1.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
2.
Dallas (1978 TV series)
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Dallas is an American prime time television soap opera that aired on CBS from April 2,1978, to May 3,1991. The series revolves around a wealthy and feuding Texan family, the Ewings, who own the independent oil company Ewing Oil, the series originally focused on the marriage of Bobby Ewing and Pamela Barnes, whose families were sworn enemies with each other. As the series progressed, oil tycoon J. R. Ewing grew to be the main character, whose schemes. When the show ended in May 1991, J. R. was the character to have appeared in every episode. The show was famous for its cliffhangers, including the Who shot J. R. mystery, the 1980 episode Who Done It remains the second highest rated prime-time telecast ever. The show also featured a Dream Season, in which the entirety of the season was revealed to have been a dream of Pam Ewing. After 14 seasons, the series finale Conundrum aired in 1991, the show had a relatively ensemble cast. The series won four Emmy Awards, including a 1980 Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series win for Bel Geddes. With its 357 episodes, Dallas remains one of the longest lasting full-hour primetime dramas in American TV history, behind Law & Order, Special Victims Unit, Bonanza, Law & Order, in 2007 Dallas was included in TIME magazines list of 100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME. Dallas also spawned the spin-off series Knots Landing in 1979 which also lasted 14 seasons, in 2010, TNT announced it had ordered a new, updated continuation of Dallas. The revival series, continuing the story of the Ewing family, premiered on TNT on June 13,2012, Dallas debuted on April 2,1978, as a five-part miniseries on the CBS network. The first five episodes, originally considered a miniseries, are now referred to as season one—making fourteen seasons in total, the show is known for its portrayal of wealth, sex, intrigue, and power struggles. Ellies family were—in contrast to Jock—ranchers, with love for the land. Following the marriage of Ellie and Jock, the Southworth family ranch, Southfork, became the Ewings home, where Jock and Miss Ellie raised three sons, J. R. Gary and Bobby. Middle son Gary was Ellies favorite as he displayed Southworth traits, however, while still young, Gary had married waitress Valene Clements, who produced the first heir, the petite and saucy Lucy. Years prior to the beginning, J. R. had driven Gary and Valene off Southfork. During the first episodes of the series, the teenaged Lucy is seen sleeping with ranch foreman Ray Krebbs. Later, in four, Ray would be revealed as Lucys uncle
3.
Vertigo (film)
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Vertigo is a 1958 American film noir psychological thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. The story was based on the 1954 novel Dentre les morts by Boileau-Narcejac, the screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor. The film stars James Stewart as former police detective John Scottie Ferguson, Scottie is forced into early retirement because an incident in the line of duty has caused him to develop acrophobia and vertigo. Scottie is hired by an acquaintance, Gavin Elster, as an investigator to follow Gavins wife Madeleine. The film was shot on location in San Francisco, California and it is the first film to use the dolly zoom, an in-camera effect that distorts perspective to create disorientation, to convey Scotties acrophobia. As a result of its use in film, the effect is often referred to as the Vertigo effect. Vertigo received mixed reviews upon release, but is now often cited as a classic Hitchcock film. Attracting significant scholarly criticism, it replaced Citizen Kane as the best film made in the 2012 British Film Institutes Sight & Sound critics poll. In 1996, the film underwent a restoration to create a new 70mm print. It has appeared repeatedly in polls of the best films by the American Film Institute, after a rooftop chase, where his fear of heights and vertigo result in the death of a policeman, San Francisco detective John Scottie Ferguson retires. Scottie tries to conquer his fear, but his friend and ex-fiancée Midge Wood says that another severe emotional shock may be the only cure. An acquaintance from college, Gavin Elster, asks Scottie to follow his wife, Madeleine and he watches her enter the McKittrick Hotel, but on investigation she does not seem to be there. Gavin reveals that Carlotta is Madeleines great-grandmother, although Madeleine has no knowledge of this, Scottie tails Madeleine to Fort Point and, when she leaps into the bay, he rescues her. The next day Scottie follows Madeleine, they meet and spend the day together and they travel to Muir Woods and Cypress Point on 17-Mile Drive, where Madeleine runs down towards the ocean. Scottie grabs her and they embrace, Madeleine recounts a nightmare and Scottie identifies its setting as Mission San Juan Bautista, childhood home of Carlotta. He drives her there and they express their love for each other, Madeleine suddenly runs into the church and up the bell tower. Scottie, halted on the steps by his acrophobia, sees Madeleine plunge to her death, the death is declared a suicide. Gavin does not fault Scottie, but Scottie breaks down, becomes depressed and is in a sanatorium
4.
