National Geographic Nomination Group
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The colors of the Belvedere .CF006056
Exposition 1/60; F11 ISO 50
Lens: Mamiya 55-110 F 4.5
Filter : Formatt Hitech Glass Fog 1/2 and Lee 06 Pro
Post production: Capture One 8 Pro & PS
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Thank you so much for your visit and support ..
All Right Reserved. Pictures can not be used without explicit permission by the creator Fabrizio Massetti
28COM 14B.51 - Nominations of Cultural Properties to the World Heritage List (Val d'Orcia)
Val d'Orcia
The landscape of Val d’Orcia is part of the agricultural hinterland of Siena, redrawn and developed when it was integrated in the territory of the city-state in the 14th and 15th centuries to reflect an idealized model of good governance and to create an aesthetically pleasing picture. The landscape’s distinctive aesthetics, flat chalk plains out of which rise almost conical hills with fortified settlements on top, inspired many artists. Their images have come to exemplify the beauty of well-managed Renaissance agricultural landscapes. The inscription covers: an agrarian and pastoral landscape reflecting innovative land-management systems; towns and villages; farmhouses; and the Roman Via Francigena and its associated abbeys, inns, shrines, bridges, etc.
Justification for Inscription.
Criterion (iv): The Val d’Orcia is an exceptional reflection of the way the landscape was re-written in Renaissance times to reflect the ideals of good governance and to create an aesthetically pleasing pictures.
Criterion (vi): The landscape of the Val d’Orcia was celebrated by painters from the Siennese School, which flourished during the Renaissance. Images of the Val d’Orcia, and particularly depictions of landscapes where people are depicted as living in harmony with nature, have come to be seen as icons of the Renaissance and have profoundly influenced the development of landscape thinking.
Source: Advisory Body Evaluation
IF YOU LIKE THIS SHOT, YOU CAN ORDER IT AS A LARGE, FINE ART, QUALITY PRINT TO :
GALLERY KOBEIA, MUNICH, GERMANY
FINALIST AT SIPA PHOTO AWARDS IPC 2015.
SELECTED AT FESTIVAL NATURE NAMUR (B) IPC, 2014.
"FEATURED IMAGE COLLECTED" ON "LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY MAGAZINE", JULY 2011
HIGHLIGHT PICTURE AT GLANZLICHTER IPC, WORLD OF MAMMALS THEME, 2014.
FINALIST AT 15°CIPAN MONTIER-EN-DER (F), 2011.
FINALIST AT NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IPC, PLACES THEME, ITALIAN ISSUE, 2011.
AWARDED AS 2^ CLASS. AT POLARIS PC, WILDLIFE SHOTS THEME, 2011.
SELECTED IN LANDSCAPE THEME AT 5^ ICNP MONTPHOTO, 2012.
FINALIST AT 6^ CIFN ASFERICO, 2012.
NOMINATION AT OASIS PC, 2012.
RECOMMENDED AT BURRARD-LUCAS PHOTOGRAPHY LANDSCAPE PC, 2012.
FZS DIPLOME AT 6th ICP NARAVA, THEME NATURE, 2013.
MONTHLY WINNER AT INDLOVU RIVER LODGE WPC, ANIMALS IN THE ENVIRONMENT THEME, 2018.
SELECTED FOR SLIDESHOW AND PHOTO EXHIBITION AT BIOPHOTOCONTEST 2018.
WEEKLY SELECTED, ON WEEK 21, AT AFRICA GEOGRAPHIC P.O.T.Y. PC, 2019.
AWARDED AS 3^ CLASS. AT WILD ART POTY, SPACE THEME, 2021.
FINALIST, 19^ CLASS. AT GRAVITY FESTIVAL PC, 2021.
HONORABLE MENTION AT KANAGA AFRICA TOURS PC, 2023.
FINALIST AT HIPA.AE, COP28 THE PLANET IPC, 2023.
SELECTED FOR PUBLIC AWARD PRIZE, BEST 29, AT FESTIVAL SIGNE NATURE, 2024.
CERTIFICATE OF MERIT (3^/12^ CLASS.) AT DJ MEMORIAL PC, NATURESCAPES THEME, 2025.
GETTY IMAGES CONTRIBUTOR SELECTED ON OCTOBER, 2011.
wow thank you so much ..faints and shocked . xx I can't thank you enough for this nomination . I will cherish this forever . I looked at the other nominations and they are truly amazing . Thank you for even considering me Dreamart fashion xxx
Public vote here :
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdwfggCvdRrCqzu5fXMQPe6n...
OUTSIDE - Champs Elysees - NIGHT
FADE IN
The overall plan of boulevard Champs Elysees. Far away, in the out of focus, the Arc de Triomphe is visible. Float lights of passing cars. CUT TO the taxi, which travels toward Roosevelt Square. The overhead light in the cab is on, and we see driver silhouette and dimly lit woman face at the backseat.
INT. - TAXI - NIGHT
CLOSE-UP
From the passenger view, we see the color tabloid at the back seat. On its cover - picture a laughing woman. Easy readable headline, "Debut of the Year." The camera turns on MARIE-HELENE. We recognize her as cover-girl.
MARIE-HELENE with a slight smile looking at the city through lights, floating in the reflection of the half-closed window. Wind waving her bushy hair. Before us is a beautiful young woman in evening makeup. This is her first part in a big movie, with the exception of wandering in the low-budget films and tv shows. She hopes that through this film, she would finally be able to sign a contract for a film from the big studios, as laurel wreaths wins (or simply nominations) at film festivals can not pay many bills.
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Nikon D4, Nikkor 28 f1.8G. Lighting: SB-800 into Lumiquest LTp soft box model right, mimicing overhead car light.
