1.
San Fernando Valley
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The San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in Los Angeles County, California, defined by the mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it. Home to 1.8 million people, it lies north of the larger, nearly two thirds of the valleys land area is part of the city of Los Angeles. The other incorporated cities in the valley are Glendale, Burbank, San Fernando, Hidden Hills, the Los Angeles River begins at the confluence of Calabasas Creek and Bell Creek, between Canoga Park High School and Owensmouth Ave. in Canoga Park. These creeks headwaters are in the Santa Monica Calabasas foothills, the Simi Hills Hidden Hills, Santa Susana Field Laboratory, the river flows eastward along the southern regions of the Valley. One of the rivers two unpaved sections can be found at the Sepulveda Basin, a seasonal river, the Tujunga Wash, drains much of the western facing San Gabriel Mountains and passes into and then through the Hansen Dam Recreation Center in Lake View Terrace. It flows south along the Verdugo Mountains through the communities of the valley to join the Los Angeles River in Studio City. Other notable tributaries of the river include Dayton Creek, Caballero Creek, Bull Creek, Pacoima Wash, the elevation of the floor of the valley varies from about 600 ft to 1,200 ft above sea level. Universal City, an enclave in the part of the valley, is unincorporated land housing the Universal Studios filming lot. Mulholland Drive, which runs along the ridgeline of the Santa Monica Mountains, in this Mediterranean climate, post-1790s European agriculture for the missions support consisted of grapes, figs, olives, and general garden crops. The San Fernando Valley contains five incorporated cities—Glendale, Burbank, San Fernando, Hidden Hills and Calabasas—and part of a sixth, Los Angeles, the unincorporated communities are governed by the County of Los Angeles. The Los Angeles city section of the valley is divided into seven city districts,2,3,4,5,6,7 and 12. Of the 95 neighborhood councils in the city,34 are in the valley, the valley is represented in the California State Legislature by seven members of the State Assembly and five members of the State Senate. The valley is divided into five congressional districts, the San Fernando Valley, for the most part, tends to support Democrats in state and national elections. This is especially true in the areas which include Sherman Oaks. The Los Angeles satellite administrative center for the valley, The Civic Center Van Nuys, is in Van Nuys. The area in and around the Van Nuys branch of Los Angeles City Hall is home to a station, municipal and superior courts. Northridge is home to California State University, Northridge, many branches of the Los Angeles Public Library are located in the valley. For independent libraries see Incorporated Cities in the Municipalities and districts list below, Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department, and independent valley city departments
2.
Santa Monica, California
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Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, United States. The Census Bureau population for Santa Monica in 2010 was 89,736, due in part to an agreeable climate, Santa Monica became a famed resort town by the early 20th century. The city has experienced a boom since the late 1980s through the revitalization of its core, significant job growth. The Santa Monica Pier remains a popular and iconic destination, Santa Monica was long inhabited by the Tongva people. Santa Monica was called Kecheek in the Tongva language, the first non-indigenous group to set foot in the area was the party of explorer Gaspar de Portolà, who camped near the present-day intersection of Barrington and Ohio Avenues on August 3,1769. Named after the Christian saint Monica, there are two different accounts of how the name came to be. One says it was named in honor of the feast day of Saint Monica, another version says it was named by Juan Crespí on account of a pair of springs, the Kuruvungna Springs, that were reminiscent of the tears Saint Monica shed over her sons early impiety. In Los Angeles, several battles were fought by the Californios, following the Mexican–American War, Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which gave Mexicans and Californios living in state certain unalienable rights. US government sovereignty in California began on February 2,1848, in the 1870s the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad, connected Santa Monica with Los Angeles, and a wharf out into the bay. The first town hall was a modest 1873 brick building, later a beer hall and it is Santa Monicas oldest extant structure. By 1885, the towns first hotel was the Santa Monica Hotel, around the start of the 20th century, a growing population of Asian Americans lived in and around Santa Monica and Venice. A Japanese fishing village was near the Long Wharf while small numbers of Chinese lived or worked in Santa Monica, the two ethnic minorities were often viewed differently by White Americans who were often well-disposed towards the Japanese but condescending towards the Chinese. The Japanese village fishermen were an economic part of the Santa Monica Bay community. Donald Wills Douglas, Sr. built a plant in 1922 at Clover Field for the Douglas Aircraft Company, in 1924, four Douglas-built planes took off from Clover Field to attempt the first aerial circumnavigation of the world. Two planes returned after covering 27,553 miles in 175 days, the Douglas Company kept facilities in the city until the 1960s. The Great Depression hit Santa Monica deeply, one report gives citywide employment in 1933 of just 1,000. Hotels and office building owners went bankrupt, in the 1930s, corruption infected Santa Monica. The federal Works Project Administration helped build several buildings, most notably City Hall, the main Post Office and Barnum Hall were also among other WPA projects
3.
