Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. referred to as Warner Bros. and abbreviated as WB, is an American entertainment company headquartered in Burbank, California and a subsidiary of AT&T's WarnerMedia. Founded in 1923, it has operations in film and video games and is one of the "Big Five" major American film studios, as well as a member of the Motion Picture Association of America; the company's name originated from the four founding Warner brothers: Harry, Albert and Jack Warner. Harry and Sam emigrated as young children with their parents to Canada from Krasnosielc, Poland. Jack, the youngest brother, was born in Ontario; the three elder brothers began in the movie theater business, having acquired a movie projector with which they showed films in the mining towns of Pennsylvania and Ohio. In the beginning and Albert Warner invested $150 to present Life of an American Fireman and The Great Train Robbery, they opened their first theater, the Cascade, in New Castle, Pennsylvania, in 1903. When the original building was in danger of being demolished, the modern Warner Bros. called the current building owners, arranged to save it.
The owners noted people across the country had asked them to protect it for its historical significance. In 1904, the Warners founded the Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Amusement & Supply Company, to distribute films. In 1912, Harry Warner hired. By the time of World War I they had begun producing films. In 1918 they opened the first Warner Brothers Studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Sam and Jack produced the pictures, while Harry and Albert, along with their auditor and now controller Chase, handled finance and distribution in New York City. During World War I their first nationally syndicated film, My Four Years in Germany, based on a popular book by former ambassador James W. Gerard, was released. On April 4, 1923, with help from money loaned to Harry by his banker Motley Flint, they formally incorporated as Warner Bros. Pictures, Incorporated; the first important deal was the acquisition of the rights to Avery Hopwood's 1919 Broadway play, The Gold Diggers, from theatrical impresario David Belasco.
However, Rin Tin Tin, a dog brought from France after World War I by an American soldier, established their reputation. Rin Tin Tin debuted in the feature; the movie was so successful. Rin Tin Tin became the studio's top star. Jack nicknamed him "The Mortgage Lifter" and the success boosted Darryl F. Zanuck's career. Zanuck became a top producer and between 1928 and 1933 served as Jack's right-hand man and executive producer, with responsibilities including day-to-day film production. More success came. Lubitsch's film The Marriage Circle was the studio's most successful film of 1924, was on The New York Times best list for that year. Despite the success of Rin Tin Tin and Lubitsch, Warner's remained a lesser studio. Sam and Jack decided to offer Broadway actor John Barrymore the lead role in Beau Brummel; the film was so successful. By the end of 1924, Warner Bros. was arguably Hollywood's most successful independent studio, where it competed with "The Big Three" Studios. As a result, Harry Warner—while speaking at a convention of 1,500 independent exhibitors in Milwaukee, Wisconsin—was able to convince the filmmakers to spend $500,000 in newspaper advertising, Harry saw this as an opportunity to establish theaters in cities such as New York and Los Angeles.
As the studio prospered, it gained backing from Wall Street, in 1924 Goldman Sachs arranged a major loan. With this new money, the Warners bought the pioneer Vitagraph Company which had a nationwide distribution system. In 1925, Warners' experimented in radio, establishing a successful radio station, KFWB, in Los Angeles. Warner Bros. was a pioneer of films with synchronized sound. In 1925, at Sam's urging, Warner's agreed to add this feature to their productions. By February 1926, the studio reported a net loss of $333,413. After a long period denying Sam's request for sound, Harry agreed to change, as long as the studio's use of synchronized sound was for background music purposes only; the Warners signed a contract with the sound engineer company Western Electric and established Vitaphone. In 1926, Vitaphone began making films with music and effects tracks, most notably, in the feature Don Juan starring John Barrymore; the film was silent. To hype Don Juan's release, Harry acquired the large Piccadilly Theater in Manhattan, New York City, renamed it Warners' Theatre.
