1.
Sandra Bullock
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Sandra Annette Bullock is a German-American actress, producer, and philanthropist. Her breakthrough role was in the film Demolition Man and she subsequently starred in several successful films including Speed, While You Were Sleeping, The Net, A Time to Kill, Hope Floats, and Practical Magic. Bullock achieved further success in the decades in Miss Congeniality, Two Weeks Notice, Crash, The Proposal. Bullocks greatest commercial success is the comedy film Minions, which grossed over US$1 billion at the box office. In 2007, she was one of Hollywoods highest-paid actresses and she was also named Most Beautiful Woman by People magazine in 2015. In addition to her career, Bullock is the founder of the production company Fortis Films. She has produced some of the films in which she starred, including Two Weeks Notice, Miss Congeniality 2, Armed and Fabulous and she was an executive producer of the ABC sitcom, George Lopez, and made several appearances during its run. Bullock was born in Arlington, Virginia and her father, John W. Bullock, was a U. S. Army employee and part-time voice coach, her mother, Helga Mathilde Meyer, was an opera singer and voice teacher. Helga was German, while John is from Birmingham, Alabama and has English, French, German, Bullocks maternal grandfather was a German rocket scientist from Nuremberg. John, who was in charge of the U. S. Armys Military Postal Service in Europe, was stationed in Nuremberg when he met Helga. They married in Germany and moved to Arlington, where John worked with the Army Materiel Command before becoming a contractor for The Pentagon, Bullock has a younger sister, Gesine Bullock-Prado, who went on to serve as vice president of Bullocks production company Fortis Films. Until the age of 18, Bullock held American-German dual citizenship and she then held only American citizenship until 2009, when she reapplied for German citizenship. Bullock was raised in Germany for 12 years, and grew up speaking German and she attended the humanistic Waldorf School in Nuremberg. As a child, while her mother went on European opera tours, Bullock usually stayed with her aunt Christl and cousin Susanne, Bullock studied ballet and vocal arts as a child and frequently accompanied her mother, taking small parts in her opera productions. She sang in the childrens choir at the Staatstheater Nürnberg. Bullock has a scar above her eye, caused by falling into a creek when she was a child. She attended Washington-Lee High School, where she was a cheerleader, after graduating in 1982, she attended East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, where she received a BFA in Drama in 1987. While at ECU, she performed in theater productions, including Peter Pan
2.
Samuel L. Jackson
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Samuel Leroy Jackson is an American actor and film producer. With Jacksons permission, his likeness was used for the Ultimate version of the Marvel Comics character Nick Fury. He has also portrayed the character in the second and final episodes of the first season of the TV show Marvels Agents of S. H. I. E. L. D and he is married to LaTanya Richardson, with whom he has a daughter, Zoe. Samuel L. Jackson is ranked as the highest all-time box office star with over $4.9053 billion total box office gross, Jackson was born in Washington, D. C. the son of Elizabeth and Roy Henry Jackson. He grew up as a child in Chattanooga, Tennessee. His father lived away from the family in Kansas City, Missouri, Jackson only met his father twice during his life. Jackson was raised by his mother, who was a worker and later a supplies buyer for a mental institution. According to DNA tests, Jackson partially descends from the Benga people of Gabon, Jackson attended several segregated schools and graduated from Riverside High School in Chattanooga. Between the third and twelfth grades, he played the French horn, during childhood, he had a stuttering problem. While he eventually learned to pretend to be people who didnt stutter and use the curse word motherfucker as an affirmation word. Initially intent on pursuing a degree in biology, he attended Morehouse College in Atlanta. After joining a local acting group to earn points in a class, Jackson found an interest in acting. Before graduating in 1972, he co-founded the Just Us Theatre, after the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Jackson attended the funeral in Atlanta as one of the ushers. Jackson then flew to Memphis to join an equal rights protest march, in a Parade interview Jackson revealed, I was angry about the assassination, but I wasnt shocked by it. I knew that change was going to something different – not sit-ins. In 1969, Jackson and several other students held members of the Morehouse College board of trustees hostage on the campus, demanding reform in the schools curriculum and governance. The college eventually agreed to change its policy, but Jackson was charged with and eventually convicted of unlawful confinement, Jackson was then suspended for two years for his criminal record and his actions. He would later return to the college to earn his Bachelor of Arts in Drama in 1972, while he was suspended, Jackson was employed as a social worker in Los Angeles
3.
