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.
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
3.
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
4.
William Wyler
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William Wyler, born as Willy Wyler was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Wyler received his first Oscar nomination for directing Dodsworth in 1936, starring Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton and Mary Astor, Film historian Ian Freer calls Wyler a bona fide perfectionist, whose penchant for retakes and an attempt to hone every last nuance, became the stuff of legend. Through his talent for staging, editing, and camera movement and he helped propel a number of actors to stardom, finding and directing Audrey Hepburn in her Hollywood debut film, Roman Holiday, and directing Barbra Streisand in her debut film, Funny Girl. He directed Olivia de Havilland to her second Oscar in The Heiress and Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights, Olivier credited Wyler with teaching him how to act for the screen. And Bette Davis, who received three Oscar nominations under his direction and won her second Oscar in Jezebel, said Wyler made her a far, far better actress than she had ever been. Other popular Wyler films include, Hells Heroes, Dodsworth, The Westerner, The Letter, Friendly Persuasion, The Big Country, The Childrens Hour, Wyler was born to a Jewish family in Mulhouse, Alsace. His Swiss father, Leopold, started as a traveling salesman which he turned into a thriving haberdashery business in Mulhouse. His mother, Melanie, was German, and a cousin of Carl Laemmle, during Wylers childhood, he attended a number of schools and developed a reputation as something of a hellraiser, being expelled more than once for misbehavior. His mother often took him and his older brother Robert to concerts, opera, sometimes at home his family and their friends would stage amateur theatricals for personal enjoyment. Wyler was supposed to take over the family business in Mulhouse. After World War I, he spent a year working in Paris at 100.000 Chemises selling shirts. He was so poor that he spent his time wandering around the Pigalle district. After realizing that Willy was not interested in the business, his mother, Melanie, contacted her distant cousin, Carl Laemmle who owned Universal Studios. Laemmle was in the habit of coming to Europe each year, in 1921, Wyler, while traveling as a Swiss citizen, met Laemmle who hired him to work at Universal Studios in New York. As Wyler said, America seemed as far away as the moon, booked onto a ship to New York with Laemmle upon his return voyage, he met a young Czech man, Paul Kohner, aboard the same ship. Their enjoyment of the first class trip was short-lived, however, after working in New York for several years, and even serving in the New York Army National Guard for a year, Wyler moved to Hollywood to become a director. Around 1923, Wyler arrived in Los Angeles and began work on the Universal Studios lot in the gang, cleaning the stages. His break came when he was hired as an assistant editor
5.
Warner Bros.
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Entertainment Inc. – colloquially known as Warner Bros. or Warner Bros. It is one of the Big Six major American film studios, Warner Bros. is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America. The companys name originated from the four founding Warner brothers, Harry, Albert, Sam, Jack, the youngest, was born in London, Ontario. The three elder brothers began in the theater business, having acquired a movie projector with which they showed films in the mining towns of Pennsylvania. In the beginning, Sam and Albert Warner invested $150 to present Life of an American Fireman and they opened their first theater, the Cascade, in New Castle, Pennsylvania, in 1903. When the original building was in danger of being demolished, the modern Warner Bros. called the current building owners, the owners noted people across the country had asked them to protect it for its historical significance. In 1904, the Warners founded the Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Amusement & Supply Company, in 1912, Harry Warner hired an auditor named Paul Ashley Chase. By the time of World War I they had begun producing films, in 1918 they opened the first Warner Bros. studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Sam and Jack produced the pictures, while Harry and Albert, along with their auditor and now controller Chase, handled finance and distribution in New York City. During World War I their first nationally syndicated film, My Four Years in Germany, on April 4,1923, with help from money loaned to Harry by his banker Motley Flint, they formally incorporated as Warner Brothers Pictures, Incorporated. The first important deal was the acquisition of the rights to Avery Hopwoods 1919 Broadway play, The Gold Diggers, however, Rin Tin Tin, a dog brought from France after World War I by an American soldier, established their reputation. Rin Tin Tin debuted in the feature Where the North Begins, the movie was so successful that Jack signed the dog to star in more films for $1,000 per week. Rin Tin Tin became the top star. Jack nicknamed him The Mortgage Lifter and the success boosted Darryl F. Zanucks career, Zanuck eventually became a top producer and between 1928 and 1933 served as Jacks right-hand man and executive producer, with responsibilities including day-to-day film production. More success came after Ernst Lubitsch was hired as head director, lubitschs film The Marriage Circle was the studios most successful film of 1924, and was on The New York Times best list for that year. Despite the success of Rin Tin Tin and Lubitsch, Warners remained a lesser studio, Sam and Jack decided to offer Broadway actor John Barrymore the lead role in Beau Brummel. The film was so successful that Harry signed Barrymore to a contract, like The Marriage Circle. By the end of 1924, Warner Bros. was arguably Hollywoods most successful independent studio, as the studio prospered, it gained backing from Wall Street, and in 1924 Goldman Sachs arranged a major loan
6.
