Allan Gilliland (born 1965 in Darvel, Scotland) is a contemporary Canadian composer.

Gilliland moved to Canada in 1972 and settled in Edmonton, Alberta.  He received a diploma in Jazz Studies (trumpet) from Humber College, and degrees in performance and composition from the University of Alberta.  His teachers were Violet Archer, Malcolm Forsyth and Howard Bashaw.

He has written music for solo instruments, orchestra, chorus, brass quintet, wind ensemble, big band, film, television and theatre.

His works have been performed by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, ProCoro Canada, the Canadian Brass, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the New York Pops, the Hammerhead Consort, and the brass section of the New York Philharmonic.

From 1999 to 2004, Gilliland was Composer in Residence with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, composing nine major works, including concerti for violin, and two harps.  Dreaming of the Masters I (2003), a jazz concerto written for clarinet soloist James Campbell, is perhaps his most popular work, and received its American premiere by the Boston Pops in 2004.
Dreaming of the Masters II - GEB, a jazz rhapsody for piano and orchestra written for William Eddins and jointly commissioned by CBC and the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, received its world premiere on February 22, 2008.  Dreaming of the Masters III, a three-movement jazz suite for trumpet and orchestra written for Jens Lindemann and commissioned by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra with funding from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts received its world premiere on September 17, 2010.  His orchestral work On the Shoulders of Giants won first prize at the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's Composers Competition in 2002.

In 2007, the Alberta-based Arktos Recordings Limited label released Collaborations, a CD devoted exclusively to Gilliland's music. The track listing is:
The Winspear Fanfare
M'bira
Suite from the Sound
Cancion
Love's Red Rose
Four by Four
Roots
Concerto for Oboe, Strings and Harpsichord

Gilliland is currently Chair of the Music Program and Head of the Composition Department at MacEwan University in Edmonton.

Works
Chamber music
Suite from the Sound (clarinet and string quartet) (2005)
Go Deeply Now Everlasting (piccolo trumpet and string quartet) (2004)
Love's Red Rose (two harps) (2003)
Adventures (clarinet, cello and piano) (2002)
Sacred Time (2000)
Basse Danse (bass trombone and tuba) (1999)
Roots (solo 6-string electric bass) (1999)
M'bira (solo marimba) (1998)
Reflections of Infinity (piano, percussion, and string quartet) (1996)
Four by Four (two pianos and two percussionists) (1994)
Two Wheels for Four Percussion (four percussionists) (1993)

Fanfares
Early Mornin' Fanfare (brass and percussion) (2001)
Enbridge Fanfare (brass and percussion) (2001)
A Call to Your Seats (brass and percussion) (2000)
The Winspear Fanfare (brass and percussion) (1997)

Jazz Band
A Touch of Olive and Brown
Abanico
Another Softly
Petits Oiseaux
Rhythm Buddy
Stranger on the Prairie

Keyboard
Spring Celebration (organ) (2005)
Cancion (piano) (1999)

Musical Theatre
The 7th Circle  (2001)
Dead Beat: A Zombie Musical (2003)

Opera
Hannaraptor (2007)
Orchestra
Fantasia on themes from West Side Story (chamber orchestra) (2006)
Fantasia on themes from West Side Story (full orchestra) (2006)
Alberta Echoes (2005)
Always Be True (brass, percussion, organ & strings) (2002)
Loch na Beiste ( 2001)
An Overture for the Worlds (2001)
On the Shoulders of Giants (2000/1)
Shadows & Light (2000)

Orchestra with Choir
O Canada (arrangement for orchestra, organ & choir) (2004)
We Stood Beside Each Other (choir and orchestra) (2000/1)

Orchestra with Dancers
A Wild Symphonic Ride (2002)

Orchestra with Soloist(s)
 Dreaming of the Masters III (trumpet and orchestra) 2010
Dreaming of the Masters II - Rhapsody GEB (piano and orchestra) (2007)
Concerto for Oboe, Strings and Harpsichord (2004/5)
Concerto for Accordion and String Orchestra (2004)
Dreaming of the Masters I (clarinet and orchestra) (2003)
Gaol's Rhuah Ròs - A Celtic Concerto for Two Harps and Orchestra (2002/3)
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (2002)
Concerto for Trumpet (1993)

Vocal
Words for Music Perhaps (tenor and piano) (1993)

Choral
Ubi Caritas (SATB choir, brass quintet and organ) (2003)
Blessed (SATB a cappella choir) (2002)
A la esperanza (2 marimbas and SATB choir) (2001)
In My Cloudless Days (SATB a cappella choir) (1997)
He Tells of Perfect Beau'y (SATB a cappella choir) (1995)
Beloved be at Peace (SATB a cappella choir) (1995)
The Cloths of Heaven (SATB a cappella choir) (1994)

Wind Ensemble
Inspiration (2006)
Dreaming of the Masters I (clarinet and wind ensemble) (2003) (adapted from orchestral version)
Concerto for Piccolo Trumpet (piccolo trumpet and wind ensemble) (2004/5)
(adapted from Concerto for Oboe, Strings and Harpsichord)
Pulsar (2005)
For 250 years (2004)
Loch na Beiste (2001)
Dreamscapes (2002)
Amaryllis (1998)
Ascension (1997)
ukuTusa (1995)

External links
Allan Gilliland's page at the Canadian Music Centre website
Allan Gilliland's  website

1965 births
Living people
21st-century classical composers
21st-century British male musicians
Canadian classical composers
Canadian male classical composers
Scottish classical composers
Scottish emigrants to Canada
Academic staff of MacEwan University
Musicians from Edmonton
People from Darvel

Allan Gilliland


The 1945 Campeonato Argentino de Rugby  was won by the selection of Provincia (Buenos Aires Province) that beat in the final the selection of Capital (Buenos Aires city).
Thi first edition was arranged by River Plate Rugby Union with the goal to develop and improve the rugby outside Buenos Aires territory.
Were invited to participate:
 the selection of Capital, ossia di Buenos Aires
 the selection of Provincia
 the selection of Unión de Rugby del Norte (Tucumán),
 The San Martín Rugby Club de Villa María from Cordoba Province
 The Litoral (Combinado de Rosario y Santa Fe)
 Montevideo Cricket Club, (club from Uruguay, traditionally connected with Argentine rugby since 1875)
 C. A. Estudiantes de Paraná
 Unión Cordobesa de Rugby.

The tournament were played with knock-out formula

Rugby Union in Argentina in 1945
 The "Buenos Aires Championship" was won by Club Universitario de Buenos Aires
 The "Cordoba Province Championship" was won by Universitario Córdoba
 The North-East Championship was won by Tucumán Rugby Club

Results

Bibliography
  Memorias de la UAR 1945
  I Campeonato Argentino

Campeonato Argentino de Rugby
Argentina
Campeonato

1945 Campeonato Argentino de Rugby


The Malta George Cross Memorial, also known as the Maltese Memorial, is a war memorial in London. It was erected to commemorate the Siege of Malta in the Second World War, which led to the island's being collectively awarded the George Cross in April 1942. Unveiled in 2005, it stands near the church of All Hallows-by-the-Tower.

The memorial is constructed from a large rectangular monolithic block of limestone from the Maltese island of Gozo. The block stands  high and weighs 8.5 tons. It bears an inscribed black slate panel on each of its four sides. The main panel to the southeast recounts the Siege of Malta from 1940 to 1943, and the consequent loss of 7,000 lives of Maltese civilians and Allied and Commonwealth service personnel. A Maltese cross is displayed above this main panel. Further details of the siege are inscribed on a second panel on the northwest face of the memorial. The panel to the northeast gives details of the awarding of the George Cross, and that to the southwest has a map illustrating the Allied operations in the Mediterranean Sea.

The stone was presented by the Government of Malta and erected by the George Cross Island Association in 2005, for the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. It was unveiled on 15 August 2005 by the President of Malta Eddie Fenech Adami, and dedicated by Vincent Nichols, then the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham, with a wreath laid by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. The date was the 63rd anniversary of the arrival of the last surviving ship of the Operation Pedestal convoy at Valletta Grand Harbour that provided critical supplies during the siege. The unveiling was attended by approximately 100 veterans of the Malta campaign, and representatives of Allied and Commonwealth forces.

The stone was a bright white colour when it was unveiled, but has weathered and darkened.

There is a further memorial to the George Cross Island Association at the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas near Lichfield, and one in the Peace Garden of the former Anglican Church of St Luke, Liverpool.

See also
 Malta Memorial
 War Memorial (Floriana)

References
 A tribute at last for the heroes who broke Siege of Malta, The Telegraph, 15 August 2005
 Malta GC – Tower Hill, London, UK, waymarking.com
 Maltese Memorial, War Memorials Online
 Monument: Malta Siege, London Remembers
 Malta GC memorial, London, Imperial War Museums
 Malta George Cross Island Association memorial, Alrewas, Imperial War Museums
 George Cross Island Association memorial, Liverpool, Imperial War Museums

2005 establishments in England
2005 sculptures
Buildings and structures in the City of London
Military memorials in London
Outdoor sculptures in London
World War II memorials in England
Stone monuments and memorials
Malta–United Kingdom relations

Malta George Cross Memorial


Mark Cavendish (born 21 May 1985) is a Manx racing cyclist who rides for team dimension data. Originally a track cyclist in the madison, points race, and scratch race, he has competed on the road since 2006.

He is a double Madison World Champion and Commonwealth Games gold medallist on the track. As a road cyclist, he has risen to fame as a sprinter. He got eleven wins in his first professional season, equalling the record held by Alessandro Petacchi. In the 2008 Tour de France he won four stages, a then unprecedented achievement for a British cyclist (he surpassed the feat, winning six stages in 2009 and a further 5 in 2010) and he has been described as the fastest sprinter in the world. He continued his wins in 2009 by taking the Spring classic, Milan – San Remo. Cavendish started racing informally at 12, as a mountain-bike rider.

Cavendish was awarded the Freedom of the Borough of Douglas in 2008, and collected the award on 14 April 2011.  He lives on the Isle of Man and has a training base in Quarrata, Tuscany, Italy.

Early life
Cavendish was born in Douglas, Isle of Man, the son of David Cavendish also from the Isle of Man, and Adele from Yorkshire. He  began riding BMX at a young age, racing at the National Sports Centre in Douglas.  It was at that time that Cavendish met David Millar at a race on the Isle of Man. Cavendish said he was inspired by Millar.

Career

Amateur career
Cavendish worked in a bank for two years after leaving school. He concentrated on earning enough money to support himself as a full-time cyclist later on, as he attempted to turn professional.

