CinemaScore
CinemaScore is a market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, forecasts box office receipts based on the data. Ed Mintz founded CinemaScore in 1979 after disliking The Cheap Detective despite being a fan of Neil Simon, hearing another disappointed attendee wanting to hear the opinions of ordinary people instead of critics. A Yom Kippur donation card with tabs inspired the survey cards given to audience members; the company conducts surveys to audiences who have seen a film in theaters, asking them to rate the film and specifying what drew them to the film. Its results are published in Entertainment Weekly. CinemaScore conducts surveys to determine audience interest in renting films on video, breaking the demographic down by age and sex and passing along information to video companies such as Fox Video Corporation. CinemaScore pollster Dede Gilmore reported the trend in 1993, "Most movies get a B-plus.
I think. They have high expectations. They're more lenient with their grades, but as do it more and more, they get to be stronger critics". In 1993, films that were graded with an A included Scent of a Woman, A Few Good Men and Falling Down. Films graded with a B included Untamed Heart. A C-grade film for the year was Body of Evidence. CinemaScore at first reported its findings to consumers, including a newspaper column and a radio show. After 20th Century Fox approached the company in 1989, it began selling the data to studios instead. A website was launched by CinemaScore in 1999, after three years' delay in which the president sought sponsorship from magazines and video companies. Brad Peppard was president of CinemaScore Online from 1999 to 2002; the website included a database of the audiences' reactions to them. Prior to the launch, CinemaScore results had been published in Las Vegas Review-Journal and Reno Gazette-Journal. CinemaScore's expansion to the Internet included a weekly email subscription for cinephiles to keep up with reports of audience reactions.
In 1999, CinemaScore was rating 140 films a year, including 98–99% of major studio releases. For each film, employees polled 400–500 moviegoers in three of CinemaScore's 15 sites, which included the cities Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Atlanta, Tampa and Coral Springs. In the summer of 2002, CinemaScore reported that the season had the biggest collective grade since 1995. In the summer of 2000, 25 out of 32 films received either an B grade. Twenty-six of the summer of 2001's 30 films got similar grades, while 32 of the summer of 2002's 34 films got similar grades, the latter being the highest ratio in a decade. Since July 2014, CinemaScore reports its results on Twitter, from January 16, 2016, it began with Collateral Beauty to use for each of them an image with the movie poster on the left and the grade obtained on the right. Only films that open in more than 1,500 screens are polled and reported on CinemaScore's website and social media; the distributor of a film that opens in fewer screens can optionally contract with CinemaScore for a private survey, whose result would be disclosed only to the client.
CinemaScore describes itself as "the industry leader in measuring movie appeal". Thirty-five to 45 teams of CinemaScore representatives are present in 25 large cities across North America; each Friday, representatives in five randomly chosen cities give opening-day audiences a small survey card. The card asks for age, gender, a grade for the film, whether they would rent or buy the film on DVD or Blu-ray, why they chose the film. CinemaScore receives about 400 cards per film. An overall grade of A+ and F is calculated as the average of the grades given by responders. In this case, grades other than F are qualified with minus or neither; the ratings are divided by age groups. Film studios and other subscribers receive the data at about 11 p.m. Pacific Time. CinemaScore publishes letter grades to the public on social media and, although the detailed data is proprietary, the grades become shared in the media and the industry. Subsequent advertisements for ranked films cite their CinemaScore grades.
As opening-night audiences are more enthusiastic about a film than ordinary patrons, a C grade from them is - according to the Los Angeles Times - "bad news, the equivalent of a failing grade". According to Ed Mintz, "A’s are good, B’s are shaky, C’s are terrible. D’s and F’s, they shouldn’t have made the movie, or they promoted it funny and the absolute wrong crowd got into it". Horror films score lower. CinemaScore's Harold Mintz said that "An F in a horror film is equivalent to a B- in a comedy". An A+ grade from CinemaScore for a film predicts a successful box office. From 1982 to August 2011, only 52 films received the top grade, including seven Academy Award for Best Picture winners. From 2000 to February 2018, there were 44 movies with A+; as of April 5, 2018, 77 films have received A+. From 2004 to 2014, those rated A+ and A had multiples of 4.8 and 3.6 while C-rated films' total revenue was 2.5 times their opening weekend. Ed Mintz cited Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Cruise as the "two stars, it doesn’t matter how bad the film is, they can pull up".
