Norbert Smith: A Life, also released as Sir Norbert Smith: A Life, is a 1989 mockumentary (spoof documentary) television film, charting the life and career of the fictitious British actor Sir Norbert Smith. It stars Harry Enfield in the title role. It was written by Harry Enfield and Geoffrey Perkins and directed by Geoff Posner.

Summary
The film is presented as if it were an edition of the ITV arts programme The South Bank Show, commemorating the 80th birthday of Sir Norbert Smith, a celebrated British actor. Melvyn Bragg, the real-life presenter of The South Bank Show, plays himself, visiting Sir Norbert at his home and encouraging him to reminisce about his past career. Bragg also talks with people who worked with Sir Norbert over the years. The interviews, scattered through the film, gradually reveal that although Sir Norbert is acclaimed as one of Britain's "Knights of the Theatre", a star Shakespearean actor in the mould of Laurence Olivier or John Gielgud, none of his contemporaries has anything particularly good to say about him, and that the elderly Sir Norbert himself has confused and unreliable memories about his past. The film's main focus, however, is to look back upon Sir Norbert's career as an actor, using interspersed clips featuring him various film roles.

Born in South London in 1909, the young Norbert visits the Peckham Empire theatre and grows fond of the music hall. He launches into film playing a supporting role in Oh, Mr Bankrobber! (1936), starring the beloved British comedian Will Silly. He climbs his way to stardom in Rebel Without a Tie (1937), in which he plays a petty criminal who, after a clip round the ear from a policeman, suddenly sees the error of his ways and is reformed. With the outbreak of World War II, Smith goes to Hollywood to star in musicals such as Lullaby of London (1940), but returns to Britain in time to produce public information films for the war effort, including Venereal Disease: The Facts (1941), in which he speaks direct to camera, in deadly earnest, about the dangers of sexually transmitted disease. However, due to the film censorship and prudishness prevalent at the time, he cannot convey any useful information at all; any reference to the disease is hidden behind euphemisms such as "unmentionables".

Smith returns to more traditional roles by directing and starring in a series of Shakespeare productions for the stage and screen, including Hamlet (1949), with a screenplay "adapted in collaboration with Noël Coward". These works and his appearance in a much-lauded commercial for Sudso washing detergent, helped establish him as one of his generation's foremost actors. Smith marries Mazie Mitford and, in 1955, founds the Norbert Studios, which produce British Westerns such as They Called Him Stranger (1955) as well as a series of British comedies including Passport to Puddlewitch (starring the comedian Dick Dotty) and Whimsy Galore. Smith also appears in the drama Mozart: Man of Music (1957), remaking it as Beethoven: Man of Music in 1958 and as Andrew Lloyd Webber: Man of Music in 1984. Smith is knighted for his contributions to the British stage and screen. As Sir Norbert, he appears in It's Grim Up North (1962), in which he plays the father of a poor working class household, unable to exert any authority over his family, and over his rebellious adult son in particular: "If I find out who's taken my belt, I'll take my bloody belt to them". In a change of pace, he also appears in the rock musical Keep Your Hair On, Daddio (1962), starring the popular singer Davey Throb. Sir Norbert plays Throb's father, unable to appreciate the new beat music performed by Throb and his friends, but he finally grows to love the music scene, and joins in. Sir Norbert also features in Rover Returns Home (1964), a film notable for one of the first cinematic appearances of Michael Caine.

In the prestigious interview series Head to Head, however, it is implied that Sir Norbert's career is at its nadir and that he has a bad drink problem. This insinuation is confirmed by his next film, Dogs of Death in which he and his fellow veteran cast members—Richard Smashed, Dick Booze, Oliver Guinness, and Peter O'Pissed—drink heavily on set, even when the camera is rolling. (In a two-way dialogue scene his glass has been re-filled each time the camera returns to him.) Sir Norbert's next film is another change of pace: Carry On Banging, set in the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp of the 1980s. He then appears as a British butler in Martha (1983), and produces a biopic of Nelson Mandela, with Sir Norbert putting on blackface makeup for the title role. At 80, interviewed by Bragg, Sir Norbert has no current projects, but remains a well-loved icon among British actors.

Cast

Parodies

The film's format satirises the style of television arts biography typified by The South Bank Show, especially "Laurence Olivier: A Life", a 1982 episode hosted by Melvyn Bragg; Enfield, as the aged Sir Norbert, is made up to look very much like the aged Sir Laurence interviewed in the episode. The interviews are similarly satirical, and provide considerable additional humour with their implied revelations about Sir Norbert's general mediocrity.

Most notably, however, each of the "clips" from Sir Norbert's career parodies a recognizable work, genre, or style. Oh, Mr Bankrobber! closely follows the style of Will Hay's comedy films, with Smith filling in as the "Albert" character (played by Graham Moffatt in the originals). Though the title hints at Rebel Without a Cause, the Rebel Without a Tie excerpt parodies pre-war British films, with a strong moralising tone, and possibly with a touch of The Blue Lamp. Lullaby of London is produced in the style of a Busby Berkeley musical, and also pokes fun at Hollywood's misinformed ideas about Britain (one lyric is "The Tower of London, where the President of England chopped off the heads of his wives"). Venereal Disease: The Facts is similarly general, spoofing public information films. The "Noël Coward" version of Hamlet, by contrast, was highly specific, parodying Coward's persona as well as the mise-en-scène for Laurence Olivier's 1948 film version of the play. (This spoof had previously appeared in producer Perkins' radio comedy series Radio Active.) The Sudso commercial is a parody of the film Brief Encounter, with Smith in the role played by Trevor Howard.

