83rd Academy Awards
The 83rd Academy Awards ceremony, organized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, honored the best films of 2010 in the United States and took place on February 27, 2011, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST. During the ceremony, Academy Awards were presented in 24 competitive categories; the ceremony was televised in the United States by ABC, produced by Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer, with Mischer serving as director. Actors James Franco and Anne Hathaway co-hosted the ceremony. In related events, the Academy held its second annual Governors Awards ceremony at the Grand Ballroom of the Hollywood and Highland Center on November 13, 2010. On February 12, 2011, in a ceremony at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, the Academy Awards for Technical Achievement were presented by host Marisa Tomei. Inception and The King's Speech won four awards each with the latter film winning Best Picture. Other winners included The Social Network with three awards, Alice in Wonderland, The Fighter, Toy Story 3, with two awards, Black Swan, God of Love, In a Better World, Inside Job, The Lost Thing, Strangers No More, The Wolfman with one.
The telecast garnered 38 million viewers in the United States. The nominees for the 83rd Academy Awards were announced on January 2011, at 5:38 a.m.. PST at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, California by Tom Sherak, president of the Academy, actress Mo'Nique; the King's Speech led the nominations followed by True Grit with ten. The winners were announced during the awards ceremony on February 27, 2011. Toy Story 3 became the third animated film to be nominated for Best Picture. True Grit was the second film after 2002's Gangs of New York to lose all ten of its nominations. By virtue of his nomination for Best Actor in 127 Hours, host James Franco became the first person since Paul Hogan, a co-host and a Best Original Screenplay nominee during the 59th ceremony in 1987, to host the ceremony while receiving a nomination in the same year, he was the first acting nominee since Michael Caine at the 45th ceremony in 1973 to achieve this distinction. With Christian Bale and Melissa Leo's respective wins in the Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress categories, The Fighter became the first film since 1986's Hannah and Her Sisters to win both supporting acting categories.
Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, indicated with a double-dagger. The Academy held its Second Annual Governors Awards ceremony on November 13, 2010, during which the following awards were presented. Kevin Brownlow — For the wise and devoted chronicling of the cinematic parade. Jean-Luc Godard — For passion. For confrontation. For a new kind of cinema. Eli Wallach — For a lifetime's worth of indelible screen characters. Francis Ford Coppola The following individuals performed musical numbers. In June 2010, the AMPAS hired Oscar-winning producer Bruce Cohen and veteran television producer Don Mischer to oversee production of the telecast. "I'm ecstatic that Bruce and Don have accepted my invitation to produce and direct the 83rd Academy Awards telecast," remarked Academy president Tom Sherak. "Their work in producing the Academy's inaugural Governors Awards was exceptional and I am confident they will bring their creative vision and extraordinary talent to produce/direct a most memorable Oscar show."
Opting for younger faces for the ceremony and Mischer hired actor James Franco and actress Anne Hathaway as co-hosts of the 2011 ceremony. "James Franco and Anne Hathaway personify the next generation of Hollywood icons — fresh and multi-talented. We hope to create an Oscar broadcast that will both showcase their incredible talents and entertain the world on February 27," said Cohen and Mischer regarding their selections to host the gala. "We are thrilled that James and Anne will be joining forces with our brilliant creative team to do just that." Franco and Hathaway became the first male-female duo to co-host the awards show since comedian Jerry Lewis and actress Celeste Holm presided over the 29th ceremony in 1957. At age 28, Hathaway was the youngest person to host an Oscar ceremony. Furthermore, AMPAS announced that this year's ceremony was "the most interactive awards show in history"; the Academy revamped their official website oscar.com to include lists of all the nominees and winners, as well as film trailers and exclusive video content produced by both AMPAS and Oscar telecaster ABC.