2018 SAFAS AWARDS - Final Voting
The SL Academy of Fashion Arts and Sciences [SAFAS]©®
A Second Life professional honorary organization with open membership. Organization and staff positions are extended by our Board of Governors to distinguished contributors to the arts and sciences of SL fashion. A yearly awards program recognizes those who have advanced the fashion world of SL through their contributions.
After receiving thousands of individual nominations that span hundreds of categories, we have created this final form for you to vote for your favorites in the respective categories. The form below is provided for you to vote for who you feel has contributed to the world of SL and who should be recognized.
The final results of our winners will be announced LIVE at the 2018 SAFAS Awards in Second Life on Saturday, June 30, 2018.
Thank you for your vote and feel free to join our in-world group (free) in Second Life
[SL Academy of Fashion Arts&Science].
Please help us by voting for your favorites in each category. Voting from the TOP nominations will end on June 29, 2018 and the final results of our winners will be announced LIVE at the 2018 SAFAS Awards in Second Life on Saturday, June 30, 2018.
Who would you like to nominate for a 2018 SAFAS Awards?
Do you want to vote for me? Thank you !!!!
FINAL VOTING HERE: docs.google.com/forms/d/13k_t_VNPPz5X31dCIpJIaljqZ1f5iYJ_...
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Prekestolen is a wonderful hiking destination, especially for children, who managed the hike in half a day. The effort was not only rewarded by the fantastic views over the Lysefjord, but also by the fact that I was able to show my children so many other things during the hike. The path runs across a plateau and a marsh called Krogabekkmyra. There were also a few tricky spots that were a little narrow and made us respect the height here.
A fantastic experience that we will remember for a long time.
amarok — the dark parade ♫
youtu.be/WHhCwPDmbao (abridged version)
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EOS R RF50mm F1.2L USM
Exposure: ƒ/6.7 | 1/250s ISO 100
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Guys, thank you very much for your visit and the nomination for exploration. 2025/10/08|#80 Best greetings fr̅a̅n̅k
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This image is subject to full © copyright Please do not use my images on websites, blogs, or in other media without express written permission. It is also not permitted to download or copy, reproduce, distribute, modify, or manipulate my photos.
F̶̅G̅. 2025 © all rights reserved
Little church of St. John in Ranui - Villnöss Valley
Ranui in St. Magdalena/Villnöß
Well hidden but still found the small church of St. John in Ranui. The search had fortunately taken some time. So we arrived here in this beautiful evening light.
My first thought, too bad that the clouds block my view of Geislerspitzen. But that was just a my first thought, because without these clouds I could not have created this photo so at all, because I did not want a wide-angle photo with a task to find the church on it. (◜◡‾ ) I was very happy that everything is as it is. The clouds, no tourists, the light. Ha Ha there were no tourists because of the installed turnstile. This is very good, because the vast majority of people do not spend money to enter the property. So the charm of this place is preserved.
Ƥ⟆: Sure I entered the property;)
niklas paschburg — fright ♫ remix
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EOSR | RF50mm f/1.2L USM
Exposure: ƒ/2.8 | 1/750s ISO 100
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Guys, thank you very much for your visit and the nomination for exploration. 2023/08/31|#30 Best greetings fr̅a̅n̅k
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This image is subject to full copyright © Please do not use my images on websites, blogs, or in other media without express written permission. F̶̅G̅. 2023 © all rights reserved
This is one of those builds where I just had this idea, and then just sat there giggling to myself all the while building it. :D I even reused some of my previous Mario-themed builds in this, so it was just a fun quick little build.
Brought this to Brickworld back in June (only got around to uploading it now... woopsie), where it got a nomination for Best Humour! :)
When Jane Foster first debuted as Thor, I was one of THOSE comic book fans.
I complained about how Marvel was disrespecting the essence of Thor's character. I rambled about how this was the work of SJWs and that gender politics should have no place in comic books. I used it as additional justification that DC was better than Marvel (even though this is still an objective fact hehe). More than anything, I thought that those who were looking for representation could do so in dozens of other characters - just not my favorite legacy one.
Fast forward about 4.5 years later, and now my stance on representation has changed into something a lot more nuanced and unsure. Not only did I just grow up, but I've also had a lot of conversations and experiences that have made me reconsider why exactly representation is important, if at all.
One of my mom's college friends is a very outspoken advocate for the greater Asian-American immigrant community. When Crazy Rich Asians came out, he questioned whether the Asian-American representation that Hollywood had so greatly lacked before had really come to fruition. The vast majority of the Asian community has no opulent wealth, no generational political power, and certainly does not celebrate weddings by shooting rocket launchers off a private cruise ship. In and outside the United States, people of Asian descent work long and hard to make ends meet and regularly face institutionalized discrimination. Did Crazy Rich Asians, a film that depicts such an alien distortion of the real life ethnic experience, truly give a voice to the experience of Asians around the world?
I think similarly about Black Panther, which is arguably antithetical to the actual diaspora experience of Africans around the world. Yes, Killmonger's aspirations do address the whole concept of why ethnic retribution would be wrong, but the whole concept of Wakanda is so ludicrous that I still think that the film misses the mark with representation. It is not grounded in any useful reality. It's currently up for seven Academy Award nominations, very few of which I believe that the film deserves on merit alone.
In regard to Black Panther, Jamil Smith for Time Magazine even wrote that the film would "prove to Hollywood that African-American narratives have the power to generate profits from all audiences."
Why are we, as a society, trying to generate profits from ethnic narratives in the first place? Do the Hollywood executives that greenlit the film really care about issues that exist in the African and African-American communities?
If the whole point of representation is to serve as a hallmark of social change, why has there been so little actual social change?
And if the counterargument is that "it's just a comic book/movie/book/media product, stop taking it so seriously," then why make a stink about representation in the first place?