Don Juan premiered at the Warners' Theatre in New York on August 6, 1926. Throughout the early history of film distribution, theater owners hired orchestras to attend film showings, where they provided soundtracks. Through Vitaphone, Warner Bros. produced eight shorts in 1926. Many film production companies questioned the necessity. Don Juan did not recoup its production cost and Lubitsch left for MGM. By April 1927, the Big Five studios had ruined Warner's, Western Electric renewed Warner's Vit
James A. Michener
James Albert Michener was an American author of more than 40 books, most of which were fictional, lengthy family sagas covering the lives of many generations in particular geographic locales and incorporating solid history. Michener had numerous bestsellers and works selected for Book of the Month Club, was known for his meticulous research behind the books. Michener's novels include Tales of the South Pacific for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1948, The Drifters, The Source, The Fires of Spring, Caribbean, Alaska, Texas and Poland, his non-fiction works include Iberia, about his travels in Portugal. Return to Paradise combines fictional short stories with Michener's factual descriptions of the Pacific areas where they take place, his first book was adapted as the popular Broadway musical South Pacific by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, as eponymous feature films in 1958 and 2001, adding to his financial success. He wrote an analysis of the United States' Electoral College system in a book which condemned it, entitled Presidential Lottery: The Reckless Gamble in Our Electoral System.
It was published in 1969, republished in 2014 and 2016. Michener wrote that he did not know who his biological parents were, or when or where he was born, he said he was raised a Quaker by an adoptive mother, Mabel Michener, in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Michener graduated from Doylestown High School in 1925, he attended Swarthmore College, in Swarthmore, where he played basketball and was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. After graduating summa cum laude in 1929, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and History, he traveled and studied in Scotland at the University of St Andrews in the medieval town of St. Andrews, Fife on the coast of the North Sea for two years. Michener took a job as a high school English teacher at The Hill School in Pennsylvania. From 1933 to 1936, he taught English at George School in Pennsylvania, he attended Colorado State College of Education in Greeley, where he earned a Master of Arts degree in Education. After graduation, he taught at College High School for several years.
The library at the University of Northern Colorado was named after him in October 1972. In 1935, Michener married Patti Koon, he accepted a Guest Lecturer position at Harvard, from 1939 to 1940, but left to join Macmillan Publishers as their social studies education editor. Michener was called to active duty during World War II in the United States Navy, he traveled throughout the South Pacific Ocean on various assignments which he gained because his base commanders mistakenly thought his father was Admiral Marc Mitscher. His experiences during these travels inspired the stories published in his breakout work Tales of the South Pacific. In 1960, Michener was chairman of the Bucks County committee to elect Democrat John F. Kennedy as the 35th President. In 1962, he unsuccessfully ran as a Democratic Party candidate for a seat in the U. S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, a decision he considered a misstep. "My mistake was to run in 1962 as a Democratic candidate for Congress. Kept saying,'Don't do it, don't do it.'
I lost and went back to writing books."In 1968, Michener served as the campaign manager for the third-term run of the twice-elected U. S. Senator Joseph S. Clark of Pennsylvania. Michener served as Secretary for the 1967–1968 Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention; that year, Michener was a member of the Electoral College, serving as a Pennsylvania Democrat. He wrote about that experience in a political science text Presidential Lottery: The Reckless Gamble in Our Electoral System, published the following year. In it, he suggested alternate systems, including using a direct popular vote by majority for the office of President of the United States. Michener began his writing career during World War II, when as a lieutenant in the U. S. Navy he was assigned to the South Pacific as a naval historian, he turned his notes and impressions into Tales of the South Pacific, his first book, published when he was age 40. It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1948, Rodgers and Hammerstein adapted it as the hit Broadway musical South Pacific, which premiered on Broadway in New York City in 1949.
