1.
The Birds (film)
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The Birds is a 1963 American horror-thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on the 1952 story of the same name by Daphne du Maurier. It focuses on a series of sudden and unexplained violent bird attacks on the people of Bodega Bay, the film stars Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren, in her screen debut, supported by Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette and Veronica Cartwright. The screenplay is by Evan Hunter, who was told by Hitchcock to develop new characters, in 2016, The Birds was deemed culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant by the United States Library of Congress, and selected it for preservation in its National Film Registry. Melanie Daniels, a socialite known for rather racy behavior and playing pranks. He wants to purchase a pair of lovebirds for his sisters eleventh birthday and she is infuriated when she discovers this, even though she also likes to play practical jokes. Then, intrigued by his advance, she finds his weekend address in Bodega Bay, purchases a pair of lovebirds. Discovering he is not there, she leaves the birdcage inside the Brenner family home and he spots her on the water through a pair of binoculars during her retreat, and races across the bay to head her off. She is attacked near shore on the side and injured by a seagull. He invites her to dinner, and she hesitantly agrees, Melanie gets to know Mitch, his alternately domineering and needy mother Lydia, and his younger sister Cathy. She also befriends local schoolteacher Annie Hayworth, Mitchs ex-lover, when she spends the night at Annies house they are startled by a loud thud, a gull has killed itself by flying into the front door. At Cathys birthday party the day, the guests are set upon by seagulls. The following evening, sparrows invade the Brenner home through the chimney, the next morning, Lydia, a widow who still sees to the family farmstead, pays a visit to a neighboring farmer to discuss the unusual behavior of her chickens. Finding his eyeless corpse pecked lifeless by birds, she flees in terror, after being comforted by Melanie and Mitch, she expresses concern for Cathys safety at school. Melanie drives there and waits for class to end, unaware that a murder of crows are massing in the nearby playground. Unnerved when she sees its jungle gym covered by them, she warns Annie, the commotion stirs the crows into attacking, injuring several of the children. A young girl is seriously injured after being felled by the crows and she calls on Cathy for help and Melanie pushes them into a parked car, blasting the horn as crows engulf the vehicle. Melanie calls her fathers newspaper from The Tides restaurant, several patrons describe their own encounters with aggressive bird behavior. An amateur ornithologist dismisses the reports as fanciful and argues with Melanie over them, Mitch arrives with the sheriff and corroborates Melanies claims
2.
Alien (film)
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The films title refers to a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature that stalks and kills the crew of a spaceship. Dan OBannon wrote the screenplay from a story he wrote with Ronald Shusett, drawing influence from works of science fiction. The film was produced by Gordon Carroll, David Giler and Walter Hill through their Brandywine Productions, Giler and Hill made revisions and additions to the script. The eponymous Alien and its elements were designed by Swiss surrealist artist H. R. Giger, while concept artists Ron Cobb. Alien launched the Alien franchise and is chronologically the first of the main series and it has remained highly praised in subsequent decades, being considered one of the greatest films of all time. In 2002, the film was deemed culturally, historically or aesthetically significant by the Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. In 2008, it was ranked as the seventh-best film in the fiction genre by the American Film Institute. The success of Alien spawned a franchise of novels, comic books, video games. A crossover with the Predator franchise produced the Alien vs. Predator series, a prequel series, which includes Prometheus and Alien, Covenant, continues in development. Detecting a mysterious transmission from a nearby planetoid— possibly a distress signal—the ships computer, Mother, following standard company policy for such situations, the Nostromo lands on the planetoid, sustaining damage from the planetoids dusty atmosphere in the process. Parker and Brett begin repairing the ship, while Dallas, Kane and they discover the signal is coming from a derelict alien spacecraft. Inside, they find the remains of an alien creature whose rib cage appears to have exploded from the inside. On the Nostromo, Ripley determines that the transmission is not a distress signal, Ash responds by telling her that she wouldnt be able to communicate with the others in time. In the alien ship, Kane discovers a chamber containing hundreds of eggs, as he inspects one, a creature springs out and attaches itself to his face. Dallas and Lambert carry the unconscious Kane back to the Nostromo, as acting senior officer, Ripley refuses to let them aboard, citing quarantine regulations, but Ash violates protocol by overriding Ripleys lock and letting them in. The crew unsuccessfully attempt to remove the creature from Kanes face and it detaches on its own and dies. With the ship repaired, the crew lifts off, Kane awakens with some memory loss but otherwise unharmed. Brett follows the cat, Jones, into an engine room
3.