James Cagney
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James Francis Cagney Jr. was an American actor and dancer, both on stage and in film, though he had his greatest impact in film. Known for his energetic performances, distinctive vocal style, and deadpan comic timing, he won acclaim. He is best remembered for playing multifaceted tough guys in movies such as The Public Enemy, Angels with Dirty Faces, and White Heat, and was typecast or limited by this view earlier in his career. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth among its list of greatest male stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema. Orson Welles said of Cagney, maybe the greatest actor who appeared in front of a camera. In his first professional acting performance, Cagney danced costumed as a woman in the line of the revue Every Sailor. He spent several years in vaudeville as a dancer and comedian and he secured several other roles, receiving good notices, before landing the lead in the 1929 play Penny Arcade. After rave reviews, Warner Bros. signed him for an initial $500-a-week, three-week contract to reprise his role, Cagneys seventh film, The Public Enemy, became one of the most influential gangster movies of the period. Notable for a scene in which Cagney pushes a grapefruit against Mae Clarkes face. He became one of Hollywoods biggest stars and one of Warner Bros. biggest contracts, in 1938, he received his first Academy Award for Best Actor nomination, for Angels with Dirty Faces, for his subtle portrayal of the tough guy/man-child Rocky Sullivan. In 1942, Cagney won the Oscar for his portrayal of George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy. He was nominated a third time in 1955 for Love Me or Leave Me, Cagney retired from acting and dancing in 1961 to spend time on his farm with his family. He exited retirement,20 years later, for a part in the movie Ragtime, Cagney walked out on Warner Bros. several times over the course of his career, each time returning on much improved personal and artistic terms. In 1935, he sued Warner for breach of contract and won and this was one of the first times an actor prevailed over a studio on a contract issue. In reference to Cagneys refusal to be pushed around, Jack L, Warner called him the Professional Againster. Cagney also made numerous morale-boosting troop tours before and during World War II and was president of the Screen Actors Guild for two years, Cagney was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. His biographers disagree as to the location, either on the corner of Avenue D. His father, James Francis Cagney, Sr. was of Irish descent, at the time of his sons birth, he was a bartender and amateur boxer, though on Cagneys birth certificate, he is listed as a telegraphist
7.
Humphrey Bogart
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Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American screen and stage actor whose performances in 1940s films noir such as The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, and The Big Sleep earned him status as a cultural icon. Bogart began acting in 1921 after a hitch in the U. S. Navy in World War I and little success in various jobs in finance, gradually he became a regular in Broadway shows in the 1920s and 1930s. When the stock market crash of 1929 reduced the demand for plays, Bogarts breakthrough as a leading man came in 1941 with High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon. His last film was The Harder They Fall, during a film career of almost 30 years, Bogart appeared in more than 75 feature films. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star of Classic American cinema, over his career, he received three Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, winning one. Bogart was born on Christmas Day,1899, in New York City, Belmont was the only child of the unhappy marriage of Adam Watkins Bogart, a Canandaigua, New York innkeeper, and his wife, Julia, a wealthy heiress. The name Bogart comes from the Dutch surname Bogaert, Belmont and Maud married in June 1898, he was a Presbyterian, of English and Dutch descent, and she was an Episcopalian of English heritage, and a descendant of Mayflower passenger John Howland. Young Humphrey was raised in the Episcopal faith, but was non-practicing for most of his adult life, the corrected January birthdate subsequently appeared—and in some cases, remains—in many otherwise authoritative sources. Sperber and Eric Lax documented, however, that Bogart always celebrated his birthday on December 25, Lauren Bacall confirmed in her autobiography that his birthday was always celebrated on Christmas Day, adding that he joked that he was cheated out of a present every year because of it. Bogarts father, Belmont, was a cardiopulmonary surgeon and his mother, Maud, was a commercial illustrator who received her art training in New York and France, including study with James McNeill Whistler. Later she became art director of the fashion magazine The Delineator and she used a drawing of baby Humphrey in a well-known advertising campaign for Mellins Baby Food. In her prime, she made over $50,000 a year, then a vast sum, the Bogarts lived in a fashionable Upper West Side apartment, and had an elegant cottage on a 55-acre estate on Canandaigua Lake in upstate New York. As a youngster, Humphreys gang of friends at the lake would put on theatricals, Humphrey had two younger sisters, Frances and Catherine Elizabeth. His parents were busy in their careers and frequently fought, very formal, they showed little emotion towards their children. Maud told her offspring to call her Maud not Mother, when pleased she lapped you on the shoulder, almost the way a man does, Bogart recalled. I was brought up very unsentimentally but very straightforwardly, a kiss, in our family, was an event. Our mother and father didnt glug over my two sisters and me. As a boy, Bogart was teased for his curls, tidiness, the pictures his mother had him pose for, the Little Lord Fauntleroy clothes she dressed him in
8.
