cornelius H. DeLamater, who owned the DeLamater Iron Works located where 13th Street meets the Hudson River in New York City.  The ironworks is where the turret and machinery was built for the ironclad USS Monitor during the Civil War.  The estate, originally named "Walnut Crest" was built on a high crest of land overlooking Walnut Neck.  Walnut Neck is a peninsula on the south side of Eatons Neck.

The house was designed by Harry E. Donnell, who was married to another grandchild of Cornelius H. DeLamater.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.

References

Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state)
Houses completed in 1903
Houses in Suffolk County, New York
National Register of Historic Places in Suffolk County, New York

The Crest (Huntington, New York)


Judah is a person from the Book of Genesis. He was the ancestor of the tribe that became the Kingdom of Judah.

Birth
It is written in the Torah, in the Book of Genesis that Jacob married both Leah and her sister Rachel and loved Rachel but not Leah. So Leah prayed to the Lord for a son so that she wouldn't be hated. Then Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son and she said "now my husband shall love me" and named him Reuben. Then Leah gave birth to a second son and said that the Lord had heard her voice so she named him Simeon. Then Leah gave birth to a third son and said "I have poured my heart unto the Lord" and named him Levi. Then Leah gave birth to a fourth son and said "this time I will thank the Lord" and she named him Judah.

Family History
After Judah was born, Rachel came to Jacob and said "give me children otherwise I am dead" and Jacob told her that he couldn't give her a miracle like that since he was only human. So Rachel told Jacob to marry her servant Bilhah and Bilhah gave birth to two sons named Dan and Naphtali. Leah then told Jacob to marry her servant Zilpah and Zilpah gave birth to two sons named Gad and Asher. Then Leah gave birth to Zebulun and Issachar. Then Leah gave birth to a daughter Dinah and Rachel gave birth to a son Joseph. Later, Rachel died in childbirth and her son was named Benjamin.

Sale of Joseph
Jacob loved Joseph more than all of his other children because Joseph was born when he was an old man and because it took many years for Rachel to be able to give birth. So Jacob gave Joseph a coat with many colours. And Joseph had dreams about his brothers all bowing to him so they became jealous and they took Joseph and threw him in a big hole in the ground and left him to die. But then Judah felt guilty about that so he told his brothers that instead of letting Joseph die, they should take him and sell him as a slave to the Ishmaelites and they did. And when Reuben found out, he was angry with Judah because Reuben was planning to rescue Joseph.

Tamar
Judah married a woman and had three sons named Er, Onan and Shelah. Er married a woman named Tamar but Er died childless so Judah told Onan to marry Tamar and raise their children to think of themselves as the children of Er to honour his memory. But instead of having children with her, Onan threw his semen on the ground. The Lord killed Onan for this. After Onan died, Judah's son Shelah was supposed to marry Tamar but Judah didn't let him do that because he was scared Shelah would also die. So Tamar dressed up as a prostitute and had sex with Judah but asked for his staff and seal to let her know that he would pay. When Judah came back to pay her, not having recognized her as Tamar, she was gone. When the people told Judah that Tamar was pregnant Judah said to burn her for prostitution but Tamar said that the father was the person who owned the staff, seal and cord. Then Judah said "she is indeed more righteous than I am" and said he was the father. So Judah married Tamar and she gave birth to twins named Peretz and Zerach.

Reunion with Joseph
When there was a famine in Canaan, Judah and his brothers except for Joseph and Benjamin came to Egypt to ask for grain. Joseph was the viceroy but Judah and the others didn't recognize him. Joseph asked them if they had any other brothers and they told him about Benjamin. Joseph then said they were spies and jailed Simeon and said that he would only free him if they brought Benjamin to Egypt to prove they were telling the truth. When they told Jacob this, he said "first, I lost Joseph, then I lost Simeon, and now you would have me lose Benjamin!" but Judah still convinced Jacob to let him bring Benjamin to Egypt by making a promise to protect him. And when they made it to Egypt, Joseph freed Simeon and gave the brothers everything they wanted but also framed Benjamin for stealing from him and said he would enslave Benjamin as punishment. So Judah begged Joseph to have mercy on Benjamin and enslave Judah instead. Then all of Judah's brothers joined in saying the exact same thing so Joseph told them "I am Joseph, your brother". Judah and his brothers thought that Joseph would want revenge but instead Joseph gave them his forgiveness saying that the Lord had brought him to Egypt to save lives.

Tribe of Judah
In the Tanakh, Judah's descendants are a tribe called the Tribe of Judah. In the Book of Exodus, Nacshon is the first person to jump before the splitting of the sea and is from the Tribe of Judah. And when Moses sends twelve spies to Canaan in the Book of Numbers, one for each tribe, Caleb is the spy for Judah and aside from Joshua is the only one of them to say nice things about the Promised Land. In the Book of Judges the first Judge Othniel is from the Tribe of Judah and Judah is normally the tribe that leads the Israelites in battle.

Davidic Ancestry
In the Book of Ruth, Judah's son Peretz became the ancestor of Boaz. Boaz married Ruth and had a son Jesse and Jesse became the father of David. In the Books of Samuel, David became King of the tribe of Judah after Saul died and only became King of Israel after the death of Saul's son Ishbosheth.

Kingdom of Judah
After David's son King Solomon died, his son Rehoboam couldn't keep the kingdom together so it split into two kingdoms. The one in the north was called the Kingdom of Israel and the one in the south was called Judah. The kingdom of Judah was eventually destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar II who exiled its people.

The Jews
After the Kingdom of Israel was conquered and destroyed by Assyria, the kingdom of Judah survived under the leadership of Hezekiah and its people came to be known as the Judahites or the Jews, meaning the people of Judah. And even after the exile to Mesopotamia started, they still called themselves the Jews.

Zerubabel
In the later books of the Tanakh, a man named Zerubabel, who is a descendant of Judah is important in rebuilding the Temple of Jerusalem.

The Messiah
Prophecies in the Tanakh and Old Testament say that the Messiah would be a descendant of David, who was descended from Judah, and that he would bring Judah and Israel back from exile.

Christianity
The New Testament begins the Gospel of Matthew with a family tree which has Judah become the father of Peretz and Zerach, with Peretz becoming the ancestor of Jesus's stepfather Joseph and the Gospel of Luke says that the Virgin Mary is also a descendant of David making Judah an ancestor of Jesus.
Old Testament people

Judah (son of Jacob)


is a 1985 epic action drama film directed, edited and co-written by Akira Kurosawa. The plot derives from William Shakespeare's King Lear and includes segments based on legends of the daimyō Mōri Motonari. The film stars Tatsuya Nakadai as Hidetora Ichimonji, an aging Sengoku-period warlord who decides to abdicate as ruler in favor of his three sons.

