1.
Ogden, Utah
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Ogden /ˈɒɡdɛn/ is a city and the county seat of Weber County, Utah, United States, approximately 10 miles east of the Great Salt Lake and 40 miles north of Salt Lake City. The population was 84,316 in 2014, according to the US Census Bureau, the city served as a major railway hub through much of its history, and still handles a great deal of freight rail traffic which makes it a convenient location for manufacturing and commerce. Ogden is also known for its historic buildings, proximity to the Wasatch Mountains. Ogden is a city of the Ogden–Clearfield, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Weber, Morgan, Davis. The 2010 Census placed the Metro population at 597,159, in 2010, Forbes rated the Ogden-Clearfield MSA as the 6th best place to raise a family. Ogden has had a Sister City relationship to Hof since 1954, originally named Fort Buenaventura, the city of Ogden was the first permanent settlement by people of European descent in the region that is now Utah. It was established by the trapper Miles Goodyear in 1846 about a mile west of where downtown Ogden is currently located, in November 1847, Fort Buenaventura was purchased by the Mormon settlers for $1,950. There is some confusion in which Ogden was the first to set foot in the Utah city, peters older brother Samuel Ogden traveled though the western United States on an exploration trip in 1818. The site of the original Fort Buenaventura is now a Weber County park, Ogden is the closest sizable city to the Golden Spike location at Promontory Summit, Utah, where the First Transcontinental Railroad was joined in 1869. Railroad passengers traveling west to San Francisco from the eastern United States typically passed through Ogden, in 1972, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints completed construction of and dedicated the Ogden Utah Temple in Ogden. The temple was built to serve the large LDS population in the area, in 2010, the LDS Church announced a major renovation of the Ogden Temple and the adjacent Tabernacle. The Temple was rededicated in 2014, because Ogden has historically been the second largest city in Utah, it is home to a large number of historic buildings. However, by the 1980s, several Salt Lake City suburbs, the Defense Depot Ogden Utah operated in Ogden from 1941 to 1997. Some of its 1,128 acres has since converted into a commercial and industrial park called the Business Depot Ogden. Ogden is located at 41°13′11″N 111°58′16″W, at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains, according to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 26.6 square miles, all land. Elevations in the city range from about 4,300 to 5,200 feet above sea level, the Ogden and Weber Rivers, which originate in the mountains to the east, flow through the city and meet at a confluence just west of the city limits. Pineview Dam is located in the Ogden River Canyon 7 miles east of Ogden, the reservoir behind the dam provides over 110,000 acre feet of water storage and water recreation for the area. Prominent mountain peaks near Ogden include Mount Ogden to the east, Ogden experiences a dry summer continental climate
2.
Hollywood
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Hollywood is an ethnically diverse, densely populated neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. It is notable as the home of the U. S. film industry, including several of its studios, and its name has come to be a shorthand reference for the industry. Hollywood was a community in 1870 and was incorporated as a municipality in 1903. It was consolidated with the city of Los Angeles in 1910, in 1853, one adobe hut stood in Nopalera, named for the Mexican Nopal cactus indigenous to the area. By 1870, an agricultural community flourished, the area was known as the Cahuenga Valley, after the pass in the Santa Monica Mountains immediately to the north. According to the diary of H. J. Whitley, known as the Father of Hollywood, along came a Chinese man in a wagon carrying wood. The man got out of the wagon and bowed, the Chinese man was asked what he was doing and replied, I holly-wood, meaning hauling wood. H. J. Whitley had an epiphany and decided to name his new town Hollywood, Holly would represent England and wood would represent his Scottish heritage. Whitley had already started over 100 towns across the western United States, Whitley arranged to buy the 500-acre E. C. Hurd ranch and disclosed to him his plans for the land. They agreed on a price and Hurd agreed to sell at a later date, before Whitley got off the ground with Hollywood, plans for the