John Garfield
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John Garfield was an American actor who played brooding, rebellious, working-class characters. He grew up in poverty in Depression-era New York City, in the early 1930s, he became a member of the Group Theater. In 1937, he moved to Hollywood, eventually becoming one of Warner Bros. stars, called to testify before the U. S. Congressional House Committee on Un-American Activities, he denied communist affiliation and refused to name names, some have alleged that the stress of this incident led to his premature death at 39 from a heart attack. Garfield is acknowledged as a predecessor of such Method actors as Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, in early infancy, a middle name—Julius—was added, and for the rest of his life those who knew him well called him Julie. His father, a presser and part-time cantor, struggled to make a living. When Garfield was five, his brother Max was born and their mother never fully recovered from what was described as a difficult pregnancy. She died two years later, and the boys were sent to live with various relatives, all poor, scattered across the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens. Several of these lived in tenements in a section of East Brooklyn called Brownsville. At school, he was judged a poor reader and speller and he would later say of his time on the streets there, that he learned all the meanness, all the toughness its possible for kids to acquire. His father remarried and moved to the West Bronx, where Garfield joined a series of gangs, much later, he would recall, Every street had its own gang. Thats the way it was in poor sections and he soon became a gang leader. At this time, people started to notice his ability to mimic well-known performers and he also began to hang out and eventually spar at a boxing gym on Jerome Avenue. At some point, he contracted fever, causing permanent damage to his heart. After being expelled three times and expressing a wish to quit school altogether, his parents sent him to P. S,45, a school for difficult children. It was under the guidance of the schools principal—the noted educator Angelo Patri—that he was introduced to acting, noticing Garfields tendency to stammer, Patri assigned him to a speech therapy class taught by a charismatic teacher named Margaret ORyan. She gave him acting exercises and made him memorize and deliver speeches in front of the class and, as he progressed, ORyan thought he had natural talent and cast him in school plays. She encouraged him to sign up for a citywide debating competition sponsored by the New York Times, to his own surprise, he took second prize
9.
Pat O'Brien (actor)
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William Joseph Patrick Pat OBrien was an American film actor with more than one hundred screen credits. Of Irish descent, he often played Irish and Irish-American characters and was referred to as Hollywoods Irishman in Residence in the press, one of the best-known screen actors of the 1930s and 1940s, he played priests, cops, military figures, pilots, and reporters. He is especially well-remembered for his roles in Knute Rockne, All American, Angels with Dirty Faces and he was frequently paired onscreen with Hollywood legend James Cagney. OBrien also appeared on stage and television, Pat OBrien was born in 1899 to an Irish-American Roman Catholic family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. All four of his grandparents had come from Ireland, the OBriens were originally from County Cork. His grandfather, Patrick OBrien, for whom he was named, was an architect who was killed trying to break up a saloon fight in New York City. His mothers parents, the McGoverns, immigrated from County Galway in the west of Ireland in the mid- to late-19th century, as a child, OBrien served as an altar boy at Gesu Church, while growing up near 13th and Clybourn streets in Milwaukee. He attended Marquette Academy with fellow actor Spencer Tracy, who became a lifelong friend, during World War I, OBrien and Tracy joined the United States Navy. They both attended boot camp at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, but the war ended before their training had finished, Jack Benny was also at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center at the same time as OBrien and Tracy. According to his autobiography, Benny performed a number on the violin at a one evening. OBrien walked on stage and whispered in his ear, For heavens sake, Ben, put down the damn fiddle, Benny stopped playing his violin and made a series of comments that got laughs from the audience. In this way, OBrien indirectly helped to start Bennys career in comedy, after the war, OBrien finished his secondary schooling at Marquette Academy and later attended Marquette University. While still at college, he decided to work as an actor. He moved to New York, where he lived for a while with Tracy, after a decade in plays on Broadway and in the New York City area, OBrien began appearing in movies in 1930. Often playing fast-talking smart alecs or romantic leads at first, he progressed to playing a string of authority figures, especially cops. His first starring role was as ace reporter Hildy Johnson in the original 1931 version of The Front Page with Adolphe Menjou, Warner Brothers hired OBrien as a contract player in 1933. He remained with the studio until 1940, when he left after a dispute over the terms of his contract renewal and he appeared with James Cagney, also under contract to Warner Brothers, in nine feature films, including Angels with Dirty Faces and Cagneys last film, Ragtime. The two originally met in 1926 and remained friends for almost six decades, after OBriens death, Cagney referred to him as his dearest friend
10.