Via the Academy's Twitter and Facebook pages, people could post questions for any actor or celebrity attending the festivities to answer. One of the four Oscar pre-show co-hosts would pose selected questions to both nominees and attendees alike. For a fee of US$4.99, users had online access to two dozen video streams that would take them from the red carpet, through the ceremony and on to the post-telecast Governors Ball. Several of the cameras utilized 360-degree views. Several other people participated in the production of the ceremony. William Ross served as musical conductor for the ceremony. Production designer Steve Bass built a new stage design for the ceremony. Entertainment Weekly columnist and TV personality Dave Karger greeted guests entering the red carpet. Designer Marc Friedland designed a new envelope heralding the winner of each category made from a high-gloss iridescent metallic gold paper stock, with red-lacquered lining that featured the Oscar statuette stamped in satin gold leaf.
During the run-up to the ceremony, television personality Chris Harrison hosted "Road to the Oscars", a weekly behind-the-scenes video blog. PS22 Chorus children's choir
James Franco
James Edward Franco is an American actor and college instructor. For his role in 127 Hours, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Franco is known for his roles such as Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, he is known for his collaborations with fellow actor Seth Rogen, having appeared in eight films and one television series with him. Franco is known for his work on television, he portrayed the title character in the television biographical film James Dean, for which he won a Golden Globe Award. Franco had a recurring role on the daytime soap opera General Hospital and starred in the limited series 11.22.63. He stars in the David Simon-created HBO drama The Deuce. Franco volunteers for the Art of Elysium charity, has taught film classes at New York University, the University of Southern California, UCLA, Studio 4, Palo Alto High School, Playhouse West. James Edward Franco was born in Palo Alto, California on April 19, 1978, his mother, Betsy Lou, is a writer and occasional actress, his father, Douglas Eugene "Doug" Franco, ran a Silicon Valley business.
His father was of Portuguese and Swedish ancestry, while his mother is Jewish, from a family of Russian Jewish descent. His maternal grandfather, changed his surname from "Verovitz" to "Verne" some time after 1940, his paternal grandmother, Marjorie, is a published author of young adult books. His maternal grandmother, owned the prominent Verne Art Gallery in Cleveland and was an active member in the National Council of Jewish Women. Franco's family upbringing was "academic and secular", he grew up in California with actors Tom and Dave. A "math whiz", Franco interned at Lockheed Martin, he was encouraged by his father to get good grades and did well on his SATs. He graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1996; this led to him attending CSSSA in 1998 for theater studies. In his high school years, Franco was arrested for underage drinking and being a part of a group that stole designer fragrances from department stores and sold them to classmates; these arrests led to Franco becoming a ward of the state.
Facing the possibility of juvenile hall, he was given a second chance by the judge. He recalled of his troubles with the law. I was uncomfortable in my own skin. I was shy. I changed my ways just in time to get good grades."Although the idea of becoming a marine zoologist interested him, Franco had always secretly wanted to become an actor but feared being rejected. He enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles as an English major, but dropped out after his first year to pursue a career as an actor, since he would have had to wait two years to audition for their acting program, he instead chose to take acting lessons with Robert Carnegie at the Playhouse West. Around this time, he took up a late-night job at McDonald's to support himself because his parents refused to do so, he was a vegetarian for the year prior to working there. While working at the establishment, he would practice accents on customers, an experience he remembered nostalgically in a 2015 Washington Post editorial titled "McDonald's was there for me when no one else was".
After 15 months of training, Franco began auditioning in Los Angeles. His first paid role was a television commercial for Pizza Hut, featuring a dancing Elvis Presley, he found guest roles on television shows but his first break came in 1999, after he was cast in a leading role on the short-lived but well-reviewed NBC television series Freaks and Geeks, which ran for 18 episodes and was canceled due to low viewership. The show became a cult hit among audiences, he has since described the series. In another interview, Franco said: "When we were doing Freaks and Geeks, I didn't quite understand how movies and TV worked, I would improvise if the camera wasn't on me... So I was improvising a little bit back but not in a productive way." After his film debut Never Been Kissed, he played a popular jock Chris in Whatever It Takes, a modern-day remake of the 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac. He was subsequently cast as the title role in director Mark Rydell's 2001 TV biographical film James Dean. To immerse himself in the role, Franco went from being a non-smoker to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, bleached his dark brown hair blond, learned to ride a motorcycle as well as play guitar and the bongos.