new town had spread to General Harrison Gray Otis, Hurds wife, eastern adjacent ranch co-owner Daeida Wilcox, and others. Daeida Wilcox may have learned of the name Hollywood from Ivar Weid, her neighbor in Holly Canyon and she recommended the same name to her husband, Harvey. In August 1887, Wilcox filed with the Los Angeles County Recorders office a deed and parcel map of property he had sold named Hollywood, Wilcox wanted to be the first to record it on a deed. The early real-estate boom busted that year, yet Hollywood began its slow growth. By 1900, the region had a post office, newspaper, hotel, Los Angeles, with a population of 102,479 lay 10 miles east through the vineyards, barley fields, and citrus groves. A single-track streetcar line ran down the middle of Prospect Avenue from it, but service was infrequent, the old citrus fruit-packing house was converted into a livery stable, improving transportation for the inhabitants of Hollywood. The Hollywood Hotel was opened in 1902 by H. J. Whitley who was a president of the Los Pacific Boulevard, having finally acquired the Hurd ranch and subdivided it, Whitley built the hotel to attract land buyers. Flanking the west side of Highland Avenue, the structure fronted on Prospect Avenue, the hotel was to become internationally known and was the center of the civic and social life and home of the stars for many years. Whitleys company developed and sold one of the residential areas
3.
University of Utah
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The University of Utah is a public coeducational space-grant research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. As the states flagship university, the university more than 100 undergraduate majors. The university is classified in the highest ranking, R-1, Doctoral Universities – Highest Research Activity by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, the Carnegie Classification also considers the university as selective, which is its second most selective admissions category. Quinney College of Law and the School of Medicine, Utahs only medical school, as of Fall 2015, there are 23,909 undergraduate students and 7,764 graduate students, for an enrollment total of 31,673. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret and it received its current name in 1892, four years before Utah attained statehood, and moved to its current location in 1900. The university ranks among the top 50 U. S. universities by total research expenditures with over $486 million spent in 2014, in addition, the universitys Honors College has been reviewed among 50 leading national Honors Colleges in the U. S. The university has also ranked the 12th most ideologically diverse university in the country. The universitys athletic teams, the Utes, participate in NCAA Division I athletics as a member of the Pac-12 Conference and its football team has received national attention for winning the 2005 Fiesta Bowl and the 2009 Sugar Bowl. A Board of Regents was organized by Brigham Young to establish a university in the Salt Lake Valley, early classes were held in private homes or wherever space could be found. The university closed in 1853 due to lack of funds and lack of feeder schools, the university moved out of the council house into the Union Academy building in 1876 and into Union Square in 1884. Additional Fort Douglas land has granted to the university over the years. Upon his death in 1900, Dr. John R. Park bequeathed his fortune to the university. One third of the faculty resigned in protest of these dismissals, the controversy was largely resolved when Kingsbury resigned in 1916, but university operations were again interrupted by World War I, and later The Great Depression and World War II. Student enrollment dropped to a low of 3,418 during the last year of World War II, ray Olpin made substantial additions to campus following the war, and enrollment reached 12,000 by the time he retired in 1964. Growth continued in the decades as the university developed into a research center for fields such as computer science. During the 2002 Winter Olympics, the university hosted the Olympic Village, the University of Utah Asia Campus opened as an international branch campus in the Incheon Global Campus in Songdo, Incheon, South Korea in 2014. Three other European and American universities are also participating, the Asia Campus was funded by the South Korean government. Campus takes up 1,534 acres, including the Health Sciences complex, Research Park and it is located on the east bench of the Salt Lake Valley, close to the Wasatch Range and approximately 2 miles east of downtown Salt Lake City
4.