Mark Cavendish began his career with the British Track Cycling team. He won gold in the madison at the Los Angeles World Track Championships with Rob Hayles. They had not raced together before. They finished one lap ahead of the field to claim the gold medal, ahead of the Dutch and Belgian teams, giving Britain its fourth gold at the championships. It was Cavendish's first world champion's jersey. Cavendish also won the 2005 European championship points race. He began road racing in 2005, riding the Tour of Berlin and Tour of Britain as a trialist with Team Sparkasse.

Cavendish began 2006 with the Continental team, Team Sparkasse, a feeder squad for T-Mobile Team. In June, he won two stages and the points and sprint competitions in the Tour of Berlin.  He rode for the Isle of Man on the track at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, riding the scratch race. He lapped the field with three others: Rob Hayles; Ashley Hutchinson of Australia; and James McCallum of Scotland. He then beat these in the sprint to win gold for the Isle of Man. The race time was 23m 5s, an average 51.9 kilometres per hour (32.2 mph).

His success at the Tour of Berlin led to a post as a stagiare with T-Mobile from August until the end of the season. His best result for T-Mobile in 2006 was in the Tour of Britain, where he came second three times and won the points classification. It brought a full professional contract for 2007 and 2008.

Professional career

2007

Cavendish began 2007 "laboriously", said the daily sports paper, L'Équipe. It quoted one of Cavendish's team-mates, Roger Hammond: "To be honest, he started the season so catastrophically that the staff were wondering what they could enter Mark for so that he could finish the race.". Cavendish's breakthrough came at the Grote Scheldeprijs race in Belgium, which he won overall after failing to even finish any of his previous races. He went on to win stages at the Four Days of Dunkirk and the Tour of Catalonia Volta a Catalunya, the third oldest cycling stage race in the world,  and that brought selection for the 2007 Tour de France, starting in London. He crashed in stages 1 and 2. and abandoned on stage 8 as the race reached the Alps, having taken two top-ten placings but unhappy not to have had a top-five placing.

Then the pattern changed. "Everything fell into place," L'Équipe said. His debut season continued, moving on to 10 stage wins, one behind Alessandro Petacchi's record 11 for a début season. Cavendish took his 11th win in early October, the Circuit Franco-Belge, to equal Petacchi's record. Among the wins were three in UCI ProTour events, the two in the Volta a Catalunya and one in the Eneco Tour of Benelux.

2008

In 2008, Cavendish returned to the track, winning the Madison World Championships in Manchester with Bradley Wiggins, as Great Britain topped the medal table.

On the road, Cavendish won his first stages of a grand tour, by picking two victories in the 2008 Giro d'Italia. Cavendish won four further stages in the 2008 Tour de France, his first coming in Stage 5 from Cholet to Châteauroux. He won again on Stage 8, Stage 12 and Stage 13, making him the first British rider to collect four stages in a single Tour. Overnight, at the age of just 22, he became the "fourth most successful British professional in history", said The Independent. After Stage 14, Cavendish abandoned the Tour to concentrate on the Beijing Olympics. He and Team Columbia manager Bob Stapleton agreed that riding the Alps was a risk to his hopes. But Cavendish, with Bradley Wiggins, failed to win a medal, finishing joint eighth in the madison. He was the only British track cyclist not to win a medal.  Following the Olympics, Cavendish remained angry with British Cycling for not giving much attention to the madison, though Chris Boardman said that Cavendish's professional commitments also interfered with his build up to the Olympics. In November 2008, Cavendish said that he had no further plans to return to track cycling.

The rest of his season was also successful, with a total of eleven further race wins, including three each at the Tour of Ireland which he abandoned on the final day, and the Tour of Missouri, winning his only points classification of the season at the latter. At the Tour de Romandie, Cavendish won the prologue time-trial, beating compatriot Bradley Wiggins and emphasising his short-distance time-trial abilities.

2009
Cavendish's 2009 season began at the Tour of Qatar, where he renewed his rivalry with Tom Boonen. Boonen won the race and one stage, though Cavendish took two stages; he also won two stages at the Tour of California, again beating Boonen in the sprint finishes.
The Tour of California also saw Cavendish win his first points of classification of the 2009 season.
Cavendish was a surprise inclusion in the British squad for the 2009 UCI Track Cycling World Championships, where he competed in the Scratch Race and the Madison, failing to pick-up medals in either.
He took up the European season at Tirreno–Adriatico, the Italian one-week stage race, where he won one stage.
He then entered his first classic race, Milan – San Remo, and, after a week of uncharacteristically humble pre-race statements, rode effectively over the climbs that his rivals had said made this race impossible for him to win - and then tracked down Heinrich Haussler in the last 200 meters to narrowly win the sprint and the race, Cavendish's first victory in a race known as one of the "five monuments of cycling".

Cavendish repeated his two-stage victory at the Three Days of De Panne from 2008, also winning the points classification.

At the start of the 2009 Giro d'Italia Columbia won the Team Time Trial and he was given the Maglia Rosa leaders jersey, becoming the first British rider to ever wear it. The first 2 road stages however were fruitless for Cavendish, who was beaten to the line by Alessandro Petacchi in the first stage and was caught behind a crash and failed to make it back for the sprint the next day. Cavendish soon asserted his sprinting dominance on the race however, gaining 3 stage wins before abandoning following stage 13, citing a need to rest for beginning preparations for the Tour de France. He continued his preparation by racing the Tour de Suisse. He won both stage 3 and stage 6 to wear the points jersey. However, this was taken off him by Fabian Cancellara.

In June he published his first autobiography, Boy Racer, which covered his career to date.  At a press conference in London ahead of the 2009 Tour de France, Cavendish explained that the book was too premature to be seen as a complete biography and that his "biggest motivation for writing it had been to explain himself better"  due to the way he perceives himself when performing post-stage interviews.  Instead, he felt that the book was "more a biography of last year's Tour stage wins".

During the season, Cavendish developed a remarkable partnership with his leadout man, Mark Renshaw. Continuing his run of success, Cavendish won Stage 2, Stage 3, Stage 10, Stage 11, Stage 19 and Stage 21 of the 2009 Tour de France. In winning the third stage he became the first Briton to hold the green jersey for two days in a row. Cavendish's win on stage 11 enabled him to reclaim the green jersey from rival Thor Hushovd, and equalled Barry Hoban's British record of eight Tour de France stage wins. However, all the points that Cavendish gained in stage 14 were removed after he was judged to have driven Hushovd too close to barriers on the course. Cavendish said of the protest, which he thought was lodged by Hushovd, that, "Thor either thinks so highly of himself that he thinks I was looking out for him yesterday or he thinks so highly of my team that the only way he can beat us is to complain like that." However, the disqualification was confirmed before Hushovd and his team lodged a protest. Cavendish added that the green jersey was no longer within his reach, and that his main objective was now to finish the race and win the final stage in Paris, which he did. Winning the 19th stage, Cavendish set a new record for Tour de France stage wins by a British rider; afterwards, he said that he was "embarrassed" for his comments about "deserving" green jersey wearer Hushovd. In winning the 21st stage, he lead home a remarkable 1-2 for his team, when his team mate and leadout man, Mark Renshaw, finished second on the Champs-Élysées.

Following on from the Tour de France, Cavendish won the Sparkassen Giro Bochum and took part in the Tour of Ireland, winning stage two. On 7 September he recorded the 50th win of his road racing career in a sprint finish in the opening stage of the Tour of Missouri. Before the race he confirmed he will remain with Team Columbia – HTC in 2010, ending speculation linking him with a move to newly created British team, Team Sky. Cavendish retained the leader's jersey by sprinting to victory on stage two but finished fifth on stage three, losing the overall lead to Thor Hushovd, and was forced to withdraw from the race before stage four due to a lung infection. Although selected for the British team for the Men's Road Race at the 2009 UCI Road World Championships, his illness prevented him from taking part.

2010
Following a dental problem, Mark delayed the start of his 2010 season until the 2010 Ruta del Sol, in mid-February. Following the lay off his form was poor, and he failed to defend his victory at the 2010 Milan – San Remo.  He was in six minutes after the leaders, down in 89th place. Cavendish's pre-season goals were to win the green jersey in the Tour de France and win the Road Race at the 2010 World Championships. Mark also said that he will race in the 2010 Tour of Flanders but said he will not win it, stating that the Tour of Flanders requires training, but he sees himself winning it in the future.

Following a poor start to the season, Cavendish found form at the 2010 Volta a Catalunya, finishing seventh in the opening time-trial and winning stage 2. His team withdrew Cavendish from the Tour of Romandie after he made an offensive gesture after winning the second stage. Missing the 2010 Giro d'Italia, Cavendish instead chose to compete at the 2010 Tour of California starting on 16 May 2010, where he won the first stage for only his third victory of the season. On 15 June Cavendish crashed heavily whilst sprinting in the closing metres of the 4th stage of the Tour of Switzerland, appearing to veer off line and bring down Heinrich Haussler and several other riders, raising criticism from other teams regarding his riding style. Cavendish entered the 2010 Tour de France. During Stage 1, Cavendish crashed out of the final sprint, with just under 3 km remaining in the stage.  Overhead camera footage showed Cavendish failing to negotiate a corner after entering too fast and turning too late.  He then leaned his shoulder into a fellow rider as he travelled away from the apex. Cavendish returned to form by winning the Stage 5, Stage 6, Stage 11, Stage 18 and Stage 20, bringing his career total to 15 stage wins. He ended up second in the points classification, 11 points behind Alessandro Petacchi. Cavendish's next race was the 2010 Vuelta a España, in which his team won the opening team time trial. Cavendish crossed the line first and took the leader's jersey.  He could only place second or third on the subsequent sprint stages, but returned to form later in the race winning stages 12, 13, 18 and the green jersey points classification.

Personality
Cavendish has been described as confident, even arrogant. He said:

Outside races, he is seen differently.  said Brian Holm, his directeur sportif.

References

Other websites

Mark Cavendish - Official website
Velo Bios, Profile of Mark Cavendish
Cycling Weekly - Profile of Mark Cavendish
Cyclingnews - Mark Profile

1985 births
Living people
British autobiographers
British cyclists
Commonwealth Games medallists
Manx sportspeople

Mark Cavendish


The Hiram Charles Todd House, also known as the Marvin-Sackett-Todd House, is located at 4 Franklin Square in Saratoga Springs, Saratoga County, New York. It is a Greek Revival house built in the 1830s by a local hotelier. Later it was home to Hiram Charles Todd, a descendant of one of the original owners who was active in New York state politics.

The house remains intact today with almost no alterations. In 1972 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the very first listing in Saratoga Springs. Later that year it became a contributing property to the Franklin Square Historic District. Two decades later that district became part of the new West Side Historic District. It is currently used as office space for several local businesses.

Building

The house is located on the corner of Franklin Street just south of the square. The neighborhood is residential, with large trees lining the streets. The other houses are similar in size to the Todd House, either in Greek Revival as well or other Victorian styles. An iron fence runs along the north and east edges of the property; there is a parking lot in the rear.