The musical was adapted as eponymous feature films in 1958 and 2001. In the late 1950s, Michener began working as a roving editor for the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, he gave up that work in 1970. Michener was unsuccessful. American television producer Bob Mann wanted Michener to co-create a weekly anthology series from Tales of the South Pacific and serve as narrator. Rodgers and Hammerstein, had bought all dramatic rights to the novel and did not relinquish their ownership. Michener did lend his name to a different television series, Adventures in Paradise, in 1959, starring Gardner McKay as Captain Adam Troy in the sailing ship Tiki III. Michener was a popular writer during his lifetime, his novel Hawaii, well-timed on its publication when Hawaii became the 50th state, was based on extensive research. He used this approach for nearly all of his subsequent novels, which were based on detailed historical and geological research. Centennial, which documented several generations of families in the Rocky Mountains of the American West, was adapted as a popular 12-part television miniseries of the same name and aired on the N
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial and space warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the five branches of the United States Armed Forces, one of the seven American uniformed services. Formed as a part of the United States Army on 1 August 1907, the USAF was established as a separate branch of the U. S. Armed Forces on 18 September 1947 with the passing of the National Security Act of 1947, it is the youngest branch of the U. S. Armed Forces, the fourth in order of precedence; the USAF is the largest and most technologically advanced air force in the world. The Air Force articulates its core missions as air and space superiority, global integrated intelligence and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, command and control; the U. S. Air Force is a military service branch organized within the Department of the Air Force, one of the three military departments of the Department of Defense; the Air Force, through the Department of the Air Force, is headed by the civilian Secretary of the Air Force, who reports to the Secretary of Defense, is appointed by the President with Senate confirmation.
The highest-ranking military officer in the Air Force is the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, who exercises supervision over Air Force units and serves as one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Air Force components are assigned, as directed by the Secretary of Defense, to the combatant commands, neither the Secretary of the Air Force nor the Chief of Staff of the Air Force have operational command authority over them. Along with conducting independent air and space operations, the U. S. Air Force provides air support for land and naval forces and aids in the recovery of troops in the field; as of 2017, the service operates more than 5,369 military aircraft, 406 ICBMs and 170 military satellites. It has a $161 billion budget and is the second largest service branch, with 318,415 active duty airmen, 140,169 civilian personnel, 69,200 reserve airmen, 105,700 Air National Guard airmen. According to the National Security Act of 1947, which created the USAF: In general, the United States Air Force shall include aviation forces both combat and service not otherwise assigned.
It shall be organized and equipped for prompt and sustained offensive and defensive air operations. The Air Force shall be responsible for the preparation of the air forces necessary for the effective prosecution of war except as otherwise assigned and, in accordance with integrated joint mobilization plans, for the expansion of the peacetime components of the Air Force to meet the needs of war. §8062 of Title 10 US Code defines the purpose of the USAF as: to preserve the peace and security, provide for the defense, of the United States, the Territories and possessions, any areas occupied by the United States. The stated mission of the USAF today is to "fly and win...in air and cyberspace". "The United States Air Force will be a trusted and reliable joint partner with our sister services known for integrity in all of our activities, including supporting the joint mission first and foremost. We will provide compelling air and cyber capabilities for use by the combatant commanders. We will excel as stewards of all Air Force resources in service to the American people, while providing precise and reliable Global Vigilance and Power for the nation".
The five core missions of the Air Force have not changed since the Air Force became independent in 1947, but they have evolved, are now articulated as air and space superiority, global integrated intelligence and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, command and control. The purpose of all of these core missions is to provide, what the Air Force states as, global vigilance, global reach, global power. Air superiority is "that degree of dominance in the air battle of one force over another which permits the conduct of operations by the former and its related land, sea and special operations forces at a given time and place without prohibitive interference by the opposing force". Offensive Counterair is defined as "offensive operations to destroy, disrupt, or neutralize enemy aircraft, launch platforms, their supporting structures and systems both before and after launch, but as close to their source as possible". OCA is the preferred method of countering air and missile threats since it attempts to defeat the enemy closer to its source and enjoys the initiative.
OCA comprises attack operations, sweep and suppression/destruction of enemy air defense. Defensive Counter air is defined as "all the defensive measures designed to detect, identify and destroy or negate enemy forces attempting to penetrate or attack through friendly airspace". A major goal of DCA operations, in concert with OCA operations, is to provide an area from which forces can operate, secure from air and missile threats; the DCA mission comprises both passive defense measures. Active defense is "the employment of limited offensive action and counterattacks to deny a contested area or position to the enemy", it includes both ballistic missile defense and air-breathing threat defense, encompasses point defense, area defense, high-value airborne asset defense. Passive defense is "measures taken to reduce the probability of and to minimize the effects of damage caused by hostile action without the intention of taking the initiative", it includes warning.