Like most of Kurosawa's work in the 1970s and 80s, Ran is an international production, in this case a Japanese-French venture produced by Herald Ace, Nippon Herald Films, and Greenwich Film Productions. Production planning went through a long period of preparation. Kurosawa conceived the idea of Ran in the mid-1970s, when he read about Motonari, who was famous for having three highly loyal sons. Kurosawa devised a plot in which the sons become antagonists of their father. Although the film became heavily inspired by Shakespeare's play King Lear, Kurosawa began using it only after he had started preparations for Ran. Following these preparations, Kurosawa filmed Dersu Uzala in 1975, followed by Kagemusha in the early 1980s, before securing financial backing to film Ran.

Ran was Kurosawa's third encounter with Shakespeare during his career. In 1957, Kurosawa directed Throne of Blood, based on Shakespeare's Macbeth. In 1960, he directed the film The Bad Sleep Well, based on Hamlet. Despite the changes in setting and language, all three films have received critical acclaim.

As Kurosawa's last epic, Ran has often been cited as among his finest achievements and is widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made. With a budget of $11 million it was the most expensive Japanese film produced up to that time. Ran was previewed on  May 31, 1985, at the Tokyo International Film Festival before its release on June 1, 1985, in Japan. The film was hailed for its powerful images and use of color;  costume designer Emi Wada won an Academy Award for Best Costume Design for her work on Ran, and Kurosawa received his only career nomination for Best Director. The distinctive film score, inspired by Gustav Mahler, was composed by Toru Takemitsu.

Plot
Hidetora Ichimonji, a powerful but elderly warlord, decides to divide his kingdom among his three sons: Taro, Jiro, and Saburo. Taro, the eldest, will receive the prestigious First Castle and become leader of the Ichimonji clan, while Jiro and Saburo will be given the Second and Third Castles. Hidetora is to retain the title of Great Lord and Jiro and Saburo are to support Taro. However, Saburo is exiled after criticizing his father's lecture about unity. Hidetora's servant Tango is also exiled for defending Saburo.

Following the division of Hidetora's lands between his remaining two sons, Taro's wife, Lady Kaede, still bitter about Hidetora killing her family and taking their land, successfully urges him to usurp control of the entire Ichimonji clan. When Taro demands Hidetora renounce his title, Hidetora leaves and travels to Jiro's castle, only to discover that Jiro is only interested in using Hidetora as a titular pawn. As Hidetora and his retinue wander, Tango warns Hidetora of Taro's new decree: death to whoever aids his father. Hidetora plans to take refuge in the Third Castle, which was abandoned by Saburo's forces (who followed him into exile) and taken over by Taro's general Ogura. Hidetora feels they can take Ogura easily, whereas Kyoami, the court fool, jokes about Hidetora's predicament, and is yelled at by Hidetora to stay behind if he's afraid. Kyoami and Tango stay outside while Hidetora and the rest of his retinue take refuge in the Third Castle, which they find unoccupied.

Later, Hidetora and his retinue are attacked by Taro and Jiro's combined forces - Taro's men had "abandoned" the castle to lure Hidetora into a false sense of security and ambush him. Taro is killed by a bullet fired by Jiro's general, Kurogane. All of Hidetora's retinue are either killed or commit ritual suicide. Hidetora is allowed to survive and succumbs to madness as he wanders away from the destroyed castle. Kyoami and Tango, still loyal to Hidetora, find him and stay to assist. Hidetora is haunted by visions of the people he killed in the past. They take refuge in a peasant's home only to discover that the occupant is Tsurumaru, the brother of Lady Sue, Jiro's wife. Tsurumaru's eyes were gouged out by Hidetora's forces and he was left impoverished due to Hidetora's siege. With Taro dead, Jiro becomes the Great Lord of the Ichimonji clan, and moves into the First Castle. Lady Kaede manipulates Jiro into having an affair with her, and demands that he kill Lady Sue, and marry her instead. Jiro orders Kurogane to do the deed, but he refuses, seeing through Kaede's perfidy. Kurogane then warns Sue and Tsurumaru to flee. Tango encounters former spies and before killing them, he is informed that Jiro is considering sending assassins after Hidetora. Tango rides off to alert Saburo. As his madness grows, Hidetora runs off into a volcanic plain.

After Saburo's army enters Jiro's territory to find Hidetora, Jiro hastily mobilizes his army. After a truce, Saburo learns from Kyoami of Hidetora's potential location. After Saburo leaves, Jiro attacks Saburo's smaller forces, suffering losses, and orders his remaining forces to retreat after learning of another army marching on the First Castle. Saburo finds Hidetora, who partially recovers his sanity, and reconciles with Saburo. However, Saburo is killed by one of Jiro's snipers. Hidetora dies from grief. Tsurumaru and Sue arrive at the ruins of a castle, but inadvertently leave behind the flute that Sue gave him when he was banished. She gives him a picture of Amida Buddha for protection while she attempts to retrieve the flute. However, she never returns.

As the First Castle is besieged, Kurogane learns of Sue's death, and confronts Kaede. After she confesses her plot was revenge against the Ichimonji clan, she is killed by Kurogane. Jiro, Kurogane, and all Jiro's men subsequently die in battle. A funeral procession is held for Saburo and Hidetora. Meanwhile, left alone in the castle ruins, Tsurumaru trips, dropping the Amida Buddha image Sue had given to him. The film ends with a distant shot of Tsurumaru silhouetted against the castle's landscape atop the ruins.

Cast

Production

Ran was Kurosawa's last epic film and by far his most expensive. At the time, its budget of $11 million made it the most expensive Japanese film in history, leading to its distribution in 1985 exceeding the budget of $7.5 million for his previous film Kagemusha. It is a Japanese-French venture produced by Herald Ace, Nippon Herald Films, and Greenwich Film Productions. Filming started in 1983. The 1,400 uniforms and suits of armor used for the extras were designed by costume designer Emi Wada and Kurosawa, and were handmade by master tailors over more than two years. The film also used 200 horses. Kurosawa loved filming in lush and expansive locations, and most of Ran was shot amidst the mountains and plains of Mount Aso, Japan's largest active volcano. Kurosawa was granted permission to shoot at two of the country's most famous landmarks, the ancient castles at Kumamoto and Himeji. For the castle of Lady Sue's family, he used the ruins of the custom-constructed Azusa castle, made by Kurosawa's production crew near Mount Fuji. Hidetora's third castle, which was burned to the ground, was a real building which Kurosawa built on the slopes of Mount Fuji. No miniatures were used for that segment, and Tatsuya Nakadai had to do the scene where Hidetora flees the castle in one take.  Kurosawa also filmed a scene that required an entire field to be sprayed gold, but cut it out of the final film during editing. The documentary A.K. shows the filming of the scene.

Kurosawa often shot scenes with three cameras simultaneously, each using different lenses and angles. Many long-shots were employed and very few close-ups. On several occasions, Kurosawa used static cameras and suddenly brought the action into frame, rather than using the camera to track the action. He also used jump cuts to progress certain scenes, changing the pace of the action for filmic effect.

Akira Kurosawa's wife of 39 years, Yōko Yaguchi, died during the production of the film. He halted filming for one day to mourn before resuming work. His regular recording engineer Fumio Yanoguchi also died late in production in January 1985.