Norman Bel Geddes
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Norman Melancton Bel Geddes was an American theatrical and industrial designer. Bel Geddes was born Norman Melancton Geddes in Adrian, Michigan, and raised in New Philadelphia, Ohio, the son of Flora Luelle and Clifton Terry Geddes, when he married Helen Belle Schneider in 1916, they incorporated their names to Bel Geddes. Their daughters were actress Barbara Bel Geddes and writer Joan Ulanov, Bel Geddes began his career with set designs for Aline Barnsdalls Los Angeles Little Theater in the 1916-17 season, then in 1918 as the scene designer for the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He designed and directed various theatrical works, from Arabesque and The Five OClock Girl on Broadway to an ice show, It Happened on Ice and he also created set designs for the film Feet of Clay, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, designed costumes for Max Reinhardt, and created the sets for the Broadway production of Sidney Kingsleys Dead End, Bel Geddes opened an industrial-design studio in 1927, and designed a wide range of commercial products, from cocktail shakers to commemorative medallions to radio cabinets. His designs extended to unrealized futuristic concepts, an automobile. In 1929, he designed Airliner Number 4, a 9-deck amphibian airliner that incorporated areas for deck-games, an orchestra, a gymnasium, a solarium, and two airplane hangars. His book Horizons had a significant impact, By popularizing streamlining when only a few engineers were considering its functional use and he wrote forward-looking articles for popular American periodicals. Bel Geddes designed the General Motors Pavilion, known as Futurama, for that famous and enormously influential installation, Bel Geddes exploited his earlier work in the same vein, he had designed a Metropolis City of 1960 in 1936. Bel Geddess book Magic Motorways promoted advances in design and transportation, foreshadowing the Interstate Highway System, along with aspects of driver assist. The case for the Mark I computer was designed by Norman Bel Geddes, iBMs Thomas Watson presented it to Harvard. At the time, some saw it as a waste of resources, since computing power was in demand during this part of World War II. Bel Geddes died on May 8,1958, in New York and his autobiography, Miracle in the Evening, was published posthumously in 1960. The archive of Norman Bel Geddes is held by the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin and this large collection includes models, drafts, watercolor designs, research notes, project proposals, and correspondence. The Ransom Center also holds the papers of Bel Geddes wife, Norman Bel Geddes is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame, a distinction he shares with his daughter, Barbara Bel Geddes
5.
Carl Van Vechten
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Carl Van Vechten was an American writer and artistic photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein. Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, he was the youngest child of Charles and he graduated from Washington High School in 1898, and later the University of Chicago in 1903. In 1906, he moved to New York City and he was hired as the assistant music critic at The New York Times. His interest in opera had him take a leave of absence from the paper in 1907, while in England he married his long-time friend from Cedar Rapids, Anna Snyder. He returned to his job at the New York Times in 1909, at that time, Isadora Duncan, Anna Pavlova, and Loie Fuller were performing in New York City. The marriage to Anna Snyder ended in divorce in 1912 and he wed actress Fania Marinoff in 1914 and their marriage lasted until the end of his life, even while his relationships with men were an open secret. They continued corresponding for the remainder of Steins life, and at her death she appointed Van Vechten her literary executor, several books of Van Vechtens essays on various subjects such as music and literature were published between 1915 and 1920. Van Vechtens controversial novel Nigger Heaven was published in 1926 and his essay Negro Blues Singers was published in Vanity Fair in 1926. Biographer Edward White suggests Van Vechten was convinced that Negro culture was the essence of America, by the start of the 1930s and at age 50, Van Vechten was finished with writing and took up photography, using his apartment at 150 West 55th Street as a studio. After the 1930s Van Vechten published little writing, though he continued writing letters to many correspondents, Van Vechten died in 1964, at the age of 84, in New York City. Most of Van Vechtens personal papers are held by the Beinecke Rare Book, the Beinecke Library also holds a collection titled Living Portraits, Carl Van Vechtens Color Photographs Of African Americans, 1939–1964, a collection of 1,884 color Kodachrome slides. The Library of Congress has a collection of approximately 1,400 photographs, there is also a collection of Van Vechtens photographs in the Prentiss Taylor collection in the Smithsonians Archives of American Art, and a Van Vechten collection at Fisk University. The Museum of the City of New Yorks collection includes 2,174 of Carl Van Vechtens photographs, brandeis Universitys department of Archives & Special Collections holds 1,689 Carl Van Vechten portraits. Van Vechten also donated materials to Fisk University to form the George Gershwin Memorial Collection of Music, the album ’O, Write My Name’, American Portraits, Harlem Heroes was completed in 1983. That year, the National Endowment for the Arts transferred the Eakins Press Foundation’s prototype albums to the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, dust Tracks on a Road, An Autobiography. Guide to the Carl Van Vechten papers, 1833–1965, manuscripts and Archives, New York Public Library. Carl Van Vechten collection of papers, 1911–1964, berg Collection of English and American Literature, New York Public Library
6.