Sayonara (novel)
Sayonara, is a novel published by American author James A. Michener. Set during the early 1950s, it tells the story of Major Gruver, a soldier stationed in Japan, who falls in love with Hana-Ogi, a Japanese woman; the novel follows their cross-cultural Japanese romance and illuminates the racism of the post-World War II time period. Sayonara was made into a film of the same name in 1957 directed by Joshua Logan and starring Marlon Brando
Franz Waxman
Franz Waxman was a German and American composer of Jewish descent, known for his work in the film music genre. His film scores include Bride of Frankenstein, Sunset Boulevard, A Place in the Sun, Stalag 17, Rear Window, Peyton Place, The Nun's Story, Taras Bulba, he received twelve Academy Award nominations, won two Oscars in consecutive years. He received a Golden Globe Award for the former film. Bernard Herrmann said that the score for Taras Bulba was "the score of a lifetime." He composed concert works, including the oratorio Joshua, The Song of Terezin, a work for orchestra and children's chorus based upon poetry written by children in the Theresienstadt concentration camp during World War II. Waxman founded the Los Angeles Music Festival in 1947 with which he conducted a number of West Coast premieres by fellow film composers, concert composers alike. Waxman was born Franz Wachsmann in Königshütte to Jewish parents in the German Empire's Prussian Province of Silesia. At the age of three Waxman suffered a serious eye injury involving boiling water tipped from a stove, which left his vision permanently impaired.
In 1923, at age 16, Waxman enrolled in the Dresden Music Academy and studied composition and conducting. Waxman lived from the money he managed to put himself through school. While working as a pianist with the Weintraub Syncopators, a dance band, Waxman met Frederick Hollander, who introduced Waxman to the eminent conductor Bruno Walter. Waxman worked as an orchestrator for the German film industry, including on Hollander's score for The Blue Angel. Waxman's first dramatic score was for the film Liliom; that year Waxman suffered a severe beating by Nazi sympathizers in Berlin that led him to leave Germany and move with his wife first to Paris, soon after to Hollywood. In Hollywood, Waxman met James Whale, impressed by Waxman's score for Liliom; the success of his score for Whale's Bride of Frankenstein led to the young composer's appointment as Head of Music at Universal Studios. Waxman, was more interested in composition than musical direction for film, in 1936 he left Universal to become a composer at MGM.
Waxman scored a number of pictures during the next few years, but the score for Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca made his name. Waxman was called to work on scores of horror or suspense films, Rebecca was the culmination of the genre for Waxman. Rebecca was Hitchcock's first Hollywood film as part of his contract with David O. Selznick, thus it was the first time he was allowed a full symphonic score. Selznick financed the film at the same time. Waxman's score for Rebecca is eerie and ethereal setting the mood and as Jack Sullivan put it, becoming a "soundboard for the subconscious."In 1943 Waxman left MGM and moved to Warner Bros. where he worked alongside such great film composers as Max Steiner and Erich Wolfgang Korngold. A period of extended composition followed, including such films as Mr. Skeffington and Objective, Burma!. A climactic scene in Objective, Burma! was scored fugally, this would become one of Waxman's trademarks, returning in The Spirit of St. Louis and Taras Bulba. In 1947 Waxman formed the Los Angeles Music Festival, for which he served as music director and conductor for the rest of his life.
Waxman's goal with the LA Music Festival was to bring the thriving town to "European cultural standards", according to Tony Thomas. In addition to performing the work of great masters such as Stravinsky, he collaborated with his colleagues, such as Miklós Rózsa, conducting his Violin Concerto, his time at Warner Brothers did not last long and by 1947 Waxman had left Warner Brothers to become a freelance film composer, taking only the jobs he wanted rather than being appointed by the studio. Waxman scored the film Sorry, Wrong Number, which climaxes with the use of a passacaglia, highlighting Waxman's inventive use of unusual musical forms in film. Waxman had used classical forms before: the climactic "Creation" cue from The Bride of Frankenstein "is in effect a fantasia on one note."His work on Sunset Boulevard led to an Academy Award. The score is fast-paced and powerful, utilizing various techniques to highlight the insanity of Norma Desmond, including low pulsing notes and frequent trills.