I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below! :)
An Oscar nomination animated short film titled paperman really struck me. I have been in kind of a rut, and have been struggling to produce ideas; not much inspiration. I came across this film a couple days ago and it instantly made me press replay. From the subtle realistic gestures, to the score by Christophe Beck, it really took me back in my chair with my hands on my head. Inspiration was instantly conveyed to the right side of my brain and will reside. Thank you Disney.
R.I.P Taro my friend...You will be sorely missed.
Your smile and laugh were so infectious. Thank you for all the good memories you left your friends and family with... the GEN-U-INE real deal.
Thanks to all who wrote comments and thought of him and inquired!! Grateful for you!! x
Thank you Flickr Yahoo for your kind nomination to Explore ;) Brightened my day!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rog8ou-ZepE
Ice bucket challenge nominated by cold frog and Lisa Outsider.
My next nomination is Chaos. Lucifer and Miles Cantelou
Yes, I was going to be taking a little break from flickr but I've had a couple of pieces of lovely news over the last half a week. As you can probably guess from the above, I've been nominated for an award on the Hipstography website, for a portfolio of mine they published earlier last year. Some of you may remember that. Really chuffed to be included, especially amongst some really wonderful fellow photographers. Well, apparently once the nominations were chosen it is then a public vote. So, y'all should duck over there, take a gander at the fantastic nominations and vote for your faves! You can find the right page here .
Also, although many of you will have noticed, I was super pleased to get an honourable mention in the Mobile Photography Awards street category that was announced late last week, for this photo . Anyhoo, big thanks to all of you for your continued encouragement and company, I've learnt so much from keeping company with you all on this place. Appreciate it everyone!
NB: Although I did not win this category, the same shot of bathers at Bondi won the Hipstography monochrome photo of the year. Yay.
After Doctor Strange's nomination for best Visual Effects was announced yesterday, Peyton Reed took to Twitter to confirm VFX artist Stephane Ceretti, who did the visual effects for both Doctor Strange and Guardians of the Galaxy, will in fact work on Ant-Man and the Wasp!
This is great news because I believe that Doctor Strange has the best VFX in the MCU so far! Does this also give us a clue of what Ant-Man and the Wasp is going to look like? Hear me out. So since this guy worked on a lot of those trippy dimensional stuff in Doctor Strange, could we see that carried over to this movie with Subatomic to the Quantum realm to find Janet Van Dyne?
That's just a theory of mine, and even though I'd prefer Ant-Man and the Wasp to stay earthbound for their movie, because I believe that's where their best stories and villains are, I wouldn't be too surprised if that's the direction they're going in.
Anyways, leave your thoughts on this piece of news in the comments below!
**Missouri State Capitol Historic District** - National Register of Historic Places Ref # 76001109, date listed 6/18/1976
Bounded roughly by Adams, McCarthy, Mulberry Sts. and the Missouri River
Jefferson City, MO (Cole County)
Jefferson City was organized around the Capitol complex. The topography is a series of river bluffs and rolling hills. The bluff promontories were selected as sites for the Capitol Building and the Governor's Mansion to lend prominence to these important structures. The town was oriented parallel to the Missouri River which at this point flows from northwest to southeast.
The district contains more than 100 structures of various ages, designs, and functions. It represents a consolidation of five existing entries on the National Register of Historic Places and the incorporation of adjacent commercial, religious, and governmental structures and grounds to form a historic district at the heart of Missouri's seat of government.
Carnegie Public Library. 210 Adams Street, 1901. A good example of turn of-the-century architecture, this stone structure was designed by Frank B. Miller. Threatened with demolition to make way for a parking lot, it is one of the few surviving Carnegie library buildings in Missouri. (pg 5) (1)
References (1) NRHP Nomination Form catalog.archives.gov/id/63818680
Sarah Jane Hyland (born November 24, 1990) is an American actress. Born in New York City, Hyland attended the Professional Performing Arts School in Manhattan, followed by small roles in the films Private Parts (1997), Annie (1999), and Blind Date (2007). She gained her first major role as Haley Dunphy on the ABC sitcom Modern Family, for which she has received critical acclaim and numerous accolades and nominations, sharing four Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series with her cast members and garnering a Critics' Choice Television Award nomination Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.
British postcard by Star Graphics, London, no. S 127.
American actress Meryl Streep (1949) is one of the best actresses of her generation, known for her versatility and accents.She has been nominated for the Oscar an astonishing 21 times, and has won it three times. Among her other accolades, she has received 32 Golden Globe nominations, more than any other person, and won eight.