To have a greater understanding of Dean, Franco spent hours with two of Dean's associates. Other research included studying his movies. While filming James Dean, the actor, to get into character, cut off communication with his family and friends, as well as his then-girlfriend. "It was a lonely existence," he notes. "If I wasn't on a set, I was watching James Dean. That was my whole thinking. James Dean. James Dean." Despite being a fan of Dean, Franco feared he might be typecast if he'd captured the actor too convincingly. Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly wrote: "Franco could have walked through the role and done a passable Dean, but instead gets under
Hollywood
Hollywood is a neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, notable as the home of the U. S. film industry, including several of its historic studios. Its name has come to be a shorthand reference for the people associated with it. Hollywood was incorporated as a municipality in 1903, it was consolidated with the city of Los Angeles in 1910 and soon thereafter, a prominent film industry emerged becoming the most recognizable film industry in the world. In 1853, one adobe hut stood in Nopalera, named for the Mexican Nopal cactus indigenous to the area. By 1870, an agricultural community flourished; the area was known as the Cahuenga Valley, after the pass in the Santa Monica Mountains to the north. According to the diary of H. J. Whitley known as the "Father of Hollywood", on his honeymoon in 1886 he stood at the top of the hill looking out over the valley. Along came a Chinese man in a wagon carrying wood; the man bowed. The Chinese man was asked what he was doing and replied, "I holly-wood," meaning'hauling wood.'
H. J. Whitley decided to name his new town Hollywood. "Holly" would represent England and "wood" would represent his Scottish heritage. Whitley had started over 100 towns across the western United States. Whitley arranged to buy the 480 acres E. C. Hurd ranch, they shook hands on the deal. Whitley shared his plans for the new town with General Harrison Gray Otis, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, Ivar Weid, a prominent businessman in the area. Daeida Wilcox learned of the name Hollywood from Ivar Weid, her neighbor in Holly Canyon and a prominent investor and friend of Whitley's, she recommended the same name to Harvey. H. Wilcox, who had purchased 120 acres on February 1, 1887, it wasn't until August 1887 Wilcox decided to use that name and filed with the Los Angeles County Recorder's office on a deed and parcel map of the property. The early real-estate boom busted at the end of that year. By 1900, the region had a post office, newspaper and two markets. Los Angeles, with a population of 102,479 lay 10 miles east through the vineyards, barley fields, citrus groves.
A single-track streetcar line ran down the middle of Prospect Avenue from it, but service was infrequent and the trip took two hours. The old citrus fruit-packing house was converted into a livery stable, improving transportation for the inhabitants of Hollywood; the Hollywood Hotel was opened in 1902 by H. J. Whitley, a president of the Los Pacific Boulevard and Development Company. Having acquired the Hurd ranch and subdivided it, Whitley built the hotel to attract land buyers. Flanking the west side of Highland Avenue, the structure fronted on Prospect Avenue, still a dusty, unpaved road, was graded and graveled; the hotel was to become internationally known and was the center of the civic and social life and home of the stars for many years. Whitley's company sold one of the early residential areas, the Ocean View Tract. Whitley did much to promote the area, he paid thousands of dollars for electric lighting, including bringing electricity and building a bank, as well as a road into the Cahuenga Pass.
The lighting ran for several blocks down Prospect Avenue. Whitley's land was centered on Highland Avenue, his 1918 development, Whitley Heights, was named for him. Hollywood was incorporated as a municipality on November 14, 1903, by a vote of 88 for and 77 against. On January 30, 1904, the voters in Hollywood decided, by a vote of 113 to 96, for the banishment of liquor in the city, except when it was being sold for medicinal purposes. Neither hotels nor restaurants were allowed to serve liquor before or after meals. In 1910, the city voted for merger with Los Angeles in order to secure an adequate water supply and to gain access to the L. A. sewer system. With annexation, the name of Prospect Avenue changed to Hollywood Boulevard and all the street numbers were changed. By 1912, major motion-picture companies had set up production in Los Angeles. In the early 1900s, most motion picture patents were held by Thomas Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company in New Jersey, filmmakers were sued to stop their productions.