The next few excerpts return to lampoons of general styles: They Called Him Stranger satirises low-budget British attempts at producing home-grown Westerns in Technicolor, and each of the Man of Music films follow the clichés of historical costume drama and composer biographies. It's Grim Up North spoofs the kitchen sink realism films of the early 1960s, with working class Northern English settings, such as Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. (Enfield noted in an interview that the popular later film Billy Elliott was done in the same style: "rainy British cinema.") Keep Your Hair On, Daddio parodies Cliff Richard's early 1960s rock musical films, especially The Young Ones. Rover Returns Home imagines a poor British attempt at replicating the American Lassie films, and also pokes fun at the acting "versatility" of Michael Caine, as it is implied that Caine plays the role of the dog Rover, dressed up in a dog suit.

The Head to Head interview parodies the TV series Face to Face, where interviewer John Freeman famously unsettled his guests by asking deeply personal questions; in the spoof Cyril Freebody throws insults rather than questions at Sir Norbert, e.g. "all the films you've been in have been total rubbish, and the last three made me physically vomit". Dogs of Death, the all-action World War II epic featuring a cast of veteran actors, parodies films such as Where Eagles Dare and The Wild Geese and suggests the hard-drinking, hell-raising behaviour associated with actors such as Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Oliver Reed and Peter O'Toole. Carry On Banging, presented as an excerpt from one of the Carry On films, features three actors from the genuine Carry On series: Barbara Windsor, Jack Douglas and Kenneth Connor. Sir Norbert's role as an impertinent butler in Martha mirrors Sir John Gielgud's role in the film Arthur, while his final project, attempting blackface for the Mandela biopic, parodies Olivier's "blackface" role in Othello and that of Alec Guinness in A Passage to India; the former is mentioned in the film, and when asked by Bragg why Sir Norbert cast himself in this role, despite public criticism, Sir Norbert replies "well, Sir Alec Guinness simply wasn't available".

Release and reception

The film was made by Hat Trick Productions for Channel 4 and was first broadcast on 3 November 1989. David Morrison, in a British Film Institute essay, suggests that some of the film's humour may have been poorly received at the time because the broadcast occurred soon after Sir Laurence Olivier's death. However, Enfield insisted that the Sir Norbert character was meant to poke fun at a type, rather than a specific individual.

The public information film spoof became the basis for the Mr Cholmondley-Warner sketches in Enfield's subsequent TV sketch shows. Enfield also included an affectionate parody of Nelson Mandela in his sketch show Harry & Paul, evoking the Mandela biopic spoof. Norbert Smith also inspired BBC Two to commission a new mockumentary from Enfield and Paul Whitehouse in 2014, Harry and Paul's Story of the Twos, in commemoration of the channel's 50th anniversary.

In America, the film premiered as Sir Norbert Smith: A Life on PBS on 16 November 1990, as part of the Masterpiece Theatre series. In an Entertainment Weekly review, Ken Tucker described the film as an "agreeably silly little show-biz satire" and "a cross between Woody Allen's Zelig and Monty Python's Flying Circus". David Hiltbrand's review for People Magazine called it a "scabrously funny, mock-reverent look at the life and career of a venerable old actor" and a "marvelous jape." Michael Hill, in The Baltimore Sun, highlighted the film's placement in the distinguished PBS series: "[The film] sounds like just the sort of self-important biography of an upper crust British actor you'd expect to find on PBS' Great Performances … [but] not only has Great Performances taken the highly unusual step of putting on something funny, it's actually poking fun at itself." In The Los Angeles Times, Ray Loynd called the film "delicious, managing to be droll and pungent at the same time. Here's a show to tape and keep in your library and play back at parties." The film won the Popular Arts award at the 18th International Emmy Awards in 1990.

Jane Roscoe and Craig Hight's Faking It: Mock-Documentary and the Subversion of Factuality, an academic study of mockumentaries, mentions that the film "parod[ies] both the archetypical narratives of [Smith's] acting generation and a wide range of British (and American) cinematic styles." The film is classified as a "critique and hoax" of the documentary format, ranging it among a class of films that "explicitly highlight their own fictionality, but generally do so in order to ask their audience to reflect upon the validity of the cultural or political position of their subjects." In an essay for The Edinburgh Companion to Shakespeare and the Arts, Stephen Purcell notes that "the programme demystifies television's own conventions of mythologization," challenging the medium's traditional "sanctification of Shakespeare" by satirizing British Shakespearean actors in general and Olivier's film of Hamlet in particular.

A VHS video version was released by Polygram Video in July 1991.

A DVD by Simply Media was released in July 2018.

References

External links

British comedy television shows
Channel 4 original programming
British mockumentary films
1989 television specials
Harry Enfield
1990 films
1989 films
1980s British films
1990s British films

Norbert Smith: A Life


William Husband (13 October 1822 – 10 April 1887) was a British civil and mechanical engineer of the 19th century.

Biography
Husband, born at Mylor, Cornwall, on 13 October 1822, was eldest son of James Husband, shipbuilder and surveyor for Lloyd's Register at Falmouth, who died in 1859. He was educated first by Edgcombe Rimell, curate of Mabe, and afterwards at Bellevue Academy, Penryn.

