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The brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) is a bird of the pelican family, Pelecanidae, one of three species found in the Americas and one of two that feed by diving into water. It is found on the Atlantic Coast from New Jersey to the mouth of the Amazon River, and along the Pacific Coast from British Columbia to Peru, including the Galapagos Islands. The nominate subspecies in its breeding plumage has a white head with a yellowish wash on the crown. The nape and neck are dark maroon–brown. The upper sides of the neck have white lines along the base of the gular pouch, and the lower fore neck has a pale yellowish patch. The male and female are similar, but the female is slightly smaller. The nonbreeding adult has a white head and neck. The pink skin around the eyes becomes dull and gray in the nonbreeding season. It lacks any red hue, and the pouch is strongly olivaceous ochre-tinged and the legs are olivaceous gray to blackish-gray.
The brown pelican mainly feeds on fish, but occasionally eats amphibians, crustaceans, and the eggs and nestlings of birds. It nests in colonies in secluded areas, often on islands, vegetated land among sand dunes, thickets of shrubs and trees, and mangroves. Females lay two or three oval, chalky white eggs. Incubation takes 28 to 30 days with both sexes sharing duties. The newly hatched chicks are pink, turning gray or black within 4 to 14 days. About 63 days are needed for chicks to fledge. Six to 9 weeks after hatching, the juveniles leave the nest, and gather into small groups known as pods.
The brown pelican is the national bird of Saint Martin, Barbados, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the official state bird of Louisiana, appearing on the flag, seal, or coat of arms of each. It has been rated as a species of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It was listed under the United States Endangered Species Act from 1970 to 2009, as pesticides such as dieldrin and DDT threatened its future in the Southeastern United States and California. In 1972, the use of DDT was banned in Florida, followed by the rest of the United States. Since then, the brown pelican's population has increased. In 1903, Theodore Roosevelt set aside the first National Wildlife Refuge, Florida's Pelican Island, to protect the species from hunters.
Taxonomy
The brown pelican was described by Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus in the 1766 12th edition of his Systema Naturae, where it was given the binomial name of Pelecanus occidentalis. It belongs to the New World clade of the genus Pelecanus.
Five subspecies of the brown pelican are recognized. At least some of these subspecies are genetically distinct despite similar phenotypes. The subspecies differ from one another in size, coloration of the throat pouch (among other bare parts) in breeding condition, and/or certain breeding plumage details, as well as geographic range.
The brown pelican is part of a clade that includes the Peruvian pelican (P. thagus) and American white pelican (P. erythrorhynchos); brown and Peruvian pelicans are sister taxa, with American white pelican a more distant relative. The Peruvian pelican was previously considered a subspecies of the brown pelican, but is now considered a separate species on the basis of its much greater size (around double the weight of the brown pelican), differences in bill color and plumage, and a lack of evidence of hybridization between the forms where their ranges approach and overlap. (In captivity, the brown pelican is known to have hybridized with both the American white pelican and the more distantly related great white pelican.)
In 1932, James L. Peters divided Pelecanus into three subgenera, placing brown pelican (including Peruvian pelican) in a monospecific Leptopelicanus, American white pelican in a monospecific Cyrtopelicanus, and all the rest in the subgenus Pelecanus, a treatment which was also followed by Jean Dorst and Raoul J. Mougin in 1979. Andrew Elliott in 1992, and Joseph B. Nelson in 2005, considered the deepest division among pelicans to lie between brown (plus Peruvian) pelican on the one hand, and the white-plumaged pelicans on the other (among which the large ground-nesting American white, Australian, great white, and Dalmatian pelicans were thought to form a clade, and the smaller tree-nesting pink-backed and spot-billed pelicans were likewise considered sister taxa). In 1993, Paul Johnsgard hypothesized that the Americas were colonized relatively late in pelican evolution, with the family originating in Africa or South Asia; however, he later supported the prevailing view that brown (with Peruvian) was the most divergent pelican (and considered American white and great white pelicans to be close relatives, implying two independent dispersals of pelicans into the Americas, with that of the ancestor of brown and Peruvian pelicans occurring early on). Sibley and Ahlquist's DNA-DNA hybridization studies and UPGMA tree published in 1990 supported brown pelican as sister to a clade comprising all the white-plumaged pelicans analyzed, including American white pelican (although the relationships among the latter group differed).
With better genetic data and more modern methods, a new phylogenetic hypothesis of pelican relationships has arisen, which contrasts with the traditional view of brown and Peruvian being the most divergent pelicans based on their distinctive plumage and behavior (and early molecular data). Rather than the brown-plumaged pelicans and white-plumaged pelicans forming two reciprocally monophyletic groups, the American white pelican is sister to brown and Peruvian pelicans, the three together forming an exclusively New World pelican clade. (Among the other pelicans, pink-backed, Dalmatian, and spot-billed pelicans are close relatives, together sister to Australian pelican. Great white pelican has no particularly close relatives; while it may be sister to the previous four, this relationship had low statistical support.)
The brown pelican is the smallest of the eight extant pelican species, but is often one of the larger seabirds in their range nonetheless. It measures 1 to 1.52 m (3 ft 3 in to 5 ft 0 in) in length and has a wingspan of 2.03 to 2.28 m (6 ft 8 in to 7 ft 6 in). The weight of adults can range from 2 to 5 kg (4.4 to 11.0 lb), about half the weight of the other pelicans found in the Americas, the Peruvian and American white pelicans. The average weight in Florida of 47 females was 3.17 kg (7.0 lb), while that of 56 males was 3.7 kg (8.2 lb). Like all pelicans, it has a very long bill, measuring 280 to 348 mm (11.0 to 13.7 in) in length.
The nominate subspecies in its breeding plumage has a white head with a yellowish wash on the crown. The nape and neck are dark maroon–brown. The upper sides of the neck have white lines along the base of the gular pouch, and the lower foreneck has a pale yellowish patch. The feathers at the center of the nape are elongated, forming short, deep chestnut crest feathers. It has a silvery gray mantle, scapulars, and upperwing coverts (feathers on the upper side of the wings), with a brownish tinge. The lesser coverts have dark bases, which gives the leading edge of the wing a streaky appearance. The uppertail coverts (feathers above the tail) are silvery white at the center, forming pale streaks. The median (between the greater and the lesser coverts), primary (connected to the distal forelimb), secondary (connected to the ulna), and greater coverts (feathers of the outermost, largest, row of upperwing coverts) are blackish, with the primaries having white shafts and the secondaries having variable silver-gray fringes. The tertials (feathers arising in the brachial region) are silver-gray with a brownish tinge. The underwing has grayish-brown remiges with white shafts to the outer primary feathers. The axillaries and covert feathers are dark, with a broad, silver–gray central area. The tail is dark gray with a variable silvery cast. The lower mandible is blackish, with a greenish-black gular pouch at the bottom for draining water when it scoops out prey. The breast and belly are dark, and the legs and feet black. It has a grayish white bill tinged with brown and intermixed with pale carmine spots. The crest is short and pale reddish-brown in color. The back, rump, and tail are streaked with gray and dark brown, sometimes with a rusty hue. The male and female are similar, but the female is slightly smaller. It is exceptionally buoyant due to the internal air sacks beneath its skin and in its bones. It is as graceful in the air as it is clumsy on land.
The nonbreeding adult has a white head and neck, and the pre-breeding adult has a creamy yellow head. The pink skin around the eyes becomes dull and gray in the non-breeding season. It lacks any red hue, and the pouch is strongly olivaceous ochre tinged and the legs are olivaceous gray to blackish-gray. It has pale blue to yellowish white irides which become brown during the breeding season. During courtship, the bill becomes pinkish red to pale orange, redder at the tip, and the pouch is blackish. Later in the breeding season the bill becomes pale ash-gray over most of the upper jaw and the basal third of the mandible.
The juvenile is similar, but is grayish-brown overall and has paler underparts. The head, neck, and thighs are dusky-brown, and the abdomen is dull white. The plumage of the male is similar to a fully adult female, although the male's head feathers are rather rigid. The tail and flight feathers are browner than those of the adult. It has short, brown upperwing coverts, which are often darker on greater coverts, and dull brownish-gray underwing coverts with a whitish band at the center. The irides are dark brown and the facial skin is bluish. It has a gray bill which is horn-yellow to orange near the tip, with a dark gray to pinkish-gray pouch. It acquires adult plumage at over 3 years of age, when the feathers on the neck become paler, the upperparts become striped, the greater upperwing and median coverts become grayer, and the belly acquires dark spots.
The brown pelican is readily distinguished from the American white pelican by its nonwhite plumage, smaller size, and habit of diving for fish from the air, as opposed to co-operative fishing from the surface. It and the Peruvian pelican are the only true marine pelican species.
The brown pelican produces a wide variety of harsh, grunting sounds, such as a low-pitched hrrraa-hrra, during displays. The adult also rarely emits a low croak, while young frequently squeal.
The brown pelican lives on the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific Coasts in the Americas. On the Atlantic Coast, it is found from the New Jersey coast to the mouth of the Amazon River. Along the Pacific Coast, it is found from British Columbia to northern Peru, including the Galapagos Islands. After nesting, North American birds move in flocks further north along the coasts, returning to warmer waters for winter. In the non-breeding season, it is found as far north as Canada. It is a rare and irregular visitor south of Piura in Peru, where generally it is replaced by the Peruvian pelican, and can occur as a non-breeding visitor south at least to Ica during El Niño years. Small numbers of brown pelicans have been recorded from Arica in far northern Chile. It is fairly common along the coast of California, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, the West Indies, and many Caribbean islands as far south as Guyana. Along the Gulf Coast, it inhabits Alabama, Texas, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Mexico.
The brown pelican is a strictly marine species, primarily inhabiting marine subtidal, warm estuarine, and marine pelagic waters. It is also found in mangrove swamps, and prefers shallow waters, especially near salty bays and beaches. It avoids the open sea, seldom venturing more than 20 miles from the coast. Some immature birds may stray to inland freshwater lakes. Its range may also overlap with the Peruvian pelican in some areas along the Pacific coast of South America. It roosts on rocks, water, rocky cliffs, piers, jetties, sand beaches, and mudflats.
Most brown pelican populations are resident (nonmigratory) and dispersive (species moving from its birth site to its breeding site, or its breeding site to another breeding site). Some migration is observed, especially in the northern parts of the species's range, but these movements are often erratic, depending on local conditions.
While usually restricted to coastal regions, brown pelicans occasionally wander inland, and there are records of vagrant individuals across much of the interior of North America. The species also occasionally wanders along the coasts of the Americas outside its normal range, with vagrants reported as far north as Southeast Alaska and Newfoundland, as far south as central Chile (well into the range of the closely related Peruvian pelican), and as far east in South America as Alagoas. Rare inland vagrants, generally caused by hurricanes or El Niño phenomena, have been reported from the Colombian Andes. They were first recorded in July 2009 in the Interandean Valley, where they remained for at least 161 days. There are four records far inland in Amazônia Legal, along the Amazon River and its tributaries.
The brown pelican is a very gregarious bird; it lives in flocks of both sexes throughout the year. In level flight, brown pelicans fly in groups, with their heads held back on their shoulders and their bills resting on their folded necks. They may fly in a V formation, but usually in regular lines or single file, often low over the water's surface. To exclude water from the nasal passage, they have narrower internal regions of the nostrils.
The brown pelican is a piscivore, primarily feeding on fish. Menhaden may account for 90% of its diet, and the anchovy supply is particularly important to the brown pelican's nesting success. Other fish preyed on with some regularity includes pigfish, pinfish, herring, sheepshead, silversides, mullets, sardines, minnows, and topminnows. Brown pelicans residing in Southern California rely especially heavily on pacific sardine as a major food source which can compose up to 26% of their diet, making them one of the top three predators of sardines in the area. Non-fish prey includes crustaceans, especially prawns, and it occasionally feeds on amphibians and the eggs and nestlings of birds (egrets, common murres and its own species).
As the brown pelican flies at a maximum height of 18 to 21 m (60 to 70 ft) above the ocean, it can spot schools of fish while flying. When foraging, it dives bill-first like a kingfisher, often submerging completely below the surface momentarily as it snaps up prey. Besides its sister species, the Peruvian pelican, this is the only pelican to primarily forage via diving, all other extant pelican merely float on the waters' surface when foraging. Upon surfacing, it spills the water from its throat pouch before swallowing its catch. Only the Peruvian pelican shares this active foraging style (although that species never dives from such a great height), while other pelicans forage more inactively by scooping up corralled fish while swimming on the water surface. It is an occasional target of kleptoparasitism by other fish-eating birds such as gulls, skuas, and frigatebirds. They are capable of drinking saline water due to the high capacity of their salt glands to excrete salt.
The brown pelican is a monogamous breeder within a breeding season, but does not pair for life. Nesting season peaks during March and April. The male chooses a nesting site and performs a display of head movements to attract a female. At the proposed nest site, major courtship displays such as head swaying, bowing, turning, and upright (standing on its legs without any support) are performed by both the sexes. They may also be accompanied by low raaa calls.
Once a pair forms a bond, overt communication between them is minimal. It is a colonial species, with some colonies maintained for many years. Probably owing to disturbance, tick infestation, or alteration in food supply, colonies frequently shift. It nests in secluded area, often on islands, vegetated spots among sand dunes, thickets of shrubs and trees, and in mangroves, although sometimes on cliffs, and less often in bushes or small trees. Nesting territories are clumped, as individual territories may be at a distance of just 1 m (3.3 ft) from each other. They are usually built by the female from reeds, leaves, pebbles, and sticks, and consist of feather-lined impressions protected with a 10 to 25 cm (3.9 to 9.8 in) rim of soil and debris. They are usually found 0.9 to 3 m (3 to 10 ft) above the ground. Renesting may occur if eggs are lost from the nest early in the breeding season.
There are usually two to three, or sometimes even four, oval eggs in a clutch, and only one brood is raised per year. The egg is chalky white, and can measure about 76 mm (3.0 in) in length and 51 mm (2.0 in) in width. Incubation takes 28 to 30 days with both sexes sharing duties, keeping the eggs warm by holding them on or under their webbed feet. It takes 28 to 30 days for the eggs to hatch, and about 63 days to fledge. After that, the juvenile leave the nest and gather into small groups known as pods. The newly hatched chicks are pink and weigh about 60 g (0.13 lb). Within 4 to 14 days, they turn gray or black. After that, they develop a coat of white, black or grayish down. Fledging success may be as high as 100% for the first hatched chick, 60% for the second chick, and just 6% for the third chick.
The parents regurgitate predigested food for the young to feed upon until they reach their fledging stage. After about 35 days, the young venture out of the nest by walking. The young start flying about 71 to 88 days after hatching. The adults remain with them until some time afterwards and continue to feed them. In the 8- to 10-month period during which they are cared for, the nestling pelicans are fed by regurgitated, partially digested food of around 70 kg (150 lb) of fish. The young reach sexual maturity (and full adult plumage) at anywhere from three to five years of age. A brown pelican has been recorded to have lived for over 31 years in captivity.
Predation is occasional at colonies, and predators of eggs and young (usually small nestlings are threatened but also occasionally up to fledgling size depending on the size of the predator) can include gulls, raptors (especially bald eagles), spiny-tailed iguanas, alligators, vultures, feral cats, feral dogs, raccoons, fish crows, and corvids. Predation is likely reduced if the colony is on an island. Although it is rare, bobcats have been documented eating both the offspring and injured adults. Predation on adult brown pelicans is rarely reported, but cases where they have fallen prey to bald eagles have been reported. Also, South American sea lions and unidentified large sharks have been observed to prey on adult brown pelicans by seizing them from beneath while the birds are sitting on ocean waters. The invasive red imported fire ant is known to prey on hatchlings. Like all pelicans, brown pelicans are highly sensitive to disturbances by humans (including tourists or fishermen) at their nests, and may even abandon their nests. Due to their size, non-nesting adults are rarely predated. Brown pelicans have several parasitic worms such as Petagiger, Echinochasmus, Phagicola longus, Mesostephanus appendiculatoides, Contracaecum multipapillatum, and Contracaecum bioccai, from its prey diet of black mullets, white mullets, and other fish species.
The brown pelican is now a staple of crowded coastal regions and is at some risk by fishermen (monofilament fishing line and hooks) and boaters. In the early twentieth century, hunting was a major cause of its death, and people still hunt adults for their feathers and collect eggs on the Caribbean coasts, in Latin America, and occasionally in the United States, even though it is protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.
