Post by Admin on Aug 22, 2015 2:03:42 GMT
Joseph Kennedy Sr.
Born to a political family in East Boston, Massachusetts, Kennedy embarked on a career in business and investing, first making a large fortune as a stock market and commodity investor and later rolled over the profits by investing in real estate and a wide range of business industries across the United States. During World War I, he was an assistant general manager of a Boston area Bethlehem Steel shipyard, through which he developed a friendship with Franklin D. Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
In the 1920s Kennedy made huge profits from reorganizing and refinancing several Hollywood studios, ultimately merging several acquisitions into Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) studios.
After Prohibition of alcohol ended in 1933, Kennedy consolidated an even larger fortune when he traveled to Scotland with Roosevelt's son James to buy distribution rights for Scotch whisky. His company, Somerset Importers, became the exclusive American agent for Gordon's Gin and Dewar's Scotch. In addition, Kennedy purchased spirits-importation rights from Schenley Industries, a firm in Canada. He owned the largest office building in the country, Chicago's Merchandise Mart, giving his family an important base in that city and an alliance with the Irish-American political leadership there.
His term as ambassador and his political ambitions ended abruptly during the Battle of Britain in November 1940, with the publishing of his controversial remarks suggesting that "Democracy is finished in England. It may be here, [in the US]." Kennedy resigned under pressure shortly afterwards.
>>>>>Investments in film studios:
Wikipedia:
"Kennedy made huge profits from reorganizing and refinancing several Hollywood studios. One small studio was Film Booking Offices of America (or FBO), which specialized in Westerns produced cheaply. Its owner was in financial trouble and asked Kennedy to help find a new owner. Kennedy formed his own group of investors and bought it."
>>>>>>The Real Story:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_Booking_Offices_of_America
Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) (also known as FBO Pictures Corporation) was an American film studio of the silent era, a producer and distributor of mostly low-budget films that were sometimes well-made. The business began in 1918 as Robertson-Cole (U.S.), the American division of a British import–export company and Robertson-Cole was formed by the English-born Harry F. Robertson and the American Rufus Sidman Cole.
The studio, whose core market was America's small towns, also put out many romantic melodramas, non-Western action pictures, and comedic shorts. In 1926, financier Joseph P. Kennedy led a group that acquired the company. In June 1928, using RCA Photophone technology, FBO became only the second Hollywood studio to release a feature-length "talkie." A few months later, Kennedy and RCA chief David Sarnoff arranged the merger that created RKO, one of the major studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. In 1921, the British owners of the studio entered into a working relationship with Joseph P. Kennedy, father of future U.S. president John F. Kennedy. Joseph Kennedy was then a broker at the New York banking firm of Hayden, Stone, as well as the owner of Maine–New Hampshire Theatres, a small chain of movie houses. Though he failed to arrange the sale R-C's general partners were looking for, Kennedy's involvement with the studio was far from over. In 1922, Robertson-Cole underwent a major reorganization as the company's founders departed, though the corporation remained under majority British ownership. The flagship U.S. distribution business changed its name to Film Booking Offices of America, a banner under which R-C had released more than a dozen independent productions.
As a production company, Film Booking Offices concentrated on low-budget movies, with an emphasis on Westerns, romantic melodramas, and comedy shorts. From its first productions in early 1920 through late 1928, when it was dissolved in a merger, the company produced approximately 400 films under the brand of either Robertson-Cole Pictures or FBO Pictures. Between 1924 and 1926, several higher-end productions were made under the rubric of Gothic Pictures. The studio's top-of-the-line movies, aimed at major exhibition venues beyond the reach of most FBO films, were sometimes marketed as FBO "Gold Bond" pictures.[20] Without the backing of large corporate interests, nor the security of its own theater chain, the company faced cash-flow difficulties during its earlier years. Short-term loans at high interest rates posed a significant financial drain.
While still at Hayden, Stone, Kennedy had boasted to a colleague, "Look at that bunch of pants pressers in Hollywood making themselves millionaires. I could take the whole business away from them." In 1925, he set out to do so, forming his own group of investors led by wealthy Boston lawyer Guy Currier and including Filene's department store owner Louis Kirstein and Union Stockyards and Armour and Company owner Frederick H. Prince. In August 1925, Kennedy traveled to England with an offer to buy a controlling stake in Film Booking Offices for $1 million. The bid was initially rejected, but in February 1926, FBO's owners decided to take the money.
In short order, Kennedy moved his family from Massachusetts to New York City to focus on running his new business. He swiftly addressed the company's perennial cash-flow problems, arranging lines of credit and issuing stock in a business division he established, the Cinema Credit Corporation. By March, he was traveling to Hollywood. The president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association, Will Hays, was delighted by the new face on the scene—in Hays's eyes, Kennedy signified both a desirable image for the industry and Wall Street's faith in its prospects. Hays heralded Kennedy as "exceedingly American" (historian Cari Beauchamp explains the connotation: "not Jewish," in contrast to most of the studio heads), while celebrating Kennedy's "background of lofty and conservative financial connections, an atmosphere of much home and family life and all those fireside virtues of which the public never hears in the current news from Hollywood."
Fineman and Brent both departed FBO around the time of the purchase. Kennedy appointed Edwin King as the studio's production chief, but the new owner took a personal hand in guiding the company creatively as well as financially. Kennedy soon brought stability to FBO, making it one of the most reliably profitable outfits in the minor leagues of the Hollywood studio system. Westerns remained the studio's backbone, along with various action pictures and romantic scenarios; as Kennedy put it, "Melodrama is our meat." During this period, the average production cost of FBO features was around $50,000, and few were budgeted at anything more than $75,000. By comparison, in 1927–28 the average cost at Fox was $190,000; at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, $275,000. One major expense was taken on directly by Kennedy: with several studios competing for Fred Thomson, Kennedy signed him to a personal contract for $15,000 a week. This was the highest straight salary for any actor in the industry, matched only by Tom Mix's new arrangement with Fox.
The advent of sound film would drastically alter the studio's course: Negotiations that began in late 1927 with the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) on a deal for sound conversion led to RCA purchasing a major interest in FBO in January 1928. Four months later, as part of a strategy conceived with RCA head David Sarnoff, Kennedy acquired control of Keith-Albee-Orpheum (KAO), a vaudeville exhibition chain with approximately one hundred theaters across the United States, and with the Pathé Exchange and Cecil B. De Mille's Producers Distributing Corporation under its control.
On June 17, 1928, FBO's The Perfect Crime, directed by Bert Glennon and starring Clive Brook and Irene Rich, debuted. It was the first feature-length "talkie" to appear from a studio other than Warner Bros. since the epochal premiere of Warners' The Jazz Singer eight months before. The Perfect Crime, which went into general release on August 4, had been shot silently. Using the RCA Photophone sound-on-film system, the dialogue was dubbed in afterward—a process then known as "synthetic sound." On August 22, Kennedy signed a contract with RCA for live Photophone recording; more importantly, he also tendered the company an option to buy his governing share of FBO. Two months later, RCA had acquired controlling stock interests in both the studio and KAO.
On October 23, 1928, RCA announced it was merging Film Booking Offices and Keith-Albee-Orpheum to form the new motion picture business Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO), with Sarnoff as chairman. Kennedy, who retained Pathé, was paid $150,000 for arranging the merger on top of the millions of dollars in profit he made from selling off his stock. Joseph I. Schnitzer, ranking FBO vice-president, was elevated to president of the new company's production arm, replacing Kennedy.
Between 1924 and 1926, FBO released the work of John Randolph Bray's cartoon studio, including the "Dinky Doodle" series created by Walter Lantz. From 1925 to 1927, the studio put out approximately three dozen animated adaptations of George Herriman newspaper comics directed by William Nolan, featuring characters from Herriman's famed Krazy Kat strip. FBO picked up the Krazy Kat cartoons from the distribution team of Margaret Winkler and her husband, Charles Mintz. In 1926, FBO struck a deal with the Winkler–Mintz operation for another series, one that, like Bowers' shorts, involved both animation and a live performer: the "Alice Comedies," of which FBO would put out over two dozen, were created by two young animators, Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney.<<<<<<<<
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From Wikipedia:
Kennedy moved to Hollywood in March 1926 to focus on running the studio. Movie studios were then permitted to own exhibition companies which were necessary to get their films on local screens. With that in mind, in a hostile buyout, he acquired the Keith-Albee-Orpheum Theaters Corporation (KAO), which had more than 700 vaudeville theaters across the United States which had begun showing movies. He later purchased another production studio called Pathe Exchange, and merged those two entities with Cecil B. DeMille's Producers Distributing Corporation in March 1927.
>>>>>>The Real Story:
Keith-Albee-Orpheum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith-Albee-Orpheum
The Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation was the owner of a chain of vaudeville and motion picture theatres. It was formed by the merger of the holdings of Benjamin Franklin Keith and Edward Franklin Albee II and Martin Beck's Orpheum Circuit.
History:
The company was incorporated in Delaware on January 28, 1928, to acquire the stocks of the B.F. Keith Corporation; Orpheum Circuit, Inc.; Vaudeville Collection Agency; B.F. Keith-Albee Vaudeville Exchange; and Greater New York Corporation. The company operated a chain of vaudeville and motion picture theatres in the United States and Canada with a seating capacity of 1,500,000 persons. The combined theater chain now had over 700 theaters in the United States and Canada. 15,000 vaudeville performers will be booked through the new entity.
In May 1928, a controlling portion of stock was sold to Joseph P. Kennedy, from whom it was purchased in October by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) as part of the deal, along with Film Booking Offices of America (FBO), that created the major motion picture studio Radio Keith Orpheum (RKO Pictures).