Elia Kazan
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Elia Kazan was a Greek-American director, producer, writer and actor, described by The New York Times as one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history. He was born in Istanbul, to Cappadocian Greek parents, after attending Williams College and then the Yale School of Drama, he acted professionally for eight years, later joining the Group Theater in 1932, and co-founded the Actors Studio in 1947. With Robert Lewis and Cheryl Crawford, his actors studio introduced Method Acting under the direction of Lee Strasberg, Kazan acted in a few films, including City for Conquest. Noted for drawing out the best dramatic performances from his actors, he directed 21 actors to Oscar nominations and he directed a string of successful films, including A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, and East of Eden. During his career, he won two Oscars as Best Director and received an Honorary Oscar, won three Tony Awards, and four Golden Globes and his films were concerned with personal or social issues of special concern to him. Kazan writes, I dont move unless I have some empathy with the basic theme and his first such issue film was Gentlemans Agreement, with Gregory Peck, which dealt with anti-Semitism in America. It received 8 Oscar nominations and 3 wins, including Kazans first for Best Director and it was followed by Pinky, one of the first films in mainstream Hollywood to address racial prejudice against black people. In 1954, he directed On the Waterfront, a film about corruption on the New York harbor waterfront. A Streetcar Named Desire, an adaptation of the play which he had also directed, received 12 Oscar nominations, winning 4. In 1955, he directed John Steinbecks East of Eden, which introduced James Dean to movie audiences and his testimony helped end the careers of former acting colleagues Morris Carnovsky and Art Smith, along with ending the work of playwright Clifford Odets. Kazan later justified his act by saying he took only the more tolerable of two alternatives that were either way painful and wrong, nearly a half-century later, his anti-Communist testimony continued to cause controversy. When Kazan was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1999, dozens of actors not to applaud as 250 demonstrators picketed the event. Kazan influenced the films of the 1950s and 60s with his provocative, Director Stanley Kubrick called him, without question, the best director we have in America, capable of performing miracles with the actors he uses. Film author Ian Freer concludes that if his achievements are tainted by political controversy, in 2010, Martin Scorsese co-directed the documentary film A Letter to Elia as a personal tribute to Kazan. Elia Kazan was born in the Fener district of Istanbul, to Cappadocian Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia and his parents, George and Athena Kazantzoglou, emigrated to the United States when he was four years old. He was named after his grandfather, Elia Kazantzoglou. His maternal grandfather was Isaak Shishmanoglou, elias brother, Avraam, was born in Berlin and later became a psychiatrist. As a young boy, he was remembered as being shy, much of his early life was portrayed in his autobiographical book, America America, which he made into a film in 1963
7.