Distribution
The brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) is a bird of the pelican family, Pelecanidae, one of three species found in the Americas and one of two that feed by diving into water. It is found on the Atlantic Coast from New Jersey to the mouth of the Amazon River, and along the Pacific Coast from British Columbia to Peru, including the Galapagos Islands. The nominate subspecies in its breeding plumage has a white head with a yellowish wash on the crown. The nape and neck are dark maroon–brown. The upper sides of the neck have white lines along the base of the gular pouch, and the lower fore neck has a pale yellowish patch. The male and female are similar, but the female is slightly smaller. The nonbreeding adult has a white head and neck. The pink skin around the eyes becomes dull and gray in the nonbreeding season. It lacks any red hue, and the pouch is strongly olivaceous ochre-tinged and the legs are olivaceous gray to blackish-gray.
The brown pelican mainly feeds on fish, but occasionally eats amphibians, crustaceans, and the eggs and nestlings of birds. It nests in colonies in secluded areas, often on islands, vegetated land among sand dunes, thickets of shrubs and trees, and mangroves. Females lay two or three oval, chalky white eggs. Incubation takes 28 to 30 days with both sexes sharing duties. The newly hatched chicks are pink, turning gray or black within 4 to 14 days. About 63 days are needed for chicks to fledge. Six to 9 weeks after hatching, the juveniles leave the nest, and gather into small groups known as pods.
The brown pelican is the national bird of Saint Martin, Barbados, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the official state bird of Louisiana, appearing on the flag, seal, or coat of arms of each. It has been rated as a species of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It was listed under the United States Endangered Species Act from 1970 to 2009, as pesticides such as dieldrin and DDT threatened its future in the Southeastern United States and California. In 1972, the use of DDT was banned in Florida, followed by the rest of the United States. Since then, the brown pelican's population has increased. In 1903, Theodore Roosevelt set aside the first National Wildlife Refuge, Florida's Pelican Island, to protect the species from hunters.
Taxonomy
The brown pelican was described by Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus in the 1766 12th edition of his Systema Naturae, where it was given the binomial name of Pelecanus occidentalis. It belongs to the New World clade of the genus Pelecanus.
Five subspecies of the brown pelican are recognized. At least some of these subspecies are genetically distinct despite similar phenotypes. The subspecies differ from one another in size, coloration of the throat pouch (among other bare parts) in breeding condition, and/or certain breeding plumage details, as well as geographic range.
ImageSubspeciesDistribution
P. o. californicus (Ridgway, 1884)This subspecies breeds on the Pacific coast of California and Baja California, and south to Jalisco. Its non-breeding range extends north along the Pacific coast to British Columbia, and south to Guatemala. It is rarely found in El Salvador.
P. o. carolinensis (Gmelin, 1789)This subspecies breeds in the eastern United States from Maryland south along the Atlantic, Gulf, and Caribbean coasts and south to Honduras and its Pacific coasts, Costa Rica, and Panama. Its non-breeding range is from southern New York to Venezuela.
P. o. occidentalis (Linnaeus, 1766)This subspecies breeds in the Greater and Lesser Antilles, the Bahamas, and along the Caribbean coast of the West Indies, Colombia, and Venezuela, up to Trinidad and Tobago.
P. o. murphyi (Wetmore, 1945)This subspecies is found from western Colombia to Ecuador, and is a non-breeding visitor to northern Peru.
P. o. urinator (Wetmore, 1945)This subspecies is found on the Galapagos Islands.
The brown pelican is part of a clade that includes the Peruvian pelican (P. thagus) and American white pelican (P. erythrorhynchos); brown and Peruvian pelicans are sister taxa, with American white pelican a more distant relative. The Peruvian pelican was previously considered a subspecies of the brown pelican, but is now considered a separate species on the basis of its much greater size (around double the weight of the brown pelican), differences in bill color and plumage, and a lack of evidence of hybridization between the forms where their ranges approach and overlap. (In captivity, the brown pelican is known to have hybridized with both the American white pelican and the more distantly related great white pelican.)
In 1932, James L. Peters divided Pelecanus into three subgenera, placing brown pelican (including Peruvian pelican) in a monospecific Leptopelicanus, American white pelican in a monospecific Cyrtopelicanus, and all the rest in the subgenus Pelecanus, a treatment which was also followed by Jean Dorst and Raoul J. Mougin in 1979. Andrew Elliott in 1992, and Joseph B. Nelson in 2005, considered the deepest division among pelicans to lie between brown (plus Peruvian) pelican on the one hand, and the white-plumaged pelicans on the other (among which the large ground-nesting American white, Australian, great white, and Dalmatian pelicans were thought to form a clade, and the smaller tree-nesting pink-backed and spot-billed pelicans were likewise considered sister taxa). In 1993, Paul Johnsgard hypothesized that the Americas were colonized relatively late in pelican evolution, with the family originating in Africa or South Asia; however, he later supported the prevailing view that brown (with Peruvian) was the most divergent pelican (and considered American white and great white pelicans to be close relatives, implying two independent dispersals of pelicans into the Americas, with that of the ancestor of brown and Peruvian pelicans occurring early on). Sibley and Ahlquist's DNA-DNA hybridization studies and UPGMA tree published in 1990 supported brown pelican as sister to a clade comprising all the white-plumaged pelicans analyzed, including American white pelican (although the relationships among the latter group differed).
With better genetic data and more modern methods, a new phylogenetic hypothesis of pelican relationships has arisen, which contrasts with the traditional view of brown and Peruvian being the most divergent pelicans based on their distinctive plumage and behavior (and early molecular data). Rather than the brown-plumaged pelicans and white-plumaged pelicans forming two reciprocally monophyletic groups, the American white pelican is sister to brown and Peruvian pelicans, the three together forming an exclusively New World pelican clade. (Among the other pelicans, pink-backed, Dalmatian, and spot-billed pelicans are close relatives, together sister to Australian pelican. Great white pelican has no particularly close relatives; while it may be sister to the previous four, this relationship had low statistical support.)
Description
The brown pelican is the smallest of the eight extant pelican species, but is often one of the larger seabirds in their range nonetheless. It measures 1 to 1.52 m (3 ft 3 in to 5 ft 0 in) in length and has a wingspan of 2.03 to 2.28 m (6 ft 8 in to 7 ft 6 in). The weight of adults can range from 2 to 5 kg (4.4 to 11.0 lb), about half the weight of the other pelicans found in the Americas, the Peruvian and American white pelicans. The average weight in Florida of 47 females was 3.17 kg (7.0 lb), while that of 56 males was 3.7 kg (8.2 lb). Like all pelicans, it has a very long bill, measuring 280 to 348 mm (11.0 to 13.7 in) in length.
The nominate subspecies in its breeding plumage has a white head with a yellowish wash on the crown. The nape and neck are dark maroon–brown. The upper sides of the neck have white lines along the base of the gular pouch, and the lower foreneck has a pale yellowish patch. The feathers at the center of the nape are elongated, forming short, deep chestnut crest feathers. It has a silvery gray mantle, scapulars, and upperwing coverts (feathers on the upper side of the wings), with a brownish tinge. The lesser coverts have dark bases, which gives the leading edge of the wing a streaky appearance. The uppertail coverts (feathers above the tail) are silvery white at the center, forming pale streaks. The median (between the greater and the lesser coverts), primary (connected to the distal forelimb), secondary (connected to the ulna), and greater coverts (feathers of the outermost, largest, row of upperwing coverts) are blackish, with the primaries having white shafts and the secondaries having variable silver-gray fringes. The tertials (feathers arising in the brachial region) are silver-gray with a brownish tinge. The underwing has grayish-brown remiges with white shafts to the outer primary feathers. The axillaries and covert feathers are dark, with a broad, silver–gray central area. The tail is dark gray with a variable silvery cast. The lower mandible is blackish, with a greenish-black gular pouch at the bottom for draining water when it scoops out prey. The breast and belly are dark, and the legs and feet black. It has a grayish white bill tinged with brown and intermixed with pale carmine spots. The crest is short and pale reddish-brown in color. The back, rump, and tail are streaked with gray and dark brown, sometimes with a rusty hue. The male and female are similar, but the female is slightly smaller. It is exceptionally buoyant due to the internal air sacks beneath its skin and in its bones. It is as graceful in the air as it is clumsy on land.
The nonbreeding adult has a white head and neck, and the pre-breeding adult has a creamy yellow head. The pink skin around the eyes becomes dull and gray in the non-breeding season. It lacks any red hue, and the pouch is strongly olivaceous ochre tinged and the legs are olivaceous gray to blackish-gray. It has pale blue to yellowish white irides which become brown during the breeding season. During courtship, the bill becomes pinkish red to pale orange, redder at the tip, and the pouch is blackish. Later in the breeding season the bill becomes pale ash-gray over most of the upper jaw and the basal third of the mandible.
The juvenile is similar, but is grayish-brown overall and has paler underparts. The head, neck, and thighs are dusky-brown, and the abdomen is dull white. The plumage of the male is similar to a fully adult female, although the male's head feathers are rather rigid. The tail and flight feathers are browner than those of the adult. It has short, brown upperwing coverts, which are often darker on greater coverts, and dull brownish-gray underwing coverts with a whitish band at the center. The irides are dark brown and the facial skin is bluish. It has a gray bill which is horn-yellow to orange near the tip, with a dark gray to pinkish-gray pouch. It acquires adult plumage at over 3 years of age, when the feathers on the neck become paler, the upperparts become striped, the greater upperwing and median coverts become grayer, and the belly acquires dark spots.
The brown pelican is readily distinguished from the American white pelican by its nonwhite plumage, smaller size, and habit of diving for fish from the air, as opposed to co-operative fishing from the surface. It and the Peruvian pelican are the only true marine pelican species.
The brown pelican produces a wide variety of harsh, grunting sounds, such as a low-pitched hrrraa-hrra, during displays. The adult also rarely emits a low croak, while young frequently squeal.
Distribution and habitat
The brown pelican lives on the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific Coasts in the Americas. On the Atlantic Coast, it is found from the New Jersey coast to the mouth of the Amazon River. Along the Pacific Coast, it is found from British Columbia to northern Peru, including the Galapagos Islands. After nesting, North American birds move in flocks further north along the coasts, returning to warmer waters for winter. In the non-breeding season, it is found as far north as Canada. It is a rare and irregular visitor south of Piura in Peru, where generally it is replaced by the Peruvian pelican, and can occur as a non-breeding visitor south at least to Ica during El Niño years. Small numbers of brown pelicans have been recorded from Arica in far northern Chile. It is fairly common along the coast of California, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, the West Indies, and many Caribbean islands as far south as Guyana. Along the Gulf Coast, it inhabits Alabama, Texas, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Mexico.
The brown pelican is a strictly marine species, primarily inhabiting marine subtidal, warm estuarine, and marine pelagic waters. It is also found in mangrove swamps, and prefers shallow waters, especially near salty bays and beaches. It avoids the open sea, seldom venturing more than 20 miles from the coast. Some immature birds may stray to inland freshwater lakes. Its range may also overlap with the Peruvian pelican in some areas along the Pacific coast of South America. It roosts on rocks, water, rocky cliffs, piers, jetties, sand beaches, and mudflats.
Migration
Most brown pelican populations are resident (nonmigratory) and dispersive (species moving from its birth site to its breeding site, or its breeding site to another breeding site). Some migration is observed, especially in the northern parts of the species's range, but these movements are often erratic, depending on local conditions.
While usually restricted to coastal regions, brown pelicans occasionally wander inland, and there are records of vagrant individuals across much of the interior of North America. The species also occasionally wanders along the coasts of the Americas outside its normal range, with vagrants reported as far north as Southeast Alaska and Newfoundland, as far south as central Chile (well into the range of the closely related Peruvian pelican), and as far east in South America as Alagoas. Rare inland vagrants, generally caused by hurricanes or El Niño phenomena, have been reported from the Colombian Andes. They were first recorded in July 2009 in the Interandean Valley, where they remained for at least 161 days. There are four records far inland in Amazônia Legal, along the Amazon River and its tributaries.
Behavior
The brown pelican is a very gregarious bird; it lives in flocks of both sexes throughout the year. In level flight, brown pelicans fly in groups, with their heads held back on their shoulders and their bills resting on their folded necks. They may fly in a V formation, but usually in regular lines or single file, often low over the water's surface. To exclude water from the nasal passage, they have narrower internal regions of the nostrils.
Feeding
The brown pelican is a piscivore, primarily feeding on fish. Menhaden may account for 90% of its diet, and the anchovy supply is particularly important to the brown pelican's nesting success. Other fish preyed on with some regularity includes pigfish, pinfish, herring, sheepshead, silversides, mullets, sardines, minnows, and topminnows. Brown pelicans residing in Southern California rely especially heavily on pacific sardine as a major food source which can compose up to 26% of their diet, making them one of the top three predators of sardines in the area. Non-fish prey includes crustaceans, especially prawns, and it occasionally feeds on amphibians and the eggs and nestlings of birds (egrets, common murres and its own species).
As the brown pelican flies at a maximum height of 18 to 21 m (60 to 70 ft) above the ocean, it can spot schools of fish while flying. When foraging, it dives bill-first like a kingfisher, often submerging completely below the surface momentarily as it snaps up prey. Besides its sister species, the Peruvian pelican, this is the only pelican to primarily forage via diving, all other extant pelican merely float on the waters' surface when foraging. Upon surfacing, it spills the water from its throat pouch before swallowing its catch. Only the Peruvian pelican shares this active foraging style (although that species never dives from such a great height), while other pelicans forage more inactively by scooping up corralled fish while swimming on the water surface. It is an occasional target of kleptoparasitism by other fish-eating birds such as gulls, skuas, and frigatebirds. They are capable of drinking saline water due to the high capacity of their salt glands to excrete salt.
Breeding
The brown pelican is a monogamous breeder within a breeding season, but does not pair for life. Nesting season peaks during March and April. The male chooses a nesting site and performs a display of head movements to attract a female. At the proposed nest site, major courtship displays such as head swaying, bowing, turning, and upright (standing on its legs without any support) are performed by both the sexes. They may also be accompanied by low raaa calls.
Once a pair forms a bond, overt communication between them is minimal. It is a colonial species, with some colonies maintained for many years. Probably owing to disturbance, tick infestation, or alteration in food supply, colonies frequently shift. It nests in secluded area, often on islands, vegetated spots among sand dunes, thickets of shrubs and trees, and in mangroves, although sometimes on cliffs, and less often in bushes or small trees. Nesting territories are clumped, as individual territories may be at a distance of just 1 m (3.3 ft) from each other. They are usually built by the female from reeds, leaves, pebbles, and sticks, and consist of feather-lined impressions protected with a 10 to 25 cm (3.9 to 9.8 in) rim of soil and debris. They are usually found 0.9 to 3 m (3 to 10 ft) above the ground. Renesting may occur if eggs are lost from the nest early in the breeding season.
There are usually two to three, or sometimes even four, oval eggs in a clutch, and only one brood is raised per year. The egg is chalky white, and can measure about 76 mm (3.0 in) in length and 51 mm (2.0 in) in width. Incubation takes 28 to 30 days with both sexes sharing duties, keeping the eggs warm by holding them on or under their webbed feet. It takes 28 to 30 days for the eggs to hatch, and about 63 days to fledge. After that, the juvenile leave the nest and gather into small groups known as pods. The newly hatched chicks are pink and weigh about 60 g (0.13 lb). Within 4 to 14 days, they turn gray or black. After that, they develop a coat of white, black or grayish down. Fledging success may be as high as 100% for the first hatched chick, 60% for the second chick, and just 6% for the third chick.
The parents regurgitate predigested food for the young to feed upon until they reach their fledging stage. After about 35 days, the young venture out of the nest by walking. The young start flying about 71 to 88 days after hatching. The adults remain with them until some time afterwards and continue to feed them. In the 8- to 10-month period during which they are cared for, the nestling pelicans are fed by regurgitated, partially digested food of around 70 kg (150 lb) of fish. The young reach sexual maturity (and full adult plumage) at anywhere from three to five years of age. A brown pelican has been recorded to have lived for over 31 years in captivity.
Predation is occasional at colonies, and predators of eggs and young (usually small nestlings are threatened but also occasionally up to fledgling size depending on the size of the predator) can include gulls, raptors (especially bald eagles), spiny-tailed iguanas, alligators, vultures, feral cats, feral dogs, raccoons, fish crows, and corvids. Predation is likely reduced if the colony is on an island. Although it is rare, bobcats have been documented eating both the offspring and injured adults. Predation on adult brown pelicans is rarely reported, but cases where they have fallen prey to bald eagles have been reported. Also, South American sea lions and unidentified large sharks have been observed to prey on adult brown pelicans by seizing them from beneath while the birds are sitting on ocean waters. The invasive red imported fire ant is known to prey on hatchlings. Like all pelicans, brown pelicans are highly sensitive to disturbances by humans (including tourists or fishermen) at their nests, and may even abandon their nests. Due to their size, non-nesting adults are rarely predated. Brown pelicans have several parasitic worms such as Petagiger, Echinochasmus, Phagicola longus, Mesostephanus appendiculatoides, Contracaecum multipapillatum, and Contracaecum bioccai, from its prey diet of black mullets, white mullets, and other fish species.