After the establishment of RKO, motion pictures became the primary focus of entertainment at the former KAO theaters. Vaudeville survived only as an interlude for feature films.<<<<<
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From Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_National
In the early 1920s, Paramount attempted a hostile takeover, buying several of First National's member firms. Associated First National Pictures expanded from only distributing films to producing them in 1924 and changed its corporate name to First National Pictures, Inc. It built its 62-acre (25 ha) studio lot in Burbank in 1926. The Motion Picture Theatre Owners of America and the Independent Producers' Association declared war in 1925 on what they termed a common enemy—the "film trust" of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount, and First National, which they claimed dominated the industry not only by producing and distributing motion pictures but also by entering into exhibition as well. In August 1928, Joe Kennedy Sr unsuccessfully tried to run First National Pictures.
Warner Bros. purchased a majority interest in First National in September 1928. Warner Bros. acquired access to First National's affiliated chain of theaters, while First National acquired access to Vitaphone sound equipment. But the trademarks were kept separate, and films by First National continued to be credited solely to "First National Pictures" until 1936. Although both studios produced "A" and "B" budget pictures, generally the prestige productions, costume dramas, and musicals were made by Warner Bros., while First National specialized in modern comedies, dramas, and crime stories. Short subjects were made by yet another affiliated company, The Vitaphone Corporation (which took its name from the sound process).
Vitaphone was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects made by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone was the last major analog sound-on-disc system and the only one which was widely used and commercially successful. The soundtrack was not printed on the film itself, but issued separately on phonograph records. The discs, recorded at 33 1/3 rpm (a speed first used for this system) and typically 16 inches in diameter, would be played on a turntable physically coupled to the projector motor while the film was being projected. Many early talkies, such as The Jazz Singer (1927), used the Vitaphone system. The name "Vitaphone" derived from the Latin and Greek words, respectively, for "living" and "sound".
The "Vitaphone" trademark was later associated with cartoons and other short subjects that had optical soundtracks and did not use discs.
In 1929 First national Pictures was sold to Warner Brothers.
In July 1936, stockholders of First National Pictures, Inc. (primarily Warner Bros.) voted to dissolve the corporation and distribute its assets among the stockholders in line with a new tax law which provided for tax-free consolidations between corporations.
From 1929 to 1958, most Warner Bros. films bore the combined trademark "A Warner Bros.-First National Picture"
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Kennedy, along with fifteen others, signed a telegram warning that the release of Sadie Thompson c.1928 starring Gloria Swanson would jeopardize the ability of the movie industry to censor itself. Swanson needed financing for her movie production company, and Kennedy began a three-year affair when he met her for lunch in New York after the film's release.
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Gloria Swanson
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Swanson
Feeling she would never have as much artistic freedom and independence as she had at that moment, Swanson decided she "wanted to make my Gold Rush." Schenck pleaded with her to do a commercially successful film like The Last of Mrs. Cheyney. Swanson felt it was too formulaic, and decided to call on director Raoul Walsh, who was signed with Fox Film Corporation at the time. Walsh had been known for bringing controversial material to film, and at their first meeting suggested the John Colton/Clemence Randolph play Rain (1923), based on a story by W. Somerset Maugham in 1921 titled Miss Thompson. She had seen Jeanne Eagels perform the role twice, and enjoyed it.
Sadie Thompson is a 1928 American silent drama film.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadie_Thompson
Due to the subject matter, the making of the film was extremely controversial. However, it was a financial and critical success for Swanson. The film was based on the short story "Rain" by W. Somerset Maugham and the 1923 play that was based on the book by John Colton and Clemence Randolph.
Despite reports that "dirty" words can be read on the characters' lips, Swanson claims the censors went over everything with a fine-tooth comb. However, Swanson admitted that one line she was shouting at Davidson went, "You'd rip the wings off of a butterfly, you son of a bitch!" when recounting a conversation with Walsh later in life. If the word rain was used in a title, they asked that it be removed. They also wanted to change Davidson's name to something else, but Swanson and Walsh refused.
The film was a success and was the only silent independent film of Swanson's to do well at the box office. It was one of her last financially successful films, including the talkies: The Trespasser and Sunset Blvd.
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(See: Grace Kelly)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Kelly
Grace Patricia Kelly (November 12, 1929 – September 14, 1982) was an American actress who, after marrying Prince Rainier III, became the Princess of Monaco.
After embarking on an acting career in 1950, at the age of 20, Kelly appeared in New York City theatrical productions and more than 40 episodes of live drama productions broadcast during the early 1950s Golden Age of Television. In October 1953, she gained stardom from her performance in the film Mogambo. It won her a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination in 1954. She had leading roles in five films, including The Country Girl, for which her deglamorized performance earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress. Other films include High Noon (1952) with Gary Cooper, Dial M for Murder (1954) with Ray Milland, Rear Window (1954) with James Stewart and To Catch a Thief (1955) with Cary Grant, and High Society (1956) with Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby.
Kelly retired from acting at the age of 26 to marry Rainier and began her duties in Monaco. They had three children: Caroline, Albert, and Stéphanie. She retained her American roots, maintaining dual U.S. and Monégasque citizenship. She died on September 14, 1982, a day after a stroke caused her to crash her car.
Early years
Despite her parents' disapproval, Kelly decided to pursue her dreams of being an actress. John was particularly displeased with her decision; he viewed acting as "a slim cut above streetwalker."
To start her career, she tried to get admitted into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. In her audition, she used a scene from her Uncle George's 1923 play The Torch-Bearers. Although the school had already met its semester quota, she obtained an interview with the admission officer, Emile Diestel, and was admitted through the influence of George. She began her first term the following October. While at school, she lived in Manhattan's Barbizon Hotel for Women, a prestigious establishment which barred men from entering after 10 pm, and she worked as a model to support her studies.
Kelly worked diligently and practiced her speech by using a tape recorder.
Relationship with Rainier III
Kelly headed the U.S. delegation at the Cannes Film Festival in April 1955. While there, she was invited to participate in a photo session at the Palace of Monaco with Prince Rainier III, the sovereign of the principality. After a series of delays and complications, she met him in Monaco. At the time of her initial meeting with him, she was dating the French actor Jean-Pierre Aumont.
Upon returning to America, Kelly began work on The Swan, in which she coincidentally portrayed a princess, and she meanwhile began a private correspondence with Rainier.
In December 1955, Rainier went to America on a trip officially designated as a tour, although it was speculated that he was actively seeking a wife. A treaty with France in 1918 had stated that if he did not produce an heir, Monaco would revert to France; this was as a result of the Monaco Succession Crisis of 1918. At a press conference in the U.S., he was asked if he was pursuing a wife, to which he answered, "No." Then a second question was posed: "If you were pursuing a wife, what kind would you like?" Rainier smiled and answered, "I don't know – the best."
That same year MGM released Kelly's last film, the musical comedy High Society, which was based on the studio's 1940 comedy The Philadelphia Story. She wore her own engagement ring in the film and one of its highlights was her duet with Bing Crosby, "True Love," a song with words and music by Cole Porter.
Rainier met Kelly and her family, and after three days, he proposed. She accepted and the families began preparations for what the press dubbed "The Wedding of the Century." She and her family had to provide a dowry of $2 million in order for the marriage to go forward.
After her marriage to Prince Rainier, Kelly became involved with philanthropic work since she was no longer allowed to act.
Kelly founded AMADE Mondiale, a Monaco-based non-profit organization that was eventually recognized by the UN as a Non-Governmental organization. According to UNESCO's website, AMADE promotes and protects the "moral and physical integrity" and "spiritual well-being of children throughout the world, without distinction of race, nationality or religion and in a spirit of complete political independence." Her daughter, Princess Caroline, carries the torch for AMADE today in her role as President.
Kelly was also active in improving the arts institutions of Monaco, forming the Princess Grace Foundation in 1964 to support local artisans. The Princess Grace Awards, a program of the Princess Grace Foundation-USA, has awarded nearly 500 artists at more than 100 institutions in the U.S. with more than $7 million to date. The foundation also says it "holds the exclusive rights and facilitates the licensing of her name and likeness throughout the world."
On September 13, 1982, Kelly was driving back to Monaco from her country home in Roc Agel when she had a stroke. As a result, she lost control of her 1971 Rover P6 3500 and drove off the steep, winding road and down the 120 ft mountainside. Despite their efforts, her head injuries – in addition to her fractured ribs, collarbone, and thigh – were irreparable. Doctors believed that she had suffered a minor stroke prior to the accident, which made her more susceptible to another. The following night, at 10:55pm, she died at the age of 52 after Rainier decided to take her off life support. At a later memorial service in Beverly Hills, James Stewart delivered the following eulogy:
You know, I just love Grace Kelly. Not because she was a princess, not because she was an actress, not because she was my friend, but because she was just about the nicest lady I ever met. Grace brought into my life as she brought into yours, a soft, warm light every time I saw her, and every time I saw her was a holiday of its own. No question, I'll miss her, we'll all miss her, God bless you, Princess Grace.
Rainier, who never remarried, was buried alongside her following his death in 2005.
Kelly has been depicted by many pop artists including James Gill and Andy Warhol. Warhol made a portrait of her for the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia as a limited edition silkscreen in 1984.
Billy Joel references Grace Kelly in We Didn't Start the Fire in the events describing 1956:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Didn%27t_Start_the_Fire
Joel has mixed feelings about the song. "It's a nightmare to perform live, because if I miss one word, it's a train wreck."
"We Didn't Start the Fire" is a song by Billy Joel. Its lyrics include brief, rapid-fire allusions to more than 100 headline events between 1949, the year of Joel's birth, and 1989, when the song was released on his album Storm Front. Joel has said, "There's an element of malevolence in the song"; it's like waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The tune was nominated for the Grammy Award for Record of the Year. The song was also a No. 1 hit in the US. Blender magazine ranked "We Didn't Start the Fire" No. 41 on its list of the "50 Worst Songs Ever", a list that also includes songs from Paul McCartney and Simon & Garfunkel. They considered the production bombastic and stated that the song "resembles a term paper scribbled the night before it’s due." Though the lyrics are rapid-fire with several people and events mentioned in a single word each, there is widespread agreement on the meaning of the lyrics. Steven Ettinger wrote,
Billy Joel captured the major images, events, and personalities of this half-century in a three-minute song.... It was pure information overload, a song that assumed we knew exactly what he was singing about...What was truly alarming was the realization that we, the listeners, for the most part understood the references.
