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Christina offers some rotting veggies for a treat in front of our evil kitchen.
Qflash as main at 1/32
550EX rimming on each side with 1/16
550EX behind with red gel 1/4
Full length sexy girl retro style with mop, woman housewife cleaner in domestic role. Traditional sharing household chores. Pin up housework. Pink background
"Only Frigidaire Refrigerators have the Flip-Quick Ice Ejector--another homemaker rated favorite feature!"
"The American Home" magazine, Summer 1962.
Who says no one up-cycled in the '60s? These reindeer look like they should be on display at Pier 1 or Cost Plus. They are almost big enough to pull a sleigh, too.
Found this 1961 issue of McCall's Christmas Ideas at one of my favorite non-profit thrifts, Bridgewood Farms in Conroe, TX. Inside: 269 Items! Martha Stewart, eat your heart out.
Shower for Mrs. Ronald Glen Daugherty, Secretary for Extension Agents, given by Butler County Homemakers April 19, 1975 at Little Muddy Community Center.
tv crews were coming over, so i cleaned my kitchen (ok. one tv camera and one reporter. no, the piece still has not aired, but i'll let you know.) of course, i hadn't nearly finished by the time they arrived. here: i did, finally, finish, days later.
I know you're thinking "yuk" but I have always wanted one of these and Riffy did this just for me and so far it's my best Thanksgiving EVER! Plus, we're going to eat in front of the TV!!! I feel so spoiled.
Pictures from auction -
RARE VINTAGE PLASCO
CIRCA 1950
"LITTLE HOMEMAKER" GARDEN PATIO SET
ORIGINAL BOX
The Plasco Art Toy Corporation of America first starting making "Plasco" doll house furniture in 1947. The furniture was sold in individual pieces or in boxed sets. This 9 piece boxed set is one of the original sets, packaged in a specially designed box with a lithographed interior simulating two walls of a garden patio, complete with pull-out floor.
This week I received in the post a copy of Homemaker Magazine UK (issue 12) featuring my design Paper Daisy - Summer Yellow (far right)
Thank-you so much Vicky for sending this to me, I am so excited to see my work featured in the 2014 Spoonflower calendar accompanying the magazine.
I now have this lovely calendar on my studio wall to enjoy right throughout the year! Yay!
For product info please see my Flickr Profile
Or say hello to the Kristopher K Blog
I'm still officially down for a bit, but I posted these for my extended families and friends. I don't really expect comments since I won't be commenting on yours for a bit.
From my set entitled "Mississauga Santa Claus Parade 2008"
farm4.static.flickr.com/3245/3075199413_9773a5e13b_s.jpg
In my collection "Places"
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/collections/7215760074...
In my photostream
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/
Taken from Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazel_McCallion
Hazel McCallion, CM (born February 14, 1921) is the mayor of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, the sixth largest city in the country. McCallion has been Mississauga's mayor for 30 years, holding office since 1978. She is affectionately called "Hurricane Hazel"[1] by supporters as well as the media at large for her vibrant outspoken style of no-nonsense politics.
She is one of Canada's best known and longest-serving mayors. At the age of 86, she was easily re-elected in November 2006 for her 11th consecutive term, holding a 91% majority of the votes, and has often been reelected without even needing to conduct an actual campaign.
Hazel McCallion was born in Port Daniel on the Gaspé Coast of Quebec. Her father owned a fishing and canning company. Her mother was a homemaker and ran the family farm. She had two sisters, Linda, and Gwen and two brothers, Lorne, and Lockhart. After high school she attended business secretarial school in Quebec City and Montreal. She has stated, especially while receiving university honours, that she would have wanted to attend university, but financially her family could not afford it. After working in Montreal, she was transferred by Canadian Kellogg company to Toronto.
Mississauga's Streetsville Neighbourhood, where Mayor McCallion is often seen walking and shopping.
She met and married her husband, Sam McCallion, soon after in an Anglican Church congregation. As a marriage present from McCallion’s in-laws, a piece of land in what would later become Mississauga, near the village of Streetsville, was given to the newlyweds. She has two sons, Peter and Paul, one daughter Linda and a granddaughter Erika. McCallion has often stated, such as on TVOntario's Studio 2, that her husband was always encouraging and supportive of her political career. Prior to becoming Mayor, Hazel and her husband founded The Mississauga Booster community newspaper, a paper that her son now edits and publishes. In 1997, Sam McCallion died of Alzheimer's disease. The Sam McCallion Day Centre was created by the Alzheimer Society of Peel to honour Sam, the founder of the annual Streetsville Bread and Honey Festival. Hazel still resides in Streetsville.
McCallion is well known in Canada for her love of hockey. She played for a professional women's team while attending school in Montreal. One of her friends is Hockey Night in Canada commentator Don Cherry, who joked during her 87th birthday that while 98 per cent of the city voted for her, he was looking for the remaining 2 per cent that didn't.
In a first-person account for Canadian magazine Confidence Bound, McCallion credited her faith with giving her the energy her job demands. "Having a life filled with purpose and meaning and living my life in a Christian-like manner helps to motivate me and keep me energized," she said.
She also revealed that she does everything around the house herself. "I do my own cleaning, grocery shopping, gardening… The assumption is that people in my position have others doing all these things for them but I like to be self sufficient. Housework and gardening are great forms of exercise and keep one humble."
At the age of 85, she was involved in an accident when her car crashed into a signpost around McLaughlin and Cantay. The front of her vehicle was badly damaged but she walked away from the accident without any major injuries. McCallion said she was looking at papers on her lap when the car hit the post.[2][3]
McCallion began her political career in Streetsville, Ontario, a village which has since merged into the city of Mississauga. Beginning as the chairman of the Streetsville Planning Board in 1967, she later became deputy reeve of Streetsville and was appointed reeve soon after. She was elected as Streetsville's mayor in 1970, serving until 1973. By the time she was elected mayor of Mississauga, she had sat on virtually every committee in the Peel Region and the city of Mississauga. She has also served on the executive of many federal and provincial committees and associations.
McCallion's leadership helped build a new city hall.
She was first elected Mayor in 1978, narrowly defeating the popular incumbent Ron A. Searle. McCallion had been in office only a few months when a public health and safety crisis occurred during the 1979 Mississauga train derailment. On November 10 a Canadian Pacific train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in a heavily populated area of Mississauga near Mavis Road. A large explosion and fire ensued as hazardous chemicals spilled. McCallion, along with the Peel Regional Police and other governmental authorities, oversaw an orderly and peaceful evacuation of the entire city. She sprained her ankle early in the crisis, but continued to hobble to press conferences and update briefings. There was no loss of life or serious injuries during the week-long emergency, and Mississauga gained international renown for the peaceful evacuation of its then 200,000 residents.
McCallion has overseen the growth of Mississauga from a small collection of towns and villages to one of Canada’s largest cities. This dynamic growth of the Toronto area occurred after the 1976 election of René Lévesque's Parti Québécois government sparked an exodus of Anglophones and corporations from Montreal to Toronto.[4][5][6] As Toronto grew in national standing, Mississauga politicians worked to define their community beyond a bedroom community of Toronto.