Mormons
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After Smiths death in 1844, the Mormons followed Brigham Young to what would become the Utah Territory. Today, most Mormons are understood to be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, some Mormons are also either independent or non-practicing. The center of Mormon cultural influence is in Utah, and North America has more Mormons than any other continent, Mormons have developed a strong sense of communality that stems from their doctrine and history. Mormons dedicate large amounts of time and resources to serving in their church, Mormons have a health code which eschews alcoholic beverages, tobacco, coffee, tea, and other addictive substances. They tend to be very family-oriented, and have connections across generations and with extended family. Mormons also have a law of chastity, requiring abstention from sexual relations outside of heterosexual marriage. Mormons self-identify as Christian, although some non-Mormons consider Mormons non-Christian, Mormons believe in the Bible, as well as other books of scripture, such as the Book of Mormon. They have a view of cosmology, and believe that all people are spirit-children of God. Mormons believe that returning to God requires following the example of Jesus Christ and they believe that Christs church was restored through Joseph Smith and is guided by living prophets and apostles. Central to Mormon faith is the belief that God speaks to his children, due to their high birth and conversion rates, the Mormon population has grown significantly in recent decades rising from around three million in 1970 to over 15 million in 2015. The term Mormons has been embraced by most adherents of Mormonism, most notably Mormon fundamentalists, while other Latter Day Saint denominations, both LDS Church members and members of fundamentalist groups commonly use the word Mormon in reference to themselves. The LDS Church, however, disagrees with this self-characterization, Church leaders also encourage members to use the churchs full name to emphasize its focus on Jesus Christ. Today, polygamy is practiced within Mormonism only by people that have broken with the LDS Church, the history of the Mormons has shaped them into a people with a strong sense of unity and communality. From the start, Mormons have tried to establish what they call Zion, in the first period, Smith had tried literally to build a city called Zion, in which converts could gather. During the pioneer era, Zion became a landscape of villages in Utah, in modern times, Zion is still an ideal, though Mormons gather together in their individual congregations rather than a central geographic location. Mormons trace their origins to the visions that Joseph Smith reported having in the early 1820s while living in upstate New York, in 1823, Smith said an angel directed him to a buried book written on golden plates containing the religious history of an ancient people. Smith published what he said was a translation of these plates in March 1830 as the Book of Mormon, named after Mormon, on April 6,1830, Smith founded the Church of Christ. The early church grew westward as Smith sent missionaries to proselytize, in 1833, Missouri settlers, alarmed by the rapid influx of Mormons, expelled them from Jackson County into the nearby Clay County, where local residents were more welcoming
5.
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
6.
Medea
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In Greek mythology, Medea was the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, niece of Circe, granddaughter of the sun god Helios, and later wife to the hero Jason. In Euripides play Medea, Jason abandons Medea when Creon, king of Corinth, the play tells of Medea avenging her husbands betrayal by killing their children. Medea figures in the myth of Jason and the Argonauts, a known best from a late literary version worked up by Apollonius of Rhodes in the 3rd century BC. Medea is known in most stories as an enchantress, and is depicted as a priestess of the goddess Hecate or a witch. The myth of Jason and Medea is very old, originally written around the time Hesiod wrote the Theogony, Medeas role began after Jason came from Iolcus to Colchis, to claim his inheritance and throne by retrieving the Golden Fleece. In a familiar mythic motif, Aeëtes promised to him the fleece. Next, Jason had to sow the teeth of a dragon in the field, and the teeth sprouted into an army of warriors, Jason was forewarned by Medea, however. Unable to determine where the rock had come from, the attacked and killed each other. Finally, Aeëtes made Jason fight and kill the dragon that guarded the fleece. Jason then took the fleece and sailed away with Medea, as he had promised, Apollonius says that Medea only helped Jason in the first place because Hera had convinced Aphrodite