Haarlem Lake
Husband declined to be either a sailor or a shipbuilder, as his father desired, and instead was in 1839 apprenticed for four years to Harvey & Co, engineers and ironfounders, of Hayle, Cornwall. His steadiness and ability soon won for him the esteem of his employers, and in 1843, when they had built the Leigh water engine for the drainage of Haarlem Lake, he was sent to the Netherlands to superintend its erection. As the machinery could not be landed for some time on account of the ice, he went to the village school at Sassenheym to learn Dutch. In six months he wrote and spoke it with fluency. On the death of the mechanical engineer in charge of the steam machinery on the drainage works in 1845, he succeeded to that post, when he planned and erected the half-weg engine. The lake when drained added  of rich alluvial soil to the country, and being situated in the midst of populous provinces proved of material importance. King William expressed his satisfaction, and on 13 March 1848 Husband was elected a member of the Koninklijk Instituut van Ingenieurs. In 1849 he suffered so severely from ague, from the effects of which he never fully recovered, that he resigned his situation and returned to England.

Other works
While in the Netherlands, in conjunction with his friends Colonel Wiebeking and Professor Munnich, he invented a plan for drying and warehousing grain at a small cost, and preserving it in good condition for years. On 2 May 1851 he submitted to Sir George Grey a plan for a powder magazine in the Mersey, on the recommendation of the Liverpool town council. At the invitation of T. E. Blackwell, C.E., he went to Clifton to assist in some works in the Bristol docks, when he planned a bridge for the Cumberland basin. In September 1852 he undertook the management of the London business of the firm of Harvey & Company; in June 1854 he returned to Hayle to take the charge of the engineering department, and in 1863 became managing partner. He resumed the management of the business in London in October 1885, where he remained until his death.

In practical knowledge of hydraulic and mining machinery Husband was surpassed by few. In June 1859 he submitted to the Admiralty a plan for a floating battery, and patented the following inventions: the balance valve for water-work purposes (this superseded the costly stand-pipe), the four-beat pump-valve, a safety plug for the prevention of boiler explosions, and a safety equilibrium cataract, used with the Cornish pumping engine for the prevention of accidents. He also effected many improvements in pneumatic ore stamps, finally perfecting and patenting those now known as Husband's oscillating cylinder stamps.

During the last two years of his life he was employed in carrying out contracts for the pumping machinery at the Severn Tunnel, and at the time of his death was planning further improvements in Cornish pumping engines.

Professional and other interests
On 1 May 1866 he was elected a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and during 1881 and 1882 served as president of the Miners Association and Royal Institution of Cornwall. He actively supported the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society. In 1855 he planned and superintended the erection of a breakwater at Porthleven in Mount's Bay, thereby making it a safe harbour. He helped to secure a water supply for Hayle and a system of drainage. He originated and became first captain of the 8th Cornwall artillery volunteers in April 1860, a post which he held till 1865. He established science classes at Hayle in connection with South Kensington. In spectrum analysis and astronomy he took a great interest, and made many observations with a  telescope. On 28 and 29 March 1887, in company with Sir John Hawkshaw and Mr. Hayter, C.E., he was employed in inspecting nine pumping engines which his firm had erected in the Severn tunnel for keeping down the water.

Marriage and death
On 20 June 1850 he married Anne, fifth daughter of Edward Nanney, by whom he had a family of four children. He died on 10 April 1887 of an attack of gall stones at his lodgings, 26 Sion Hill, Clifton, Bristol, and was buried at St. Erth, Cornwall, 16 April. In 1890 a sum of £800. was raised to establish a Husband scholarship for the technical education of miners.

Notes

References

1822 births
1887 deaths
People from Mylor, Cornwall
Mining in Cornwall
Engineers from Cornwall
British civil engineers
Haarlemmermeer

William Husband


Ruth Roemer (1916 – August 1, 2005) was an American lawyer and public health researcher who championed the importance of human rights in the field of public health.

Early life
Ruth Joy Rosebaum was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1916. Ruth was the elder of two girls; her younger sister was Hilda Rosebaum (Kahne). Their father, a plant pathologist, died at age 37 of a bacterial infection resulting from a tooth extraction. After their father's death, Mrs. Rosebaum moved the family to Milford, Connecticut, where Ruth spent the rest of her youth.

Education
Rosebaum attended Cornell University and graduated in 1936 with a BA degree in English. She planned to teach, but changed her mind after traveling to post-WWI Europe with the American Student Union. Motivated by her travel experiences, upon her return she resolved to do something "socially relevant." She returned to Cornell University to study law, graduating from Cornell University Law School in 1939. While attending law school, Roemer co-edited the Cornell Journal of Opinion with fellow student Milton Roemer (namesake of Roemer's law), whom she married in 1938.

Early career
After receiving her law degree, Roemer represented the United Electrical Workers in Washington during the 1940s. Roemer and her husband moved to Geneva, Switzerland, in 1951, when he became the Chief of Social and Occupational Health for the newly formed World Health Organization (WHO). Soon after Milton Roemer's appointment at the WHO, the United States withdrew his appointment under the political pressure of the McCarthy era. In 1953 the Roemers moved to Saskastchewan, Canada. In Canada, Roemer worked as a researcher with the Royal Commission on Agriculture and Rural Life in Saskatchewan.