Today, Mississauga is home to a mix of commercial, residential, industrial, and recreational areas. According to a Canadian relocation service, "Mississauga has 9,730 businesses, widely diversified in manufacturing, distribution and business services."[7] As well, there are approximately 9,000 retail businesses." The McCallion government also spearheaded the development of a 'downtown' Mississauga area. The building of the shopping centre Square One in the Hurontario Street and Burnhamthorpe Road section of the city during the 1970s has evolved into a centre of commercial and recreational activity.
Mississauga's Central Library.
The Civic Centre, including a new city hall, Central Library, and Mississauga Living Arts Centre, along with a Mississauga Transit terminal and shopping and entertainment options now populate the former fallow farm land. This city centre helped unite residents of the different towns that made up Mississauga without destroying the smaller villages. The construction of Highway 403 in the 1980s eased access to this area of the city. In the 1990s, the Hershey Centre, a hockey arena and concert venue, was built near Matheson and Tomken Road facilitating the creation of the Ontario Hockey League's expansion team Mississauga IceDogs.
Some of McCallion's initiatives have been unsuccessful. Under Ontario law, Mississauga is part of Peel Region, along with Brampton and Caledon. McCallion and Mississauga council have asked that their city be made a single tier municipality, but so far that request has been denied by the Ontario government. Mississauga has so far obtained two additional seats on the regional council which still gives it less representation than its proportionate share by population or by municipal tax base. This has created controversy within the region. Brampton and Caledon politicians argued against McCallion, saying that Mississauga's growth has slowed down and it was the chief beneficiary of Peel's 1970s infrastructure projects.
McCallion has also been unsuccessful in collecting the taxes owed[citation needed] to the City of Mississauga, when the federal government appropriated land for Terminal 3 of Toronto Pearson International Airport, which has cost the city millions directly. Others argue that it can be considered an investment towards helping expand Canada's largest international airport which benefits Mississauga. Gridlock on the arterial roads continues to plague Mississauga as in the rest of Peel Region. There are other issues affecting residents, such as a lack of affordable housing—another Peel Region responsibility. Currently, residents who qualify to receive social housing must wait many years before units are made available by Peel Region, which is instead directing the region's $1.2 billion accumulated tax reserves toward the provincial mandate for water treatment expansion and repairs, which must be completed by 2010 to comply with environmental regulations developed as a result of the Walkerton Commission reports.[8]
In 1982, McCallion was found guilty of a conflict of interest on a planning decision by the Ontario High Court of Justice due to not absenting herself from a council meeting discussing a matter in which she had an interest. However, it was found to be a bona fide error of judgment and she was not required to vacate her seat.[9]
McCallion has been easily elected for the last twenty years, with no serious challengers coming close to unseating her as mayor of the city. Due to her popularity, she does not campaign during elections and refuses to accept political donations, instead asking her supporters to donate the money to charity. She is currently beginning her eleventh consecutive term as mayor.
She was lauded as a hero in April 2006 during a police standoff involving a distraught man threatening to kill himself. The five hour standoff promptly came to a peaceful end when McCallion showed up on the scene and demanded he stand down so that police, paramedic and fire personnel could attend to more important matters.[citation needed]
Mayor McCallion has worked with a variety of federal and provincial governments, and has not expressed a consistent party preference, preferring to work with each elected official.[citation needed]
Her principles are grounded in the belief that a city should be run like a business; thus, she encourages the business model of governance. Her family's business background, her education and prior career in a corporation prepared her to approach government with a business model. Mississauga is one of the few cities in Canada that is debt-free; it has not had to borrow money since 1978.[10] She has been described as a "small-c" conservative.[11]
Although McCallion is one of the most prominent women currently holding political power in Canada, it is difficult to categorize her as a feminist. She is able to express support for women's equality in Canada, and internationally, without being typecast ideologically.[12] She was chosen one of the "American Women of the Year" in Who's Who of American Women[13] as well as "Women of the Year 2001" by an international business lobby.[14]
McCallion's spiritual home is Trinity Anglican Church on Queen Street in Streetsville.
Her Christian faith also contributes to her concern for the public good. A member of Trinity Anglican Church in Streetsville, her charitable work now includes Hazel's Hope, a campaign to fund health care for children afflicted with AIDS and HIV in southern Africa. Accordingly, she has been lauded as "an international ambassador for the city and a world citizen" by a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization advancing the concerns of cities internationally.[15]
In 2007, McCallion responded to the federal government's refusal to give one cent of the GST to the cities, a funding source long requested by many municipalities across Canada, by planning to levy a five per cent surcharge on property taxes in the city. She was able to have the levy introduced and approved on the same day by Mississauga council, in contrast to Mayor David Miller of Toronto who was unable to get increased tax revenue approved for months. Most media coverage, as well as Toronto mayor David Miller, noted that McCallion was arguably one of the only mayors in the country with the political capital to implement such a strategy.[16]
McCallion has also expressed pessimism over Miller's 'One-cent now', saying that "I can assure you our citizens [of Mississauga] can’t point out to us where there’s a lot of waste. Toronto, unfortunately, has that situation, in which their citizens are saying it, as well as their board of trade has been saying it and even their own councillors are saying it. If my councillors were saying we were wasting money, I'd be really concerned. I think we give value for tax dollars; we run our city like a business." Toronto councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong made a comparison; "Hazel McCallion runs a tight ship. David Miller’s ship has leaks all over the place,” and some commentators suggested this allowed Mississauga to make a more credible case to the federal government. She unveiled her own plan known as 'Cities Now!' to get federal funding for municipal infrastructure.[17][11]
McCallion hosts an annual gala in Mississauga to raise money for arts and culture in the city. Attendees at the 2008 gala, which also marked the 30th anniversary of McCallion's election to the mayoralty of Mississauga, included former Lieutenant Governor of Ontario Lincoln Alexander and American talk show host Regis Philbin.[18]
* In 2005 she was made a Member of the Order of Canada.
* She ranked second in the 2005 international World Mayor poll, behind only Dora Bakoyannis of Athens.
* The University of Toronto at Mississauga has named their new library and academic learning centre after McCallion, in appreciation for the support offered the campus in its growth and development.
* The Peel Board of Education has named a school after her: the Hazel McCallion Senior Public School.
* Four different Hazel McCallion bobblehead dolls have been made.[19]
* Bell Mobility commemorated her achievements with a ringtone featuring her saying "Answer the phone! This is Hazel McCallion calling from the great city of Mississauga." All proceeds from the ringtone sale will go to charity.[20]
* She was named "American Woman of the Year" in Who's Who of American Women, as well as "Woman of the Year 2001" by an international business lobby.[21]
* The Delta Meadowvale Hotel has a Hazel McCallion Room in her honour
Since I'm a homemaker now, I wanted to make some gifts that came from the heart and the kitchen! I've been baking Christmas cookies for almost a week straight, to put together little pachen, or small parcels, of cookies for friends.
Too bad the lovely organization didn't quite last until they were gifted. Contents shifted in transport, unfortunately.
I've labelled each cookie.
unknown, _Factory Workers_, photograph, 1944, Greta Kenney Collection, Tucker, Georgia.