Matthew McConaughey
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Matthew David McConaughey is an American actor. He first gained notice for his role in the coming-of-age comedy Dazed and Confused. Matthew McConaughey, the youngest of three boys, was born on November 4,1969 in Uvalde, Texas and his mother, Mary Kathleen Kay or KMac, is a former kindergarten teacher and a published author. She was originally from Trenton, New Jersey and his father, James Donald McConaughey, was from Louisiana and ran an oil pipe supply business. He played for the Kentucky Wildcats and the Houston Cougars college football teams, in 1953, Jim McConaughey was drafted in the 27th round by the NFL football team the Green Bay Packers. He was released before the season began and never played a league game in the NFL. Matthews mother and late father married each other three times and his ancestry includes Scottish, English, Irish, Swedish and German. He is a relative of Confederate brigadier general Dandridge McRae, McConaughey moved to Longview, Texas in 1980, where he attended Longview High School. He lived for a year in Warnervale, New South Wales, Australia and he attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he joined Delta Tau Delta fraternity. He began in the fall of 1989 and graduated in the spring of 1993 with a degree in Radio-Television-Film. His original plan had changed as he wanted to attend Southern Methodist University until a brother told him that private school tuition would have been a burden on the family finances. He also had planned to attend law school graduation from college. McConaughey began working in commercials, including one for the Austin, Texas daily newspaper, the Austin American-Statesman. The line, How else am I gonna keep up with my Horns, – a reference to his beloved Texas Longhorns sports teams – gave the local community a look at the young actor, before he was cast in Richard Linklaters film Dazed and Confused. In 1992, he was cast as Joe in Trisha Yearwoods video for her hit song Walkaway Joe, in the late 1990s, McConaughey was cast in leading roles in more movies, including Contact, Amistad, The Newton Boys, EDtv and U-571. By the early 2000s, he was frequently cast in comedies, including The Wedding Planner and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. McConaughey starred in the 2005 feature film Sahara, along with Steve Zahn, prior to the release of the film, he promoted it by sailing down the Amazon River and trekking to Mali. That same year, McConaughey was named People magazines Sexiest Man Alive for 2005, in 2006, he co-starred with Sarah Jessica Parker in the romantic comedy Failure to Launch and as Marshall head football coach Jack Lengyal in We Are Marshall
4.
Kevin Spacey
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Kevin Spacey Fowler, better known as Kevin Spacey, is an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, and singer. He began his career as an actor during the 1980s before obtaining supporting roles in film. In Broadway theatre, Spacey won a Tony Award for his role in Lost in Yonkers and he was the artistic director of the Old Vic theatre in London from 2004 until stepping down in mid-2015. Since 2013, Spacey has played Frank Underwood in the Netflix political drama series House of Cards, Spacey was born in South Orange, New Jersey, to Kathleen Ann, a secretary, and Thomas Geoffrey Fowler, a technical writer and data consultant. He has two siblings, a sister, Julie, and a brother, Randy. He has English, Swedish, and Welsh ancestry and his family relocated to Southern California when Spacey was four years old. He attended Northridge Military Academy, Canoga Park High School, and then Chatsworth High School in Chatsworth, California, where he graduated co-valedictorian of his class in 1977. At Chatsworth, Spacey starred in the senior production of The Sound of Music. He took Spacey as his stage name, several reports have incorrectly suggested that he took his name in tribute to actor Spencer Tracy, combining Tracys first and last names. He had tried to succeed as a comedian for several years, before attending the Juilliard School in New York City, during this time period, Spacey performed stand-up comedy in bowling alley talent contests. Spaceys first professional appearance was as a spear carrier in a New York Shakespeare Festival performance of Henry VI. The following year, he made his first Broadway appearance, as Oswald in a production of Henrik Ibsens Ghosts, then he portrayed Philinte in Molières The Misanthrope. In 1984, he appeared in a production of David Rabes Hurlyburly, next came Anton Chekhovs The Seagull. In 1986, he appeared in a production of Sleuth in a New Jersey dinner theatre, Lemmon in particular would become a mentor to Spacey. He made his first major appearance in the second-season premiere of Crime Story. Although his interest soon turned to film, Spacey remained actively involved in the theater community. In 1991, he won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Uncle Louie in Neil Simons Broadway hit Lost in Yonkers, Spaceys father was unconvinced that Spacey could make a career for himself as an actor, and did not change his mind until Spacey became well-known. Some of Spaceys early roles include a widowed eccentric millionaire on L. A. Law, the television miniseries The Murder of Mary Phagan, opposite Lemmon, and he earned a fan base after playing the criminally insane arms dealer Mel Profitt on the television series Wiseguy
5.