(DiCaprio's Shutter Island had a 3.1 revenue multiple despite a C+ grade, Cruise's Vanilla Sky had a 4 multiple with a
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. referred to as Warner Bros. and abbreviated as WB, is an American entertainment company headquartered in Burbank, California and a subsidiary of AT&T's WarnerMedia. Founded in 1923, it has operations in film and video games and is one of the "Big Five" major American film studios, as well as a member of the Motion Picture Association of America; the company's name originated from the four founding Warner brothers: Harry, Albert and Jack Warner. Harry and Sam emigrated as young children with their parents to Canada from Krasnosielc, Poland. Jack, the youngest brother, was born in Ontario; the three elder brothers began in the movie theater business, having acquired a movie projector with which they showed films in the mining towns of Pennsylvania and Ohio. In the beginning and Albert Warner invested $150 to present Life of an American Fireman and The Great Train Robbery, 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, arranged to save it.
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, to distribute films. In 1912, Harry Warner hired. By the time of World War I they had begun producing films. In 1918 they opened the first Warner Brothers 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, based on a popular book by former ambassador James W. Gerard, was released. On April 4, 1923, with help from money loaned to Harry by his banker Motley Flint, they formally incorporated as Warner Bros. Pictures, Incorporated; the first important deal was the acquisition of the rights to Avery Hopwood's 1919 Broadway play, The Gold Diggers, from theatrical impresario David Belasco.
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; the movie was so successful. Rin Tin Tin became the studio's top star. Jack nicknamed him "The Mortgage Lifter" and the success boosted Darryl F. Zanuck's career. Zanuck became a top producer and between 1928 and 1933 served as Jack's right-hand man and executive producer, with responsibilities including day-to-day film production. More success came. Lubitsch's film The Marriage Circle was the studio's most successful film of 1924, was on The New York Times best list for that year. Despite the success of Rin Tin Tin and Lubitsch, Warner's 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. By the end of 1924, Warner Bros. was arguably Hollywood's most successful independent studio, where it competed with "The Big Three" Studios. As a result, Harry Warner—while speaking at a convention of 1,500 independent exhibitors in Milwaukee, Wisconsin—was able to convince the filmmakers to spend $500,000 in newspaper advertising, Harry saw this as an opportunity to establish theaters in cities such as New York and Los Angeles.
As the studio prospered, it gained backing from Wall Street, in 1924 Goldman Sachs arranged a major loan. With this new money, the Warners bought the pioneer Vitagraph Company which had a nationwide distribution system. In 1925, Warners' experimented in radio, establishing a successful radio station, KFWB, in Los Angeles. Warner Bros. was a pioneer of films with synchronized sound. In 1925, at Sam's urging, Warner's agreed to add this feature to their productions. By February 1926, the studio reported a net loss of $333,413. After a long period denying Sam's request for sound, Harry agreed to change, as long as the studio's use of synchronized sound was for background music purposes only; the Warners signed a contract with the sound engineer company Western Electric and established Vitaphone. In 1926, Vitaphone began making films with music and effects tracks, most notably, in the feature Don Juan starring John Barrymore; the film was silent. To hype Don Juan's release, Harry acquired the large Piccadilly Theater in Manhattan, New York City, renamed it Warners' Theatre.
Don Juan premiered at the Warners' Theatre in New York on August 6, 1926. Throughout the early history of film distribution, theater owners hired orchestras to attend film showings, where they provided soundtracks. Through Vitaphone, Warner Bros. produced eight shorts in 1926. Many film production companies questioned the necessity. Don Juan did not recoup its production cost and Lubitsch left for MGM. By April 1927, the Big Five studios had ruined Warner's, Western Electric renewed Warner's Vit
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American newspaper based in New York City with worldwide influence and readership. Founded in 1851, the paper has won more than any other newspaper; the Times is ranked 17th in the world by circulation and 2nd in the U. S; the paper is owned by The New York Times Company, publicly traded and is controlled by the Sulzberger family through a dual-class share structure. It has been owned by the family since 1896. G. Sulzberger, the paper's publisher, his father, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. the company's chairman, are the fourth and fifth generation of the family to helm the paper. Nicknamed "The Gray Lady", the Times has long been regarded within the industry as a national "newspaper of record"; the paper's motto, "All the News That's Fit to Print", appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page. Since the mid-1970s, The New York Times has expanded its layout and organization, adding special weekly sections on various topics supplementing the regular news, editorials and features.
