1.
White Plains, New York
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White Plains is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is the county seat and commercial hub of Westchester, an affluent suburban county just north of New York City that is home to almost one million people, White Plains is located in south-central Westchester, with its downtown 25 miles north of Midtown Manhattan. As of 2013, the total population was estimated to be 57,866. According to the city government, the daytime population is estimated at 250,000. The city was ranked third in the top 10 places to live in New York for 2014, according to national online real estate brokerage Movoto. At the time of the Dutch settlement of Manhattan in the early 17th century, however, John Richbell of Mamaroneck claimed to have earlier title to much of the territory through his purchase of a far larger plot extending 20 miles inland, perhaps from a different tribe. The matter wasnt settled until 1721, when a Royal Patent for White Plains was granted by King George II, the unincorporated village remained part of the Town of Rye until 1788, when the town of White Plains was created. On July 9,1776, a copy of the Declaration of Independence was delivered to the New York Provincial Congress, the delegates quickly adopted a resolution approving the Declaration, thus declaring both the colonys independence and the formation of the State of New York. The Declaration itself was first publicly read from the steps of the courthouse on July 11, the Battle of White Plains took place primarily on Chatterton Hill, and the Bronx River. Howes forces had suffered 250 casualties, a loss, and he made no attempt to pursue the Continentals, whose casualties were about 125 dead. Three days after the battle Washington withdrew north of the village, but after several inconclusive skirmishes over the next week Howe withdrew on November 5, leaving White Plains to the Continentals. Although he was court-martialed and convicted for this action, he escaped punishment, the first United States Census, conducted in 1790, listed the White Plains population at 505, of whom 46 were slaves. By 1800, the population stood at 575 and in 1830,830, by 1870,26 years after the arrival of the New York Central Railroad, it had swollen to 2,630 and by 1890 to 4,508. In the decades that followed the count grew to 7,899 and 26,425, White Plains was incorporated as a village in 1866 and as a city in 1916. Early in the 20th century, White Plains downtown area developed into a dominant suburban shopping district and featured branch stores of many famous New York-based department and specialty stores. Some of these locations were the first large-scale suburban stores built in the United States. With the construction of the parkways and expressways in the 1940s and 1960s, with a city opening ceremony Macys launched a grand White Plains store on Main Street across from City Hall in 1949. As the mayor said at the time, this was a significant event in the life of White Plains, at the time of its construction, the Westchester One building was the largest office building between New York City and Albany, and east to Hartford
2.
Los Angeles
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Los Angeles, officially the City of Los Angeles and often known by its initials L. A. is the cultural, financial, and commercial center of Southern California. With a census-estimated 2015 population of 3,971,883, it is the second-most populous city in the United States, Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the United States. The citys inhabitants are referred to as Angelenos, historically home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California. The city was founded on September 4,1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence, in 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4,1850, the discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California, nicknamed the City of Angels, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, and sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles also has an economy in culture, media, fashion, science, sports, technology, education, medicine. A global city, it has been ranked 6th in the Global Cities Index, the city is home to renowned institutions covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields, and is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States. The Los Angeles combined statistical area has a gross metropolitan product of $831 billion, making it the third-largest in the world, after the Greater Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. The city has hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1932 and 1984 and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics and thus become the second city after London to have hosted the Games three times. The Los Angeles area also hosted the 1994 FIFA mens World Cup final match as well as the 1999 FIFA womens World Cup final match, the mens event was watched on television by over 700 million people worldwide. The Los Angeles coastal area was first settled by the Tongva, a Gabrielino settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ, meaning poison oak place. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2,1769, in 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. The Queen of the Angels is an honorific of the Virgin Mary, two-thirds of the settlers were mestizo or mulatto with a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small town for decades, but by 1820. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, during Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta Californias regional capital
3.
Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
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Forest Lawn Memorial Park — Hollywood Hills is one of the six Forest Lawn Southern California cemeteries. It is located at 6300 Forest Lawn Dr, Los Angeles, CA90068, in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Forest Lawn — Hollywood Hills is a dedicated to the preservation of American history and hosts high-profile events such as an annual Veterans Day ceremony attended by dignitaries. The park features such sights as, The Court of Liberty features statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, at 162 feet long and 28 feet high, Birth of Liberty is the largest historical mosaic in the United States. It is composed of ten pieces of Venetian glass and depicts twenty-five scenes from early America. The Old North Church, a replica of Bostons historic church. The historical rooms have documents and mementos of the colonial period, the Hall of Liberty American History Museum has a copy of the Liberty Bell and other exhibits. The museum has a 1, 200-seat auditorium, monument to Washington, a marble and bronze tribute to Americas first president, created by sculptor Thomas Ball. Four of Washingtons generals are honored in the memorial, the Lincoln Terrace features a 16-foot bronze statue of the 16th president by Augustus St. Gaudens, flanked by a panoramic mosaic depicting key scenes from Lincolns life. The Plaza of Mesoamerican Heritage has indigenous/non-Christian sculptures by Meliton Salas Rodriguez, of Guadalajara, the first Forest Lawn, in Glendale, was founded in 1906 by businessmen who hired Dr. Hubert Eaton, a firm believer in a joyous life after death. Before it was a cemetery, Forest Lawn was a location used by directors such as Carl Laemmle. The climactic battle scenes for D. W. Griffiths The Birth of a Nation were filmed there. The alternate names of the site are Providencia Flats, Nestor Ranch, Oak Ranch, Oak Crest Ranch, Universal Ranch/Universal City, Lasky Ranch. When Eaton made known his desire to open a second Forest Lawn location in the Hollywood Hills, the local residents protested vehemently. To circumvent the protesters, Mr. Eaton sent his staff to the county morgue to claim 6 John Does, in the morning, the protesters had no power because, by law, the property was now a cemetery. A mausoleum, for crypt or vault interments, a crematory and columbarium, for cinerary interments. A place where six or more bodies are buried. The new mortuary and cemetery opened in 1952, interred or entombed in the Hollywood Hills cemetery are many famous people, particularly from the entertainment industry
4.
Film
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A film, also called a movie, motion picture, theatrical film or photoplay, is a series of still images which, when shown on a screen, creates the illusion of moving images due to the phi phenomenon. This optical illusion causes the audience to perceive continuous motion between separate objects viewed rapidly in succession, the process of filmmaking is both an art and an industry. The word cinema, short for cinematography, is used to refer to the industry of films. Films were originally recorded onto plastic film through a photochemical process, the adoption of CGI-based special effects led to the use of digital intermediates. Most contemporary films are now fully digital through the process of production, distribution. Films recorded in a form traditionally included an analogous optical soundtrack. It runs along a portion of the film exclusively reserved for it and is not projected, Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures. They reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them, Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment, and a powerful medium for educating—or indoctrinating—citizens. The visual basis of film gives it a power of communication. Some films have become popular worldwide attractions by using dubbing or subtitles to translate the dialog into the language of the viewer, some have criticized the film industrys glorification of violence and its potentially negative treatment of women. The individual images that make up a film are called frames, the perception of motion is due to a psychological effect called phi phenomenon. The name film originates from the fact that film has historically been the medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for a motion picture, including picture, picture show, moving picture, photoplay. The most common term in the United States is movie, while in Europe film is preferred. Terms for the field, in general, include the big screen, the screen, the movies, and cinema. In early years, the sheet was sometimes used instead of screen. Preceding film in origin by thousands of years, early plays and dances had elements common to film, scripts, sets, costumes, production, direction, actors, audiences, storyboards, much terminology later used in film theory and criticism apply, such as mise en scène. Owing to the lack of any technology for doing so, the moving images, the magic lantern, probably created by Christiaan Huygens in the 1650s, could be used to project animation, which was achieved by various types of mechanical slides
5.