By the late 1950s, Roemer and her family had returned to the United States and Cornell University. At Cornell, Roemer worked with Professor Bertram F. Wilcox as the associate director of a research project investigating the admissions decisions of New York mental hospitals. Their research resulted in a book Mental Illness and Due Process which led to landmark New York state mental hospital admission policy legislation.

UCLA
Roemer and her family moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1962, where she joined the health services faculty of University of California, Los Angeles School of Public Health. She soon became the vice president and principal organizer of the California Committee on Therapeutic Abortion. Roemer and her husband founded the national health law program at UCLA, which ultimately—with Roemer's support—became an independent organization, the National Health Law Program, in 1969.

Roemer is perhaps best known for her work crafting international tobacco control policy. A heavy smoker herself, Roemer switched from cigarettes to pipes in 1961 and quit smoking altogether in 1972. She and University of Maryland law professor, Allyn Taylor, outlined what would become the world's first public health treaty: the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Ratified in 2003, 168 counties have signed the treaty.

In her tenure at UCLA, Roemer taught a generation of public health students and made significant contributions to the fields of women's reproductive rights, health-law, health workforce policy and tobacco legislation. Her publications include:
 Mental Illness and Due Process (1962)
 Public Hospitals under Private Management: The California Experience (1983)
 Legislative action to combat the world tobacco epidemic (WHO, 1992)
 Abortion law: the approaches of different nations (APHA, 1967)
 Origins of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (2005)

Roemer was an active member of the American Public Health Association (APHA) since joining the organization in 1967. She served on several APHA committees and was elected president of the organization in October 1986 and served a one-year term. She was the seventh woman elected to the presidency of the association since it was founded in 1872.

Roemer taught health policy, law and ethics at UCLA's school of public health for over 40 years.

Legacy

UCLA holds an annual symposium in Roemer's name, and presents the Ruth Roemer Social Justice Leadership Award to "those making a difference in advancing and protecting health in underserved communities or vulnerable populations".

Roemer and her husband set up an annual award for local health officers, the Milton and Ruth Roemer Prize for Creative Local Public Health Work. The prize is administered by the American Public Health Association.

Personal life
Ruth and Milton Roemer had two children, John E. Roemer and Beth Roemer Lewis. Milton Roemer died of heart failure on January 3, 2001, at the age of 84. Ruth and Milton Roemer were married for 62 years.

Roemer died of cardiac arrest on August 1, 2005, at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in West Los Angeles, California. She was 89 years old.

References

 Gordon, Dan. "Ruth Roemer, Public Health." UCLA Spotlight, September 1, 2002
 Woo, Elaine. "Ruth Roemer, 89; Pioneer in Public Health Law Was Active in Tobacco, Abortion Issues." Los Angeles Times, August 5, 2005
 "Ruth Roemer: The Fighting Type." UCLA Public Health, June 2002
 "Ruth Roemer, JD Assumes APHA Presidency." AJPH. Vol. 77, No. 1, January 1987
 "Roemer, Ruth J. (nee Rosenbaum)" New York Times, August 7, 2005
 Oliver, Myrna. "Dr. Milton Roemer; Expert on Public Health Taught at UCLA." Los Angeles Times, January 10, 2001
 "Obituary Milton I. Roemer, 1916-2001." Bull World Health Organ. Vol. 79, No. 5, January 2001
 Conklin, Micki. ed. "Milton I. Roemer, Public Health: Los Angeles." University of California: In Memoriam, 2001
 Online Archive of California. "Finding Aid for the California Committee on Therapeutic Abortion Records, 1966-1974." Online Archive of California.
 National Health Law Program. "NHeLP Mourns Death of Co-Founder Ruth Roemer." National Health Law Program.
 Tobacco Documents Online. "Roemer, Ruth." Tobacco Documents Online.

1916 births
Lawyers from Philadelphia
2005 deaths
Lawyers from Hartford, Connecticut
Cornell Law School alumni
UCLA School of Public Health faculty
20th-century American women lawyers
20th-century American lawyers
American women academics
21st-century American women

Ruth Roemer


Arantxa Rus (; born 13 December 1990) is a Dutch professional tennis player.

Her biggest singles successes to date are a second-round upset over world No. 2, Kim Clijsters, at the 2011 French Open, saving two match points in the second set, reaching the fourth round at the 2012 French Open, and defeating world No. 5, Samantha Stosur, in the 2012 Wimbledon Championships to reach the third round. Her maiden WTA Tour title was the 2017 Swedish Open doubles event, partnering Quirine Lemoine. She would later win her maiden WTA Tour singles title at the 2023 Hamburg Open.

In 2008, Rus won the girls' singles title at the Australian Open, defeating Jessica Moore in the final. With this win she went from 35th to second place on the junior rankings, ultimately becoming the world No. 1 junior player.

Tennis career

2005–07
At age 14, Arantxa played her first ITF Women's Circuit tournament at Alkmaar where she lost in the second round to Julie Coin. In 2006, she played two more ITF events at Heerhugowaard and Vlaardingen, reaching the semifinals at the latter. In 2007, Rus continued playing on the ITF Circuit winning her first title at Vlaardingen and second at Alphen aan de Rijn. In San Luis Potosí, she reached the final but lost in three sets.
In 's-Hertogenbosch, she was granted a wildcard to play her first WTA Tour main draw. She lost to Alona Bondarenko, in the first round. Her end-of-season 2007 ranking was 465.