Broadway theatre
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Along with Londons West End theatres, Broadway theatres are widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. The Theater District is a popular tourist attraction in New York City, the great majority of Broadway shows are musicals. They presented Shakespeare plays and ballad operas such as The Beggars Opera, in 1752, William Hallam sent a company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia and opened with The Merchant of Venice, the company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida. The Revolutionary War suspended theatre in New York, but thereafter theatre resumed in 1798, the Bowery Theatre opened in 1826, followed by others. Blackface minstrel shows, a distinctly American form of entertainment, became popular in the 1830s, by the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. In 1829, at Broadway and Prince Street, Niblos Garden opened, the 3, 000-seat theatre presented all sorts of musical and non-musical entertainments. In 1844, Palmos Opera House opened and presented opera for four seasons before bankruptcy led to its rebranding as a venue for plays under the name Burtons Theatre. The Astor Opera House opened in 1847, booth played the role for a famous 100 consecutive performances at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1865, and would later revive the role at his own Booths Theatre. Other renowned Shakespeareans who appeared in New York in this era were Henry Irving, Tommaso Salvini, Fanny Davenport, lydia Thompson came to America in 1868 heading a small theatrical troupe, adapting popular English burlesques for middle-class New York audiences. Thompsons troupe called the British Blondes, was the most popular entertainment in New York during the 1868–1869 theatrical season, the six-month tour ran for almost six extremely profitable years. Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown beginning around 1850, in 1870, the heart of Broadway was in Union Square, and by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square. Broadways first long-run musical was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857, New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keenes musical burletta The Seven Sisters shattered previous New York records with a run of 253 performances. It was at a performance by Keenes troupe of Our American Cousin in Washington, the production was a staggering five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and the Post was the first show to call itself a musical comedy, Tony Pastor opened the first vaudeville theatre one block east of Union Square in 1881, where Lillian Russell performed. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 and 1890, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham. They starred high quality singers, instead of the women of repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. Plays could run longer and still draw in the audiences, leading to better profits, as in England, during the latter half of the century, the theatre began to be cleaned up, with less prostitution hindering the attendance of the theatre by women
8.
Tennessee Williams
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Thomas Lanier Tennessee Williams III was an American playwright. Along with Eugene ONeill and Arthur Miller he is considered among the three foremost playwrights in 20th-century American drama, after years of obscurity, he became suddenly famous with The Glass Menagerie, closely reflecting his own unhappy family background. This heralded a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and his later work attempted a new style that did not appeal to audiences, and alcohol and drug dependence further inhibited his creative output. His drama A Streetcar Named Desire is often numbered on the short list of the finest American plays of the 20th century alongside Long Days Journey into Night, much of Williams most acclaimed work was adapted for the cinema. He also wrote stories, poetry, essays and a volume of memoirs. In 1979, four years before his death, Williams was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. Thomas Lanier Williams III was born in Columbus, Mississippi, of English, Welsh, and Huguenot ancestry and his father was an alcoholic traveling shoe salesman who spent much of his time away from home. Williams early childhood was spent in the parsonage there, Williams had two siblings, sister Rose Isabel Williams and brother Walter Dakin Williams. As a small child Williams suffered from a case of diphtheria which nearly ended his life, leaving him weak, at least in part as a result of his illness, he was less robust as a child than his father wished. Cornelius Williams, a descendant of hearty East Tennessee pioneer stock, had a violent temper and was a man prone to use his fists. He regarded his sons effeminacy with disdain, and his mother Edwina, locked in an unhappy marriage, many critics and historians note that Williams found inspiration for much of his writing in his own dysfunctional family. When Williams was eight years old, his father was promoted to a job at the office of the International Shoe Company in St. Louis. He attended Soldan High School, a setting he referred to in his play The Glass Menagerie, Later he studied at University City High School. At age 16, Williams won third prize for an essay published in Smart Set entitled, a year later, his short story The Vengeance of Nitocris was published in the August 1928 issue of the magazine Weird Tales. That same year he first visited Europe with his grandfather, from 1929 to 1931, he attended the University of Missouri, in Columbia, where he enrolled in journalism classes. Williams found his classes boring, however, and was distracted by his love for a girl. He was soon entering his poetry, essays, stories, and plays in writing contests and his first submitted play was Beauty Is the Word, followed by Hot Milk at Three in the Morning. As recognition for Beauty, a play about rebellion against religious upbringing, at University of Missouri, Williams joined the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity, but he did not fit in well with his fraternity brothers
9.