It is two stories high, with a square three-by-three-bay central block and seven-bay T-shaped rear wing. The siding is clapboard over wood frame with diagonal brick braces. A wide entablature goes down to the middle of the second story windows; fretwork flanks the three on the east (front) facade. The main entrance is flanked by projecting bay windows. The mostly flat roof is pierced by six chimneys.

On that elevation, a full-height pedimented portico with four Doric fluted columns shelters the main entrance. It is one of five porches on the building. Two on the north side, facing Division Street, have colonnades echoing that on the front. On the west (rear), the only portion of the building with a gabled roof, there is a small upstairs porch and larger enclosed one downstairs.

Inside, the central hall has a double staircase that converges into a curved single one. The drawing room runs the length of the south side of the house on the first story. It is divided with a semi-elliptical arch. On the west end of the living room two French doors lead into the music room.

History

The house was built by Thomas Marvin, a nephew of the founder of the United States Hotel, one of Saratoga Springs' early resorts. The exact date is unknown, but it was likely built in 1837, around the time of his marriage. Marvin at the time was co-owner of the hotel along with his brother, and the house faced the rear of the hotel across the square, originally called Marvin Square after the family. The front bay windows were added shortly after it was built.

During the house's construction, in 1833, Marvin heard of the proposed rail link that would connect the village with existing tracks at Ballston Spa. He sold a piece of land to the railroad so that the trains could run past the house and the hotel. The house thus became a landmark of Saratoga Springs to visitors.

It remained with the Marvins and their descendants for a century. Two of them were active in politics. William A. Sackett, Marvin's son-in-law served as a congressman around 1850, and later spent his last years in the house. Hiram Charles Todd, a lawyer and friend of the Sackett family who had served as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York, inherited the house in 1927. It has since been reused as private office space.

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Saratoga County, New York

References

External links

Greek Revival houses in New York (state)
Houses completed in 1837
Houses in Saratoga County, New York
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state)
Buildings and structures in Saratoga Springs, New York
National Register of Historic Places in Saratoga County, New York
Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register in New York (state)

Hiram Charles Todd House


West Cross is the name of an electoral ward in the Mumbles community and a suburb in the City and County of Swansea, Wales, UK.  The ward falls within the Mumbles community.

The electoral ward consists of some or all of the following areas: Manselfield, Norton, West Cross, Mumbles and Newton, in the parliamentary constituency of Gower.  It is bordered by the wards of Mayals to the north; Swansea Bay to the east; Oystermouth and Newton to the south; and Bishopston to the west.

2008 Swansea Council election
The turnout for the 2008 local council elections for West Cross was 47.19%.  The results were:

External links
West Cross ward info

Swansea electoral wards
Mumbles

West Cross (electoral ward)


Men's synchronized  3 metre springboard competition at the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics took place on August 13  at the Beijing National Aquatics Center.

Like all other synchronized diving competitions at the Olympics, only one round of competition was held. Eight pairs of divers competed. Each pair performed five dives, with both divers from the pair diving at the same time.

Nine judges evaluated each dive, with two each judging the performance of the two divers (the execution judges) and five judges evaluating the synchronization of the pair (the synchronization judges). For each dive, four of the nine scores are ignored—the highest and lowest execution scores, and the highest and lowest synchronization scores. The remaining five scores are summed, multiplied by the dive's degree of difficulty, and then multiplied by 0.6 to get a final score for the dive.

Results

Diving at the 2008 Summer Olympics
2008
Men's events at the 2008 Summer Olympics

Diving at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's synchronized 3 metre springboard


Humidicutis mavis is a gilled fungus of the waxcap family. It is found in Australia, Borneo, and New Zealand where the translucent white fungi grows from the ground to a height of 80 mm and a width of 50 mm.

Taxonomy
It was initially described as Hygrophorus mavis by New Zealand mycologist Greta Stevenson in 1962 and later as Hygrocybe mavis by Egon Horak in 1971, before being placed in the genus Humidicutis by Australian Tony Young in 1997. The generic name derives from the Latin humidus "moist" and cutis "skin", referring to its moist cap. The original holotype specimen was collected on 18 June 1949 in New Zealand by T. Levin. It has been compared with collections made by E. J. H. Corner of a Mycena rimosacuta variety alba in Borneo and found to be the same species. It is closely related to Humidicutis lewelliniae and may merely be a white-coloured form of this species.

Description
Humidicutis mavis is a small mushroom with an umbonate cap   in diameter, initially conical and later flattening to almost flat. It is smooth and ivory- to pure white in colour with an ivory umbo. The cap is textured with radial fibres, along which it may split, with the gills dividing between the split. The hollow white stipe is  high and 0.3–0.6 cm thick and may be swollen at the base. The white gills are adnexed or free, and thick or distant with even margins. The spore print is white and the hyaline spores are more or less oval, measuring around 6–9 x 4.5–6 μm.

Distribution and habitat
Fruit bodies appear singly or in groups over autumn and winter (April to July) in moss or among leaf litter in wet sclerophyll forest or rainforest in temperate, subtropical or tropical climates. It has been uncommonly recorded from Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, but is common in Tasmania, and is also found in Borneo and New Zealand, where it has been recorded from Gisborne, Wellington, Nelson and Westland provinces.

References

Cited text

Hygrophoraceae
Fungi described in 1963
Fungi of Asia
Fungi of Australia
Fungi of New Zealand

Humidicutis mavis


Queen Mother Moore (born Audley Moore; July 27, 1898 – May 2, 1997) was an African-American civil rights leader and a black nationalist who was friends with such civil rights leaders as Marcus Garvey, Nelson Mandela, Winnie Mandela, Rosa Parks, and Jesse Jackson. She was a figure in the American Civil Rights Movement and a founder of the Republic of New Afrika. Dr. Delois Blakely was her assistant for 20 years. Blakely was later enstooled in Ghana as a Nana (Queen Mother).

Biography
She was born Audley Moore in New Iberia, Louisiana, to Ella and St. Cyr Moore on July 27, 1898. Both her parents died before she completed the fourth grade, her mother Ella Johnson dying in 1904 when Audley was six.  Her grandmother, Nora Henry, had been enslaved at birth, the daughter of an African woman who was raped by her enslaver, who was a doctor. Audley Moore's grandfather was lynched, leaving her grandmother with five children with Moore's mother as the youngest. Moore became a hairdresser at the age of 15.

Moore later had an adopted son, Thomas O. Warner.

After viewing a speech by Marcus Garvey, Moore moved to Harlem, New York, and later became a leader and life member of the UNIA, founded in 1914 by Marcus Garvey. She participated in Garvey's first international convention in New York City and was a stock owner in the Black Star Line. Along with becoming a leading figure in the Civil Rights Movement, Moore worked for a variety of causes for over 60 years. Her last public appearance was at the Million Man March alongside Jesse Jackson during October 1995.

Moore was the founder and president of the Universal Association of Ethiopian Women as well as the founder of the Committee for Reparations for Descendants of U.S. Slaves. She was a founding member of the Republic of New Afrika to fight for self-determination, land, and reparations.

In 1964, Moore founded the Eloise Moore College of African Studies, Mt. Addis Ababa in Parksville, New York. The college was destroyed by fire in the late 1970s.

For most of the 1950s and 1960s, Moore was the best-known advocate of African-American reparations. Operating out of Harlem and her organization, the Universal Association of Ethiopian Women, Moore actively promoted reparations from 1950 until her death.

Although raised Catholic, Moore disaffiliated during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, during which Moore felt Pope Pius XII took improper actions in supporting the Italian army. She later became bishop of the Apostolic Orthodox Church of Judea. She was also a founding member of the Commission to Eliminate Racism, Council of Churches of Greater New York. In organizing this commission, she staged a 24-hour sit-in for three weeks.

She was also a co-founder of the African American Cultural Foundation, Inc., which led the fight against usage of the slave term "Negro".

In 1957, Moore presented a petition to the United Nations and a second in 1959, arguing for self-determination, against genocide, for land and reparations, making her an international advocate. Interviewed by E. Menelik Pinto, Moore explained the petition, in which she asked for 200 billion dollars to monetarily compensate for 400 years of slavery. The petition also called for compensations to be given to African Americans who wish to return to Africa and those who wish to remain in America. Queen Mother Moore was the first signer of the New African agreement

Taking the first of many trips to Africa in 1972, she was given the chieftaincy title "Queen Mother" by members of the Ashanti people in Ghana, an honorific that became her informal name in the United States.

In 1990, Blakely took her to meet Nelson Mandela after his release from prison in South Africa, at the residence of President Kenneth Kaunda in Lusaka, Zambia. In 1996, Blakely assisted Moore in enstooling Winnie Mandela in the presence of the Ausar Auset Society International at the Lowes Victoria Theater (New York City) 5 at 125th Street, Harlem.

The first African-American Chairman of the DNC (Democratic National Committee) and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown (U.S. politician), U.S. Congressman Charles Rangel, NYC Mayor David Dinkins and U.S. Presidential Candidate Jesse Jackson honored, supported, acknowledged, respected and insured the well-being of Moore as a Royal Elder in the Harlem community.

Sonia Sanchez, voice of the liberation struggle of a people, was a God-daughter adored by Moore.

Queen Mother Moore died in a Brooklyn nursing home from natural causes at the age of 98.

References

Further reading

External links
 "'Queen Mother' Moore; black nationalist leader".
 "Queen Mother" Moore, Black History Pages.
 Andy Lanset, "Marcus Garvey: 20th Century Pan-Africanist", NYPR Archives & Preservation, WNYC, February 15, 2013. Queen Mother Moore talks about seeing Marcus Garvey and being in the UNIA in this radio documentary.

1898 births
1997 deaths
20th-century African-American people
20th-century African-American women
Activists for African-American civil rights
Activists from Louisiana
African-American activists
African-American Catholics
American Black separatist activists
American reparationists
People from New Iberia, Louisiana
Women civil rights activists

Queen Mother Moore


The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires () is a 1974 martial arts horror film directed by Roy Ward Baker. The film opens in 1804, when seven vampires clad in gold masks are resurrected by Count Dracula (played by John Forbes-Robertson). A century later, Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing), known in the world for his exploits with Dracula, is recruited by a man and his seven siblings after giving a lecture at a Chinese university to take on the vampires. The film is a British-Hong Kong co-production between Hammer Film Productions and Shaw Brothers Studio.

The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires was shot between 22 October and 11 December 1973, at Shaw Brothers Studios in Hong Kong, where Chang Cheh was hired to direct further martial arts scenes for the film's release in the East. The film was first released in Hong Kong and then in the United Kingdom with a shorter runtime. On its release in the United States, the film was truncated further and titled The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula. The film was a financial failure.