Crew

 Akira Kurosawa – director, co-writer
 Ishirō Honda – associate director
 Kunio Nozaki – assistant director
 Ichiro Yamamoto – assistant director
 Okihiro Yoneda – assistant director
 Teruyo Nogami – production manager
 Takeji Sano – lighting
 Yoshiro Muraki – production design
 Shinobu Muraki – production design
 Emi Wada – costume design
 Ichiro Minawa – sound effects

Personnel taken from The Criterion Collection.

Development
Kurosawa conceived of the idea that became Ran in the mid-1970s, when he read a parable about the Sengoku-period warlord Mōri Motonari. Motonari was famous for having three sons, all incredibly loyal and talented. Kurosawa began imagining what would have happened had they been bad. Although the film eventually became heavily inspired by Shakespeare's play King Lear, Kurosawa became aware of the play only after he had started pre-planning. According to him, the stories of Mōri Motonari and Lear merged in a way he was never fully able to explain. He wrote the script shortly after filming Dersu Uzala in 1975, and then "let it sleep" for seven years. During this time, he painted storyboards of every shot in the film (later included with the screenplay and available on the Criterion Collection DVD release) and then continued searching for funding. Following his success with 1980's Kagemusha, which he later considered a "dress rehearsal" or "dry run" for Ran, Kurosawa was finally able to secure backing from French producer Serge Silberman.

Kurosawa once said "Hidetora is me", and there is evidence in the film that Hidetora serves as a stand-in for Kurosawa. Roger Ebert agrees, arguing that Ran "may be as much about Kurosawa's life as Shakespeare's play". Ran was the final film of Kurosawa's "third period" (1965–1985), a time where he had difficulty securing support for his pictures, and was frequently forced to seek foreign financial backing. While he had directed over twenty films in the first two decades of his career, he directed just four in these two decades. After directing Red Beard (1965), Kurosawa discovered that he was considered old-fashioned and did not work again for almost five years. He also found himself competing against television, which had reduced Japanese film audiences from a high of 1.1 billion in 1958 to under 200 million by 1975. In 1968, he was fired from the 20th Century Fox epic Tora! Tora! Tora! over what he described as creative differences, but others said was a perfectionism that bordered on insanity. Kurosawa tried to start an independent production group with three other directors, but his 1970 film Dodes'ka-den was a box-office flop and bankrupted the company.  Many of his younger rivals boasted that he was finished. A year later, unable to secure any domestic funding and plagued by ill health, Kurosawa attempted suicide by slashing his wrists. Though he survived, his misfortune continued to plague him until the late 1980s.

Kurosawa was influenced by the William Shakespeare play King Lear and borrowed elements from it. Both depict an aging warlord who decides to divide up his kingdom among his children. Hidetora has three sons – Taro, Jiro, and Saburo – who correspond to Lear's daughters Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia. In both, the warlord foolishly banishes anyone who disagrees with him as a matter of pride – in Lear it is the Earl of Kent and Cordelia; in Ran it is Tango and Saburo. The conflict in both is that two of the lord's children ultimately turn against him, while the third supports him, though Hidetora's sons are far more ruthless than Goneril and Regan. Both King Lear and Ran end with the death of the entire family, including the lord.

There are some crucial differences between the two stories. King Lear is a play about undeserved suffering, and Lear himself is at worst a fool. Hidetora, by contrast, has been a cruel warrior for most of his life: a man who ruthlessly murdered men, women, and children to achieve his goals.  In Ran, Lady Kaede, Lady Sue, and Tsurumaru were all victims of Hidetora. Whereas in King Lear the character of Gloucester had his eyes gouged out by Lear's enemies, in Ran it was Hidetora himself who gave the order to blind Tsurumaru. The role of the Fool has been expanded into a major character (Kyoami). Kurosawa was concerned that Shakespeare gave his characters no past, and he wanted to give his version of King Lear a history.

The complex and variant etymology for the word Ran used as the title has been variously translated as "chaos", "rebellion", or "revolt"; or to mean "disturbed" or "confused".

Filming
The filming of Ran began in 1983. The development and conception of the filming of the war scenes in the film were influenced by Kurosawa's opinions on nuclear warfare. According to Michael Wilmington, Kurosawa told him that much of the film was a metaphor for nuclear warfare and the anxiety of the post-Hiroshima age. He believed that, despite all of the technological progress of the 20th century, all people had learned was how to kill each other more efficiently.  In Ran, the vehicle for apocalyptic destruction is the arquebus, an early firearm that was introduced to Japan in the 16th century. Arquebuses revolutionized samurai warfare. Kurosawa had already dealt with this theme in his previous film Kagemusha, in which the Takeda cavalry is destroyed by the arquebuses of the Oda and Tokugawa clans.

In Ran, the battle of Hachiman Field is an illustration of this new kind of warfare. Saburo's arquebusiers annihilate Jiro's cavalry and drive off his infantry by engaging them from the woods, where the cavalry are unable to venture. Similarly, Taro and Saburo's assassination by a sniper also shows how individual heroes can be easily disposed of on a modern battlefield. Kurosawa also illustrates this new warfare with his camera. Instead of focusing on the warring armies, he frequently sets the focal plane beyond the action, so that in the film they appear as abstract entities.

Casting
The description of Hidetora in the first script was originally based on Toshiro Mifune. However, the role was cast to Tatsuya Nakadai, an actor who had played several supporting and major characters in previous Kurosawa films, such as Shingen and his double in Kagemusha. Other Kurosawa veterans in Ran were Masayuki Yui (Tango), Jinpachi Nezu (Jiro) and Daisuke Ryu (Saburo), all of whom were in Kagemusha. For Akira Terao (Taro) and Mieko Harada (Lady Kaede), Ran was their first Kurosawa film, but they would go on to work with him again in Dreams. Hisashi Igawa (Kurogane), who had previously been in Kurosawa's Dodes'ka-den, would reappear in both Dreams and Rhapsody in August. Kurosawa also hired two popular entertainers for supporting roles: singer-dancer Shinnosuke "Peter" Ikehata as Hidetora's loyal fool Kyoami and comedian-musician Hitoshi Ueki as rival warlord Nobuhiro Fujimaki. About 1,400 extras were employed.

Acting style
While most of the characters in Ran are portrayed by conventional acting techniques, two performances are reminiscent of Japanese Noh theatre. Noh is a form of Japanese traditional theatre requiring highly-trained actors and musicians where emotions are primarily conveyed by stylized conventional gestures. The heavy, ghost-like make-up worn by Tatsuya Nakadai's character, Hidetora, resembles the emotive masks worn by traditional Noh performers. The body language exhibited by the same character is also typical of Noh theatre: long periods of static motion and silence, followed by an abrupt, sometimes violent, change in stance. The character of Lady Kaede is also Noh-influenced. The Noh treatment emphasizes the ruthless, passionate, and single-minded natures of these two characters.

