Heartbreak Hotel
"Heartbreak Hotel" is a song recorded by American singer Elvis Presley. It was released as a single on January 27, 1956, Presley's first on his new record label RCA Victor, it was written by Mae Boren Axton. A newspaper article about the suicide of a lonely man who jumped from a hotel window inspired the lyrics. Axton presented the song to Presley in November 1955 at a country music convention in Nashville. Presley agreed to record it, did so on January 10, 1956, in a session with his band, The Blue Moon Boys, the guitarist Chet Atkins, the pianist Floyd Cramer. "Heartbreak Hotel" comprises an eight-bar blues progression, with heavy reverberation throughout the track, to imitate the character of Presley's Sun recordings. The single topped Billboard's Top 100 chart for seven weeks, Cashbox's pop singles chart for six weeks, was No. 1 on the Country and Western chart for seventeen weeks and reached No. 3 on the R&B chart, becoming Presley's first million-seller, one of the best-selling singles of 1956.
"Heartbreak Hotel" achieved unheard feats as it reached the top 5 of Country and Western and Rhythm'n' Blues charts simultaneously. It would be certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Presley had first performed "Heartbreak Hotel" during a live show in December 1955 during a tour of the Louisiana Hayride, but the song gained strong popularity after his appearance on Stage Show in March 1956, it became a staple of Presley's repertoire in live appearances, last performed by him on May 29, 1977, at the Civic Center in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1995 "Heartbreak Hotel" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, in 2004 Rolling Stone magazine named it one of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time"; that year it was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll". A rock and roll standard, since its original release "Heartbreak Hotel" has been covered by several rock and pop acts, including Willie Nelson and Leon Russell, who recorded a duet version that topped the Country charts in 1979.
The song was written in 1955, by Mae Boren Axton, a high school teacher with a background in musical promotion, Jacksonville based singer–songwriter Tommy Durden. The lyrics were based on a report in The Miami Herald about a man who had destroyed all his identity papers and jumped to his death from a hotel window, leaving a suicide note with the single line, "I walk a lonely street". In 2016, an article in Rolling Stone magazine suggested that the story in reality originated from a report about a painter and petty criminal, Alvin Krolik, whose marriage had failed and who wrote a partial autobiography including the line "This is the story of a person who walked a lonely street." Krolik's story was published in news media, received further publicity after he was shot and killed in an attempted robbery in El Paso, Texas. On August 25, 1955, the El Paso Times reported Krolik's death under the headline "Story Of Person Who Walked Lonely Street". Axton and Durden give different accounts of. Durden's account is that he had written the song and performed it with his band the Swing Billys before he presented it to Axton.
Axton's account is that Durden had written only a few lines of the song and asked her to help him finish it. She says that the report of the suicide "stunned" her, she told Durden, "Everybody in the world has someone who cares. Let's put a Heartbreak Hotel at the end of this lonely street", they were interrupted by the arrival of Glenn Reeves, a local performer who had worked with Axton. The duo asked Reeves to help with the song, but after hearing the title he remarked that it was "the silliest thing I've heard", left them to finish it themselves; the song was written within an hour, Durden recorded it onto Axton's tape recorder. Reeves returned, after hearing the song he was asked to provide a voice demo for Axton in the style of Elvis Presley. Reeves obliged. Axton approached the popular singing duo the Wilburn Brothers, offered them the chance to record "Heartbreak Hotel"; however and Teddy Wilburn declined, describing the song as "strange and morbid". Axton, agreed to a publishing deal with Buddy Killen, a young Nashville bass player, who had set up his own publishing company called Tree Publishing.
With a publishing deal in place, Axton arranged through Presley's manager Colonel Tom Parker to present the song to Presley at the annual Country Music Disc Jockey Convention in Nashville, where he was to be named the most promising male country star of 1955. Axton had been hired earlier in the year to publicise the Hank Snow Jamboree concerts at the Gator Bowl Stadium in Jacksonville, which included Presley in the line up. During one concert Axton observed the reaction of the audience to Presley's performance, in which a crowd of screaming fans chased him back to his dressing room and ripped his clothes off to take as souvenirs. Axton followed Presley's career after this incident, met him at a July 28 concert in Jacksonville, this time interviewing him for the local media. According to author Albert Goldman, Axton made writing Presley's first big hit one of her ambitions. Rumors had been circulating in the press for several weeks that Presley, who had begun his career at Sun Records, was ready to move to RCA Victor to help launch him nationally.