Baker said that The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires was a "Terrible picture, but some of the Chinese were very nice. The leading man was David Chang, a nice man. The kung-fu people were alright. They went a bit berserk but I left that alone. The understanding was that they would do the kung-fu stuff and I would do the rest of it, which suited me no end I can tell you."

Plot
In Transylvania in 1804, a lone figure makes his way through the countryside and into the towering Castle Dracula, where he summons Count Dracula. The figure announces, in his own language, that his name is Kah, a Taoist monk and the high priest of the Temple of the Seven Golden Vampires in rural China. He goes on to tell the Count that the Seven Golden Vampires' power is fading and he needs him to restore them to their former glory. Dracula considers the offer and accepts on one condition: that he uses Kah's body to escape his castle, which has become his prison. Despite Kah's pleas for mercy, the vampire displaces himself into Kah's body and then triumphantly leaves the tomb for China.

A century later, Professor Van Helsing gives a lecture at a Chungking university on Chinese vampire legends. He speaks of an unknown rural village that has been terrorised by a cult of seven known as the Seven Golden Vampires. A farmer who had lost his wife to the vampires trekked his way to their temple and battled them. He was unsuccessful, as his wife was killed in the fight, but in the chaos he grabbed a medallion from around one of the vampire's necks, which he saw as the vampires' life source. The farmer fled the temple, but the high priest sent the vampires and their turned victims after him. About to be cornered, the farmer placed the medallion around a small jade Buddha statue before the vampires killed him. One of the vampires spied the medallion around the Buddha and went over to collect it. However, the moment that the vampire touched the Buddha, the creature was destroyed in flames.

Van Helsing goes on to say that he is positive that the village still exists and is terrorized by the six remaining vampires; he is only unsure of where the village lies. Most of the professors he has gathered disbelieve the story and leave, but one man, Hsi Ching, informs Van Helsing that the farmer from the story was his grandfather. He proves it by producing the dead vampire's medallion and asks Van Helsing if he would be willing to travel to the village and destroy the vampire menace. Van Helsing agrees and embarks with his son Leyland, Hsi Ching, and his seven kung fu-trained siblings on a dangerous journey, funded by a wealthy widow named Vanessa Buren, whom Leyland and two of Ching's siblings saved from an attack by the tongs.

On the journey, the group are ambushed by the six remaining vampires in a cave, along with their army of undead. The group are quickly engaged in battle and soon kill the three vampires. The remaining three retreat, taking their army of undead with them. The following morning, the party reaches the village, partly ruined but still populated, and prepares to make their final stand. They use wooden stakes as barriers and dig a large trench around them filled with flammable liquid. In the temple that evening, Dracula, still disguised as Kah, calls on the remaining vampires to kill Van Helsing and his party once and for all. The vampires reach the village, and soon Van Helsing's group once again do battle with the last of the golden vampires and their army of undead, resulting in a brutal fight that kills two vampires, many undead servants, several villagers, and several of Van Helsing's companions. During the fight, Vanessa is bitten by one of the vampires and quickly becomes one herself. She bites Ching, who throws himself and Vanessa onto a wooden stake, impaling them both.

Elsewhere, the last remaining vampire captures Ching's sister Mai Kwei and takes her back to the temple in order to be drained of her blood. Leyland steals a horse from one of the dead vampires and pursues. The army of undead defeated, Van Helsing and Mei's remaining brothers follow to help Leyland at the temple. Having reached the temple, the vampire straps Mai Kwei to one of the altars. It is about to drain her blood when Leyland intervenes. Just before Leyland is about to be drained, Van Helsing and Mei's brothers burst in, and Van Helsing destroys the last vampire. The survivors depart from the temple, save for Van Helsing, who feels a familiar presence and comes to face Dracula in Kah's body. Discovered, Dracula reveals his true form and attacks Van Helsing. In the ensuing struggle, Van Helsing succeeds in stabbing Dracula with a silver spear through the heart, causing the Count to turn to dust.

Cast

 Peter Cushing as Professor Van Helsing
 John Forbes-Robertson as Count Dracula
 David de Keyser as the voice of Count Dracula (uncredited)
 Robin Stewart as Leyland Van Helsing
 Julie Ege as Vanessa Buren
 Robert Hanna as British Consul
 David Chiang as Hsi Ching/Hsi Tien-en
 Shih Szu as Mai Kwei
 Chan Shen as Kah the High Priest/Count Dracula's host
 Lau Kar-wing as Hsi Kwei (archer)
 Huang Pei-Chih as Hsi Po-Kwei (spearman)
 Wang Chiang as Hsi San (twin swordsman)
 Feng Ko-An as an assassin
 Hsu Hsia as an assassin

Production
The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires began development due to Don Houghton's father-in-law knowing Hong Kong film producer Run Run Shaw. Houghton flew to Hong Kong to discuss a project with Run Run Shaw and his brother Runme Shaw who agreed to finance 50% of the film.

Filming
The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires was filmed between October 22 and December 11, 1973, at Shaw Brothers Studio in Hong Kong, with mountain scenes shot on Kowloon Peak. The Shaw Brothers were not happy with how Roy Ward Baker was directing the film and had martial arts sequences choreographed by one of their studios directors, leading to a second unit set up that was handled by Chang Cheh. Chang Cheh added scenes that led to the Eastern version of the film to run at 110 minutes. Renee Glynee who was the continuity supervisor for the film stated that working with the Shaw Brothers Studios was "a big experience" due to language differences and that director Roy Ward Baker was screaming at the Chinese actors to stop spitting on set.

Release
The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires was first released in Hong Kong on 11 July 1974. The film received its premiere in London on 29 August 1974, at the Warner Rendezvous Theatre and had general release in the United Kingdom on 6 October 1974, by Columbia/Warner Distributors. The American version cuts out 20 minutes of the film's footage and soundtrack and loops several remaining scenes to fill the running time.

For the film's release in the United States, it received a sneak peek screening in November 1975 at the Famous Monsters of Filmland Convention in New York City which included attendance by Michael Carreras and Peter Cushing. It received wider distribution in the United States in June 1979 by Dynamite Entertainment with a 75-minute running time and re-titled to The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula.
Under the guidance of Michael Carreras, an original edit of the film eliminated Dracula, but Carreras stated that the film was too short so Dracula's character was re-instated. In the film Dracula has the ability to assume another person's appearance, an ability that was removed from Houghton's script for The Satanic Rites of Dracula, and re-used in this film.

The film was not a box office success. There was a planned sequel to be titled Kali, Devil Bride of Dracula, which was to be filmed in India, but it was never made.

Home media
The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires was released on VHS by 1991. It was released on DVD in the United Kingdom by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. In 1998, The Roan Group released a LaserDisc edition of the film in the United States, which includes both the original unedited The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires version and the later The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula version. Anchor Bay Entertainment issued a DVD release of the film in the US, again featuring both cuts of the film. The US DVD also features a recording of Peter Cushing telling the story of the film with music and sound effects, which was released as an LP record at the time of the film's release.

In April 2019, a 2K restoration of the film was released on Blu-ray by Scream Factory. In September 2023, Signal One Entertainment released the film on Blu-ray in the UK.

Reception
In contemporary reviews, the London Times who found that the film "would be tedious if it were not for the distinguished presence of Peter Cushing as a Dracula-hunter and for some advanced exercises in the practice of vampire disintegration" Cinema TV Today found that "it is a pity that this blend of two popular genres could not have been more carefully thought out." Verina Glaessner wrote in the Monthly Film Bulletin found the film to be a "fascinating failure" noting that "part of the film's failure is due to an equivocal attitude towards its subject, and part of a misunderstanding of the role that hand-to-hand combat plays in Chinese films."

From retrospective reviews, Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club called the film "flawed" but "enjoyable," adding, "It's pretty much as ridiculous as it sounds, but there's something inherently entertaining about make-up-splattered vampires, distinguished British actors, and martial artists squaring off in periodic eruptions of kung-fu fighting." Phil Chandler of DVD Cult wrote, "Is it the best Hammer horror film ever made? Hell no. Is it the best Hammer film of the seventies? Hell yeah."
Graeme Clark of The Spinning Image said, "Cushing, in his last Hammer Dracula film, is as commanding as ever, but he and his Western companions are pretty disposable to the plot until the end, where the professor is left alone with the Count, who is hardly needed. Nevertheless, this last Hammer vampire outing has a real energy, in spite of being a mishmash, and is different enough to get by on sheer novelty alone." Writing in The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia, academic Peter Dendle called the raising of the undead army "one of the most visually spectacular in zombie cinema".  Glenn Kay, who wrote Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide, called the film "boisterous, action-packed, and very likeable".

Roy Ward Baker later spoke about the film, declaring that "the whole set-up was slip-shod, and nobody knew what anyone was doing." and that the film was "a failure, an absolute failure."  Michael Carreras later said this "wasn't such a good idea" although he felt "some of the film is quite good."

In other media
The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires was adapted into a 15-page comics story by Steve Moore and Brian Lewis, and published in The House of Hammer #4 (February 1977) by General Books Distribution. The same story was later reprinted in issue #24 (1982) of the same publication.

See also
 Vampire films

References

External links

The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires at BFI Screenonline

1970s British films
1970s English-language films
1970s Hong Kong films
1970s supernatural horror films
1974 films
1974 horror films
1974 martial arts films
1974 multilingual films
British martial arts films
British multilingual films
British supernatural horror films
Columbia Pictures films
English-language Hong Kong films
Hong Kong multilingual films
Hong Kong supernatural horror films
Dracula films
Dracula (Hammer film series)
Hammer Film Productions horror films
Films directed by Roy Ward Baker
Films scored by James Bernard
Films set in 1804
Films set in 1904
Films set in castles
Films set in China
Films set in Chongqing
Films set in Transylvania
Films with screenplays by Don Houghton
Martial arts horror films
Resurrection in film
Shaw Brothers Studio films
Warner Bros. films

The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires


USS Scourge was an American warship converted from a confiscated Canadian merchant schooner. She and the American warship  foundered at 2:00am on Sunday, August 8, 1813 during a squall on Lake Ontario. during the War of 1812.

Scourge began its career as the schooner Lord Nelson, named after the famous British Admiral Horatio Nelson. The schooner was built at Niagara-on-the-Lake in Upper Canada for merchant James Crooks and launched on May 1, 1811 as an unarmed merchant schooner to carry freight between Upper Canadian ports. The US Navy illegally seized Lord Nelson on June 9, 1812, almost two weeks before the War of 1812, on suspicion of smuggling. The schooner was on a voyage from Prescott, Upper Canada to Niagara, Upper Canada (then known as Newark) carrying freight and personal luggage when Lt. Melancthon T. Woolsey, captain of the American warship USS Oneida, detained her. Woolsey accused Lord Nelsons master of smuggling American goods in violation of the Embargo Act of 1807, which forbade trading between the United States and British colonies. The schooner was taken to the US naval base at Sackets Harbor, New York. Although there was no proof of smuggling and the schooner's owner James Crooks immediately went to Sackets Harbour to dispute the seizure, the onset of war prevented the return of his vessel.