John Steinbeck
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John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American author of 27 books, including 16 novels, six non-fiction books, and five collections of short stories. He is widely known for the comic novels Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row, the multi-generation epic East of Eden, the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Grapes of Wrath is considered Steinbecks masterpiece and part of the American literary canon. In the first 75 years after it was published, it sold 14 million copies, the winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, he has been called a giant of American letters. His works are widely read abroad and many of his works are considered classics of Western literature, most of Steinbecks work is set in southern and central California, particularly in the Salinas Valley and the California Coast Ranges region. His works frequently explored the themes of fate and injustice, especially as applied to downtrodden or everyman protagonists, Steinbeck was born on February 27,1902, in Salinas, California. He was of German, English, and Irish descent, johann Adolf Großsteinbeck, Steinbecks paternal grandfather, shortened the family name to Steinbeck when he immigrated to the United States. The family farm in Heiligenhaus, Mettmann, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, is still named Großsteinbeck and his father, John Ernst Steinbeck, served as Monterey County treasurer. Johns mother, Olive Hamilton, a school teacher, shared Steinbecks passion for reading and writing. The Steinbecks were members of the Episcopal Church, although Steinbeck later became agnostic, Steinbeck lived in a small rural town, no more than a frontier settlement, set in some of the worlds most fertile land. He spent his summers working on ranches and later with migrant workers on Spreckels sugar beet farms. There he learned of the aspects of the migrant life and the darker side of human nature. He explored his surroundings, walking across local forests, fields, while working at Spreckels Sugar Company, he sometimes worked in their laboratory, which gave him time to write. He had considerable mechanical aptitude and fondness for repairing things he owned, Steinbeck graduated from Salinas High School in 1919 and went on to study English Literature at Stanford University near Palo Alto, leaving, without a degree, in 1925. He travelled to New York City where he took odd jobs while trying to write, when he failed to publish his work, he returned to California and worked in 1928 as a tour guide and caretaker at Lake Tahoe, where he met Carol Henning, his first wife. They married in January 1930 in Los Angeles, where, with friends, the elder Steinbecks gave John free housing, paper for his manuscripts, and from 1928, loans that allowed him to write without looking for work. When those sources failed, Steinbeck and his wife accepted welfare, whatever food they had, they shared with their friends. Carol became the model for Mary Talbot in Steinbecks novel Cannery Row, in 1930, Steinbeck met the marine biologist Ed Ricketts, who became a close friend and mentor to Steinbeck during the following decade, teaching him a great deal about philosophy and biology. Ricketts, usually quiet, yet likable, with an inner self-sufficiency
10.
Edward Albee
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Edward Franklin Albee III was an American playwright known for works such as The Zoo Story, The Sandbox, Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf. and A Delicate Balance. Three of his plays won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and his works are often considered as frank examinations of the modern condition. His early works reflect a mastery and Americanization of the Theatre of the Absurd that found its peak in works by European playwrights such as Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco and his middle period comprised plays that explored the psychology of maturing, marriage, and sexual relationships. Younger American playwrights, such as Paula Vogel, credit Albees daring mix of theatricality, later in his life, Albee continued to experiment in works such as The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia. Edward Albee was born in 1928 and he was placed for adoption two weeks later and taken to Larchmont in Westchester County, New York, where he grew up. Albees adoptive father, Reed A. Albee, the son of vaudeville magnate Edward Franklin Albee II. His adoptive mother, Reeds third wife, Frances, was a socialite and he would later base the main character of his 1991 play Three Tall Women on his mother, with whom he had a conflicted relationship. Albee attended the Clinton High School, then the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey and he then was sent to Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania, where he was dismissed in less than a year. He enrolled at The Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut, graduating in 1946 and his formal education continued at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he was expelled in 1947 for skipping classes and refusing to attend compulsory chapel. Albee left home for good when he was in his late teens, in a later interview, he said, I never felt comfortable with the adoptive parents. I dont think knew how to be parents. I probably didnt know how to be a son, either, in a 1994 interview, he stated that he left home at age 18 because had to get out of that stultifying, suffocating environment. In a 2008 interview, he told interviewer Charlie Rose that he was out because his parents wanted him to become a corporate thug. Albee moved into New Yorks Greenwich Village, where he supported himself with odd jobs while learning to write plays and his first play, The Zoo Story, which was written in three weeks, was first staged in Berlin in 1959 before eventually premiering Off-Broadway in 1960. His next play, The Death of Bessie Smith, similarly premiered in Berlin before arriving in New York. Albees most iconic play, Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf. opened on Broadway at the Billy Rose Theatre on October 13,1962, the two members of the jury, John Mason Brown and John Gassner, subsequently resigned in protest. An Academy Award-winning film adaptation of the play was released in 1966 starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal. In 2013, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being culturally, historically, according to the New York Times, Albee was widely considered to be the foremost American playwright of his generation
11.