Academy Awards
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The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette, officially called the Academy Award of Merit, which has become commonly known by its nickname Oscar. The awards, first presented in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, are overseen by AMPAS, the awards ceremony was first broadcast on radio in 1930 and televised for the first time in 1953. It is now live in more than 200 countries and can be streamed live online. The Academy Awards ceremony is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony and its equivalents – the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music and recording – are modeled after the Academy Awards. The 89th Academy Awards ceremony, honoring the best films of 2016, were held on February 26,2017, at the Dolby Theatre, in Los Angeles, the ceremony was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and was broadcast on ABC. A total of 3,048 Oscars have been awarded from the inception of the award through the 88th, the first Academy Awards presentation was held on May 16,1929, at a private dinner function at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people. The post-awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel, the cost of guest tickets for that nights ceremony was $5. Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists, directors and other participants in the industry of the time. The ceremony ran for 15 minutes, winners were announced to media three months earlier, however, that was changed for the second ceremony in 1930. Since then, for the rest of the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11,00 pm on the night of the awards. The first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and he had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier, this made him the first Academy Award winner in history. With the fourth ceremony, however, the system changed, for the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years. At the 29th ceremony, held on March 27,1957, until then, foreign-language films had been honored with the Special Achievement Award. The 74th Academy Awards, held in 2002, presented the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, since 1973, all Academy Awards ceremonies always end with the Academy Award for Best Picture. The Academy also awards Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, see also § Awards of Merit categories The best known award is the Academy Award of Merit, more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. The five spokes represent the branches of the Academy, Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers. The model for the statuette is said to be Mexican actor Emilio El Indio Fernández, sculptor George Stanley sculpted Cedric Gibbons design. The statuettes presented at the ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze
4.
Broadcasting
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Broadcasting began with AM radio, which came into popular use around 1920 with the spread of vacuum tube radio transmitters and receivers. Before this, all forms of communication were one-to-one, with the message intended for a single recipient. Over the air broadcasting is usually associated with radio and television, the receiving parties may include the general public or a relatively small subset, the point is that anyone with the appropriate receiving technology and equipment can receive the signal. The field of broadcasting includes both government-managed services such as radio, community radio and public television, and private commercial radio. The U. S. Code of Federal Regulations, title 47, part 97 defines broadcasting as transmissions intended for reception by the general public, private or two-way telecommunications transmissions do not qualify under this definition. For example, amateur and citizens band radio operators are not allowed to broadcast, as defined, transmitting and broadcasting are not the same. Transmissions using a wire or cable, like television, are also considered broadcasts. In the 2000s, transmissions of television and radio programs via streaming digital technology have increasingly been referred to as broadcasting as well, the earliest broadcasting consisted of sending telegraph signals over the airwaves, using Morse code, a system developed in the 1830s by Samuel F. B. Morse, physicist Joseph Henry and Alfred Vail and they developed an electrical telegraph system which sent pulses of electric current along wires which controlled an electromagnet that was located at the receiving end of the telegraph system. A code was needed to transmit natural language using only these pulses, Morse therefore developed the forerunner to modern International Morse code. Audio broadcasting began experimentally in the first decade of the 20th century, by the early 1920s radio broadcasting became a household medium, at first on the AM band and later on FM. Television broadcasting started experimentally in the 1920s and became widespread after World War II, satellite broadcasting was initiated in the 1960s and moved into general industry usage in the 1970s, with DBS emerging in the 1980s. Originally all broadcasting was composed of signals using analog transmission techniques but in the 2000s. In general usage, broadcasting most frequently refers to the transmission of information, Analog audio vs. HD Radio Analog television vs.9 zettabytes. This is the equivalent of 55 newspapers per person per day in 1986. Historically, there have been several methods used for broadcasting electronic media audio and/or video to the public, Telephone broadcasting. Telephone broadcasting also grew to include telephone services for news and entertainment programming which were introduced in the 1890s. These telephone-based subscription services were the first examples of electrical/electronic broadcasting, Radio broadcasting, audio signals sent through the air as radio waves from a transmitter, picked up by an antenna and sent to a receiver
5.