To escape this, filmmakers began moving out west to Los Angeles, where attempts to enforce Edison's patents were easier to evade. The weather was ideal and there was quick access to various settings. Los Angeles became the capital of the film industry in the United States; the mountains and low land prices made Hollywood a good place to establish film studios. Director D. W. Griffith was the first to make a motion picture in Hollywood, his 17-minute short film In Old California was filmed for the Biograph Company. Although Hollywood banned movie theaters—of which it had none—before annexation that year, Los Angeles had no such restriction; the first film by a Hollywood studio, Nestor Motion Picture Company, was shot on October 26, 1911. The H. J. Whitley home was used as its set, the unnamed movie was filmed in the middle of their groves at the corner of Whitley Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard; the first studio in Hollywood, the Nestor Company, was established by the New Jersey–based Centaur Company in a roadhouse at 6121 Sunset Boulevard, in October 1911.
Four major film companies – Paramount, Warner Bros. RKO, Columbia – had studios in Hollywood, as did several minor companies and rental studios. In the 1920s, Hollywood was the fifth-largest industry in the nation. By the 1930s, Hollywood studios became vertically integrated, as production and exhibition was controlled by these companies, enabling Hollywood to produce 600 films per year. H
The Howard Stern Show
The Howard Stern Show is an American talk radio show hosted by Howard Stern. It gained wide recognition when it was nationally syndicated on terrestrial radio from 1986 to 2005; the show has been exclusive to Sirius XM Radio, a subscription-based satellite radio service, since 2006. Other prominent staff members include co-host and news anchor Robin Quivers, writer Fred Norris, executive producer Gary Dell'Abate; the show developed in 1979 when Stern landed his first morning shift at WCCC in Hartford, four years into his professional radio career. He continued to break out as a morning personality at WWWW in Detroit, Michigan in 1980, was paired with Quivers in 1981 at WWDC in Washington, D. C. In 1982, Stern's success in Washington led to a spot at WNBC in New York City, where he hosted the city's top afternoon show until his firing in 1985; that year, the show began a 20-year run at WXRK in New York City where it aired on a total of 60 markets across the United States and Canada and gained an audience of 20 million listeners at its peak.
In the New York area, the show was the highest-rated morning program consecutively between 1994 and 2001. A total of $2.5 million in fines were issued to station licensees that carried the show by the Federal Communications Commission, for what it considered indecent material. Following Stern's contract with Sirius in 2004, the show left terrestrial radio in December 2005. Since 1994, the show has been taped and broadcast on several networks, including E!, CBS, HowardTV, an on-demand digital cable service. SiriusXM launched a "360" app in 2018 available to subscribers where video clips of the show can be seen. Stern landed his first professional radio job while at Boston University, performing on-air skits, news casting and production duties at WNTN in Newton, Massachusetts from August to December 1975, he hosted a show with three fellow students on WTBU, campus radio station, named The King Schmaltz Bagel Hour, cancelled during its first broadcast for a sketch called "Godzilla Goes to Harlem".
After his graduation, Stern landed some cover shifts in December 1976 at WRNW, a progressive rock station in Briarcliff Manor, New York where he was subsequently hired full-time working middays. He produced more creative commercials by calling the owners of businesses on the air, which he wrote "was mind-blowing to everyone there."In 1979, Stern responded to an advertisement for a "wild, fun morning guy" at WCCC, rock station in Hartford, Connecticut. He produced a more outrageous audition tape, playing Robert Klein and Cheech and Chong records mixed with flatulence routines and one-liners, he was hired for his first in a large radio market. As the station's public affairs director, Stern hosted a half-hour interview show on Sunday mornings, which he favored as it contained no music, he would ask more unusual type questions such as their dating habits. Stern held a two-day boycott of Shell Oil Company during the summer of the 1979 energy crisis, which made Stern and the station make national news.