Axton played the demo to him in his room at the Andrew Jackson Hotel on November 10, 1955. Upon hearing the demo, Presley exclaimed "Hot dog, play that again!", listened to it ten times, memorizing the song. After signing with RCA on November 21, 1955, Presley accepted Axton's offer of a third of the royalties if he
Willie Nelson
Willie Hugh Nelson is an American singer, musician, producer, author and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie, combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust, made Nelson one of the most recognized artists in country music, he was one of the main figures of outlaw country, a subgenre of country music that developed in the late 1960s as a reaction to the conservative restrictions of the Nashville sound. Nelson has acted in over 30 films, co-authored several books, has been involved in activism for the use of biofuels and the legalization of marijuana. Born during the Great Depression and raised by his grandparents, Nelson wrote his first song at age seven and joined his first band at ten. During high school, he toured locally with the Bohemian Polka as their lead singer and guitar player. After graduating from high school in 1950, he joined the air force but was discharged due to back problems. After his return, Nelson attended Baylor University for two years but dropped out because he was succeeding in music.
During this time, he worked as a singer in honky-tonks. Nelson moved to Vancouver, where he wrote "Family Bible" and recorded the song "Lumberjack" in 1956, he worked as a disc jockey at various radio stations in Vancouver and nearby Portland Oregon. In 1958, he moved to Houston, after signing a contract with D Records, he sang at the Esquire Ballroom weekly and he worked as a disk jockey. During that time, he wrote songs that would become country standards, including "Funny How Time Slips Away", "Hello Walls", "Pretty Paper", "Crazy". In 1960 he moved to Nashville and signed a publishing contract with Pamper Music which allowed him to join Ray Price's band as a bassist. In 1962, he recorded his first album... And Then I Wrote. Due to this success, Nelson signed in 1964 with RCA Victor and joined the Grand Ole Opry the following year. After mid-chart hits in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, Nelson retired in 1972 and moved to Austin, Texas; the ongoing music scene of Austin motivated Nelson to return from retirement, performing at the Armadillo World Headquarters.
In 1973, after signing with Atlantic Records, Nelson turned to outlaw country, including albums such as Shotgun Willie and Phases and Stages. In 1975, he switched to Columbia Records, where he recorded the critically acclaimed album Red Headed Stranger; the same year, he recorded another outlaw country album, Wanted! The Outlaws, along with Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter, Tompall Glaser. During the mid-1980s, while creating hit albums like Honeysuckle Rose and recording hit songs like "On the Road Again", "To All the Girls I've Loved Before", "Pancho and Lefty", he joined the country supergroup The Highwaymen, along with fellow singers Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson. In 1990, Nelson's assets were seized by the Internal Revenue Service, which claimed that he owed $32 million; the difficulty of paying his outstanding debt was aggravated by weak investments he had made during the 1980s. In 1992, Nelson released The IRS Tapes: Who'll Buy My Memories?. During the 1990s and 2000s, Nelson continued touring extensively, released albums every year.
Reviews ranged from positive to mixed. He explored genres such as reggae, blues and folk. Nelson made his first movie appearance in the 1979 film The Electric Horseman, followed by other appearances in movies and on television. Nelson is a major liberal activist and the co-chair of the advisory board of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, in favor of marijuana legalization. On the environmental front, Nelson owns the bio-diesel brand Willie Nelson Biodiesel, made from vegetable oil. Nelson is the honorary chairman of the advisory board of the Texas Music Project, the official music charity of the state of Texas. Nelson was born in Texas, on April 29, 1933, the son of Myrle Marie and Ira Doyle Nelson, his birth was incorrectly recorded by Dr. F. D. Sims as April 30, he was named Willie by his cousin Mildred, who chose Hugh as his middle name, in honor of her deceased younger brother. Nelson traces his genealogy to the American Revolutionary War, in which his ancestor John Nelson served as a major.