Since 2008, the Times has been organized into the following sections: News, Editorials/Opinions-Columns/Op-Ed, New York, Sports of The Times, Science, Home and other features. On Sunday, the Times is supplemented by the Sunday Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine and T: The New York Times Style Magazine; the Times stayed with the broadsheet full-page set-up and an eight-column format for several years after most papers switched to six, was one of the last newspapers to adopt color photography on the front page. The New York Times was founded as the New-York Daily Times on September 18, 1851. Founded by journalist and politician Henry Jarvis Raymond and former banker George Jones, the Times was published by Raymond, Jones & Company. Early investors in the company included Edwin B. Morgan, Christopher Morgan, Edward B. Wesley. Sold for a penny, the inaugural edition attempted to address various speculations on its purpose and positions that preceded its release: We shall be Conservative, in all cases where we think Conservatism essential to the public good.
We do not believe that everything in Society is either right or wrong. In 1852, the newspaper started a western division, The Times of California, which arrived whenever a mail boat from New York docked in California. However, the effort failed. On September 14, 1857, the newspaper shortened its name to The New-York Times. On April 21, 1861, The New York Times began publishing a Sunday edition to offer daily coverage of the Civil War. One of the earliest public controversies it was involved with was the Mortara Affair, the subject of twenty editorials in the Times alone; the main office of The New York Times was attacked during the New York City Draft Riots. The riots, sparked by the beginning of drafting for the Union Army, began on July 13, 1863. On "Newspaper Row", across from City Hall, Henry Raymond stopped the rioters with Gatling guns, early machine guns, one of which he manned himself; the mob diverted, instead attacking the headquarters of abolitionist publisher Horace Greeley's New York Tribune until being forced to flee by the Brooklyn City Police, who had crossed the East River to help the Manhattan authorities.
In 1869, Henry Raymond died, George Jones took over as publisher. The newspaper's influence grew in 1870 and 1871, when it published a series of exposés on William Tweed, leader of the city's Democratic Party—popularly known as "Tammany Hall" —that led to the end of the Tweed Ring's domination of New York's City Hall. Tweed had offered The New York Times five million dollars to not publish the story. In the 1880s, The New York Times transitioned from supporting Republican Party candidates in its editorials to becoming more politically independent and analytical. In 1884, the paper supported Democrat Grover Cleveland in his first presidential campaign. While this move cost The New York Times a portion of its readership among its more progressive and Republican readers, the paper regained most of its lost ground within a few years. After George Jones died in 1891, Charles Ransom Miller and other New York Times editors raised $1 million dollars to buy the Times, printing it under the New York Times Publishing Company.
However, the newspaper was financially crippled by the Panic of 1893, by 1896, the newspaper had a circulation of less than 9,000, was losing $1,000 a day. That year, Adolph Ochs, the publisher of the Chattanooga Times, gained a controlling interest in the company for $75,000. Shortly after assuming control of the paper, Ochs coined the paper's slogan, "All The News That's Fit To Print"; the slogan has appeared in the paper since September 1896, has been printed in a box in the upper left hand corner of the front page since early 1897. The slogan was a jab at competing papers, such as Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal, which were known for a lurid and inaccurate reporting of facts and opinions, described by the end of the century as "yellow journalism". Under Ochs' guidance, aided by Carr
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is an American monthly magazine that focuses on popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California in 1967 by Jann Wenner, still the magazine's publisher, the music critic Ralph J. Gleason, it was first known for political reporting by Hunter S. Thompson. In the 1990s, the magazine shifted focus to a younger readership interested in youth-oriented television shows, film actors, popular music. In recent years, it has resumed its traditional mix of content. Rolling Stone Press is the magazine's associated book publishing imprint. Straight Arrow Press was the magazine's associated book publishing imprint, Straight Arrow Publishing Co. Inc. was the publishing company that published Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone magazine was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Ralph Gleason. To get it off the ground, Wenner borrowed $7,500 from his own family and from the parents of his soon-to-be wife, Jane Schindelheim; the first issue carried a cover date of November 9, 1967, was in newspaper format with a lead article on the Monterey Pop Festival.