Los Angeles
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Los Angeles, officially the City of Los Angeles and often known by its initials L. A. is the cultural, financial, and commercial center of Southern California. With a census-estimated 2015 population of 3,971,883, it is the second-most populous city in the United States, Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the United States. The citys inhabitants are referred to as Angelenos, historically home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California. The city was founded on September 4,1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence, in 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4,1850, the discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California, nicknamed the City of Angels, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, and sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles also has an economy in culture, media, fashion, science, sports, technology, education, medicine. A global city, it has been ranked 6th in the Global Cities Index, the city is home to renowned institutions covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields, and is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States. The Los Angeles combined statistical area has a gross metropolitan product of $831 billion, making it the third-largest in the world, after the Greater Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. The city has hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1932 and 1984 and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics and thus become the second city after London to have hosted the Games three times. The Los Angeles area also hosted the 1994 FIFA mens World Cup final match as well as the 1999 FIFA womens World Cup final match, the mens event was watched on television by over 700 million people worldwide. The Los Angeles coastal area was first settled by the Tongva, a Gabrielino settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ, meaning poison oak place. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2,1769, in 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. The Queen of the Angels is an honorific of the Virgin Mary, two-thirds of the settlers were mestizo or mulatto with a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small town for decades, but by 1820. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, during Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta Californias regional capital
4.
Leave It to Beaver
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Leave It to Beaver is an American television sitcom about an inquisitive and often naïve boy, Theodore The Beaver Cleaver, and his adventures at home, in school, and around his suburban neighborhood. The show also starred Barbara Billingsley and Hugh Beaumont as Beavers parents, June and Ward Cleaver, the show has attained an iconic status in the United States, with the Cleavers exemplifying the idealized suburban family of the mid-20th century. The show was created by the writers Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher and these veterans of radio and early television found inspiration for the shows characters, plots and dialogue in the lives, experiences and conversations of their own children. Leave It to Beaver is one of the first primetime sitcom series written from a point of view. Like several television dramas and sitcoms of the late 1950s and early 1960s, in a typical episode, Beaver gets into some sort of boyish scrape, then faces his parents for reprimand and correction. Neither parent was omniscient, the series showed the parents debating their approach to child rearing. Leave It to Beaver ran for six full 39-week seasons, the series had its debut on CBS on October 4,1957. The following season, it moved to ABC, where it stayed until completing its run on June 20,1963, throughout the shows run, it was shot with a single camera on black-and-white 35mm film. The shows production companies included the comedian George Gobels Gomalco Productions and Kayro Productions with filming at Revue Studios/Republic Studios, the show was distributed by MCA TV. Contemporary commentators praised Leave It to Beaver, with Variety comparing Beaver to Mark Twains Tom Sawyer, much juvenile merchandise was released during the shows first run, including board games, novels, and comic books. The show has enjoyed a renaissance in popularity since the 1970s through off-network syndication, a reunion telemovie, in 1997, a movie version based on the original series was released to moderate acclaim. In October 2007, TV Land celebrated the shows 50th anniversary with a marathon, although the show never broke into the Nielsen ratings top 30 or won any awards, it placed on Time magazines unranked 2007 list of The 100 Best TV Shows of All-Time. According to Tony Dow, If any line got too much of a laugh and they didnt want a big laugh, they wanted chuckles. In 1957, the radio, film and television writers Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher developed a concept for a TV show about childhood and family life featuring a fictional suburban couple, working titles during the shows gestation period included Its a Small World and Wally and the Beaver. The pilot aired April 23,1957, as Its a Small World on the anthology series Heinz Studio 57, the stars of the pilot were Casey Adams and Paul Sullivan. They were replaced as production of the series neared, six months after the broadcast of the pilot, the series debuted on CBS on Friday October 4,1957, as Leave It to Beaver, with the episode third in production order, Beaver Gets Spelled. The intended premiere, Captain Jack, displayed a toilet tank, Captain Jack has claimed its place in television history as the first American TV show to display a toilet tank. In 1997, it was ranked number 42 in TV Guides 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time, remington Rand was a potential sponsor during the shows conception and counseled against the shows suggested title, Wally and the Beaver, believing viewers would think the show was a nature program
5.