Mary Louise 'Meryl' Streep was born in 1949, in Summit, New Jersey. She is the daughter of Mary Wilkinson Streep (née Mary Wolf Wilkinson), a commercial artist and art editor; and Harry William Streep, Jr., a pharmaceutical executive. She has two younger brothers: Harry William Streep III and Dana David Streep, who are also actors. At the age of 12, Streep was selected to sing at a school recital, leading to her having opera lessons from Estelle Liebling. She quit after four years. Although Streep appeared in numerous school plays during her high school years, she was uninterested in serious theatre until acting in the play Miss Julie at Vassar College in 1969, in which she gained attention across the campus. She received her B.A. cum laude from the college in 1971, before applying for an MFA from the Yale School of Drama. Streep played a variety of roles on stage, from Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream to an 80-year-old woman in a wheelchair in a comedy written by then-unknown playwrights Christopher Durang and Albert Innaurato. She received her MFA from Yale in 1975. That year, Streep made her stage debut in New York in Trelawny of the Wells by Arthur Wing Pinero. The following year, she received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play for appearing in the 1976 double bill of '27 Wagons Full of Cotton' by Tennessee Williams and 'A Memory of Two Mondays' by Arthur Miller. She made her screen debut in the television film The Deadliest Season (Robert Markowitz, 1977), a sports drama with Michael Moriarty. Her film debut was the award-winning Holocaust drama Julia (Fred Zinnemann, 1977), starring Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave. It is based on a chapter from Lillian Hellman's book Pentimento about the author's relationship with a lifelong friend, 'Julia,' who fought against the Nazis in the years prior to World War II. Streep had a small role during a flashback sequence. She received her first Oscar nomination for the epic war drama The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1978). Critic Pauline Kael remarked that she was a "real beauty" who brought much freshness to the film with her performance. The film, starring Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken, was also successful at the box office, grossing $49 million. She also won an Emmy Award for her role in the miniseries Holocaust (Marvin J. Chomsky, 1978), which recounts the trajectory of the Holocaust from the perspectives of the fictional Weiss family of German Jews and that of a rising member of the SS (Michael Moriarty), who gradually becomes a merciless war criminal. Streep travelled to Germany and Austria for filming while her partner, actor John Cazale, who had been diagnosed with lung cancer, remained in New York. Upon her return, Streep found that Cazale's illness had progressed, and she nursed him until his death in March 1978. Streep starred opposite Dustin Hoffman in the legal drama Kramer vs. Kramer (Robert Benton, 1979). It tells the story of a couple's (Streep and Dustin Hoffmann) divorce, its impact on their young son (Justin Henry), and the subsequent evolution of their relationship and views on parenting. For Kramer vs. Kramer, Streep won both the Golden Globe Award and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, which she famously left in the ladies' room after giving her speech.
Meryl Streep's first leading role was in the British romantic drama The French Lieutenant's Woman (Karel Reisz, 1981), a story within a story drama. The film paired Streep with Jeremy Irons as contemporary actors, telling their modern story, as well as the Victorian era drama they were performing. She got an Oscar nomination for her performance. Streep won the Oscar for Best Actress for Sophie's Choice (Alan J. Pakula, 1982). Streep was very determined to get the role. After obtaining a bootlegged copy of the script, she went after Pakula, and threw herself on the ground, begging him to give her the part. She portrayed a Polish survivor of Auschwitz, caught in a love triangle between a young naïve writer (Peter MacNicol) and a Jewish intellectual (Kevin Kline). Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote: "Though it's far from a flawless movie, 'Sophie's Choice' is a unified and deeply affecting one. Thanks in large part to Miss Streep's bravura performance, it's a film that casts a powerful, uninterrupted spell." In 1983, Streep played her first non-fictional character, the nuclear whistleblower and labor union activist Karen Silkwood, who died in a suspicious car accident while investigating alleged wrongdoing at the Kerr-McGee plutonium plant, in Mike Nichols' biographical drama Silkwood (Mike Nichols, 1983) with Cher. Then she portrayed a fighter for the French Resistance during World War II in the British drama Plenty (Fred Schepisi, 1985), adapted from the play by David Hare. Her next release, the epic romantic drama Out of Africa (Sydney Pollack, 1985), established her as a Hollywood superstar. In the film, Streep starred as the Danish writer Karen Blixen, opposite Robert Redford's Denys Finch Hatton. It earned her another Oscar nomination. Karina Longworth notes in 'Meryl Streep: Anatomy of an Actor' (2013) that the dramatic success of Out of Africa led to a backlash of critical opinion against Streep in the years that followed, especially as she was now demanding $4 million a picture. Unlike other stars at the time, such as Sylvester Stallone and Tom Cruise, Streep "never seemed to play herself", and certain critics felt her technical finesse led people to literally see her acting.
Meryl Streep's other Oscar-nominated roles were in Ironweed (Héctor Babenco, 1987) with Jack Nicholson, the Australian drama Evil Angels/A Cry in the Dark (Fred Schepisi, 1988), the comedy-drama Postcards from the Edge (Mike Nichols, 1990) with Shirley MacLaine, the romantic drama The Bridges of Madison County (Clint Eastwood, 1995), One True Thing (Carl Franklin, 1998) with Renee Zellweger, the musical drama Music of the Heart (Wes Craven, 1999), Adaptation (Spike Jonze, 2002) starring Nicholas Cage, the comedy-drama The Devil Wears Prada (David Frankel, 2006) with Anne Hathaway, the period drama Doubt (John Patrick Shanley, 2008), the comedy-drama Julie & Julia (Nora Ephron, 2009) with Amy Adams, August: Osage County (John Wells, 2013) with Julia Roberts, the musical fantasy Into the Woods (Rob Marshall, 2014), the biographical comedy-drama Florence Foster Jenkins (Stephen Frears, 2016) with Hugh Grant, and the historical political thriller The Post (Steven Spielberg, 2017), starring Tom Hanks. Streep won the Best Actress Oscar again for The Iron Lady (Phyllida Lloyd, 2011), the British-French biographical drama based on the life and career of Margaret Thatcher. While the film was met with mixed reviews, Streep's performance was widely acclaimed, and considered to be one of the greatest of her career. Her stage roles include The Public Theater's 2001 revival of 'The Seagull', and her television roles include two projects for HBO, the acclaimed miniseries Angels in America (2003), for which her performance won her another Emmy Award, and the drama series Big Little Lies (2019). Streep has also been the recipient of many honorary awards. She was awarded Commander of the Order of the Arts and Letters by French culture minister Jean-Jacques Aillagon in 2003. In the cinema, she appeared as Emmeline Pankhurst, a British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement who helped women win the right to vote in the period drama Suffragette (Sarah Gavron, 2015), co-starring Carey Mulligan and Helena Bonham Carter. Streep reprised the role of Donna Sheridan in the musical sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (Ol Parker, 2018). She also played a supporting part in Mary Poppins Returns (Rob Marshall, ), starring Emily Blunt in the title role. In 2019, she starred in the biographical comedy The Laundromat (Steven Soderberg, 2019), the first Netflix film in which Streep starred. The film focused on the Panama Papers in particular and Beneficial ownership in general. Streep was whistleblower John Doe who released incriminating documents to the media. In addition, she played Aunt March in Little Women (Greta Gerwig, 2019). Despite her stardom, for decades Streep has managed to maintain a relatively normal personal life. Streep lived with actor John Cazale for three years until his death from lung cancer in March 1978. Streep married sculptor Don Gummer six months after Cazale's death. They have four children: one son and three daughters, son Henry Wolfe Gummer (1979), a musician; daughters Mary Willa 'Mamie' Gummer (1983), an actress; Grace Jane Gummer (1986), an actress; and Louisa Jacobson Gummer (1991), a model. In February 2019, Streep became a grandmother for the first time, through her eldest daughter Mamie.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.