The cover price was 25¢. In the first issue, Wenner explained that the title of the magazine referred to the 1950 blues song "Rollin' Stone", recorded by Muddy Waters, Bob Dylan's hit single "Like a Rolling Stone": You're wondering what we're trying to do. It's hard to say: sort of a sort of a newspaper; the name of it is Rolling Stone which comes from an old saying, "A rolling stone gathers no moss." Muddy Waters used the name for a song. The Rolling Stones took their name from Muddy's song. "Like a Rolling Stone" was the title of Bob Dylan's first rock and roll record. We have begun a new publication reflecting what we see are the changes in rock and roll and the changes related to rock and roll."—Jann Wenner, Rolling Stone, November 9, 1967, p. 2 Some authors have attributed the name to Dylan's hit single: "At Gleason's suggestion, Wenner named his magazine after a Bob Dylan song." Rolling Stone identified with and reported the hippie counterculture of the era. However, it distanced itself from the underground newspapers of the time, such as Berkeley Barb, embracing more traditional journalistic standards and avoiding the radical politics of the underground press.
In the first edition, Wenner wrote that Rolling Stone "is not just about the music, but about the things and attitudes that music embraces". In the 1970s, Rolling Stone began to make a mark with its political coverage, with the likes of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson writing for the magazine's political section. Thompson first published his most famous work Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas within the pages of Rolling Stone, where he remained a contributing editor until his death in 2005. In the 1970s, the magazine helped launch the careers of many prominent authors, including Cameron Crowe, Lester Bangs, Joe Klein, Joe Eszterhas, Ben Fong-Torres, Patti Smith and P. J. O'Rourke, it was at this point that the magazine ran some of its most famous stories, including that of the Patty Hearst abduction odyssey. One interviewer, speaking for a large number of his peers, said that he bought his first copy of the magazine upon initial arrival on his college campus, describing it as a "rite of passage".
In 1977, the magazine moved its headquarters from San Francisco to New York City. Editor Jann Wenner said San Francisco had become "a cultural backwater". During the 1980s, the magazine began to shift towards being a general "entertainment" magazine. Music was still a dominant topic, but there was increasing coverage of celebrities in television and the pop culture of the day; the magazine initiated its annual "Hot Issue" during this time. Rolling Stone was known for its musical coverage and for Thompson's political reporting. In the 1990s, the magazine changed its format to appeal to a younger readership interested in youth-oriented television shows, film actors and popular music; this led to criticism. In recent years, the magazine has resumed its traditional mix of content, including in-depth political stories, it has expanded content to include coverage of financial and banking issues. As a result, the magazine has seen its circulation increase and its reporters invited as experts to network television programs of note.
The printed format has gone through several changes. The first publications, in 1967–72, were in folded tabloid newspaper format, with no staples, black ink text, a single color highlight that changed each edition. From 1973 onwards, editions were produced on a four-color press with a different newsprint paper size. In 1979, the bar code appeared. In 1980, it became a large format magazine; as of edition of October 30, 2008, Rolling Stone has had a smaller, standard-format magazine size. After years of declining readership, the magazine experienced a major resurgence of interest and relevance with the work of two young journalists in the late 2000s, Michael Hastings and Matt Taibbi. In 2005, Dana Leslie Fields, former publisher of Rolling Stone, who had worked at the magazine for 17 years, was an inaugural inductee into the Magazine Hall of Fame. In 2009, Taibbi unleashed an acclaimed series of scathing reports on the financial meltdown of the time, he famously described Goldman Sachs as "a great vampire squid".