74th Academy Awards
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The 74th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, took place on March 24,2002, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles. During the ceremony, AMPAS presented Academy Awards in 24 categories honoring films released in 2001, the ceremony, televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by Laura Ziskin and directed by Louis J. Horvitz. Actress Whoopi Goldberg hosted the show for the fourth time and she first hosted the 66th ceremony held in 1994 and had last hosted the 71st ceremony in 1999. A Beautiful Mind won four awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Ron Howard, other winners included The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring also with four awards, Black Hawk Down and Moulin Rouge. With two, and The Accountant, For the Birds, Gosford Park, Iris, Monsters Ball, Monsters, murder on a Sunday Morning, No Mans Land, Pearl Harbor, Shrek, Thoth, and Training Day, with one. Despite a record length of four hours and twenty-three minutes, the telecast garnered nearly 42 million viewers in the United States, the Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring earned the most nominations with thirteen. It was the film to earn that many nominations. A Beautiful Mind and Moulin Rouge, tied for second place with eight apiece. The winners were announced during the ceremony on March 24,2002. Denzel Washington was the second African-American to win Best Actor in a Leading Role, halle Berry became the first African-American to win Best Actress in a Leading Role. Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger, Sidney Poitier Robert Redford Arthur Hiller The following individuals presented awards or performed musical numbers. The Academy wanted to find a new venue for the festivities amid limited seating and this was the first time the ceremony was held in Hollywood since the 32nd ceremony took place at the Pantages Theatre in 1960. In view of the return of the Oscars to Hollywood, the Academy hired film producer, AMPAS president Frank Pierson explained the decision to hire Ziskin saying, This show is one of the most difficult—if not the most difficult—producing jobs in show business. Laura Ziskin brings intelligence, experience and wit expressed in everything she has done and this marked the first occurrence that a woman produced the Oscars solo. Four months later, Whoopi Goldberg was selected as host of the 2002 ceremony, I look forward to collaborating with Whoopi to put on a meaningful and entertaining evening. Furthermore, the September 11 attacks affected the telecast and its surrounding events, however, due to security concerns the Academy announced that red carpet bleacher seats would now be limited on a reservation basis based on a random selection and a background check. Several other people participated in the production of the ceremony, actors Glenn Close and Donald Sutherland served as announcers during the show. The orchestra led by composer and telecast musical supervisor John Williams
6.
79th Academy Awards
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During the ceremony, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented Academy Awards in 24 categories. The ceremony, televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by Laura Ziskin, Actress Ellen DeGeneres hosted for the first time. Two weeks earlier in a ceremony at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California held on February 10, the Departed won four awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Martin Scorsese. The telecast garnered nearly 40 million viewers in the United States, dreamgirls received the most nominations with eight, and Babel came in second with seven. This marked the first and only occurrence that the film with the most nominations was not a Best Picture nominee, the winners were announced during the awards ceremony on February 25,2007. With his latest unsuccessful nomination for Best Actor, Peter OToole became the most nominated performer without a competitive win, Best Supporting Actress winner Jennifer Hudson was the fifteenth Oscar acting winner to win for a debut film performance. I Need to Wake Up from An Inconvenient Truth became the first song from a film to win Best Original Song. Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger, ennio Morricone — In recognition of his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music. Sherry Lansing The following individuals presented awards or performed musical numbers, because of the declining viewership of recent Academy Awards ceremonies, producer Gil Cates declined to helm the upcoming festivities. The Academy sought ideas to revamp the show while renewing interest with the nominated films, in September 2006, the Academy selected producer Laura Ziskin to oversee production of the telecast for a second time. Nearly three months later, actress and comedian Ellen DeGeneres, who had previously emceed three Primetime Emmy Award ceremonies between 2001 and 2005, was chosen as host of the 2007 ceremony. In an article published in the Los Angeles Times, Ziskin explained the decision to hire DeGeneres saying Certainly, shes popular with a very wide audience. She is not a niche performer and she touches a lot of demographics. AMPAS christened this years telecast with a theme celebrating movie quotes, in tandem with the theme, advertising agency TBWA\Chiat\Day designed the official ceremony poster featuring 75 quotes from several Oscar-nominated or winning films. To stir interest surrounding the awards, filmmaker Spike Lee released a trailer featuring everyday people around New York City reciting famous film lines, during the ceremony, a montage produced by director Nancy Meyers saluted the work of screenwriters and their contributions to film. Several other people participated in the production of the ceremony, william Ross served as musical director for the ceremony. J. Michael Riva designed a new set and stage design for the ceremony, voice actor Don LaFontaine was hired with Gina Tuttle as announcers for the telecast. Actor Greg Vaughan and Lucky columnist Allyson Waterman co-hosted Road to the Oscars, members of the dance troupe and contortionist group Pilobolus performed interpretive shadow figures representing scenes and logos from the nominated films
7.