2008: Turned pro
At the junior level, she won the Australian Open and reached the semifinals at Roland Garros and quarterfinals at Wimbledon. In April, she won an ITF title in Bari beating four seeded players en-route, including Lucie Hradecká and Alberta Brianti. Rus was given another wildcard to play at 's-Hertogenbosch, where she was defeated in the first round by Mariya Koryttseva.

In September, she played qualifying in Guangzhou winning both matches. In the first round of the main draw, she beat Yanina Wickmayer, in three sets. This was her first main-draw win on the WTA Tour. Rus reached the quarterfinals by beating Gisela Dulko, before losing to Camille Pin, in straight sets.

She made it through the qualifying and reached the second round in Tashkent losing to top seed Peng Shuai, in two sets.
In Opole, she won another ITF tournament, her second in 2008, and fourth overall. She ended the year ranked 188.

2009

Rus failed in the qualifyings at Hobart, the Australian Open, and rested without success in other tournaments. In the clay-court season, she passed through the qualifying rounds, won in the first round of the main draw, but lost to third seed Kaia Kanepi. A bigger result came at Roland Garros, where she started as world No. 142. She passed through the qualifying rounds, won her first-round match against Olivia Sanchez 6–1, 6–1 but then lost to Yaroslava Shvedova 0–6, 2–6. She played a few more tournaments without much success. Then, in the end of the season, she won ten of eleven matches. First, at the ITF Poitiers, she passed through the qualifying rounds, won matches against third seed Alexandra Dulgheru and Séverine Beltrame before losing in the quarterfinals to Pauline Parmentier. Then, she played at an ITF event in Nantes where she won the title without dropping a set through the tournament, with a two-set victory against Renata Voráčová in the final. She ended the year with a win–loss record of 37–24.

2010
Rus failed at the qualifying rounds of the Hobart International and the Australian Open. She played few tournaments but her biggest result was in Marbella when she qualified to the first round. Then in Estoril she passed three qualifying round, won two matches in main draw but lost to Sorana Cîrstea. She lost at the US Open in the second qualifying round to Wimbledon junior champion Kristýna Plíšková, in three sets. At the Koddaert Ladies Open, she overcame eighth seed Tathiana Garbin in the first round, and in the second was better than Michaëlla Krajicek, before losing in the quarterfinals to second seed Timea Bacsinszky, in straight sets. In the qualifying for the Luxembourg Open, she lost in the first round to No. 5 seed Sorana Cîrstea, in three sets. Later, she competed in the Tennis Masters Rotterdam final against Michaëlla Krajicek, but lost in straight sets. She ended the year with a win–loss record of 33–26.

2011

Her first tournament was the Brisbane International, where she played through the qualifying rounds. In the first round, she defeated Isabella Holland. In the second round, she defeated Olivia Rogowska but then lost to Anna Tatishvili in two sets. Rus next went through the qualifying rounds at the Sydney International. In the first round, she beat 1999 Wimbledon semifinalist Mirjana Lučić but in the second round, she lost against Bojana Jovanovski in a narrow three-setter.

In the first Grand Slam event of the season, the Australian Open, Rus went through the qualifying rounds, as the No. 18 seed. In the first round, she defeated Julia Cohen. In the second, she again defeated Isabella Holland, and in the third qualifying round, Rus beat Kurumi Nara, also in straight sets. In her first Australian Open main-draw appearance, she defeated Bethanie Mattek-Sands, but she easily lost to No. 23 seed, Svetlana Kuznetsova, in the second round. Then, she played for the Netherlands Fed Cup Team at Group I of the European/African Zone. She won all of her singles matches against Hungary, Romania, and Latvia, helping the Netherlands with three victories. But they lost in the Promotional Play-off against Switzerland 2–1.

She played at Stockholm, where she won the doubles title with Anastasiya Yakimova, and lost the singles final to Kristina Mladenovic. She withdrew from WTA event in Monterrey because of illness. At Indian Wells, she played the qualifying but lost to Jamie Hampton, in three sets. At the Bahamas Open, she beat Jill Craybas and Kristina Barrois in the first two rounds. In the quarterfinals, she met her doubles partner, Anastasiya Yakimova, and lost in two sets. Then, she played qualifying matches for the Miami Open. In the first round, she defeated Misaki Doi and Michelle Larcher de Brito in the second qualifying round. In the main draw, she lost in the first round against Lourdes Domínguez Lino, in three sets. Next was the Andalucia Tennis Experience, where she faced Dinara Safina in the first round, losing in three sets. She also lost in the first round at Fes in three sets to Aravane Rezaï. Then she played qualifying matches for the Portugal Open, beating Anne Kremer in the first round, but losing against Sesil Karatancheva in three sets. At the Madrid Open, she lost her first-round match against Maria Sharapova.

She continued on the ITF Circuit, first at Saint-Gaudens. In the first round, Rus beat Claire de Gubernatis, and in the second round Séverine Beltrame. In the quarterfinal, she beat former junior No. 1 Elina Svitolina in three sets, and in the semifinal Valeria Savinykh in straight sets. She lost to Anastasia Pivovarova in the final in three sets. Then, she went on to the French Open and defeated Marina Erakovic in the first round. In the second round, she defeated the No. 2 seed Kim Clijsters in three sets, after saving two match points. She easily lost to Maria Kirilenko. Than she played at UNICEF Open where she defeated Indy de Vroome and CoCo Vandeweghe before she lost again to Svetlana Kuznetsova.