Women have had a huge conversion from a dependent homemaker to an independent working member of society. “Conventional patterns identify the man as provider and the women as homemaker. When these lines blur, a period of readjustment is required until the cultural transition is completed.” (1) Although women are coming closer to equality in the workforce, in 1966 the average women’s wage ($2, 900) was 39% of that received by men ($7,440). (2) Traditionally, women were confined to running the home, which was still an enduring task. Cleaning, cooking, sewing, child-raising, and sometimes farming were everyday activities for women. “As the country became more industrialized many home tasks were taken over by commercial enterprise. Mass production made it easier and often cheaper to purchase the family’s needs than to rely on home production.” (3) Therefore, the industrial revolution forced women to get jobs outside the home since an actual income was more valuable than raw materials. Times of war greatly opened up new job opportunities for women. “World War I saw women going into factories and munitions plants, acquiring new skills such as those of assembler and inspector, and taking over some of the clerical and sales jobs formerly done by men.” (3) World War II also propelled the amount of women entering the workforce and although some returned to the role of homemaker after World War II, many did stay intact in the workforce. In the period of 1947-1962, the number of women workers rose by 7.6 million as opposed to 4.1 million male workers. (3) Throughout the 1940’s-1960’s women that held a job were usually single. They would work until they got married and then would leave their job and pursue a family. Sometimes married women would return to work after their youngest child started school. This theme existed for numerous years in American History, but at the start of the 1960’s this changed drastically. “Single women are no longer the predominant group in the female labor force. In March, 1962, only 5,481,000 or 23 percent of women workers were single, as compared to 6,710,000 in 1940.” (3) Today many women lead successful careers and still have a husband and children at home. Women have become independent and sometimes have taken over the role of sole provider for the family, which used to be strictly the male gender role. Although income rates may not be equal, women have become a force to reckon with in the economy and labor force.
Alpenfels, Ethel J., Lillian M. Gilbreth, and Vivian C. Mason. American Women: The Changing Image. Beverly B. Cassara. Boston: Beacon Press, 1962.
Suter, Larry E., Herman P. Miller, and Elizabeth M. Havens. Changing Women in a Changing Society. Joan Huber. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1973.
Peterson ,Esther. The Woman in America. Robert J. Lifton. Boston: The Riverside Press, 1965.
McLaughlin, Steven D., Barbara D. Melber, John O.G. Billy, and Denise M. Zimmerle. The Changing Lives of American Women. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina, 1988.
For more information on the development of women entering the workforce visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_workforce.
Could I be your hostess next Thanksgiving.?
After we clean the kitchen, since I am very good with timepieces, I could clean your clock.
West German collector card by Bravo, 1984.
Tom Selleck (1945) is an American actor and film producer, best known for his starring role in the TV series, Magnum, P.I. (1980) and for the box office hit Three Men and a Baby (1987).
Thomas William Selleck was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1945. His parents were Martha (Jagger), a homemaker, and Robert Dean Selleck, a real estate investor and executive. He has an elder brother, Robert, a younger sister, Martha, and a younger brother, Daniel. He grew up in San Fernando and attended the University of Southern California, where he obtained a degree in English. A drama coach suggested Selleck try acting, and in his senior year, he dropped out of the university. Selleck then studied acting at the Beverly Hills Playhouse under Milton Katselas. Tom's first television appearance was as a college senior on The Dating Game (1967), but, incredibly, he lost. Soon after, he appeared in television commercials for products such as Pepsi-Cola. He worked as a male model and had small parts in films like the satire Myra Breckinridge (Michael Sarne, 1970), The Seven Minutes (Russ Meyer, 1971) and the conspiracy thriller Coma (Michael Crichton, 1978). He played a leading role in the B-Horror film Daughters of Satan (Hollingsworth Morse, 1972). Selleck starred in six failed television pilots before he landed his breakthrough role as Hawaii-based private investigator Thomas Magnum on the television series, Magnum, P.I. (1980). With his prominent moustache, Hawaiian-style aloha shirt and Detroit Tigers baseball cap, he became one of the most popular TV stars of the 1980s. For his role, he received five Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, winning in 1985. Selleck was originally cast as Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981), but could not take the role because he was committed to Magnum, P.I. His films included the adventure drama High Road to China (Brian G. Hutton, 1983), the action film Lassiter (Roger Young, 1984) and the romantic comedy Three Men and a Baby (Leonard Nimoy, 1987) with Steve Guttenberg and Ted Danson. The latter was the highest-grossing movie in 1987 and Selleck's most successful film. He again played bachelor architect Peter Mitchell in the sequel 3 Men and a Little Lady (Emile Ardolino, 1990), which was also successful.
Tom Selleck appeared extensively on television in roles such as Lance White, the likeable and naive partner on The Rockford Files (1978-1979), as Monica Geller's (Courteney Cox) older love interest, Dr. Richard Burke, in Friends (1994), and as casino owner A.J. Cooper on Las Vegas (2003). In addition to his series work, Selleck appeared in over fifty films and TV movies, including Quigley Down Under (Simon Wincer, 1990) and the sports comedy Mr. Baseball (Fred Schepisi, 1992). In 1993, he won a Razzie award for Worst Supporting Actor for his performance as King Ferdinand of Spain in Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (John Glen, 1992) starring Marlon Brando. Selleck was the third person in Razzie history to accept one of the statuettes voluntarily. He shaved off his trademark moustache for the comedy In & Out (Frank Oz, 1997) starring Kevin Kline. Once rarely seen without it, he has since kept it off for most of his stage and screen work. Between 2005 and 2015, Selleck played troubled small-town police chief Jesse Stone in nine television films, based on the Robert B. Parker novels. From 2010 on, he appeared as Commissioner Frank Reagan in the drama series Blue Bloods (2010-2024) with Donnie Wahlberg. Tom Selleck married model Jacqueline Ray in 1971. They divorced in 1982. In 1987, he married British dancer Jillie Mack, with whom he has a daughter, Hannah, an international show jumper. Kevin Selleck (1966) is the son of his first wife, Jacqueline Ray, from her first marriage. Tom Selleck adopted Kevin during the marriage and has continued to treat him as a beloved son after he and Jacqueline Ray divorced.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
The most beautiful women in TV and Movie History now become Barbie Collector Dolls created by acclaimed re-paint Artist Donna Brinkley.
Jennifer O'Neill was the face of beauty in the 70's and 80's with her glamorous Cover-Girl ads. O'Neill (born February 20, 1948) is an American actress, model, author and speaker, known for her role in the 1971 film Summer of '42 and as the face of Cover-Girl cosmetics starting in the 1970s til the mid 1990's. Jennifer was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the grand-daughter of a Brazilian bank president, and the daughter of a famous Spanish-Irish medical and dental supply import/export businessman, Oscar D' O'Neill and his English wife, Irene ("Rene") Freda, a homemaker. O'Neill and her older brother Michael were raised in New Rochelle, New York, and Wilton, Connecticut.
When she was 14, the family moved to New York City. On Easter Sunday, 1962, O'Neill attempted suicide because the move would separate her from her dog Mandy and horse Monty -- "her whole world". That same year, she was discovered by the Ford modeling agency and put under contract. By age 15, she was gracing the cover of Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Seventeen and other magazines, earning $80,000 a year in 1962 working as a fashion model in New York City and also working in Paris, France, and dating older men.