Relationship with humans
The brown pelican is now a staple of crowded coastal regions and is at some risk by fishermen (monofilament fishing line and hooks) and boaters. In the early twentieth century, hunting was a major cause of its death, and people still hunt adults for their feathers and collect eggs on the Caribbean coasts, in Latin America, and occasionally in the United States, even though it is protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.
Depictions in culture
The brown pelican is the national bird of Saint Martin, Barbados, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. In 1902, it was made a part of the official Louisiana seal and, in 1912, a pelican and her young became part of the Flag of Louisiana as well. One of Louisiana's state nicknames is "The Pelican State", and the brown pelican is the official state bird of Louisiana. It is one of the mascots of Tulane University, present on its seal, and is also present on the crest of the University of the West Indies. The National Basketball Association (NBA)'s New Orleans Pelicans are named in the honor of the brown pelican.
In the 1993 film The Pelican Brief, based on the novel of the same name by John Grisham, a legal brief speculates that the assassins of two supreme court justices were motivated by a desire to drill for oil on a Louisiana marshland that was a habitat of the endangered brown pelican. In the same year, Jurassic Park showed a pod of brown pelicans at the end of the film. In 1998, American conductor David Woodard performed a requiem for a California brown pelican on the seaward limit of the berm of a beach where the animal had fallen: 152–153 In the 2003 Disney/Pixar film Finding Nemo, a brown pelican (voiced by Geoffrey Rush in an Australian accent) was illustrated as a friendly, virtuous talking character named Nigel.
Since 1988, the brown pelican has been rated as least concern on the IUCN Red List of Endangered species based on its large range—greater than 20,000 km2 (7700 mi2)—and an increasing population trend. The population size is also well beyond the threshold for vulnerable species. The nominate race population is thought to number at least 290,000 in the West Indies, and 650,000 globally. In 1903, Theodore Roosevelt set aside Pelican Island, now known as Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, to solely protect the brown pelican from hunters.
Starting in the 1940s with the invention and extensive use of pesticides such as DDT, the brown pelican population had drastically declined due to a lack of breeding success. By the 1960s, it had almost disappeared along the Gulf Coast and, in southern California, it had suffered almost total reproductive failure, due to DDT usage in the United States. The brown pelican was listed under the United States Endangered Species Act from 1970 to 2009. A research group from the University of Tampa, headed by Ralph Schreiber, conducted research in Tampa Bay, and found that DDT caused the pelican eggshells to be too thin to support the embryo to maturity. In 1972, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) banned DDT usage in the United States and limited the use of other pesticides. There has been a decline in chemical contaminant levels in brown pelican eggs since then, and a corresponding increase in its nesting success. It became extinct in 1963 in Louisiana. Between 1968 and 1980, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries' reintroduction program re-established the brown pelican, and its population numbers in California and Texas were restored due to improved reproduction and natural recolonization of the species. By 1985, its population in the eastern United States, including Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, and northward along the Atlantic Coast, had recovered and the species was removed from the Endangered Species List. Its population has grown by about 68% per decade over a period of 40 years in North America, and this trend appears to be continuing. It is still listed as endangered in the Pacific Coast region of its range and in the southern and central United States. Although the United States Gulf Coast populations in Louisiana and Texas are still listed as endangered, they were recently estimated in 2009 about 12,000 breeding pairs. Since that time the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has adversely affected populations, and current population figures are not available.
The brown pelican abundance has steadily recovered from the drastic population decreases in the 1940s, however bottom up control threatens the Southern California populations as food sources become diminished. It is common for forage fish populations to experience regular fluctuations, however there has been a consistent decrease in the Pacific sardine population beginning as early as 2014. In 2019 these declines were found to have reached levels which were a mere 10% of the highest reported abundances. Fluctuations in sardine populations have largely been attributed to bottom-up control, primarily including climate variability and ocean temperature. The significant decrease in pacific sardine population can be linked to the levels of nitrogen within their habitat, a limiting factor in plankton production. Pacific sardines in the California current system rely on wind driven upwelling to push cooler, nitrogen rich waters towards the surface, maintaining a sustainable, nutrient abundant environment. Continued environmental disruptions, such as El Niño, rising ocean temperatures, and increased commercial fishing, have drastic effects on nutrient cycling within the California current system, leading to lasting impacts on Pacific sardine productivity and reproductive success.
The brown pelican has been predicted to have high vulnerability to declining sardine populations . At the lowest levels of sardine abundance, the brown pelican population has been predicted to decline up to 50%. Even with a more moderate decline in sardine abundance (50% relative abundance), brown pelicans have been predicted to decrease by up to 27%. A recent decline in brown pelican breeding success coincides with the population decline of the Pacific sardine. Between 2014 and 2016, brown pelicans experienced a continuous breeding failure. These breeding failures have been characterized by decreased numbers of pelicans arriving at nesting colonies, large scale abandonment and early migration due to an inability to feed hatchlings, and sub-optimal breeding by those who do attempt to breed. Breeding success is greatly reduced by oceanic anomalies, specifically warm-phase anomalies that increase the intensity of upwellings. Increased upwellings disrupt marine productivity and forage fish availability. These trends have important implications for the health and conservation of brown pelicans, as well as other seabirds.
Seabirds have become increasingly important as an indicator species. They are often used in order to indirectly track changes in fish stocks, ecosystem health, and climate change. Environmental changes tend to have fast acting impacts on marine bird populations due to the simplicity of their trophic cascade, allowing for complex, long term trends in ecosystem health and resources to be easily realized and tracked. Brown pelicans have proven to be a useful indicator in determining the effects of the well-established fishing industry in Southern California. Sardine fishery in the Gulf of California has been showing signs of overfishing since the early 1990s. Sardine population and abundance, however, is difficult to monitor and obtain indicators for. Since lacking food availability has negative implications for breeding success in seabirds, seabird diet, and breeding success have been used to indirectly measure the population status of the fish they feed on. This model has been shown to work using brown pelicans as an indicator species. As the proportion of sardines in the brown pelican's diet decreases, the success of fisheries declines to a lesser extent. When eventually the sardine abundance has declined enough for brown pelicans to move away and begin feeding on other forage fish, commercial fishing still would be fishing in significant numbers. This indicates that even when fisheries are not seeing signs of declining sardine abundance, brown pelicans may have already been affected to the point of locating other food sources. This availability of sardines may decline even further during El Niño anomalies, when thermoclines prevent brown pelicans from reaching their prey. Brown pelican diet will mostly indicate declines in sardine abundance for fisheries during the same season, as brown pelicans feed mostly on the same adult fish that are commercially fished. Although brown pelicans serve as an important indicator species for fisheries, declining sardine abundance due to both climate changes and overfishing have huge implications on overall ecosystem health, within or outside the individual trophic cascade.
This is the territorial display of a Brown Skua on the Falkland Islands. Brown Skua (Catharacta antarctica) goes by a confusing array of other names; Antarctic, Sub-Antarctic, Southern, Southern Great and Falkland Skua. The nominate subspecies antarctica breeds on the Falkland Islands and possibly on mainland South America. It differs from the Brown Skuas that occur on South Georgia and Antarctica by being a bit smaller but with proportionately shorter legs and a heavier bill. This individual is doing the "long call" display, showing off its wing flashes, which is a display common to all Skuas. I photographed this one on Carcass Island in the Falklands.
Nominated by Gaia.
And though i already did it, if Gaia asks me, i have to :D
But i do not have anymore to show of me at home, so this is all folks! :)
I like here that you can see i like animals, i was a goof (and let´s face it, still am), i could concentrate doing my thing since very little (normally drawing or something creative), I LOVE the beach (here enjoying my banana XD) , i was a bit of a tomboy, and i found my inspiration early in life LOL
And yeah yeah, i tag YOU!! (typical)
Spoil me showing me your baby pics!!!!
Instruction 35
1. Nominate something you are going to go out and hunt for - the more abstract the better
I went to a street festival for families with young children. I was hunting for kids doing funny things
2. Give yourself a time constraint
I had about 2 hours time this afternoon
3. Go out and start work
4. Ask yourself why everything else that you encounter is so much more engaging than what you are hunting for
The instruction or the event and place where I'm going has influence on my perception but beside this I shoot everything interesting crossing my path. Statement 4 is absolutely true for me.
5. Ask yourself whether the time constraint is a useful tool
Maybe useful for professionals. I'm amateur and have a non photography day job and a family life as well. Due to that my time is already limited.
- Richard Wentworth
One more shot of the Mecanoo designed, RIBA Stirling Prize nominated Library of Birmingham interior before I move on. This is the glass lift that goes up to the very top floor, unfortunately for both of my visits the lift was out of action......
Click here for more photos of this building : www.flickr.com/photos/darrellg/sets/72157642094938354
From Wikipedia : "The Library of Birmingham is a public library in Birmingham, England. It is situated on the west side of the city centre at Centenary Square, beside the Birmingham Rep (to which it connects, and with which it shares some facilities) and Baskerville House. Upon opening on 3 September 2013, it replaced Birmingham Central Library. The library, which is estimated to have cost £188.8 million, is viewed by the Birmingham City Council as a flagship project for the city's redevelopment. It has been described as the largest public library in the United Kingdom, the largest public cultural space in Europe, and the largest regional library in Europe."
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White-throated Canary. Photographed at Augrabies Falls, South Africa on 3 February 2011. Nominate subspecies albogularis.
1. Nominate something you are going to go out and hunt for - the more abstract the better
I went out looking for "sinister"
2. Give yourself a time constraint
Sunday evening was my only chance to go out to play this week
3. Go out and start work
This I did, but being an absolute amateur numpty I managed to go out with a flat camera battery (doh!) so my new time constraint became the 15% of battery left on my Iphone
4. Ask yourself why everything else that you encounter is so much more engaging than what you are hunting for
I didn't encounter anything I found remotely sinister but was distracted by the textures of this metal bridge...so decided to try (with the dying embers of phone-life) to create something sinister-ish, using the distraction. Not madly happy with the result, but thought I should stick to the rules, otherwise what's the point? :)
5. Ask yourself whether the time constraint is a useful tool
Not for novices...when you're just starting out I think you need time to explore and experiment. (By the way, lesson learned re. batteries, before anyone chastises me too severely!)
- Richard Wentworth
Dutch postcard, 1947.
American actress Teresa Wright (1918-2005) was nominated twice for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress: in 1941 for her debut work in The Little Foxes, and in 1942 for Mrs. Miniver, winning for the latter. That same year, she received a nomination for the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance in The Pride of the Yankees (1942), opposite Gary Cooper. She is also known for her performances in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives (1946).
Muriel Teresa Wright was born in 1918, in Harlem, New York City. She was the daughter of Martha (née Espy) and Arthur Hendricksen Wright, an insurance agent. Her parents separated when she was young. She grew up in Maplewood, New Jersey, where she attended Columbia High School. After seeing Helen Hayes star in 'Victoria Regina' at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York City in 1936, Wright took an interest in acting and began playing leading roles in school plays. She earned a scholarship to the Wharf Theater in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where she was an apprentice for two summers. Following her high school graduation in 1938, she went to New York, shortened her name to Teresa Wright, and was hired as understudy to Dorothy McGuire and Martha Scott for the role of Emily in Thornton Wilder's stage production of 'Our Town' at Henry Miller's Theatre. She took over the role when Scott left for Hollywood to film the on-screen version of the play. In autumn 1939, Wright began a two-year appearance in the stage play 'Life with Father', playing the role of Mary Skinner. It was there that she was discovered by Samuel Goldwyn, who came to see her in the show she had been appearing in for almost a year. Goldwyn immediately hired the young actress for the role of Bette Davis' daughter in the adaptation of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes (William Wyler, 1941), signing her to a five-year Hollywood contract with the Goldwyn Studios.
In 1941, Teresa Wright was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her film début in The Little Foxes. The following year, she was nominated again, this time for Best Actress for The Pride of the Yankees (Sam Wood, 1943), in which she played opposite Gary Cooper as the wife of Lou Gehrig. That same year, she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress as the daughter-in-law of Greer Garson's character in the American romantic war drama Mrs. Miniver (William Wyler, 1942). Wright is the first out of only nine players who have been nominated in both categories in the same year. Her three Academy Award nominations and one Academy Award in her first three films are unique. She remains the only performer to have received Oscar nominations for her first three films. In 1943, Wright appeared in the acclaimed Universal film Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock, 1943), playing an innocent young woman who discovers her beloved uncle (Joseph Cotten) is a serial murderer. Hitchcock thought Wright was one of the most intelligent actors he had worked with, and through his direction brought out her vivacity, warmth, and youthful idealism—characteristics uncommon in Hitchcock's heroines. In 1946, Wright delivered another notable performance in The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler, 1946), an award-winning film about the adjustments of servicemen returning home after World War II. Four years later, she would appear in another story of war veterans, Fred The Men (Fred Zinnemann, 1950), which starred Marlon Brando in his film début. In 1947, Wright appeared in the Western Pursued (Raoul Walsh, 1947), opposite Robert Mitchum. The moody "Freudian Western" was written by her first husband Niven Busch. The following year, she starred with David Niven, Farley Granger, and Evelyn Keyes in Enchantment (Irving Reis, 1948), a story of two generations of lovers in parallel romances. Wright received glowing reviews for her performance. In December 1948, after rebelling against the studio system that brought her fame, Teresa Wright had a public falling out with Samuel Goldwyn, which resulted in the cancellation of Wright's contract with his studio.
In the 1950s, Teresa Wright appeared in several unsuccessful films, including The Capture (John Sturges, 1950), Something to Live For (George Stevens, 1952), California Conquest (Lew Landers, 1952), the Film Noir The Steel Trap (Andrew L. Stone, 1952) with Joseph Cotten, Count the Hours (Don Siegel, 1953), the comedy-drama The Actress (George Cukor, 1953), and the Western Track of the Cat (William A. Wellman, 1954), opposite Robert Mitchum again. Despite the poor box-office showing of these films, Wright was usually praised for her performances. Toward the end of the decade, Wright began to work more frequently in television and theatre. She received Emmy Award nominations for her performances in the Playhouse 90 original television version of The Miracle Worker (Arthur Penn, 1957) and in the Breck Sunday Showcase feature The Margaret Bourke-White Story (Alex March, 1960). In 1955 she played Doris Walker in The 20th Century-Fox Hour remake of the classic film, Miracle on 34th Street (George Seaton, 1947), opposite MacDonald Carey and Thomas Mitchell. In the 1960s, Wright returned to the New York stage appearing in three plays: 'Mary, Mary' (1962) at the Helen Hayes Theatre in the role of Mary McKellaway, 'I Never Sang for My Father' (1968) at the Longacre Theatre in the role of Alice, and 'Who's Happy Now?' (1969) at the Village South Theatre in the role of Mary Hallen. During this period, she also toured throughout the United States in stage productions of 'Mary, Mary' (1962), 'Tchin-Tchin' (1963) in the role of Pamela Pew-Picket, and 'The Locksmith' (1965) in the role of Katherine Butler Hathaway. In addition to her stage work, Wright made numerous television appearances throughout the decade, including episodes for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1964), Bonanza (1964), The Defenders (1964, 1965), and Playhouse (1969).
In 1975, Teresa Wright appeared in the Broadway revival of 'Death of a Salesman', and in 1980, appeared in the revival of 'Morning's at Seven', for which she won a Drama Desk Award as a member of the Outstanding Ensemble Performance. In 1989, she received her third Emmy Award nomination for her performance in the drama series Dolphin Cove. Her last television role was in an episode of the drama series Picket Fences (1996). Wright's later film appearances included a major role in Somewhere in Time (Jeannot Szwarc, 1980), the role of the grandmother in The Good Mother (Leonard Nimoy, 1988) with Diane Keaton, and the role of Miss Birdie in John Grisham's The Rainmaker (Francis Ford Coppola, 1997), with Matt Damon and Danny DeVito. In her last decade, Wright lived quietly in her New England home in the town of Bridgewater, Connecticut, in Litchfield County, appearing occasionally at film festivals and forums and at events associated with the New York Yankees. In 1996, she reminisced about Alfred Hitchcock at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, and in 2003, she appeared on the Academy Awards show in a segment honoring previous Oscar-winners. Teresa Wright died in 2005, of a heart attack at Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut at the age of 86. She is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in New Haven. Wright was married to writer Niven Busch from 1942 to 1952. They had two children: a son, Niven Terence Busch (1944); and a daughter, Mary-Kelly Busch (1947). She married playwright Robert Anderson in 1959. They divorced in 1978 but maintained a close relationship until the end of her life. In 2016, 'A Girl's Got To Breathe: The Life of Teresa Wright', by Donald Spoto, was published in February 2016.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
please nominate me! It'd mean the world. I was just informed that there is a contest called 20 under 20 going on. I'm 19 so my time is running out to do something like this. go to this webpage and nominate me at the bottom. I've been on flickr since 2010. Four years of hard work. Seriously I care so much about this website. I've posted almost 2,000 images. I love this community.
