Reynold Brown
William Reynold Brown was an American realist artist who painted many Hollywood film posters. He was briefly active as a comics artist, he refined his drawing under his teacher Lester Bonar. A talented artist, Brown met cartoonist Hal Forrest around 1936-37. Forrest hired Brown to ink Forrest's comic strip Tailspin Tommy. Norman Rockwell's sister was a teacher at Alhambra High, Brown met Rockwell who advised him to leave cartooning if he wanted to be an illustrator. Brown subsequently won a scholarship to the Otis Art Institute. During World War II he worked as a technical artist at North American Aviation. There he met fellow artist Mary Louise Tejeda. Following the war Brown drew numerous advertisements and illustrations for magazines such as Argosy, Popular Science, Saturday Evening Post, Boys' Life, Outdoor Life, Popular Aviation. Brown drew paperback book covers. Brown taught at the Art Center College of Design where he met Misha Kallis an art director at Universal Pictures. Through Kallis, Brown began his film poster work did the art work for dozens of film posters, including: Creature from the Black Lagoon Tarantula This Island Earth The Incredible Shrinking Man I Was a Teenage Werewolf Man of a Thousand Faces The Land Unknown Attack of the 50 Foot Woman Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Ben-Hur The Atomic Submarine Spartacus The Alamo The Time Machine The Fabulous World of Jules Verne King of Kings How the West Was Won Mutiny on the Bounty Mothra vs. Godzilla War of the Zombies Shenandoah Brown's original painting for the poster of The Alamo hung for many years at the actual Alamo in San Antonio, Texas.
He suffered a severe stroke in 1976 that ended his commercial work. Brown and his family moved to Nebraska. In 1994, Mel Bucklin's documentary about Reynold Brown entitled The Man Who Drew Bug-Eyed Monsters was broadcast on US public television. A book reproducing many of Brown's artworks, Reynold Brown: A Life in Pictures, was published in 2009. Horberg, William. "Masters of Illustration Art - Reynold Brown". An appreciation of Brown's work on the occasion of the publication of Reynold Brown: A Life In Pictures. Illustration magazine #7 July 2003
Les Baxter
Leslie Thompson Baxter was an American musician and composer. After working as an arranger and composer for swing bands, he developed his own style of easy listening music, known as exotica; some of his many credits were questioned by Nelson Riddle and others, but Baxter said these claims were part of a smear campaign. Baxter studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory before moving to Los Angeles for further studies at Pepperdine College. From 1943 on he played baritone saxophone for the Freddie Slack big band. Abandoning a concert career as a pianist, he turned to popular music as a singer. At the age of 23 he joined Mel Tormé's Mel-Tones, singing on Artie Shaw records such as "What Is This Thing Called Love?". Baxter turned to arranging and conducting for Capitol Records in 1950, conducted the orchestra in two early Nat King Cole hits, "Mona Lisa" and "Too Young". In 1953 he scored his first movie, the sailing travelogue Tanga Tika. With his own orchestra, he released a number of hits including "Ruby", "Unchained Melody", "The Poor People of Paris" and is remembered for a version of "Sinner Man", definitively setting the sound with varying tempos, orchestral flourishes, wailing background vocals.
"Unchained Melody" was the first million seller for Baxter, was awarded a gold disc. "The Poor People of Paris" sold over one million copies. He achieved success with concept albums of his own orchestral suites: Le Sacre Du Sauvage, Festival Of The Gnomes, Ports Of Pleasure, Brazil Now, the first three for Capitol and the fourth on Gene Norman's Crescendo label; the list of musicians on these recordings includes Clare Fischer. Baxter wrote the "Whistle" theme from the TV show Lassie. In the 1960s, he formed the Balladeers, a conservative folk group in suits that at one time featured a young David Crosby, he used some of the same singers from that group for a studio project called The Forum. They had a minor hit in 1967 with a rendition of "River is Wide" which implemented the Wall of Sound technique developed by Phil Spector, he worked in radio as musical director of The Halls of Ivy and the Bob Hope and Abbott and Costello shows. Like his counterparts Henry Mancini and Lalo Schifrin, Baxter worked in films in the 1960s and 1970s.