An accomplished rider, O'Neill won upwards of 200 ribbons at horse show competitions in her teens. She saved up her modeling fees and bought a horse, Alezon, who balked before a wall at a horse show, breaking O'Neill's neck and back in three places, and giving her a long period of recovery. She attended New York City's Professional Children's School and the prestigious Dalton School in Manhattan. Later, she moved on to films and worked in a number of television movies and series.
[edit] Career
In 1968 O'Neill landed a small role in For Love of Ivy. In 1970 she played one of the lead female roles in Rio Lobo starring opposite John Wayne.
She is most remembered for her role in the 1971 film Summer of '42, where she played Dorothy Walker, the young widow of a pilot shot down and killed in World War II. Her agent allegedly had to fight to even get a reading for the part, since the role had been cast for an "older woman" to a coming of age 15 year old boy, and the director was only considering actresses over the age of thirty, Barbra Streisand being at the top of the list.
O'Neill continued acting for the next two decades. She appeared in The Carey Treatment (1972), Lady Ice (1973), The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975), Caravans (1978), A Force of One (1979), Scanners (1981), and The Cover Girl Murders (1993 made-for-television film). She went to Europe in 1976 and worked with Italian director Luchino Visconti, appearing in his last film L'innocente (1976), where she played the part of the mistress, Teresa Raffo.
In 1982, O'Neill starred in the short-lived NBC prime time soap opera Bare Essence. Her credits include singing in the Chrysler Corporation commercial Change in Charger that represented the end of the Dodge Charger in 1975. In 1984, she played the lead female role on the CBS television series Cover Up; the lead male actor, Jon-Erik Hexum, was accidentally killed on the studio set after placing a blank-loaded prop gun to his temple and pulling the trigger—the wadding from the blank cartridge drove a bone fragment from Hexum's skull into his brain.
O'Neill is also listed in the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of American History's Center for Advertising History for her long standing contract with Cover Girl cosmetics as its model and spokesperson in ads and television commercials.
O'Neill has been married nine times to eight husbands (she married, divorced, and remarried husband number six); at one point, she was married to four different men in four years. At age 44, she married husband number seven sooner than any other actress, sooner than Zsa Zsa Gabor (who was 63), Liza Minnelli (59) and Lana Turner (49), making her the youngest "most married" Hollywood celebrity. The August 23, 1993, issue of People magazine reports that a friend of O'Neill's says that the actress obtained the (Texas) annulment of marriage number seven (Neil L. Bonin - after less than five months) ... because she felt stifled.
O'Neill has three children from as many fathers, a daughter (Aimee) by her first husband whom she married at age 17, and a son (Reis Michael) from her fifth marriage and another son (Cooper Alan) from her sixth marriage.
At age 34, O'Neill suffered a gunshot wound. Police officers in the Westchester County town of Bedford, New York, who interviewed the actress, said that on October 23, 1982, she shot herself accidentally in the abdomen with a .38 caliber revolver at her Bedford mansion while she was trying to determine if it was loaded.
She describes many of her life experiences, including her marriages and career, to her move to her Tennessee farm in the late 1990s in her 1999 autobiography Surviving Myself. O'Neill says that she wrote this autobiography (her first book) … at the prompting of her children.
In 2004, O'Neill wrote and published From Fallen To Forgiven, a book of biographical notes and philosophical thoughts about life and existence. The actress, who had an abortion after the divorce from her first husband while dating a Wall Street socialite, became a pro-life activist and a born-again Christian in 1986 at age 38, counseling abstinence to teens. Concerning her abortion, she writes:
I was told a lie from the pit of hell: that my baby was just a blob of tissue. The aftermath of abortion can be equally deadly for both mother and unborn child. A woman who has an abortion is sentenced to bear that for the rest of her life.
O'Neill continues to be active as a writer, inspirational speaker, fundraiser for the benefit of crisis pregnancy centers across the United States. She has also served as the spokesperson for the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, a non-denominational, non-political, non-profit organization dedicated to post-abortion healing and recovery.
O'Neill works for several other charitable causes as well, such as Retinitis Pigmentosa International and the Arthritis Foundation. As a breast cancer survivor she has also been a former spokesperson for the American Cancer Society. She has also hosted a one hour television special for World Vision shot in Africa concerning the HIV epidemic. In addition, she remains actively involved with her childhood love of animals and horses, sponsoring the Jennifer O'Neill Tennis Tournament to benefit the ASPCA, and fund-raiser for Guiding Eyes for the blind.
O'Neill purchased a horse farm in Tennessee called Hillenglade Farm where she runs a non-profit organization as a ministry and retreat for girls and young women.
The most beautiful women in TV and Movie History now become Barbie Collector Dolls created by acclaimed re-paint Artist Donna Brinkley.
Jennifer O'Neill was the face of beauty in the 70's and 80's with her glamorous Cover-Girl ads. O'Neill (born February 20, 1948) is an American actress, model, author and speaker, known for her role in the 1971 film Summer of '42 and as the face of Cover-Girl cosmetics starting in the 1970s til the mid 1990's. Jennifer was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the grand-daughter of a Brazilian bank president, and the daughter of a famous Spanish-Irish medical and dental supply import/export businessman, Oscar D' O'Neill and his English wife, Irene ("Rene") Freda, a homemaker. O'Neill and her older brother Michael were raised in New Rochelle, New York, and Wilton, Connecticut.
When she was 14, the family moved to New York City. On Easter Sunday, 1962, O'Neill attempted suicide because the move would separate her from her dog Mandy and horse Monty -- "her whole world". That same year, she was discovered by the Ford modeling agency and put under contract. By age 15, she was gracing the cover of Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Seventeen and other magazines, earning $80,000 a year in 1962 working as a fashion model in New York City and also working in Paris, France, and dating older men.
An accomplished rider, O'Neill won upwards of 200 ribbons at horse show competitions in her teens. She saved up her modeling fees and bought a horse, Alezon, who balked before a wall at a horse show, breaking O'Neill's neck and back in three places, and giving her a long period of recovery. She attended New York City's Professional Children's School and the prestigious Dalton School in Manhattan. Later, she moved on to films and worked in a number of television movies and series.
[edit] Career
In 1968 O'Neill landed a small role in For Love of Ivy. In 1970 she played one of the lead female roles in Rio Lobo starring opposite John Wayne.
She is most remembered for her role in the 1971 film Summer of '42, where she played Dorothy Walker, the young widow of a pilot shot down and killed in World War II. Her agent allegedly had to fight to even get a reading for the part, since the role had been cast for an "older woman" to a coming of age 15 year old boy, and the director was only considering actresses over the age of thirty, Barbra Streisand being at the top of the list.
O'Neill continued acting for the next two decades. She appeared in The Carey Treatment (1972), Lady Ice (1973), The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975), Caravans (1978), A Force of One (1979), Scanners (1981), and The Cover Girl Murders (1993 made-for-television film). She went to Europe in 1976 and worked with Italian director Luchino Visconti, appearing in his last film L'innocente (1976), where she played the part of the mistress, Teresa Raffo.