Haematopus fuliginosus (Nominate race). Seen at Mushroom Reef Marine Sanctuary, Flinders, Victoria.
DSC_5519_00001
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3914/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Kiesel, Berlin.
Yugoslav film actress and beauty queen Ita Rina (1907-1979) was one of the major film stars in Germany and Czechoslovakia in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
Ita Rina was born as Italina Lida ‘Ida’ Kravanja in the small town of Divača (then Austro-Hungarian Empire, later Yugoslavia, now Slovenia) in 1907. She was the first daughter of Jožef and Marija Kravanja. Rina had a younger sister Danica. Shortly after the outbreak of World War I, the family moved to Ljubljana, where Rina matriculated in 1923. Her dream was to become an actress. In October 1926, Slavic People magazine organized a beauty pageant for a Miss to represent Yugoslavia at the Miss Europe contest. The attractive nineteen-year-old secretly entered the beauty contest, not telling anyone at home. She was crowned Miss Slovenia and should travel to the final event for Miss Yugoslavia in Zagreb. However, her mother did not want to let her go to Zagreb. After a group visit of the Slovenian delegation, Marija Kravanja slacked. Unfortunately, when Rina arrived in Zagreb, the jury was already choosing the most beautiful of three finalists. However, she was noticed by Adolf Müller, the owner of Balkan Palace cinema in Zagreb. He sent her photographs to German film producer Peter Ostermayer, who invited her to come to Germany. As her mother did not want to let her go to Berlin, Rina ran away from home and arrived in Berlin in 1927. After her first audition, she had classes in acting, diction, dancing, driving, and riding. She made her film debut in the leading role in Was die Kinder ihren Eltern verschweigen/What Do Children Hide from Their Parents (Franz Osten, 1927) with Mary Johnson. Ita Rina was actually a model of fulfilled dreams of glory and success in film. After some small film roles in 1927 and 1928, the critics noticed her in Das letzte Souper/The Last Supper (Mario Bonnard, 1928) starring Marcella Albani. That same year, Rina met her future husband Miodrag Đorđević, a student. Her big breakthrough came the following year, opposite Olaf Fjord in Erotikon/Seduction (1929), directed by Gustav Machatý. She was starring in the leading female role, Andrea. The film was a great success but also upset some moral and Christian organizations. Robert J. Maxwell at IMDb loved Rina’s performance: “She's a beauty by any metric. Her eyes are slanted and large. When she's excited, the irises are surrounded entirely by the whites. I can't do that. I just tried it in the mirror. And her nose is exquisite. It begins between her eyebrows, disregarding the usual need for a glabella, and cleaves her features in two. That nose is magnetic, exactly the right size for nibbling.”
In 1930, Ita Rina acted in three films, the most notable being the first talking Czech film Tonka Šibenice/Gallows Toni (Karl Anton, 1930). The title part in this film is often named her best role. In 1931, she married Miodrag Đorđević, and changed her religion from Roman Catholic to Serbian Orthodox. Rina was baptised in the Russian Orthodox Church, and also got her new Orthodox name, Tamara Đorđević. Now at the height of her career, she earned 15,000 marks per month and was an idol to teenagers as well as modern emancipated women.
The same year, Rina was given an offer from Hollywood, but her husband forced her to choose between her career and their marriage; Rina chose to stay with him. Although she had announced her retirement from the cinema, she acted until the outbreak of World War II. Her last film appearance was in the crime drama Zentrale Rio/Central Rio (Erich Engels, 1939) co-starring Leny Marenbach and Camilla Horn. Rina and her husband settled in Belgrade. In 1940, she gave birth to their son Milan. After the bombing of Belgrade in 1941, the family moved to Vrnjačka Banja, where Rina gave birth to a daughter, Tijana. They moved back to Belgrade after the end of World War II in 1945. Although she was promised several roles in Yugoslav films, all projects were cancelled. After she had written to President Tito, Rina began working as a co-production advisor in Avala Film. She returned to the silver screen once, in the Science-Fiction drama Rat/Atomic War Bride (Veljko Bulajić, 1960). The film, which deals with the horrors of the atomic weapon era, won three Golden Arena awards at the 1960 Pula Film Festival, including for Best Director (Veljko Bulajić), Best Actor (Antun Vrdoljak) and Best Scenography (Duško Jeričević), and was nominated for the Golden Lion award at the 1960 Venice Film Festival. It was her last role. As she was ill of asthma, Rina and her husband moved to Budva (then Yugoslavia, now Montenegro) in 1967. There, she was taking care of her husband, who was ill of sclerosis. Ita Rina died in 1979 in Budva of an asthmatic attack. She was buried a few days later in Belgrade, in the presence of numerous film artists, admirers, friends, and family. A few years ago, the Slovenian Cinematheque mounted a permanent exhibition of the actress’s photos and posters at the Škrjateljnova domačija, the house where she was born. The Slovenian Cinematheque also marked the recent centennial of her birth by reprinting a monograph on her life and work, now in an extended edition complete with English translations.
Sources: Slovenia.si, Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Italian postcard by Max. Photo: DD&E / Peter Schroeder.
American film actor Paul Newman (1925-2008) was a matinee idol with the most famous blue eyes of Hollywood, who often played detached yet charismatic anti-heroes and rebels. He was nominated for nine acting Academy Awards in five different decades and won the Oscar for The Color of Money (1986). He was also a prominent social activist, a major proponent of actors' creative rights, and a noted philanthropist.
Paul Leonard Newman was born in 1925, in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. He was the second son of Arthur Sigmund Newman and Theresa Fetsko. His father was a Jewish businessman who owned a successful sporting goods store. His mother was a practicing Christian Scientist with an interest in the creative arts, and it rubbed off on her son. At age 10, he performed in a stage production of 'Saint George and the Dragon' at the Cleveland Play House. He also acted in high school plays. By 1950, the 25-year-old Newman had been kicked out of Ohio University, where he belonged to the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity, for unruly behavior (denting the college president's car with a beer keg), served three years in the United States Navy during World War II as a radio operator, graduated from Ohio's Kenyon College, married his first wife, actress Jacqueline "Jackie" Witte, and had his first child, Scott. That same year, his father died. When he became successful in later years, Newman said if he had any regrets it would be that his father was not around to witness his success. He brought Jackie back to Shaker Heights and he ran his father's store for a short period. Then, knowing that wasn't the career path he wanted to take, he sold his interest in the store to his brother and moved with Jackie and Scott to New Haven, Connecticut. There he attended Yale University's School of Drama. While doing a play there, Newman was spotted by two agents, who invited him to come to New York City to pursue a career as a professional actor. After moving to New York, he acted in guest spots for various television series, and in 1953 came a big break. He got the part of understudy of the lead role in the successful Broadway play 'Picnic' by William Inge. Through this play, he met actress Joanne Woodward, who was also an understudy in the play. While they got on very well and there was a strong attraction, Newman was married and his second child, Susan, was born that year. During this time, Newman was accepted into the much admired and popular New York Actors Studio, although he did not actually audition. In 1954, a film Newman was very reluctant to do was released, the failed costume drama The Silver Chalice (Victor Saville, 1954). He considered his performance in this costume epic to be so bad that he took out a full-page ad in Variety apologising for it to anyone who might have seen it. He immediately wanted to return to the stage, and performed in 'The Desperate Hours'. In 1956, he got the chance to redeem himself in the film world by portraying boxer Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me (Robert Wise, 1956) with Pier Angeli. The role of Rocky was originally awarded to James Dean, who died before filming began. Critics praised Newman's performance. Dean also was signed to play Billy the Kid in The Left Handed Gun (Arthur Penn, 1958), but that role was also inherited by Newman after Dean's death. With a handful of films to his credit, he was cast in The Long, Hot Summer (1958), an acclaimed adaptation of a pair of William Faulkner short stories. His co-star was Joanne Woodward. During the shooting of this film, they realised they were meant to be together and by now, so did his then-wife Jackie, who gave Newman a divorce. He and Woodward wed in Las Vegas in January 1958. They went on to have three daughters together. They raised them in Westport, Connecticut. In 1959, Newman received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Brooks, 1958), based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Tennessee Williams. Well-received by both critics and audiences, Cat on Hot Tin Roof was MGM's most successful release of 1958 and became the third highest-grossing film of that year.
Paul Newman traveled back to Broadway to star in Tennessee Williams' 'Sweet Bird of Youth'. Upon his return to the West Coast, he bought himself out of his Warner Bros. contract before starring in the smash From the Terrace (Mark Robson, 1960) with Joanne Woodward. Exodus (Otto Preminger, 1960), another major hit, quickly followed. The 1960s would bring Paul Newman into superstar status, as he became one of the most popular actors of the decade. In 1961, he played one of his most memorable roles as pool shark "Fast" Eddie Felson in The Hustler (Robert Rossen, 1961) with Jackie Gleason and Piper Laurie. It garnered him the first of three Best Actor Oscar nominations during the decade. The other two were for the Western Hud (Marin Ritt, 1963), and the superb chain-gang drama Cool Hand Luke (Jack Smight, 1967). He also appeared in the political thriller Torn Curtain (Alfred Hitchcock, 1966) with Julie Andrews. The film, set in the Cold War, is about an American scientist who appears to defect behind the Iron Curtain to East Germany. Other minor hits were the mystery Harper (Jack Smight, 1966), with Lauren Bacall, and the Western Hombre (Martin Ritt, 1967), based on the novel by Elmore Leonard and co-starring Fredric March. In 1968, his debut directorial effort Rachel, Rachel (Paul Newman, 1968) was given good marks. He directed three actors to Oscar nominations: Joanne Woodward (Best Actress, Rachel, Rachel (1968)), Estelle Parsons (Best Supporting Actress, Rachel, Rachel (1968)), and Richard Jaeckel (Best Supporting Actor, Sometimes a Great Notion (1971)). Newman won a Golden Globe Award for his direction of Rachel, Rachel (1968). 1969 brought the popular screen duo of Newman and Robert Redford together for the first time when Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill, 1969) was released. It was a box office smash. Through the 1970s, Newman had hits and misses from such popular films The Sting (George Roy Hill, 1973) with Robert Redford, which won the 1973 Best Picture Oscar, and the star-studded disaster epic The Towering Inferno (John Guillermin, 1974), to lesser-known films as the Western The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (Robert Altman, 1972) with Jacqueline Bisset, to a cult classic, the sports comedy Slap Shot (George Roy Hill, 1977) with Michael Ontkean. In 1978, Newman's only son, Scott, died of a drug overdose. After Scott's death, Newman's personal life and film choices moved in a different direction.
Paul Newman's acting work in the 1980s and on is what is often most praised by critics today. He became more at ease with himself and it was evident in The Verdict (Sidney Lumet, 1982) with Charlotte Rampling, for which he received his sixth Best Actor Oscar nomination. In 1987, he finally received his first Oscar for The Color of Money (Marin Scorsese, 1986) with Tom Cruise, almost thirty years after Woodward had won hers. Friend and director of Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), Robert Wise accepted the award on Newman's behalf as the actor did not attend the ceremony. Previously, Newman had been nominated as the same character in The Hustler (Robert Rossen, 1961). In total, he was nominated for the Oscar nine times: Best Lead Actor for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Brooks, 1958), The Hustler (Robert Rossen, 1961), Hud (Marin Ritt, 1963), Cool Hand Luke (Stuart Rosenberg, 1967), Absence of Malice (Sydney Pollack, 1981), The Verdict (Sidney Lumet, 1982), The Color of Money (Martin Scorsese, 1986), Nobody's Fool (Robert Benton, 1994)) and finally for Best Supporting Actor in Road to Perdition (Sam Mendes, 2002). In 1994 Newman also played alongside Tim Robbins as the character Sidney J. Mussburger in the Coen Brothers comedy The Hudsucker Proxy. Films were not the only thing on his mind during this period. A passionate race car driver since the early 1970s (despite being color-blind), he was a co-founder of Newman-Haas racing in 1982. He also founded 'Newman's Own', a line of food products, featuring mainly spaghetti sauces and salad dressings. The company made more than $100 million in profits over the years, all of which he donated to various charities. He also started The Hole in the Wall Gang Camps, an organization for children with serious illness. He was as well known for his philanthropic ways and highly successful business ventures as he was for his legendary actor status. Newman's marriage to Woodward lasted a half-century. Connecticut was their primary residence after leaving Hollywood and moving East in 1960. Renowned for his sense of humor, in 1998 he quipped that he was a little embarrassed to see his salad dressing grossing more than his films. During his later years, he still attended races, was much involved in his charitable organisations, and in 2006, he opened a restaurant called Dressing Room, which helps out the Westport Country Playhouse, a place in which Newman took great pride. In 2003, Newman appeared in a Broadway revival of Thornton Wilder's 'Our Town', receiving his first Tony Award nomination for his performance. The animated Disney-Pixar comedy Cars (John Lasseter, 2006) was his final film. It was the highest-grossing film of his career. In 2007, while the public was largely unaware of the serious illness from which he was suffering, Newman made some headlines when he said he was losing his invention and confidence in his acting abilities and that acting was "pretty much a closed book for me". A smoker for many years, Paul Newman died in 2008, aged 83, from lung cancer. With his first wife Jackie, he had three children, Scott, Stephanie, and Susan. Susan Kendall Newman is well known for stage acting and her philanthropic activities. His three daughters with Joanne Woodward are actress Melissa Newman, Nell Potts, and Claire Newman. Nine years after Paul Newman's death, he reprised his role as Doc Hudson in Cars 3 (2017): unused recordings from Cars (2006) were used as new dialogue.
Sources: Tom McDonough/Robert Sieger (IMDb), Jason Ankeny (AllMovie), AllMovie, Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Day2: #FiveDayBlackAndWhiteChallenge
My friends Dr. Kalpesh Jain, Mahendra Shah & hubby dearest Chittaranjan Desai have roped me into this.
The rules are: post one B&W photo per day for the next 5 days, using the hash tag and tagging one new person each of those five days to continue the challenge #FiveDayBlackAndWhiteChallenge.
I shall nominate Tejal Bhatt & Zankhna Shah on my first day.
Iceland is on two separate Tectonic Plates; the American & the European. They are shifting away from each other by 20 mm every year. This causes huge widening rifts in many parts of the country & results into extensive geo-thermal & volcanic activity.
British postcard by De Reszke Cigarettes, no. 19 (of a series of 24 cards).
English gentleman-actor Ronald Colman (1891-1958) was a top box office draw in Hollywood films throughout the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. ‘The Man with the velvet voice’ was nominated for four Academy Awards. In 1948 he finally won the Oscar for his splendid portrayal of a tormented actor in A Double Life (1947).
Ronald Charles Colman was born in 1891 in Richmond, England. He was the fifth of six children of silk importer Charles Colman and his wife Marjory Read Fraser. Ronald was educated at a boarding school in Littlehampton, where he discovered he enjoyed acting. When Ronald was 16 his father died of pneumonia, putting an end to the boy's plans to attend Cambridge and become an engineer. He went to work as a shipping clerk at the British Steamship Company. He also became a well-known amateur actor and was a member of the West Middlesex Dramatic Society (1908-1909). In 1909, he joined the London Scottish Regiment, a territorial army force, and he was sent to France at the outbreak of World War I. Colman took part in the First Battle of Ypres and was severely wounded at the battle at Messines in Belgium. The shrapnel wounds he took to his legs invalided him out of active service. In May 1915, decorated, discharged and depressed, he returned home with a limp that he would attempt to hide throughout the rest of his acting career. He tried to enter the consular service, but a chance encounter got him a small role in the London play The Maharanee of Arakan (1916). He dropped other plans and concentrated on the theatre. Producers soon noted the young actor with his striking good looks, rich voice and rare dignity, and Colman was rewarded with a succession of increasingly prominent parts. He worked with stage greats Gladys Cooper and Gerald du Maurier. He made extra money appearing in films like the two-reel silent comedy The Live Wire (Cecil Hepworth, 1917). The set was an old house with a negligible budget, and Colman doubled as the leading character and prop man. The film was never released though. Other silent British films were The Snow of the Desert (Walter West, 1919) with Violet Hopson and Stewart Rome, and The Black Spider (William Humphrey, 1920) with Mary Clare. The negatives of all of Colman's early British films have probably been destroyed during the 1941 London Blitz. After a brief courtship, he married actress Thelma Raye in 1919. The marriage was in trouble almost from the beginning. The two separated in 1923 but were not divorced until 1934.