The US Navy commissioned the schooner at Sackets Harbor and renamed it USS Scourge. For naval service it was armed with four 6-pounder cannons and four 4-pounder cannons, and fitted with bulwarks. The schooner was placed in Captain Isaac Chauncey's squadron and patrolled Lake Ontario during the War of 1812.

About 84 men perished when the Hamilton and Scourge sank during a sudden squall off-shore from Fourteen Mile Creek, east of present-day Hamilton, Ontario around 2:00 am on Sunday August 8, 1813. Scourge was under the command of Sailing Master Joseph Osgood. According to a Letter of August 1813 after both ships were lost, a total of sixteen members of the crews survived. A survivor of the Scourge, Ned Myers, told his story to James Fenimore Cooper. According to Myers about eight men from the Scourge were saved, and about 42 were lost.

The site of the sunken ships was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1976. The Ontario Heritage Act was amended in 2005 to provide special protection to the shipwrecks of the Hamilton, the Scourge, and the SS Edmund Fitzgerald because of their historical and cultural significance and because they contain human remains.

After the war, the schooner's original owner James Crooks, resumed his claim for the schooner. On July 11, 1817, the Court of Northern District of New York, determined that the vessel had been seized illegally. Despite the court's decision, compensation to the Crooks family was not paid because the clerk of the court had embezzled the funds. Crook's descendants persisted and finally won compensation for the schooner 97 years later, in 1914, thanks to the determination of Henry James Bethune. The award was $5000, plus 93 years of interest. Total compensation came to $23,644.38, reduced to $15,546.63 after deduction of legal expenses, and was paid by the United States government to the 25 descendants of James Crooks.

References

Great Lakes ships
1811 ships
Captured ships
War of 1812 ships of the United States
Shipwrecks of Lake Ontario
Maritime incidents in 1813
19th century in Hamilton, Ontario
Ships built in Ontario
Merchant ships of Canada

USS Scourge (1812)


Jack Skellington is a character and the protagonist of the 1993 film The Nightmare Before Christmas. He is a tall, sentient skeleton who is the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, a fantasy world based solely on the Halloween holiday. Jack is voiced by Chris Sarandon. Danny Elfman provided Jack's singing voice in the original film and soundtrack album, with Sarandon providing Jack's speaking and singing voice in subsequent productions.

His overall appearance is a skeleton dressed in a black pin-striped suit and a bow tie that strongly resembles a bat. Originally, his suit was meant to be completely black, but it blended with the background too well, so it was changed. At the beginning of the film, Jack makes his grand entrance by emerging out of the fountain in Halloween Town's plaza. His last name is a play on the word "skeleton". He has a ghost dog named Zero for a pet, who has a small jack-o'-lantern for a nose. He is adored by Sally, a feminine creation of Doctor Finkelstein. The character is a popular design on bags, hats, clothing, umbrellas, belt buckles, pet collars, and other items.

In The Nightmare Before Christmas

Jack Skellington is the patron spirit of Halloween, portrayed as being on par with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny within his own holiday. As a living skeleton, he is supernatural and can remove parts of his body without harm, as is often demonstrated for comic relief. He is the most important of many Halloween spirits, with the implication that their job is to scare people in the real world on Halloween night.

Jack, as the "Pumpkin King" and master of ceremonies, is in charge of Halloween Town's Halloween celebration. He is loved, respected, and even idolized by the other residents for his role, but he has grown weary of celebrating the same holiday endlessly and is depressed about it. The only one who understands Jack's feelings is a lonely rag doll named Sally. She overhears his singing monologue and feels she can relate to his situation.

One morning after the usual annual celebration, Jack enters a forest containing portals to other worlds themed around holidays. He discovers Christmas Town and decides that this new experience is what his life was missing. He makes preparations for his own Christmas celebration in Halloween Town and wants to impersonate Santa Claus in the real world. While his intentions are not malicious, Jack does not understand the true spirit of Christmas. Halloween Town plans to give the holidays a macabre makeover. Sally reveals to Jack a bad premonition, but Jack's basic nature is impulsiveness. He does not seem to register contradictory information. By the end of the film, he notices Sally and her determination to help him. He proves that love can be a part of his nature by calling Sally his "Dearest Friend", telling Sally that they were meant to be together, embracing his future with her and embracing her.

Jack follows the formula of a tragic hero because he begins the story at a lofty position. In spite of all his fame and talent, he yearns for another side of life. While a desire for completeness is not a flaw, his impulsiveness proves to be. He tends to be enthusiastic and inclusive, and his charisma is enough to sway every member of Halloween Town except Sally. His selfish decisions lead to the near destruction of Christmas and himself. The strength of Jack's character is demonstrated by his will to correct his own mistakes.

The official film soundtrack CD contains an epilogue not in the film, stating that "many years later" Santa returned to Halloween Town to visit Jack, where he discovered that Jack had "four or five skeleton children at hand" who play together in a xylophone band.

In video games

The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King

Jack Skellington has been shown to have an extreme hatred for Oogie Boogie as was proven when he spoke of this plan to Lock, Shock, and Barrel, stating to "leave that no account Oogie Boogie out of this!" He later finds out that Santa Claus and Sally have been kidnapped by the Boogie Man and are in his underground lair. While trying to save his friends, Jack manages to destroy Oogie and save Christmas.

The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge

Tired of using the same old themes over and over on Halloween, Jack Skellington goes to Doctor Finkelstein, who gives him the Soul Robber, an invention that changes shape. Jack decided to leave Halloween Town to get new ideas for Halloween frights. When Jack comes back to town, he finds that Oogie Boogie has been resurrected. Now Jack has to set things right again. Jack dances, fights and sings in this game to attack Oogie Boogie's minions. Jack is portrayed as inept to some degree in this game.

Chris Sarandon did both the speaking and singing voice for Jack in this game.

Disney Universe

Jack Skellington features in the Nightmare Before Christmas downloadable expansion pack which includes Jack Skellington, Sally, Oogie-Boogie, Dr. Finkelstein, and the Mayor as in-game playable costumes. The downloadable content can be bought from console stores (e.g. the PlayStation Store). The package included the costumes of which some could be found in the downloaded level. Unlike the worlds originally in the game which all had 3 chapters, the Nightmare Before Christmas world only had 1 chapter called 'Halloween Graveyard'.

Kingdom Hearts series

Jack Skellington appears in four installments of the Kingdom Hearts video game series. He inhabits the world of Halloween Town, where the evil Heartless threatens its denizens. The games' protagonists, Sora, Donald Duck and Goofy, befriend Jack and together they battle the Heartless, and also Oogie Boogie. In combat, Jack uses some of his scary powers with demonstrations of some magic, making him a formidable sorcerer.

Chris Sarandon reprises his role for the English version, and Masachika Ichimura provides Jack's Japanese voice.

Kingdom Hearts

Jack Skellington introduces himself to Sora, Goofy, and Donald Duck as the ruler of Halloween Town. Jack plans to use the heart that Finkelstein created to control the seemingly docile Heartless to make a festival called "Heartless Halloween" so that Halloween can be frightening, but the idea fails when not only the first experiment cause the Heartless to go berserk, but Oogie Boogie steals the finished heart, and plans to use it to take over Halloween Town. At Oogie's manor, Jack, Sora, and the gang confront him. After Oogie is defeated, Jack finds out that Oogie uses dark orbs as his source of life, which Oogie combines himself with his manor to become a giant boss. Once the gang defeats Oogie once again, and his manor crumbles, revealing Halloween Town's keyhole. Jack is considerably shorter in this game than as he appeared in the movie, though he is still rather tall when compared to the game's protagonists.

Chain of Memories

"Created" from Sora's memories of Halloween Town, when Jack Skellington wanted to ask Doctor Finkelstein what happened when he sniffs the potion that can bring "true memories", Heartless appeared. When Jack Skellington had found out that Oogie Boogie had stolen Doc's potion, he must stop him before Oogie drinks the whole potion. They fail to reach him before he does, but they defeat him, as Oogie becomes overwhelmed with fear as a side effect of the potion. Sora becomes worried about what will happen when he discovers his true memories, but Jack reassures him that fear is a sign of a strong heart.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days

In this game, Roxas arrives at Halloween Town while Jack is in the middle of brainstorming for Halloween. Jack is having trouble with thinking of things but gets inspiration when he sees Roxas leaving through a Dark Corridor. Time after time, Roxas' adventures through Halloween Town inspire Jack to create such things as balloons filled with spiders, exploding frost pumpkins, and Halloween lanterns. When Roxas is sent to find the source of a terrible drop in heartless population, he finds the town overrun with monsters called Tentaclaws. After seeing Roxas defeating the source of the Tentaclaws, the cannibalistic Leechgrave, Jack invents a terrifying scarecrowish version of Roxas as his centerpiece for that Halloween.

Kingdom Hearts II

Following the film loosely to some degree, out of reference, Jack tries to take Santa Claus's place again. To that end, Jack asks Sora and the gang to help him be Santa's bodyguards. But after fighting the Heartless and Oogie Boogie, who has been resurrected by Maleficent, Santa explains to Jack that they each have a job to do with their respective holidays. Despite this, he begins to wear a Santa suit Sally sewed together for him. In the second trip to Halloween Town, Jack still wears the Santa suit, as he still longs to deliver Christmas presents and feels that it would be rude not to wear the suit Sally worked so hard on. Along with Sora and the gang, he helps defeat Doctor Finkelstein's experiment, who stole Christmas presents from Santa in search of a heart. As a reward for all his hard work and assistance, Santa brings Jack on a ride-along with him in his sleigh for a while. After Santa drops Jack off at Halloween Town, Jack learns the true meaning of Christmas by understanding the act of giving. He dances with Sally in the end, finally realizing all of the gifts she had given to him were all from the heart and wishes to give her something in return. She tells him that the nicest present she could ever ask for is just to be with Jack. Jack responds telling her that she does not even have to ask for that, meaning Jack feels the same way for her. During a cut scene in the end credits, he is shown to be wearing his original suit, suggesting he has taken Santa's previous advice to heart completely, and apparently begins presenting new ideas for next Halloween.

Disney Infinity
In the Disney Infinity video game series, Jack appears as part of the second wave of playable characters. He has the ability to scare enemies and throw exploding jack-o'-lanterns. If he rides Ghost Rider's motorcycle, his head will catch on fire, resembling
Ghost Rider's flaming head.