In Wimbledon qualifying first round, she was better than Olivia Sanchez before she lost to Lindsay Lee-Waters, in second round. Then she played at the ITF Cuneo where she defeated Camilla Rosatello, Laura Pous Tió, Petra Martić and Mirjana Lučić but lost to Anna Tatishvili in the final. She was playing at the Open Contrexéville where as top seed she defeated Anna-Lena Grönefeld in the first round, Roxane Vaisemberg in the second, both in straight sets, but lost to Iryna Brémond in the quarterfinals. Then, she played ITF Astana where she defeated Zarina Diyas in the first round; but in the second round against Ekaterina Bychkova, she retired in the third set when Bychkova leading 2–0. After that, she had tough trainings until the US Open where she defeated Elena Vesnina but clearly lost to Caroline Wozniacki in the second round. After that, she played at the ITF Nigbo and lost to Xu Yifan in the second round. Then she had three first-round losses at Seoul (lost to Dulgheru), Pan Pacific open (to Pavlyuchenkova) and at qualifying first round in Linz (lost to Broady). Then she had huge break from tennis and played next tournament at ITF Dubai. She won matches against Erika Sema, Conny Perrin, and Akgul Amanmuradova before she lost to Kristina Mladenovic in the semifinals.

2012: Best season, French Open fourth round, career-high ranking
Started year at Brisbane, lost qualifying first-round match to Arantxa Parra Santonja and lost to Vania King in the same round at Sydney. In her second Australian Open main-draw appearance, she lost to Lesia Tsurenko, in two sets.

She missed Fed Cup matches due to a tooth infection, and then lost in the Qatar Ladies Open qualifying first round against Caroline Garcia. She went on in Dubai and defeated Barbora Záhlavová-Strýcová in the qualifying first round, and Ons Jabeur in the second before she lost to Simona Halep in final qualifying round.

She went over to the Indian Wells Open but lost to Elena Baltacha in the first round. After that, she played an ITF tournament in Clearwater. She defeated Tetiana Luzhanska and Sachia Vickery before losing to Garbiñe Muguruza. She then headed over to the Miami Open, where she beat Caroline Garcia before she lost to Misaki Doi.

Then, on her first clay tournament of the year, The Oaks Club Challenger, she won her first title after ITF Nantes in 2009. She defeated Misaki Doi, Irina Falconi, Florencia Molinero, Edina Gallovits-Hall and in the final Sesil Karatantcheva. She played in Charleston and lost in the first round against Anna Tatishvili in three sets. In Brussels, she reached the second round after beating Zheng Jie, but had to retire because of a lower back injury in her second-round match against Sofia Arvidsson.

Rus entered Roland Garros main draw based on her ranking and reached the second round, after Jamie Hampton retired with Rus leading. She then beat Virginie Razzano, who had a shock win over Serena Williams in the first round, in two sets. Subsequently, for the first time in her career, she reached the last 16 of a Major tournament with a victory in three sets over 25th seed Julia Görges. She lost in the fourth round to 23rd seed Kaia Kanepi in three sets. Rus was the first Dutchwoman in 19 years to reach the fourth round in Paris (the last being Brenda Schultz-McCarthy in 1993).

She entered Wimbledon Championships and beat Misaki Doi in the first round. She then shocked fifth seeded Samantha Stosur in three sets in the second round. Rus lost in the third round to Peng Shuai in straight sets. It was the best Wimbledon result in her career. Afterwards, she reached semifinals at the $100k Biarritz tournament played on clay. Her last win at WTA-level was in Dallas, as she went on to lose in the first round at the US Open, Seoul, Linz and Luxembourg tournaments.

Rus finished the year ranked 68 in the world, her best year-end ranking.

2013

Losing to Olga Puchkova in the first round of Wimbledon was her 17th loss at the WTA Tour-level in a row, tying the longest losing streak in WTA history. She ended this streak in Bad Gastein, where she defeated María Teresa Torró Flor and Estrella Cabeza Candela in the first two rounds. In the quarterfinals, she lost to Yvonne Meusburger who then went on to win the tournament in her homeland. Rus stopped playing WTA tournaments and proceeded to have success in the ITF Circuit, winning four $25k singles titles on clay: at Fleurus, Alphen a/d Rijn, Vallduxo and Sant Cugat. She also won two doubles titles at Cagnes-sur-Mer and Taipei.

Her singles main-draw win/loss ratio was 2–13 for WTA Tour and Grand Slam-level and 30–9 for ITF Circuit level. Her end of the season ranking was 160.

2014
Her success in the ITF Circuit the previous year allowed her to play the qualifying rounds of the major tournaments, failing to win a match at the Australian Open, Wimbledon Championships and US Open. At the French Open, Rus beat Lyudmyla Kichenok in the first qualifying round, but lost to Timea Bacsinszky in the second round. She failed to qualify for several WTA tournaments: Brisbane, Florianópolis, Katowice Open, Ricoh Open and Båstad.

At the Fed Cup World Group II playoffs, Rus played two singles matches for the Netherlands, beating world No. 100, Kurumi Nara, and losing to Misaki Doi, in three sets, ultimately the Netherlands beat Japan with a score of 3–2.

Rus didn't reach a singles final at the ITF level that year, but she had success on clay again, reaching the semifinals of four $25k tournaments played in Chiasso, Wiesbaden, Brescia and Dobrich. She won a doubles title alongside Demi Schuurs, at Fleurus.