With his all-American good looks, Robert Redford (1936) was one of the biggest Hollywood stars of the 1970s. In classics as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Sting (1973) and All the President's Men (1976), he was the intelligent, reliable, sometimes sardonic good guy. He received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime Achievement in 2002. In 2010, the actor, director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and co-founder of the Sundance Film Festival was appointed Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur in France.
Charles Robert Redford Jr. was born in Santa Monica, California in 1936. His parents were Martha W. (Hart) and Charles Robert Redford, Sr., a milkman-turned-accountant. Redford's family moved to Van Nuys, California, while his father worked in El Segundo. He attended Van Nuys High School and was interested in art and sports. After high school, he attended the University of Colorado for a year and a half. He travelled in Europe but decided on a career as a theatrical designer in New York. Enrolling at the American Academy of Dramatic Art he turned to acting. In 1959, Redford's acting career began on stage, making his Broadway debut with a small role in Tall Story. It was followed by parts in The Highest Tree (1959) and Sunday in New York (1961). On TV, he appeared as a guest star on numerous programs, including Maverick (1960), Perry Mason (1960), The Twilight Zone (1962), and The Untouchables (1963). Redford earned an Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Voice of Charlie Pont (1962). Redford made his screen debut in War Hunt (Denis Sanders, 1962), set during the last days of the Korean War. This film also marked the acting debut of director Sydney Pollack, with whom Redford would collaborate on seven films. His biggest Broadway success was as the stuffy newlywed husband of Elizabeth Ashley in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963). After this smash hit, he was cast in larger film roles. In the war comedy Situation Hopeless ... But Not Serious (Gottfried Reinhardt, 1965) with Alec Guinness, he played a soldier who has to spend years of his life hiding behind enemy lines. In Inside Daisy Clover (Robert Mulligan, 1965), he played a bisexual movie star who marries starlet Natalie Wood. It won him a Golden Globe for the best new star. A success was This Property Is Condemned (Sydney Pollack, 1966), again with Nathalie Wood. The same year saw he co-starred with Jane Fonda in The Chase (Arthur Penn, 1966), also with Marlon Brando. Fonda and Redford were paired again in the film version of Barefoot in the Park (Gene Saks, 1967) and were again co-stars much later in The Electric Horseman (Sydney Pollack, 1979).
After this initial success, Robert Redford became concerned about his stereotype image of the blond 'All American'. At the age of 32, he found the property he was looking for in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill, 1969), scripted by William Goldman. For the first time, he was teamed with Paul Newman and it was a huge success. The film made him a major bankable star. Other critical and box office hits were Jeremiah Johnson (Sydney Pollack, 1972), the hugely popular period drama The Way We Were (Sydney Pollack, 1973) with Barbra Streisand, and the blockbuster crime caper The Sting (George Roy Hill, 1973), the biggest hit of his career, for which he was also nominated for an Oscar. Between 1974 and 1976, exhibitors voted Redford as Hollywood's top box-office name with such hits as The Great Gatsby (Jack Clayton, 1974) and Three Days of the Condor (Sydney Pollack, 1975) with Faye Dunaway. The popular and acclaimed All the President's Men (Alan J. Pakula, 1976), directed by and scripted once again by Goldman, was a landmark film for Redford. Not only was he the executive producer and co-star, but the film's serious subject matter—the Watergate scandal—and its attempt to create a realistic portrayal of journalism, also reflected the actor's offscreen concerns for political causes. He also appeared in the war film A Bridge Too Far (Richard Attenborough, 1977) before starring in the prison drama Brubaker (Stuart Rosenberg, 1980), playing a prison warden attempting to reform the system, and the baseball drama The Natural (Barry Levinson, 1984). With his enormous salaries, he acquired Utah property, which he transformed into a ranch and the Sundance ski resort. In 1980, he established the Sundance Institute for aspiring filmmakers. Its annual film festival has now become one of the world's most influential.