Music
Craig Lysy, writing for Movie Music UK, commented on the strengths of the film soundtrack's composer for Kurosawa's purposes: "Tōru Takemitsu was Japan's preeminent film score composer and Kurosawa secured his involvement in 1976, during the project's early stages. Their initial conception of the score was to use tategoe, a "shrill-voice" chant style without instrumentation. Over the intervening years, Kurosawa's conception of the score changed dramatically. As they began production his desire had changed 180 degrees, now insisting on a powerful Mahleresque orchestral score. Takemitsu responded with what many describe as his most romantic effort, one that achieved a perfect blending of Oriental and Occidental sensibilities."

Takemitsu has stated that he was significantly influenced by the Japanese karmic concept of ma, interpreted as a surplus of energy surrounding an abundant void. As Lysy stated: "Takemitsu was guided in his efforts best summed up in the Japanese word ma, which suggests the incongruity of a void abounding with energy. He related: 'My music is like a garden, and I am the gardener. Listening to my music can be compared with walking through a garden and experiencing the changes in light, pattern and texture.

The project was the second of two which allowed Kurosawa and Takemitsu to collaborate, the first being Dodes'ka-den in 1970. Lysy summarized the second project stating: "the collaboration between Kurosawa and the temperamental Takemitsu was rocky. Kurosawa constantly sent Takemitsu notes, which only served to infuriate him, so he frequently visited the set to gain a direct sensual experience. Takemitsu actually resigned... Fortunately, producer Masato Hara intervened, made peace, and Takemitsu returned to the film. Years later, Takemitsu would relate: "Overall, I still have this feeling of ... 'Oh, if only he'd left more up to me' ... But seeing it now ... I guess it's fine the way it is.

Kurosawa originally had wanted the London Symphony Orchestra to perform the score for Ran, but upon meeting conductor Hiroyuki Iwaki of the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra, he engaged Iwaki and the orchestra to record it. Kurosawa had the orchestra play up to 40 takes of the music. The running time of the soundtrack is just over an hour and was re-released in 2016 after its original release in 1985 by Silva Screen Productions. It was produced by Reynold da Silva and David Stoner.

Reception

Box office
Released on June 1, 1985, it was modestly successful financially in Japan. It earned  ($12 million) in Japan, just enough to break even. In France, where it released on 18 September 1985, the film sold 813,081 tickets, grossing an estimated F ().

In the United States, where it released in December 1985, the film grossed $3,763,760 in its first four weeks of release. Later re-releases between 2000 and 2016 grossed $528,357 in the United States and Canada, bringing its total North American gross to .

In Germany, where it released in 1986, the film sold 222,862 tickets, grossing an estimated  ($714,912). The film also grossed $18,692 in the United Kingdom, and $16,215 in Portugal, bringing the film's total estimated gross to approximately  worldwide.

Critical reviews

Ran was critically acclaimed upon its premiere. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 96%, based on 89 reviews, and an average rating of 9/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Akira Kurosawa's sprawling, epic take on King Lear should be required viewing for fans of westerns, war movies, or period films in general." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 97 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Shawn Levy, of the Portland Oregonian wrote, "In many respects, it's Kurosawa's most sumptuous film, a feast of color, motion and sound: Considering that its brethren include Kagemusha, Seven Samurai and Dersu Uzala, the achievement is extraordinary." Writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert stated, "Ran is a great, glorious achievement." In the San Francisco Examiner, G. Allen Johnson stated: "Kurosawa pulled out all the stops with Ran, his obsession with loyalty and his love of expressionistic film techniques allowed to roam freely."

Writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, Bob Graham stated: "In Ran, the horrors of life are transformed by art into beauty. It is finally so moving that the only appropriate response is silence." Gene Siskel, writing for the Chicago Tribune, wrote: "The physical scale of Ran is overwhelming. It's almost as if Kurosawa is saying to all the cassette buyers of America, in a play on Clint Eastwood's phrase, 'Go ahead, ruin your night' – wait to see my film on a small screen and cheat yourself out of what a movie can be." Vincent Canby, writing for The New York Times, stated: "Though big in physical scope and of a beauty that suggests a kind of drunken, barbaric lyricism, Ran has the terrible logic and clarity of a morality tale seen in tight close-up, of a myth that, while being utterly specific and particular in its time and place, remains ageless, infinitely adaptable."

Roger Ebert awarded the film four out of four stars, with extended commentary, "Kurosawa (while directing Ran) often must have associated himself with the old lord as he tried to put this film together, but in the end he has triumphed, and the image I have of him, at 75, is of three arrows bundled together." In 2000, it was inducted into Ebert's Great Movies list.

By way of contrast John Simon of the National Review wrote, "I find it as an almost total failure by a genius in his old age".

Michal Sragow, writing for Salon in 2000, summarized the Shakespearean origins of the play: "Kurosawa's Lear is a 16th century warlord who has three sons and a career studded with conquests. Kurosawa's genius is to tell his story so that every step suggests how wild and savage a journey it has been. At the start, this bold, dominating figure, now called Hidetora, is a sacred monster who wants to be a sort of warlord emeritus. He hopes to bequeath power to his oldest son while retaining his own entourage and emblems of command. He hasn't reckoned with the ambition of his successor or the manipulative skill of his heir's wife, who goes for the sexual and political jugular of anyone who invades her sphere." In 2009, the film was voted at No. 59 on the list of The Greatest Japanese Films of All Time by Japanese film magazine Kinema Junpo.

Accolades
Ran was completed too late to be entered at Cannes and had its premiere at Japan's first Tokyo International Film Festival. Kurosawa skipped the film's premiere, angering many in the Japanese film industry. As a result, it was not submitted as Japan's entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category of the Oscars. Serge Silberman tried to get it nominated as a French co-production but failed. However, American director Sidney Lumet helped organize a campaign to have Kurosawa nominated as Best Director.

Ran was nominated for the Academy Awards for art direction, cinematography, costume design (which it won), and Kurosawa's direction. It was also nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. In Japan, Ran was conspicuously not nominated for "Best Picture" at the Awards of the Japanese Academy. However, it won two prizes, for best art direction and best music score, and received four other nominations, for best cinematography, best lighting, best sound, and best supporting actor (Hitoshi Ueki, who played Saburo's patron, Lord Fujimaki). Ran won two awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, for best foreign language film and best make-up artist, and was nominated for best cinematography, best costume design, best production design, and best screenplay–adapted. Despite its limited commercial success at the time of its release, the film's accolades have improved greatly, and it is now regarded as one of Kurosawa's masterpieces.

Ran won Best Director and Best Foreign Film awards from the National Board of Review, a Best Film award and a Best Cinematography award (Takao Saitō, Shōji Ueda, and Asakazu Nakai) from the National Society of Film Critics, a Best Foreign Language Film award from the New York Film Critics Circle, a Best Music award (Toru Takemitsu) and a Best Foreign Film award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, a Best Film award and a Best Cinematography award from the Boston Society of Film Critics, a Best Foreign Feature award from the Amanda Awards from Norway, a Blue Ribbon Award for Best Film, a Best European Film award from the Bodil Awards, a Best Foreign Director award from the David di Donatello Awards, a Joseph Plateau Award for Best Artistic Contribution, a Director of the Year award and a Foreign Language Film of the Year award from the London Critics Circle Film Awards, a Best Film, a Best Supporting Actor (Hisashi Igawa) and a Best Director from the Mainichi Film Concours, and an OCIC award from the San Sebastian Film Festival.