Ashley Judd
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Ashley Judd is an American actress and political activist. She grew up in a family of performing artists as the daughter of country music singer Naomi Judd. While she is best known for an acting career spanning more than two decades, she has increasingly become involved in global humanitarian efforts and political activism. She starred as Rebecca Winstone in the 2012 television series Missing, in 2010, she earned a one-year mid-career masters degree in public administration from Harvards Kennedy School of Government. She is a well known Kentucky Wildcats mens basketball fan, being present at most games, Judd was born in Granada Hills, California. She is the daughter of Naomi Judd, a country singer and motivational speaker, and Michael Charles Ciminella. Ashleys elder sister, Wynonna, is also a country music singer and her paternal grandfather was of Sicilian descent, and her paternal grandmother was a descendant of Mayflower pilgrim William Brewster. At the time of her birth, her mother was unemployed, the following year, her mother took Ashley back to Naomis native Kentucky, where Judd spent the majority of her childhood. She also went to school in Marin County, California as a child, Judd attended 13 schools before college, including the Sayre School, Paul G. Blazer High School and Franklin High School in Tennessee. She briefly tried modeling in Japan during a school break, an alumna of the sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma at the University of Kentucky, she majored in French and minored in anthropology, art history, theater, and womens studies. She spent a semester studying in France as part of her major and she graduated from the UK Honors Program and was nominated to Phi Beta Kappa, but did not graduate with her class. Forgoing her commitment to join the Peace Corps, after college she drove to Hollywood, during this time, she worked as a hostess at The Ivy restaurant and lived in a Malibu rental house, which burned down in 1993. Around that time, her half-sister Wynonna Judd leased her a historic farmhouse and 10 acres of land in Williamson County and she moved to Tennessee and lived near her mother Naomi and sister Wynonna. Judd appeared as Ensign Robin Lefler, a Starfleet officer, in two 1991 episodes of Star Trek, The Next Generation, Darmok and The Game, from 1991 to 1994, she had a recurring role as Reed, the daughter of Alex, on the NBC drama Sisters. She made her film debut with a small role in 1992s Kuffs. In 1993, Judd fought for and was cast in her first starring role playing the character in Victor Nuñezs Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize dramatic winner Ruby in Paradise. On her way to the audition, she was so nervous about getting a role that she defined her life. From the first three sentences, I knew it was written for me, she told the San Jose Mercury News
6.