1949
Harry Truman was inaugurated as U.S. president after being elected in 1948 to his own lame duck second and final presidential term; previously he was sworn in following the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He authorized the use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan during World War II, on August 6 and August 9, 1945, respectively.
Doris Day enters the public spotlight with the films My Dream Is Yours and It's a Great Feeling as well as popular songs like "It's Magic"; divorces her second husband.
Red China: The Communist Party of China wins the Chinese Civil War, establishing the People's Republic of China.
Johnnie Ray signs his first recording contract with Okeh Records, although he would not become popular for another two years.
South Pacific, the prize-winning musical, opens on Broadway on April 7.
Walter Winchell is an aggressive radio and newspaper journalist credited with inventing the gossip column.
Joe DiMaggio and the New York Yankees go to the World Series five times in the 1940s, winning four of them.
1950s
1950
Joe McCarthy, the U.S. Senator, gains national attention and begins his anti-Communism crusade with his Lincoln Day speech.
Richard Nixon is first elected to the United States Senate.
Studebaker, a popular car company, begins its financial downfall.
Television is becoming widespread throughout Europe and North America.
North Korea and South Korea declare war after Northern forces stream south on June 25.
Marilyn Monroe soars in popularity with five new movies, including The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve, and attempts suicide after the death of friend Johnny Hyde who asked to marry her several times, but she refused respectfully. Monroe would later (1954) be married for a brief time to Joe DiMaggio (mentioned in the previous verse).
1951
The Rosenbergs, Ethel and Julius, were convicted on March 19 for espionage.
H-Bomb is in the middle of its development as a nuclear weapon, announced in early 1950 and first tested in late 1952.
Sugar Ray Robinson, a champion welterweight boxer.
Panmunjom, the border village in Korea, is the location of truce talks between the parties of the Korean War.
Marlon Brando is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in A Streetcar Named Desire.
The King and I, musical, opens on Broadway on March 29.
The Catcher in the Rye, a controversial novel by J. D. Salinger, is published.
1952
Dwight D. Eisenhower is first elected as U.S. president, winning by a landslide margin of 442 to 89 electoral votes.
The vaccine for polio is privately tested by Jonas Salk.
England's got a new queen: Queen Elizabeth II succeeds to the throne upon the death of her father, George VI, and is crowned the next year.
Rocky Marciano defeats Jersey Joe Walcott, becoming the world heavyweight boxing champion.
Liberace has a popular 1950s television show for his musical entertainment.
Santayana goodbye: George Santayana, philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist, dies on September 26.
1953
Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, dies on March 5
Georgy Maksimilianovich Malenkov succeeds Stalin for six months following his death. Malenkov had presided over Stalin's purges, but would be spared a similar fate by Nikita Khrushchev mentioned later in verse.
Gamal Abdel Nasser acts as the true power behind the new Egyptian nation as Muhammad Naguib's minister of the interior.
Sergei Prokofiev, the composer, dies on March 5, the same day as Stalin.
Winthrop Rockefeller and his wife Barbara are involved in a highly publicized divorce, culminating in 1954 with a record-breaking $5.5 million settlement.[12]
Roy Campanella, an African-American baseball catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers, receives the National League's Most Valuable Player award for the second time.
Communist bloc, the uprising of 1953 in East Germany is crushed by the Volkspolizei and the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany.
1954
Roy Cohn resigns as Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel and enters private practice with the fall of McCarthy. He also worked to prosecute the Rosenbergs, mentioned earlier.
Juan Perón spends his last full year as President of Argentina before a September 1955 coup.
Arturo Toscanini is at the height of his fame as a conductor, performing regularly with the NBC Symphony Orchestra on national radio.
Dacron is an early artificial fiber made from the same plastic as polyester.
Dien Bien Phu falls. A French/Vietnamese camp falls to Viet Minh forces under Vo Nguyen Giap, signaling the end of French Indochina and leading to the creation of North Vietnam and South Vietnam as separate states.
"Rock Around the Clock" is a hit single released by Bill Haley & His Comets in May, spurring worldwide interest in rock and roll music.
1955
Albert Einstein dies on April 18 at the age of 76.
James Dean achieves success with East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, gets nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, and dies in a car accident on September 30 at the age of 24.
Brooklyn's got a winning team: The Brooklyn Dodgers win the World Series for the only time before their move to Los Angeles.
Davy Crockett is a Disney television miniseries about the legendary frontiersman of the same name. The show was a huge hit with young boys and inspired a short-lived "coonskin cap" craze.
Peter Pan is broadcast on TV live and in color from the 1954 version of the stage musical starring Mary Martin on March 7. Disney released an animated version the previous year.
Elvis Presley signs with RCA Records on November 21, beginning his pop career.
Disneyland opens on July 17, 1955 as Walt Disney's first theme park.
1956
Brigitte Bardot appears in her first mainstream film And God Created Woman and establishes an international reputation as a French "sex kitten".
Budapest is the capital city of Hungary and site of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
Alabama is the site of the Montgomery Bus Boycott which ultimately led to the removal of the last race laws in the USA. Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr figure prominently.
Nikita Khrushchev makes his famous Secret Speech denouncing Stalin's "Cult of personality" on February 25.
Princess Grace Kelly releases her last film, High Society, and marries Prince Rainier III of Monaco.
Peyton Place, the best-selling novel by Grace Metalious, is published. Though mild compared to today's prime time, it shocked the reserved values of the 1950s.
Trouble in the Suez: The Suez Crisis boils as Egypt nationalizes the Suez Canal on October 29.
1957
Little Rock, Arkansas is the site of an anti-integration standoff, as Governor Orval Faubus stops the Little Rock Nine from attending Little Rock Central High School and President Dwight D. Eisenhower deploys the 101st Airborne Division to counteract him.
Boris Pasternak, the Russian author, publishes his famous novel Doctor Zhivago.
Mickey Mantle is in the middle of his career as a famous New York Yankees outfielder and American League All-Star for the sixth year in a row.
Jack Kerouac publishes his first novel in seven years, On the Road.
Sputnik becomes the first artificial satellite, launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, marking the start of the space race.
Chou En-Lai, Premier of the People's Republic of China, survives an assassination attempt on the charter airliner Kashmir Princess.
Bridge on the River Kwai is released as a film adaptation of the 1954 novel and receives seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.[13]
1958
Lebanon is engulfed in a political and religious crisis that eventually involves U.S. intervention.
Charles de Gaulle is elected first president of the French Fifth Republic following the Algerian Crisis.
California baseball begins as the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants move to California and become the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants. They are the first major league teams west of Kansas City.
Charles Starkweather Homicide captures the attention of Americans, in which he kills eleven people between January 25 and 29 before being caught in a massive manhunt in Douglas, Wyoming.
Children of Thalidomide: Mothers taking the drug Thalidomide had children born with congenital birth defects caused by the sleeping aid and antiemetic, which was also used at times to treat morning sickness.
1959
Buddy Holly dies in a plane crash on February 3 with Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper, in a day that had a devastating impact on the country and youth culture. Joel prefaces the lyric with a Holly signature vocal hiccup: "Uh-huh, uh-huh."
Ben-Hur, a film based around the New Testament starring Charlton Heston, wins eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Space Monkey: Able and Miss Baker return to Earth from space aboard the flight Jupiter AM-18.
The Mafia are the center of attention for the FBI and public attention builds to this organized crime society with a historically Italian-American origin.
Hula hoops reach 100 million in sales as the latest toy fad.
Fidel Castro comes to power after a revolution in Cuba and visits the United States later that year on an unofficial twelve-day tour.
Edsel is a no-go: Production of this car marque ends after only three years due to poor sales.
1960s
1960
U-2: An American U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union, causing the U-2 Crisis of 1960.
Syngman Rhee was rescued by the CIA after being forced to resign as leader of South Korea for allegedly fixing an election and embezzling more than US $20 million.
Payola, illegal payments for radio broadcasting of songs, was publicized due to Dick Clark's testimony before Congress and Alan Freed's public disgrace.
John F. Kennedy beats Richard Nixon in the November 8 general election.
Chubby Checker popularizes the dance The Twist with his cover of the song of the same name.
Psycho: An Alfred Hitchcock thriller, based on a pulp novel by Robert Bloch and adapted by Joseph Stefano, which becomes a landmark in graphic violence and cinema sensationalism. The screeching violins heard at this point in the song are a trademark of the film's soundtrack.
Belgians in the Congo: The Republic of the Congo (Leopoldville) was declared independent of Belgium on June 30, with Joseph Kasavubu as President and Patrice Lumumba as Prime Minister.
1961
Ernest Hemingway commits suicide on July 2 after a long battle with depression.
Adolf Eichmann, a "most wanted" Nazi war criminal, is traced to Argentina and captured by Mossad agents. He is covertly taken to Israel where he is put on trial for crimes against humanity during World War II, convicted in 1961, and hanged the following year, 1962.
Stranger in a Strange Land, written by Robert A. Heinlein, is a breakthrough best-seller with themes of sexual freedom and liberation.
Bob Dylan is signed to Columbia Records after a New York Times review by critic Robert Shelton.
Berlin is separated into West Berlin and East Berlin, and from the rest of East Germany, when the Berlin Wall is erected on August 13 to prevent citizens escaping to the West.
The Bay of Pigs Invasion fails, an attempt by United States-trained Cuban exiles to invade Cuba and overthrow Fidel Castro.
1962
Lawrence of Arabia: The Academy Award-winning film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence starring Peter O'Toole premieres in America on December 16.