With an overall 21–16 win/loss ratio at ITF level, Rus finished the year ranked 230 in the singles rankings.

2015
In February, playing on indoor clay, the Netherlands faced Slovakia at the Fed Cup World Group II tie. There, Rus scored wins against two top-100 players Magdaléna Rybáriková and Anna Karolína Schmiedlová. The Netherlands went on to win the tie 4-1 and moved on to the World Group playoffs. Playing the World Group playoffs against Australia and on indoor clay again, Rus, ranked 217th in the world, lost her first match against Casey Dellacqua, but beat 48th-ranked Jarmila Gajdošová in a three-set match, ultimately helping the Netherlands get the win and a pass to the Fed Cup World Group for the first time since 1998. As a result of her performance, she was nominated for a Heart Award by the Fed Cup, ultimately losing to Romania's Irina-Camelia Begu.

Rus had little success on the ITF Circuit. In January, she reached the semifinals of a $25k tournament in Daytona Beach, losing to Elise Mertens. In June, she reached the final of a $15k tournament in Zeeland, Netherlands, losing to Quirine Lemoine. In August, she lost to Kiki Bertens in the semifinals of a $25k tournament in Koksijde, Belgium. Rus reached three doubles finals, two alongside Lesley Kerkhove and one with Elise Mertens. She had a 23-24 singles win/loss ratio this year at the ITF Circuit, not counting qualifying matches. She finished season as No. 289 in singles, her lowest year-end ranking since 2007.

2016
Rus's low ranking meant she had to qualify for several ITF tournaments, successfully doing so seven times out of seven throughout the season. In February, she played on indoor carpet at $25k Altenkirchen, Germany, winning two qualifying rounds to enter the main draw, and winning another four matches to reach the final where she lost to Ysaline Bonaventure. In July, she reached the semifinals of a $50k clay-court tournament in Rome where she lost to Laura Pous Tió. Rus reached the semifinals of another two $25k tournaments, both played on outdoor clay, in Aschaffenburg (where she had to win three qualifying rounds) and Leipzig, losing both times at that stage. In October, she won back to back $25k titles in Thailand and France. Rus reached the singles quarterfinals or better at eleven ITF tournaments this year. She also won three doubles titles.

Rus won 39 singles matches on the ITF Circuit, and with a 39–21 win/loss ratio she finished the year in the top 200 for the first time since 2013, as the 174th singles player in the rankings, moving 115 spots up from the previous year.

2017: First WTA Tour doubles title and WTA 125 singles final
For the first time since 2014, Rus played the qualifying rounds of a major, at the Australian Open, losing in the first round to Romanian Ana Bogdan in three sets. In March, she reached the quarterfinals of the $60k hardcourt event in Zhuhai, China.

She started for the Netherlands in Fed Cup, pairing with Cindy Burger. Both times they played, it was a dead rubber. The Netherlands lost their first round in the World Group to Belarus, but beat Slovakia in the playoffs, for staying in the World Group in 2018.

Rus went on a three-match losing streak, which included a qualifying round at the Morocco Open. She broke this streak at the singles qualifying at the French Open, where she won her first two matches against Viktoriya Tomova and Antonia Lottner. She lost the last qualification match against compatriot Quirine Lemoine in three sets, despite having a match point.

Rus received a wildcard for the Rosmalen Championships, her WTA Tour home tournament. It was her first grass-court tournament since 2014. In round one, she upset 36th-ranked Tímea Babos in a three-setter, and won her second-round match against Andrea Hlaváčková, in straight sets. In the quarterfinals, she lost to eventual runner-up, Natalia Vikhlyantseva, in straight sets. This performance marked Rus's first wins at tour-level since the 2013 Gastein Ladies where she also had reached the quarterfinals. This also marked the first time Rus winning a main-draw grass-court match since the 2012 Wimbledon Championships. As a result, she moved up 25 spots in the WTA rankings from world No. 183 to No. 158, her highest rank in almost three years.

She won her first WTA Tour title in the Swedish Open at Båstad, partnering Quirine Lemoine. In the on-court television interview after the win, Lemoine explained that it was even more special because the two had been friends since they were ten years old.

2018: Return to French Open
She returned to the French Open after four years of absence at Roland Garros.

2019: Record ITF titles in a calendar year
After winning the $25k event in Orlando, Florida in November, Arantxa Rus created history by claiming her tenth ITF singles title of the year, the most in any one calendar year for men or women.

2020–23: Three WTA titles in doubles, Top 45, maiden WTA title & two WTA 125 titles in singles
Following the 2023 French Open, she returned to the top 100 in singles on 12 June 2023.

She won her maiden title at the 2023 Hamburg European Open. She became the oldest first-time finalist at a WTA tournament in 17 years, and the eighth first-time champion in the season.

Performance timelines

Only main-draw results in WTA Tour, Grand Slam tournaments, Billie Jean King Cup, United Cup, Hopman Cup and Olympic Games are included in win–loss records.

Singles
Current through the 2023 US Open.