Donald Sutherland
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Donald McNichol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian actor whose film career spans six decades. Since then, he established himself as one of the most respected, prolific, Sutherland has been nominated for eight Golden Globe Awards, winning two for his performances in the television films Citizen X and Path to War, the former also brought him a Primetime Emmy Award. Inductee of Hollywood Walk of Fame and Canadian Walk of Fame, several media outlets and movie critics describe him as one of the best actors who has never been nominated for an Oscar. He is father of actors Rossif Sutherland, Angus Sutherland, Sutherland was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, the son of Dorothy Isobel and Frederick McLea Sutherland, who worked in sales and ran the local gas, electricity and bus company. He is of Scottish, German and English ancestry, as a child, he battled rheumatic fever, hepatitis, and poliomyelitis. His teenage years were spent in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia and he obtained his first part-time job, at the age of 14, as a news correspondent for local radio station CKBW. Sutherland graduated from Bridgewater High School and he then studied at Victoria College, University of Toronto, where he met his first wife Lois Hardwick, and graduated with a double major in engineering and drama. He had at one point been a member of the UC Follies comedy troupe in Toronto and he changed his mind about becoming an engineer, and left Canada for Britain in 1957, studying at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. After quitting the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, Sutherland spent a year, in the early to mid-1960s, Sutherland began to gain small roles in British films and TV. He featured alongside Christopher Lee in horror films such as Castle of the Living Dead and he also had a supporting role in the Hammer Films production Die. With Tallulah Bankhead and Stefanie Powers, in 1966, Sutherland appeared in the BBC TV play Lee Oswald-Assassin, playing a friend of Lee Harvey Oswald, Charles Givens. In 1967, he appeared in The Superlative Seven, an episode of The Avengers and he also made a second, and more substantial appearance in The Saint. The episode, Escape Route, was directed by the star, Roger Moore. They came to view a rough cut and he got The Dirty Dozen, the film, which starred Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson, was the 5th highest-grossing film of 1967 and MGMs highest-grossing movie of the year. In 1968, after the breakthrough in the UK-filmed The Dirty Dozen and he then appeared in two war films, playing the lead role as Hawkeye Pierce in Robert Altmans MASH in 1970, and, again in 1970, as hippie tank commander Oddball in Kellys Heroes. He stars with Gene Wilder in the 1970 comedy Start the Revolution Without Me, during the filming of the Academy Award-winning detective thriller Klute, Sutherland had an intimate relationship with co-star Jane Fonda. Sutherland and Fonda went on to co-produce and star together in the anti-Vietnam War documentary F. T. A, consisting of a series of sketches performed outside army bases in the Pacific Rim and interviews with American troops who were then on active service. A follow up to their teaming up in Klute, Sutherland and Fonda performed together in Steelyard Blues and his role as Corpse of Lt. Robert Schmied in the Maximilian Schells 1976 German film-directed End of the Game is listed in crazy credits
7.
Warner Bros.
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Entertainment Inc. – colloquially known as Warner Bros. or Warner Bros. It is one of the Big Six major American film studios, Warner Bros. is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America. The companys name originated from the four founding Warner brothers, Harry, Albert, Sam, Jack, the youngest, was born in London, Ontario. The three elder brothers began in the theater business, having acquired a movie projector with which they showed films in the mining towns of Pennsylvania. In the beginning, Sam and Albert Warner invested $150 to present Life of an American Fireman and they opened their first theater, the Cascade, in New Castle, Pennsylvania, in 1903. When the original building was in danger of being demolished, the modern Warner Bros. called the current building owners, the owners noted people across the country had asked them to protect it for its historical significance. In 1904, the Warners founded the Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Amusement & Supply Company, in 1912, Harry Warner hired an auditor named Paul Ashley Chase. By the time of World War I they had begun producing films, in 1918 they opened the first Warner Bros. studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Sam and Jack produced the pictures, while Harry and Albert, along with their auditor and now controller Chase, handled finance and distribution in New York City. During World War I their first nationally syndicated film, My Four Years in Germany, on April 4,1923, with help from money loaned to Harry by his banker Motley Flint, they formally incorporated as Warner Brothers Pictures, Incorporated. The first important deal was the acquisition of the rights to Avery Hopwoods 1919 Broadway play, The Gold Diggers, however, Rin Tin Tin, a dog brought from France after World War I by an American soldier, established their reputation. Rin Tin Tin debuted in the feature Where the North Begins, the movie was so successful that Jack signed the dog to star in more films for $1,000 per week. Rin Tin Tin became the top star. Jack nicknamed him The Mortgage Lifter and the success boosted Darryl F. Zanucks career, Zanuck eventually became a top producer and between 1928 and 1933 served as Jacks right-hand man and executive producer, with responsibilities including day-to-day film production. More success came after Ernst Lubitsch was hired as head director, lubitschs film The Marriage Circle was the studios most successful film of 1924, and was on The New York Times best list for that year. Despite the success of Rin Tin Tin and Lubitsch, Warners remained a lesser studio, Sam and Jack decided to offer Broadway actor John Barrymore the lead role in Beau Brummel. The film was so successful that Harry signed Barrymore to a contract, like The Marriage Circle. By the end of 1924, Warner Bros. was arguably Hollywoods most successful independent studio, as the studio prospered, it gained backing from Wall Street, and in 1924 Goldman Sachs arranged a major loan
8.