British Beatlemania: The Beatles, a British rock group, gain Ringo Starr as drummer and Brian Epstein as manager, and join the EMI's Parlophone label. They soon become the world's most famous rock band, with the word "Beatlemania" adopted by the press for their fans' unprecedented enthusiasm. It also began the British Invasion in the United States.
Ole Miss: A riot was fought between Southern segregationist civilians and federal and state forces as a result of the forced enrollment of black student James Meredith at the University of Mississippi.
John Glenn: Flew the first American manned orbital mission termed "Friendship 7" on February 20.
Liston beats Patterson: Sonny Liston and Floyd Patterson fight for the world heavyweight championship on September 25, ending in a first-round knockout. This match marked the first time Patterson had ever been knocked out and one of only eight losses in his 20-year professional career.
1963
Pope Paul VI: Cardinal Giovanni Montini is elected to the papacy and takes the papal name of Paul VI.
Malcolm X makes his infamous statement "The chickens have come home to roost" about the Kennedy assassination, thus causing the Nation of Islam to censor him.
British politician sex: The British Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, has a relationship with a showgirl, and then lies when questioned about it before the House of Commons. When the truth came out, it led to his own resignation and undermined the credibility of the Prime Minister.
JFK blown away: President John F. Kennedy is assassinated on November 22 while riding in an open convertible through Dallas.
1965
Birth control: In the early 1960s, oral contraceptives, popularly known as "the pill", first go on the market and are extremely popular. Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 challenged a Connecticut law prohibiting contraceptives. In 1968, Pope Paul VI released a papal encyclical entitled Humanae vitae which reaffirmed Catholic teaching that artificial birth control was a sin.
Ho Chi Minh: A Vietnamese Communist, who served as President of Vietnam from 1954–1969. March 2 Operation Rolling Thunder begins bombing of the Ho Chi Minh Trail supply line from North Vietnam to the Vietcong rebels in the south. On March 8, the first U.S. combat troops, 3,500 marines, land in South Vietnam.
1968
Richard Nixon back again: Former Vice President Nixon is elected President in 1968.
1969
Moonshot: Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing, successfully lands on the moon.
Woodstock: Famous rock and roll festival of 1969 that came to be the epitome of the counterculture movement.
1970s
1974–75
Watergate: Political scandal that began when the Democratic National Committee's headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. was broken into. After the break-in, word began to spread that President Richard Nixon (a Republican) may have known about the break-in, and tried to cover it up. The scandal would ultimately result in the resignation of President Nixon, and to date, this remains the only time that anyone has ever resigned the United States Presidency.
Punk rock: The Ramones form, with the Sex Pistols following in 1975, ushering in the punk era.
1976–77
(An item from 1977 comes before three items from 1976 to make the song scan.)
Menachem Begin becomes Prime Minister of Israel in 1977 and negotiates the Camp David Accords with Egypt's president in 1978.
Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States in 1980, but he first attempted to run for the position in 1976.
Palestine: a United Nations resolution that calls for an independent Palestinian state and to end the Israeli occupation.
Terror on the airline: Numerous aircraft hijackings take place, specifically, the Palestinian hijack of Air France Flight 139 and the subsequent Operation Entebbe in Uganda.
1979
Ayatollahs in Iran: During the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the West-backed and secular Shah is overthrown as the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini gains power after years in exile and forces Islamic law.
Russians in Afghanistan: Following their move into Afghanistan, Soviet forces fight a ten-year war, from 1979 to 1989.
1980s:
1983
Wheel of Fortune: A hit television game show which has been TV's highest-rated syndicated program since 1983.
Sally Ride: On June 18, she became the first American woman in space by flying aboard Challenger on the STS-7 shuttle mission. Ride's quip from space "Better than an E-ticket", harkens back to the opening of Disneyland mentioned earlier, with the E-ticket purchase needed for the best rides.
Heavy metal suicide: In the 1970s and 80s, heavy metal bands became popular. Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest in particular were sued for fans' suicides after listening to their songs "Suicide Solution" and "Better By You, Better Than Me", respectively.
Foreign debts: Persistent U.S. trade and budget deficits
Homeless vets: Veterans of the Vietnam War, including many disabled ex-military, are reported to be left homeless and impoverished.
AIDS: A collection of symptoms and infections in humans resulting from the specific damage to the immune system caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). It is first detected and recognized in the 1980s, and was on its way to becoming a pandemic.
Crack cocaine use surged in the mid-to-late 1980s.
1984
Bernie Goetz: On December 22, Goetz shot four young men who he said were threatening him on a New York City subway. Goetz was charged with attempted murder but was acquitted of the charges, though convicted of carrying an unlicensed gun.
1988
Hypodermics on the shore: Medical waste was found washed up on beaches in New Jersey after being illegally dumped at sea. Before this event, waste dumped in the oceans was an "out of sight, out of mind" affair. This has been cited as one of the crucial turning points in popular opinion on environmentalism.
1989
China's under martial law: On May 20, China declares martial law, resulting in the use of military forces against protesting students to end the Tiananmen Square protests.
Rock-and-roller cola wars: Soft drink giants Coke and Pepsi each run marketing campaigns using rock & roll and popular music stars to reach the teenage and young adult demographic.
Derivations:
Numerous parodies and takeoffs have been based on the song, including The Simpsons' parody "They'll Never Stop the Simpsons" at the end of the 2002 "Gump Roast" episode, and the San Francisco a cappella group The Richter Scales' 2007 Webby Award-winning parody "Here Comes Another Bubble." Cornell University's oldest a cappella group Cayuga's Waiters perform a version entitled "We Didn't Go to Harvard" with constantly changing lyrics to reflect the changing Cornell experience but always mentioning various Cornell and Ithaca landmarks. The band Guns 'n' Moses made a parody of the song called "We Love Barney Fife" that was played frequently on the Doctor Demento radio show, which not only paid tribute to The Andy Griffith Show, it also took advantage of the melody of the refrain being a suitable counterpoint for the Andy Griffith Show theme ("The Fishin' Hole"). The song was also parodied on the episode of the U.S. version of The Office where "Ryan the temp" starts a fire in the office building, and Dwight and Michael change the lyrics of the song to "Ryan Started The Fire". Irish band The Memories released "The Game" set to the tune of "We Didn't Start The Fire" about Ireland's World Cup 1990 Campaign. Another parody was released in 2010 titled "The Wii Didn't Start the Fire" about the history of video games.
In 1995, the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper ran commercials with the tagline "News From Around the World and Around the Corner", the jingle for which was to the tune of "We Didn't Start the Fire". For a number of years in the early to mid 2000's, Cleveland radio host Mike Trivisonno used a parody of the song as his show's intro music, written by then-producer of the show, Marty Allen.
The riff in the verses to Serbian rock band Bajaga i Instruktori's 2001 single "Lepa Janja, Ribareca Kci" ("Pretty Janja, The Fisherman's Daughter") is heavily borrowed from this song.
JibJab set their 2007 year in review song to "We Didn't Start the Fire"'s tune.
In early 2009, comedy website CollegeHumor created a parody entitled "We Didn't Start the Flame War" which chronicles a long list of common inflammatory (and often explicit) comments left on content over a wide variety of popular websites by internet trolls.
In the Netherlands the Dutch punk rock band Heideroosjes did a parody on their 20-year anniversary album about things that happened over those twenty years in the Netherlands called "De Wereld Draait Door" (The World Keeps Turning).
German comedian Otto Waalkes did a parody called "Wir haben Grund zum Feiern" (English: "We have reason to celebrate"), with a list of alcoholic beverages.
An edition of the BBC Three comedy programme 'Russell Howard's Good News' featured a parody of the song detailing numerous items that the Daily Mail newspaper actually believed caused cancer.
Mitch Benn also based his song about the BBC 'I'm proud of the BBC' on Billy Joel's song.
Fans of Homestuck uploaded a version of the song called "You Can't Fight the Homestuck" on YouTube in 2012, chronicling the webcomic's long and convoluted story.
Popular YouTuber Daneboe/Dane Boedigheimer, known better as creator of the popular comedic Web series Annoying Orange and its television spinoff on Cartoon Network, produced his own parody of Joel's song as part of YouTube's Comedy Week in 2013, chronicling notably popular Web videos and phenomena from 2005 to early 2013 when the video was released, ranging from "Charlie the Unicorn" to Boxxy to "Gangnam Style", titled "We Didn't Start the Viral."
Los Angeles, California-based cinematic pop band Milo Greene performed a version of the song in June 2013 for The A.V. Club 's A.V. Undercover series. The band altered some of the lyrics, referencing newer television shows, including Friends and Everybody Loves Raymond, and NBA teams and players.
On June 9, 2015, Sky Sports released their own version of the song to advertise the upcoming 2015 Ashes series, with backing vocals and percussion provided by Elio Pace and his band, Pace himself being a lifelong Billy Joel fan who has toured and recorded with Joel's original touring band. The new lyrics were reworked from the original to include references to memorable moments from previous Test Matches in The Ashes, with lyrics sung by test player Joe Root and ex-test players and current Sky Sports cricket pundits Shane Warne, Nasser Hussain, David Lloyd, Michael Atherton, David Gower, Ian Ward, Sir Ian Botham and Michael Holding.
Sources:
Bordowitz, Hank (2006). Billy Joel: The Life & Times of an Angry Young Man. Billboard Books. p. 272. ISBN 978-0-8230-8248-3.
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(See: Frances Elena Farmer (September 19, 1913 – August 1, 1970): an American actress and television host.)
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Silence of the Lambs 1991
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silence_of_the_Lambs_(film)
The film is based on Thomas Harris' 1988 novel of the same name, his second to feature Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer.
In the film, Clarice Starling, a young U.S. FBI trainee, seeks the advice of the imprisoned Dr. Lecter to apprehend another serial killer, known only as "Buffalo Bill".
The Silence of the Lambs was only the third film, the other two being It Happened One Night and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, to win Academy Awards in all the top five categories.