or Eros to cause Medea to fall in love with him. Medea distracted her father as they fled by killing her brother Absyrtus, during the fight, Atalanta, a member of the group helping Jason in his quest for the fleece, was seriously wounded, but Medea healed her. According to some versions, Medea and Jason stopped on her aunt Circes island so that she could be cleansed after murdering her brother, relieving her of blame for the deed. On the way back to Thessaly, Medea prophesied that Euphemus, the helmsman of Jasons ship and this came true through Battus, a descendant of Euphemus. The Argo then reached the island of Crete, guarded by the bronze man, Talos had one vein which went from his neck to his ankle, bound shut by a single bronze nail. According to Apollodorus, Talos was slain either when Medea drove him mad with drugs, deceived him that she would make him immortal by removing the nail, or was killed by Poeass arrow. In the Argonautica, Medea hypnotized him from the Argo, driving him mad so that he dislodged the nail, ichor flowed from the wound, after Talos died, the Argo landed. Jason, celebrating his return with the Golden Fleece, noted that his father Aeson was too aged, Medea withdrew the blood from Aesons body, infused it with certain herbs, and returned it to his veins, invigorating him. The daughters of king Pelias saw this and wanted the same service for their father, while Jason searched for the Golden Fleece, Hera, who was still angry at Pelias, conspired to make Jason fall in love with Medea, whom Hera hoped would kill Pelias
7.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt, commonly known as FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd President of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. A Democrat, he won a record four presidential elections and emerged as a figure in world events during the mid-20th century. He directed the United States government during most of the Great Depression and he is often rated by scholars as one of the three greatest U. S. Presidents, along with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Roosevelt was born in 1882 to an old, prominent Dutch family from Dutchess County and he attended the elite educational institutions of Groton School, Harvard College, and Columbia Law School. At age 23 in 1905, he married Eleanor Roosevelt, and he entered politics in 1910, serving in the New York State Senate, and then as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson. In 1920, Roosevelt was presidential candidate James M. Coxs running mate and he was in office from 1929 to 1933 and served as a reform governor, promoting the enactment of programs to combat the depression besetting the United States at the time. In the 1932 presidential election, Roosevelt defeated incumbent Republican president Herbert Hoover in a landslide to win the presidency, Roosevelt took office while in the United States was in the midst of the worst economic crisis in its history. Energized by his victory over polio, FDR relied on his persistent optimism and activism to renew the national spirit. He created numerous programs to support the unemployed and farmers, and to labor union growth while more closely regulating business. His support for the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 added to his popularity, the economy improved rapidly from 1933–37, but then relapsed into a deep recession in 1937–38. The bipartisan Conservative Coalition that formed in 1937 prevented his packing the Supreme Court, when the war began and unemployment ended, conservatives in Congress repealed the two major relief programs, the WPA and CCC. However, they kept most of the regulations on business, along with several smaller programs, major surviving programs include the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Wagner Act, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Social Security. His goal was to make America the Arsenal of Democracy, which would supply munitions to the Allies, in March 1941, Roosevelt, with Congressional approval, provided Lend-Lease aid to Britain and China. He supervised the mobilization of the U. S. economy to support the war effort, as an active military leader, Roosevelt implemented a war strategy on two fronts that ended in the defeat of the Axis Powers and initiate the development of the worlds first atomic bomb. His work also influenced the creation of the United Nations. Roosevelts physical health declined during the war years, and he died 11 weeks into his fourth term. One of the oldest Dutch families in New York State, the Roosevelts distinguished themselves in other than politics. One ancestor, Isaac Roosevelt, had served with the New York militia during the American Revolution, Roosevelt attended events of the New York society Sons of the American Revolution, and joined the organization while he was president
8.