Jews
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The Jews, also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Israelites, or Hebrews, of the Ancient Near East. Jews originated as a national and religious group in the Middle East during the second millennium BCE, the Merneptah Stele appears to confirm the existence of a people of Israel, associated with the god El, somewhere in Canaan as far back as the 13th century BCE. The Israelites, as an outgrowth of the Canaanite population, consolidated their hold with the emergence of the Kingdom of Israel, some consider that these Canaanite sedentary Israelites melded with incoming nomadic groups known as Hebrews. The worldwide Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million prior to World War II, but approximately 6 million Jews were systematically murdered during the Holocaust. Since then the population has risen again, and as of 2015 was estimated at 14.3 million by the Berman Jewish DataBank. According to the report, about 43% of all Jews reside in Israel and these numbers include all those who self-identified as Jews in a socio-demographic study or were identified as such by a respondent in the same household. The exact world Jewish population, however, is difficult to measure, Israel is the only country where Jews form a majority of the population. The modern State of Israel was established as a Jewish state and defines itself as such in its Declaration of Independence and its Law of Return grants the right of citizenship to any Jew who requests it. The English word Jew continues Middle English Gyw, Iewe, according to the Hebrew Bible, the name of both the tribe and kingdom derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob. The Hebrew word for Jew, יְהוּדִי ISO 259-3 Yhudi, is pronounced, with the stress on the syllable, in Israeli Hebrew. The Ladino name is ג׳ודיו, Djudio, ג׳ודיוס, Djudios, Yiddish, ייִד Yid, ייִדן, Yidn. The etymological equivalent is in use in languages, e. g. but derivations of the word Hebrew are also in use to describe a Jew, e. g. in Italian. The German word Jude is pronounced, the corresponding adjective jüdisch is the origin of the word Yiddish, in such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a factual reconstruction for the origin of the Jews is a difficult and complex endeavor. It requires examining at least 3,000 years of ancient human history using documents in vast quantities, as archaeological discovery relies upon researchers and scholars from diverse disciplines, the goal is to interpret all of the factual data, focusing on the most consistent theory. In this case, it is complicated by long standing politics and religious, Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Jacobs son Joseph by the Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs descendants were later enslaved until the Exodus led by Moses, traditionally dated to the 13th century BCE, Modern archaeology has largely discarded the historicity of the Patriarchs and of the Exodus story, with it being reframed as constituting the Israelites inspiring national myth narrative. The growth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of practices, gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group
8.
University of Southern California
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The University of Southern California is a private research university founded in 1880 with its main campus in Los Angeles, California. As Californias oldest private university, USC has historically educated a large number of the regions business leaders. In recent decades, the university has also leveraged its location in Los Angeles to establish relationships with research and cultural institutions throughout Asia, an engine for economic activity, USC contributes $8 billion annually to the economy of the Los Angeles metropolitan area and California. For the 2014–15 academic year, there were 18,740 students enrolled in undergraduate programs. USC also has 23,729 graduate and professional students in a number of different programs, including business, law, engineering, social work, and medicine. The university is one of the top fundraising institutions in the world, consistently ranking among the top 3 in external contributions, multiple academic rankings list the University of Southern California as being among the top 25 universities in the United States. With an acceptance rate of 16 percent, USC is also among the most selective academic institutions in the nation. USC maintains a tradition of innovation and entrepreneurship, with alumni having founded companies such as Lucasfilm, Myspace, Salesforce. com, Intuit, Qualcomm, Box, Tinder. As of 2014, the university has produced the fourth largest number of billionaire alumni out of all institutions in the world. USC is home to the world’s most powerful computer, which is presently housed in a super-cooled. The only other commercially available quantum computing system is operated jointly by NASA, USC was also one of the earliest nodes on ARPANET and is the birthplace of the Domain Name System. Other technologies invented at USC include DNA computing, dynamic programming, image compression, VoIP, USC sponsors a variety of intercollegiate sports and competes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association as a member of the Pac-12 Conference. Members of the teams, the Trojans, have won 102 NCAA team championships, ranking them third in the nation. Trojan athletes have won 288 medals at the Olympic games, more than any university in the United States. If USC were a country, its athletes would have received the 12th-most Olympic gold medals in history. In 1969, it joined the Association of American Universities, the University of Southern California was founded following the efforts of Judge Robert M. Hellman. The three donated 308 lots of land to establish the campus and provided the seed money for the construction of the first buildings. Originally operated in affiliation with the Methodist Church, the school mandated from the start that no student would be denied admission because of race, the university is no longer affiliated with any church, having severed formal ties in 1952
9.