He worked on movie scores for B-movie studio American International Pictures where he composed scores for Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe films and other horror and beach party films including House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Raven, Muscle Beach Party and Beach Blanket Bingo. He composed a new score for the theatrical release of the 1970 horror film Cry of the Banshee after AIP rejected Wilfred Josephs original one. Howard W. Koch recalled that Baxter composed and recorded the entire score of The Yellow Tomahawk in a total of three hours for $5,000; when soundtrack work fell off in the 1980s, he scored music for theme parks such as SeaWorld. Baxter died in Newport Beach, California at the age of 73. Survived by his daughter Leslie, he was buried at Pacific View Memorial Park, in Corona del Mar, California. According to Milt Bernhart, Nelson Riddle was a ghost writer for Baxter when Baxter was working for Nat King Cole; this doesn't make any sense, because while Baxter was working as a conductor for Nat King Cole, he never was credited as a composer or arranger.
Bernhart states. Bernhart states that, while working for Baxter on recording a score for a Roger Corman film, it was apparent that Baxter could not conduct competently and "couldn't read the scores." According to Bernhart, "Someone else had written."Nelson Riddle held a grudge against Baxter for taking credit for Riddle's arrangements on two Nat King Cole hit recordings. According to André Previn, when collaborating once with Baxter, in the time Previn and Riddle had finished their parts, Baxter had written just one bar for woodwinds and included a note for the oboe that does not exist on the instrument. Gene Lees states that the exotica albums were written by Albert Harris and the material recorded with Yma Sumac was written by Pete Rugolo. According to Rugolo, he was paid $50 per arrangement to ghost for Les Baxter and that he "did a whole album with Yma Sumac"; this does not make much sense either, because arrangements and most compositions for the album were credited to Moises Vivanco on the original release.
Les Baxter was just credited as conductor, only in 1991 the German film documentary Yma Sumac - Hollywoods Inkaprinzessin claimed that most of the album was in fact ghostwritten by Les Baxter for Moises Vivanco. In a 1981 interview with Soundtrack magazine, Baxter said that these sorts of statements were the results of a smear campaign by a disgruntled orchestrator. According to Baxter, this resulted in Baxter being denied the chance to score for a major motion picture; the job went instead to Baxter's friend Bronisław Kaper. Baxter said that he would give his compositions to orchestrators to orchestrate to deal with a hectic schedule. Baxter's frequent conductor and orchestrator Hall Daniels said the criticisms were the result of "sour grapes" who held a grudge against Baxter for one reason or another. Skip Heller spent time working for and studying under Baxter where he witnessed various score sheets of original Baxter compositions, including Yma Sumac's "Xtabay" and "Tumpa". According to Heller, they were all in Baxter's own handwriting.
Furthermore, the Les Baxter papers, which are housed at the University of Arizona, show a significant number of arrangements in his own hand. Baxter, alongside Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman, is celebrated as
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
Horror film
A horror film is a film that seeks to elicit fear. Inspired by literature from authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, horror has existed as a film genre for more than a century; the macabre and the supernatural are frequent themes. Horror may overlap with the fantasy, supernatural fiction, thriller genres. Horror films aim to evoke viewers' nightmares, fears and terror of the unknown. Plots with in the horror genre involve the intrusion of an evil force, event, or personage into the everyday world. Prevalent elements include ghosts, extraterrestrials, werewolves, Satanism, evil clowns, torture, vicious animals, evil witches, zombies, psychopaths, ecological or man-made disasters, serial killers; some sub-genres of horror film include low-budget horror, action horror, comedy horror, body horror, disaster horror, found footage, holiday horror, horror drama, psychological horror, science fiction horror, supernatural horror, gothic horror, natural horror, zombie horror, disaster films, first-person horror, teen horror.