Robert Redford continued his involvement in mainstream Hollywood movies, though with a newfound focus on directing. The first film he directed, Ordinary People (1980), which followed the disintegration of an upper-class American family after the death of a son, was one of the most critically and publicly acclaimed films of the decade, winning a number of Oscars, including the Academy Award for Best Director for Redford himself, and Best Picture. His follow-up directorial project, The Milagro Beanfield War (1987), failed to generate the same level of attention. Out of Africa (Sydney Pollack, 1985), with Redford and Meryl Streep, became an enormous critical and box office success and won seven Oscars including Best Picture. It was Redford's biggest success of the decade and Redford and Pollack's most successful film together. Redford continued as a major star throughout the 1990s and 2000s. His third film as a director, A River Runs Through It (1992) with the young Brad Pitt was a mainstream success. Then, he starred in Indecent Proposal (Adrian Lyne, 1993) as a millionaire businessman who tests a couple's (Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson) morals. It became one of the year's biggest hits. His film Quiz Show (Robert Redford, 1994), starring Ralph Fiennes and Rob Morrow, earned him yet another Best Director nomination. He co-starred with Michelle Pfeiffer in the newsroom romance Up Close & Personal (Jon Avnet, 1996), and with Kristin Scott Thomas in The Horse Whisperer (1998), which he also directed. Redford also continued work in films with political contexts, such as Havana (Sydney Pollack, 1990), playing Jack Weil, a professional gambler in 1959 Cuba during the Revolution, as well as the caper Sneakers (Phil Alden Robinson, 1992), with River Phoenix. He reteamed with Brad Pitt for Spy Game (Tony Scott, 2001). Redford stepped back into producing with The Motorcycle Diaries (Walter Salles, 2004), a coming-of-age road film about a young medical student, Ernesto 'Che' Guevera, and his friend Alberto Granado. He reteamed with Meryl Streep 22 years after they starred in Out of Africa, for his personal project Lions for Lambs (Robert Redford, 2007), which also starred Tom Cruise. The film disappointed at the box office. Recently, he starred in All Is Lost (J.C. Chandor, 2013) about a man lost at sea. He received very high acclaim for his performance in the film, in which he is its only cast member and has almost no dialogue. Next, he appeared in the Marvel Studios superhero film Captain America: The Winter Soldier playing Alexander Pierce (Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, 2014). More recently, he appeared in such films as A Walk in the Woods (Ken Kwapis, 2015) with Nick Nolte and Emma Thompson, Truth (James Vanderbilt, 2015) with Cate Blanchett, The Discovery (Charlie McDowell, 2017) with Mary Steenburgen, and Avengers: Endgame (Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, 2019) with Robert Downey Jr. Between 1958 and 1985, Robert Redford was married to Lola Van Wagenen. The couple had four children: Scott Anthony (1959 - he died of sudden infant death syndrome, aged 2½ months), painter Shauna Jean Redford (1960), writer and producer David 'Jamie' James (1962), and director, and producer Amy Hart Redford (1970). Redford has seven grandchildren. In 2009, Redford married his long-time partner, German painter Sibylle Szaggars. In 2011, Alfred A. Knopf published 'Robert Redford: The Biography' by Michael Feeney Callan, written over fifteen years with Redford's input, and drawn from his personal papers and diaries.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
**Old Market Building** - National Register of Historic Places Ref # 69000166, date listed 12/3/1969
Front and Screven Sts.
Georgetown, SC (Georgetown County)
The Old Market Building in which the new Georgetown County Rice Museum is located stands in the town’s core commercial district, an area especially zoned for its protection by the city and governed by the city's Architecture Review Board, as well as by the Georgetown County Historical Commission.
The present building, erected 1842, replaces an old wooden market building which stood on the same site until destroyed by a hurricane. The second building, of brick, with a bell tower and clock, has been used as a market, jail, printing shop and police department.
Both use and location make the Old Market Building a crucially significant landmark for Georgetown, one of South Carolina’s three oldest port cities. Its use as town hall and market shows its central role in political and commercial life. Its central location on Front Street, the town's main business street, provides visual impact and proclaims the modern city's connections with the past. (1)
References (1) NRHP Nomination Form catalog.archives.gov/id/118997777
Odda is a town and administrative center in Ullensvang municipality in Vestland county in Norway. The town is located deep in the Sørfjorden in Hardanger , and has 4,764 inhabitants as of 1 January 2023 . Odda was the administrative center of Odda municipality , which on 1 January 2020 was merged with Jondal and Ullensvang to form the new Ullensvang municipality.
In 2009 , the industrial heritage in Odda-Tyssedal was listed on Norway's tentative list for UNESCO's World Heritage List , together with the Rjukan–Notodden industrial heritage .
Public services
Odda hospital is a local hospital for the municipalities of Eidfjord, Jondal, Odda and Ullensvang.
Odda secondary school offers both vocational and study specialist educations.
Business
Odda is known as an industrial location, with companies such as Odda Smelteverk , Boliden Odda (formerly Norzink ) and Tinfos Titan & Iron (TTI).
History
Tourism and hotel management
Before industrial activity in Odda began around 1910, Odda was a popular tourist destination which, among other things, attracted many foreigners who wanted to experience the scenic area with glaciers, fjords and waterfalls. This laid the foundation for several people to start hotel operations on the site.
Some of the most popular destinations for tourists visiting Odda were Låtefossen and Espelandsfossen .
Shuttle station, steamship wharf and steamship expedition
Baard Jakobsen Aga (1812–1895) received a merchant license in Odda in 1861, and in 1864 took over the shuttle station that was in operation in Odda. Then he secured a new plot of land where he built a hotel which was called alternately Prestegårds Hotel and Agas Hotel. In 1868 he became a post opener and steamship dispatcher, and he then had a steamship wharf and dispatch house built at Almerket. He had previously expanded the hotel business, but in 1888 he inaugurated a new hotel building, the "new Agas Hotel". In the 20th century, the large hotel building was used for other purposes, including Rita's bakery, which led to the building being called "Ritagården" colloquially. Agas Hotel/Ritagården was demolished in 1978.
From guest house to Hotel Hardanger
The start of hotel operations at Odda occurred around 1845, when a man named Monsen started an inn on the site. Monsen went bankrupt in the 1860s, and the inn was bought by a man named Wetshus. He continued to run the hotel business. After Wetshus had died, the two brothers Sven and Mikal Tollefsen became his successors in the early 1880s, with financial support from a rich Englishman. The Tollefsen brothers carried out a major renovation of the former guest house. When Sven Tollefsen died, Mikal Tollefsen became the hotel's sole owner.
Tollefsen also bought Agas Hotel, which Baard Jakobsen Aga had started.