Mae West
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Mary Jane Mae West was an American actress, singer, playwright, screenwriter, comedian, and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades. For her contributions to American cinema, the American Film Institute named West 15th among the greatest female stars of classic American cinema, one of the more controversial movie stars of her day, West encountered many problems, especially censorship. She bucked the system, making out of prudish conventional mores. When her cinematic career ended, she wrote books and plays, and continued to perform in Las Vegas, in the United Kingdom, and on radio and television, asked about the various efforts to impede her career, West replied, I believe in censorship. I made an out of it. While true, she suffered greatly because of it, even going to jail for her right to freedom of speech. West was born in Bushwick, Brooklyn on August 17,1893 and she was the eldest surviving child of John Patrick West and Matilda Tillie Delker. Delker and her five siblings emigrated with their parents, Jacob and Christiana, Wests parents married on January 18,1889, in Brooklyn and reared their children as Protestants, although John West was of mixed Catholic-Protestant descent. Her father was a known as Battlin Jack West who later worked as a special policeman. Her mother was a corset and fashion model. Her paternal grandmother, Mary Jane, for whom she was named, was of Irish Catholic descent, and Wests paternal grandfather, John Edwin West, was of English-Scots descent and her eldest sibling, Katie, died in infancy. Her other siblings were Mildred Katherine West, later known as Beverly, during her childhood, Wests family moved to various parts of Woodhaven, as well as the Williamsburg and Greenpoint neighborhoods of Brooklyn. In Woodhaven, at Neirs Social Hall, West supposedly first performed professionally, West was five when she first entertained a crowd at a church social, and she started appearing in amateur shows at the age of seven. She often won prizes at local talent contests and she began performing professionally in vaudeville in the Hal Clarendon Stock Company in 1907 at the age of 14. West first performed under the stage name Baby Mae, and tried various personas, including a male impersonator and her trademark walk was said to have been inspired or influenced by female impersonators Bert Savoy and Julian Eltinge, who were famous during the Pansy Craze. Her first appearance in a Broadway show was in a 1911 revue A La Broadway put on by her former dancing teacher, the show folded after eight performances, but at age 18, West was singled out and discovered by the New York Times. The Times reviewer wrote that a girl named Mae West, hitherto unknown, pleased by her grotesquerie, West next appeared in a show called Vera Violetta, whose cast featured Al Jolson. In 1912, she appeared in the performance of A Winsome Widow as a baby vamp named La Petite Daffy
9.
Edgar Bergen
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Edgar John Bergen was an American actor, comedian and radio performer, best known for his proficiency in ventriloquism and his characters Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd. He is also the father of actress Candice Bergen, Bergen was born in Chicago, Illinois, one of five children and the youngest of two sons of Swedish immigrants Nilla Svensdotter and Johan Henriksson Berggren. He lived on a farm near Decatur, Michigan until he was 4 when his family returned to Sweden where he learned the language and he taught himself ventriloquism from a pamphlet called The Wizards Manual when he was 11 after his family returned to Chicago. He attended Lake View High School, after his father died when he was just 16, he went out to work as an apprentice accountant, a furnace stoke, a player piano operator, and a projectionist in a silent-movie house. The famous ventriloquist Harry Lester was so impressed by Edgar that he gave the teenager almost daily lessons for three months in the fundamentals of ventriloquism. In the fall of 1919, Edgar paid Chicago woodcarver Theodore Mack $36 to sculpt a likeness of a rascally red-headed Irish newspaperboy he knew, the head went on a dummy named Charlie McCarthy, which became Bergens lifelong sidekick. He had created the body himself, using a length of broomstick for the backbone. For college he attended Northwestern University where he was enrolled in the program to please his mother. He switched to Speech & Drama but never completed his degree and he gave his first public performance at Waveland Avenue Congregational Church located on the northeast corner of Waveland and Janssen. He lived across the street from the church and he cut out an R and a G from his family name and went from Berggren to Bergen on the showbills. Between June 1922 and August 1925, he performed every summer on the professional Chautauqua circuit, Bergen had an interest in aviation, becoming a private pilot. His first performances were in vaudeville, at which point he changed his last name to the easier-to-pronounce Bergen. He worked in one-reel movie shorts, but his success was on the radio. He and Charlie were seen at a New York party by Elsa Maxwell for Noël Coward and it was there that two producers saw Bergen and Charlie perform. They then recommended them for a guest appearance on Rudy Vallées program and their initial appearance was so successful that the following year they were given regular cast rolls as part of The Chase and Sanborn Hour. Under various sponsors, they were on the air from May 9,1937 to July 1,1956, the popularity of a ventriloquist on radio, when one could see neither the dummies nor his skill, surprised and puzzled many critics, then and now. Even knowing that Bergen provided the voice, listeners perceived Charlie as a genuine person, thus, in 1947, Sam Berman caricatured Bergen and McCarthy for the networks glossy promotional book, NBC Parade of Stars, As Heard Over Your Favorite NBC Station. Bergens skill as an entertainer, especially his characterization of Charlie, Bergens success on radio was paralleled in the United Kingdom by Peter Brough and his dummy Archie Andrews
10.