In the British Film Institute's 2002 Sight & Sound polls of the greatest films ever made, Ran ranked 41st in director's poll. In 2007, the film was ranked at No. 28 by The Guardians readers' poll on its list of "40 greatest foreign films of all time". The film was selected in BBC's list of 100 greatest foreign language films by 209 critics of 43 countries around the world in 2018.

See also
 List of historical drama films of Asia

References

Bibliography

External links

 Ran  at the Japanese Movie Database
 Ran Script – Dialogue Transcript: A transcript of film from Drew's Script-O-Rama.

 Ran: Apocalypse Song an essay by Michael Wilmington at the Criterion Collection

1985 films
1980s action drama films
Japanese action drama films
1980s Japanese-language films
Jidaigeki films
Samurai films
Action films based on actual events
Films based on King Lear
Films directed by Akira Kurosawa
Films set in castles
Films with screenplays by Akira Kurosawa
Films with screenplays by Hideo Oguni
Best Foreign Language Film BAFTA Award winners
Films that won the Best Costume Design Academy Award
Orion Pictures films
Films set in 16th-century Sengoku period
French epic films
Films produced by Serge Silberman
Films based on multiple works
Films scored by Toru Takemitsu
Japanese films based on plays
1985 drama films
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Film winners
1980s Japanese films
1980s French films
Japanese war drama films
Historical epic films
Japanese epic films
Films about father–son relationships
Films about brothers
Films about kings
Films about inheritances
War epic films

Ran (film)


Arthur Matthias Beaupre (July 29, 1853 – September 13, 1919) was an American diplomat. He served in several ambassadorships, including Colombia, Argentina, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Cuba.

Early life
Beaupre was born in Oswego, Illinois on July 29, 1853.  His family moved to DeKalb County when he was a boy, and at age 16 Beaupre started work as a printer for the Dekalb County News newspaper and advanced through several positions to become a reporter.

Career
In 1874, Beaupre relocated to Aurora, Illinois, studied law, and attained admission to the bar.  A Republican, shortly afterwards he was elected Clerk of the City Court.  He won election to a second term, but before it began he resigned to accept the position of Deputy Clerk for Kane County.  In 1886, Beaupre was elected Kane County Clerk, and in 1890 he was reelected to a second four-year term.

Diplomatic career
After leaving the Clerk's office, in 1897 Beaupre embarked on a career as a diplomat when he was appointed U.S. Consul in Guatemala City, Guatemala, where he served until 1899.  In 1900, he was appointed Consul in Bogota, Colombia.

Beaupre was appointed Minister to Colombia in 1903 and he served until 1904, when he was named Minister to Argentina.

From 1908 to 1911 Beaupre served as both Minister to the Netherlands and Minister to Luxembourg.  In 1911 he was appointed as Minister to Cuba, where he served until retiring in 1913.

Personal life
On October 20, 1880, Beaupre was married to Mary Marsh (1863–1947), the daughter of Charles Wesley Marsh.  Her father and her uncle, William Wallace Marsh, started Marsh, Steward & Company and were responsible for the invention and patent of a reaper-harvester. They were the parents of one child:

 Beatrice Beaupre (b. 1884).

Beaupre died in Chicago, Illinois on September 13, 1919, two days after suffering a stroke.  He is buried in Graceland Cemetery.

References

External links
Arthur Matthias Beaupre at Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State

1853 births
1919 deaths
People from Oswego, Illinois
People from DeKalb County, Illinois
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Arthur M. Beaupre


The Goodbye Girl is a 1977 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Herbert Ross, written by Neil Simon and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Marsha Mason, Quinn Cummings and Paul Benedict. The film, produced by Ray Stark, centers on an odd trio of characters: a struggling actor who has sublet a Manhattan apartment from a friend, the current occupant (his friend's ex-girlfriend, who has just been abandoned), and her precocious young daughter.

Richard Dreyfuss won the 1977 Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Elliot Garfield. At the time, he became the youngest man (at age 30) to win an Oscar for Best Actor. Both Mason and Cummings were nominated for Oscars.

The film became the first romantic comedy to earn $100 million in box-office grosses.

Plot
Dancer and divorcee Paula McFadden (Marsha Mason) and her ten-year-old daughter Lucy (Quinn Cummings) live in a Manhattan apartment with her married boyfriend, Tony DeForrest. Coming home from shopping, Paula finds Tony gone as he had suddenly deserted her to travel to Italy for a film role. Prior to his departure (and unbeknownst to Paula), Tony sublet the apartment to Elliot Garfield (Richard Dreyfuss), a neurotic but sweet aspiring actor from Chicago, who shows up in the middle of the night expecting to move in. Paula, who is demanding, cynical, and neurotic, makes it clear from the start that she does not like Elliot, but reluctantly lets him move in. They argue about boundaries, with Elliot agreeing to allow Paula and Lucy to stay.

Paula is struggling to get back into shape so she can resume her career as a dancer. Meanwhile, Elliot has landed the title role in an off-off-Broadway production of Richard III, but the director, Mark (Paul Benedict), wants him to play Richard III of England as an exaggerated homosexual stereotype—in Mark's words, "the queen who wanted to be king." Reluctantly, Elliot agrees to the non-traditional portrayal, despite knowing that it may mean the end of his acting career. Theater critics from numerous New York City television stations and newspapers attend opening night and savage the show, paying special attention to trashing Elliot's performance. The play quickly closes, much to his relief.

Despite their frequent clashes and Paula's lack of gratitude for Elliot's help, the two fall in love and sleep together. Lucy, despite liking Elliot, grows cautious and sees the affair as a repeat of what happened with Tony. Elliot convinces Paula that he will not be a repeat of their experience with Tony; later he picks up Lucy from school and takes her on a carriage ride, during which the youngster admits she likes Elliot. In response, Elliot explains how much he cares for Lucy and Paula and that he would not do anything to hurt them.

Elliot lands a job at an improvisational theatre, and is soon seen by a well-known film director. He is offered an opportunity for a film role that he cannot turn down, but the job is in Seattle and Elliot will be gone for four weeks. Paula is scared that Elliot is leaving her, never to return, like all the other men in her life. Later, Elliot calls Paula from the phone booth across the street to say his flight was delayed, and at the last minute, he invites Paula to go with him while he is filming, suggesting Lucy stay with Paula's friend Donna until they return. Paula declines but is encouraged by Elliot's invitation. Before hanging up, Elliot asks Paula to restring his prized guitar (which he deliberately left at the apartment), and she realizes this proves he really does love her and will indeed return.