The first depiction of the supernatural on screen appear in several of the short silent films created by the French pioneer filmmaker Georges Méliès in the late 1890s. The best known of these early supernatural-based works is the 3-minute short film Le Manoir du Diable known in English as The Haunted Castle or The House of the Devil; the film is sometimes credited as being the first horror film. In The Haunted Castle, a mischievous devil appears inside a medieval castle and harasses the visitors. Méliès' other popular horror film is La Caverne maudite, which translates to "the accursed cave"; the film known for its English title The Cave of the Demons, tells the story of a woman stumbling over a cave, populated by the spirits and skeletons of people who died there. Méliès would make other short films that historians consider now as horror-comedies. Une nuit terrible, which translates to A Terrible Night, tells a story of a man who tries to get a good night's sleep but ends up wrestling a giant spider.
His other film, L'auberge ensorcelée, or The Bewitched Inn, features a story of a hotel guest getting pranked and tormented by an unseen presence. In 1897, the accomplished American photographer-turned director George Albert Smith created The X-Ray Fiend, a horror-comedy that came out a mere two years after x-rays were invented; the film shows a couple of skeletons courting each other. An audience full of people unaccustomed to the idea would have found it frightening and otherworldly; the next year, Smith created the short film Photographing a Ghost, considered a precursor to the paranormal investigation subgenre. The film portrays three men attempting to photograph a ghost, only to fail time and again as the ghost eludes the men and throws chairs at them. Japan made early forays into the horror genre. In 1898, a Japanese film company called Konishi Honten released two horror films both written by Ejiro Hatta. Though there are no records of the cast, crew, or plot of Bake Jizo, it was based on the Japanese legend of Jizo statues, believed to provide safety and protection to children.
The presence of the word bake—which can be translated to "spook," "ghost," or "phantom"—may imply a haunted or possessed statue. Spanish filmmaker Segundo de Chomón, regarded as one of the most significant silent film directors, was popular for his frequent camera tricks and optical illusions, an innovation that contributed to the popularity of trick films in the period, his famous works include Satan at Play. The Selig Polyscope Company in the United States produced one of the first film adaptations of a horror-based novel. In 1908, the company released Mr. Hyde, now a lost film, it is based on Robert Louis Stevenson's classic gothic novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, published 15 years prior, about a man who transforms between two contrasting personas. Georges Méliès liked adapting the Faust legend into his films. In fact, the French filmmaker produced at least six variations of the German legend of the man who made a pact with the devil. Among his notable Faust films include Faust aux enfers, known for its English title The Damnation of Faust, or Faust in Hell.
It is the filmmaker's third film adaptation of the Faust legend. In it, Méliès took inspiration from Hector Berlioz's Faust opera, but it pays less attention to the story and more to the special effects that represent a tour of hell; the film takes advantage of stage machinery techniques and features special effects such as pyrotechnics, substitution
United States
The United States of America known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U. S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D. C. and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico; the State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean; the U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The diverse geography and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century; the United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776; the war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties; the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848. During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery.
By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power; the United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Sweeping civil rights legislation, notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, outlawed discrimination based on race or color. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 U. S. Moon landing; the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world's sole superpower. The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation, it is a representative democracy.
The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, other international organizations. The United States is a developed country, with the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for a quarter of global GDP; the U. S. economy is post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world. The United States is the world's largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods, by value. Although its population is only 4.3% of the world total, the U. S. holds 31% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country. Despite wide income and wealth disparities, the United States continues to rank high in measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP, worker productivity.
The United States is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending, is a leading political and scientific force internationally. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America in honor of the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci; the first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" is from a letter dated January 2, 1776, written by Stephen Moylan, Esq. to George Washington's aide-de-camp and Muster-Master General of the Continental Army, Lt. Col. Joseph Reed. Moylan expressed his wish to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the revolutionary war effort; the first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776. The second draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson and completed by June 17, 1776, at the latest, declared "The name of this Confederation shall be the'United States of America'".