In 1982, O'Neill starred in the short-lived NBC prime time soap opera Bare Essence. Her credits include singing in the Chrysler Corporation commercial Change in Charger that represented the end of the Dodge Charger in 1975. In 1984, she played the lead female role on the CBS television series Cover Up; the lead male actor, Jon-Erik Hexum, was accidentally killed on the studio set after placing a blank-loaded prop gun to his temple and pulling the trigger—the wadding from the blank cartridge drove a bone fragment from Hexum's skull into his brain.
O'Neill is also listed in the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of American History's Center for Advertising History for her long standing contract with Cover Girl cosmetics as its model and spokesperson in ads and television commercials.
O'Neill has been married nine times to eight husbands (she married, divorced, and remarried husband number six); at one point, she was married to four different men in four years. At age 44, she married husband number seven sooner than any other actress, sooner than Zsa Zsa Gabor (who was 63), Liza Minnelli (59) and Lana Turner (49), making her the youngest "most married" Hollywood celebrity. The August 23, 1993, issue of People magazine reports that a friend of O'Neill's says that the actress obtained the (Texas) annulment of marriage number seven (Neil L. Bonin - after less than five months) ... because she felt stifled.
O'Neill has three children from as many fathers, a daughter (Aimee) by her first husband whom she married at age 17, and a son (Reis Michael) from her fifth marriage and another son (Cooper Alan) from her sixth marriage.
At age 34, O'Neill suffered a gunshot wound. Police officers in the Westchester County town of Bedford, New York, who interviewed the actress, said that on October 23, 1982, she shot herself accidentally in the abdomen with a .38 caliber revolver at her Bedford mansion while she was trying to determine if it was loaded.
She describes many of her life experiences, including her marriages and career, to her move to her Tennessee farm in the late 1990s in her 1999 autobiography Surviving Myself. O'Neill says that she wrote this autobiography (her first book) … at the prompting of her children.
In 2004, O'Neill wrote and published From Fallen To Forgiven, a book of biographical notes and philosophical thoughts about life and existence. The actress, who had an abortion after the divorce from her first husband while dating a Wall Street socialite, became a pro-life activist and a born-again Christian in 1986 at age 38, counseling abstinence to teens. Concerning her abortion, she writes:
I was told a lie from the pit of hell: that my baby was just a blob of tissue. The aftermath of abortion can be equally deadly for both mother and unborn child. A woman who has an abortion is sentenced to bear that for the rest of her life.
O'Neill continues to be active as a writer, inspirational speaker, fundraiser for the benefit of crisis pregnancy centers across the United States. She has also served as the spokesperson for the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, a non-denominational, non-political, non-profit organization dedicated to post-abortion healing and recovery.
O'Neill works for several other charitable causes as well, such as Retinitis Pigmentosa International and the Arthritis Foundation. As a breast cancer survivor she has also been a former spokesperson for the American Cancer Society. She has also hosted a one hour television special for World Vision shot in Africa concerning the HIV epidemic. In addition, she remains actively involved with her childhood love of animals and horses, sponsoring the Jennifer O'Neill Tennis Tournament to benefit the ASPCA, and fund-raiser for Guiding Eyes for the blind.
O'Neill purchased a horse farm in Tennessee called Hillenglade Farm where she runs a non-profit organization as a ministry and retreat for girls and young women.
1954 --- 1950s Bored Woman Housewife Wearing Apron Leaning On Mop On Kitchen Floor --- Image by © Camerique/ClassicStock/Corbis
German postcard by UFA (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK 342. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Klaus Collignon / UFA.
Gustav ‘Bubi’ Scholz (1930-2000) was the most prominent German boxer of the post-war period. The southpaw was only a professional boxer, never an amateur. He celebrated his greatest successes in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, and had some international successes. He also recorded Schlagers and appeared in films.
Gustav Wilhelm Hermann ‘Bubi’ Scholz was born in Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin in 1930. His father was a blacksmith, his mother was a homemaker. ‘Bubi’ earned his first money with selling newspapers. He studied to become a cook. From 1947 on he visited the boxing schools of Karl Schwarz and Bruno Müller, and from 1948 on the Olympia-boxschule where he met his future trainer Lado Taubeneck. Scholz became both a good tactical and a good technical boxer, a southpaw. He never fought as an amateur and in 1948, he won his first professional match against Horst Eichler on points. In 1951 he boxed for the first time for the national title. He won from Walter Schneider and became the German welterweight champion. He defended this title twice in 1952 – against Karl Oechsle and Leo Starosch. Later that year he voluntarily gave up this title for the middleweight championship. In 1955 he was suddenly diagnosed with tuberculosis, and he was forbidden to box. Although he trained secretly he did not do any boxing matches until 1957. With a K.O. victory in the third round against Peter ‘de Aap’ (the Ape) Müller, he became National champion middleweight. From his victory in 1958 from the French champion Charles Humez till 1961 Bubi was the European champion in the middleweight and in 1964 he held the title in the heavyweight. In total he played 96 fights, of which he won 88, including 41 by knockout, he lost only twice (both defeats on points). In 1962 he had lost on points from the American World Champion middleweight, Harold Johnson. The matches of the prominent boxer were visited by such celebrities as film star Curd Jürgens and prime minister Willy Brandt. Although he would never become a world champion, Scholz takes the rank of 45th as ‘Best Boxer of all time’ in the middleweight class in the independent, eternal world computer rankings of BoxRec.
In 1965 Bubi Scholz finished his boxing career and started the advertising agency Zühlke & Scholz. During his boxing career he had done several side-activities. He had recorded some Schlagers like Sie hat nur bluejeans (She only had blue jeans) and he also had performed in a few films. In 1960 he had appeared at the side of Rocco Granata and the Italian actress Georgia Moll in the Schlagerfilm Marina (1960, Paul Martin). Although a reviewer at IMDb compared his performance as “walking through after a K.O.”, Scholz appeared the following year in another Schlagerfilm, Schlagerparade 1961 (1961, Ernst Marischka) with Renate Ewert and Chris Howland. On TV he was seen in the comedy Der Meisterboxer/The Box Champion (1960, Günter Fiedler, Willy Millowitsch). Later, he appeared with the other legendary boxing champion, Max Schmeling, as two policemen in the comedy Glückspilze/Lucky Devils (1971, Thomas Engel) with Heli Finkenzeller and Christian Wolff. After his active boxing career, Scholz became depressed and was known for his binge-drinking. He reached the low point in 1984, when he shot his wife, Helga Scholz-Druck, with whom he had been married since 1955. He was arrested the following day, and was sentenced to an imprisonment of three years for manslaughter. After his period in jail, he appeared in two more films. He appeared as a boxing coach in the short drama Chicago 6 x 6 (1989, Clemens Füsers). His last film was Mord aus Liebe/Murder out of Love (1993, Georg Stefan Troller) with actress Ingrid von Bergen, who herself had spent nearly 5 years in prison for manslaughter. In 1993, the 63-year-old Scholz married the 35-year-old Sabine Arndt. In the late 1990’s he suffered several strokes and was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. His life was filmed for the TV film Die Bubi Scholz Story/The Bubi Scholz Story (1999, Roland Suso Richter). Young Bubi was interpreted by Benno Furmann, while Götz George played the older Scholz. Scholz himself could not attend the premiere because of his poor health at that time. Gustav ‘Bubi’ Scholz died in 2000 in an elderly home in Berlin.