The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)
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The Twilight Zone is an American science-fiction, fantasy, psychological-supernatural horror anthology television series created by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964. Each story typically features a moral and a surprise ending, the series is notable for featuring both established stars and younger actors who would become more famous later on. Serling served as producer and head writer, he wrote or co-wrote 92 of the shows 156 episodes. He was also the shows host and narrator, delivering monologues at the beginning, Serlings opening and closing narrations usually summarize the episodes events encapsulating how and why the main character had entered the Twilight Zone. In 2016, it was ranked No.8 on Rolling Stones list of the 100 greatest shows of all time, in 2002, The Twilight Zone was ranked No.26 on TV Guides 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked it as the third best-written TV series ever, by the late 1950s, Rod Serling was a regular name in television. His successful teleplays included Patterns and Requiem for a Heavyweight, but constant changes and edits made by the networks, in Requiem for a Heavyweight, the line Got a match. But according to comments in his 1957 anthology Patterns, Serling had been trying to delve into more controversial than his works of the early 1950s. Despite bad reviews, activists sent numerous letters and wires protesting the production, the script, however, was rejected and shelved for a year until Bert Granet discovered and produced it as an episode of Desilu Playhouse in 1958. The show was a success and enabled Serling to finally begin production on his anthology series. There is a dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity and it is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of mans fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination and it is an area which we call The Twilight Zone. The Twilight Zone premiered the night of October 2,1959 and its the one series that I will let interfere with other plans, said Terry Turner for the Chicago Daily News. Even as the show proved popular to televisions critics, it struggled to find an audience of television viewers. CBS was banking on a rating of at least 21 or 22, the series future was jeopardized when its third episode, Mr. Denton on Doomsday earned a 16.3 rating. With one exception, the first season featured scripts written only by Rod Serling and these three were responsible for 127 of the 156 episodes in the series. Additionally, with one exception, Serling never appeared on camera during any first-season episode, Serling did appear on screen in Twilight Zone promotional spots plugging the following weeks episode – just not in the episodes themselves
6.
NBC
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The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcast television network that is the flagship property of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. The network is part of the Big Three television networks, founded in 1926 by the Radio Corporation of America, NBC is the oldest major broadcast network in the United States. Following the acquisition by GE, Bob Wright served as executive officer of NBC, remaining in that position until his retirement in 2007. In 2003, French media company Vivendi merged its entertainment assets with GE, Comcast purchased a controlling interest in the company in 2011, and acquired General Electrics remaining stake in 2013. Following the Comcast merger, Zucker left NBC Universal and was replaced as CEO by Comcast executive Steve Burke, during a period of early broadcast business consolidation, radio manufacturer Radio Corporation of America acquired New York City radio station WEAF from American Telephone & Telegraph. Westinghouse, a shareholder in RCA, had an outlet in Newark, New Jersey pioneer station WJZ. This station was transferred from Westinghouse to RCA in 1923, WEAF acted as a laboratory for AT&Ts manufacturing and supply outlet Western Electric, whose products included transmitters and antennas. The Bell System, AT&Ts telephone utility, was developing technologies to transmit voice- and music-grade audio over short and long distances, the 1922 creation of WEAF offered a research-and-development center for those activities. WEAF maintained a schedule of radio programs, including some of the first commercially sponsored programs. In an early example of chain or networking broadcasting, the station linked with Outlet Company-owned WJAR in Providence, Rhode Island, AT&T refused outside companies access to its high-quality phone lines. The early effort fared poorly, since the telegraph lines were susceptible to atmospheric. In 1925, AT&T decided that WEAF and its network were incompatible with the companys primary goal of providing a telephone service. AT&T offered to sell the station to RCA in a deal that included the right to lease AT&Ts phone lines for network transmission, the divisions ownership was split among RCA, its founding corporate parent General Electric and Westinghouse. NBC officially started broadcasting on November 15,1926, WEAF and WJZ, the flagships of the two earlier networks, were operated side-by-side for about a year as part of the new NBC. On April 5,1927, NBC expanded to the West Coast with the launch of the NBC Orange Network and this was followed by the debut of the NBC Gold Network, also known as the Pacific Gold Network, on October 18,1931. The Orange Network carried Red Network programming, and the Gold Network carried programming from the Blue Network, initially, the Orange Network recreated Eastern Red Network programming for West Coast stations at KPO in San Francisco. The Orange Network name was removed from use in 1936, at the same time, the Gold Network became part of the Blue Network. In the 1930s, NBC also developed a network for shortwave radio stations, in 1927, NBC moved its operations to 711 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, occupying the upper floors of a building designed by architect Floyd Brown
7.