Kiefer Sutherland
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Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland is a British born Canadian actor, producer, director, and singer-songwriter. His portrayal of Jack Bauer on the Fox drama series 24 brought him an Emmy Award, Sutherland got his first leading film role in a Canadian drama The Bay Boy, which earned him a Genie Award nomination. Sutherland was inducted to Hollywood Walk of Fame and Canadas Walk of Fame and was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from Zurich Film Festival. Sutherland was born in St Marys Hospital, Paddington, London, to Donald Sutherland and Shirley Douglas and he has a twin sister, Rachel. His maternal grandfather was Scottish-born Canadian politician and former Premier of Saskatchewan Tommy Douglas, Sutherlands family moved to Corona, California. In 1975, Sutherland moved with his mother to Toronto and he attended elementary school at Crescent Town Elementary School, St. Clair Junior High East York, and John G. Althouse Middle School in Toronto. He also spent a semester at Regina Mundi Catholic College in London, Ontario, Sutherland told Jimmy Kimmel Live. that he and Robert Downey, Jr. were roommates for three years when he first moved to Hollywood to pursue his career in acting. He and Downey, Jr. also starred together in the film 1969, Sutherland made his screen debut in Max Dugan Returns, in which his father Donald Sutherland also starred. Sutherland was one of the contenders for the role of Glen Lantz in the original A Nightmare on Elm Street, after receiving critical acclaim for his role as Donald Campbell in The Bay Boy, Sutherland moved to Hollywood. Stand by Me was the first film Sutherland made in the United States, in the film, directed by Rob Reiner, he played a neighborhood bully in a coming-of-age story about a search for a dead body. Before that, he played a silent, supporting character, as one of Sean Penns friends who goes up against Christopher Walken in James Foleys crime-thriller At Close Range. His film Promised Land, with Meg Ryan, was the first film to be commissioned by the Sundance Film Festival and his role as vampire David in The Lost Boys is one of his iconic roles in his career reviews by many critics and audiences. In the Western film Young Guns, he starred alongside Emilio Estevez and he was considered for the role of Robin in Batman, alongside Michael Keaton, in the early production before the character was deleted from the shooting script. He went on to star again with his close friend Lou Diamond Phillips and that same year, he and his father appeared at the 61st Academy Awards as presenters of the Academy Honorary Award to the National Film Board of Canada. In the sequel Young Guns II, Sutherland continued to play Doc alongside some of the original cast and it is the only sequel to a feature film he has starred in. Sutherland did not make a film in 1991, in a recent interview, he said he declined the offer of Gus Van Sant to star in the lead role in the movie My Own Private Idaho, a decision that he regretted. He hosted Saturday Night Live instead, the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. In The Vanishing, he starred alongside Jeff Bridges as a husband seeking his wife three years after she mysteriously vanished, in The Three Musketeers, Sutherland played the central character of Athos
9.