In 1920 Ronald Colman set out for New York in hopes of finding greater fortune there than in war-depressed England. His American film debut was in the tawdry melodrama Handcuffs or Kisses? (George Archainbaud, 1920). He toured with Robert Warwick in 'The Dauntless Three', and subsequently toured with Fay Bainter in 'East is West'. After two years of impoverishment, he was cast in the Broadway hit play 'La Tendresse' (1922). Director Henry King spotted him and cast him as Lillian Gish's leading man in The White Sister (Henry King, 1923), filmed in Italy. The romantic tear-jerker was wildly popular and Colman was quickly proclaimed a new film star. This success led to a contract with prominent independent film producer Samuel Goldwyn, and in the following ten years, he became a very popular silent film star in both romantic and adventure films. Among his most successful films for Goldwyn were The Dark Angel (George Fitzmaurice, 1925) with Hungarian actress Vilma Bánky, Stella Dallas (Henry King, 1926), the Oscar Wilde adaptation Lady Windermere's Fan (Ernst Lubitsch, 1925) and The Winning of Barbara Worth (Henry King, 1926) with Gary Cooper. Colman's dark hair and eyes and his athletic and riding ability led reviewers to describe him as a ‘Valentino type’. He was often cast in similar, exotic roles. The film that cemented this position as a top star was Beau Geste (Herbert Brenon, 1926), Paramount's biggest hit of 1926. It was the rousing tale of three brothers (Colman, Neil Hamilton and Ralph Forbes), who join the Foreign Legion to escape the law. Beau Geste was full of mystery, desert action, intrigue and above all, brotherly loyalty. Colman's gentlemanly courage and quiet strength were showcased to perfection in the role of the oldest brother, Beau. The film is still referred to as possibly the greatest Foreign Legion film ever produced. Towards the end of the silent era, Colman was teamed again with Vilma Bánky under Samuel Goldwyn. The two would make a total of five films together and their popularity rivalled that of Greta Garbo and John Gilbert.
Although Ronald Colman was a huge success in silent films, with the coming of sound, his extraordinarily beautiful speaking voice made him even more important to the film industry. His first major talkie success was in 1930 when he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for two roles - Condemned (Wesley Ruggles, 1929) with Lily Damita, and Bulldog Drummond (F. Richard Jones, 1929) with Joan Bennett. Thereafter he played a number of sophisticated, noble characters with enormous aplomb such as Clive of India (Richard Boleslawski, 1935) with Colin Clive, but he also swashbuckled expertly when called to do so in films like The Prisoner of Zenda (John Cromwell, 1937) with Madeleine Carroll. A falling out with Goldwyn in 1934 prompted Colman to avoid long-term contracts for the rest of his career. He became one of just a handful of top stars to successfully freelance, picking and choosing his assignments and studios. His notable films included the Charles Dickens adaptation A Tale of Two Cities (Jack Conway, 1935), the poetic classic Lost Horizon (Frank Capra, 1937), and If I Were King (Frank Lloyd, 1938) with Basil Rathbone as vagabond poet Francois Villon. During the war, he made two of his very best films - Talk of the Town (George Stevens, 1942) with Cary Grant and Jean Arthur, and the romantic tearjerker Random Harvest (Mervyn LeRoy, 1942), as an amnesiac victim, co-starring with the luminous Greer Garson. For his role in A Double Life (George Cukor, 1947), an actor playing Othello who comes to identify with the character, he won both the Golden Globe for Best Actor in 1947 and the Best Actor Oscar in 1948. Colman made many guest appearances on The Jack Benny Program on the radio, alongside his second wife, British stage and screen actress Benita Hume. Their comedy work as Benny's next-door neighbours led to their own radio comedy The Halls of Ivy from 1950 to 1952, and then on television from 1954 to 1955. Incidentally, he appeared in films, such as the romantic comedy Champagne for Caesar (Richard Whorf, 1950), and his final film The Story of Mankind (Irwin Allen, 1957) with Hedy Lamarr. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "a laughably wretched extravaganza from which Colman managed to emerge with his dignity and reputation intact." Ronald Colman died in 1958, aged 67, from a lung infection in Santa Barbara, California. He was survived by Benita Hume, and their daughter Juliet Benita Colman (1944). In 1975, Juliet published the biography 'Ronald Colman: A Very Private Person'.
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Jim Beaver (IMDb), Julie Stowe (The Ronald Colman Pages), Encyclopaedia Britannica, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Singapore National Day Parade
The Singapore National Day Parade (NDP) is an annual parade held in the city-state of Singapore. Held annually on 9 August, it is the main public celebration of National Day, and was first held on 9 August 1966 to mark the one-year anniversary of the Proclamation of Singapore.
In recent years, the parade has usually been held at either The Padang, or The Float at Marina Bay. In the past, it was held at the former National Stadium.
History
A scene from the National Day Parade, 1968, with a contingent from the People's Association in front.
The flag of Singapore set up alongside pavements across the country
Singapore celebrated its first National Day as an independent nation in 1966, one year after Singapore's separation from Malaysia on 9 August 1965.
The inaugural National Day Parade was started in the morning at 9:00 a.m. that day. However, people came as early as 7:00 a.m. in order to get good vantage points. Singapore's first President, Yusof bin Ishak and Singapore's first Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, were seated with members of the government at the grandstand on the steps of City Hall. When the parade began, six military contingents (including the Singapore Infantry Regiment, Singapore People's Defense Force, the Volunteer Naval Reserve and PDF-Sea and the then Republic of Singapore Police), a mobile column from the SIR, and various schools and civil contingents marched past City Hall and then into the city streets. Three military bands accompanied the parade inspection and later the march past with military music. The Singapore Fire Brigade also took part in this first parade with its firetrucks included in the mobile column. Rounding it all was a massed lion and dragon dance performance from drum and dragon troupes nationwide.
In 1967, the contingents increased to 76, including those of the then established Singapore Armed Forces, the RSP and more cultural groups, with the addition of more civil marching groups.[ The reason is partly due to the introduction of the National Service program in the military and police forces, and later extended to the Fire Brigade (Renamed to Singapore Fire Services in the 1980s). Street performances by various groups and choirs also debuted in that year's parade. The 1968 parade, although held on a rainy morning that surprised even the marching contingents and the dignitaries, saw the first ground performances on the Padang as the weather improved - a prelude to today's show performances. 1969's parade, the one where the Mobile Column made its first drivepast, commemorated the 150th year of the city's founding and had Princess Alexandra of the UK as principal guest.
The fifth NDP edition in 1970 introduced the Flypast of the State Flag and the Republic of Singapore Air Force Flypast, as well as the combat simulation performance by Singapore Army personnel was one of the new highlights for that year.
The 1971 NDP included iconic mobile parade floats from various organizations, 1973 was the first parade to be held from late-afternoon to early-evening time in order to promote the parade with better attendance and marked the official debut of the 1st Commando Battalion. Parade of 1974 was broadcast for the first time in full colour, after such television broadcasts was introduced for the first time a month prior on 7 July.
In 1975, to commemorate the Decennial anniversary of independence, the Parade was, for the first time, decentralized into 13 parade venues for more public participation. Almost all of the venues lasted for an hour and all of them even had route marches on the streets to the participating venues.
By the time the NDP was held at the National Stadium (for the first time) in 1976, the NDP Guard of Honour, composed of officers and personnel of the SAF and the Singapore Police Force made its first appearance, followed after the parade proper by the very first evening presentations by various groups, a prelude to future evening NDPs in 1980 and from 1984 onward. The 1975 parade dance performers were mostly female students from the country's schools, since that year marked the start of the United Nations Decade for Women. 1977's parade was a decentralized event like two years before (and like 1968's was affected by wet weather) while 1978 returned to Padang. 1979's parade saw another decentralized site, this time being held in many high schools and sports stadiums nationwide. The decentralized format would later be used until 1983, which was the final time NDP was held in multiple venues until 2020.
The 15th installment in 1980 was the first parade to introduce the feu de joie of the Guard-of-Honour contingents. The following year, SPF Civil Defense Command, presently the Singapore Civil Defense Force, later combined with the SFS in 1989, made its inaugural appearance, followed by the SCDF in 1982. The 1981 parade was held in both Jurong and Queenstown Sports Stadiums for further increase public attendance and participation in the celebrations. In 1982, the parade returned at Padang, marking the first time the mobile column drove past after the marchpast had concluded, thus making it a predecessor to the parades at the Padang from 1995 onward, once every five years.
The 1984 installment featured many firsts in commemoration with the Singapore's Silver Jubilee of self-governance, which for the first time, introduced a theme song "Stand Up for Singapore", and included a bigger Mobile Column, the first appearance of the popular Silent Precision Drill Squad from the Singapore Armed Forces Military Police Command and the first evening fireworks display.
The 1986 edition was the first parade held in the late evening, and the first to use flashlights for audience use. Other introductions were featured over the years such as the first appearance of the massed military bands of the SAF (1987), the card stunt (1988), and the Red Lions parachute team and the daylight fireworks (1989). In 1989, the parade was held in the afternoon but the 1991 edition returned to the evening format used since 1986.
In 1993, interactive participation by the public debuted in that year's edition to increase public participation and awareness of the parade as an important part of Singaporean life and as a symbol of national unity and identity. In 1997, a National Education Show was also introduced where Primary Five students from a selected number of schools attended in one of the rehearsals.
In 2003, due to overcrowding of tickets, the electronic voting ticketing system was introduced as a countermeasure, and a ballot was conducted where citizens stand a chance at winning the tickets by registering their e-mail addresses or mobile numbers such as the NDP websites or phone lines.
On 16 October 2005, it was announced that due to the planned closure and replacement of the National Stadium as part of the Singapore Sports Hub project, that the 2007 NDP would move to The Float at Marina Bay—a temporary 27,000-seat grandstand and 130 m × 100 m (330 ft) (430 ft × 330 ft) floating platform in Marina Bay. Despite offering a seating capacity almost less than half the capacity of the National Stadium, there was a vast area for approximately 150,000 additional spectators along the Marina Bay waterfront.
The 2006 installment marked the final time the National Stadium in Kallang was held before the stadium went for retrofitting works and thus relocating the parade to the new venue to The Float @ Marina Bay and held its inaugural parade the following year. Starting in 2008, the NDP is also aired all over the Asia-Pacific region through CNA, and since 2012, it was simulcast to other internet web-streaming websites such as Toggle (now meWATCH), xinmsn (defunct since 2015), and YouTube (along with the parade's official channel, NDPeeps). 2009 featured, for the first time, an integrated show including the parade segment, known as the Pre-parade show (usually not broadcast on television). 2009 was currently the last time to feature multiple theme songs (English and Chinese versions, or originals)
The 2013 installment featured a spin-off reality competition aired on Channel 5, titled Sing a Nation, which featured ten different groups who performed various songs for a chance at a lead performance for the 2013's parade. The 2013's theme song, "One Singapore", was also sung by the cast of Sing a Nation, and the song featured its largest ensemble, with 68 members.
The 2014 installment also featured its first female Red Lion parachutist to jump at the NDP, Third Warrant Officer Shirley Ng, after their initial performance in 2013 was cancelled due to weather conditions. The 2014 parade was notable as it was the last parade with the attendance for the first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, who was the only member to have attended in every installment of NDP since 1966, as he died on 23 March the following year.
2015's parade was the first parade to be held at both the Padang and at The Float @ Marina Bay, breaking a parade tradition in the process as it became the first parade since 1983 to be held in multiple venues.
In 2016, the NDP was held for the first time at the new National Stadium, in an event that required modifications to the event's format due to the limitations of the venue. In 2017, it was announced that The Float would remain the "preferred" venue for the event, and that it would be redeveloped as a permanent venue known as NS Square.
Due to criticisms relating to budget and logistics,[22] the following parade in 2017 (and later in 2018) returned to The Float @ Marina Bay to celebrate the golden jubilee for National Service. 2017 also saw the first time YouTube live-streamed the parade in a 360-degree format and on Facebook Live.
In October 2017, it was announced that The Float would be redeveloped as a permanent venue known as NS Square (extended to March 2023 due to the pandemic), and serve as the primary venue for the NDP when not held at the Padang every five years. The decision raised questions over whether the costs of renting the National Stadium would diminish the legacy that the former National Stadium had as a site for community events. Contrarily, it was argued that not hosting the NDP at the new National Stadium would free up its schedule for major international sporting events, especially during the summer months.
The 2019 installment, which was held at the Padang again and breaking a trend of holding every five years to commemorate the bicentennial anniversary of modern foundation of Singapore in 1819, also marked the first time the parade was screened in 4K ultra-high definition on Toggle.
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore, the 2020 parade was not held in its traditional form; the event was given the theme "Together, A Stronger Singapore", and a goal was set to bring the NDP "across the island into every Singaporean's home". The public events were replaced by broadcast-only festivities, including a morning segment consisting of the Prime Minister's National Day Message and a downsized parade at the Padang. Appearances by the Mobile Column, Red Lions, and flyovers by F-15SG fighters were scheduled across Singapore, while the traditional Funpacks given at the parade were shipped to each resident. Online programming, home activity ideas, and social media campaigns were also organized. A cultural segment took place at the Star Performing Arts Centre in the evening, reduced to only around 100 performers with social distancing enforced.
It was announced that the 2021 parade would return to a "centralised" event at The Float in a downsized form, with tickets distributed to nominated essential workers who are fully-vaccinated for COVID-19 and undergo testing.[29] On 22 July 2021, the main public parade would be postponed to 21 August instead, so that it can be held after the conclusion of the present Phase 2 "Heightened Alert" restrictions (then scheduled for 18 August). A closed "ceremonial" parade was still held on 9 August at The Float, which was stated to be similar in format to the previous year's parade. The venue was capped at 30% capacity.
In 2022, plans were made to have the parade held at The Float with full capacity subject to COVID rules.
From Esquire Magazine, centerfold poster of Maria Felix
(December 1956) from an estate sale. The magazine has a slight musty odor so its keep in a sealed up in a plastic bag.
I finally framed the picture May 27, 2025
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María Félix (April 8, 1914 – April 8, 2002) was a Mexican actress and the most iconic leading lady of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, known for her larger-than-life, tough character in films. She was nominated for five Ariel Awards, of which she won three for Enamorada, Río Escondido, Doña Diabla and a special Golden Ariel Award for her contribution to cinema. She was more commonly known, particularly in her later years, by the honorific La Doña.
Early life
She was born María de los Ángeles Félix Güereña in Álamos, Sonora, Mexico. There is some dispute regarding Miss Félix's date of birth. There is a large (but not unanimous) opinion that she was born on April 8, 1914, which means that she died on her 88th birthday. However, her obituary in The New York Times states that she was born on May 4, 1914, which would have made her 87 at the time of her death on April 8, 2002
Some claim her birth certificate supports the April 8, 1914 birthdate, although no actual evidence (such as a copy of either the birth or the death certificate) has been presented as concrete evidence.[citation needed] Félix was the ninth of twelve children born to Bernardo Félix, descendant of Yaqui Indians and Josefina Güereña, who was of Spanish descent: Josefina, María de la Paz, Bernardo, Miguel, María Mercedes, Fernando, María del Sacramento, Pablo, Victoria Eugenia, Ricardo and Benjamin.
Since her childhood, María showed a strong temperament. She preferred playing with boys than girls, which would carry the jealousy of her sisters.
During her teens, she had an incestuous relationship with her brother Pablo: "The Perfume of Incest, do not have another love". Her brother was admitted to the College Miltar in Mexico City, where he died mysteriously soon after. The authorities claimed that he committed suicide.
In 1931 she married Enrique Alvarez Alatorre, a seller of Max Factor whom she met in Guadalajara. He was the father of her only child, also actor Enrique Alvarez Felix. The couple divorced in 1938. María lived for a time at home with her parents until 1939, when she traveled with her son to Mexico City. However, soon after, her ex-husband took their son. María was able to recover until 1943.
Career
María Félix was discovered by businessman Fernando Palacios in Mexico City, when she was walking down the street. Félix made her first appearance in the film world in Black and White Ball at the Country Club, where the female stars of Mexico at the time: Esther Fernandez, Lupe Velez and Andrea Palma were gathered. The Calderon Brothers, famous filmmakers in Mexico, led her to Hollywood, where she met Cecil B. DeMille, who offered her work in the Metro-Goldwyn Mayer. María refused, wishing to work in Mexico.
Palacios introduced her to the filmmaker Miguel Zacarías, who would give her the opportunity of starring El Peñon de las Animas alongside Jorge Negrete.
In 1943 she starred Doña Bárbara, directed by Fernando de Fuentes and inspired in the novel of the Venezuelan writer Romulo Gallegos. De Fuentes increased her popularity with such films as La Mujer sin Alma (1944) and La Devoradora (1946); the latter making the actress the vamp of Mexican cinema in the 1940s. María Félix never accepted to work on films in Hollywood because she stated that Americans would offer her Native-American roles.
She reportedly lost the only lead role of "Pearl Chavez" in the 1945 film Duel in the Sun, although it was written with her in mind, to Jennifer Jones, reportedly due to work commitments in Europe. As a result, she never achieved the fame in the USA that she achieved in Latin America and Europe.