According to Mervyn Cooke, Richard Strauss's opera Salome was the inspiration for the wild trills heard during Desmond's insane final performance. Waxman received a second consecutive Oscar for A Place in the Sun. However, while awards for film music highlighted the beginning of the 1950s, the decade is the decade during which Waxman began to write serious works for the concert hall; the Sinfonietta for Strings and Timpani came in 1955 and 1959 saw the completion of Waxman's oratorio Joshua. Composed to commemorate the death of Waxman's wife, Joshua with its strong Hebrew influences and extensive use of form is a powerful example of Waxman's compositional powers by the end of the 1950s. Waxman's life continued to see extreme growth as a composer. Christopher Palmer writes that at the time of his death in 1967, "Waxman was at the zenith of his powers." Waxman's output in the 1960s was more subdued than that which came before it, however he did write Taras Bulba in 1962. Waxman worked on several television shows, including Gunsmoke, in 1966.
"The Song of Terezin" was based upon poetry by children trapped in the Nazi's Th
Kabuki
Kabuki is a classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers; the individual kanji, from left to right, mean sing and skill. Kabuki is therefore sometimes translated as "the art of singing and dancing"; these are, ateji characters which do not reflect actual etymology. The kanji of'skill' refers to a performer in kabuki theatre. Since the word kabuki is believed to derive from the verb kabuku, meaning "to lean" or "to be out of the ordinary", kabuki can be interpreted as "avant-garde" or "bizarre" theatre; the expression kabukimono referred to those who were bizarrely dressed. It is translated into English as "strange things" or "the crazy ones", referred to the style of dress worn by gangs of samurai. In 2005, the Kabuki theatre was proclaimed by UNESCO as an intangible heritage possessing outstanding universal value. In 2008, it was inscribed in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The history of kabuki began in 1603 when Izumo no Okuni a miko of Izumo-taisha, began performing a new style of dance drama in the dry riverbeds of Kyoto. It originated in the 17th century. Japan was under the control of the Tokugawa shogunate, enforced by Tokugawa Ieyasu; the name of the Edo period derives from the relocation of the Tokugawa regime from its former home in Kyoto to the city of Edo, present-day Tokyo. Female performers played both women in comic playlets about ordinary life; the style was popular, Okuni was asked to perform before the Imperial Court. In the wake of such success, rival troupes formed, kabuki was born as ensemble dance and drama performed by women—a form different from its modern incarnation. Much of its appeal in this era was due to the suggestive themes featured by many troupes. For this reason, kabuki was called "遊女歌舞妓" during this period. Kabuki became a common form of entertainment in the ukiyo, or Yoshiwara, the registered red-light district in Edo. A diverse crowd gathered under something that happened nowhere else in the city.
Kabuki theaters were a place to see and be seen as they featured the latest fashion trends and current events. The stage provided good entertainment with exciting new music, patterns and famous actors. Performances went from morning until sunset; the teahouses surrounding or connected to the theater provided meals and good company. The area around the theatres was filled with shops selling kabuki souvenirs. Kabuki, in a sense, initiated pop culture in Japan; the shogunate was never partial to kabuki and all the mischief it brought the variety of the social classes which mixed at kabuki performances. Women’s kabuki, called onna-kabuki, was banned in 1629 for being too erotic. Following onna-kabuki, young boys performed in wakashū-kabuki, but since they too were eligible for prostitution, the shōgun government soon banned wakashū-kabuki as well. Kabuki switched to adult male actors, called yaro-kabuki, in the mid-1600s. Male actors played both male characters; the theatre remained popular, remained a focus of urban lifestyle until modern times.