On 9 August 1895, the then Hotel Hardanger was completely damaged in a fire. The fire started in Hotel Hardanger, but 7–8 neighboring buildings also caught fire. It was said that the fire was caused by the maid of an English hotel guest having left a candle or a kerosene lamp by an open window, and that the curtain had caught fire - as it was very hot most of the windows in the hotel were open, and this caused the fire to spread with great speed. The fire started at 12 o'clock in the morning.
The commander and crew of the steamship "Vega" - which happened to be docked in Odda when the fire started - managed to put out the fire(s) within three hours using fire-fighting equipment from the ship. Among other things, they managed to save the post office, while the telegraph building was lost. The competing Jordals Hotel, which was run by Jacob Jordal, was also saved.
Hotel Hardanger was insured, and Bergens Tidende wrote that the insurance sum was NOK 90,000, but also published an anonymous source's assessment that the hotel complex was worth NOK 200,000–250,000, and that the owner - Mikal Tollefsen - had probably suffered a significant financial loss due to underinsurance. No people were injured in the fire.
Shortly after the fire in 1895, Tollefsen started building a new and larger hotel on the site of the fire. The new hotel was completed on 24 June 1896, and had 170 hotel beds in 110 guest rooms. Architecturally, it was a mixture of Swiss style and dragon style, with towers and projections.
Hardanger Hotel is mentioned, among other things, in a French travelogue published in 1897.
In 1913, the owner of Hotel Hardanger filed a claim for damages against the two factories - a cyanamide factory and a carbide factory - which had started up in Odda a few years earlier, because the factory operation caused such great pollution and bad odors that it affected the hotel operation. The provisions of the Neighborhood Act were the legal basis for the lawsuit. The court agreed with the plaintiff that the two factories were obliged to pay compensation for inconvenience and losses that the hotel had suffered after 2 August 1911, but not because Odda had become less idyllic and thus attractive to tourists. The compensation sum was to be determined after an appraisal had been carried out , and the result of the appraisal was not available until 1922. By then both factories had gone bankrupt, and hotel owner Mikal Tollefsen had died.
Hotel Hardanger becomes a town hall
In 1917, the municipality bought the Hotel Hardanger, to convert the building into a town hall . The hotel had then been almost empty all year round, because the industrial activity on the site had meant that the tourists did not show up. [9]
The hotel's so-called "Kongerom" was converted into a chairman's office and lord's boardroom. Eventually, the new town hall also accommodated a number of other businesses, such as a cinema, police station, doctor's office and bank. The old hotel was in use as Odda Town Hall until a new building was inaugurated in 1957; from then on, the former Hotel Hardanger was referred to as Odda old town hall . This building was demolished in 1976.
Jordals Hotel becomes Hardanger Hotel
In 1917, Jordals Hotel was bought by the Melkeraaen family, who continued to run the hotel for 68 years. Along the way, they changed the name of the hotel to Hardanger Hotel.
The Hardanger Hotel, which was a wooden Swiss-style building, was demolished in 1962, and a new five-story hotel building was inaugurated on 1 July 1963.
From tourism to industrial site
Factories and smelters
At the beginning of the 20th century, two factories were started in Odda. On one, cyanamide was produced, and on the other, carbide was produced .
In 1908, the operation of the first factory that was to be part of Odda Smelteverk , a carbide factory owned by a British company, began. In 1909, another British company started production of calcium cyanamide in the same area as the first factory. The reason why Odda was interesting for the foreign companies was the access to large amounts of hydropower and ice-free ports.
Both factories went bankrupt in 1921 , in connection with the worldwide economic crisis that occurred in the early 1920s. The bankruptcies led to thousands of people becoming unemployed. Both factories started up again in 1924, with Odda Smelteverk A/S as the new owner. This operating company was established by the power company Tyssefaldene and the Hafslund/Meraker group.
The cyanamide factory was built on in the 1930s.
At the smelter, the so-called Odda process was developed by chief chemist Erling Johnson in 1927–1928; it is a chemical process based on nitric acid for the industrial production of three-sided artificial fertilizer with the sub-components nitrogen , phosphorus and potassium .
Preservation decision and dispute over conservation value
In 2011 , the National Archives decided to protect several of the smelter's buildings and facilities, and to include the smelter in the Norwegian application to UNESCO for world heritage status for Norwegian industrial monuments. In 2013, however, the Ministry of the Environment decided that the series nomination should be split into two phases, 1. application for Rjukan/Notodden to be submitted to UNESCO in January 2014, and phase 2, that work be continued on expanding the nomination to include Odda/ Tyssedal with eventual submission to UNESCO in January 2016.
The owners of the smelter site objected to the conservation decision made in 2011, but the decision was upheld in 2012. The conservation included the cyanamide factory, the cable car, the Linde house (named after the German inventor Carl von Linde ) and the limestone silo on the import quay. Over the years, there has been much controversy in Odda about whether the smelter's buildings and facilities should be preserved or removed.
Cultural life
Music and theater
Tyssedalkoret and Odda Songlag are two choirs that come from Odda municipality. The water power and industrial history of the area here was documented in the performance and the DVD ``Arven'', performed by Tyssedalkoret with band and soloists in autumn 2004 and released on DVD in Christmas 2005. In addition these two choirs have the bands Odda Musikklag , Odda Skolekorps and Røldal Skolemusiklag. The blues team Lokst Utøve has 272 members. The Blueslaget received the culture award for 2009 for their great work as concert/festival organisers, volunteer workers and inspirers for bands and soloists. In 2011, Erlend Garatun Huus published the book Rock og Røyk , which is about the history of rock in Odda.