Disney Magic Kingdoms
In the world builder game Disney Magic Kingdoms, Jack appears as a playable character to unlock for a limited time.

Disney Mirrorverse
An alternate version of Jack Skellington appears as a playable character in the video game Disney Mirrorverse.

Attractions
Jack appears as a meetable character at several Walt Disney Parks and Resorts including Disneyland, Hong Kong Disneyland, Disneyland Paris and Walt Disney World, and is located outside The Haunted Mansion in Frontierland. Disneyland during the holidays, Haunted Mansion is taken over by the cast of The Nightmare Before Christmas and is turned into Haunted Mansion Holiday. Jack and other characters appear throughout the ride wearing Christmas attire. Additionally, Jack hosts the Halloween Screams and Not So Spooky Spectacular! fireworks shows, as well as the Frightfully Fun Parade. Chris Sarandon reprised the voice for the character in each instance.

Cameos
 In Vincent, a figure similar to Jack appears as one of the phantasmic imaginisms of the titular character, during the final minutes of the short film.
 In Beetlejuice, during the seance scene, when Betelgeuse rises out of the table he is wearing a carousel adorned with a skull that resembles what would later be the design of Jack.
 During the opening scene of Sleepy Hollow, a scarecrow bearing a strong resemblance to the Pumpkin King scarecrow at the beginning of "This is Halloween" can be seen.
 In the 2010 film Alice in Wonderland, Jack's face can be found on the Mad Hatter's bow tie.
 In James and the Giant Peach, Jack makes a cameo as Captain Jack, an antagonist in the pirate scene. Upon discovering him, Centipede says "A Skellington?".
 A silhouette of Jack is shown in The Princess and the Frog as one of the shadows Dr. Facilier summons.
 Jack Skellington's face made a cameo appearance on a doormat in the first volume of the graphic novel series Lenore, created by Roman Dirge.
 Jack appears in an episode of The Critic in a short parody called "The Nightmare Before Hanukkah", done in the same stop-motion animation style as the original movie. In this parody, Jack wears a red suit rather than his usual black and white striped one.
 Jack also appears in the animated Adult Swim sketch show Robot Chicken. In one sketch, film critic Roger Ebert and filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan review a batch of sequels to popular movies. One of which is The Nightmare Before Hanukkah, with Jack finding a place called "Hanukkah Town" and watches children open up presents, but finding out that it is just socks and pencils for their first day of Hanukkah, leading to Jack saying to himself: "Oh, wow, this sucks..." Jack appears again on another sketch called "Grown-Up Halloween" alongside the Mayor of Halloween Town.
 Jack appears in the background in a South Park made-for-TV movie called "Imaginationland".
 Jack appears in the movie Coraline as the yolk of an egg cracked by the Other Mother.
 Jack appears in the Mad episode "Kitchen Nightmares Before Christmas". He also makes a cameo appearance in the short it was paired with, "How I Met Your Mummy".
 A parody of Jack Skellington, in the form of a character named The Pumpkin Guy, appears in the opening of the Tiny Toon Adventures episode "Night Ghoulery".
 Jack appears, along with his Halloween Town friends, in one of the cutaway scenes of the Family Guy episode "Peter's Sister". In the scene, a fictional Nightmare sequel entitled Happy 4th of July Jack Skellington, the citizens of Halloween Town sing a short song called "Patriotic Weirdness".
 A Jack plush doll also made an appearance in Stocking's room in the anime Panty and Stocking.
 Jack is included as one of many characters featured in Disney on Ice's production Let's Celebrate!. Mickey Mouse calls upon him to throw a Halloween party, which a number of Disney Villains find their way into. During his appearance, a medley of "Jack's Lament" and "What's This?" are performed, along with the film's opening number "This Is Halloween". Sarandon provided both the speaking and singing for Jack.
 In the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 video game Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko, the titular character references the main plot of The Nightmare Before Christmas from the point of view of Jack in the winter/Christmas-themed level, "Christmas Land" as he remarks "Christmas Town? I'm Jack Gexington from Halloween..."
 In an episode of the children's show Tumble Leaf when they are on an adventure to the spider queen's Halloween party. Fig(main character) and friends stop at a neighbors home. On the door of the neighbors home, which is in a tree, it's shaped like the doors in the opening scene of nightmare before Christmas. On the door, Jack and Sally's beloved, iconic spiral mountain peak.
 Some figures of Jack appear on a pavilion in Oh My Disney in the film Ralph Breaks the Internet.
Two unlockable costumes of Jack Skellington appear in the video game Fall Guys.
Jack Skellington appears as a purchasable outfit in Fortnite Battle Royale, as part of the game's annual Fortnitemares event in 2023.

Toys
Jack Skellington has been made into a Bendies figure, as well as various Funko Pop Vinyl figurines with different variants, such as a Day of the Dead variant. He appeared in the Kingdom Hearts action figure collections, and was also released in Japan's REVOLTECH Sci-fi line in 2010, along with the Japanese monsters, Gamera and Gyaos. Diamond Select Toys also made many action figures of Jack and other characters.

In 2017 a life-size Jack Skellington animatronic prop was released. The prop was six feet tall and sold exclusively at Spirit Halloween. But in 2019 the prop became a wholesale item.

In the Disney Infinity toys-to-life series, Jack appears as part of the second wave of playable figurines.

In 2019, a Lego minifigure of Jack Skellington was released as part of the Lego Minifigures Disney Series 2. A Lego Brickheadz figure of Jack was also released alongside a Brickheadz version of Sally.

Reception
Despite the film not being a part of the Disney Animated Canon, Jack has nonetheless become one of Disney's most popular characters. Jamie Frater adds, "Jack is perfectly realized as the 'town hero' who seeks more in his life (or death, as it may be), a place we all find ourselves time to time." UGO Networks listed Jack as one of their best heroes of all time.

References

Animated characters introduced in 1993
Christmas characters
Disney animated characters
Disney characters originating in film
Fictional kings
Fictional personifications
Fictional skeletons
Film characters introduced in 1993
Male characters in animated films
Male characters in film
Santa Claus
Stop motion characters
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Characters created by Tim Burton

Jack Skellington


Lights Out is an American old-time radio program devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural.

Created by Wyllis Cooper and then eventually taken over by Arch Oboler, versions of Lights Out aired on different networks, at various times, from January 3, 1934 to the summer of 1947 and the series eventually made the transition to television. Lights Out was one of the earliest radio horror programs, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum.

History

The Wyllis Cooper era
In the fall of 1933, NBC writer Wyllis Cooper conceived the idea of "a midnight mystery serial to catch the attention of the listeners at the witching hour." The idea was to offer listeners a dramatic program late at night, at a time when the competition was mostly airing music. At some point, the serial concept was dropped in favor of an anthology format emphasizing crime thrillers and the supernatural. The first series of shows (each 15 minutes long) ran on a local NBC station, WENR, at midnight Wednesdays, starting in January 1934. By April, the series proved successful enough to expand to a half-hour. In January 1935, the show was discontinued in order to ease Cooper's workload (he was then writing scripts for the network's prestigious Immortal Dramas program), but was brought back by huge popular demand a few weeks later. After a successful tryout in New York City, the series was picked up by NBC in April 1935 and broadcast nationally, usually late at night and always on Wednesdays. Cooper stayed on the program until June 1936, when another Chicago writer, Arch Oboler, took over. By the time Cooper left, the series had inspired about 600 fan clubs.

Cooper's run was characterized by grisly stories spiked with dark, tongue-in-cheek humor, a sort of radio Grand Guignol. A character might be buried, eaten, or skinned alive, vaporized in a ladle of white-hot steel, absorbed by a giant slurping amoeba, have his arm torn off by a robot, or forced to endure torture, beating or decapitation—always with the appropriate blood-curdling acting and sound effects.

Though there had been efforts at horror on radio previously (notably The Witch's Tale), there does not seem to have been anything quite as explicit or outrageous as this on a regular basis. When Lights Out switched to the national network, a decision was made to tone down the gore and emphasize tamer fantasy and ghost stories.

Only one recording survives from Cooper's 1934–1936 run, but his less gruesome scripts were occasionally rebroadcast. An interesting example is his "Three Men," which became the series' annual Christmas show (a 1937 version circulates among collectors under titles like "Uninhabited" or "Christmas Story"); it has a plot typical of Cooper's gentler fantasies. On the first Christmas after World War I, three Allied officers meet by chance in a train compartment and find one another vaguely familiar. They fall asleep and share a dream in which they are the Three Wise Men searching for Jesus. But is it really a dream? In the best tradition of supernatural twist endings, Cooper has the officers wake to find a strange odor in their compartment—which turns out to be myrrh and frankincense.

In the mid-1940s, Cooper's decade-old scripts were used for three brief summertime revivals of Lights Out. The surviving recordings reveal that Cooper was experimenting with both stream of consciousness and first-person narration a few years before these techniques were popularized in American radio drama by, among others, Arch Oboler and Orson Welles. In one tale (The Haunted Cell, original broadcast date unknown, rebroadcast 7/20/1946), a murderer describes how the Chicago police try to beat a confession out of him. When that doesn't work, they put him in a jail cell haunted by the ghost of a previous occupant, a smooth gangster named Skeeter Dempsey who describes his own execution and discusses the afterlife knowledgeably. In the final twist, the narrator reveals that he has taken Skeeter's advice to commit suicide and is now himself a ghost.

Another story, originally broadcast in March 1935 as "After Five O'Clock" and revived in 1945 as "Man in the Middle," allows us to follow the thoughts of a businessman as he spends a day at the office cheating on his wife with his secretary. The amusing contrast between what the protagonist thinks to himself and what he says out loud to the other characters enlivens one of Cooper's favorite plot devices, the love triangle.

One radio critic, in reviewing a March 1935 episode that used multiple first-person narrators, said:

Other Cooper scripts are more routine, perhaps in part because the author's attention was divided by other projects. From the summer of 1933 until August 1935, Cooper was NBC Chicago's continuity chief, supervising a staff of writers and editing their scripts. He resigned in order to devote more time to Lights Out as well as a daily aviation adventure serial, Flying Time. At various times, he also served on NBC's Program Planning Board, wrote the soap opera Betty and Bob, and commuted weekly to produce another program in Des Moines, Iowa.

From early 1934 to mid 1936, Cooper produced close to 120 scripts for Lights Out. Some episode titles (all from 1935) include "The Mine of Lost Skulls," "Sepulzeda's Revenge," "Three Lights From a Match," "Play Without a Name," and "Lost in the Catacombs" (about a honeymoon couple in Rome who lose their way in the catacombs under the city). Typical plots included:

 A novelist, struggling to write a locked room mystery, locks himself in his office only to be interrupted by a stranger who resembles the story's murderer.
 A killer named "Nails" Malone has "a conference with his conscience" about the murders he's committed.
 A scientist accidentally creates a giant amoeba that grows rapidly, eats living things (like the lab assistant's cat), and exhibits powers of mind control.