Henry Fonda
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Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor with a career spanning more than five decades. Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor and he also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins. Throughout six decades in Hollywood, Fonda cultivated a strong, appealing screen image in such classics as The Ox-Bow Incident, Fonda was the patriarch of a family of famous actors, including daughter Jane Fonda, son Peter Fonda, granddaughter Bridget Fonda, and grandson Troy Garity. His family and close friends called him Hank, in 1999, he was named the sixth-Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute. Fondas ancestors from Genoa, Italy, migrated to the Netherlands in the 15th century, in 1642, a branch of the Fonda family immigrated to the Dutch colony of New Netherland on the East Coast of North America. They were among the first Dutch population to settle in what is now upstate New York, establishing the town of Fonda, by 1888, many of their descendants had relocated to Nebraska. Henry Fonda was born in Grand Island, Nebraska, to advertising-printing jobber William Brace Fonda, Fonda was brought up as a Christian Scientist, though he was baptized an Episcopalian at St. Stephens Episcopal Church in Grand Island. He said, My whole damn family was nice and they were a close family and highly supportive, especially in health matters, as they avoided doctors due to their religion. Despite having a background, he later became an agnostic. Fonda was a bashful, short boy who tended to avoid girls, except his sisters, and was a skater, swimmer. He worked part-time in his fathers print plant and imagined a career as a journalist. Later, he worked after school for the phone company, Fonda was active in the Boy Scouts of America, Teichmann reports that he reached the rank of Eagle Scout. When he was about 14, his father took him to observe the lynching of a black man accused of rape. This enraged the young Fonda and he kept a keen awareness of prejudice for the rest of his life, by his senior year in high school, Fonda had grown to more than six feet tall, but remained shy. He attended the University of Minnesota, where he majored in journalism and he took a job with the Retail Credit Company. He was fascinated by the stage, learning everything from set construction to stage production, Fonda decided to quit his job and go East in 1928 to seek his fortune. He arrived on Cape Cod and played a role at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis. A friend took him to Falmouth, MA where he joined and quickly became a member of the University Players
12.
Harvard University
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Although never formally affiliated with any denomination, the early College primarily trained Congregationalist and Unitarian clergy. Its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized during the 18th century, james Bryant Conant led the university through the Great Depression and World War II and began to reform the curriculum and liberalize admissions after the war. The undergraduate college became coeducational after its 1977 merger with Radcliffe College, Harvards $34.5 billion financial endowment is the largest of any academic institution. Harvard is a large, highly residential research university, the nominal cost of attendance is high, but the Universitys large endowment allows it to offer generous financial aid packages. Harvards alumni include eight U. S. presidents, several heads of state,62 living billionaires,359 Rhodes Scholars. To date, some 130 Nobel laureates,18 Fields Medalists, Harvard was formed in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1638, it obtained British North Americas first known printing press, in 1639 it was named Harvard College after deceased clergyman John Harvard an alumnus of the University of Cambridge who had left the school £779 and his scholars library of some 400 volumes. The charter creating the Harvard Corporation was granted in 1650 and it offered a classic curriculum on the English university model—many leaders in the colony had attended the University of Cambridge—but conformed to the tenets of Puritanism. It was never affiliated with any denomination, but many of its earliest graduates went on to become clergymen in Congregational. The leading Boston divine Increase Mather served as president from 1685 to 1701, in 1708, John Leverett became the first president who was not also a clergyman, which marked a turning of the college toward intellectual independence from Puritanism. When the Hollis Professor of Divinity David Tappan died in 1803 and the president of Harvard Joseph Willard died a year later, in 1804, in 1846, the natural history lectures of Louis Agassiz were acclaimed both in New York and on the campus at Harvard College. Agassizs approach was distinctly idealist and posited Americans participation in the Divine Nature, agassizs perspective on science combined observation with intuition and the assumption that a person can grasp the divine plan in all phenomena. When it came to explaining life-forms, Agassiz resorted to matters of shape based on an archetype for his evidence. Charles W. Eliot, president 1869–1909, eliminated the position of Christianity from the curriculum while opening it to student self-direction. While Eliot was the most crucial figure in the secularization of American higher education, he was motivated not by a desire to secularize education, during the 20th century, Harvards international reputation grew as a burgeoning endowment and prominent professors expanded the universitys scope. Rapid enrollment growth continued as new schools were begun and the undergraduate College expanded. Radcliffe College, established in 1879 as sister school of Harvard College, Harvard became a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900. In the early 20th century, the student body was predominately old-stock, high-status Protestants, especially Episcopalians, Congregationalists, by the 1970s it was much more diversified
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