Errol Flynn
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Errol Leslie Flynn was an Australian-born actor who achieved fame in Hollywood after 1935. He was known for his romantic roles in Hollywood films, as well as frequent partnerships with Olivia De Havilland. Errol Leslie Flynn was born in a suburb of Hobart, Tasmania and his mother was born Lily Mary Young, but shortly after marrying Theodore at St. Johns Church of England, Birchgrove, Sydney, on 23 January 1909, she changed her first name to Marelle. Flynn described his mothers family as seafaring folk and this appears to be where his lifelong interest in boats, both of his parents were native-born Australians of Irish, English, and Scottish descent. Despite Flynns claims, the evidence indicates that he was not descended from any of the Bounty mutineers and his formal education ended with his expulsion from Shore for theft, and, he later claimed, for a sexual encounter with the schools laundress. He spent the five years oscillating between the New Guinea frontier territory and Sydney. In January 1931, he engaged to Naomi Campbell-Dibbs, the youngest daughter of Mr and Mrs R Campbell-Dibbs of Temora and Bowral NSW. Chauvel was looking for someone to play the role of Fletcher Christian, there are different stories how Errol Flynn was cast. According to one, Chauvel saw his picture in an article about a wreck involving Flynn. The most popular account is that he was discovered by cast member John Warwick, the film was not a strong success at the box office, but it was the lead role and seemed to ignite Flynns interest in acting. In late 1933 he returned to Britain to pursue a career in acting, Northampton is home to an art-house cinema named after him, the Errol Flynn Filmhouse. He performed at the 1934 Malvern Festival and in Glasgow, in 1934 Flynn was dismissed from Northampton Rep. after he threw a female stage manager down a stairwell. Asher cast him as the lead in Murder at Monte Carlo, the movie was not widely seen ), but Asher was enthusiastic about Flynns performance and cabled Warner Bros in Hollywood, recommending him for a contract. Executives agreed, and Flynn was sent out to Los Angeles, on the ship from London, Flynn met Lili Damita, an actress five years his senior whose contacts proved valuable when Flynn arrived in Los Angeles. Warner Bros publicity described him as an Irish leading man of the London stage and his first appearance was a small role in The Case of the Curious Bride. Flynn had two scenes, one as a corpse and one in flashback and his next part was slightly bigger, in Dont Bet on Blondes, a B-picture screwball comedy. Warner Bros were preparing a big budget movie, Captain Blood, based on the novel by Rafael Sabatini. They originally intended to cast Robert Donat but he turned down the role, Warners considered a number of other actors, including Leslie Howard and conducted screen tests of those they had under contract, such as Flynn
11.