Stage (theatre)
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In theatre and performing arts, the stage is a designated space for the performance of productions. The stage serves as a space for actors or performers and a point for the members of the audience. As an architectural feature, the stage may consist of a platform or series of platforms, in some cases, these may be temporary or adjustable but in theaters and other buildings devoted to such productions, the stage is often a permanent feature. There are several types of stages that vary as to the usage, the most common form found in the West is the proscenium stage. In this type, the audience is located on one side of the stage with the remaining sides hidden and used by the performers and technicians. Thrust stages may be similar to proscenium stages but with a platform or performance area that extends into the space so that the audience is located on three sides. In theatre in the round, the audience is located on all four sides of the stage, the fourth type of stage incorporates created and found stages which may be constructed specifically for a performance or may involve a space that is adapted as a stage. Since the Italian Renaissance, the most common used in the West has been the proscenium stage which may also be referred to as a picture frame stage. The primary feature is an opening known as the proscenium arch through which the audience views the performance. The audience directly faces the stage—which is typically raised several feet above front row audience level—and views only one side of the scene and this one side is commonly known as the invisible fourth wall of the scene. The proscenium arch evolved from the proskenium in Ancient Greek theaters and this was the space in front of the skênê or backdrop where the actors actually played. Stage floors were raked upward slightly from front to back in order to contribute to the illusion and also to make actors more visible to audiences. Subsequently, audience seating was raked, and balconies were added to give audiences a fuller view, by the end of the 19th century most stages had level floors, and much of the audience looked down on, rather than up to, the stage. The competition among royals to produce elegant and elaborate entertainments fueled and financed the expansion of European court theatres, the proscenium—which often was extremely decorative in the manner of a triumphal arch—framed the prospective picture. A wood grid above the stage supported pulleys from which wooden battens, the weight of heavy pieces was counterbalanced by sandbags. This system required the creation of a stage house or loft that was usually as high or higher than the proscenium itself. Theatres using these systems, which are manually operated by stage hands, are known as hemp houses. They have been supplanted by counterweight fly systems
6.
Television
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Television or TV is a telecommunication medium used for transmitting moving images in monochrome, or in color, and in two or three dimensions and sound. The term can refer to a set, a television program. Television is a medium for entertainment, education, news, politics, gossip. Television became available in experimental forms in the late 1920s. After World War II, a form of black-and-white TV broadcasting became popular in the United States and Britain, and television sets became commonplace in homes, businesses. During the 1950s, television was the medium for influencing public opinion. In the mid-1960s, color broadcasting was introduced in the US, for many reasons, the storage of television and video programming now occurs on the cloud. At the end of the first decade of the 2000s, digital television transmissions greatly increased in popularity, another development was the move from standard-definition television to high-definition television, which provides a resolution that is substantially higher. HDTV may be transmitted in various formats, 1080p, 1080i, in 2013, 79% of the worlds households owned a television set. Most TV sets sold in the 2000s were flat-panel, mainly LEDs, major manufacturers announced the discontinuation of CRT, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-backlit LCDs by the mid-2010s. In the near future, LEDs are gradually expected to be replaced by OLEDs, also, major manufacturers have announced that they will increasingly produce smart TVs in the mid-2010s. Smart TVs with integrated Internet and Web 2.0 functions became the dominant form of television by the late 2010s, Television signals were initially distributed only as terrestrial television using high-powered radio-frequency transmitters to broadcast the signal to individual television receivers. Alternatively television signals are distributed by cable or optical fiber, satellite systems and. Until the early 2000s, these were transmitted as analog signals, a standard television set is composed of multiple internal electronic circuits, including a tuner for receiving and decoding broadcast signals. A visual display device which lacks a tuner is correctly called a video monitor rather than a television, the word television comes from Ancient Greek τῆλε, meaning far, and Latin visio, meaning sight. The Anglicised version of the term is first attested in 1907 and it was. formed in English or borrowed from French télévision. In the 19th century and early 20th century, other. proposals for the name of a technology for sending pictures over distance were telephote. The abbreviation TV is from 1948, the use of the term to mean a television set dates from 1941
7.