Cast
 Richard Dreyfuss as Elliot Garfield
 Marsha Mason as Paula McFadden
 Quinn Cummings as Lucy McFadden
 Paul Benedict as Mark Bodine
 Barbara Rhoades as Donna Douglas
 Theresa Merritt as Mrs. Crosby
 Michael Shawn as Ronnie Burns
 Patricia Pearcy as Rhonda Fontana
 Nicol Williamson as Oliver Fry (uncredited)

Production
The film began as a screenplay called Bogart Slept Here (essentially the story of what happened to Dustin Hoffman after he became a star) that was to star Robert De Niro and Mason for Warner Bros. It would have been the film De Niro made immediately after Taxi Driver. Mike Nichols was hired to direct.

Simon recalled the original idea for the film:

The basic idea of the story was that Marsha, an ex-dancer, was married to a very promising but struggling off-Broadway actor who gets discovered in a small play and is whisked out to Hollywood, where he reluctantly moves with his family. He feels very out of place there...and they have trouble adjusting, especially after his first film makes him an international star...and it creates chaos in their marriage. The story was coming out a little darker than I had imagined, but I envisioned the character of the wife as a very good role for Marsha.

Filming began on Bogart Slept Here but it became apparent that De Niro was not right for the role. Simon recalled: "...it was clear that any of the humor I had written was going to get lost. It's not that De Niro is not funny, but his humor comes mostly from his nuances, a bemused expression on his face or the way he would look at a character, smile and then look up at the ceiling." Nichols insisted on recasting De Niro. Soon after, Nichols left the project.

Dreyfuss was brought in to audition with Mason. At the end of the reading, Simon decided the chemistry was there, but the script needed work. He rewrote the screenplay in six weeks.

[The screenplay] had to be funnier, more romantic, the way Marsha and I first imagined the picture would be. What I wanted to do was a prequel. In other words, instead of an off-Broadway actor, married with a child, why don't I start from the beginning? I'd start when they first meet. Not liking each other at first and then falling in love.

The film's exteriors were filmed in New York City and the interiors were shot on sets in Los Angeles. Warner Bros. was less than enthused about Simon's script and considered selling the project to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, but the studio ultimately decided to partner with MGM on the film instead. With the 1996 acquisition of Turner Entertainment Company, which owned the pre-May 1986 MGM film library by Time Warner, Warner Bros. now owns the rights and distribution of the film.

Soundtrack
The title song, "Goodbye Girl", was written and performed by David Gates in 1977, and was a top 20 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1977/78, peaking at #15.

Reception
Roger Ebert gave the film a mostly favorable review, awarding three stars out of four. He was unimpressed with Mason's performance and the character as written, calling it "hardly ever sympathetic." However, he praised Dreyfuss and cited his Richard III scenes as "the funniest in a movie since Mel Brooks staged Springtime for Hitler." Ebert criticized the beginning as "awkward at times and never quite involving," but "enjoyed its conclusion so much that we almost forgot our earlier reservations." Gene Siskel awarded an identical three-star grade and said, "Make no mistake about it, the very best thing about 'The Goodbye Girl' is the character of Elliot Garfield as played by Dreyfuss, a character that comes very close to Dreyfuss' own self-and-profession centered lifestyle. But like Dreyfuss himself, Elliott Garfield, who initially comes off as [a] pushy, prickly type, ultimately wins you over." Vincent Canby of The New York Times found the film to be "exhausting without being much fun" and "relentlessly wisecracked." Charles Champlin of The Los Angeles Times lauded it as "the best and most blissfully satisfying romantic comedy of the year and then some." Arthur D. Murphy of Variety called the film "another feather in Herbert Ross' directorial cap," with Dreyfuss giving "his best screen performance to date." Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote that the film "evolves into the most satisfying comedy Simon has written directly for the movies. One tolerates the plot mechanics for the sake of the genuinely amusing aspects of his script, the bright remarks and the distinctive or appealing character traits that provide good performers with live ammunition." Pauline Kael of The New Yorker was negative, commenting, "It's not Neil Simon's one-liners that get you down in The Goodbye Girl, it's his two-liners. The snappiness of the exchanges is so forced it's almost macabre." David Ansen of Newsweek wrote, "It's pure formula, and Simon plays it straight, all cards on the table, with the conservative professionalism of a gambler used to winning. As directed by the ubiquitous Herbert Ross, The Goodbye Girl is a modest, bittersweet comedy that will delight Simon fans and leave his critics staunchly unconverted."

Awards and nominations
Richard Dreyfuss was 30 when he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, making him the youngest actor ever to win the category. This record stood for 25 years until 2002 when Adrien Brody—just one month shy of his 30th birthday—won for The Pianist.

American Film Institute
 AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – Nominated
 AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs – Nominated
 AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions – #81
 AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:
The Goodbye Girl – Nominated
 AFI's 10 Top 10 – Nominated Romantic Comedy

Musical and remake
There were three failed attempts to turn The Goodbye Girl into a half-hour, television sitcom, according to Lee Goldberg's book Unsold Television Pilots. The first pilot, aired on NBC in May 1982 and titled Goodbye Doesn't Mean Forever, starred Karen Valentine and Michael Lembeck, and was directed by James Burrows from a script by Allan Katz. The second, unaired pilot was produced a year later starring JoBeth Williams and was directed by Charlotte Brown from a script by Brown and Pat Nardo. The third pilot, which never aired, again starred Valentine and was directed by Jay Sandrich.

The Goodbye Girl was developed into a 1993 Broadway musical of the same name starring Martin Short and Bernadette Peters.

A 2004 remake with Jeff Daniels and Patricia Heaton keeps the screenplay from the original version.

Home media
The VHS format has been released several times over the years. MGM/UA Home Video released the 1993 and 1996 versions, while Warner Home Video released the 2000 version in addition to releasing the DVD version. A manufacture-on-demand Blu-ray format was released through Warner Archive Collection on November 8, 2016.

In popular culture
Footage from the film appears in the episode "Kin" on The Last of Us.

Notes

References

External links

1970s American films
1970s English-language films
1970s romantic comedy-drama films
1977 films
1977 comedy films
1977 drama films
1977 LGBT-related films
American romantic comedy-drama films
Best Musical or Comedy Picture Golden Globe winners
Cultural depictions of Richard III of England
Films about actors
Films directed by Herbert Ross
Films featuring a Best Actor Academy Award-winning performance
Films featuring a Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe winning performance
Films featuring a Best Musical or Comedy Actress Golden Globe winning performance
Films produced by Ray Stark
Films scored by Dave Grusin
Films set in apartment buildings
Films set in New York City
Films shot in New York City
Films with screenplays by Neil Simon
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
Warner Bros. films

The Goodbye Girl


The Schackgalerie is a museum in Munich. It is one of the noted galleries in this city. The museum is under supervision of the Bavarian State Picture Collection.

Collection
In 1855, Adolf Friedrich von Schack settled in Munich and became a member of the academy of sciences. Here he began to amass a splendid collection of paintings that included masterpieces of Romanticism by painters such as Anselm Feuerbach, Moritz von Schwind, Arnold Böcklin, Franz von Lenbach, Carl Spitzweg, Carl Rottmann, and others. Upon his death in 1894, he bequeathed the collection to the Emperor William II, however it remained in Munich.