Bigger headlines came at the end of June 2010. Rolling Stone caused a controversy in the White House by publishing in the July issue an article by journalist Michael Hastings entitled, "The Runaway General", quoting criticism by General Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of the International Security Assistance Force and U. S. Forces-Afghanistan commander, about Vice President Joe Biden and oth
Richard D. Zanuck
Richard Darryl Zanuck was an American film producer. His 1989 film Driving Miss Daisy won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Zanuck was instrumental in launching the careers of directors Tim Burton and Steven Spielberg, who described Zanuck as a "director's producer" and "one of the most honorable and loyal men of our profession." Richard Darryl Zanuck was born in Los Angeles, to actress Virginia Fox and Darryl F. Zanuck head of production for 20th Century Fox. While studying at Stanford University, he began his career in the film industry working for the 20th Century Fox story department. In 1959, Zanuck had his first shot at producing with the film Compulsion. In the 1960s, Zanuck became the president of 20th Century Fox. One year of his tenure was chronicled by John Gregory Dunne in The Studio. After failures like 1967's Doctor Dolittle, he was fired by his father and joined Warner Bros. as Executive Vice President. In 1972, Zanuck joined with David Brown to form an independent production company called the Zanuck/Brown Company at Universal Pictures.
The two men produced The Sugarland Express and Jaws. They subsequently produced such box office hits as Cocoon and Driving Miss Daisy before dissolving their partnership in 1988, they were jointly awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1990, he worked with Tim Burton six times, producing Burton's adaptation of Planet of the Apes, Big Fish and the Chocolate Factory, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Alice in Wonderland, Dark Shadows. He and Burton connected and Zanuck was Burton's producer of choice. In a May 2012 interview, Zanuck told Variety: "A producer should contribute from the beginning until the end, in all aspects. I'm there on every shot. Not that the director Tim, needs me, but just in case." Zanuck married three times. On January 14, 1958, he married Lili Charlene Gentle, an actress from Birmingham and second cousin of Tallulah Bankhead; the marriage, which produced two daughters, Virginia Lorraine Zanuck and Janet Beverly Zanuck, was dissolved in 1968.
On October 26, 1969, Zanuck and his protégé, actress Linda Harrison, together with his friend, producer Sy Bartlett, Harrison's sister Kay, flew to Las Vegas, where Zanuck married Harrison on a balcony of the Sands Hotel. The marriage became difficult after Harrison failed to garner the role of the wife in Zanuck's production of Jaws. In mid-1977, as a result of his second wife's entanglement with a 65-year-old "guru", Vincentii Turriziani of the Risen Christ Foundation, the alleged guru's claims and demands for money from Zanuck, he filed for divorce and was awarded custody of his two sons, Harrison Richard Zanuck and Dean Francis Zanuck. In a 1985 interview, Zanuck said. "Both girls were actresses, neither one was well established," he said. As head of 20th Century Fox, "It was tough to try to be fair to the project and try to help them in their careers. If I didn't give them the role I had to explain why they weren't right for it, it wasn't the major problem in the marriages, but it was an underlying source of discomfort."On September 23, 1978, Zanuck married his third wife, Lili Fini, a former World Bank employee and Carnation Co. office manager, who helped him raise his sons from his second marriage, would co-produce some of his most memorable films, including Cocoon, Driving Miss Daisy, Reign of Fire.
When the Zanucks won the Best Picture Oscar in 1989 for Driving Miss Daisy, Lili Fini Zanuck was only the second woman in history to have earned an Oscar for Best Picture. In 1998, she directed an episode of the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, titled "We Have Cleared the Tower", in 2000, Richard and Lili Fini Zanuck co-produced the 72nd Academy Awards ceremony. Zanuck died on July 2012, of a heart attack at his home in Los Angeles; the Beverly Park home he had lived in until his death was sold for $20.1M in July 2012. On February 25, 2014, 20th Century Fox opened the Richard D. Zanuck Production Building at its Los Angeles studios. "Richard was a true giant of our industry for over five decades," Fox Chairman and CEO Jim Gianopulos said at the dedication ceremony. "He was family, an integral part of our legacy. We couldn't find a building worthy of him, so we built one." The ceremony was attended by Zanuck's widow, Lili Fini Zanuck, his sons and Dean, four of his nine grandchildren, Darryl and Luke Zanuck.