Preston Sturges
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Preston Sturges was an American playwright, screenwriter, and film director. In 1941, he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the film The Great McGinty and it is not uncommon for a Sturges character to deliver an exquisitely turned phrase and take an elaborate pratfall within the same scene. A tender love scene between Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve was enlivened by a horse, which repeatedly poked its nose into Fondas head. Sturges famously sold the story for The Great McGinty to Paramount Pictures for $1, in return for being allowed to direct the film, Sturges was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Mary Estelle Dempsey and travelling salesman Edmund C. His maternal grandparents, Catherine Campbell Smyth and Dominick dEste Dempsey, were immigrants from Ireland, when Sturges was three years old, his eccentric mother left America to pursue a singing career in Paris, where she annulled her marriage with Prestons father. Returning to America, Dempsey met her husband, the wealthy stockbroker Solomon Sturges. According to biographers, Solomon Sturges was diametrically opposite to Mary and this included her close friendship with Isadora Duncan, as the young Sturges would sometimes travel from country to country with Duncans dance company. Mary also carried on an affair with Aleister Crowley and collaborated with him on his magnum opus Magick. As a young man, Sturges bounced back and forth between Europe and the United States, as Sturges spent much of his childhood and youth in France, he ended up fluent in French and a Francophile who always considered France his second home. In 1916, he worked as a runner for New York stock brokers, the next year, he enlisted in the United States Army Air Service, and graduated as a lieutenant from Camp Dick in Texas without seeing action. While at camp, Sturges wrote an essay, Three Hundred Words of Humor, returning from camp, Sturges picked up a managing position at the Desti Emporium in New York, a store owned by his mothers fourth husband. He spent eight years there, until he married the first of his four wives, in 1928, Sturges performed on Broadway in Hotbed, a short-lived play by Paul Osborn, and Sturges first produced play, The Guinea Pig, opened in Massachusetts. The play was a success and Sturges moved it to Broadway the following year and that same year also saw the opening of Sturges second play, the hit Strictly Dishonorable. Written in just six days, the play ran for sixteen months and earned Sturges over $300,000 and it attracted interest from Hollywood, and Sturges was writing for Paramount by the end of the year. Three other Sturges stage plays were produced from 1930 to 1932, one of them a musical, by the end of the year, he was working more in Hollywood as a writer-for-hire, operating on short contracts, for Universal, MGM, and Columbia studios. He also sold his screenplay for The Power and the Glory to Fox. The film told the story of a self-involved financier via a series of flashbacks and flashforwards, Sturges later recalled, The film made a lot of enemies. Writers at that time worked in teams, like piano movers, and my first solo script was considered a distinct menace to the profession
12.
B movie
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A B movie is a low-budget commercial movie, but one that is not an arthouse film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, although the U. S. production of movies intended as second features largely ceased by the end of the 1950s, the term B movie continues to be used in the broader sense it maintains today. In either usage, most B movies represent a particular genre—the Western was a Golden Age B movie staple, while low-budget science-fiction, early B movies were often part of series in which the star repeatedly played the same character. Almost always shorter than the films they were paired with. The term connoted a general perception that B movies were inferior to the more handsomely budgeted headliners, latter-day B movies still sometimes inspire multiple sequels, but series are less common. As the average running time of top-of-the-line films increased, so did that of B pictures, the term is also now used loosely to refer to some higher-budgeted, mainstream films with exploitation-style content, usually in genres traditionally associated with the B movie. From their beginnings to the present day, B movies have provided both for those coming up in the profession and others whose careers are waning. Celebrated filmmakers such as Anthony Mann and Jonathan Demme learned their craft in B movies and they are where actors such as John Wayne and Jack Nicholson first became established, and they have provided work for former A movie actors, such as Vincent Price and Karen Black. Some actors, such as Bela Lugosi, Eddie Constantine and Pam Grier, the term B actor is sometimes used to refer to a performer who finds work primarily or exclusively in B pictures. In 1927–28, at the end of the silent era, the production cost of a feature from a major Hollywood studio ranged from $190,000 at Fox to $275,000 at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. That average reflected both specials that might cost as much as $1 million and films made quickly for around $50,000. These cheaper films allowed the studios to derive value from facilities. Studios in the leagues of the industry, such as Columbia Pictures and Film Booking Offices of America. Their movies, with short running times, targeted theaters that had to economize on rental and operating costs, particularly small-town and urban neighborhood venues. A new programming scheme developed that would become standard practice, a newsreel, a short and/or serial. The second feature, which screened before the main event. The majors clearance rules favoring their affiliated theaters prevented the independents timely access to top-quality films, the low-budget picture of the 1920s thus evolved into the second feature, the B movie, of Hollywoods Golden Age. The major studios, at first resistant to the double feature, all established B units to provide films for the expanding second-feature market