Cornell University
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Cornell University is an American private Ivy League and land-grant doctoral university located in Ithaca, New York. These ideals, unconventional for the time, are captured in Cornells motto, the university also administers two satellite medical campuses, one in New York City and one in Education City, Qatar. Cornell is one of three private land grant universities in the nation and the one in New York. Of its seven colleges, three are state-supported statutory or contract colleges through the State University of New York system, including its agricultural. Of Cornells graduate schools, only the college is state-supported. As a land grant college, Cornell operates a cooperative extension program in every county of New York. The Cornell University Ithaca Campus comprises 745 acres, but is larger when the Cornell Botanic Gardens are considered. Since its founding, Cornell has been a co-educational, non-sectarian institution where admission has not been restricted by religion or race, the student body consists of more than 14,000 undergraduate and 7,000 graduate students from all 50 American states and more than 120 countries. Cornell University was founded on April 27,1865, the New York State Senate authorized the university as the land grant institution. Senator Ezra Cornell offered his farm in Ithaca, New York, as a site, fellow senator and experienced educator Andrew Dickson White agreed to be the first president. During the next three years, White oversaw the construction of the first two buildings and traveled to attract students and faculty, the university was inaugurated on October 7,1868, and 412 men were enrolled the next day. Cornell developed as an innovative institution, applying its research to its own campus as well as to outreach efforts. For example, in 1883 it was one of the first university campuses to use electricity from a dynamo to light the grounds. Cornell has had active alumni since its earliest classes and it was one of the first universities to include alumni-elected representatives on its Board of Trustees. Today the university has more than 4,000 courses, since 2000, Cornell has been expanding its international programs. In 2004, the university opened the Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar and it has partnerships with institutions in India, Singapore, and the Peoples Republic of China. Former president Jeffrey S. Lehman described the university, with its international profile. On March 9,2004, Cornell and Stanford University laid the cornerstone for a new Bridging the Rift Center to be built, Cornells main campus is on East Hill in Ithaca, New York, overlooking the town and Cayuga Lake
8.
Sphinx Head
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The Sphinx Head Society is the oldest senior honor society at Cornell University. Sphinx Head recognizes Cornell senior men and women who have demonstrated respectable strength of character on top of a dedication to leadership, in 1929 The New York Times held that election into Sphinx Head and similar societies constituted the highest non-scholastic honor within reach of undergraduates. Sphinx Head was founded on October 11,1890 by a group of ten men from the senior class, the Society was founded in order to create and maintain a stronger feeling for Cornell University and to promote a closer and stronger friendship among members of the Senior class. White encouraged the formation of a secret society system on the Cornell campus, in 1926, the society built a clubhouse for itself designed to resemble an Egyptian tomb perched halfway down the cliff on the Fall Creek gorge. It sold the building in 1969, and it became the home. Each year, Sphinx Head taps fewer than forty men and women of the class for membership. Since the Societys founding, membership has been reserved for the most respected members of the senior class, the names of newly tapped Sphinx Heads were published in The New York Times through the 1930s, but are now published exclusively in The Cornell Daily Sun. Sphinx Head has retained an aura of mystery throughout its history on campus, holding some closely guarded secrets, although membership in Sphinx Head is public, the proceedings of the Society remain concealed. Numerous members are also profiled in The 100 Most Notable Cornellians, 1890–1899 Louis A. Fuertes, Ornithologist, Renowned bird artist. Maxwell M. Upson, Namesake of Upson Hall on the Engineering Quad of the Cornell campus, Cornell University Trustee for over 35 years, former President of Raymond International Inc. 1900–1909 Neal D. Becker, Chairman of the Cornell University Board of Trustees, Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, john Carpenter, Olympic Athlete in the 400 meter race at the 1908 Olympic Games. Frederick D. Colson, Deputy Attorney General of New York State, second President of the Coors Brewing Company. Charles M. French, Olympic athlete in the 800m race in the 1908 Olympic Games, munson, Gold medalist in the 4 mile team race track & field event at the 1904 Olympic Games. John L. Senior, First Graduate Manager of Athletics for Cornell University, organized the first Spring Day, richmond H. Shreve, Architect who led the construction of the Empire State Building with his firm Shreve, Lamb and Harmon. Olympic lacrosse coach, Inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1992, william J. Warner, Inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1971. 1910–1919 Tell S. Berna, Gold medalist in the 3000m team track & field event at the 1912 Olympic Games, Gold medalist in the pole vault track & field event at the 1908 Olympic Games. Dresser, Gold medalist in the 3000 meter track & field event at the 1920 Olympic Games, john Jack E. OHearn, Inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1972. Murray N. Shelton, Inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1973, elbert P. Tuttle, Chief judge in the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Atlanta, Georgia, Recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981
9.