In 1945, Félix filmed Vértigo, directed by Antonio Momplet. According to Félix, because of this movie, she and Dolores del Río mistook their paths for a brief period of time. The film had been written for Del Río, but by mistake, the messenger sent the film to Félix. Meanwhile, Del Río finished filming the movie La Selva de Fuego (written for María).
In 1946, she came under the influence of director Emilio Fernández, with whom she made the films Enamorada (1946), Río Escondido (1947) and Maclovia (1948), launching her career throughout Europe.
She worked in Spain in Mare Nostrum (1948), Una mujer cualquiera, La Noche del Sábado (1950) and the Spanish-French film La Couronne Noire (1951). Later she moved to Italy where she filmed Messalina (1951, directed by Carmine Gallone) and Incantessimo Tragico (1951). In 1952 she work in Argentina, in the film La Pasión Desnuda, directed by Luis Cesar Amadori.
In 1953 she returned to México, where filmed El Rapto, the last film of her third husband, Jorge Negrete.
In France, she worked with Jean Renoir in the successful film French Cancan (1954) with Jean Gabin and in Les Heros sont Fatigues (1955) with Yves Montand. She returned to Mexico in 1955, and filmed successful films lke La Escondida (1955) with Pedro Armendariz, Tizoc (1956) with Pedro Infante and The Soldiers of Pancho Villa (1959) with Dolores del Rio. In later years, her films were inspired by the Mexican Revolution as Juana Gallo (1961), La Valentina (1966), and La Generala (1970), her last film.
Her last films made abroad were Beyond All Limits (Mexican-American production, 1957) with Jack Palance, Faustina (Spain, 1957), Sonatas (Spain, 1957) directed by Juan Antonio Bardem and La Fievre Monte a El Pao (French-Mexican production, 1959) directed by Luis Buñuel. She appears nude in the film Amor y sexo (Safo'63) in 1963.
Relationships
Her first husband was the Max Factor seller Enrique Alvarez Alatorre, father of her only child, also actor Enrique Alvarez Felix. The couple married in 1931 and divorced in 1938.
Her second husband was the famous Mexican musician and composer Agustin Lara El Músico Poeta. She met him in 1943, and married in 1945. In the honeymoon in Acapulco, Lara composed her the famous song María Bonita (Pretty María). With this song María achieved international fame. The couple divorced in 1947. Her third husband was the Mexican actor and singer Jorge Negrete. They met in 1942, during the shooting of El Peñón de las Ánimas and had mutual dislike. The situation changed when María returned to Mexico from Spain in 1953. However, Negrete was deathly suffering from liver cirrhosis, and died in Los Angeles, 11 months after their marriage.[8] Her last husband was a French banker, Alex Berger, whom she married in 1956. Berger owned thoroughbred horses, achieving notable success with the colt Nonoalco who won four Group One races including the 1974 British Classic, the 2,000 Guineas. When Berger died in 1974, Félix inherited his multi-million dollar thoroughbred horse racing stable.
In music, art and fashion
Agustín Lara wrote many songs for her, among them the famous María Bonita. It has been recorded by many singers including Plácido Domingo. Other song writers also composed songs for her, like María de Todas las Marías by Juan Gabriel.
Félix was painted by many artists, including Diego Rivera, Leonor Fini, Leonora Carrington, Stanislao Lepri, Bridget Tichenor and Antoine Tzapoff.
In 1949, Diego Rivera painted a portrait of her, which Félix classified as "muy malo" ("really bad"). This portrait; was originally intended to premiere in a retrospective on Rivera's work but Félix did not allow the painting to be displayed, as she never liked it. She did keep it for many years though, until she sold it to Mexican singer Juan Gabriel.
In fashion, Félix was dressed by designers like Christian Dior, Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel, and Balenciaga. The House of Hermès (Couture Department) designed extravagant creations just for her. She was a noted collector of fine antiques. She favored important pieces like her famous collection of Second Empire furniture. She was also a jewellery connoisseur and had an extensive jewelry collection, including the 41.37 carat (8.274 g), D-flawless "Ashoka" diamond. In 1968, Félix commissioned a serpent diamond necklace from Cartier Paris. The result was an impressive, completely articulated serpent made out of platinum and white gold and encrusted with 178.21 carats (35.642 g) of diamonds. In 1975, she again asked Cartier to create a necklace for her, this time in the shape of two crocodiles. The two crocodile bodies were made of 524.9 grams of gold, one covered with 1,023 yellow diamonds, while the other was adorned with 1,060 circular cut emeralds.
Since Félix's death, these jewelry pieces have been displayed as part of The Art of Cartier Collection in several museums around the world. To pay tribute to the actress, in 2006 Cartier debuted its La Doña de Cartier collection. The La Doña de Cartier watch with reptilian links was created to impress by its wild look. The case of the La Doña de Cartier features a trapezoid shape with asymmetrical profile reminding a crocodile's head. The wristband of the watch resembles the contours of a crocodile in large, bold and gold scales. The La Doña de Cartier Collection also includes jewellery, accessories, and leather handbags.
Death
Maria Felix died on April 8, 2002 in Mexico City at 88 years old due to cardiac arrest. Her remains were interred in the Panteón Francés in Mexico City.
Blue Whistling Thrush
(Nominate with a yellow bill)
The blue whistling thrush (Myophonus caeruleus) is a whistling thrush present in the mountains of Central Asia, China and Southeast Asia. It is known for its loud human-like whistling song at dawn and dusk. The widely distributed populations show variations in size and plumage with several of them considered as subspecies. Like others in the genus, they feed on the ground, often along streams and in damp places foraging for snails, crabs, fruits and insects.
This whistling thrush is dark violet blue with shiny spangling on the tips of the body feathers other than on the lores, abdomen and under the tail. The wing coverts are a slightly different shade of blue and the median coverts have white spots at their tips. The bill is yellow and stands in contrast. The inner webs of the flight and tail feathers is black. The sexes are similar in plumage.
It measures 31–35 cm (12–14 in) in length. Weight across the subspecies can range from 136 to 231 g (4.8 to 8.1 oz). For comparison, the blue whistling thrush commonly weighs twice as much as an American robin. Among standard measurements, the wing chord can measure 15.5–20 cm (6.1–7.9 in) long, the tarsus is 4.5–5.5 cm (1.8–2.2 in) and the bill is 2.9–4.6 cm (1.1–1.8 in). Size varies across the range with larger thrushes found to the north of the species range and slightly smaller ones to the south, corresponding with Bergmann's rule. In northern China, males and females average 188 g (6.6 oz) and 171 g (6.0 oz), whereas in India they average 167.5 g (5.91 oz) and 158.5 g (5.59 oz).
Several populations are given subspecies status. The nominate form with a black bill is found in central and eastern China. The population in Afghanistan, turkestanicus, is often included in the widespread temminckii which has a smaller bill width at the base and is found along the Himalayas east to northern Burma. The population eugenei, which lacks white spots on the median coverts, is found south into Thailand. Cambodia and the Malay peninsula have crassirostris, while dichrorhynchus with smaller spangles occurs further south and in Sumatra. The Javan population, flavirostris, has the thickest bill. The subspecies status of several populations has been questioned.
It is found along the Tian Shan and Himalayas, in temperate forests and subtropical or tropical moist montane forests. The species ranges across Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tibet, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam. They make altitudinal movements in the Himalayas, descending in winter.
The blue whistling thrush is usually found singly or in pairs. They hop on rocks and move about in quick spurts. They turn over leaves and small stones, cocking their head and checking for movements of prey. When alarmed they spread and droop their tail. They are active well after dusk and during the breeding season (April to August) they tend to sing during the darkness of dawn and dusk when few other birds are calling. The call precedes sunrise the most during November. The alarm call is a shrill kree. The nest is a cup of moss and roots placed in a ledge or hollow beside a stream. The usual clutch consists of 3 to 4 eggs, the pair sometimes raising a second brood. They feed on fruits, earthworms, insects, crabs and snails. Snails and crabs are typically battered on a rock before feeding. In captivity, they have been known to kill and eat mice and in the wild have been recorded preying on small birds.
The nominated Bryce Canyon National Park Scenic Trails District consists of five structures including the Navajo Loop Trail, the Queen's Garden Trail, the Peekaboo Loop Trail, the Fairyland Trail, and the Rim Trail. All of these structures are located within the scenic heartland of the park-between Fairyland Point to the north and Bryce Point to the south. Although the trails have individual names, they do intersect with one another, forming a contiguous series of paths that provide visual and physical access to the erosional features that characterize Bryce Canyon National Park (BRCA).
The Queen's Garden Trail (an unpaved graded trail between three and five feet in width) accesses the area below the plateau rim between Sunrise and Sunset points. The length of the Queen's Garden Trail is listed in various documents as .8 or 1.8 miles in length, depending upon whether or not one includes both the canyon bottom and switchback segments under the designation. This trail provides access to the rock formation known as Queen Victoria. The upper portion of the trail is cut through bare sandstone with little or no vegetation. However, vegetation increases as one descends into the bottom of Bryce Canyon. Scattered stands of ponderosa pine, bristlecone pine, and brushy understory vegetation occur adjacent to the trail. Notable features of the trail include two tunnels cut through a sandstone ridge.
A comparison of historic and modern maps indicates that the current alignment of the Queen's Garden Trail follows closely the trail as it was constructed in 1929. Modifications have been made due to erosion, rock fall, etc., however these are to be expected given the character of the natural environment within BRCA. This trail continues to provide access to the formation known as "Queen Victoria" and provides hikers with vistas that are little changed since the historical period. (1)
References (1) NRHP Nomination Form npgallery.nps.gov/pdfhost/docs/NRHP/Text/95000422.pdf
Class: Reptilia
Order: Squamata
Suborder: Lacertilia
Infraorder: Iguania
Family: Chamaeleonidae
Subfamily : Calumma
Species : Calumma parsonii
The Parson's chameleon (Calumma parsonii) is a very large species of chameleon that is endemic to isolated pockets of humid primary forest in eastern and northern Madagascar. It is listed on CITES Appendix II, meaning that trade in this species is regulated. As with the majority of chameleon species from Madagascar, it is illegal to import Parson's chameleons from their native country.
Among the largest chameleons in the world (variously reported as the largest, or second largest after the Malagasy Giant Chameleon), males have ridges running from above the eyes to the nose forming two warty horns. There are two recognized subspecies: The widespread Calumma p. parsonii reaches up to 68 cm (27 in) in length and has no dorsal crest. Calumma p. cristifer from near Andasibe reaches 47 cm (18½ in) and has a small dorsal crest. Several colour variants are known within the range typically included in the nominate subspecies, but it is unclear if they are best considered morphs or different subspecies (at present, most consider them morphs). This includes "orange eyes" (generally consider typical of the nominate subspecies) where the male is relatively small and mainly green or turqoise, but with yellow or orange eyelids, "yellow lip" where the male is somewhat larger and mainly green or turqoise, but with a yellow edge to the mouth, "yellow giant" where the male is very large and overall yellowish (strongly marked with dusky when stressed), and "green giant" where the male is overall green. Males of C. p. cristifer are overall green or turqoise. Females of all are smaller than the males and overall greenish, yellowish or brownish (often with an orange tinge).
-Wikipedia-
West-German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. 179. Photo: dpa / Centfox.
Dorothy Dandridge (1922-1965) was an American film and theatre actress, singer, and dancer. She is perhaps best known for being the first African-American actress to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Carmen Jones (Otto Preminger, 1954). She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Porgy and Bess (Otto Preminger, 1959). Dandridge also appeared in a few European films.
Dorothy Jean Dandridge was born in, 1922 in Cleveland, Ohio, to Ruby Dandridge (née Ruby Jean Butler), an entertainer, and Cyril H. Dandridge, a cabinet maker and minister. Under the prodding of her mother, Dorothy, and her sister Vivian Dandridge began performing publicly, as the Wonder Children, later The Dandridge Sisters, usually in black Baptist churches throughout the country. Her mother would often join her daughters on stage. During her early career, she appeared in a succession of films, usually in uncredited roles. Her film debut was a bit role in the Marx Brothers comedy, A Day at the Races (Sam Wood, 1937). She also performed as a vocalist in the Cotton Club and the Apollo Theater. Her breakthrough was her title role in the all-black production of Carmen Jones (Otto Preminger, 1954). Dandridge's performance as the sultry title character made her one of Hollywood's first African-American sex symbols. Carmen Jones became a worldwide success, eventually earning over $10 million at the box office and becoming one of the year's highest-earning films.
After a three-year absence from film acting, Dorothy Dandridge agreed to appear in the film version of Island in the Sun (Robert Rossen, 1957), opposite an ensemble cast, including James Mason, Harry Belafonte, Joan Fontaine, Joan Collins, and Stephen Boyd. The film was controversial for its time period, and the script was revised numerous times to accommodate the Production Code requirements about interracial relationships. There occurred, however, an extremely intimate loving embrace between Dandridge and Justin that succeeded in not breaching the code. Despite the behind-the-scenes controversy and unfavourable critical reviews, the film was one of the year's biggest successes. Dandridge next starred opposite Curd Jürgens in the Italian production of Tamango (John Berry, 1958). A reluctant Dandridge had agreed to appear in the film only after learning that it focused on a nineteenth-century slave revolt on a cargo ship travelling from Africa to Cuba. However, she nearly withdrew her involvement when the initial script called for her to swim in the nude and spend the majority of the film in a two-piece bathing suit made of rags. When Dandridge threatened to leave the film, the script and her wardrobe were retooled to her liking. In 1959, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Porgy and Bess (Otto Preminger, 1959). However, when the film was released, it was critically bashed and failed to recoup its financial investment.
Dorothy Dandridge next filmed a low-budget British thriller Malaga (László Benedek, 1960) in which she played a European woman with an Italian name. The film, co-starring Trevor Howard and Edmund Purdom, plotted a jewel robbery and its aftermath. Howard and Dandridge created some strongly understated sexual tension in the film. Malanga was withheld from a theatrical release abroad until 1960 but went unreleased in the United States until 1962. It was her final completed film appearance. Dandridge was married and divorced twice. From 1942 till 1951, she was married to dancer and entertainer Harold Nicholas. They had a daughter, Harolyn Suzanne Nicholas, who was born brain-damaged. In 1959 she married hotel owner Jack Denison. They divorced in 1962 amid financial setbacks and allegations of domestic violence. At this time, Dandridge discovered that the people who were handling her finances had swindled her out of $150,000 and that she was $139,000 in debt for back taxes. In 1965, Dorothy Dandridge died under mysterious circumstances at the age of 42. She is the subject of the HBO biographical film, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (Martha Coolidge, 1999) with Halle Berry.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
American postcard by Home Box Office, 2019. Photo: HBO. Carice van Houten in the TV series Game of Thrones (2012-2019).
Dutch actress Carice van Houten (1976) is perhaps best known for her lead roles in Paul Verhoeven's award-winning Zwartboek/Black Book, Bryan Singer's Valkyrie opposite Tom Cruise and as Melisandre on the massively popular TV series Game of Thrones (2012-2019).
Carice Anouk van Houten was born in Leiderdorp, The Netherlands in 1976. Her parents are Margje Stasse, who is on board of the Dutch educational TV, and the late Theodore van Houten, a writer and film historian. Carice is the older sister of actress and singer Jelka van Houten. She is named after the daughter of the English composer, Sir Edward Elgar, due to the fact that Carice's father was investigating the secret of Elgar's Enigma Variations. She attended the St. Bonifatius College (high school) in Utrecht. Van Houten studied briefly at the Maastricht Academy of Dramatic Arts but continued her professional education after one year at the Kleinkunstacademie in Amsterdam. Her first leading role in the television film Suzy Q (Martin van Koolhoven, 1999) won her the Golden Calf - the Dutch Oscar - for Best Acting in a Television Drama. Two years later, she won the Golden Calf for Best Actress for her role as a cat who transforms into a human woman in Minoes/Undercover Kitty (Vincent Bal, 2001), based on the children's novel Minoes by Annie M.G. Schmidt. She then appeared in several stage plays and in the such Dutch films as the drama De Passievrucht/Father's Affair (Maarten Treurniet, 2003) with Peter Paul Muller and Halina Reijn, and the children's film Lepel/Spoon (Willem van de Sande Bakhuyzen, 2005). For her stage acting, she won the Pisuisse Award and the Top Naeff Award.