Sources: Oliver Marschalek (Neue deutsche Biographie) (German), Michael Mielke (Weltonline) (German), BoxRec, Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.
British postcard in the Photographs series, no. 104. Photo: publicity still for Yanks (John Schlesinger, 1979).
American actor Richard Gere (1949) has been hailed as The Sexiest Man alive and a humanitarian, but he is foremost a good actor. He shone in such box office hits as American Gigolo (1980), An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) and Pretty Woman (1990). For portraying Billy Flynn in the Academy Award-winning musical Chicago (2002), he won a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award as part of the cast.
Richard Tiffany Gere was born in 1949, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was the second of five children of Doris Ann (Tiffany), a homemaker, and Homer George Gere, an insurance salesman, both Mayflower descendants. Gere had a strict Methodist upbringing. Richard started early as a musician, playing a number of instruments in high school and writing music for high school productions. He graduated from North Syracuse Central High School in 1967, and won a gymnastics scholarship to the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, where he majored in philosophy. He left college after two years to pursue acting. Gere first worked professionally at the Seattle Repertory Theatre and Provincetown Playhouse on Cape Cod in 1969, where he starred in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. He landed the lead role as Danny Zuko in the London production of the musical Grease in 1973. While in London, Gere gained the privilege of becoming one of the few Americans ever to work with Britain's Young Vic Theater, with which he appeared in The Taming of the Shrew. He later reprised his role as Danny Zuko in Grease on Broadway. In 1974, Gere made his feature film debut with a tiny part in Report to the Commissioner (Milton Katselas, 1974). He returned to the stage the following year as part of the cast of an off-Broadway production of Sam Shepard's Killer's Head. Some of Gere's earliest photos, known as 'head shots' were taken by boyhood friend and struggling photographer Herb Ritts. The people handling Gere were so impressed with the photos that they began hiring Ritts for other assignments. Ritts became a top photographer. Onscreen, Gere had a few roles, and gained recognition in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (Richard Brooks, 1977) opposite Diane Keaton. He played his first leading role in the dream-like drama Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978). Joshua Dysart at IMDb: "A poetic biblical parable played out in the Texas Panhandle at the turn of the century, it gives total preference to the emotion of imagery over the emotion of the actors. It's an exorcise in feeling and seeing that's so successful it elevated Terrence Malick into the ranks of visual storytellers like Tarkovski and Kurosawa." In Italy, Gere won the David di Donatello Award (the Italian Oscar) for Best Foreign Actor. Gere spent 1978 meeting Tibetans when he travelled to Nepal, where he spoke to many monks and lamas. Returning to the US, Gere won considerable theatrical acclaim for his performance as a gay concentration-camp prisoner in the Broadway production of Martin Sherman's Bent. For his role he received the 1980 Theatre World Award. Back in Hollywood, he played the title role in American Gigolo (Paul Schrader, 1980), which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol. His star status was reaffirmed by An Officer and a Gentleman (Taylor Hackford, 1982) with Debra Winger. The film grossed almost $130 million and won two Academy Awards out of six nominations. Gere himself received his first Golden Globe Award nomination. In The Cotton Club (Francios Coppola, 1984) he appeared with Diane Lane. In the early 1980s, Richard went to Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador amidst ongoing wars and political violence. With a doctor, he visited refugee camps. In the late 1980s, his career seemed to have a dip. His celebrity status was jeopardized with roles in the several poorly received biblical drama King David (Bruce Beresford, 1985) and the underrated political drama Power ( Sidney Lumet, 1986).
In 1990 Richard Gere returned to the front row with two excellent films. In Internal Affairs (Mike Figgis, 1990), he was a sensation as the bad guy. Andy Garcia played an Internal Affairs agent who becomes obsessed with bringing down a cop (Gere) who manages to maintain a spotless reputation despite being involved in a web of corruption. Gere then teamed up with Julia Roberts to star in the the smash romantic comedy Pretty Woman (Garry Marshall, 1990). His cool reserve as a ruthless businessman was the perfect complement to Julia's bubbling enthusiasm. The film captured the nation's heart, and it earned Gere his second Golden Globe Award nomination. Fans clamored for years for a sequel, or at least another pairing of Julia and Richard. They got that with Runaway Bride (Garry Marshall, 1999), which was a runaway success. Gere received $12 million, and the box office was $152 million. Offscreen, Richard and Cindy Crawford got married in 1991. They were divorced in 1995. Gere had a leading role in the Japanese film Hachi-gatsu no rapusodî (Akira Kurosawa, 1991), a film warning viewers of the dangers of nuclear power. Gere is also active in AIDS fundraising and agreed to play a small role in the HBO film And the Band Played On (Roger Spottiswoode, 1993) despite the prevalent belief in the film industry a film about AIDS would be detrimental to his career. It was not. He co-starred with Jodie Foster in the box office hit Sommersby (Jon Amiel, 1993). A Buddhist for over a decade, he was banned from the Oscars once after making anti-China comments on the air at the 1993 ceremony. Gere played one of his best roles in Primal Fear (Gregory Hoblit, 1996), as a fame-hungry lawyer who defends an altar boy (Edward Norton) accused of murdering a priest. People magazine had picked him as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the world in 1991, and in 1999 picked him as their Sexiest Man Alive. The following year, the actor enjoyed some of his best reviews to date as a gynecologist at once devoted to and bewildered by all of the women in his life in the aptly titled Dr. T & the Women (Robert Altman, 2000). Critics noted that Gere seemed to have finally come into his own as an actor, having matured amiably with years and experience. After his divorce from Cindy Crawford, Gere had started dating actress Carey Lowell. In 2000, they had a son, Homer James Jigme Gere. Jigme means 'fearless' in Tibetan. Gere and Lowell married in 2002. His later films include the thriller Unfaithful (Adrian Lyne, 2002) in which he reunited with Diane Lane, the Oscar winning musical Chicago (Rob Marshall, 2002) with Renée Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and the ballroom dancing drama Shall We Dance? (Peter Chelsom, 2004), which grossed $170 million worldwide. In the comedy-drama The Hoax (Lasse Hallström, 2006), he played Clifford Irving who sold his bogus biography of Howard Hughes to a premiere publishing house in the early 1970s. Gere was one of the characters who embody a different aspect of Bob Dylan's life and work in I'm Not There (Todd Haynes, 2007). Other interesting films are the crime drama Brooklyn's Finest (Antoine Fuqua, 2009) with Don Cheadle, the British comedy-drama The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (John Madden, 2015) with Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, and Three Christs (Jon Avnet, 2017) with Peter Dinklage. He was notably singled out for portraying businessman Robert Miller opposite Susan Sarandon in Arbitrage (Nicholas Jarecki, 2012), earning his fourth Golden Globe Award nomination. Gere is also an accomplished pianist, music writer, and above all a humanitarian. He's a founding member of Tibet House, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of Tibetan culture. He has been an active supporter of Survival International, which supports tribal people, including the natives of the Amazon, the Maasai of East Africa, the Wichi of Argentina. After 11 years of marriage, Gere and Lowell separated. Since April 2018, Richard Gere is married to Spanish activist Alejandra Silva.