Richard D. Zanuck on IMDb The Zanucks: Reel Royalty
Esther Rolle
Esther Rolle was an American actress. Rolle is best known for her role as Florida Evans, on the CBS television sitcom Maude, for two seasons, its spin-off series Good Times, for five seasons, for which Rolle was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Television Series Musical or Comedy in 1976, she was the 1979 winner of the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Special. Esther Rolle was born in Florida, she was the tenth of 18 children. Rolle graduated from Blanche Ely High School in Florida, she studied at Spelman College in Atlanta, before moving to New York City. While in New York, she attended Hunter College before transferring to The New School and Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. For many years, Rolle worked in a traditional day job in New York City's garment district. Rolle was a member of Shogolo Oloba, she became the troupe’s director in 1960. Rolle's earliest roles were on the stage, she was cast in plays produced by Robert Hooks and the Negro Ensemble Company.
She appeared in productions of The Crucible and Blues for Mr. Charlie. Rolle's most prominent early role was as Miss Maybell in the 1973 Melvin Van Peebles play, Don't Play Us Cheap.1 In 1977, Rolle portrayed Lady Macbeth in Orson Welles' Haitian-influenced version at the Henry Street New Federal Theater in Manhattan. Rolle is best known for her television role as Florida Evans, the character she played on two 1970s sitcoms; the character was introduced as Maude Findlay's housekeeper on Maude, was spun off in the show's second season into Good Times, a show about Florida's family. Rolle was nominated in 1975 for the Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy Golden Globe Award for her role in Good Times. Rolle was 19 years older than the actor; the James Evans character was only added after Esther Rolle fought hard for a father figure and husband to be added to the show. Rolle had fought for the father character on the show, more relevant themes and scripts and was unhappy when the success of Jimmie Walker's character, J.
J. Evans, took the show in a frivolous direction. John Amos agreed with Rolle about Walker's character and was fired from the show after the third season ended. On, in a stand-off with Good Times producer Norman Lear, Rolle quit when her contract ended. Although the show continued without her for the fifth season, she returned for the show's final season. In 1979 she won an Emmy for her role in Summer of a made-for-television movie. Among her guest star roles was one on The Incredible Hulk in an episode entitled "Behind the Wheel" where she played a taxicab business owner. In the 1990s, Rolle was a surprise guest on RuPaul's VH-1 talk show, her Maude co-star Bea Arthur was the guest, Rolle was brought out to surprise Arthur. The two had not seen each other in years, Arthur said, embraced warmly. Rolle appeared in a series of psychic hotline TV commercials in the 1990s. "Tell them Esther sent you," was her trademark line. Rolle released an album of music titled The Garden of My Mind in 1975. Rolle's first screen appearance is a small, uncredited role in To Kill a Mockingbird, she appeared in Gordon Parks' The Learning Tree.
Her sister, actress Estelle Evans, appeared in both films as well. Esther Rolle appeared early in her career in Nothing But a Man. After Good Times ended, she appeared in a number of made-for-television movies and films, including Driving Miss Daisy and My Fellow Americans. A memorable role was that of Aunt Sarah in the film Rosewood, she had a major role in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings based on Maya Angelou's memoir of the same name, has the distinction of having won the first Emmy Award for the category Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie, in 1979, for her work in the television movie Summer of My German Soldier. She is credited for her role in the film, The Mighty Quinn, starring Denzel Washington and Sheryl Lee Ralph, featuring Robert Townsend, her last film, Train Ride was released in 2000 despite being filmed in 1998. Rolle's only marriage was to Oscar Robinson; the two were married from 1955 to 1975. They had no children. Rolle died on November 17, 1998, in Culver City, from complications of diabetes, nine days after her 78th birthday.