Franchot Tone
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Stanislaus Pascal Franchot Tone, known as Franchot Tone, was an American stage, film, and television actor. He was the star of many films and television series throughout his career, such as Bonanza, Wagon Train, The Twilight Zone, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. He is perhaps best known for his role as Midshipman Roger Byam in Mutiny on the Bounty, starring alongside Clark Gable and his maternal great-grandfather was congressman Richard Franchot. Tone was a distant relative of Wolfe Tone, his great grandfather John Tone was a first cousin of Peter Tone. Tone was of French Canadian, Irish, and English ancestry, through his ancestor, the nobleman Gilbert BasqueHomme, he was of French Basque descent. Tone was educated at The Hill School, where he was dismissed “for being an influence for disorder throughout the fall term. ”He then entered Cornell University. He also joined Alpha Delta Phi fraternity and he gave up the family business to pursue an acting career in the theatre. After graduating, he moved to Greenwich Village, New York, the following year, he joined the Theatre Guild and played Curly in their production of Green Grow the Lilacs. Strasberg had been a castmate of Tones in Green Grow the Lilacs and these were intense and productive years for him, among the productions of the Group he acted in were 1931 and Success Story. The same year, however, Tone was the first of the Group to turn his back on the theatre, in his memoir on the Group Theatre, The Fervent Years, Harold Clurman recalls Tone as the most confrontational and egocentric of the group in the beginning. Nevertheless, he always considered cinema far inferior to the theatre and he often sent financial support to the Group Theatre, which often needed it. He eventually returned to stage work after the 1940s. Tone summered at Pine Brook Country Club, located in the countryside of Nichols, Connecticut, Tones screen debut was in the 1932 movie The Wiser Sex. In 1935, he starred in Mutiny on the Bounty, The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, Tone worked steadily through the 1940s, but he often played second leads or love interests in films that focused on a major female star. He played the lead in the 1940 Western comedy Trail of the Vigilantes featuring Warren William, Broderick Crawford. Tones tour de force role as a manic depressive sociopath included performing many of his own stunts on the Paris landmark, in the 1950s, facing subtle blacklisting in Hollywood, he found parts in New York City-based live television, including the original production of Twelve Angry Men. He also returned to Broadway, notably appearing in A Moon for the Misbegotten with Wendy Hiller in 1957, also that year he co-produced, co-directed, and starred in an adaptation of Chekhovs Uncle Vanya, which was filmed concurrently with an off-Broadway revival. He also co-starred in the Ben Casey medical series from 1965 to 1966 as Caseys supervisor, on film, he received acclaim as the charismatic, dying president in Otto Premingers 1962 film version of Advise & Consent
10.