His parents moved to Texas from Arkansas in 1929 to look for work. His grandfather, worked as a blacksmith, while his father worked as a mechanic, his mother left soon after he was born, his father remarried and moved away, leaving Nelson and his sister Bobbie to be raised by their grandparents, who taught singing back in Arkansas and started their grandchildren in music. Nelson's grandfather bought him a guitar when he was six, taught him a few chords, Nelson sang gospel songs in the local church alongside Bobbie, he wrote his first song at age seven, when he was nine, he played guitar for local band Bohemian Polka. During the summer, the family picked cotton alongside other Abbott residents. Nelson disliked picking cotton, so he earned money by singing in dance halls and honky tonks from age 13, which he continued through high school, his musical influences were Hank Williams, Bob Wills, Lefty Frizzell, Ray Price, Ernest Tubb, Hank Snow, Django Reinhardt, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong. Nelson attended Abbott High School, where he was a halfback on the football team, guard on the basketball team, shortstop in baseball.
He raised pigs with the Future Farmers of America. While still at school, he sang and played guitar in The Texans, a band formed by his sister's husband, B
James Caan
James Edmund Caan is an American actor. After early roles in The Glory Guys, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination, El Dorado, The Rain People, he came to prominence in the 1970s with significant roles in films such as Brian's Song, Cinderella Liberty, The Gambler and the Bean, Funny Lady, A Bridge Too Far and Chapter Two. For his signature role in The Godfather, that of hot-tempered Sonny Corleone, Caan was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the corresponding Golden Globe. Caan's subsequent notable performances include roles in Thief, For the Boys, Bottle Rocket and Elf, as well as the role of "Big Ed" Deline in the television series Las Vegas, he prominently lent his voice to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 as Tim Lockwood, father of Bill Hader's protagonist Flint Lockwood. For his contributions to the film industry, Caan was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1978 with a motion pictures star located at 6648 Hollywood Boulevard.
Caan was born on March 26, 1940, in the Bronx, New York, the son of Sophie and Arthur Caan, Jewish immigrants from Germany. His father was butcher. One of three siblings, Caan grew up in Queens, he was educated in New York City, attended Michigan State University. He transferred to Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, but did not graduate, his classmates at Hofstra included Lainie Kazan. While studying at Hofstra University, however, he became intrigued by acting and was interviewed for, accepted to, graduated from, New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, where he studied for five years. "Of course, all my improvs ended in violence." Caan began appearing off-Broadway in plays such as La Ronde before making his Broadway debut in Blood and Stanley Poole. Caan's first television appearance was in an episode of Naked City, he was seen in episodes of Play of the Week, Route 66, Alcoa Premiere, The Untouchables, The Doctors and the Nurses,Wide Country, Death Valley Days and Dr. Kildare.
Caan's first film was Irma la Douce. He guest starred on Ben Casey, Combat!, Kraft Suspense Theatre. In 1964, he starred as Jewish athlete Jeff Brubaker in the episode "My Son, the All-American" of Channing, a drama about college life, his first substantial film role was as a punk hoodlum in the 1964 thriller Lady in a Cage, which starred Olivia de Havilland, who praised Caan's performance. Caan had roles in The Alfred Hitchcock Wagon Train, he was fourth-billed in The Glory Guys. He said. "I want to be an actor not a millionaire." In 1965, Caan landed his first starring role, in Howard Hawks' auto-racing drama Red Line 7000. It was not a financial success; however Hawks liked Caan and cast him in his next film, El Dorado, playing Alan Bourdillion Traherne, a.k.a. Mississippi, in support of John Wayne and Robert Mitchum. Caan had the starring role in Robert Altman's second feature film and was second billed in the Curtis Harrington thriller Games. Caan went to Britain to star in a war film, Submarine X-1 had the lead in a Western, Journey to Shiloh.
He returned to television with a guest role in The F. B. I. had an uncredited spot on the spy sitcom Get Smart as a favor to star Don Adams, playing Rupert of Rathskeller in the episode "To Sire with Love". Caan won praise for his role as a brain-damaged football player in The Rain People, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, he made a Western called Gone with the West, not released until 1975. None of these films, apart from El Dorado, had been successful at the box office, including Rabbit, based on a John Updike novel, in which Caan had the lead and "was a film I wanted to do wanted to be involved with.""No one would put me in a movie," he recalled. "They all said,'His pictures never make money'."Caan returned to the small screen with the TV movie Brian's Song, playing dying football player Brian Piccolo, opposite Billy Dee Williams. Caan did not want to return to television and turned down the role four times, but changed his mind after reading the script; the film was a huge critical success.