Although kabuki was performed all over ukiyo and other portions for the country, the Nakamura-za, Ichimura-za and Kawarazaki-za theatres became the top theatres in ukiyo, where some of the most successful kabuki performances were and still are held. The modern all-male kabuki, known as yarō-kabuki, was established during these decades. After women were banned from performing, cross-dressed male actors, known as onnagata or oyama, took over. Young men were preferred for women's roles due to their less masculine appearance and the higher pitch of their voices compared to adult men. In addition, wakashū roles, played by young men selected for attractiveness, became common, were presented in an erotic context. Along with the change in the performer's gender came a change in the emphasis of the performance: increased stress was placed on drama rather than dance. Performances were ribald, the male actors too were available for prostitution. Audiences became rowdy, brawls broke out, sometimes over the favors of a handsome young actor, leading the shogunate to ban first onnagata and wakashū roles.
Both bans were rescinded by 1652. During the Genroku era, kabuki thrived; the structure of a kabuki play was formalized during this period. Conventional character types were established. Kabuki theater and ningyō jōruri, the elaborate form of puppet theater that came to be known as bunraku, became associated with each other, each has since influenced the other's development; the famous playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon, one of the first professional kabuki playwrights, produced several influential works, though the piece acknowledged as his most significant, Sonezaki Shinjū, was written for bunraku. Like many bunraku plays, it was adapted for kabuki, it spawned many imitators—in fact, it and similar plays caused so many real-life "copycat" suicides that the government banned shinju mono in 1723. Ichikawa Danjūrō I lived during this time. Male actors played both male characters. In the 1840s, fires started to affect E
Kent Smith
Frank Kent Smith was an American actor who had a lengthy career in film and television. Smith was educated at Harvard University. Smith's early acting experience started in 1925 when he was one of the founders of the famed Harvard "University Players", which included Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Joshua Logan and Margaret Sullavan in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Smith's stock experience included productions with the Maryland Theatre in Baltimore, his professional acting debut was in 1929 in Blind Window in Mayland. He made his Broadway acting debut in 1932 in Men Must Fight, he appeared on Broadway in Measure for Measure, Sweet Love Remembered, The Best Man, Ah, Wilderness!, Saint Joan, Old Acquaintance and Cleopatra and Bus Stop. Smith moved to Hollywood, where he made his film debut in The Garden Murder Case, his biggest successes occurred during the 1940s in films such as Cat People, Hitler's Children, This Land Is Mine, Three Russian Girls, Youth Runs Wild, The Curse of the Cat People, The Spiral Staircase, Nora Prentiss, Magic Town, My Foolish Heart, The Fountainhead, The Damned Don't Cry.
He continued acting in films such as Comanche, Party Girl, The Mugger, Imitation General, The Badlanders, This Earth Is Mine, Strangers When We Meet, Susan Slade, The Balcony, A Distant Trumpet, Youngblood Hawke, The Young Lovers, The Trouble with Angels, A Covenant with Death, The Money Jungle, Kona Coast, Assignment to Kill, Death of a Gunfighter, The Games, Pete'n' Tillie, Die Sister, Die!, Lost Horizon and Billy Jack Goes to Washington. During WW II, Smith served as a private in the US Army, making training films covering among others, dental, artillery, & electronics. Smith played Edgar Scoville in the ABC science fiction series The Invaders and was a host for the CBS anthology series Philip Morris Playhouse.:831 Smith had roles in television films such as How Awful About Allan, The Night Stalker, The Judge and Jake Wyler, The Cat Creature and The Disappearance of Flight 412. His numerous television credits included a continuing role in the soap opera Peyton Place as Dr. Robert Morton.
He began guest-starring in television series in 1949 in The Philco Television Playhouse, appeared in Robert Montgomery Presents, Wagon Train, General Electric Theater, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Naked City, Have Gun Will Travel, Perry Mason, Rawhide, The Americans, Barnaby Jones, The Outer Limits, Night Gallery, the 1976 miniseries Once an Eagle. His last appearance was in a 1977 episode of Wonder Woman. Smith was married to actress Betty Gillette from 1937 until 1954, to actress Edith Atwater from 1962 until his death from congestive heart failure in Woodland Hills, California, at the age of 78, he was survived by his daughter. Smith was a campaigned for Dwight Eisenhower in the 1952 presidential election. Kent Smith on IMDb Kent Smith at the Internet Broadway Database