Source: Sandra Brennan (AllMovie), K.D. Haisch (IMDb), AllMovie, Wikipedia and IMDb.
Ricky Lauren: Natural Beauty
The wife of Ralph Lauren shares the family's American-luxe lifestyle in her new book
Being Mrs. Ralph Lauren requires more than a passing attention to detail. There's the blonde mane the color of frozen French butter (unsalted), the requisite flawless figure, the pool-blue eyes, and that perfect aristo air. Today, dressed in a pale-gray cashmere turtleneck and jodhpurs offset with a cognac belt, boots, and a matching watchband, striding through the hallowed halls of the Ralph Lauren offices, she's every bit the urbane, polished mogul wife.
Yet for all her cool beauty, there are no icy reserves to chip away. Somewhere along the way this woman learned the art of grace, and nobody inhabits that world quite as well as she.
With the release of her fourth book, the lifestyle cookbook The Hamptons: Food, Family, and History, she showcases the role in which she's most comfortable, that of happy (albeit haute) homemaker. A pastiche of personal photos and family recipes punctuated with signature Lauren lifestyle elements, it's a love letter from Ricky to her husband and their children, Andrew, David, and Dylan. "A lot of these recipes are of course to share with everyone, but they are for my children to have for themselves so they have a cookbook of their own of memories," she says.
Ricky and Ralph have been decamping to the Hamptons since the '70s, and through the years they have lived in many of the charming hamlets there, from Southampton to Montauk. Some of her most treasured moments have transpired out east, including a one-year-old Andrew taking his first steps, his small hands clasped around a broomstick, his father's hands clasped around his to gingerly lead the way.
Aside from those familial milestones, meals and the making of them are the focal point. "We would go picking potatoes, and the children would help," says Ricky, conjuring up one of her fondest memories. "They were little and they'd come with brown bags from the supermarket, and we'd fill them up. Then we'd go back to the house, and even the baby carriage would have potatoes in it." A surfeit of starch for her Good Old-Fashioned Garlic Mashed Potatoes recipe, which she likes to serve alongside baby "lollipop" lamb chops.
Ricky made sure that her kids always helped out—chores were de rigueur. "I remember days when the children would go to get the camp bus in the morning, everybody had a job in the kitchen. One would make the orange juice, another one would set the table, and another would pour milk in the glasses."
The idyll depicted in the book spans the past 40 years and evokes sweetly sentimental scenes—sojourns to the beach, bicycle rides at dusk, softball games on the lawn with the entire family outfitted in varying shades of denim.
"The Hamptons has always been a special place for us, starting when our children were very young," says Ralph. "Ricky's food and the creative way she sets our tables or fills a basket for a picnic on the beach have always been a personal gift to each of us. Her books, particularly this one, filled with her beautiful photographs and watercolors, heartfelt recollections and personal recipes, are another gift to our family and to all that love living simply and well. The beauty she sees in our lives is a daily inspiration."
Indeed, she inspires them to eat. Ralph has a soft spot for Wiener schnitzel (Ricky's parents hailed from Austria) as well as her mother's brownies. "Ralph wanted to put them in the store," Ricky says, "but I haven't made those in a while because we like to watch our diet."
Since the mid-'80s, the Lauren family's Hamptons headquarters has been in Montauk. Their sprawling oceanfront compound was designed in 1940 by an acolyte of Frank Lloyd Wright's. Yet the home's rustic feel and natural, raw grounds are a departure from the oft-seen East Hampton manors with their manicured lawns and privet hedges. The house has an unassuming facade and a laid-back feel that feeds into the Laurens' sensibility. "Montauk is more remote, more private, more of a fishing village, an artists' retreat," says Ricky. "It has its own magic."
She dedicated the book to Ralph, who she calls her "anchor." "He is the one who made it all possible." The legendary pair have been married for nearly 50 years. Their meet-cute happened at an eye doctor's office in New York City, where Ricky was working as a receptionist while attending Hunter College and Ralph came in for an appointment. He asked her out on the spot. On their first date, Ralph picked her up in his green Morgan sports car and spirited her to a pancake house upstate. Over coffee she told him that she was studying Shakespeare and Chaucer. "Then I started reciting The Canterbury Tales, and he said, 'This is a very strange girl, very odd,'" Ricky recalls. "'She's beautiful but she's strange.'"
They were married eight months later. Since then, Ralph went from designing ties to designing the ultimate American lifestyle brand. He has amassed a $5.6-billion-a-year empire—ranking among the industry's most influential icons—and has flourishing businesses in nearly every global niche. And he's built out his own life in a similarly impressive fashion, with gorgeously rendered homes not only in Manhattan and Montauk but in Bedford, New York; Colorado; and Jamaica.
Ricky has been by his side every genteel step of the way, including creatively, serving as her husband's muse. "I didn't like the girl with all the makeup and high heels," Lauren wrote in his 2007 memoir. "I liked the girl in jeans and a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, wearing her boyfriend's jacket. That's the girl I am attracted to. That's the girl I married—Ricky." He even created the now classic Ricky bag in her honor.
She's definitely a woman who knows her own worth. During her Bazaar shoot for this story, as the sun was setting in Montauk and she perched on a twig chair in a denim jacket and a patchwork bustle skirt on the lawn of the family's home, photographer Mark Seliger told her she looked like a million bucks. Ricky coyly shot back, "Only?"
"A lot of these recipes are for my children to have for themselves so they have a cookbook of their own of memories," says Ricky Lauren
"The Hamptons has always been a special place for us, starting when our children were very young," says Ralph Lauren
Joseph Louis Barrow (1914-1981), better known in the boxing world as Joe Louis and nicknamed The Brown Bomber, was a native of Lexington, Alabama who became World Heavyweight Champion.
The son of Monroe Barrow, a cotton picker, and Lilly Reese, a homemaker, Louis became interested in boxing after the Barrows moved to Detroit in 1924. He went on to win Michigan's Golden Gloves title, after which he turned professional in 1934. Louis made his debut on July 4 of that year, knocking out Jack Kracken in the first round at Chicago, Illinois that night. He won 12 fights that year, all in Chicago, 10 by knockout. Among his opponents in 1934 was Art Sykes, a top contender.
In 1935, he boxed 13 more times, and started touring the United States and Canada. He won each of his fights, and he began to face better opposition, beating former world Heavyweight champions Primo Carnera and Max Baer, and former Carnera world title challenger Paolino Uzcudun. His last four bouts that year were exhibitions in Canada, as one fight versus Isodoro Castagana, supposed to take place December 29 at Havana, Cuba, was suspended.
He began 1936 knocking out Charlie Retzlaff in the first round. In his next fight, however, he was matched with former world Heavyweight champion Max Schmeling, who was thought to be fading when he upset Louis by a knockout in 12 at New York. The German had studied Louis and discovered that he dropped his right hand after throwing his legendary left jab. Schmeling managed to weather Louis's pummeling long enough to exploit this weakness and bring down Louis. Louis and his supporters were devastated.
Schmeling now deserved a fight for the title, but was denied a chance to challenge the world champion in large part due to his relatively weak ties to the German Nazi Party.