Doubles

WTA Tour finals

Singles: 1 (title)

Doubles: 6 (4 titles, 2 runner-ups)

WTA Challenger finals

Singles: 5 (2 titles, 3 runner–ups)

Doubles: 1 (runner-up)

ITF Circuit finals

Singles: 46 (32 titles, 14 runner–ups)

Doubles: 32 (14 titles, 18 runner–ups)

Junior Grand Slam finals

Girls' singles: 1 (title)

Top 10 wins

Notes

References

External links

1990 births
Living people
Dutch female tennis players
Australian Open (tennis) junior champions
People from Monster
Sportspeople from Delft
Grand Slam (tennis) champions in girls' singles
21st-century Dutch people
21st-century Dutch women

Arantxa Rus


Nicholas Salvatore Scandone (March 4, 1966 – January 2, 2009) was an American yachtsman who narrowly missed participating on the U.S. team at the 1992 Summer Olympics and won a gold medal as a paralympian at the 2008 Summer Games.

Biography
Scandone was born on March 4, 1966, in Santa Ana, California and learned to sail in an eight-foot Sabot dinghy at the Balboa Yacht Club in California. He started sailing when he was eight-years old, after being given the choice by his mother to learn to sail or attend summer school. He attended the University of California, Irvine, where he was an All-American and won a national championship in 1988 and graduated in 1990.

In 1991, he won the National American title in the double-handed 470 class. Described by The New York Times as "a rising star in the sailing world in the 1980s and '90s", Scandone entered the 1992 Olympic trials as the favorite in 470 class but just missed earning a berth on the United States Olympic squad.

Following the disappointment in 1992, Scandone began working in the advertising profession and later became a restaurant equipment salesman.

Paralympic sailing
In July 2002, a doctor diagnosed what had started as chronic back pain as being caused by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. He quit his job and began training for the Paralympic Games in the single-handed 2.4 Meter keelboat, a craft that has been considered ideal for handicap integrated sailing since the sailor does not move in the boat, and everything is adjustable from right in front of the sailor, with both hand-steering and foot-steering possible.

By 2005, Scandone was participating as a Classification 7, under a system in which a Paralympic sailor's mobility is rated from 1 to 7, with the lowest number representing the most severe level of disability. He won the 2005 Open World Championships in the 2.4 Meter class in a regatta off the coast of Elba, Italy, defeating 87 other boats skippered by 60 able-bodied and 27 other disabled sailors, and was named as US Sailing's Rolex Yachtsman of the Year, making him the only Paralympic sailor ever to achieve the honor. However, by the end of 2006, his condition had advanced to the point where he was physically unable to participate in the 2.4-Meter class, which specifies single-handed operation, and was approaching Classification 1 status.

Scandone switched to the SKUD 18 class, a newly added Paralympic event for Classification 1 sailors that was the first Paralympic class to specify a quadriplegic member participating in the two-person crew. Together with crewmate Maureen McKinnon-Tucker, a paraplegic from Marblehead, Massachusetts, he won the gold medal at the U.S. Paralympic trials in 2007 held off of Newport, Rhode Island.

Heading towards the 2008 Summer Paralympics in China in 2008, Scandone's physical condition deteriorated further. His coaches had to modify the steering and seat systems, and had to change the electronic controls from toggles to buttons to accommodate the weakening of his fingers.

He was chosen by his fellow members of the 2008 United States Paralympics Team with the honor of being the flag bearer for the U.S. team at the opening ceremonies of the Paralympic Games in Beijing.  Scandone and McKinnon-Tucker won most of their early races, but Scandone required feeding and hydration between races, sometimes intravenously. As the team had won most of their races, they did not have to compete on the final day of competition and won the gold medal in what was described as "dominating fashion". Scandone was nominated for the 2008 Yachtsman of the Year award for his gold-medal performance.

Before his death, he helped promote the Maritime Sciences and Seamanship Foundation at Balboa Yacht Club, a program that he created to encourage disabled sailors to participate in the sport.

Scandone died January 2, 2009 at his home in Fountain Valley, California aged 42.

See also
Sailing at the 2008 Summer Paralympics

References

External links
Paralympic profile

1966 births
2009 deaths
American people of Italian descent
Deaths from motor neuron disease
Paralympic gold medalists for the United States
Paralympic sailors for the United States
American male sailors (sport)
Sailors at the 2008 Summer Paralympics
Sportspeople from Santa Ana, California
UC Irvine Anteaters sailors
University of California, Irvine alumni
US Sailor of the Year
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Paralympics
Paralympic medalists in sailing
Neurological disease deaths in California

Nick Scandone


The Carl B. Stokes Federal Court House Building is a skyscraper located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. It is also known as the Carl B. Stokes Federal Court House Tower, Federal Court House Tower, and the Stokes Tower.  The 23-story building is  tall and is located at the corner of Huron Road and Superior Avenue. It is currently the fourth tallest United States courthouse in the country.

The tower is named after Carl Stokes, the 51st Mayor of Cleveland and the first African American mayor of a major city. Construction began in 1999 and was completed in 2002.

Tenants include the Cleveland-based federal circuit, district, and magistrate judges, the Clerk of Court for the Northern District of Ohio, the U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services Office, the offices of the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, the U.S. Marshal's Office, and the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division's Cleveland Field Office, as well as the U.S. Immigration Court.

The building is adorned by Cleveland Venus, a  tall, 11.5 ton bronze sculpture created by Ohio artist Jim Dine. The headless and armless statue is one of the sculptor's variations on the Venus de Milo.

See also
List of tallest buildings in Cleveland

References

External links

ClevelandSkyscrapers.com

Skyscraper office buildings in Cleveland
Federal courthouses in the United States
Courthouses in Ohio
Government buildings completed in 2002
2002 establishments in Ohio

Carl B. Stokes United States Courthouse