Alfred Hitchcock
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Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock KBE was an English film director and producer, at times referred to as The Master of Suspense. He pioneered many elements of the suspense and psychological thriller genres and he had a successful career in British cinema with both silent films and early talkies and became renowned as Englands best director. Hitchcock moved to Hollywood in 1939, and became a US citizen in 1955 and he also fashioned for himself a recognisable directorial style. Hitchcocks stylistic trademarks include the use of movement that mimics a persons gaze. In addition, he framed shots to maximise anxiety, fear, or empathy and his work often features fugitives on the run alongside icy blonde female characters. Prior to 1980, there had long been talk of Hitchcock being knighted for his contribution to film, Hitchcock later received his knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in the 1980 New Year Honours. Hitchcock directed more than fifty films in a career spanning six decades and is often regarded as one of the most influential directors in cinematic history. His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else, Hitchcocks first thriller, The Lodger, A Story of the London Fog, helped shape the thriller genre in film. His 1929 film, Blackmail, is cited as the first British sound feature film, while Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest. Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born on 13 August 1899 in Leytonstone and he was the second son and the youngest of three children of William Hitchcock, a greengrocer and poulterer, and Emma Jane Hitchcock. He was named after his fathers brother, Hitchcock was raised as a Roman Catholic, and sent to Salesian College, Battersea, and the Jesuit grammar school St Ignatius College in Stamford Hill, London. His parents were both of half-English and half-Irish ancestry and he often described a lonely and sheltered childhood that was worsened by his obesity. Around age five, Hitchcock recalled that to him for behaving badly. This incident implanted a lifelong fear of policemen in Hitchcock, and such harsh treatment, sources vary on Hitchcocks performance in school. Gene Adair reports that by most accounts, Alfred was only an average, or slightly above-average, however, McGilligan writes that Hitchcock certainly excelled academically. When Hitchcock was 15, his father died, in that same year, he left St. Ignatius to study at the London County Council School of Engineering and Navigation in Poplar, London. After leaving, he became a draftsman and advertising designer with a company called Henleys. Hitchcock joined a regiment of the Royal Engineers in 1917
8.
Fess Parker
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He was also known as a winemaker and resort owner-operator. The Fess Parker Winery is one of the wineries along the Foxen Canyon Wine Trail, Fess Parker was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and raised on a farm in Tom Green County near San Angelo. He enlisted in the U. S. Navy in the part of World War II. He was turned down because he was too tall at 6 feet 6 inches and he then tried to become a radioman gunner, but he was found too big to fit comfortably into the rear cockpit. He was finally transferred to the Marine Corps as a radio operator, discharged in 1946, he enrolled at Hardin-Simmons University on the GI Bill. After an automobile collision, he was stabbed in the neck by the driver during an argument. He was an member of the H-SU Players Club and transferred to the University of Texas in 1947 as a history major. Parker graduated from UT in 1950 with a degree in history and he had been initiated into the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. Having one year remaining on his GI Bill, he studied drama at the University of Southern California, within months, he was on location with a minor part in Untamed Frontier with Joseph Cotten and Shelley Winters. Parker became a player with Warner Bros. appearing in small roles in several films such as Springfield Rifle, Island in the Sky, The Bounty Hunter. In 1954, he appeared as Grat Dalton in the Jim Davis syndicated Western anthology series Stories of the Century in the episode The Dalton Brothers and he had a small scene as a pilot put into an insane asylum after claiming his plane had been downed by giant flying insects. Arness appeared in a role in the same film. During the screening of film, Walt Disney looked past Arness. Disney was impressed by Parkers portrayal of a man who was unswerving in his belief in what he saw despite the forces of authority against him, Parker was asked to drop by the Disney Studio. When he did, he brought his guitar, met Disney, sang a song, several weeks later, Parker was informed that he had been selected over Arness and several others for the role, including Buddy Ebsen, who eventually played Crocketts sidekick, George Russell. Disneys three-episode version of Crockett depicted his exploits as a frontiersman, congressman, the episodes have been called the first television miniseries, though the term had not yet been coined. Davy Crockett was a hit and led to a merchandising frenzy for coonskin caps. Parker became a star for Disney and appeared in The Great Locomotive Chase, Westward Ho
9.