Stern began his "Dial-a-Date" routines at WCCC, met Fred Norris, the station's overnight disc jockey who provided Stern's show with various comedic impressions of celebrities. Norris would join the show as Stern's writer and producer in 1981. After Stern left WCCC for being denied a raise in salary, he began a new morning shift at WWWW, a struggling rock outlet in Detroit, Michigan on April 21, 1980, he learned to become more open on the air and "decided to cut down the barriers...strip down all the ego...and be honest... I still sounded like an FM announcer". Stern held a bra-burning event and wrestled women outside the studios, invited listeners to confess the most outrageous places where they had sex, record their calls for the air. A stunt in which listeners paid $1.06 to hit a Japanese car with a sledgehammer earned Stern national mention. For his performance, Stern won a Billboard award for "Best Album-Oriented Rock Disc Jockey" and was featured in the Drake-Chenault "Top Five Talent Search" contest in the AOR category.
Published in January 1981, the fall Arbitron ratings showed that Stern trailed his three rock competitors with a 1.6% market share of the listening audience during an average quarter-hour. It was the final straw for management, who turned WWWW into a more successful country music format on January 18. Much to his dislike, Stern left the station soon after and declined offers to work at CHUM in Toronto, WXRT in Chicago, WPLJ in New York City. On March 2, 1981, Stern began his third morning job at WWDC, a rock station in Washington, D. C, he was determined to become a success, noticed the importance of news segments for satire. He wished for a news person to riff with him in the studio. Management paired Stern with Robin Quivers, a news anchor and consumer reporter from WFBR in Baltimore, who agreed to meet Stern after hearing him interview a prostitute on the air. Quivers at first "thought I would come in and do the news...but it wasn't that way...he wanted someone to play off of...he wanted a real live person there with him".
The show began to break format, Stern held a lesbian edition of "Dial-a-Date" in May 1981. He formed the Think Tank, a cohesive trio of male listeners who conversed with Stern and played along with quizzes and routines, which helped the show sound more natural. By January 1982, Stern had the second highest-rated morning program in the city. On January 14, one day after the crash of Air Florida Flight 90, Stern made listeners believe he asked Air Florida the price of a one-way ticket to the 14th Street Bridge, the location of the disaster. "Is that going to be a permanent stop?" asked Stern. On June 29, 1982, Stern's contract at WWDC was terminated. Later
Empire State Building
The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and completed in 1931, the building has a roof height of 1,250 feet and stands a total of 1,454 feet tall, including its antenna, its name is derived from "Empire State", the nickname of New York, of unknown origin. As of 2019 the building is the 5th-tallest completed skyscraper in the United States and the 28th-tallest in the world, it is the 6th-tallest freestanding structure in the Americas. The Empire State Building stood as the world's tallest building for nearly 40 years until the completion of the World Trade Center's North Tower in Lower Manhattan in late 1970. Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, it was again the tallest building in New York until the new One World Trade Center was completed in April 2012; the site of the Empire State Building, located in Midtown South on the west side of Fifth Avenue between West 33rd and 34th Streets, was part of an early 18th-century farm.
It was purchased by the Astor family, who built the Waldorf–Astoria Hotel on the site in the 1890s. The hotel remained in operation until the late 1920s, when it was sold to the Bethlehem Engineering Corporation to Empire State Inc. a business venture that included famous businessman and former General Motors executive, John J. Raskob, members of the du Pont family, former New York governor Al Smith; the original design of the Empire State Building was for a 50-story office building. However, after fifteen revisions, the final design was for an 86-story 1,250-foot building, with an airship mast on top; this ensured it would be the world's tallest building, beating the Chrysler Building and 40 Wall Street, two other Manhattan skyscrapers under construction at the time that were vying for that distinction. Demolition of the Waldorf–Astoria began in October 1929, the foundation of the Empire State Building was excavated before demolition was complete. Construction on the building itself started on March 17, 1930, with an average construction rate of four and a half floors per week.