Ronald Reagan
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Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician and actor who was the 40th President of the United States, from 1981 to 1989. Before his presidency, he was the 33rd Governor of California, from 1967 to 1975, after a career as a Hollywood actor and union leader. Raised in a family in small towns of northern Illinois, Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932. After moving to Hollywood in 1937, he became an actor, Reagan was twice elected President of the Screen Actors Guild, the labor union for actors, where he worked to root out Communist influence. In the 1950s, he moved into television and was a speaker at General Electric factories. Having been a lifelong Democrat, his views changed and he became a conservative and in 1962 switched to the Republican Party. In 1964, Reagans speech, A Time for Choosing, in support of Barry Goldwaters foundering presidential campaign, Building a network of supporters, he was elected Governor of California in 1966. Entering the presidency in 1981, Reagan implemented sweeping new political, in his first term he survived an assassination attempt, spurred the War on Drugs, and fought public sector labor. During his re-election bid, Reagan campaigned on the notion that it was Morning in America, foreign affairs dominated his second term, including ending of the Cold War, the bombing of Libya, and the Iran–Contra affair. Publicly describing the Soviet Union as an empire, and during his famous speech at the Brandenburg Gate. Jack, a salesman and storyteller, was the grandson of Irish Catholic immigrants from County Tipperary, Reagan had one older brother, John Neil Reagan, who became an advertising executive. As a boy, Reagans father nicknamed his son Dutch, due to his fat little Dutchman-like appearance and Dutchboy haircut, Reagans family briefly lived in several towns and cities in Illinois, including Monmouth, Galesburg, and Chicago. In 1919, they returned to Tampico and lived above the H. C, Pitney Variety Store until finally settling in Dixon. After his election as president, residing in the upstairs White House private quarters, for the time, Reagan was unusual in his opposition to racial discrimination, and recalled a time in Dixon when the local inn would not allow black people to stay there. Reagan brought them back to his house, where his mother invited them to stay the night and have breakfast the next morning, after the closure of the Pitney Store in late 1920 and the familys move to Dixon, the midwestern small universe had a lasting impression on Reagan. Reagan attended Dixon High School, where he developed interests in acting, sports and his first job was as a lifeguard at the Rock River in Lowell Park in 1927. Over a six-year period, Reagan reportedly performed 77 rescues as a lifeguard and he attended Eureka College, a Disciples-oriented liberal arts school, where he became a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, a cheerleader, and studied economics and sociology. While involved, the Miller Center of Public Affairs described him as an indifferent student and he majored in economics and sociology, and graduated with a C grade
11.