Barbra Streisand
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Barbara Joan Barbra Streisand is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and filmmaker. She is among a group of entertainers who have been honored with an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award. Streisand is one of the music artists of all time, with more than 68.5 million albums in the United States. She starred in the critically acclaimed Funny Girl, for which she won the Academy Award, with the release of Yentl in 1983, Streisand became the first woman to write, produce, direct, and star in a major studio film. The film won an Oscar for Best Score and a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Musical, Streisand received the Golden Globe Award for Best Director, the first woman to win that award. The RIAA and Billboard recognize Streisand as holding the record for the most top 10 albums of any recording artist. According to Billboard, Streisand holds the record for the female with the most number one albums, Billboard also recognizes Streisand as the greatest female of all time on its Billboard 200 chart and one of the greatest artists of all time on its Hot 100 chart. Barbara Joan Streisand was born on April 24,1942, in Brooklyn, New York and her mother had been a soprano singer in her youth and considered a career in music, but later became a school secretary. Her father was a school teacher at the same school. Streisands family was Jewish, her grandparents emigrated from Galicia and her maternal grandparents from the Russian Empire. Her father earned a degree from City College of New York in 1928 and was considered athletic. As a student, he spent his summers outdoors, once working as a lifeguard, hed try anything, his sister Molly said. He married Ida in 1930, two years after graduating, and became a respected educator with a focus on helping underprivileged. In August 1943, a few months after Streisands first birthday, her father died suddenly at age 34 from complications from an epileptic seizure, the family fell into near-poverty, with her mother working as a low-paid bookkeeper. As an adult, Streisand remembered those early years as always feeling like an outcast, explaining and her mother tried to pay their bills but could not give her daughter the attention she craved, When I wanted love from my mother, she gave me food, Streisand says. Streisand recalls that her mother had a voice and sang semi-professionally on occasion. During a visit to the Catskills when Streisand was thirteen, she told Rosie ODonnell, she and that session was the first time Streisand ever asserted herself as an artist, which also became her first moment of inspiration as an artist. She has a brother, Sheldon, and a half-sister
10.
D.O.A. (1949 film)
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D. O. A. is a 1950 American film noir directed by Rudolph Maté, considered a classic of the genre. The frantically paced plot revolves around a mans quest to find out who has poisoned him. This film marks the debuts of Beverly Garland and Laurette Luez, the film stars Edmond OBrien and Pamela Britton. Popkin produced D. O. A. for his short-lived Cardinal Pictures, due to a filing error the copyright to the film was not renewed on time, causing it to fall into the public domain. The Internet Movie Database shows that 22 companies offer the VHS or DVD versions, the film begins with what a BBC reviewer called perhaps one of cinemas most innovative opening sequences. The scene is a long, behind-the-back tracking sequence featuring Frank Bigelow walking through the hallway of a station to report his own murder. Oddly, the police almost seem to have been expecting him, a flashback begins with Bigelow in his hometown of Banning, California, where he is an accountant and notary public. He decides to take a vacation in San Francisco, but this does not sit well with Paula Gibson, his confidential secretary and girlfriend. Bigelow accompanies a group from a convention on a night on the town. At a jive nightclub called The Fisherman, unnoticed by Bigelow, the nightclub scene includes one of the earliest depictions of the Beat subculture. The next morning, Bigelow feels ill and he visits a doctors office, where tests reveal he swallowed a luminous toxin for which there is no antidote. A second opinion confirms the diagnosis, and the other doctor implies that the poisoning must have been deliberate. Bigelow remembers his drink tasted strange, with a few days to live at most, Bigelow sets out to untangle the events behind his impending death, interrupted occasionally by phone calls from Paula. She provides the first clue, a man named Eugene Phillips, from there, the trail leads to Phillips widow and brother Stanley. The key to the mystery is a bill of sale for what turns out to be stolen iridium, Bigelow had notarized the document for Eugene Phillips six months earlier on behalf of Phillips business associate George Reynolds. He connects Phillips mistress, Marla Rakubian, to gangsters led by Majak and they capture Bigelow where he learns that Reynolds was murdered months earlier after the sale. Since Bigelow has learned too much, Majak orders his psychopathic henchman Chester to kill him, however, Bigelow manages to escape and Chester is killed by the police while attempting to kill Bigelow. Bigelow thinks Stanley and Miss Foster are his killers, but when he confronts them he finds Stanley has been poisoned too—after having dinner with Mrs. Phillips