A well-coordinated schedule meant that the 86 stories were topped out on September 19. Despite the publicity surrounding the building's construction, its owners failed to make a profit until the early 1950s. However, since its opening, the building's Art Deco architecture and open-air observation deck has made it a popular tourist attraction, with around 4 million visitors from around the world visiting the building's 86th and 102nd floor observatories every year. Since the mid-2010s, the Empire State Building has been undergoing improvements to improve access to its observation decks; the building stands within a mile of other major Midtown tourist attractions including Grand Central Terminal, Pennsylvania Station, Madison Square Garden and Macy's Herald Square. The Empire State Building is an American cultural icon and has been featured in more than 250 TV shows and movies since the film King Kong was released in 1933. A symbol of New York City, the tower has been named as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The Empire State Building and its ground-floor interior have been designated as a city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, were confirmed as such by the New York City Board of Estimate. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1986, was ranked number one on the American Institute of Architects' List of America's Favorite Architecture in 2007; the Empire State Building is located on the west side of Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, between 33rd and 34th Streets. Tenants enter the building through the Art Deco lobby located at 350 Fifth Avenue. Since August 2018, visitors to the Empire State Building Observatory use an entrance at 20 West 34th Street, replacing the previous Observatory entrance inside the Fifth Avenue lobby. Although physically located in South Midtown, a mixed residential and commercial area, the building is so large that it was assigned its own ZIP Code, 10118; the areas surrounding the Empire State Building are home to other major Manhattan landmarks as well, including Macy's at Herald Square on Sixth Avenue and 34th Street, Koreatown on 32nd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, Penn Station and Madison Square Garden on Seventh Avenue between 32nd and 34th Streets, the Flower District on 28th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues.
The nearest New York City Subway stations are 34th Street–Penn Station at Seventh Avenue, two blocks west. There is a PATH station at 33rd Street and Sixth Avenue. To the east of the Empire State Building is Murray Hill, a neighborhood with a mix of residential and entertainment activity. One block east of the Empire State Building, on Madison Avenue at 34th Street, is the New York Public Library's Science and Business Library, located on the same block as the City University of New York's Graduate Center. Bryant Park and the New York Public Library Main Branch are located six blocks north of the Empire State Building, on the block bounded by Fifth Avenue, Sixth Avenue, 40th Street, 42nd Street. Grand Central Terminal is located two blocks east of the library's Main Branch, at Park Avenue and 42nd Street; the tract was part of Mary and John Murray's farm on Murray Hill. The earliest recorded major action on the site was during the American Revolutionary War, when General George Washington'
Tom Cruise
Thomas Cruise is an American actor and producer. Known for his work in action films for which he performs risky stunts, he has received several accolades for more dramatic work, including three Golden Globe Awards and nominations for three Academy Awards. One of the best-paid actors in the world, his films have earned over $3.9 billion in North America, making him one of the highest-grossing actors of all time. Cruise began acting in the early 1980s and made his breakthrough with leading roles in the comedy Risky Business and the action drama Top Gun. Critical acclaim came with his roles in the dramas The Color of Money, Rain Man, Born on the Fourth of July. For portraying Ron Kovic in the latter, he won a Golden Globe Award and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor; as a leading Hollywood star in the 1990s, Cruise starred in several commercially successful films, including the drama A Few Good Men, the thriller The Firm, the horror Interview with the Vampire, the romance Jerry Maguire, for which he won another Golden Globe and received his second Oscar nomination.