Carice van Houten gained international recognition for her role as Rachel Stein in Zwartboek/Black Book (Paul Verhoeven, 2006), the most commercially successful Dutch film to date. Rachel is a young Jewish woman in the Netherlands who becomes a spy for the resistance during World War II after tragedy befalls her in an encounter with the Nazis. For her performance, she won her second Golden Calf for Best Actress at the Netherlands Film Festival. The Dutch romantic comedy Alles is Liefde/Love is All (Joram Lürsen, 2007) gained her further critical acclaim and was another box office hit in The Netherlands. Carice's first English spoken film was the psychological thriller Dorothy Mills (2008) by French director Agnès Merlet. In 2008, Van Houten also had a role opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in the action thriller Body of Lies (Ridley Scott, 2008), but her scenes did not make the final cut of the film. She was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for the historical thriller Valkyrie (Bryan Singer, 2008), starring Tom Cruise. The film is set in Nazi Germany during World War II and depicts the 20 July plot in 1944 by German army officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler and to use the Operation Valkyrie national emergency plan to take control of the country. In 2009, Van Houten appeared opposite Barry Atsma in the Dutch drama Komt een vrouw bij de dokter/Stricken (Reinout Oerlemans, 2009), based on the novel of the same name by Kluun. She also starred in the Science Fiction thriller Repo Men (Miguel Sapochnik, 2009) with Jude Law. Van Houten won her fourth Golden Calf Award for Best Actress for De gelukkige huisvrouw/The Happy Housewife (Antoinette Beumer, 2010), in which she played Lea, a housewife who has trouble adjusting to the birth of her son. Then she played South-African poet Ingrid Jonker in Black Butterflies (Paul van der Oest, 2011) with Rutger Hauer. For this role, she won her fifth Golden Calf and also the Best Actress award at the Tribeca Film Festival. In 2012, Carice and her sister Jelka van Houten starred in the comedy Jackie (Antoinette Beumer, 2012) as twin sisters from the Netherlands who embark on a road trip across the United States on a mission to help their prickly biological mother (Holly Hunter) receive physical therapy.
Since 2012, Carice van Houten has received international recognition for her role as the Red Priestess, Lady Melisandre Melisandre on the HBO television series Game of Thrones (2011–2019). For this highly popular series, she has been nominated for two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. On 2012, she also released an album, See you on the ice. In 2013, she published a book with fellow Dutch actress Halina Reijn, called Anti Glamour, a parody style guide and a celebration of their friendship. That year, she appeared in the biographical thriller The Fifth Estate (Bill Condon, 2013), about the news-leaking website WikiLeaks. Benedict Cumberbatch played its editor-in-chief and founder Julian Assange. She voiced the character Annika Van Houten (Milhouse's cousin) in Let's Go Fly a Coot (Chris Clements, 2015), an episode of The Simpsons. She co-starred in the dark Western Brimstone (Martin van Koolhoven, 2016), opposite Dakota Fanning, Guy Pearce and Kit Harrington. It was her fourth collaboration with director Martin Koolhoven. Van Houten also played the role of German film director/propagandist Leni Riefenstahl in the biopic Race (Stephen Hopkins, 2016), about African-American athlete Jesse Owens (played by Jason Sudeikis), who won a record-breaking four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. Van Houten is in a relationship with Australian actor Guy Pearce. In 2016, she gave birth to their son, Monte Pearce. She previously dated German actor Sebastian Koch, whom she met on the set of Zwartboek/Black Book (2006). Her next film in the cinemas will be the crime thriller Domino (2019), directed by Brian De Palma and also starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Guy Pearce. Carice van Houten also stars in The Glass Room (Julius Sevcik, 2019), a love story about the relationship between two women set in an iconic modernist house in Czechoslovakia, which was built by celebrity architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
Sources: AllMovie, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
*Nominated for Blue Moon Camera Customer Show 2012*
Donkeys outside of Amor, Fe y Esperanza (AFE) School in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
afehonduras.org/theschool.aspx
Kodak Ektar 100
Minolta SR-T 101
MC Rokkor 58mm f/1.4
Another trip to see this little bird, according to the birding experts very rare in the UK. With just another photographer there it was much easier to photograph. It was not disturbed at all and was still feeding on the same spot when we left
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. C.P.C.S. c-da 53 065.
Peter Falk (1927-2011) was an American actor, best known for his portrayal of shabby and deceptively absent-minded Inspector Columbo in the classic crime series Columbo (1971-1978 and 1989-2003). Falk was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for Murder, Inc. (1960) and Pocketful of Miracles (1961), and won his first Emmy Award in 1962 for The Dick Powell Theatre. He was also known for his collaborations with filmmaker, actor, and friend John Cassavetes, acting in films such as Husbands (1970) and A Woman Under the Influence (1974).
Peter Michael Falk was born in New York in 1927. He was the son of a Polish-Hungarian-Czech father, Michael Peter Falk, owner of a clothing and dry goods store, and a Russian mother, Madeline (née Hochhauser). Both his parents were Jewish. At the age of three, Falk was diagnosed with a tumour in his right eye, which was surgically removed along with his right eye. Afterwards, Falk wore a glass eye. This resulted in the characteristic uneven width of his eyelid. In high school, the young man was considered athletic and graduated with excellent grades. He gained his first stage experience at the age of twelve, when he appeared in the play 'The Pirates of Penzance'. After finishing school, Falk was initially lost. He attended college for a short time, applied to join the Navy, but was rejected because of his glass eye. At the end of World War II, he spent 18 months at sea as a cook in the Merchant Marines. After the war, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Literature and Political Science and a Master of Public Administration. Eventually, Falk took a job with a tax authority in Hartford, Connecticut. After work, he acted in an amateur theatre group and gained further stage experience. Falk also studied with Eva Le Gallienne, who was giving an acting class at the White Barn Theatre in Westport, Connecticut. In 1955, he obtained a letter of recommendation from Le Gallienne to an agent at the William Morris Agency, and he returned to New York City. He acted in off-Broadway plays, including a revival of 'The Iceman Cometh' directed by Jose Quintero, with Jason Robards playing the lead role of Theodore 'Hickey' Hickman, and small television productions. In 1956, Falk made his Broadway debut in Alexander Ostrovsky's 'Diary of a Scoundrel'. He appeared again on Broadway as an English soldier in Shaw's 'Saint Joan' with Siobhán McKenna. His first film engagement with Columbia Pictures again fell through due to his 'disability,' his glass eye. Studio head Harry Cohn remarked laconically: "For the same salary, I can get an actor with two eyes." In 1958, Falk finally landed his first small film roles in Wind Across the Everglades (Nicholas Ray, 1958), the Canadian thriller The Bloody Brood (Julian Ruffman, 1959), and Pretty Boy Floyd (Herbert J. Leder, 1960), a biopic based on the career of the notorious 1930s outlaw Charles Arthur 'Pretty Boy' Floyd. He played his first major role, the brutal hitman Abe Reles, in the crime film Murder Inc. (Burt Balaban, Stuart Rosenberg, 1960). This was a turning point. The following year, he played 'Joy Boy' in Frank Capra's final film, Pocketful of Miracles (1961). In 1961, Falk earned the distinction of becoming the first actor to be nominated for an Oscar and an Emmy in the same year. He received nominations for his supporting roles in Murder, Inc. and the television program The Law and Mr. Jones. Incredibly, Falk repeated this double nomination in 1962, being nominated again for a supporting actor role in Pocketful of Miracles and best actor in 'The Price of Tomatoes,' an episode of The Dick Powell Show, for which he took home the award. In the 1960s, he appeared in several films, including major hits such as the star-studded comedy It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (Stanley Kramer, 1963), with Spencer Tracy, and opposite Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack members in Robin and the Seven Hoods (Gordon Douglas, 1964). He also acted in The Balcony (Joseph Strick, 1963), a film adaptation of Jean Genet's 1957 play 'The Balcony', also starring Shelley Winters, Lee Grant and Leonard Nimoy. Falk continued to act in the theatre. His first role in a television series was in The Trials of O'Brien (1965-1966), which he co-produced. Despite good reviews, the stories of a Shakespeare-quoting lawyer who defends clients while solving mysteries didn't really resonate with audiences and only ran for 22 episodes.
In 1968, Peter Falk first appeared in the role with which he would become identified: the scruffy, always-clad-in-a-grimy-raincoat, and seemingly slow-witted Detective Columbo. In the TV Movie Murder by Recipe (1968), Falk played Lieutenant Columbo (later Inspector Columbo). Thanks to the success of this television film, a pilot for a series was produced in the fall of 1970. Columbo began as a series in September 1971. Till 1978, 43 episodes of the series were produced for NBC – an average of six per year. Falk tailored the role to himself – with his small stature (1.68 m), his raincoat, his old Peugeot 403 convertible (both props Falk chose himself, over the heads of the producers), his basset hound, who was simply called 'Dog,' his slight speech impediment, and the consistently crooked posture the inspector assumed when asking the perpetrator the very last, incriminating question. Columbo is now considered one of the classic TV series which has been continuously rerun for decades. Columbo viewers always know who the killer is from the very first minutes of each episode. Columbo solves his murder cases by highlighting small inconsistencies in the suspect's story and by persistently pursuing the perpetrator until they confess. Columbo's interrogation technique, in particular, became legendary: at the end of a conversation, Columbo would walk away only to suddenly return: "Oh, just one more thing," or "Oh, I almost forgot," after which the suspect is pointed out an inconsistency. The intriguing look Columbo cast on his victims at such moments was partly due to his (right) prosthetic eye. Peter Falk remained faithful to his role as Columbo for over 35 years, receiving four Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe during that time. The first-season episode 'Blueprint for Murder' was directed by Falk himself. In 1977, Peter Falk married actress Shera Danese, who starred in the Columbo episodes 'Fade into Murder' (with William Shatner) and 'Murder under Glass' (directed by Jonathan Demme). At the end of the 1980s, the Columbo series returned with a new series, for which Falk regularly produced episodes. He also wrote the screenplay for one of them, 'It's All in the Game' (1993). The last episode premiered in late 2003. Over the course of 35 years, Columbo solved a total of 69 cases.
During and after his work on Columbo, Peter Falk also appeared in many feature films and other television series. He starred in the crime comedy The Brink's Job (William Friedkin, 1978) and with Alan Arkin in the action-comedy The In-Laws (Arthur Hiller, 1979). He starred opposite Ann-Margret in the mystery comedy The Cheap Detective (Robert Moore, 1978), played the grandfather in the fantasy The Princess Bride (Rob Reiner, 1987), and appeared in the music video for Ghostbusters. He also played the role of Sam Diamond in the comedy Murder by Death (Robert Moore, 1976) and appeared in The Great Muppet Caper (Jim Henson, 1981). Remarkable is his collaboration with filmmaker and friend John Cassavetes, first in Husbands (1970), then in A Woman under the Influence (1974) and, finally, in a cameo, at the end of Opening Night (1977). Cassavetes guest-starred in the Columbo episode 'Étude in Black' in 1972. Falk, in turn, co-starred with Cassavetes in Elaine May's film Mikey and Nicky (1976). In 1987, film director Wim Wenders brought the American to Germany. Falk played himself (the actor Peter Falk) in Wenders's romantic fantasy Der Himmel über Berlin / Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987) about invisible, immortal angels who populate Berlin and listen to the thoughts of its human inhabitants, comforting the distressed. Falk returned in the sequel, Faraway, So Close! (Wim Wenders, 1993). He lent his voice to Don Feinberg in Shark Tale (Vicky Jenson, Bibo Bergeron, Rob Letterman, 2004) and his final film was the comedy American Cowslip (Mark David, 2009). Peter Falk was married twice. In 1960, he married his long-time girlfriend, fashion designer and pianist Alyce Mayo, with whom he had two daughters, Jackie and Catherine, both adopted. In 1977, Falk separated from his wife and married actress Shera Danese, 22 years his junior, with whom he lived until his death. Falk's autobiography, 'Just One More Thing', was published in 2006. At the end of 2008, Falk's daughter, Catherine, petitioned the Los Angeles court for a conservatorship of her father. She argued that he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease and that his dementia made him vulnerable to abuse by scammers and fraudsters. He required constant care following recent hip surgery. In 2011, Falk's immediate family announced in a written statement to the press that the actor had died peacefully at home in Beverly Hills. Peter Falk was 83. The cause of death was cardiac arrest, with Alzheimer's disease and pneumonia as underlying causes. Falk is buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery. The inscription on his headstone reads: "I'm not here. I'm home with Shera." In 2013, Falk posthumously received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Sources: Wikipedia (English, German and Dutch) and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Blue Whistling Thrush
(Nominate with a yellow bill)
The blue whistling thrush (Myophonus caeruleus) is a whistling thrush present in the mountains of Central Asia, China and Southeast Asia. It is known for its loud human-like whistling song at dawn and dusk. The widely distributed populations show variations in size and plumage with several of them considered as subspecies. Like others in the genus, they feed on the ground, often along streams and in damp places foraging for snails, crabs, fruits and insects.
This whistling thrush is dark violet blue with shiny spangling on the tips of the body feathers other than on the lores, abdomen and under the tail. The wing coverts are a slightly different shade of blue and the median coverts have white spots at their tips. The bill is yellow and stands in contrast. The inner webs of the flight and tail feathers is black. The sexes are similar in plumage.
It measures 31–35 cm (12–14 in) in length. Weight across the subspecies can range from 136 to 231 g (4.8 to 8.1 oz). For comparison, the blue whistling thrush commonly weighs twice as much as an American robin. Among standard measurements, the wing chord can measure 15.5–20 cm (6.1–7.9 in) long, the tarsus is 4.5–5.5 cm (1.8–2.2 in) and the bill is 2.9–4.6 cm (1.1–1.8 in). Size varies across the range with larger thrushes found to the north of the species range and slightly smaller ones to the south, corresponding with Bergmann's rule. In northern China, males and females average 188 g (6.6 oz) and 171 g (6.0 oz), whereas in India they average 167.5 g (5.91 oz) and 158.5 g (5.59 oz).
Several populations are given subspecies status. The nominate form with a black bill is found in central and eastern China. The population in Afghanistan, turkestanicus, is often included in the widespread temminckii which has a smaller bill width at the base and is found along the Himalayas east to northern Burma. The population eugenei, which lacks white spots on the median coverts, is found south into Thailand. Cambodia and the Malay peninsula have crassirostris, while dichrorhynchus with smaller spangles occurs further south and in Sumatra. The Javan population, flavirostris, has the thickest bill. The subspecies status of several populations has been questioned.
It is found along the Tian Shan and Himalayas, in temperate forests and subtropical or tropical moist montane forests. The species ranges across Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tibet, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam. They make altitudinal movements in the Himalayas, descending in winter.
The blue whistling thrush is usually found singly or in pairs. They hop on rocks and move about in quick spurts. They turn over leaves and small stones, cocking their head and checking for movements of prey. When alarmed they spread and droop their tail. They are active well after dusk and during the breeding season (April to August) they tend to sing during the darkness of dawn and dusk when few other birds are calling. The call precedes sunrise the most during November. The alarm call is a shrill kree. The nest is a cup of moss and roots placed in a ledge or hollow beside a stream. The usual clutch consists of 3 to 4 eggs, the pair sometimes raising a second brood. They feed on fruits, earthworms, insects, crabs and snails. Snails and crabs are typically battered on a rock before feeding. In captivity, they have been known to kill and eat mice and in the wild have been recorded preying on small birds.
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Since moving to our appartment at Kongsgårdmoen (Kongsberg) I have always had sunflower seeds and other food available for birds to eat in my garden. To my big frustration the birds dissappeared together with the leaves of the Birch tree. This late Autumn/early Winter has been slightly more promising - and no single day more so than Yesterday, December 08.2013. No less than 12 different species came to visit me during the short grey day.
What thrilled me absolutely most was a flock of 7-8 European Goldfinches (nominate) (Stillits / Carduelis carduelis carduelis)
Canon 60D, Sigma 150-500mm.
The photo is part of a European Goldfinch set.
Photo updated 2017 for use in a blogpost about garden birds on steinarnejensen.blogspot.com
Salma Hayek (Jiménez) Pinault (born September 2, 1966), known professionally as Salma Hayek, is a Mexican and American film actress, producer, and former model. She began her career in Mexico starring in the telenovela Teresa and starred in the film El Callejón de los Milagros (Miracle Alley) for which she was nominated for an Ariel Award. In 1991 Hayek moved to Hollywood and came to prominence with roles in movies such as Desperado (1995), From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), Dogma (1999), and Wild Wild West (1999).
I was nominated, the world through my eyes.
SEVEN. Yes, I DO make portraits, I love good people and here was one of them.
MY FRIEND, ROBERT EMERSON.
This is Robert, my friend, who is no more, I just heard he died last month (that was in 2007)!
All his life, except for the war, he lived in Flamborough, born into a proud family of fishermen; he was also a life-long volunteer of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
He eyes shone when he told me that all the boats belonging to him and his family, had lovely names like ‘Madeleine Isabella’ and their signature is a white rose, the Yorkshire symbol! Now there is a boat called:ROBERT EMERSON.
It is a tradition that each fishing places gives work to the whole family, they have their own symbols and their own cable-knitting patterns in the jerseys... so if an accident happened, they would be recognised!