The man in the film looks like L.Ron Hubbard
(..........References the film "Sadie Thompson" c.1928.........)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Born to a political family in East Boston, Massachusetts, Kennedy embarked on a career in business and investing, first making a large fortune as a stock market and commodity investor and later rolled over the profits by investing in real estate and a wide range of business industries across the United States. During World War I, he was an assistant general manager of a Boston area Bethlehem Steel shipyard, through which he developed a friendship with Franklin D. Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
In the 1920s Kennedy made huge profits from reorganizing and refinancing several Hollywood studios, ultimately merging several acquisitions into Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) studios.
After Prohibition of alcohol ended in 1933, Kennedy consolidated an even larger fortune when he traveled to Scotland with Roosevelt's son James to buy distribution rights for Scotch whisky. His company, Somerset Importers, became the exclusive American agent for Gordon's Gin and Dewar's Scotch. In addition, Kennedy purchased spirits-importation rights from Schenley Industries, a firm in Canada. He owned the largest office building in the country, Chicago's Merchandise Mart, giving his family an important base in that city and an alliance with the Irish-American political leadership there.
His term as ambassador and his political ambitions ended abruptly during the Battle of Britain in November 1940, with the publishing of his controversial remarks suggesting that "Democracy is finished in England. It may be here, [in the US]." Kennedy resigned under pressure shortly afterwards.
>>>>>Investments in film studios:
Wikipedia:
"Kennedy made huge profits from reorganizing and refinancing several Hollywood studios. One small studio was Film Booking Offices of America (or FBO), which specialized in Westerns produced cheaply. Its owner was in financial trouble and asked Kennedy to help find a new owner. Kennedy formed his own group of investors and bought it."
>>>>>>The Real Story:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_Booking_Offices_of_America
Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) (also known as FBO Pictures Corporation) was an American film studio of the silent era, a producer and distributor of mostly low-budget films that were sometimes well-made. The business began in 1918 as Robertson-Cole (U.S.), the American division of a British import–export company and Robertson-Cole was formed by the English-born Harry F. Robertson and the American Rufus Sidman Cole.
The studio, whose core market was America's small towns, also put out many romantic melodramas, non-Western action pictures, and comedic shorts. In 1926, financier Joseph P. Kennedy led a group that acquired the company. In June 1928, using RCA Photophone technology, FBO became only the second Hollywood studio to release a feature-length "talkie." A few months later, Kennedy and RCA chief David Sarnoff arranged the merger that created RKO, one of the major studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. In 1921, the British owners of the studio entered into a working relationship with Joseph P. Kennedy, father of future U.S. president John F. Kennedy. Joseph Kennedy was then a broker at the New York banking firm of Hayden, Stone, as well as the owner of Maine–New Hampshire Theatres, a small chain of movie houses. Though he failed to arrange the sale R-C's general partners were looking for, Kennedy's involvement with the studio was far from over. In 1922, Robertson-Cole underwent a major reorganization as the company's founders departed, though the corporation remained under majority British ownership. The flagship U.S. distribution business changed its name to Film Booking Offices of America, a banner under which R-C had released more than a dozen independent productions.
As a production company, Film Booking Offices concentrated on low-budget movies, with an emphasis on Westerns, romantic melodramas, and comedy shorts. From its first productions in early 1920 through late 1928, when it was dissolved in a merger, the company produced approximately 400 films under the brand of either Robertson-Cole Pictures or FBO Pictures. Between 1924 and 1926, several higher-end productions were made under the rubric of Gothic Pictures. The studio's top-of-the-line movies, aimed at major exhibition venues beyond the reach of most FBO films, were sometimes marketed as FBO "Gold Bond" pictures.[20] Without the backing of large corporate interests, nor the security of its own theater chain, the company faced cash-flow difficulties during its earlier years. Short-term loans at high interest rates posed a significant financial drain.
While still at Hayden, Stone, Kennedy had boasted to a colleague, "Look at that bunch of pants pressers in Hollywood making themselves millionaires. I could take the whole business away from them." In 1925, he set out to do so, forming his own group of investors led by wealthy Boston lawyer Guy Currier and including Filene's department store owner Louis Kirstein and Union Stockyards and Armour and Company owner Frederick H. Prince. In August 1925, Kennedy traveled to England with an offer to buy a controlling stake in Film Booking Offices for $1 million. The bid was initially rejected, but in February 1926, FBO's owners decided to take the money.
In short order, Kennedy moved his family from Massachusetts to New York City to focus on running his new business. He swiftly addressed the company's perennial cash-flow problems, arranging lines of credit and issuing stock in a business division he established, the Cinema Credit Corporation. By March, he was traveling to Hollywood. The president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association, Will Hays, was delighted by the new face on the scene—in Hays's eyes, Kennedy signified both a desirable image for the industry and Wall Street's faith in its prospects. Hays heralded Kennedy as "exceedingly American" (historian Cari Beauchamp explains the connotation: "not Jewish," in contrast to most of the studio heads), while celebrating Kennedy's "background of lofty and conservative financial connections, an atmosphere of much home and family life and all those fireside virtues of which the public never hears in the current news from Hollywood."
Fineman and Brent both departed FBO around the time of the purchase. Kennedy appointed Edwin King as the studio's production chief, but the new owner took a personal hand in guiding the company creatively as well as financially. Kennedy soon brought stability to FBO, making it one of the most reliably profitable outfits in the minor leagues of the Hollywood studio system. Westerns remained the studio's backbone, along with various action pictures and romantic scenarios; as Kennedy put it, "Melodrama is our meat." During this period, the average production cost of FBO features was around $50,000, and few were budgeted at anything more than $75,000. By comparison, in 1927–28 the average cost at Fox was $190,000; at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, $275,000. One major expense was taken on directly by Kennedy: with several studios competing for Fred Thomson, Kennedy signed him to a personal contract for $15,000 a week. This was the highest straight salary for any actor in the industry, matched only by Tom Mix's new arrangement with Fox.
The advent of sound film would drastically alter the studio's course: Negotiations that began in late 1927 with the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) on a deal for sound conversion led to RCA purchasing a major interest in FBO in January 1928. Four months later, as part of a strategy conceived with RCA head David Sarnoff, Kennedy acquired control of Keith-Albee-Orpheum (KAO), a vaudeville exhibition chain with approximately one hundred theaters across the United States, and with the Pathé Exchange and Cecil B. De Mille's Producers Distributing Corporation under its control.
On June 17, 1928, FBO's The Perfect Crime, directed by Bert Glennon and starring Clive Brook and Irene Rich, debuted. It was the first feature-length "talkie" to appear from a studio other than Warner Bros. since the epochal premiere of Warners' The Jazz Singer eight months before. The Perfect Crime, which went into general release on August 4, had been shot silently. Using the RCA Photophone sound-on-film system, the dialogue was dubbed in afterward—a process then known as "synthetic sound." On August 22, Kennedy signed a contract with RCA for live Photophone recording; more importantly, he also tendered the company an option to buy his governing share of FBO. Two months later, RCA had acquired controlling stock interests in both the studio and KAO.
On October 23, 1928, RCA announced it was merging Film Booking Offices and Keith-Albee-Orpheum to form the new motion picture business Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO), with Sarnoff as chairman. Kennedy, who retained Pathé, was paid $150,000 for arranging the merger on top of the millions of dollars in profit he made from selling off his stock. Joseph I. Schnitzer, ranking FBO vice-president, was elevated to president of the new company's production arm, replacing Kennedy.
Between 1924 and 1926, FBO released the work of John Randolph Bray's cartoon studio, including the "Dinky Doodle" series created by Walter Lantz. From 1925 to 1927, the studio put out approximately three dozen animated adaptations of George Herriman newspaper comics directed by William Nolan, featuring characters from Herriman's famed Krazy Kat strip. FBO picked up the Krazy Kat cartoons from the distribution team of Margaret Winkler and her husband, Charles Mintz. In 1926, FBO struck a deal with the Winkler–Mintz operation for another series, one that, like Bowers' shorts, involved both animation and a live performer: the "Alice Comedies," of which FBO would put out over two dozen, were created by two young animators, Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney.<<<<<<<<
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From Wikipedia:
Kennedy moved to Hollywood in March 1926 to focus on running the studio. Movie studios were then permitted to own exhibition companies which were necessary to get their films on local screens. With that in mind, in a hostile buyout, he acquired the Keith-Albee-Orpheum Theaters Corporation (KAO), which had more than 700 vaudeville theaters across the United States which had begun showing movies. He later purchased another production studio called Pathe Exchange, and merged those two entities with Cecil B. DeMille's Producers Distributing Corporation in March 1927.
>>>>>>The Real Story:
Keith-Albee-Orpheum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith-Albee-Orpheum
The Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation was the owner of a chain of vaudeville and motion picture theatres. It was formed by the merger of the holdings of Benjamin Franklin Keith and Edward Franklin Albee II and Martin Beck's Orpheum Circuit.
History:
The company was incorporated in Delaware on January 28, 1928, to acquire the stocks of the B.F. Keith Corporation; Orpheum Circuit, Inc.; Vaudeville Collection Agency; B.F. Keith-Albee Vaudeville Exchange; and Greater New York Corporation. The company operated a chain of vaudeville and motion picture theatres in the United States and Canada with a seating capacity of 1,500,000 persons. The combined theater chain now had over 700 theaters in the United States and Canada. 15,000 vaudeville performers will be booked through the new entity.
In May 1928, a controlling portion of stock was sold to Joseph P. Kennedy, from whom it was purchased in October by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) as part of the deal, along with Film Booking Offices of America (FBO), that created the major motion picture studio Radio Keith Orpheum (RKO Pictures).