His performance as a motivational speaker in the 1999 drama Magnolia, earned him a third Golden Globe and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. As an action star, Cruise has played Ethan Hunt in six films of the Mission: Impossible film series from 1996 to 2018, he continued to feature in several science fiction and action films, including Vanilla Sky, Minority Report, The Last Samurai, War of the Worlds and Day, Jack Reacher and Edge of Tomorrow. Cruise has been married three times, to actresses Mimi Rogers, Nicole Kidman, Katie Holmes, has three children, two of which were adopted during his marriage to Kidman and the other a biological daughter with Holmes. Cruise is an outspoken advocate for the Church of Scientology and its associated social programs, credits it with helping him overcome dyslexia. In the 2000s, he sparked controversy with his Church-affiliated criticisms of psychiatry and anti-depressant drugs, his efforts to promote Scientology as a religion in Europe, a leaked video interview of him promoting Scientology.
Cruise was born in Syracuse, New York, the son of Mary Lee, a special education teacher, Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer, both from Louisville, Kentucky. He has three sisters: Lee Anne and Cass, they are of English and Irish ancestry. One of Cruise's paternal 3x great-grandfathers, Patrick Russell Cruise, was born in north County Dublin in 1799, they settled in New York. They had a daughter, Mary Paulina Russell Cruise, whose son Thomas Cruise Mapother was Cruise's great-grandfather. A cousin, William Mapother, is an actor. Cruise grew up in near poverty, had a Catholic upbringing; the family was dominated by his abusive father, whom Cruise has described as "a merchant of chaos." Cruise has said that he was beaten by his father, whom he has called a "bully and coward." He stated, "He was the kind of person. It was a great lesson in my life—how he'd lull you in, make you feel safe and bang! For me, it was like,'There's something wrong with this guy. Don't trust him. Be careful around him.'"Cruise spent part of his childhood in Canada.
His family moved to Beacon Hill, Ottawa, in late 1971 so that Cruise's father could take a position as a defense consultant with the Canadian Armed Forces. There, Cruise attended the newly opened Robert Hopkins Public School for much of grade four and grade five. In grade four, Cruise first became involved under the tutelage of George Steinburg. Cruise and six other boys put on an improvised play to music called IT at the Carleton Elementary School drama festival. Drama organizer Val Wright, in the audience that night, reflected, "The movement and improvisation were excellent, it was a classic ensemble piece." Cruise enjoyed sports at the school and played floor hockey, though he was known more for his aggression than his talent. In sixth grade, Cruise went to Henry Munro Middle School in Ottawa, Canada. However, in the spring of that year, Cruise's mother left his father, taking Cruise and his sisters back to the United States, his father died of cancer in 1984. Cruise attended a Franciscan seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio, on a church scholarship and aspired to become a Catholic priest, before his interest in acting.
In his senior year, he played football for the varsity team as a linebacker, but he was cut from the squad after getting caught drinking beer before a game. In total, Cruise attended 15 schools in 14 years, including stints in at least two suburban New Jersey towns, including Glen Ridge. Cruise first appeared in a bit part in the 1981 film Endless Love, followed by a major supporting role as a crazed military academy student in Taps that year. In 1983, Cruise was part of the ensemble cast of The Outsiders; that same year he appeared in All the Right Moves and Risky Business, described as "A Generation X classic, a career-maker for Tom Cruise", which, along with 1986's Top Gun, cemented his status as a superstar. Cruise played the male lead in the Ridley Scott film Legend, released in 1985. Cruise followed up Top Gun with The Color of Money, which came out the same year, which paired him with Paul Newman. 1988 saw him star in Cocktail. That yea
Lone Ranger
The Lone Ranger is a fictional masked former Texas Ranger who fought outlaws in the American Old West with his Native American friend, Tonto. The character has been called an enduring icon of American culture, he first appeared in 1933 in a radio show conceived either by WXYZ radio station owner George W. Trendle, or by Fran Striker, the show's writer; the radio series proved to be a hit and spawned a series of books, an popular television show that ran from 1949 to 1957, comic books, several movies. The title character was played on the radio show by George Seaton, Earle Graser, Brace Beemer. Clayton Moore portrayed the Lone Ranger on television, although during a contract dispute, Moore was replaced temporarily by John Hart, who wore a different style of mask. On the radio, Tonto was played among others, John Todd and Roland Parker; the Lone Ranger was so named because the character is the sole survivor of a group of six Texas Rangers. While details differ, the basic story of the origin of the Lone Ranger is the same in most versions of the franchise.