Caan's performance earned him an Emmy nomination. He got a deal to make a film and agreed to be in T. R. Baskin; the following year, Coppola cast him as the short-tempered Sonny Corleone in The Godfather. Caan was cast as Michael Corleone. Robert DeNiro was considered to play Sonny. Although another actor, Carmine Caridi, was signed to play Sonny, the studio insisted on having Caan, so he remained in the production. During production of The Godfather in 1971, Caan was known to hang out with Carmine Persico, aka "The Snake", a notorious mafioso and head of the Colombo crime family. Government agents mistook Caan, unknown at the time, as an aspiring mobster. Caan was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the film, competing with co-stars Robert Duvall and Pacino. Caan was identified with the role for years aft
Pat Morita
Noriyuki "Pat" Morita was an American film and television actor who played Matsuo "Arnold" Takahashi on Happy Days, Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid film series and The Toymaster in Babes in Toyland. Morita was nominated for the 1985 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid. Morita voiced the Emperor of China in the Disney animated film Mulan and portrayed Ah Chew in Sanford and Son. Morita was the series lead actor in the television program Mr. T and Tina and in Ohara, a police-themed drama; the two shows made history for being among the few TV shows with an Asian American series lead. Morita was born in California. Morita's father Tamaru, born in 1897, had immigrated to California from Kumamoto Prefecture on the Japanese island of Kyushu in 1915. Tamaru's wife Momoe, born in 1903, had emigrated to California in 1913. Noriyuki, as Pat was named, had a brother named Hideo, twelve years older. Morita developed spinal tuberculosis at the age of two and spent the bulk of the next nine years in the Weimar Institute in Weimar, at the Shriners Hospital in San Francisco.
For long periods he was told that he would never walk. During his time at a sanatorium near Sacramento, Morita befriended a visiting priest who would joke that, if Morita converted to Catholicism, the priest would rename him to "Patrick Aloysius Ignatius Xavier Noriyuki Morita". Released from the hospital at age 11 after undergoing extensive spinal surgery and learning how to walk, Morita was transported from the hospital directly to the Gila River camp in Arizona to join his interned family. After about a year and a half, he was transferred to the Tule Lake War Relocation Center. For a time after the war, the family operated Ariake Chop Suey, a restaurant in Sacramento, California. Morita would serve as master of ceremonies for group dinners. Morita began working as a stand-up comic after high school, he took the stage name "Pat Morita", in part due to the presence of comedians including Pat Henry and Pat Cooper, in part due to memories of the priest he had befriended as a boy. Morita struggled for many years in comedy.
Sally Marr, Lenny Bruce's mother, acted as his manager in his early days. Morita sometimes worked as the opening act for singers Vic Damone and Connie Stevens and for his mentor, the comedian Redd Foxx. Foxx gave him a role on his sitcom Sanford and Son in the early 1970s. Morita's first movie roles were as a stereotypical henchman in Thoroughly Modern Millie and another similarly-stereotypical role in The Shakiest Gun In The West, starring Don Knotts. A recurring role as South Korean Army Captain Sam Pak on the sitcom M*A*S*H helped advance the comedian's acting career, he was cast as Rear Admiral Ryunosuke Kusaka in the war film Midway. He had a recurring role on the show Happy Days as Matsuo "Arnold" Takahashi, owner of the diner Arnold's for the show's third season and made guest appearances in 1977 and 1979. After the season's end, he left the show to star as inventor Taro Takahashi in his own show Mr. T and Tina, the first Asian-American sitcom on network TV; the sitcom was placed on Saturday nights by ABC and was canceled after a month in the fall of 1976.