Ridley Scott
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Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. Scott is known for his atmospheric, highly concentrated visual style and his films are also known for their strong female characters. Scott has been nominated for three Academy Awards for Directing, in 1995, both Ridley and his brother Tony received the BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Contribution To Cinema. In 2003, Scott was knighted for his services to the British film industry, in a 2004 BBC poll Scott was named the tenth most influential person in British culture. In 2015 he received a doctorate from the Royal College of Art in London. Scott was born in South Shields, County Durham, North East England, to Elizabeth and he was brought up in an army family, so for most of his early life, his father – an officer in the Royal Engineers – was absent. His elder brother, Frank, joined the British Merchant Navy when he was still young, during this time the family moved around, living in Cumberland in North West England, Wales and Germany. He had a brother, Tony, who also became a film director. He studied at Grangefield Grammar School and West Hartlepool College of Art from 1954 to 1958, Scott went on to study at the Royal College of Art in London, contributing to college magazine ARK and helping to establish the college film department. For his final show, he made a black and white film, Boy and Bicycle. In February 1963 Scott was named in title credits as Designer for the BBC television programme Tonight, about the severe winter of 1963. After graduation in 1963, he secured a job as a set designer with the BBC, leading to work on the popular television police series Z-Cars. He was originally assigned to design the second Doctor Who serial, The Daleks, however, shortly before Scott was due to start work, a schedule conflict meant he was replaced by Raymond Cusick. In 1965, he began directing episodes of series for the BBC, only one of which. In 1968, Ridley and Tony Scott founded Ridley Scott Associates, a nostalgia themed television advertisement that captured the public imagination, it was voted the UKs all-time favourite commercial in a 2006 poll. In the 1970s the Chanel No.5 brand needed revitalisation having run the risk of being labelled as mass market, five members of the Scott family are directors, and all have worked for RSA. His brother Tony was a film director whose career spanned more than two decades, his sons Jake and Luke are both acclaimed directors of commercials, as is his daughter, Jordan Scott. Jake and Jordan both work from Los Angeles, Luke is based in London, in 1995, Shepperton Studios was purchased by a consortium headed by Ridley and Tony Scott, which extensively renovated the studios while also expanding and improving its grounds
10.
Sigourney Weaver
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Susan Alexandra Sigourney Weaver is an American actress and film producer. Following her film debut as a character in Annie Hall. She reprised the role in three sequels, Aliens, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, Alien 3 and she is also known for her starring roles in the box-office hits Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters II, and Avatar. Weaver was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for the 1980 Off-Broadway play Das Lusitania Songspiel and she also received Academy Award nominations for both films. For her role in the 1997 film The Ice Storm, she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, additionally, she has received three Emmy Award nominations and won two Saturn Awards. Weaver acquired the nickname of the Sci-Fi Queen for her numerous contributions to film history. Other popular works she has appeared in include Galaxy Quest, Futurama, WALL-E, Paul, The Cabin in the Woods, Finding Dory and she returned to Broadway in 2013 to star in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. Weaver was born in Manhattan, New York City, the daughter of Elizabeth Inglis, an actress, and her uncle, Doodles Weaver, was a comedian and actor. Her mother was English, from Colchester, Essex, and her father, who was American, had English, Scottish, Weaver began using the name Sigourney Weaver in 1963 after a minor character in Chapter 3 of F. Scott Fitzgeralds novel The Great Gatsby. Weaver attended the Ethel Walker School, a preparatory school in Simsbury. She also attended The Chapin School and The Brearley School, Sigourney was reportedly 5 10½ tall by the age of 14, although she only grew another inch during her teens to her adult height of 5 11½. In 1967, at the age of 18, Weaver visited Israel, Weaver later acted in original plays by her friend and classmate Christopher Durang. She later appeared in an Off-Broadway production of Durangs comedy Beyond Therapy in 1981, weavers first role is often said to be in Woody Allens 1977 comedy Annie Hall playing a minor role opposite Allen. She reprised the role in the three sequels of the Alien movie franchise, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien, Resurrection. Ty Burr of The Boston Globe states, One of the pleasures of Alien is to watch the emergence of both Ellen Ripley as a character and Sigourney Weaver as a star. She followed the success of Alien appearing opposite Mel Gibson in The Year of Living Dangerously released to critical acclaim, by the end of the decade, Weaver appeared in two of her most memorable and critically acclaimed performances. In 1988, she starred as Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist, the same year she appeared opposite Harrison Ford in a supporting role as Katharine Parker in the film Working Girl. Weaver won Golden Globe awards for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress for her two roles that year and she gave birth to her daughter Charlotte Simpson taking a few years break from the movie business and focusing on her family
11.