A posse of six members of the Texas Ranger Division pursuing a band of outlaws led by Bartholomew "Butch" Cavendish is betrayed by a civilian guide named Collins and is ambushed in a canyon named Bryant's Gap. An Indian named Tonto stumbles onto the scene and discovers one ranger is alive, he nurses the man back to health. In some versions, Tonto recognizes the lone survivor as the man who saved his life when they both were children. According to the television series, Tonto gave Reid a ring and the name Kemo Sabe, which he said means "trusty scout". Among the Rangers killed was the survivor's older brother, Daniel Reid, a captain in the Texas Rangers and the leader of the ambushed group. To conceal his identity and honor his fallen brother, Reid fashions a black domino mask using cloth from his late brother's vest. To aid in the deception, Tonto digs a sixth grave and places at its head a cross bearing John Reid's name so that Cavendish and his gang will believe that all of the Rangers had been killed.
In many versions Reid continues fighting for justice as the Lone Ranger after the Cavendish gang is captured. As depicted, the Lone Ranger conducts himself by a strict moral code based on that put in place by Striker at the inception of the character, it read: In addition, Fran Striker and George W. Trendle drew up the following guidelines that embody who and what the Lone Ranger is: The Lone Ranger was never seen without his mask or some sort of disguise, he was never held for any length of time by lawmen, avoiding his being unmasked. He always used perfect grammar and precise speech devoid of slang and colloquialisms. Whenever he was forced to use guns, he never shot to kill, but instead tried to disarm his opponent as painlessly as possible, he was never put in a hopeless situation. He referred to himself as the Lone Ranger. If someone's suspicion were aroused, either the Lone Ranger would present one of his silver bullets to confirm his identity or someone else would attest on his behalf, his decision to adopt the moniker of Lone Ranger was inspired by Tonto: following the ambush at Bryant's Gap, Tonto observed him to be the only ranger left—in other words, he was the "lone" ranger.
Though The Lone Ranger offered his aid to individuals or small groups facing powerful adversaries, the ultimate objective of his story always implied that their benefit was only a by-product of the development of the West or the country. Adversaries were other than American, to avoid criticism from minority groups. There were some exceptions to this rule, he sometimes battled foreign agents, though their nation of origin was not named. An exception was his having helped the Mexican Benito Juárez against French troops of Emperor Maximilian, as occurred in the radio episodes "Supplies for Juarez", "Hunted by Legionnaires" and "Lafitte's Reinforcements"; the names of unsympathetic characters were chosen so that they never consisted of two names if it could be avoided. More than not, a single nickname or surname was selected; the Lone Ranger never smoked. Criminals were never shown in enviable positions of wealth or power, they were never successful or glamorous. Although the Lone Ranger's last name in the radio shows was given as Reid, his first name was never specified in any of the radio or television shows.
Various radio reference books, beginning with Radio's Golden Age, give the Lone Ranger's first name as John. Some cite the 20th anniversary radio program in 1953 as the source of the name, but the Lone Ranger's first name is never mentioned in that episode. In the final chapter of the 1938 Republic The Lone Ranger movie serial, he is revealed to be Texas Ranger Allen King. In the second serial, The Lone Ranger Rides Again, he identifies himself as "Bill Andrews"; the Lone Ranger's first name is thought to have not been mentioned in contemporary Lone Ranger newspaper comics, comic books, tie-in premiums, though some have stated that the name John Reid was used in an illustration of the grave marker made by Tonto which appeared in either a comic book version of the character's origin story or in a children's record set. The name John Reid is used in