Ku Klux Klan
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Historically the KKK used terrorism, both physical assault and murder, against groups or individuals whom they opposed. All three movements have called for the purification of American society, and all are considered right-wing extremist organizations, the first Klan flourished in the Southern United States in the late 1860s, then died out by the early 1870s. It sought to overthrow the Republican state governments in the South during the Reconstruction Era, with numerous chapters across the South, it was suppressed around 1871, through federal law enforcement. Members made their own, often colorful, costumes, robes, masks, and conical hats, designed to be terrifying, the second group was founded in 1915, and it flourished nationwide in the early and mid-1920s, particularly in urban areas of the Midwest and West. This second organization adopted a white costume and used code words which were similar to those used by the first Klan, while adding cross burnings. The third and current manifestation of the KKK emerged after 1950, in the form of small, local and they have focused on opposition to the Civil Rights Movement, often using violence and murder to suppress activists. It is classified as a group by the Anti-Defamation League. As of 2016, the Anti-Defamation League puts total Klan membership nationwide at around 3,000, the second and third incarnations of the Ku Klux Klan made frequent references to Americas Anglo-Saxon blood, hearkening back to 19th-century nativism. Although members of the KKK swear to uphold Christian morality, virtually every Christian denomination has officially denounced the KKK, the manual of rituals was printed by Laps D. McCord of Pulaski. According to The Cyclopædia of Fraternities, Beginning in April,1867, the members had conjured up a veritable Frankenstein. Although there was little organizational structure above the level, similar groups rose across the South and adopted the same name. Klan groups spread throughout the South as an insurgent movement promoting resistance, for example, Confederate veteran John W. Morton founded a chapter in Nashville, Tennessee. As a secret vigilante group, the Klan targeted freedmen and their allies, it sought to restore white supremacy by threats and violence, including murder, against black and white Republicans. In 1870 and 1871, the government passed the Enforcement Acts. The first Klan had mixed results in terms of achieving its objectives and it seriously weakened the black political establishment through its use of assassinations and threats of violence, it drove some people out of politics. Rable argues that the Klan was a failure and therefore was discarded by the Democratic leaders of the South. He says, the Klan declined in strength in part because of weaknesses, its lack of central organization. More fundamentally, it declined because it failed to achieve its central objective – the overthrow of Republican state governments in the South, for instance, the Red Shirts are credited with helping elect Wade Hampton as governor in South Carolina
10.
John Grisham
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John Ray Grisham, Jr. is an American bestselling writer, attorney, politician, and activist best known for his popular legal thrillers. His books have been translated into 42 languages and published worldwide, John Grisham graduated from Mississippi State University before attending the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981. He practiced criminal law for about a decade and served in the House of Representatives in Mississippi from January 1984 to September 1990 and his first novel, A Time to Kill, was published in June 1989, four years after he began writing it. As of 2012, his books have sold over 275 million copies worldwide, a Galaxy British Book Awards winner, Grisham is one of only three authors to sell 2 million copies on a first printing. Grishams first bestseller, The Firm, sold more than seven million copies. Eight of his novels have also been adapted into films, The Chamber, The Client, A Painted House, The Pelican Brief, Skipping Christmas, The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury. Grisham, the second of five siblings, was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to Wanda Skidmore Grisham and his father worked as a construction worker and a cotton farmer, while his mother was a homemaker. When Grisham was four years old, his family settled in Southaven, DeSoto County, as a child, Grisham wanted to be a baseball player. Grisham has been a Christian since he was eight years old, after leaving law school, he participated in some missionary work in Brazil, under the First Baptist Church of Oxford. Although Grishams parents lacked formal education, his mother encouraged him to read and he drew on his childhood experiences for his novel A Painted House. Grisham started working for a nursery as a teenager, watering bushes for US$1.00 an hour and he was soon promoted to a fence crew for US$1.50 an hour. He wrote about the job, there was no future in it, at 16, Grisham took a job with a plumbing contractor but says he never drew inspiration from that miserable work. Through a contact of his fathers, he managed to work on a highway asphalt crew in Mississippi at age 17. It was during this time that an unfortunate incident got him serious about college, a fight with gunfire broke out among the crew causing Grisham to run to a nearby restroom to find safety. He did not come out until after the police had detained the perpetrators and he hitchhiked home and started thinking about college. His next work was in retail, as a salesclerk in a department store mens underwear section and he decided to quit but stayed when he was offered a raise. He was given another raise after asking to be transferred to toys, a confrontation with a company spy posing as a customer convinced him to leave the store. By this time, Grisham was halfway through college, planning to become a tax lawyer, he was soon overcome by the complexity and lunacy of it