He still went out to inspect his crab pots every early morning, well in his eighties, the women cleaned, prepared and dressed the crabs, most for the fishmongers on markets(which he delivered himself), the rest was for the back of his van, parked in his place at Smuggler’s Cove, where he sold them, and that’s how we met.
I love fresh crabs and he loved people
I remember the times we sat together, chatting and laughing, wonderful man.
I still find it difficult to go back... We miss him still!
Read the whole story HERE:
magdaindigo.blogspot.com/2007/08/rip-my-friend-from-flamb...
Time is so precious, best use it for good, have a lovely day and thanx for your time, Magda, (*_*)
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Welcome to my collection. I'm a freelance photographer with an interest in skyline and morning and evening shots. I have a deep passion for structuring a shot using color, transition, nature, water sand natural sky phenomenon. My name is Aspen I hope you enjoy. No where else will you see and enjoy a shot like this. Created by Aspen Winters Studios, Inc.
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Thirkell Elementary School (built 1914) is just one of many schools designed by the prolific firm of Malcomson & Higginbotham. The building is one of more than eighty DPS building nominated for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.
Hi A-Z members,
MARVEL_DOLLS and I are happy to announce our nominated photos/photographers for the next-to-last round of voting in the A-Z Doll Photography Challenge 2.0.
Everyone submitted many unique perspectives last month for all three themes, and that made this an exciting, diverse group of photos to unveil. We can't wait to see which photos you like best!
Follow the link to cast your votes in the discussion thread: www.flickr.com/groups/2962397@N20/discuss/72157698735712332/
Voting ends Wednesday, Oct. 24!
Our last round of themes will be unveiled shortly. Stay tuned to MARVEL_DOLLS' stream. :)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3943/1, 1928-1929. Photo: United Artists.
English gentleman-actor Ronald Colman (1891-1958) was a top box office draw in Hollywood films throughout the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. ‘The Man with the velvet voice’ was nominated for four Academy Awards. In 1948 he finally won the Oscar for his splendid portrayal of a tormented actor in A Double Life (1947).
Ronald Charles Colman was born in 1891 in Richmond, England. He was the fifth of six children of silk importer Charles Colman and his wife Marjory Read Fraser. Ronald was educated at a boarding school in Littlehampton, where he discovered he enjoyed acting. When Ronald was 16 his father died of pneumonia, putting an end to the boy's plans to attend Cambridge and become an engineer. He went to work as a shipping clerk at the British Steamship Company. He also became a well-known amateur actor and was a member of the West Middlesex Dramatic Society (1908-1909). In 1909, he joined the London Scottish Regiment, a territorial army force, and he was sent to France at the outbreak of World War I. Colman took part in the First Battle of Ypres and was severely wounded at the battle at Messines in Belgium. The shrapnel wounds he took to his legs invalided him out of active service. In May 1915, decorated, discharged and depressed, he returned home with a limp that he would attempt to hide throughout the rest of his acting career. He tried to enter the consular service, but a chance encounter got him a small role in the London play The Maharanee of Arakan (1916). He dropped other plans and concentrated on the theatre. Producers soon noted the young actor with his striking good looks, rich voice and rare dignity, and Colman was rewarded with a succession of increasingly prominent parts. He worked with stage greats Gladys Cooper and Gerald du Maurier. He made extra money appearing in films like the two-reel silent comedy The Live Wire (Cecil Hepworth, 1917). The set was an old house with a negligible budget, and Colman doubled as the leading character and prop man. The film was never released though. Other silent British films were The Snow of the Desert (Walter West, 1919) with Violet Hopson and Stewart Rome, and The Black Spider (William Humphrey, 1920) with Mary Clare. The negatives of all of Colman's early British films have probably been destroyed during the 1941 London Blitz. After a brief courtship, he married actress Thelma Raye in 1919. The marriage was in trouble almost from the beginning. The two separated in 1923 but were not divorced until 1934.
In 1920 Ronald Colman set out for New York in hopes of finding greater fortune there than in war-depressed England. His American film debut was in the tawdry melodrama Handcuffs or Kisses? (George Archainbaud, 1920). He toured with Robert Warwick in 'The Dauntless Three', and subsequently toured with Fay Bainter in 'East is West'. After two years of impoverishment, he was cast in the Broadway hit play 'La Tendresse' (1922). Director Henry King spotted him and cast him as Lillian Gish's leading man in The White Sister (Henry King, 1923), filmed in Italy. The romantic tear-jerker was wildly popular and Colman was quickly proclaimed a new film star. This success led to a contract with prominent independent film producer Samuel Goldwyn, and in the following ten years, he became a very popular silent film star in both romantic and adventure films. Among his most successful films for Goldwyn were The Dark Angel (George Fitzmaurice, 1925) with Hungarian actress Vilma Bánky, Stella Dallas (Henry King, 1926), the Oscar Wilde adaptation Lady Windermere's Fan (Ernst Lubitsch, 1925) and The Winning of Barbara Worth (Henry King, 1926) with Gary Cooper. Colman's dark hair and eyes and his athletic and riding ability led reviewers to describe him as a ‘Valentino type’. He was often cast in similar, exotic roles. The film that cemented this position as a top star was Beau Geste (Herbert Brenon, 1926), Paramount's biggest hit of 1926. It was the rousing tale of three brothers (Colman, Neil Hamilton and Ralph Forbes), who join the Foreign Legion to escape the law. Beau Geste was full of mystery, desert action, intrigue and above all, brotherly loyalty. Colman's gentlemanly courage and quiet strength were showcased to perfection in the role of the oldest brother, Beau. The film is still referred to as possibly the greatest Foreign Legion film ever produced. Towards the end of the silent era, Colman was teamed again with Vilma Bánky under Samuel Goldwyn. The two would make a total of five films together and their popularity rivalled that of Greta Garbo and John Gilbert.
Although Ronald Colman was a huge success in silent films, with the coming of sound, his extraordinarily beautiful speaking voice made him even more important to the film industry. His first major talkie success was in 1930 when he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for two roles - Condemned (Wesley Ruggles, 1929) with Lily Damita, and Bulldog Drummond (F. Richard Jones, 1929) with Joan Bennett. Thereafter he played a number of sophisticated, noble characters with enormous aplomb such as Clive of India (Richard Boleslawski, 1935) with Colin Clive, but he also swashbuckled expertly when called to do so in films like The Prisoner of Zenda (John Cromwell, 1937) with Madeleine Carroll. A falling out with Goldwyn in 1934 prompted Colman to avoid long-term contracts for the rest of his career. He became one of just a handful of top stars to successfully freelance, picking and choosing his assignments and studios. His notable films included the Charles Dickens adaptation A Tale of Two Cities (Jack Conway, 1935), the poetic classic Lost Horizon (Frank Capra, 1937), and If I Were King (Frank Lloyd, 1938) with Basil Rathbone as vagabond poet Francois Villon. During the war, he made two of his very best films - Talk of the Town (George Stevens, 1942) with Cary Grant and Jean Arthur, and the romantic tearjerker Random Harvest (Mervyn LeRoy, 1942), as an amnesiac victim, co-starring with the luminous Greer Garson. For his role in A Double Life (George Cukor, 1947), an actor playing Othello who comes to identify with the character, he won both the Golden Globe for Best Actor in 1947 and the Best Actor Oscar in 1948. Colman made many guest appearances on The Jack Benny Program on the radio, alongside his second wife, British stage and screen actress Benita Hume. Their comedy work as Benny's next-door neighbours led to their own radio comedy The Halls of Ivy from 1950 to 1952, and then on television from 1954 to 1955. Incidentally, he appeared in films, such as the romantic comedy Champagne for Caesar (Richard Whorf, 1950), and his final film The Story of Mankind (Irwin Allen, 1957) with Hedy Lamarr. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "a laughably wretched extravaganza from which Colman managed to emerge with his dignity and reputation intact." Ronald Colman died in 1958, aged 67, from a lung infection in Santa Barbara, California. He was survived by Benita Hume, and their daughter Juliet Benita Colman (1944). In 1975, Juliet published the biography 'Ronald Colman: A Very Private Person'.
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Jim Beaver (IMDb), Julie Stowe (The Ronald Colman Pages), Encyclopaedia Britannica, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Italian postcard by Max.
American film actor Paul Newman (1925-2008) was a matinee idol with the most famous blue eyes of Hollywood, who often played detached yet charismatic anti-heroes and rebels. He was nominated for nine acting Academy Awards in five different decades and won the Oscar for The Color of Money (1986). He was also a prominent social activist, a major proponent of actors' creative rights, and a noted philanthropist.
Paul Leonard Newman was born in 1925, in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. He was the second son of Arthur Sigmund Newman and Theresa Fetsko. His father was a Jewish businessman who owned a successful sporting goods store. His mother was a practicing Christian Scientist with an interest in the creative arts, and it rubbed off on her son. At age 10, he performed in a stage production of 'Saint George and the Dragon' at the Cleveland Play House. He also acted in high school plays. By 1950, the 25-year-old Newman had been kicked out of Ohio University, where he belonged to the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity, for unruly behavior (denting the college president's car with a beer keg), served three years in the United States Navy during World War II as a radio operator, graduated from Ohio's Kenyon College, married his first wife, actress Jacqueline "Jackie" Witte, and had his first child, Scott. That same year, his father died. When he became successful in later years, Newman said if he had any regrets it would be that his father was not around to witness his success. He brought Jackie back to Shaker Heights and he ran his father's store for a short period. Then, knowing that wasn't the career path he wanted to take, he sold his interest in the store to his brother and moved with Jackie and Scott to New Haven, Connecticut. There he attended Yale University's School of Drama. While doing a play there, Newman was spotted by two agents, who invited him to come to New York City to pursue a career as a professional actor. After moving to New York, he acted in guest spots for various television series, and in 1953 came a big break. He got the part of understudy of the lead role in the successful Broadway play 'Picnic' by William Inge. Through this play, he met actress Joanne Woodward, who was also an understudy in the play. While they got on very well and there was a strong attraction, Newman was married and his second child, Susan, was born that year. During this time, Newman was accepted into the much admired and popular New York Actors Studio, although he did not actually audition. In 1954, a film Newman was very reluctant to do was released, the failed costume drama The Silver Chalice (Victor Saville, 1954). He considered his performance in this costume epic to be so bad that he took out a full-page ad in Variety apologising for it to anyone who might have seen it. He immediately wanted to return to the stage, and performed in 'The Desperate Hours'. In 1956, he got the chance to redeem himself in the film world by portraying boxer Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me (Robert Wise, 1956) with Pier Angeli. The role of Rocky was originally awarded to James Dean, who died before filming began. Critics praised Newman's performance. Dean also was signed to play Billy the Kid in The Left Handed Gun (Arthur Penn, 1958), but that role was also inherited by Newman after Dean's death. With a handful of films to his credit, he was cast in The Long, Hot Summer (1958), an acclaimed adaptation of a pair of William Faulkner short stories. His co-star was Joanne Woodward. During the shooting of this film, they realised they were meant to be together and by now, so did his then-wife Jackie, who gave Newman a divorce. He and Woodward wed in Las Vegas in January 1958. They went on to have three daughters together. They raised them in Westport, Connecticut. In 1959, Newman received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Brooks, 1958), based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Tennessee Williams. Well-received by both critics and audiences, Cat on Hot Tin Roof was MGM's most successful release of 1958 and became the third highest-grossing film of that year.
Paul Newman traveled back to Broadway to star in Tennessee Williams' 'Sweet Bird of Youth'. Upon his return to the West Coast, he bought himself out of his Warner Bros. contract before starring in the smash From the Terrace (Mark Robson, 1960) with Joanne Woodward. Exodus (Otto Preminger, 1960), another major hit, quickly followed. The 1960s would bring Paul Newman into superstar status, as he became one of the most popular actors of the decade. In 1961, he played one of his most memorable roles as pool shark "Fast" Eddie Felson in The Hustler (Robert Rossen, 1961) with Jackie Gleason and Piper Laurie. It garnered him the first of three Best Actor Oscar nominations during the decade. The other two were for the Western Hud (Marin Ritt, 1963), and the superb chain-gang drama Cool Hand Luke (Jack Smight, 1967). He also appeared in the political thriller Torn Curtain (Alfred Hitchcock, 1966) with Julie Andrews. The film, set in the Cold War, is about an American scientist who appears to defect behind the Iron Curtain to East Germany. Other minor hits were the mystery Harper (Jack Smight, 1966), with Lauren Bacall, and the Western Hombre (Martin Ritt, 1967), based on the novel by Elmore Leonard and co-starring Fredric March. In 1968, his debut directorial effort Rachel, Rachel (Paul Newman, 1968) was given good marks. He directed three actors to Oscar nominations: Joanne Woodward (Best Actress, Rachel, Rachel (1968)), Estelle Parsons (Best Supporting Actress, Rachel, Rachel (1968)), and Richard Jaeckel (Best Supporting Actor, Sometimes a Great Notion (1971)). Newman won a Golden Globe Award for his direction of Rachel, Rachel (1968). 1969 brought the popular screen duo of Newman and Robert Redford together for the first time when Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill, 1969) was released. It was a box office smash. Through the 1970s, Newman had hits and misses from such popular films The Sting (George Roy Hill, 1973) with Robert Redford, which won the 1973 Best Picture Oscar, and the star-studded disaster epic The Towering Inferno (John Guillermin, 1974), to lesser-known films as the Western The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (Robert Altman, 1972) with Jacqueline Bisset, to a cult classic, the sports comedy Slap Shot (George Roy Hill, 1977) with Michael Ontkean. In 1978, Newman's only son, Scott, died of a drug overdose. After Scott's death, Newman's personal life and film choices moved in a different direction.
Paul Newman's acting work in the 1980s and on is what is often most praised by critics today. He became more at ease with himself and it was evident in The Verdict (Sidney Lumet, 1982) with Charlotte Rampling, for which he received his sixth Best Actor Oscar nomination. In 1987, he finally received his first Oscar for The Color of Money (Marin Scorsese, 1986) with Tom Cruise, almost thirty years after Woodward had won hers. Friend and director of Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), Robert Wise accepted the award on Newman's behalf as the actor did not attend the ceremony. Previously, Newman had been nominated as the same character in The Hustler (Robert Rossen, 1961). In total, he was nominated for the Oscar nine times: Best Lead Actor for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Brooks, 1958), The Hustler (Robert Rossen, 1961), Hud (Marin Ritt, 1963), Cool Hand Luke (Stuart Rosenberg, 1967), Absence of Malice (Sydney Pollack, 1981), The Verdict (Sidney Lumet, 1982), The Color of Money (Martin Scorsese, 1986), Nobody's Fool (Robert Benton, 1994)) and finally for Best Supporting Actor in Road to Perdition (Sam Mendes, 2002). In 1994 Newman also played alongside Tim Robbins as the character Sidney J. Mussburger in the Coen Brothers comedy The Hudsucker Proxy. Films were not the only thing on his mind during this period. A passionate race car driver since the early 1970s (despite being color-blind), he was a co-founder of Newman-Haas racing in 1982. He also founded 'Newman's Own', a line of food products, featuring mainly spaghetti sauces and salad dressings. The company made more than $100 million in profits over the years, all of which he donated to various charities. He also started The Hole in the Wall Gang Camps, an organization for children with serious illness. He was as well known for his philanthropic ways and highly successful business ventures as he was for his legendary actor status. Newman's marriage to Woodward lasted a half-century. Connecticut was their primary residence after leaving Hollywood and moving East in 1960. Renowned for his sense of humor, in 1998 he quipped that he was a little embarrassed to see his salad dressing grossing more than his films. During his later years, he still attended races, was much involved in his charitable organisations, and in 2006, he opened a restaurant called Dressing Room, which helps out the Westport Country Playhouse, a place in which Newman took great pride. In 2003, Newman appeared in a Broadway revival of Thornton Wilder's 'Our Town', receiving his first Tony Award nomination for his performance. The animated Disney-Pixar comedy Cars (John Lasseter, 2006) was his final film. It was the highest-grossing film of his career. In 2007, while the public was largely unaware of the serious illness from which he was suffering, Newman made some headlines when he said he was losing his invention and confidence in his acting abilities and that acting was "pretty much a closed book for me". A smoker for many years, Paul Newman died in 2008, aged 83, from lung cancer. With his first wife Jackie, he had three children, Scott, Stephanie, and Susan. Susan Kendall Newman is well known for stage acting and her philanthropic activities. His three daughters with Joanne Woodward are actress Melissa Newman, Nell Potts, and Claire Newman. Nine years after Paul Newman's death, he reprised his role as Doc Hudson in Cars 3 (2017): unused recordings from Cars (2006) were used as new dialogue.
Sources: Tom McDonough/Robert Sieger (IMDb), Jason Ankeny (AllMovie), AllMovie, Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.