Tallulah Bankhead
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Tallulah Brockman Bankhead was an American actress of the stage and screen, and a reputed libertine. Bankhead was known for her voice, outrageous personality. Originating some of the 20th-century theaters preeminent roles in comedy and melodrama, Bankhead became an icon of the tempestuous, flamboyant actress, and her unique voice and mannerisms are often subject to imitation and parody. Tallulah hailed from the Brockman Bankheads, a prominent Alabama political family — her grandfather, senators and her father served as Speaker of the House of Representatives. Primarily an actress of the stage, Bankhead did have one hit on film, as well as a brief and she later made appearances on television, some of which have become classics. In her personal life, Bankhead struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction, Bankhead was capable of great kindness and generosity to those in need, supporting disadvantaged foster children and helping several families escape the Spanish Civil War and World War II. Bankhead was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1972, upon her death, Bankhead was credited with nearly 300 film, stage, television, and radio roles. She is regarded as one of the 20th century theatres great Leading Ladies, Tallulah Brockman Bankhead was born on January 31,1902, in Huntsville, Alabama to William Brockman Bankhead and Adelaide Eugenia Ada Bankhead. Tallu was named after her grandmother, who in turn was named after Tallulah Falls. Her father hailed from the Bankhead-and-Brockman political family, active in the Democratic Party in the South in general and her father was the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1936 to 1940. She was the niece of Senator John H. Bankhead II and her mother, Adelaide Ada Eugenia, was a native of Como, Mississippi, and was engaged to another man when she met William Bankhead on a trip to Huntsville, Alabama to buy her wedding dress. The two fell in love at first sight and were married on January 31,1900 in Memphis and their first child, Ada Eugenia, was born on January 24,1901. She was born prematurely and suffered from vision difficulties, the following year, Bankhead was born on her parents wedding anniversary, on the second floor of what is now known as the Isaac Schiffman Building. A marker was erected to commemorate the site, and in 1980 the building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, Ada died of blood poisoning on February 23,1902, three weeks after Bankheads birth. Coincidentally, her grandmother had died giving birth to her mother. On her deathbed, Ada told her sister-in-law to take care of Eugenia, Bankhead was baptized next to her mothers coffin. Bankhead was devastated by his wifes death, which sent him into a bout of depression, consequently, Tallulah and her sister Eugenia were mostly reared by their paternal grandmother, Tallulah James Brockman Bankhead, at the family estate called Sunset in Jasper, Alabama. As a child, Bankhead was described as extremely homely and overweight, while her sister was slim, as a result, she did everything in her efforts to gain attention, and constantly sought her fathers approval
11.
The Little Foxes
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The Little Foxes is a 1939 play by Lillian Hellman, considered a classic of 20th century drama. Set in a town in Alabama in 1900, it focuses on the struggle for control of a family business. Tallulah Bankhead starred in the production as Regina Hubbard Giddens. Hes no businessman, just her financial support, and although hes pliable enough for her ambition, that ambition has driven him into becoming merely the sickly, wheelchair-bound tool of her insatiable greed. Her brother Oscar married Birdie, his alcoholic wife, solely to acquire her familys plantation. Oscar now wants to join forces with his brother, Benjamin and they need an additional $75,000 and approach Regina, asking her to invest in the project. Oscar initially proposes marriage between his son Leo and Reginas daughter Alexandra—first cousins—as a means of getting Horaces money, but Horace and Alexandra are repulsed by the suggestion. Horace refuses when Regina asks him outright for the money, so Leo, when he suffers a heart attack during this chat, she makes no effort to help him. He dies within hours, without knowing his plan and before changing his will. This leaves Regina free to blackmail her brothers by threatening to report Leos theft unless they give her 75% ownership in the cotton mill, the price Regina ultimately pays for her evil deeds is the loss of her daughter Alexandras love and respect. Reginas actions cause Alexandra to finally understand the importance of not idly watching people do evil and she tells Regina she will not watch her be one who eats the earth, and abandons her. Having let her die, alienated her brothers, and driven away her only child, Regina is left wealthy. The fictional Hubbards in the play are drawn from Lillian Hellmans Marx relatives. Hellmans mother was Julia Newhouse of Demopolis, Alabama, Julia Newhouses parents were Leonard Newhouse, a Demopolis wholesale liquor dealer, and Sophie Marx, of a successful Demopolis banking family. According to Hellman, Sophie Marx Newhouse never missed an opportunity to belittle, the discord between the Marx and Hellman families was to later serve as the inspiration for the play. The title The Little Foxes was suggested by Dorothy Parker, in 1946, Hellman wrote Another Part of the Forest, a prequel chronicling the roots of the Hubbard family. Produced and directed by Herman Shumlin, the original Broadway production of The Little Foxes opened February 15,1939 and it ran for 410 performances before its extensive tour of the United States. Tallulah Bankhead won Variety magazines citation as best actress of the year, Lillian Hellman wrote the screenplay for a 1941 film version, a Samuel Goldwyn production directed by William Wyler
12.
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
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