Henry Fonda
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Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor with a career spanning more than five decades. Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor and he also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins. Throughout six decades in Hollywood, Fonda cultivated a strong, appealing screen image in such classics as The Ox-Bow Incident, Fonda was the patriarch of a family of famous actors, including daughter Jane Fonda, son Peter Fonda, granddaughter Bridget Fonda, and grandson Troy Garity. His family and close friends called him Hank, in 1999, he was named the sixth-Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute. Fondas ancestors from Genoa, Italy, migrated to the Netherlands in the 15th century, in 1642, a branch of the Fonda family immigrated to the Dutch colony of New Netherland on the East Coast of North America. They were among the first Dutch population to settle in what is now upstate New York, establishing the town of Fonda, by 1888, many of their descendants had relocated to Nebraska. Henry Fonda was born in Grand Island, Nebraska, to advertising-printing jobber William Brace Fonda, Fonda was brought up as a Christian Scientist, though he was baptized an Episcopalian at St. Stephens Episcopal Church in Grand Island. He said, My whole damn family was nice and they were a close family and highly supportive, especially in health matters, as they avoided doctors due to their religion. Despite having a background, he later became an agnostic. Fonda was a bashful, short boy who tended to avoid girls, except his sisters, and was a skater, swimmer. He worked part-time in his fathers print plant and imagined a career as a journalist. Later, he worked after school for the phone company, Fonda was active in the Boy Scouts of America, Teichmann reports that he reached the rank of Eagle Scout. When he was about 14, his father took him to observe the lynching of a black man accused of rape. This enraged the young Fonda and he kept a keen awareness of prejudice for the rest of his life, by his senior year in high school, Fonda had grown to more than six feet tall, but remained shy. He attended the University of Minnesota, where he majored in journalism and he took a job with the Retail Credit Company. He was fascinated by the stage, learning everything from set construction to stage production, Fonda decided to quit his job and go East in 1928 to seek his fortune. He arrived on Cape Cod and played a role at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis. A friend took him to Falmouth, MA where he joined and quickly became a member of the University Players
12.
Miami Vice
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Miami Vice was an American television crime drama series created by Anthony Yerkovich and executive produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series starred Don Johnson as James Sonny Crockett and Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo Rico Tubbs, the series ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The USA Network began airing reruns in 1988, and broadcast an originally unaired episode during its run of the series on January 25,1990. Unlike standard police procedurals, the show drew heavily upon 1980s New Wave culture, the show became noted for its integration of music and visual effects. It has been called one of the Top 50 TV Shows, people magazine stated that Miami Vice was the first show to look really new and different since color TV was invented. In 2016, television critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz ranked Miami Vice as the 51st greatest American television show of all time, Michael Mann directed a film adaptation of the series, which was released on July 28,2006. The initial idea was for a movie about a pair of cops in Miami. Yerkovich then turned out a script for a pilot, titled Gold Coast. Yerkovich was immediately drawn to South Florida as a setting for his new-style police show, Miami Vice was one of the first American network television programs to be broadcast in stereophonic sound. It was mixed in stereo for its run, but not actually broadcast in stereo until 1985. In keeping with the namesake, most episodes focused on combating drug trafficking. Episodes often ended in a gun battle, claiming the lives of several criminals before they could be apprehended. An undercurrent of cynicism and futility underlies the entire series, the detectives repeatedly reference the Whac-A-Mole nature of drug interdiction, with its parade of drug cartels quickly replacing those that are apprehended. Co-executive producer Yerkovich explained, The choice of music and cinematography borrowed heavily from the emerging New Wave culture of the 1980s, as such, segments of Miami Vice would sometimes use music-based stanzas, a technique later featured in Baywatch. As Lee H. Katzin, one of the directors, remarked, The show is written for an MTV audience. These elements made the series into an instant hit, and in its first season saw an unprecedented fifteen Emmy Award nominations, while the first few episodes contained elements of a standard police procedural, the producers soon abandoned them in favor of a more distinctive style. Influenced by an Art Deco revival, no earth tones were allowed to be used in the production, mickey Rourke was also considered for the role, but he turned down the offer. Larry Wilcox, of CHiPs, was also a candidate for the role of Crockett, after dozens of candidates and a twice-delayed pilot shooting, Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas were chosen as the vice cops