Morita revived the character of Arnold on Blansky's Beauties in 1977 and returned to Happy Days for the 1982–1983 season. Morita had another notable recurring television role on Sanford and Son as Ah Chew, a good-natured friend of Lamont Sanford. Morita gained particular fame playing wise karate teacher Mr. Miyagi, who taught young "Daniel-san" the art of karate in The Karate Kid, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a corresponding Golden Globe Award, reprising his role in three sequels: The Karate Kid Part II, The Karate Kid Part III and The Next Karate Kid, the last of which starred Hilary Swank instead of Macchio. Though he was never a student of karate, he learned all, required for the films. Although he had been using the name Pat for years, producer Jerry Weintraub suggested that he be billed with his given name to sound "more ethnic." Morita put this advice into practice and was recognized as Noriyuki "Pat" Morita at the 57th Academy Awards ceremony. Weintraub did not want to cast Morita for the part of Mr. Miyagi, wanting a dramatic actor for the part and labeling Morita a comedic actor.
Morita tested five times before Weintraub himself offered him the role. Morita went on to play Tommy Tanaka in the Kirk Douglas-starring television movie Amos, receiving his first Primetime Emmy Award nomination and second Golden Globe Award nomination for the role, he starred in the ABC detective show Ohara. He wrote and starred in the World War II romance film Captive Hearts. Morita hosted the educational home video series Britannica's Tales Around the World. In his career Morita starred on the Nickelodeon television series The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo, had a recurring role on the sitcom The Hughleys, he made a guest appearance on a 1996 episode of Married... with Children. He went on to star in the short film Talk To Taka as a sushi chef who doles out advice to anyone who will hear him. Morita voiced the Emperor of China in Disney's 36th animated feature Mulan and reprised the role in Kingdom Hearts II and Mulan II, a direct-to-video sequel. Morita had a cameo appearance in the 2001 Alien Ant Farm music video "Movies".
Morita's appearance in the vide
Las Vegas
Las Vegas the City of Las Vegas and known as Vegas, is the 28th-most populated city in the United States, the most populated city in the state of Nevada, the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area and is the largest city within the greater Mojave Desert. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city, known for its gambling, fine dining and nightlife; the Las Vegas Valley as a whole serves as the leading financial and cultural center for Nevada. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, is famous for its mega casino–hotels and associated activities, it is a top three destination in the United States for business conventions and a global leader in the hospitality industry, claiming more AAA Five Diamond hotels than any other city in the world. Today, Las Vegas annually ranks as one of the world's most visited tourist destinations; the city's tolerance for numerous forms of adult entertainment earned it the title of Sin City, has made Las Vegas a popular setting for literature, television programs, music videos.
Las Vegas was settled in 1905 and incorporated in 1911. At the close of the 20th century, it was the most populated American city founded within that century. Population growth has accelerated since the 1960s, between 1990 and 2000 the population nearly doubled, increasing by 85.2%. Rapid growth has continued into the 21st century, according to a 2018 estimate, the population is 648,224 with a regional population of 2,227,053; as with most major metropolitan areas, the name of the primary city is used to describe areas beyond official city limits. In the case of Las Vegas, this applies to the areas on and near the Las Vegas Strip, located within the unincorporated communities of Paradise and Winchester; the earliest visitors to the Las Vegas area were nomadic Paleo-Indians, who traveled there 10,000 years ago, leaving behind petroglyphs. Anasazi and Paiute tribes followed at least 2,000 years ago. A young Mexican scout named Rafael Rivera is credited as the first non-Native American to encounter the valley, in 1829.
Trader Antonio Armijo led a 60-man party along the Spanish Trail to Los Angeles, California in 1829. The area was named Las Vegas, Spanish for "the meadows," as it featured abundant wild grasses, as well as the desert spring waters needed by westward travelers; the year 1844 marked the arrival of John C. Frémont, whose writings helped lure pioneers to the area. Downtown Las Vegas's Fremont Street is named after him. Eleven years members of the LDS Church chose Las Vegas as the site to build a fort halfway between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, where they would travel to gather supplies; the fort was abandoned several years afterward. The remainder of this Old Mormon Fort can still be seen at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Washington Avenue. Las Vegas was founded as a city in 1905, when 110 acres of land adjacent to the Union Pacific Railroad tracks were auctioned in what would become the downtown area. In 1911, Las Vegas was incorporated as a city. 1931 was a pivotal year for Las Vegas.