After the establishment of RKO, motion pictures became the primary focus of entertainment at the former KAO theaters. Vaudeville survived only as an interlude for feature films.<<<<<
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From Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_National
In the early 1920s, Paramount attempted a hostile takeover, buying several of First National's member firms. Associated First National Pictures expanded from only distributing films to producing them in 1924 and changed its corporate name to First National Pictures, Inc. It built its 62-acre (25 ha) studio lot in Burbank in 1926. The Motion Picture Theatre Owners of America and the Independent Producers' Association declared war in 1925 on what they termed a common enemy—the "film trust" of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount, and First National, which they claimed dominated the industry not only by producing and distributing motion pictures but also by entering into exhibition as well. In August 1928, Joe Kennedy Sr unsuccessfully tried to run First National Pictures.
Warner Bros. purchased a majority interest in First National in September 1928. Warner Bros. acquired access to First National's affiliated chain of theaters, while First National acquired access to Vitaphone sound equipment. But the trademarks were kept separate, and films by First National continued to be credited solely to "First National Pictures" until 1936. Although both studios produced "A" and "B" budget pictures, generally the prestige productions, costume dramas, and musicals were made by Warner Bros., while First National specialized in modern comedies, dramas, and crime stories. Short subjects were made by yet another affiliated company, The Vitaphone Corporation (which took its name from the sound process).
Vitaphone was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects made by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone was the last major analog sound-on-disc system and the only one which was widely used and commercially successful. The soundtrack was not printed on the film itself, but issued separately on phonograph records. The discs, recorded at 33 1/3 rpm (a speed first used for this system) and typically 16 inches in diameter, would be played on a turntable physically coupled to the projector motor while the film was being projected. Many early talkies, such as The Jazz Singer (1927), used the Vitaphone system. The name "Vitaphone" derived from the Latin and Greek words, respectively, for "living" and "sound".
The "Vitaphone" trademark was later associated with cartoons and other short subjects that had optical soundtracks and did not use discs.
In 1929 First national Pictures was sold to Warner Brothers.
In July 1936, stockholders of First National Pictures, Inc. (primarily Warner Bros.) voted to dissolve the corporation and distribute its assets among the stockholders in line with a new tax law which provided for tax-free consolidations between corporations.
From 1929 to 1958, most Warner Bros. films bore the combined trademark "A Warner Bros.-First National Picture"
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Kennedy, along with fifteen others, signed a telegram warning that the release of Sadie Thompson c.1928 starring Gloria Swanson would jeopardize the ability of the movie industry to censor itself. Swanson needed financing for her movie production company, and Kennedy began a three-year affair when he met her for lunch in New York after the film's release.
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Gloria Swanson
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Swanson
Feeling she would never have as much artistic freedom and independence as she had at that moment, Swanson decided she "wanted to make my Gold Rush." Schenck pleaded with her to do a commercially successful film like The Last of Mrs. Cheyney. Swanson felt it was too formulaic, and decided to call on director Raoul Walsh, who was signed with Fox Film Corporation at the time. Walsh had been known for bringing controversial material to film, and at their first meeting suggested the John Colton/Clemence Randolph play Rain (1923), based on a story by W. Somerset Maugham in 1921 titled Miss Thompson. She had seen Jeanne Eagels perform the role twice, and enjoyed it.
Sadie Thompson is a 1928 American silent drama film.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadie_Thompson
Due to the subject matter, the making of the film was extremely controversial. However, it was a financial and critical success for Swanson. The film was based on the short story "Rain" by W. Somerset Maugham and the 1923 play that was based on the book by John Colton and Clemence Randolph.
Despite reports that "dirty" words can be read on the characters' lips, Swanson claims the censors went over everything with a fine-tooth comb. However, Swanson admitted that one line she was shouting at Davidson went, "You'd rip the wings off of a butterfly, you son of a bitch!" when recounting a conversation with Walsh later in life. If the word rain was used in a title, they asked that it be removed. They also wanted to change Davidson's name to something else, but Swanson and Walsh refused.
The film was a success and was the only silent independent film of Swanson's to do well at the box office. It was one of her last financially successful films, including the talkies: The Trespasser and Sunset Blvd.
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(See: Grace Kelly)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Kelly
Grace Patricia Kelly (November 12, 1929 – September 14, 1982) was an American actress who, after marrying Prince Rainier III, became the Princess of Monaco.
After embarking on an acting career in 1950, at the age of 20, Kelly appeared in New York City theatrical productions and more than 40 episodes of live drama productions broadcast during the early 1950s Golden Age of Television. In October 1953, she gained stardom from her performance in the film Mogambo. It won her a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination in 1954. She had leading roles in five films, including The Country Girl, for which her deglamorized performance earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress. Other films include High Noon (1952) with Gary Cooper, Dial M for Murder (1954) with Ray Milland, Rear Window (1954) with James Stewart and To Catch a Thief (1955) with Cary Grant, and High Society (1956) with Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby.
Kelly retired from acting at the age of 26 to marry Rainier and began her duties in Monaco. They had three children: Caroline, Albert, and Stéphanie. She retained her American roots, maintaining dual U.S. and Monégasque citizenship. She died on September 14, 1982, a day after a stroke caused her to crash her car.
Early years
Despite her parents' disapproval, Kelly decided to pursue her dreams of being an actress. John was particularly displeased with her decision; he viewed acting as "a slim cut above streetwalker."
To start her career, she tried to get admitted into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. In her audition, she used a scene from her Uncle George's 1923 play The Torch-Bearers. Although the school had already met its semester quota, she obtained an interview with the admission officer, Emile Diestel, and was admitted through the influence of George. She began her first term the following October. While at school, she lived in Manhattan's Barbizon Hotel for Women, a prestigious establishment which barred men from entering after 10 pm, and she worked as a model to support her studies.
Kelly worked diligently and practiced her speech by using a tape recorder.
Relationship with Rainier III
Kelly headed the U.S. delegation at the Cannes Film Festival in April 1955. While there, she was invited to participate in a photo session at the Palace of Monaco with Prince Rainier III, the sovereign of the principality. After a series of delays and complications, she met him in Monaco. At the time of her initial meeting with him, she was dating the French actor Jean-Pierre Aumont.
Upon returning to America, Kelly began work on The Swan, in which she coincidentally portrayed a princess, and she meanwhile began a private correspondence with Rainier.
In December 1955, Rainier went to America on a trip officially designated as a tour, although it was speculated that he was actively seeking a wife. A treaty with France in 1918 had stated that if he did not produce an heir, Monaco would revert to France; this was as a result of the Monaco Succession Crisis of 1918. At a press conference in the U.S., he was asked if he was pursuing a wife, to which he answered, "No." Then a second question was posed: "If you were pursuing a wife, what kind would you like?" Rainier smiled and answered, "I don't know – the best."
That same year MGM released Kelly's last film, the musical comedy High Society, which was based on the studio's 1940 comedy The Philadelphia Story. She wore her own engagement ring in the film and one of its highlights was her duet with Bing Crosby, "True Love," a song with words and music by Cole Porter.
Rainier met Kelly and her family, and after three days, he proposed. She accepted and the families began preparations for what the press dubbed "The Wedding of the Century." She and her family had to provide a dowry of $2 million in order for the marriage to go forward.
After her marriage to Prince Rainier, Kelly became involved with philanthropic work since she was no longer allowed to act.
Kelly founded AMADE Mondiale, a Monaco-based non-profit organization that was eventually recognized by the UN as a Non-Governmental organization. According to UNESCO's website, AMADE promotes and protects the "moral and physical integrity" and "spiritual well-being of children throughout the world, without distinction of race, nationality or religion and in a spirit of complete political independence." Her daughter, Princess Caroline, carries the torch for AMADE today in her role as President.
Kelly was also active in improving the arts institutions of Monaco, forming the Princess Grace Foundation in 1964 to support local artisans. The Princess Grace Awards, a program of the Princess Grace Foundation-USA, has awarded nearly 500 artists at more than 100 institutions in the U.S. with more than $7 million to date. The foundation also says it "holds the exclusive rights and facilitates the licensing of her name and likeness throughout the world."
On September 13, 1982, Kelly was driving back to Monaco from her country home in Roc Agel when she had a stroke. As a result, she lost control of her 1971 Rover P6 3500 and drove off the steep, winding road and down the 120 ft mountainside. Despite their efforts, her head injuries – in addition to her fractured ribs, collarbone, and thigh – were irreparable. Doctors believed that she had suffered a minor stroke prior to the accident, which made her more susceptible to another. The following night, at 10:55pm, she died at the age of 52 after Rainier decided to take her off life support. At a later memorial service in Beverly Hills, James Stewart delivered the following eulogy:
You know, I just love Grace Kelly. Not because she was a princess, not because she was an actress, not because she was my friend, but because she was just about the nicest lady I ever met. Grace brought into my life as she brought into yours, a soft, warm light every time I saw her, and every time I saw her was a holiday of its own. No question, I'll miss her, we'll all miss her, God bless you, Princess Grace.
Rainier, who never remarried, was buried alongside her following his death in 2005.
Kelly has been depicted by many pop artists including James Gill and Andy Warhol. Warhol made a portrait of her for the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia as a limited edition silkscreen in 1984.
Billy Joel references Grace Kelly in We Didn't Start the Fire in the events describing 1956:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Didn%27t_Start_the_Fire
Joel has mixed feelings about the song. "It's a nightmare to perform live, because if I miss one word, it's a train wreck."
"We Didn't Start the Fire" is a song by Billy Joel. Its lyrics include brief, rapid-fire allusions to more than 100 headline events between 1949, the year of Joel's birth, and 1989, when the song was released on his album Storm Front. Joel has said, "There's an element of malevolence in the song"; it's like waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The tune was nominated for the Grammy Award for Record of the Year. The song was also a No. 1 hit in the US. Blender magazine ranked "We Didn't Start the Fire" No. 41 on its list of the "50 Worst Songs Ever", a list that also includes songs from Paul McCartney and Simon & Garfunkel. They considered the production bombastic and stated that the song "resembles a term paper scribbled the night before it’s due." Though the lyrics are rapid-fire with several people and events mentioned in a single word each, there is widespread agreement on the meaning of the lyrics. Steven Ettinger wrote,
Billy Joel captured the major images, events, and personalities of this half-century in a three-minute song.... It was pure information overload, a song that assumed we knew exactly what he was singing about...What was truly alarming was the realization that we, the listeners, for the most part understood the references.