The show benefited tremendously from Chicago's considerable pool of creative talent. The city was, like New York, one of the main centers of radio production in 1930s America. Among the actors who participated regularly during the Cooper era were Sidney Ellstrom, Art Jacobson, Don Briggs, Bernardine Flynn, Betty Lou Gerson, and Betty Winkler. The sound effects technicians frequently had to perform numerous experiments to achieve the desired noises. Cooper once had them build a gallows and wasn't satisfied until one of the sound men personally dropped through the trap. The series had little music scoring save for the thirteen chime notes that opened the program (after a deep voice intoned, "Lights out, everybody!") and an ominous gong which was used to punctuate a scene and provide the transition to another.

A veteran radio dramatist, Ferrin Fraser, wrote some of the scripts.

The Arch Oboler era

When Cooper departed, his replacement—a young, eccentric and ambitious Arch Oboler—picked up where he left off, often following Cooper's general example but investing the scripts with his own concerns. Oboler made imaginative use of stream-of-consciousness narration and sometimes introduced social and political themes that reflected his commitment to antifascist liberalism.

Although in later years Lights Out would be closely associated with Oboler, he was always quick to credit Cooper as the series' creator and spoke highly of the older author, calling him "the unsung pioneer of radio dramatic techniques" and the first person Oboler knew of who understood that radio drama could be an art form.

In June 1936, Oboler's first script for Lights Out was "Burial Service," about a paralyzed girl who is buried alive. NBC was flooded with outraged letters in response. His next story, one of his most popular efforts, was the frequently repeated "Catwife," about the desperate husband of a woman who turns into a giant feline. He followed with "The Dictator," about Roman emperor Caligula. This set the pattern for Oboler's run: For every two horror episodes, he said later, he would try to write one drama on subjects that were ostensibly more serious, usually moral, social, and political issues.

Like Cooper, Oboler was much in demand and highly prolific. While working on Lights Out, he wrote numerous dramatic sketches for variety shows (The Chase and Sanborn Hour, Rudy Vallee's programs), anthologies (Grand Hotel, The First Nighter Program, The Irene Rich Show) and specials. In August 1936, singer Vallee, then the dean of variety show hosts, claimed that Lights Out was his favorite series. Oboler occasionally redrafted his Lights Out scripts for use on Vallee's and other variety hours. A version of Oboler's "Prelude to Murder" starring Peter Lorre and Olivia de Havilland was scheduled to air on a November 1936 Vallee broadcast. Other Lights Out plays that turned up on various late 1930s variety programs included "Danse Macabre" (with Boris Karloff), "Alter Ego" (with Bette Davis) and "The Harp."

Oboler met the demand by adopting an unusual scripting procedure:  He would lie in bed at night, smoke cigarettes, and improvise into a Dictaphone, acting out every line of the play. In this way, he was able to complete a script quickly, sometimes in as little as 30 minutes, though he might take as long as three or four hours. In the morning, a stenographer would type up the recording for Oboler's revisions. Years later, Rod Serling, who counted radio fantasists like Cooper, Oboler, and Norman Corwin among his inspirations, would use a similar process to churn out his many teleplays for The Twilight Zone, a series that in many respects was to television what Lights Out was to radio.

Despite acclaim for Oboler's dramas, NBC announced it was canceling the series in the summer of 1937—"just to see whether listeners are still faithful to it," according to one press report but also, it seems, to allow the hard-working author a vacation. Another outcry from fans led to the program's return that September for another season.

In the spring of 1938, the series earned a good deal of publicity for its fourth anniversary as a half-hour show when actor Boris Karloff, the star of many a Hollywood horror film, traveled to Chicago to appear in five consecutive episodes. Among his roles: an accused murderer haunted by an unearthly woman-like demonic creature (played by Templeton Fox) urging him to "kill...kill...kill" in "The Dream"; the desperate husband in a rebroadcast of "Catwife"; and a mad, violin-playing hermit who imprisons a pair of women, threatening to murder one and marry the other, in "Valse Triste."

Oboler left in the summer of 1938 to pursue other projects, writing and directing several critically acclaimed dramatic anthology series: Arch Oboler's Plays, Everyman's Theatre, and Plays for Americans. A variety of NBC staff writers and freelancers filled in until Lights Out was canceled in 1939. NBC Chicago continuity editor Ken Robinson supervised some of the writing. Regular contributors included William Fifield and Hobart Donovan. A recording of the fifth anniversary show survives from this season. Donovan's "The Devil's Due," about criminals haunted by a mysterious stranger, is in keeping with the formula laid down by Cooper.

In 1942, Oboler, needing money, revived the series for a year on CBS. Airing in prime time instead of late at night, the program was sponsored by the makers of Ironized Yeast. Most of the Lights Out recordings that exist today come from this version of the show. For this revival, each episode began with an ominously tolling bell over which Oboler read the cryptic tagline: "It...is...later...than...you...think." This was followed by a dour "warning" to listeners to turn off their radios if they felt their constitutions were too delicate to handle the frightening tale that was about to unfold.

Directing and hosting the 1942–43 broadcasts, mostly from New York and Hollywood, Oboler not only reused scripts from his 1936–38 run but also revived some of the more fantasy-oriented plays from his other, more recent anthology series. Some episodes had originally aired on the author's groundbreaking, critically acclaimed 1939–1940 program Arch Oboler's Plays, among them:

 "The Ugliest Man in the World," a sentimental tale of a hideously deformed man seeking love in a cruel world, inspired by Boris Karloff's typecasting in horror roles.
 "Bathysphere," a political thriller about a scientist and a dictator sharing a deep sea diving bell.
 "Visitor from Hades," about a bickering married couple trapped in their apartment by a doppelgänger.

Another unusual script, "Execution," about a mysterious French woman who bedevils the Nazis trying to hang her, had previously aired on Oboler's wartime propaganda series Plays for Americans.

Like Cooper, Oboler made effective use of atmospheric sound effects, perhaps most memorably in his legendary "Chicken Heart," a script that debuted in 1937 and was rebroadcast in 1938 and 1942. It features the simple but effective "thump-thump" of an ever-growing, ever-beating chicken heart which, thanks to a scientific experiment gone wrong, threatens to engulf the entire world. Although the story bears similarities to an earlier Cooper episode (about an ever-growing amoeba that makes an ominous "slurp! slurp!" sound), Oboler's unique choice of monster was inspired by a Chicago Tribune article announcing that scientists had succeeded in keeping a chicken heart alive for a considerable period of time after its having been removed from the chicken. Recordings of the original radio broadcasts are lost or unavailable, although Oboler later recreated this episode for a record album in 1962. Part of the episode's notoriety stems from a popular standup routine by comedian Bill Cosby (on his 1966 album Wonderfulness), an account of his staying up late as a child to listen to scary radio shows against his parents' wishes and being terrified by the chicken heart. Cosby also referenced the episode in a camping episode of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.

Other well-remembered Oboler tales, many of them written in the 1930s and rebroadcast in the '40s, include:

 "Come to the Bank," in which a man learns to walk through walls but gets stuck when he tries to rob a vault.
 "Oxychloride X," about a chemist who invents a substance that can eat through anything.
 "Murder Castle," based on the real-life case of H. H. Holmes, Chicago's notorious serial killer.
 "Profits Unlimited," a still-relevant allegory on the promises and dangers of capitalism.
 "Spider," in which two men attempt to capture a giant arachnid.
 "The Flame," a weird exercise in supernatural pyromania.
 "Sub-Basement," which finds yet another husband and wife in peril—this time trapped far beneath a department store in the subterranean railway of the Chicago Tunnel Company.

Lights Out often featured metafictional humor. Perhaps inspired by Cooper's "The Coffin in Studio B," in which actors rehearsing an episode of Lights Out are interrupted by a mysterious coffin salesman peddling his wares, Oboler wrote stories like "Murder in the Script Department," in which two Lights Out script typists become trapped in their building after hours as frightening, unexplained events occur. In "The Author and the Thing," Oboler even plays himself pitted against one of his own monstrous creations.

After the 1942–43 Lights Out, Oboler continued to work in radio (Everything for the Boys and revivals of Arch Oboler's Plays) and pursued a second career in filmmaking, first in the Hollywood mainstream and then as an independent producer, writing and directing a number of offbeat, low-budget films, including Five, about survivors of a nuclear war, The Twonky, a satire of television, and the 3-D film Bwana Devil, which made a huge profit on a small investment. He dabbled in live television (a six-episode 1949 anthology series, Arch Oboler Comedy Theater), playwriting (Night of the Auk), and fiction (House on Fire). In 1962, he produced a spoken-word album entitled Drop Dead! (Capitol T/ST-1763), which recreated abbreviated versions of his Lights Out thrillers, including "Chicken Heart" and "The Dark," about a mysterious creeping mist that turns people inside-out. In 1971–1972, Oboler produced a syndicated radio series, The Devil and Mr. O (he liked for people to call him "Mr. O"), which featured vintage recordings from Lights Out and his other series with newly recorded introductions by Mr. O himself.

Later revivals
The success of Oboler's 1942–1943 Lights Out revival was part of a trend in 1940s American radio toward more horror. Genre series like Inner Sanctum, Suspense and others drew increasingly large ratings. Perhaps with this in mind, NBC broadcast another Lights Out revival series from New York in the summer of 1945, using seven of Wyllis Cooper's original 1930s scripts. Like Oboler's, this revival aired in the early evening and not late at night, and because of this, it was reported, "only those Cooper scripts which stressed fantasy rather than horror" were broadcast. These included a bloodless ghost story about a man who accidentally condemns his dead wife to haunt a nearby cemetery and "The Rocket Ship", science fiction involving interstellar travel. Cooper, then an advertising executive at New York's Compton Agency, may have had little or nothing to do with the actual broadcasts other than allowing his scripts to be performed.

This was followed by an eight-episode revival in the summer of 1946, from NBC Chicago, although at least one of the scripts is not by Cooper (an adaptation of Charles Dickens' "The Signal-Man"). This series also avoided the use of outright gore. In fact, a review in Variety complained that the premiere episode, "The Seven Plovers", was "a little too serious in content for a thriller" since it included "religious background, philosophical discussion and dream diagnosis ..."