The final version of the Articles sent to the states for ratification in late 1777 contains the sentence "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be'The United States of America'". In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence; this draft of the document did not surface unti
American International Pictures
American International Pictures was an independent film production and distribution company formed on April 2, 1954 as American Releasing Corporation by James H. Nicholson, former Sales Manager of Realart Pictures, Samuel Z. Arkoff, an entertainment lawyer, it was dedicated to releasing low-budget films packaged as double features of interest to the teenagers of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s. Nicholson and Arkoff formed ARC in 1954. Nicholson and Arkoff served as executive producers while Roger Corman and Alex Gordon were the principal film producers and, directors. Writer Charles B. Griffith wrote many of the early films, along with Arkoff's brother-in-law, Lou Rusoff, who produced many of the films he had written. Other writers included Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont. Floyd Crosby, A. S. C. Famous for his camera work on a number of exotic documentaries and the Oscar winner, High Noon, was chief cinematographer, his innovative use of surreal color and odd lenses and angles gave AIP films a signature look.
The early rubber monster suits and miniatures of Paul Blaisdell were used in AIP's science fiction films. The company hired Les Baxter and Ronald Stein to compose many of its film scores. In the 1950s the company had a number of actors under contract, including John Ashley, Fay Spain and Steve Terrell; when many of ARC/AIP's first releases failed to earn a profit, Arkoff quizzed film exhibitors who told him of the value of the teenage market as adults were watching television. AIP stopped making Westerns with Arkoff explaining: "To compete with television westerns you have to have color, big stars and $2,000,000". AIP was the first company to use focus groups, polling American teenagers about what they would like to see and using their responses to determine titles and story content. AIP would question their exhibitors what they thought of the success of a title would have a writer create a script for it. A sequence of tasks in a typical production involved creating a great title, getting an artist such as Albert Kallis who supervised all AIP artwork from 1955–73 to create a dynamic, eye-catching poster raising the cash, writing and casting the film.
Samuel Z. Arkoff related his tried-and-true "ARKOFF formula" for producing a successful low-budget movie years during a 1980s talk show appearance, his ideas for a movie included: Action Revolution Killing Oratory Fantasy Fornication Later the AIP publicity department devised a strategy called "The Peter Pan Syndrome": a) a younger child will watch anything an older child will watch. AIP began as the American Releasing Company, a new distribution company formed in the early 1950s formed by James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff, they were interested in distributing a car chase movie produced by Roger Corman for his Palo Alto Productions, The Fast and the Furious. Corman had received offers from other companies for the film, but ARC offered to advance money to enable Corman to make two other films. Corman agreed, The Fast and the Furious performed well at the box office and the company was launched. Corman's next two films for the company were a Western Five Guns West, which Corman directed, a science fiction film, The Beast with a Million Eyes.
The title from the latter had come from Nicholson. ARC distributed the Western Outlaw Treasure starring Johnny Carpenter. ARC got Corman to direct another Western and science fiction double bill Apache Woman and Day the World Ended. Both scripts were written by Arkoff's brother-in-law Lou Rusoff, who would become the company's leading writer in its early days. Apache Woman was produced by Alex Gordon, an associate of Arkoff's, Day was produced by Corman. Both were made by ARC's production arm. B movies were made for the second part of a bill and received a flat rate; as television was encroaching on the B movie market and Arkoff felt it would be more profitable to make two low budget films and distribute them together on a double bill. Nicholson came up with a title for a film to support Day the World Ended, The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues, but lacked the money to make both films, they split the costs with film editors who wanted to get into production. The resulting double bill was successful at the box office.