1949
Harry Truman was inaugurated as U.S. president after being elected in 1948 to his own lame duck second and final presidential term; previously he was sworn in following the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He authorized the use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan during World War II, on August 6 and August 9, 1945, respectively.
Doris Day enters the public spotlight with the films My Dream Is Yours and It's a Great Feeling as well as popular songs like "It's Magic"; divorces her second husband.
Red China: The Communist Party of China wins the Chinese Civil War, establishing the People's Republic of China.
Johnnie Ray signs his first recording contract with Okeh Records, although he would not become popular for another two years.
South Pacific, the prize-winning musical, opens on Broadway on April 7.
Walter Winchell is an aggressive radio and newspaper journalist credited with inventing the gossip column.
Joe DiMaggio and the New York Yankees go to the World Series five times in the 1940s, winning four of them.
1950s
1950
Joe McCarthy, the U.S. Senator, gains national attention and begins his anti-Communism crusade with his Lincoln Day speech.
Richard Nixon is first elected to the United States Senate.
Studebaker, a popular car company, begins its financial downfall.
Television is becoming widespread throughout Europe and North America.
North Korea and South Korea declare war after Northern forces stream south on June 25.
Marilyn Monroe soars in popularity with five new movies, including The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve, and attempts suicide after the death of friend Johnny Hyde who asked to marry her several times, but she refused respectfully. Monroe would later (1954) be married for a brief time to Joe DiMaggio (mentioned in the previous verse).
1951
The Rosenbergs, Ethel and Julius, were convicted on March 19 for espionage.
H-Bomb is in the middle of its development as a nuclear weapon, announced in early 1950 and first tested in late 1952.
Sugar Ray Robinson, a champion welterweight boxer.
Panmunjom, the border village in Korea, is the location of truce talks between the parties of the Korean War.
Marlon Brando is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in A Streetcar Named Desire.
The King and I, musical, opens on Broadway on March 29.
The Catcher in the Rye, a controversial novel by J. D. Salinger, is published.
1952
Dwight D. Eisenhower is first elected as U.S. president, winning by a landslide margin of 442 to 89 electoral votes.
The vaccine for polio is privately tested by Jonas Salk.
England's got a new queen: Queen Elizabeth II succeeds to the throne upon the death of her father, George VI, and is crowned the next year.
Rocky Marciano defeats Jersey Joe Walcott, becoming the world heavyweight boxing champion.
Liberace has a popular 1950s television show for his musical entertainment.
Santayana goodbye: George Santayana, philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist, dies on September 26.
1953
Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, dies on March 5
Georgy Maksimilianovich Malenkov succeeds Stalin for six months following his death. Malenkov had presided over Stalin's purges, but would be spared a similar fate by Nikita Khrushchev mentioned later in verse.
Gamal Abdel Nasser acts as the true power behind the new Egyptian nation as Muhammad Naguib's minister of the interior.
Sergei Prokofiev, the composer, dies on March 5, the same day as Stalin.
Winthrop Rockefeller and his wife Barbara are involved in a highly publicized divorce, culminating in 1954 with a record-breaking $5.5 million settlement.[12]
Roy Campanella, an African-American baseball catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers, receives the National League's Most Valuable Player award for the second time.
Communist bloc, the uprising of 1953 in East Germany is crushed by the Volkspolizei and the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany.
1954
Roy Cohn resigns as Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel and enters private practice with the fall of McCarthy. He also worked to prosecute the Rosenbergs, mentioned earlier.
Juan Perón spends his last full year as President of Argentina before a September 1955 coup.
Arturo Toscanini is at the height of his fame as a conductor, performing regularly with the NBC Symphony Orchestra on national radio.
Dacron is an early artificial fiber made from the same plastic as polyester.
Dien Bien Phu falls. A French/Vietnamese camp falls to Viet Minh forces under Vo Nguyen Giap, signaling the end of French Indochina and leading to the creation of North Vietnam and South Vietnam as separate states.
"Rock Around the Clock" is a hit single released by Bill Haley & His Comets in May, spurring worldwide interest in rock and roll music.
1955
Albert Einstein dies on April 18 at the age of 76.
James Dean achieves success with East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, gets nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, and dies in a car accident on September 30 at the age of 24.
Brooklyn's got a winning team: The Brooklyn Dodgers win the World Series for the only time before their move to Los Angeles.
Davy Crockett is a Disney television miniseries about the legendary frontiersman of the same name. The show was a huge hit with young boys and inspired a short-lived "coonskin cap" craze.
Peter Pan is broadcast on TV live and in color from the 1954 version of the stage musical starring Mary Martin on March 7. Disney released an animated version the previous year.
Elvis Presley signs with RCA Records on November 21, beginning his pop career.
Disneyland opens on July 17, 1955 as Walt Disney's first theme park.
1956
Brigitte Bardot appears in her first mainstream film And God Created Woman and establishes an international reputation as a French "sex kitten".
Budapest is the capital city of Hungary and site of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
Alabama is the site of the Montgomery Bus Boycott which ultimately led to the removal of the last race laws in the USA. Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr figure prominently.
Nikita Khrushchev makes his famous Secret Speech denouncing Stalin's "Cult of personality" on February 25.
Princess Grace Kelly releases her last film, High Society, and marries Prince Rainier III of Monaco.
Peyton Place, the best-selling novel by Grace Metalious, is published. Though mild compared to today's prime time, it shocked the reserved values of the 1950s.
Trouble in the Suez: The Suez Crisis boils as Egypt nationalizes the Suez Canal on October 29.
1957
Little Rock, Arkansas is the site of an anti-integration standoff, as Governor Orval Faubus stops the Little Rock Nine from attending Little Rock Central High School and President Dwight D. Eisenhower deploys the 101st Airborne Division to counteract him.
Boris Pasternak, the Russian author, publishes his famous novel Doctor Zhivago.
Mickey Mantle is in the middle of his career as a famous New York Yankees outfielder and American League All-Star for the sixth year in a row.
Jack Kerouac publishes his first novel in seven years, On the Road.
Sputnik becomes the first artificial satellite, launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, marking the start of the space race.
Chou En-Lai, Premier of the People's Republic of China, survives an assassination attempt on the charter airliner Kashmir Princess.
Bridge on the River Kwai is released as a film adaptation of the 1954 novel and receives seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.[13]
1958
Lebanon is engulfed in a political and religious crisis that eventually involves U.S. intervention.
Charles de Gaulle is elected first president of the French Fifth Republic following the Algerian Crisis.
California baseball begins as the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants move to California and become the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants. They are the first major league teams west of Kansas City.
Charles Starkweather Homicide captures the attention of Americans, in which he kills eleven people between January 25 and 29 before being caught in a massive manhunt in Douglas, Wyoming.
Children of Thalidomide: Mothers taking the drug Thalidomide had children born with congenital birth defects caused by the sleeping aid and antiemetic, which was also used at times to treat morning sickness.
1959
Buddy Holly dies in a plane crash on February 3 with Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper, in a day that had a devastating impact on the country and youth culture. Joel prefaces the lyric with a Holly signature vocal hiccup: "Uh-huh, uh-huh."
Ben-Hur, a film based around the New Testament starring Charlton Heston, wins eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Space Monkey: Able and Miss Baker return to Earth from space aboard the flight Jupiter AM-18.
The Mafia are the center of attention for the FBI and public attention builds to this organized crime society with a historically Italian-American origin.
Hula hoops reach 100 million in sales as the latest toy fad.
Fidel Castro comes to power after a revolution in Cuba and visits the United States later that year on an unofficial twelve-day tour.
Edsel is a no-go: Production of this car marque ends after only three years due to poor sales.
1960s
1960
U-2: An American U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union, causing the U-2 Crisis of 1960.
Syngman Rhee was rescued by the CIA after being forced to resign as leader of South Korea for allegedly fixing an election and embezzling more than US $20 million.
Payola, illegal payments for radio broadcasting of songs, was publicized due to Dick Clark's testimony before Congress and Alan Freed's public disgrace.
John F. Kennedy beats Richard Nixon in the November 8 general election.
Chubby Checker popularizes the dance The Twist with his cover of the song of the same name.
Psycho: An Alfred Hitchcock thriller, based on a pulp novel by Robert Bloch and adapted by Joseph Stefano, which becomes a landmark in graphic violence and cinema sensationalism. The screeching violins heard at this point in the song are a trademark of the film's soundtrack.
Belgians in the Congo: The Republic of the Congo (Leopoldville) was declared independent of Belgium on June 30, with Joseph Kasavubu as President and Patrice Lumumba as Prime Minister.
1961
Ernest Hemingway commits suicide on July 2 after a long battle with depression.
Adolf Eichmann, a "most wanted" Nazi war criminal, is traced to Argentina and captured by Mossad agents. He is covertly taken to Israel where he is put on trial for crimes against humanity during World War II, convicted in 1961, and hanged the following year, 1962.
Stranger in a Strange Land, written by Robert A. Heinlein, is a breakthrough best-seller with themes of sexual freedom and liberation.
Bob Dylan is signed to Columbia Records after a New York Times review by critic Robert Shelton.
Berlin is separated into West Berlin and East Berlin, and from the rest of East Germany, when the Berlin Wall is erected on August 13 to prevent citizens escaping to the West.
The Bay of Pigs Invasion fails, an attempt by United States-trained Cuban exiles to invade Cuba and overthrow Fidel Castro.
1962
Lawrence of Arabia: The Academy Award-winning film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence starring Peter O'Toole premieres in America on December 16.