At that time, Nevada legalized casino gambling and reduced residency requirements for divorce to six weeks. This year witnessed the beginning of construction on nearby Hoover Dam; the influx of construction workers and their families helped Las Vegas avoid economic calamity during the Great Depression. The construction work was completed in 1935. In 1941, the Las Vegas Army Air Corps Gunnery School was established. Known as Nellis Air Force Base, it is home to the aerobatic team called the Thunderbirds. Following World War II, lavishly decorated hotels, gambling casinos, big-name entertainment became synonymous with Las Vegas. In the 1950s the Moulin Rouge opened and became the first racially integrated casino-hotel in Las Vegas. In 1951, nuclear weapons testing began at the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. During this time the city was nicknamed the "Atomic City". Residents and visitors were able to witness the mushroom clouds until 1963, when the limited Test Ban Treaty required that nuclear tests be moved underground.
The iconic "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign, never located within municipal limits, was created in 1959 by Betty Willis. During the 1960s, corporations and business powerhouses such as Howard Hughes were building and buying hotel-casino properties. Gambling was referred to as "gaming"; the year 1995 marked the opening of the Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas's downtown area. This canopied five-block area features 12.5 million LED lights and 550,000 watts of sound from dusk until midnight during shows held on the top of each hour. Due to the realization of many revitalization efforts, 2012 was dubbed "The Year of Downtown." Hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of projects made their debut at this time. They included The Smith Center for the Performing Arts and DISCOVERY Children's Museum, Mob Museum, Neon Museum, a new City Hall complex and renovations for a new Zappos.com corporate headquarters in the old City Hall building. Las Vegas is situated within Clark County in a basin on the floor of the Mojave Desert and is surrounded by mountain ranges on all sides.
Much of the landscape is arid with desert vegetation and wildlife. It can be subjected to torrential flash floods, although much has been done to mitigate the effects of flash floods through improved drainage systems; the peaks surrounding Las Vegas reach elevations of o
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Kim Coppola, known professionally as Nicolas Cage, is an American actor and producer. During his early career, Cage starred in a variety of films such as Valley Girl, Racing with the Moon, Peggy Sue Got Married, Raising Arizona, Vampire's Kiss, Wild at Heart, Fire Birds, Honeymoon in Vegas, Red Rock West. Cage received an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award for his performance as an alcoholic Hollywood writer in Leaving Las Vegas before coming to the attention of wider audiences with mainstream films, such as The Rock, Face/Off, Con Air and City of Angels, he earned his second Academy Award nomination for his performance as Charlie and Donald Kaufman in Adaptation. He directed the film Sonny, for which he was nominated for Grand Special Prize at Deauville Film Festival. Cage owns the production company Saturn Films and has produced films such as Shadow of the Vampire and The Life of David Gale, he has appeared in National Treasure, Lord of War, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Kick-Ass.
Films such as Ghost Rider and Knowing were box office successes. In the 2010s, he has starred in The Croods, Joe and Dad, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Love, Antosha. Cage was born in Long Beach, California, to August Coppola, a professor of literature, Joy Vogelsang, a dancer and choreographer, he was raised in a Catholic family. His father was of Italian descent and his mother was of German and Polish ancestry, his paternal grandparents were composer Carmine Coppola and actress Italia Pennino, his paternal great-grandparents were immigrants from Bernalda, Basilicata. Through his father, he is a nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola and of actress Talia Shire, the cousin of directors Roman Coppola and Sofia Coppola, film producer Gian-Carlo Coppola, actors Robert Carmine and Jason Schwartzman. Cage's two brothers are New York radio personality Marc "The Cope" Coppola and director Christopher Coppola, he attended Beverly Hills High School, known for its many alumni who became entertainers.
He aspired to act from an early age and attended UCLA School of Theater and Television. His first non-cinematic acting experience was in a school production of Golden Boy, he said. I saw him in Rebel Without a East of Eden. Nothing affected me—no rock song, no classical music—the way Dean affected me in Eden, it blew my mind. I was like,'That's what I want to do'."At fifteen years old he tried to convince his uncle, Francis Ford Coppola, to give him a screen test, telling him "I'll show you acting." His outburst was met with "silence in the car". By this stage of his career, Coppola had directed Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Gene Hackman and Robert De Niro. To avoid the appearance of nepotism as Coppola's nephew, he changed his name early in his career to Nicolas Cage, inspired in part by the Marvel Comics superhero Luke Cage. Since his film debut with a minor role in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, opposite Judge Reinhold and Sean Penn, Cage has appeared in a wide range of films, both mainstream and offbeat.