Universal Pictures
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Universal Pictures is an American film studio owned by Comcast through the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group division of its wholly owned subsidiary NBCUniversal. The company was founded in 1912 by Carl Laemmle, Mark Dintenfass, Charles O. Baumann, Adam Kessel, Pat Powers, William Swanson, David Horsley and its studios are located in Universal City, California, and its corporate offices are located in New York City. Universal Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America and is one of Hollywoods Big Six studios. Universal Studios was founded by Carl Laemmle, Mark Dintenfass, Charles O. Baumann, Adam Kessel, Pat Powers, William Swanson, David Horsley, Robert H. Cochrane, one story has Laemmle watching a box office for hours, counting patrons and calculating the days takings. Within weeks of his Chicago trip, Laemmle gave up dry goods to buy the first several nickelodeons, for Laemmle and other such entrepreneurs, the creation in 1908 of the Edison-backed Motion Picture Trust meant that exhibitors were expected to pay fees for Trust-produced films they showed. Soon, Laemmle and other disgruntled nickelodeon owners decided to avoid paying Edison by producing their own pictures, in June 1909, Laemmle started the Yankee Film Company with partners Abe Stern and Julius Stern. Laemmle broke with Edisons custom of refusing to give billing and screen credits to performers, by naming the movie stars, he attracted many of the leading players of the time, contributing to the creation of the star system. In 1910, he promoted Florence Lawrence, formerly known as The Biograph Girl, the Universal Film Manufacturing Company was incorporated in New York on April 30,1912. Laemmle, who emerged as president in July 1912, was the figure in the partnership with Dintenfass, Baumann, Kessel, Powers, Swanson, Horsley. Eventually all would be out by Laemmle. Following the westward trend of the industry, by the end of 1912 the company was focusing its efforts in the Hollywood area. On March 15,1915, Laemmle opened the worlds largest motion picture production facility, Universal City Studios, studio management became the third facet of Universals operations, with the studio incorporated as a distinct subsidiary organization. Unlike other movie moguls, Laemmle opened his studio to tourists, Universal became the largest studio in Hollywood, and remained so for a decade. However, it sought an audience mostly in towns, producing mostly inexpensive melodramas, westerns. In its early years Universal released three brands of feature films — Red Feather, low-budget programmers, Bluebird, more ambitious productions, and Jewel, their prestige motion pictures. Directors included Jack Conway, John Ford, Rex Ingram, Robert Z. Leonard, George Marshall and Lois Weber, despite Laemmles role as an innovator, he was an extremely cautious studio chief. Unlike rivals Adolph Zukor, William Fox, and Marcus Loew and he also financed all of his own films, refusing to take on debt. Character actor Lon Chaney became a card for Universal in the 1920s
12.
Our Gang
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Our Gang is a series of American comedy short films about a group of poor neighborhood children and their adventures. The series broke new ground by portraying white and black boys, the franchise began in 1922 as a series of silent short subjects produced by the Roach studio and released by Pathé Exchange. Roach changed distributors from Pathé to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1927, and the series entered its most popular period after converting to sound in 1929, production continued at the Roach studio until 1938, when the series was sold to MGM, which produced the comedies until 1944. In total, the Our Gang series includes 220 shorts and one film, General Spanky. Roachs The Little Rascals package and MGMs Our Gang package have since remained in syndication, new productions based on the shorts have been made over the years, including a 1994 feature film, Little Rascals, released by Universal Pictures. Senior director Robert F. McGowan helmed most of the Our Gang shorts until 1933, McGowan worked to develop a style that allowed the children to be as natural as possible, downplaying the importance of the filmmaking equipment. Scripts were written for the shorts by the Hal Roach comedy writing staff, when sound came in at the end of the 1920s, McGowan modified his approach slightly, but scripts were not adhered to until McGowan left the series. Douglas in particular had to streamline his films, as he directed Our Gang after Roach halved the running times of the shorts from two reels to one reel. As children became too old for the series, they were replaced by new children, eventually Our Gang talent scouting employed large-scale national contests in which thousands of children tried out for an open role. Norman Chubby Chaney, Matthew Stymie Beard and Billie Buckwheat Thomas all won contests to become members of the gang, even when there was no talent search, the studio was bombarded by requests from parents who were sure their children were perfect for the series. Among them were the child stars Mickey Rooney and Shirley Temple. The Our Gang series is notable for being one of the first in history in which blacks. The four African-American child actors who held main roles in the series were Ernie Sunshine Sammy Morrison, Allen Farina Hoskins, Matthew Stymie Beard and Billie Buckwheat Thomas. Ernie Morrison was, in fact, the first African-American actor signed to a contract in Hollywood history. In their adult years, Morrison, Beard and Thomas became some of Our Gangs staunchest defenders, maintaining that its integrated cast and we were just a group of kids who were having fun, Stymie Beard recalled. Ernie Morrison stated, When it came to race, Hal Roach was color-blind, other minorities, including the Asian Americans (Sing Joy, Allen Tong, and Edward Soo Hoo and the Italian American actor, were depicted in the series with varying levels of stereotyping. According to Roach, the idea for Our Gang came to him in 1921, the girl was, in his opinion, overly made up and overly rehearsed, and Roach waited for the audition to be over. After the girl and her left the office, Roach looked out of his window to a lumberyard across the street