Gordon produced The Oklahoma Woman, a Western by Corman, made through Sunset Productions. It was put on a double bill with a film noir. Other films released under the ARC banner include a British documentary Operation Malaya and Corman's Gunslinger. Arkoff and Nicholson had always wanted to name their company "American International Pictures" but the name was unavailable; when the name became available, they changed over. There were three main production arms at AIP in the late 1950s: Roger Corman, Alex Gordon and Lou Rusoff, Herman Cohen. Arkoff and Nicholson would buy films from other filmmakers as well, import films from outside America. Corman continued to be an important member of AIP, he had a big hit for the company with the science fiction film It Conquered th
Butler
A butler is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, pantry; some have charge of the entire parlour floor, housekeepers caring for the entire house and its appearance. A butler is male, in charge of male servants, while a housekeeper is a woman, in charge of female servants. Traditionally, male servants were of higher status than female servants; the butler, as the senior male servant, has the highest servant status. He can sometimes function as a chauffeur. In older houses where the butler is the most senior worker, titles such as majordomo, butler administrator, house manager, staff manager, chief of staff, staff captain, estate manager and head of household staff are sometimes given; the precise duties of the employee will vary to some extent in line with the title given, but more in line with the requirements of the individual employer. In the grandest homes or when the employer owns more than one residence, there is sometimes an estate manager of higher rank than the butler.
The butler can be served by a head footman or footboy called the under-butler. The word "butler" comes from Anglo-Norman buteler, variant form of Old Norman *butelier, corresponding to Old French botellier "officer in charge of the king's wine bottles", derived of boteille "bottle", Modern French bouteille, itself from Gallo-Romance BUTICULA "bottle"; the role of the butler, for centuries, has been that of the chief steward of a household, the attendant entrusted with the care and serving of wine and other bottled beverages which in ancient times might have represented a considerable portion of the household's assets. In Britain, the butler was a middle-ranking member of the staff of a grand household. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the butler became the senior male, member of a household's staff in the grandest households. However, there was sometimes a steward who ran the outside estate and financial affairs, rather than just the household, and, senior to the butler in social status into the 19th century.
Butlers used always to be attired in a special uniform, distinct from the livery of junior servants, but today a butler is more to wear a business suit or business casual clothing and appear in uniform only on special occasions. A silverman or silver butler has expertise and professional knowledge of the management, secure storage and cleaning of all silverware, associated tableware and other paraphernalia for use at military and other special functions; the modern role of the butler has evolved from earlier roles that were concerned with the care and serving of alcoholic beverages. From ancient through medieval times, alcoholic beverages were chiefly stored first in earthenware vessels later in wooden barrels, rather than in glass bottles; the care of these assets was therefore reserved for trusted slaves, although the job could go to free persons because of heredity-based class lines or the inheritance of trades. The biblical book of Genesis contains a reference to a role precursive to modern butlers.
The early Hebrew Joseph interpreted a dream of Pharaoh's שקה, most translated into English as "chief butler" or "chief cup-bearer". In ancient Greece and Rome, it was nearly always slaves who were charged with the care and service of wine, while during the Medieval Era the pincerna filled the role within the noble court; the English word "butler" itself comes from the Middle English word boteler, from Anglo-Norman buteler, itself from Old Norman butelier, corresponding to Old French botellier, Modern French bouteiller, before that from Medieval Latin butticula. The modern English "butler" thus relates both to casks; the European butler emerged as a middle-ranking member of the servants of a great house, in charge of the buttery. While this is so for household butlers, those with the same title but in service to the Crown enjoyed a position of administrative power and were only minimally involved with various stores; the Steward of the Elizabethan era was more akin to the butler that emerged.
Throughout the 19th century and the Victorian era, as the number of butlers and other domestic servants increased in various countries, the butler became a senior male servant of a household's staff. By this time he was in charge of the more modern wine cellar, the "buttery" or pantry as it came to be called, which supplied bread, butter and other basic provisions, the ewery, which contained napkins and basins for washing and shaving. In the grandest households there was sometimes an Estate Steward or other senior steward who oversaw the butler and his duties. Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management, a manual published in Britain in 1861, reported: The number of the male domestics in a family varies according to the wealth and position of the master, from the owner of the ducal mansion, with a retinue of attendants, at the head of, the chamberlain and house-steward, to the occupier of the humbler house, where a single footman, or the odd man-of-all-work, is the only male retainer; the majority of gentlemen's establishments comprise a servant out of livery, or butler, a footman, coachman, or coachman and groom, where the horses exceed two or three.
Butler
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