Her body was flown back to her hometown of Florida. A devout member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Rolle requested that her funeral be held at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, she is buried in Westview Community Cemetery in Pompano Beach. Esther Rolle's personal collection is housed at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Trophies and statues of her awards are available for research such as the 1974 NAACP Eighth Image Award for Best Actress In A Series and her 1979 Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Special her role in Summer of My German Soldier. Day of Absence Happy Ending The Amen Corner Man Better Man Akokawe Ride a Black Horse The Dream on Monkey Mountain Rosalee Pritchett Don't Play Us Cheap A Ballet Behind the Bridge Horowitz and Mrs. Washington Nevis Mountain Dew Dame Lorraine A Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet A Raisin in the Sun Member of the Wedding Brooks, Tim; the Complete Directory to
Alfred Uhry
Alfred Fox Uhry is an American playwright and screenwriter. He has received an Academy Award, two Tony Awards and the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for dramatic writing for Driving Miss Daisy, he is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Uhry was born in Atlanta, the son of Alene, a social worker, Ralph K. Uhry, a furniture designer and artist, he was born into a Jewish family with the author Ann Uhry Abrams. Uhry graduated from Druid Hills High School in 1954 and subsequently graduated from Brown University where he wrote two original musicals with Brownbrokers. Druid Hills High School's Uhry Theater is named in honor of Uhry. During his first years in New York City, learning the craft of lyric-writing, Uhry received a stipend from Frank Loesser. Uhry's early work for the stage was as a lyricist and librettist for a number of commercially unsuccessful musicals, including a revival of Little Johnny Jones starring Donny Osmond which ran for one performance on Broadway, his first collaboration with Robert Waldman was the 1968 musical Here's Where I Belong, which closed after one performance on Broadway.
They had better success with The Robber Bridegroom, which premiered on Broadway in both 1975 and 1976, had a year-long national tour, garnered Uhry his first Tony Award nomination, for best book of a musical in 1976. America's Sweetheart, with music by Robert Waldman and with the book co-written by Uhry with John Weidman, ran at the Hartford Stage, Connecticut in March 1985 to April 1985, at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, Florida, where it closed; the Robber Bridegroom was revived Off-Broadway in March 2016 at the Roundabout Theatre Company and directed by Alex Timbers. This production won three Lucille Lortel Awards including Outstanding Revival. Driving Miss Daisy is the first in what is known as his "Atlanta Trilogy" of plays, all set during the first half of the 20th century. Produced Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons, the play earned him the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, it deals with the relationship between her black chauffeur. He adapted it into the screenplay for a 1989 film starring Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman, an adaptation, awarded the Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay, in addition to the Academy Award for Tandy as best actress.
The second of the trilogy, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, is set in 1939 during the premiere of the film Gone with the Wind. It deals with a Jewish family during an important social event, it was commissioned for the Cultural Olympiad in Atlanta which coincided with the 1996 Summer Olympics, received the Tony Award for Best Play when produced on Broadway in 1997. The third is the 1998 musical Parade, about the 1913 trial of Jewish factory manager Leo Frank; the libretto earned him a Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical. The music was written by Jason Robert Brown. Uhry's play Edgardo Mine is based on the true story of Edgardo Mortara, an Italian child taken by police from his Jewish family in 1858 because one of their domestic servants had baptized him; the play, directed by Doug Hughes, opened at Hartford Stage, Connecticut in November 2002. The Manhattan Theatre Club produced Uhry's musical LoveMusik on Broadway in 2007; the story depicts the relationship between composer Kurt Weill and his wife, Lotte Lenya, using Weill's music.
Apples & Oranges premiered on October 2012 at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. This new play is about the rediscovery of a sibling relationship. Angel Reapers, a collaboration with director/choreographer Martha Clarke, ran Off-Broadway at the Signature Theatre from February 2 to March 20, 2016; this production won the Lucille Lortel Award for "Outstanding Alternative Theatrical Experience". Uhry wrote the screenplay for the 1989 film version of Driving Miss Daisy and for the 1992 film Rich in Love, his next screenplay is for a film announced in 2009, From Swastika to Jim Crow, a dramatization of a documentary about Jewish professors who flee Nazi Germany, find posts in the Southern US, identify with their African-American students and their struggle under Jim Crow. Uhry is married to Joanna Kellogg, they live in New York City. Alfred Uhry at the Internet Broadway Database Alfred Uhry on IMDb Alfred Uhry at the Internet Off-Broadway Database Alfred Uhry on Charlie Rose Works by or about Alfred Uhry in libraries "Alfred Uhry collected news and commentary".
The New York Times. Profile at the Fellowship of Southern Writers Interviewed by Paul Rudd for BOMB Magazine 2016 Lucille Lortel Awards Winners