Building
The collection is housed in a building designed by Max Littmann (1907) next to the former diplomatic mission of Prussia in the Prinzregentenstraße as the emperor decided to keep the collection in Munich. The gallery building with its upper-level portico and the adjacent tract of the former Prussian embassy, appear as two independent building complexes, but are unified by a common base and corniceoring the connection. The façades of the buildings are built with bright sandstone. In the tympanium  is an imperial coat of arms and a dedication by William II.

Gallery

External links

https://www.pinakothek.de/sammlung/rundgang-sammlung-schack

Art museums and galleries in Germany
Neoclassical architecture in Munich
Museums in Munich

Schackgalerie


Strange Weather is a 1987 studio album by British singer Marianne Faithfull, recorded after recovering from a 17-year addiction to heroin in 1986.  The album's three predecessors on Island Records were all recorded while Faithfull confronted personal struggles, and contained a majority of lyrics and some music penned by Faithfull herself. In contrast, Strange Weather is a striking mix of rock, blues and dark cabaret, and though none of the songs were written by Faithfull, all are tied together by the spare and nuanced production of Hal Willner, using a notable group of contributing musicians, such as Bill Frisell.  The title track has since become a Faithfull concert staple and has appeared live in three additional recordings.

Overview
In 1985 Faithfull contributed a single track, "Ballad of the Soldier's Wife", to Lost In The Stars, a tribute to the music of Kurt Weill by various contemporary artists. In response to the success of the project and to favourable reviews for Faithfull's contribution, producer Hal Willner suggested the potential of an expanded project of classic compositions, but, according to Willner in Strange Weather'''s liner notes, he believed it was "one of those projects which usually never comes to fruition."

Just prior to her recovery, Faithfull began work on a new album of rock songs, but Island Records scrapped the project  Instead, Willner re-entered the picture and the concept of the album of classic standards was expanded to include not only material contemporary to Weill's Weimar Republic era but a more recent song by Bob Dylan, two early folk-era spirituals, traditional piano blues with accompaniment by Dr. John (credited as Mac Rebennack), and all new material was written specifically for the project. The album's title track was written by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, and "Hello Stranger" was written by Rebennack and Doc Pomus. Faithfull also re-recorded her 1964 hit, "As Tears Go By," in a markedly different arrangement using a slower time signature, and sung a full octave lower than the original.Strange Weather'' failed to make it to the US Album charts (it did chart in both the UK and Australia), and never charted its only single "As Tears Go By".

Track listing
 "Stranger Intro" (Bill Frisell) – 0:31
 "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" (Al Dubin, Harry Warren) – 3:04
 "I Ain't Goin' Down to the Well No More" (Huddie Ledbetter, Alan Lomax, John Lomax) – 1:07
 "Yesterdays" (Otto Harbach, Jerome Kern) – 5:20
 "Sign of Judgement" (Kid Prince Moore) – 2:54
 "Strange Weather" (Tom Waits, Kathleen Brennan) – 4:05
 "Love, Life and Money" (Julius Dixon, Henry Glover) – 4:40
 "I'll Keep It With Mine" (Bob Dylan) – 4:13
 "Hello Stranger" (Doc Pomus, Dr. John credited as Mac Rebennack) – 2:30
 "Penthouse Serenade" (Will Jason, Val Burton) – 2:34
 "As Tears Go By" (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Andrew Loog Oldham) – 3:42
 "A Stranger On Earth" (Sid Feller, Rick Ward) – 3:56

Personnel
 Marianne Faithfull - vocals
 Bill Frisell - guitars
 Robert Quine - guitar (6, 7)
 Fernando Saunders - bass (2, 4, 6–11)
 Michael Levine - violin
 Sharon Freeman - piano (2, 8)
 Dr. John - (credited as Mac Rebennack) - piano
 Steve Slagle - alto saxophone
 Chris Hunter - alto saxophone, flute
 Lew Soloff - trumpet
 Garth Hudson - accordion
 J.T. Lewis - drums, horn arrangements
 William Schimmel - accordion
 Michael Gibbs - string arrangements

Technical personnel
 Hal Willner - producer
 Joe Ferla - recording, mixing
 Tony Wright - cover and sleeve photography

Charts

References

1987 albums
Marianne Faithfull albums
Albums produced by Hal Willner
Island Records albums

Strange Weather (Marianne Faithfull album)


Joe Redington, Senior (February 1, 1917 – June 24, 1999) was an American dog musher and kennel owner, who is best known as the "Father of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race", a long distance sled dog race run annually from the Anchorage area to Nome, Alaska.

Early life
Redington was born in Kingfisher, Oklahoma on February 1, 1917, and lived there until he was six years old. His mother left him shortly after his birth, and he grew up with his father and his brothers James and Ray. Joe Redington's father was a laborer who worked as a rancher, and on the oil fields.

In 1940, Redington enlisted in the United States Army, and joined the 6th Field Artillery Regiment at Fort Hoyle, Maryland. He was later transferred to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where he became part of the infantry, and was trained in the Field Artillery Jump School. He fought in the Pacific Theater of World War II, and was part of the Seabees, building runways and depots. He was discharged from Fort Dix, New Jersey after the war and returned to Pennsylvania.

Iditarod
In 1948, Redington moved to Flat Horn Lake, Alaska community of Knik River and the ghost town of Knik, where Redington was known to hail from, are two entirely different places, and are about 45 miles apart by road to boot, where he filed a Homestead Act claim along the Iditarod Trail in Knik, and started the Knik Kennels. The trail was overgrown, and he learned of Alaska's history of dog mushing from local "Sourdoughs".

On February 18, 1953, he married Violet Redington, and they moved to a new homestead on Flat Horn Lake, Alaska and worked from 1954 to 1958 as hunting guides along the Iditarod trail. He and his wife also helped clear the overgrown trail, and lobbied to make it a National Historic Trail.

Redington met Dorothy Page, the future "Mother of the Iditarod", at the Willow Winter Carnival in 1966. She wanted to sponsor a sled dog race to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the purchase of Alaska from Russia, but had been unable to get the support of an experienced musher. Redington's interest was in revitalizing dog sledding, which was on the verge of vanishing. In his own words, "When I visited Interior villages in the 1950s, every household had five or six dogs. They were the only transportation. But by the late 1960s, village dogs were almost gone."²

Redington agreed to help if a purse of USD $25,000 would be split among the winners. According to Redington, "I wanted the biggest dog race in Alaska... and the best way to do that was to offer the biggest purse".³

The Redingtons returned to Knik, and the money was raised. In February 1967, 58 dog mushers competed in two heats along a 25-mile (40 km) stretch of the old Iditarod Trail between Wasilla and Knik. The race was modeled after the 1908 to 1918 All-Alaska Sweepstakes (AAS) of Nome, and was named the Iditarod Trail Seppala Memorial Race, after the three-time champion Leonhard Seppala. The 1968 race was canceled due to lack of snow, and with a purse of just $1,000, only 12 mushers participated in the second event in 1969.