He auditioned for the role of Dallas Winston in his uncle's film The Outsiders, based on S. E. Hinton lost to Matt Dillon, he was in Coppola's films Rumble Fish and Peggy Sue Got Married. Other Cage roles included appearances in the acclaimed 1987 romantic-comedy film Moonstruck starring Cher. Cage has been nominated twice for an Academy Award, winning once for his performance as a suicidal alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas, his other nomination was for his portrayal of real-life screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and Kaufman's fictional twin Donald in Adaptation. Despite these successes, most of his lower-profile films have performed poorly at the box office compared to his mainstream action/adventure roles; the suspense thriller 8mm is considered a cult film. He took the lead role in the 2001 film Captain Corelli's Mandolin and learned to play the mandolin from scratch for the part, he made his directorial debut with 2002's Sonny. In 2005, two films he headlined, Lord of War and The Weather Man, failed to find a significant audience despite nationwide releases and good reviews for his performances.
Poor reviews for The Wicker Man resulted in low box office sales. The much criticized Ghost Rider, based on the Marvel Comics character, fared better, earning more than $45 million during its opening weekend and over $208 million worldwide through the weekend ending on March 25, 2007. In 2007, he starred in Next, which shared the concept of a glimpse into an alternate timeline with Cage's film, The Family Man. Most of Cage's movies that have achieved financial success were in the action/adventure genre. In his second-highest-grossing film to date, National Treasure, he plays an eccentric historian who goes on a dangerous adventure to find treasure hidden by the Founding Fathers of the United States. Other action hits include The Rock, in which Cage plays a young FBI chemical weapons expert who infiltrates Alcatraz Island in the hope of neutralizing a terrorist threat, Face/Off, a John Woo film where he plays both a hero and a villain, World Trade Center, director Oliver Stone's film about the Se
Burton Gilliam
Burton Gilliam is an American actor. Prior to acting, Gilliam was a member of the Coast Guard's boxing team where he won 201 out of 217 fights at 6ft1inches tall and 145 pounds he towered over most of his opponent's. Upon completing his Coast Guard enlistment, Gilliam followed in his father's footsteps and joined the Dallas Fire Department, he remained in the boxing world for decades. While working as a fireman, Gilliam appeared in the role of "Floyd", the desk clerk in the film Paper Moon, he has appeared in popular motion pictures such as Blazing Saddles and Back to the Future Part III. Gilliam has had roles in several other motion pictures such as Honeymoon in Vegas and Lightfoot, Farewell, My Lovely, Gator and The Terror Within II, his television appearances include Alice, Charlie’s Angels, The A-Team,The Dukes Of Hazzard, The Fall Guy, he appeared as a regular on Evening Shade. Gilliam was born in Texas, he lives with his wife, Susan, in Allen, just north of Dallas. He has four grandchildren, all of whom live nearby.
His granddaughter, Hollie Vise, is a world champion gymnast. Gilliam graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1956 and was inducted into the school's hall of fame in 2004. In 2018, he was the Grand Marshal of the Dallas St. Patrick's Day parade; the Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything - Hoover Hess The Girl, the Gold Watch & Dynamite - Hoover Hess III North and South Book II - Cpl. Strock Dream West - Martineau Evening Shade - Virgil The Love Bug - Mecanic Race Announcer The Waltons - J. D. Paulsen Charlie's Angels - Ulmer Alice - Buford Baker / Jimmie Joe Castleberry Soap - Buck Young Maverick - Barbary Kid B. J. and the Bear - Lacy Flo - J. J. Castleberry The Dukes of Hazzard - Heep / Tom Colt Knight Rider - Trucker Gene Gun Shy - Jeremiah Jones The A-Team - Sheriff Jeff Lewis The Fall Guy - Sheriff Hail to the Chief - Clovis Montgomery Mama's Family - Bud Weird Science - Snake Sliders - Stage Driver Walker, Texas Ranger - Frank Redneck Rampage - Leonard Redneck Rampage Rides Again - Leonard Burton Gilliam on IMDb Burton Gilliam at mobygames.com