That year Louis had four more bouts, winning all of them, and three exhibitions. Among the boxers he defeated were former Heavyweight champ Jack Sharkey and Eddie Simms, who turned and asked the referee to take a walk on the roof with him after a hit from Louis. The referee stopped the fight right away.
1937 came by, and after a ten round decision win over Bob Pastor, Louis was matched with world champion James J. Braddock in Chicago for the World Heavyweight title. Louis was dropped in round one, but he got up and became the world champion by knocking Braddock out in round eight. He said after the fight, however, that he would not feel like a world champion until he beat one man: Schmeling. Louis retained the title three times, outpointing the capable Welshman Tommy Farr and knocking out Nathan Mann in three and Harry Thomas in five.
The rematch with Schmeling finally took place, on June 22, 1938. This time the fight was hyped on both sides of the Atlantic, and many fans around the world saw this fight as a symbol: Louis representing the American interests and Schmeling, who was wrongly seen as a Nazi, fighting for Germany and white supremacy.
The fight itself ended quickly. With his superior speed, Louis retained his title by a knockout in the first round, avenging his only loss up until that time and achieving something not too many African-Americans of the era imagined anyone could do: becoming a national hero both for the white and the black population. Louis was black, so when he won the title, he had become an example to his fellow black Americans. But by beating a German boxer, Louis won over whites too, something very hard to do during the 1930s and 1940s in the United States.
In 1940 Louis actively campaigned for Wendell Willkie for the presidency. Louis favored Willkie over FDR because he believed that Willkie and the Republicans would do more for civil rights.
Joe Louis sews on the stripes of a technical sergeant--to which he has been promotedIn between serving in the United States Army during the Second World War, Louis kept on defending his title, totalling 25 defenses from '37 to 1949. He was a world champion for 11 years and 10 months, after which he left his crown vacant. He set records for any division in number of defenses and longevity as world champion non stop, and both records still stand. Apart from Schmeling, Farr, Mann and Thomas, other notable title defenses during that period were:
his fight versus world Light Heavyweight champion John Henry Lewis, knocked out in the first.
his fight with Two Ton Tony Galento, who upset the boxing world by knocking Louis down in round one, but Louis got up and knocked Galento out in the fourth.
his two fights with Chilean Arturo Godoy, who almost did something no other boxer from Chile has ever done and no Hispanic had done before: Become world Heavyweight champion in their first bout, which Louis won by a close decision, and when Louis won the rematch by a knockout in the eight round, a riot broke loose at the Madison Square Garden.
his two fights with world Light Heavyweight champion Billy Conn, the first of which is remembered as one of the greatest fights in heavywieght history. Conn, much smaller than Louis but also much faster, said that he planned to "hit and run,' prompting Louis's famous response, "He can run, but he can't hide." For 12 rounds it appeared that Conn would prove Louis wrong; his agile footwork, blinding hand speed and ability to slip punches stymied Louis, and Conn was so far ahead on points that only a knockout could save Louis. Near the end of round 12, though, Conn visibly hurt Louis, so he decided to go for a knockout in the 13th. His decision to go toe-to-toe with Louis turned out to be his downfall, as the champion KO'd Conn with a vicious barrage. In the rematch, Louis won by a knockout in the eighth round.
his two fights versus future world Heavyweight champion Jersey Joe Walcott, who would drop Louis in round four of their first bout and lose a close decision, then get knocked out by Louis in the rematch in 11 rounds.
Louis joined the Army from 1942 to 1945 and spent that whole period travelling around Europe visiting with the fighting troops and boxing in exhibitions. During this time, he became a national spokesman for the Army, inviting young men to join in and help their country in the war. He even acted in a couple of movies, produced by the Army to entice men to go to the war. After he came back to keep defending his title in 1946, Louis looked somewhat slower in his fights, and his best years seemed to have gone. He still managed to fend off every challenger until he retired for the first time, after the second Walcott bout. On March 1, 1949 Louis announced his retirement from boxing.
In 1950, burdened by I.R.S. debt, he announced a comeback and was promptly given a chance to recover his title, but he lost a 15 round unanimous decision to world champion Ezzard Charles, who had won the title after Louis left it vacant. He kept boxing, and in his next fight he beat fringe contender Cesar Brion by a decision in 10. Seven more wins followed, including a rematch with Brion and a decision over fellow hall of famer Jimmy Bivins. In 1951, however, he would box what would be his final fight: In front of a national television audience, Louis lost by a knockout in eight rounds to the future world Heavyweight Champion, Rocky Marciano. Louis did not embarrass himself that night, but it was obvious his best years had gone by. He retired with a record of 68 wins and 3 losses, with 54 wins by a knockout.
Louis became a professional wrestler in 1956 but quit in 1957 due to injuries suffered during a match.
Louis faced a drug problem, a fact not too many people knew about but which was made public by a boxing book published by Ring Magazine, just as in Sugar Ray Robinson's case. But later on in life, he was able to kick his drug habit.
A few years after his retirement, a movie about his life, The Joe Louis Story, was filmed in Hollywood. Louis remained a popular celebrity until his twilight years, when he began suffering various illnesses, notably Pugilistic Parkinson's syndrome, and ran out of money. It was in the late 1960s that Louis also became addicted to cocaine. He began suffering from paranoia and delusions. His wife was forced to have him committed to a Denver mental hospital in 1970. Louis was eventually able to overcome his addiction. In his later years, he got a job welcoming tourists to the Caesar's Palace hotel in Las Vegas, where many world boxing champions and legends from other walks of life, including old rival Max Schmeling, would visit him.
In fact, Schmeling and Louis became close personal friends over the years, and the compassionate Schmeling (who was awarded control of the German Coca-Cola bottler after WWII) would often send him money.
They remained friends until Joe Louis' death, when Schmeling paid for his funeral and was one of the pallbearers. Louis had also become close friends with Billy Conn. After Louis' death, Conn wrote an article in Reader's Digest magazine called "Unforgettable Joe Louis". He recalled their classic fight and how close he came to defeating Louis. He ended the article with the words, "I was proud to have fought him and prouder still to have been his friend". Max Schmeling was also heartbroken by Louis' death. When asked, on his 90th birthday, if he had any regrets he replied "I only have one. I regret Joe isn't still alive and we were still friends".
Joe Louis died of a heart attack in 1981. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia. His life and his achievements prompted famed New York sportswriter Jimmy Cannon to write "Joe Louis is a credit to his race - the human race."
He has a sports complex named after him in Detroit, the Joe Louis Arena, where the Detroit Red Wings play their NHL games. A memorial to Louis was dedicated in Detroit (at Jefferson Avenue & Woodward) on October 16, 1986. The sculpture, commissioned by Time, Inc. and executed by Robert Graham, is a 24-foot long arm with a fisted hand suspended by a 24-foot high pyramidal framework. It represents the power of his punch both inside and outside the ring. On March 25, 2004, two men, Brett Cashman and John T. White, pleaded guilty on charges of defacing the monument. They had allegedly covered it with white paint on February 23 of that year.
Louis was named by Ring Magazine's as boxing's number one puncher in history in 2003. He was also named as the magazine's fighter of the year on four occasions, bettered only by Muhammad Ali's five awards.
Louis is a member of the International Boxing Hall Of Fame.