While initially a success, enthusiasm had waned. Redington wanted to expand the race, from Knik to the historic gold rush town of Iditarod, but changed the end-point to the more-recognizable Nome, more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) away. In 1969 he promised there would be a purse of $50,000.

Despite widespread skepticism, the trail was cleared and a total of $51,325 was raised. In 1973, Dick Wilmarth of Red Devil, Alaska, and his lead sled dog Hotfoot beat a pack of 34 mushers who competed in the race to Nome. Negative publicity caused by the death of several dogs during the race reduced the purse to only $31,000 in 1974, but the event still attracted a field of 44 mushers. In 1975, the race instituted stronger dog care requirements, and a corporate sponsor raised the purse back to $50,000. Despite more negative publicity and funding problems in 1976, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race has since grown into the premiere sporting event in the state, and the largest sled dog race in the world.

This popularity also caused dog mushing to revive in the 1970s as a recreational sport. Largely due to Redington's efforts, the Iditarod was designated one of the first four National Historic Trails in 1978, and the first official trail marker was put up outside his home in 1980.

Redington became known as the "Father of the Iditarod" for his work promoting the race, and personally competed in seventeen Iditarods from 1974 to 1997, but never placed higher than his 5th-place finish at age 72. He was the honorary musher in the 1997 race, as he was 80 years old when he completed the race. Joe also organized and ran 5 Iditarod Challenges, a guided trip to Nome for paying clients, 1993–1997.

Redington died on June 24, 1999, from cancer, and was buried in his favorite dog sled in Wasilla, Alaska. A memorial with a life-size bronze statue was unveiled nearby at the Iditarod Trail Committee Headquarters, on February 1, 2003.

Notes

2 Sherwonit (1991, pages 45–46).

3 Sherwonit (1991, page 47).

References
 Iditarod Trail Committee. Joe Redington Memorial. Retrieved March 21, 2011.
 Dorothy G. Page (1974/2000). Joe Redington, Sr. (Father of Iditarod). Retrieved March 21, 2011.
 Bill Sherwonit (1991). Iditarod: The Great Race to Nome. .

External links

1917 births
1999 deaths
People from Bucks County, Pennsylvania
Sportspeople from Jersey City, New Jersey
People from Kingfisher, Oklahoma
People from Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska
United States Army personnel of World War II
Dog mushers from Alaska
United States Army soldiers
Sportspeople from Oklahoma
Sportspeople from Pennsylvania

Joe Redington


Josephine Donovan (born 1941) is an American scholar of comparative literature who is a professor emerita of English in the Department of English at the University of Maine, Orono. Her research and expertise has covered feminist theory, feminist criticism, animal ethics, and both early modern and American (particularly 19th century) literature with a special focus on American writer Sarah Orne Jewett and the local colorists. She recently extended her study of local color literature to the European tradition. Along with Marti Kheel, Carol J. Adams, and others, Donovan introduced ecofeminist care theory, rooted in cultural feminism, to the field of animal ethics. Her published corpus includes ten books, five edited books, over fifty articles, and seven short stories.

Life and career
Donovan was born in Manila in the Philippines in 1941, and was, with her mother, evacuated shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Her father, a captain in the US Army, remained; in 1942, he was captured by the Japanese. Donovan subsequently edited and published his memoirs. Majoring in history, she studied at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, graduating, cum laude, in 1962. Subsequently, she worked in journalism, as a clerk on the copy desks at The Washington Post and Time and as a reporter for a small New York newspaper. Concurrent with her work, she studied creative writing at Columbia University. She went on to study at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, reading for an MA (graduating 1967) and a PhD (graduating 1971), both in comparative literature. She subsequently held positions at the University of Kentucky (Honors Program), the University of New Hampshire (as the first coordinator of the Women's Studies Program), and visiting professor positions at George Washington University and the University of Tulsa.), as well as working as a copy editor for G. K. Hall & Co. She took early retirement from her position of professor of English at the University of Maine to allow more time for both research and writing, and is currently a professor emerita.

Select bibliography

Books
Sarah Orne Jewett. New York: Ungar, 1980. (Revised edition released by Cybereditions in 2001.)
New England Local Color Literature: A Women's Tradition. New York: Ungar, 1983.
Feminist Theory: The Intellectual Traditions. New York: Ungar, 1985. (Second edition released by Continuum in 1992, third edition released by Continuum in 2000, and fourth edition released by Bloomsbury in 2012.)
After the Fall: The Demeter-Persephone Myth in Wharton, Cather and Glasgow. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989.
Gnosticism in Modern Literature: A Study of Selected Works of Camus, Sartre, Hesse, and Kafka. New York: Garland, 1990.
Uncle Tom's Cabin: Evil, Affliction, and Redemptive Love. Boston: Twayne, 1991. (Revised edition released by Cybereditions, 2001.)
Women and the Rise of the Novel, 1405-1726. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. (Revised and expanded second edition released by Palgrave Macmillan in 2013.)
European Local-Color Literature: National Tales, Dorfgeschichten, Romans Champêtres. New York: Bloomsbury, 2010.
The Aesthetics of Care. On the Literary Treatment of Animals. New York, London, Oxford: Bloomsbury, 2016.
The Lexington Six:  Lesbian and Gay Resistance in 1970s America.  Amherst/Boston:  University of Massachusetts Press, 2020.
Animals, Mind, and Matter: The Inside Story. Michigan State University Press, 2022.

Edited works
Feminist Literary Criticism: Explorations in Theory. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1975. (Second edition released in 1989.)
Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1995. (Co-edited with Carol J. Adams).
Beyond Animal Rights: A Feminist Caring Ethic for the Treatment of Animals. New York: Continuum, 1996. (Co-edited with Carol J. Adams).
P. O. W. in the Pacific: Memoirs of an American Doctor in World War II. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1998. (By William N. Donovan).
The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics: A Reader. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. (Co-edited with Carol J. Adams).

See also
List of vegans

References

Further reading
Jane Gallop, "An Idea Presented before Its Time." In Around 1981: Academic Feminist Literary Theory (1992), chap. 8.
Mary M. Dalton. "Power, Patterns, and the Gendered Narrative." Journal of Film and Video 65, no. 1-2 (2013).
Kelly M. Robbins. Appeals for Compassion:  The Uses of Anthropomorphism and Sentimentality in Animal Advocacy Campaigns. Ph.D. diss. Drew University, 2016.
Carlo Alvero. "Josephine Donovan and Virtue Ethics." In Veganism Is A Virtue. Ph.D. diss. New School, 2017.

1941 births
Living people
American animal rights scholars
American copy editors
American ethicists
American feminist writers
American literary historians
American women academics
American women historians
American women journalists
American literary theorists
Animal ethicists
Bryn Mawr College alumni
Columbia University School of the Arts alumni
Comparative literature academics
Ecofeminists
Feminist theorists
George Washington University faculty
People from Manila
Philosophers from Maine
University of Maine faculty
University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni
Women literary historians

Josephine Donovan