A third series of eight vintage Cooper scripts was scheduled to run in the summer of 1947 as well. Broadcast from Hollywood over ABC Radio, it starred Boris Karloff and was sponsored by Eversharp, whose company president canceled the series after the third episode, apparently unhappy with the gruesome subject matter. The premiere, "Death Robbery", featured Karloff as a scientist who brings his wife back from the dead, only to find she's become a gibbering homicidal maniac. An uncredited Lurene Tuttle plays the wife. This episode is one of the few surviving examples of Cooper's Lights Out work that reflects the sort of explicit horror that characterized the original series. Eversharp paid off Cooper for his five unused scripts and Lights Out ended its long run on network radio.

From 1936 to 1939, Cooper pursued a screenwriting career in Hollywood (his major credits are the screenplay for Universal's 1939 Son of Frankenstein and contributions to the Mr. Moto mystery series starring Peter Lorre) but continued to work in radio, advertising and, later, television. By 1940, he had changed the spelling of his name from "Willis" to "Wyllis" (to satisfy "his wife's numerological inclinations") and lived mainly in the New York City area where he worked on a number of radio programs, the most important of which was probably Edward M. Kirby's popular and acclaimed government propaganda series, The Army Hour, which Cooper wrote, produced and directed for its first year.

In 1947, Cooper created Quiet, Please, another radio program dealing with the supernatural, which he wrote and directed until 1949, occasionally borrowing ideas from his Lights Out stories while creating wholly new scripts that were often more sophisticated than his 1930s originals. In 1949 and 1950, he produced (and contributed scripts to) three live TV series that frequently dealt with the supernatural: Volume One, Escape and Stage 13.

Television
In 1946, NBC Television brought Lights Out to TV in a series of four specials, broadcast live and produced by Fred Coe, who also contributed three of the scripts. NBC asked Cooper to write the script for the premiere, "First Person Singular", which is told entirely from the point of view of an unseen murderer who kills his obnoxious wife and winds up being executed. Variety gave this first episode a rave review ("undoubtedly one of the best dramatic shows yet seen on a television screen"), but Lights Out did not become a regular NBC-TV series until 1949.

Coe initially produced this second series but, for much of its run, the live 1949–1952 program was sponsored by appliance maker Admiral, produced by Herbert Bayard Swope, Jr., directed by Laurence Schwab, Jr., and hosted by Frank Gallop.  Critical response was mixed but the program was successful for several seasons (sometimes appearing in the weekly lists of the ten most watched network shows) until competition from the massively popular sitcom I Love Lucy on CBS helped to kill it off.

The 1949–1952 series featured scripts by a variety of authors, including a young Ira Levin. In 1951, producer Swope even bought a few stories from Cooper and Oboler. "Dead Man's Coat," starring Basil Rathbone, was adapted from one of Cooper's 1930s plays (and not to be confused with his Quiet, Please episode "Wear the Dead Man's Coat" with which it shares a similar premise). Oboler's "And Adam Begot," adapted by Ernest Kinoy from a radio play, starred Kent Smith. Among the young actors employed was Leslie Nielsen, who appeared in several episodes including "The Lost Will of Dr. Rant," based on "The Tractate Middoth", an M. R. James story. These and many others are available on DVD.

Other notable guest stars included Anne Bancroft, Grace Kelly, Eva Marie Saint, Lee J. Cobb, Anthony Quinn, Jessica Tandy, Veronica Lake, John Forsythe, Boris Karloff, Beatrice Straight, Eli Wallach, Vincent Price, Jane Wyatt, Felicia Montealegre Bernstein and Jack Palance.

Notable directors included Delbert Mann and Fred Coe.

Episodes

Later versions
In 1972, NBC aired yet another TV incarnation of Lights Out, a TV movie pilot which was not well received. In fact, Oboler (who was then syndicating his The Devil and Mr. O radio show) announced publicly that he had nothing to do with it.

Despite its modest television success, radio historian John Dunning suggested that the legend of Lights Out is firmly rooted in radio.

Influence
"What the Devil" (1942), about two motorists menaced by a truck whose driver they cannot see, was similar in plot to Steven Spielberg's TV movie Duel, adapted by Richard Matheson from his own short story. Oboler, feeling his copyright had been infringed, claimed in an interview that he "reached for a lawyer and got paid off by Universal Studios."

See also
 List of Lights Out episodes

References

Listen to
Theater of the Ears: Lights Out
Lights Out, radio series; 86 episodes available for download at the Internet Archive

External links
Lights Out, Everybody!
Lights Out Radio Log
Wyllis Cooper Chronology
25 Television episodes available for streaming or download Internet archive retrieved 2010 October 23
Selection of Lights Out radio scripts at Generic Radio Workshop
OTR Plot Spot: Lights Out – plot summaries and reviews.
Lights Out at CVTA with episode list

1934 radio programme debuts
1947 radio programme endings
1950s American anthology television series
1930s American radio programs
1940s American radio programs
1946 American television series debuts
1949 American television series debuts
1952 American television series endings
1940s American horror television series
1950s American horror television series
ABC radio programs
American radio dramas
Anthology radio series
Black-and-white American television shows
CBS Radio programs
Fantasy radio programs
Horror fiction radio programmes
NBC original programming
NBC radio programs

Lights Out (radio show)


David Dhawan (born Rajinder Dhawan; 16 August 1955) is an Indian film director who works in Hindi films. He is the father of Bollywood actor Varun Dhawan. He is best known for directing several successful films, including Swarg (1990), Shola Aur Shabnam (1992), Saajan Chale Sasural (1996), Judwaa (1997), Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (1998), Dulhan Hum Le Jayenge (2000), Mujhse Shaadi Karogi (2004), Partner (2007), Chashme Baddoor (2013), Main Tera Hero (2014) and Judwaa 2 (2017). The 1993 action thriller Aankhen and 1999 comedy Biwi No.1 earned him the Filmfare Award for Best Director nominations.

David Dhawan


Bathilde d'Orléans (Louise Marie Thérèse Bathilde;9 July 1750 – 10 January 1822), was a French princess. She was sister of Philippe Égalité, the mother of the executed duc d'Enghien and aunt of Louis-Philippe King of the French. She was known as Citoyenne Vérité during the French Revolution. By birth and marriage she held the rank of a princess of the blood.

Youth

Descended from both Louis XIV of France and his younger brother, Philippe of France, Duke of Orléans, Bathilde was born a princesse du sang and baptised with the names Louise Marie Thérèse Bathilde. She was the youngest child of Louis Philippe d'Orléans and Louise Henriette de Bourbon. Bathilde was born at the Château de Saint-Cloud on 9 July 1750.

Her mother died in 1759 when Bathilde was just eight years old. Her father, pressured by his mistress, Madame de Montesson, sent her to a convent. During her time at the convent, she became a very spiritual person.

Marriage

Initially, Bathilde was considered as a possible bride for a distant cousin, Ferdinand, Duke of Parma, the favourite grandson of King Louis XV of France, however, that marriage never materialised.

Finally, in 1770, when she was twenty years old, she was allowed to leave the convent and marry her younger cousin, the Louis Henri de Bourbon, son and heir of Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince of Condé and his wife Charlotte Élisabeth Godefride de Rohan.

The scandal of her husband's adultery came out in 1778, and the consequences fell entirely on her shoulders. The couple separated in 1780. As a separated spouse, she was never received at court and was forced to reorganise her life at the Château de Chantilly.

In her isolation, she discreetly had an illegitimate daughter with a marine officer. Later, she passed the child off as the daughter of her secretary, in order to keep the little girl close to her. In 1787, she purchased the Élysée Palace from Louis XVI and had a hamlet constructed there.

Revolution

During the French Revolution, just like her brother Philippe Égalité, Bathilde discovered democracy. She fell out with her royalist husband and son, who both chose to leave France after the storming of the Bastille. As the Ancien Régime crumbled, she took the name, Citoyenne Vérité, "Citizeness Truth". Threatened by the new revolutionary government, she offered her wealth to the First French Republic before it could be confiscated.

In April 1793, her nephew, the young Duke of Chartres (future Louis Philippe of the French), fled France and sought asylum with the Austrians. In retribution, the National Convention decreed the imprisonment of all Bourbons remaining in France. While other members of the Orléans family still in France were kept under house arrest, Bathilde, Philippe Égalité and his sons were imprisoned in the Fort Saint-Jean in Marseille. Badly rewarded for her fidelity to the democratic ideals of the Revolution, she survived a year and a half in a prison cell. In November of the same year, her brother was guillotined. Miraculously spared during the Reign of Terror, Bathilde was freed during the Thermidorian Reaction and returned to her Élysée residence in Paris. Poverty-stricken, she was forced to rent out most of the palace.

Exile

In 1797, the Directoire decided to exile the last of the Bourbons still living in France. With her sister-in-law, Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon, she went to Spain with her illegitimate daughter. Despite being forty-seven years old at the time, during the months which this journey took, she had an amorous intrigue with a handsome twenty-seven year old police officer (gendarme) under whose responsibility she had been put. The two maintained a correspondence during her exile.

Relegated to a place near Barcelona, Bathilde founded, despite her small means, a pharmacy and dispensary for the poor, and her house became a gathering place for those who needed aid. She became completely republican during this time period, despite her exile.

In 1804, she learned that Napoléon I, whom she admired, had had her only son, Louis Antoine, Duke of Enghien, kidnapped, and executed by firing squad in the moat of the Château de Vincennes. For ten years, the emperor kept the mother of his most famous victim from setting foot in France. Bathilde got her revenge in 1814, when the people, seeing in her the mother of the "Martyr of Vincennes," cheered her as she travelled the route back to Paris.

Return to France

In 1815, at the start of the Bourbon Restoration, she returned to France. Louis XVIII traded with her the Hôtel Matignon for the Élysée Palace. Bathilde promptly installed a community of nuns on the premises and charged them with praying for the souls of the victims of the Revolution. Her family, in the new moral order of the day, wanted to see her rejoin her husband after a separation of thirty-five years, but she refused. Instead, she resumed her affair with the police officer who had escorted her to Spain in 1797.

In 1822, while she was taking part in a march towards the Panthéon, she lost consciousness, and drew her last breath in the home of a law professor who taught at the Sorbonne. After her death, her nephew, Louis-Philippe, wanting to give an air of respectability to her bohemian lifestyle, burned the manuscript of her memoirs and a file on her young police officer in the war archives.

She was buried in the Orléans family chapel the Collégiale de Dreux.

Children

Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon, (2 August 1772 – 21 March 1804) titled the Duke of Enghien;

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Titles and Styles

 9 July 1750– 24 April 1770 Her Serene Highness Mademoiselle
24 April 1770 – 2 August 1772 His Serene Highness The Duchess of Enghien
2 August 1772 – 18 May 1818 Her Serene Highness The Duchess of Bourbon
18 May 1818 – 10 January 1822 Her Serene Highness The Princess of Condé

Other websites

1750 births
Dukes and Duchesses of Bourbon
1822 deaths
People from Saint-Cloud
House of Orléans
House of Bourbon

Bathilde d'Orléans