British Beatlemania: The Beatles, a British rock group, gain Ringo Starr as drummer and Brian Epstein as manager, and join the EMI's Parlophone label. They soon become the world's most famous rock band, with the word "Beatlemania" adopted by the press for their fans' unprecedented enthusiasm. It also began the British Invasion in the United States.
Ole Miss: A riot was fought between Southern segregationist civilians and federal and state forces as a result of the forced enrollment of black student James Meredith at the University of Mississippi.
John Glenn: Flew the first American manned orbital mission termed "Friendship 7" on February 20.
Liston beats Patterson: Sonny Liston and Floyd Patterson fight for the world heavyweight championship on September 25, ending in a first-round knockout. This match marked the first time Patterson had ever been knocked out and one of only eight losses in his 20-year professional career.
1963
Pope Paul VI: Cardinal Giovanni Montini is elected to the papacy and takes the papal name of Paul VI.
Malcolm X makes his infamous statement "The chickens have come home to roost" about the Kennedy assassination, thus causing the Nation of Islam to censor him.
British politician sex: The British Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, has a relationship with a showgirl, and then lies when questioned about it before the House of Commons. When the truth came out, it led to his own resignation and undermined the credibility of the Prime Minister.
JFK blown away: President John F. Kennedy is assassinated on November 22 while riding in an open convertible through Dallas.
1965
Birth control: In the early 1960s, oral contraceptives, popularly known as "the pill", first go on the market and are extremely popular. Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 challenged a Connecticut law prohibiting contraceptives. In 1968, Pope Paul VI released a papal encyclical entitled Humanae vitae which reaffirmed Catholic teaching that artificial birth control was a sin.
Ho Chi Minh: A Vietnamese Communist, who served as President of Vietnam from 1954–1969. March 2 Operation Rolling Thunder begins bombing of the Ho Chi Minh Trail supply line from North Vietnam to the Vietcong rebels in the south. On March 8, the first U.S. combat troops, 3,500 marines, land in South Vietnam.
1968
Richard Nixon back again: Former Vice President Nixon is elected President in 1968.
1969
Moonshot: Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing, successfully lands on the moon.
Woodstock: Famous rock and roll festival of 1969 that came to be the epitome of the counterculture movement.
1970s
1974–75
Watergate: Political scandal that began when the Democratic National Committee's headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. was broken into. After the break-in, word began to spread that President Richard Nixon (a Republican) may have known about the break-in, and tried to cover it up. The scandal would ultimately result in the resignation of President Nixon, and to date, this remains the only time that anyone has ever resigned the United States Presidency.
Punk rock: The Ramones form, with the Sex Pistols following in 1975, ushering in the punk era.
1976–77
(An item from 1977 comes before three items from 1976 to make the song scan.)
Menachem Begin becomes Prime Minister of Israel in 1977 and negotiates the Camp David Accords with Egypt's president in 1978.
Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States in 1980, but he first attempted to run for the position in 1976.
Palestine: a United Nations resolution that calls for an independent Palestinian state and to end the Israeli occupation.
Terror on the airline: Numerous aircraft hijackings take place, specifically, the Palestinian hijack of Air France Flight 139 and the subsequent Operation Entebbe in Uganda.
1979
Ayatollahs in Iran: During the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the West-backed and secular Shah is overthrown as the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini gains power after years in exile and forces Islamic law.
Russians in Afghanistan: Following their move into Afghanistan, Soviet forces fight a ten-year war, from 1979 to 1989.
1980s:
1983
Wheel of Fortune: A hit television game show which has been TV's highest-rated syndicated program since 1983.
Sally Ride: On June 18, she became the first American woman in space by flying aboard Challenger on the STS-7 shuttle mission. Ride's quip from space "Better than an E-ticket", harkens back to the opening of Disneyland mentioned earlier, with the E-ticket purchase needed for the best rides.
Heavy metal suicide: In the 1970s and 80s, heavy metal bands became popular. Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest in particular were sued for fans' suicides after listening to their songs "Suicide Solution" and "Better By You, Better Than Me", respectively.
Foreign debts: Persistent U.S. trade and budget deficits
Homeless vets: Veterans of the Vietnam War, including many disabled ex-military, are reported to be left homeless and impoverished.
AIDS: A collection of symptoms and infections in humans resulting from the specific damage to the immune system caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). It is first detected and recognized in the 1980s, and was on its way to becoming a pandemic.
Crack cocaine use surged in the mid-to-late 1980s.
1984
Bernie Goetz: On December 22, Goetz shot four young men who he said were threatening him on a New York City subway. Goetz was charged with attempted murder but was acquitted of the charges, though convicted of carrying an unlicensed gun.
1988
Hypodermics on the shore: Medical waste was found washed up on beaches in New Jersey after being illegally dumped at sea. Before this event, waste dumped in the oceans was an "out of sight, out of mind" affair. This has been cited as one of the crucial turning points in popular opinion on environmentalism.
1989
China's under martial law: On May 20, China declares martial law, resulting in the use of military forces against protesting students to end the Tiananmen Square protests.
Rock-and-roller cola wars: Soft drink giants Coke and Pepsi each run marketing campaigns using rock & roll and popular music stars to reach the teenage and young adult demographic.
Derivations:
Numerous parodies and takeoffs have been based on the song, including The Simpsons' parody "They'll Never Stop the Simpsons" at the end of the 2002 "Gump Roast" episode, and the San Francisco a cappella group The Richter Scales' 2007 Webby Award-winning parody "Here Comes Another Bubble." Cornell University's oldest a cappella group Cayuga's Waiters perform a version entitled "We Didn't Go to Harvard" with constantly changing lyrics to reflect the changing Cornell experience but always mentioning various Cornell and Ithaca landmarks. The band Guns 'n' Moses made a parody of the song called "We Love Barney Fife" that was played frequently on the Doctor Demento radio show, which not only paid tribute to The Andy Griffith Show, it also took advantage of the melody of the refrain being a suitable counterpoint for the Andy Griffith Show theme ("The Fishin' Hole"). The song was also parodied on the episode of the U.S. version of The Office where "Ryan the temp" starts a fire in the office building, and Dwight and Michael change the lyrics of the song to "Ryan Started The Fire". Irish band The Memories released "The Game" set to the tune of "We Didn't Start The Fire" about Ireland's World Cup 1990 Campaign. Another parody was released in 2010 titled "The Wii Didn't Start the Fire" about the history of video games.
In 1995, the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper ran commercials with the tagline "News From Around the World and Around the Corner", the jingle for which was to the tune of "We Didn't Start the Fire". For a number of years in the early to mid 2000's, Cleveland radio host Mike Trivisonno used a parody of the song as his show's intro music, written by then-producer of the show, Marty Allen.
The riff in the verses to Serbian rock band Bajaga i Instruktori's 2001 single "Lepa Janja, Ribareca Kci" ("Pretty Janja, The Fisherman's Daughter") is heavily borrowed from this song.
JibJab set their 2007 year in review song to "We Didn't Start the Fire"'s tune.
In early 2009, comedy website CollegeHumor created a parody entitled "We Didn't Start the Flame War" which chronicles a long list of common inflammatory (and often explicit) comments left on content over a wide variety of popular websites by internet trolls.
In the Netherlands the Dutch punk rock band Heideroosjes did a parody on their 20-year anniversary album about things that happened over those twenty years in the Netherlands called "De Wereld Draait Door" (The World Keeps Turning).
German comedian Otto Waalkes did a parody called "Wir haben Grund zum Feiern" (English: "We have reason to celebrate"), with a list of alcoholic beverages.
An edition of the BBC Three comedy programme 'Russell Howard's Good News' featured a parody of the song detailing numerous items that the Daily Mail newspaper actually believed caused cancer.
Mitch Benn also based his song about the BBC 'I'm proud of the BBC' on Billy Joel's song.
Fans of Homestuck uploaded a version of the song called "You Can't Fight the Homestuck" on YouTube in 2012, chronicling the webcomic's long and convoluted story.
Popular YouTuber Daneboe/Dane Boedigheimer, known better as creator of the popular comedic Web series Annoying Orange and its television spinoff on Cartoon Network, produced his own parody of Joel's song as part of YouTube's Comedy Week in 2013, chronicling notably popular Web videos and phenomena from 2005 to early 2013 when the video was released, ranging from "Charlie the Unicorn" to Boxxy to "Gangnam Style", titled "We Didn't Start the Viral."
Los Angeles, California-based cinematic pop band Milo Greene performed a version of the song in June 2013 for The A.V. Club 's A.V. Undercover series. The band altered some of the lyrics, referencing newer television shows, including Friends and Everybody Loves Raymond, and NBA teams and players.
On June 9, 2015, Sky Sports released their own version of the song to advertise the upcoming 2015 Ashes series, with backing vocals and percussion provided by Elio Pace and his band, Pace himself being a lifelong Billy Joel fan who has toured and recorded with Joel's original touring band. The new lyrics were reworked from the original to include references to memorable moments from previous Test Matches in The Ashes, with lyrics sung by test player Joe Root and ex-test players and current Sky Sports cricket pundits Shane Warne, Nasser Hussain, David Lloyd, Michael Atherton, David Gower, Ian Ward, Sir Ian Botham and Michael Holding.
Sources:
Bordowitz, Hank (2006). Billy Joel: The Life & Times of an Angry Young Man. Billboard Books. p. 272. ISBN 978-0-8230-8248-3.
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(See: Frances Elena Farmer (September 19, 1913 – August 1, 1970): an American actress and television host.)
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Silence of the Lambs 1991
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silence_of_the_Lambs_(film)
The film is based on Thomas Harris' 1988 novel of the same name, his second to feature Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer.
In the film, Clarice Starling, a young U.S. FBI trainee, seeks the advice of the imprisoned Dr. Lecter to apprehend another serial killer, known only as "Buffalo Bill".
The Silence of the Lambs was only the third film, the other two being It Happened One Night and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, to win Academy Awards in all the top five categories.
The man in the film looks like L.Ron Hubbard
(..........References the film "Sadie Thompson" c.1928.........)
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