At the closed smelter (2001), the old "Lindehuset" has been used for theater and concert activities. The theater play Bikebubesong , based on the Oddingen Frode Grytten's novel Bikubesong , was performed in this venue in 2003 with great success. The play's performance in Oslo has been the most watched contemporary drama in Norwegian history.
A key cultural player in Odda is the company Oddakonsertene, led by Gunn Gravdal Elton. In April 2019, the Odda concerts staged the musical Albert og Leonie , a story about how Odda arose as an industrial community. The musical was a huge success with sold-out houses. 2,600 people queued to see and hear the story. The director was Martine Bakken Lundberg. The main roles were played by André Søfteland and Lene Kokai Flage. Over 60 amateurs were on stage. Albert and Leonie was planned to be staged again in 2020 and 2021, but had to be canceled due to the corona pandemic .
The odd concerts started in 2005 and as of 2019 have staged more than 60 concerts. All have been sold out. The most popular concerts are the annual Christmas concerts, which gather over 1,000 listeners. The traditional Christmas concert in Odda church with a large ensemble and two to three concerts in a row officially ended in 2019, but a simplified version was arranged in 2020, with concerts in Skare and Odda churches.
The Literature Symposium
From 2005, a festival called the Literature Symposium in Odda has been organized every autumn . The Linden house at the defunct Smelteverket, Odda cinema, Sentralbadet, Odda church are some of the venues at the symposium. Previously, there was every year "Bikubegang" with Frode Grytten , where he told about the story behind the book "Bikubesong", while he wandered around Odda. The literary symposium also has concerts, often in connection with an author/musician or individual artists. During the Literary Symposium 2011, the Sentralbadet Litteraturhus opened in the old bathroom at the closed Smelteverket, and this has become headquarters for the symposium, as well as a permanent house for literary events all year round.
As of 2010, a major rehabilitation/remodeling of Lindehuset was planned, so that the building would be better suited for events such as concerts and theater performances.
The National Antiquities' "Value creation project"
Odda is one of the pilot projects in the Value Creation Project for the National Archives.
TV shows
The actions in the TV series RIP Henry and Ragnarok have been added to Odda, and are recorded there. In Ragnarok, on the other hand, the city goes by the name Edda .
Known oddities
Samson Isberg (1795–1873), sharpshooter
Knud Knudsen (photographer) (1832–1915)
Gro Holm , born Prestgarden (1878–1949), writer
Alfred Hagn (1882–1958), painter, writer and spy.
Claes Gill (1910–1973), writer, actor and theater manager
Torbjørn Mork (1928–1992), doctor, politician ( Ap ), director of health 1972–1992
Walther Aas (1928–1990), artist
Roger Albertsen , (1957–2003), footballer
Anne B. Ragde (born 1957), writer, (raised in Trondheim)
Arne Borgstrøm (born 1959), elite long-distance swimmer
Frode Grytten (born 1960), author
Lars Ove Seljestad (born 1961), author
Bjørn Ingvaldsen (born 1962), author, leader of Norwegian Children's and Young People's Book Writers
Hallgeir Opedal (born 1965), writer and journalist
Børge Brende (born 1965), politician ( H ), former secretary general of the Norwegian Red Cross , minister of foreign affairs
Ida Melbo Øystese (born 1968), chief of police in Oslo from 2023.
Knut Olav Åmås (born 1968), author, editor, director of the foundation Fritt Ord
Leif Einar Lothe (born 1969), entrepreneur, singer, TV profile
Marit Eikemo (born 1971), writer
Tore Aurstad (born 1972), author
Ingvill Måkestad Bovim (born 1981), athlete
Håkon Opdal (born 1982), footballer
Ingvild Skare Thygesen (born 1993), TV profile
The Sognefjord is Norway's longest and deepest fjord with its 205 km and 1303 m at its deepest (SNL states 1308), including Sognesjøen which is at the far end towards the North Sea. The Sognefjord has the deepest point on Norway's coast. The fjord is 176–180 km from the innermost Lusterfjorden ( Skjolden ) to Sognefest , and 206 km to the outermost reef (then Lake Sognesjøen is also included). The width varies from around 1 to 2 km in Lusterfjorden to 4–5 km from Leikanger and beyond. Measured from the threshold to Skjolden, the fjord is 174 km. The middle part of the fjord is surrounded by mountains of around 1000 meters and in the inner part the height difference between the bottom of the fjord and the mountain tops is 3500 metres. The highest peak right by the fjord is Bleia at 1,721 metres, which gives a 2,850 meter height difference. Around the inner part of the fjord, the landscape is alpine with pointed mountain peaks, steep mountain sides and glaciers. As an extension of the fjord arms, long and deep valleys extend in all directions, including Jostedalen , Lærdalen and Årdal with Utladalen . The Sognefjord is the world's longest open (ice-free) fjord. The Sognefjord is the world's third longest fjord.
It is located in the middle of Vestland county (formerly Sogn og Fjordane county to which it helped give its name) and stretches from Solund on the coast in the west to Skjolden at the foot of Jotunheimen in the east (northeast), where the fjord arm is called Lustrafjorden . The fjord and the land around it make up the Sogn region, often divided into Outer, Midtre and Indre Sogn. The length from Rutletangen to Skjolden is 186 km . Sogn makes up almost 60% of the area in Sogn and Fjordane, or around 11,000 km 2 . The twelve municipalities in Sogn have a total area of 10,671.55 km² and 37,063 inhabitants (1 January 2014). The land around the inner part of the fjord is called Indre Sogn and includes the long fjord arms. From Leikanger onwards, the country is called Ytre Sogn . The outer part of the fjord has few and small fjord arms. The fjord arms are like hanging valleys under water in that the bottom in the side fjords is often much shallower than the main fjord with a height difference of over 1,000 meters in some cases. The main fjord has a threshold at its mouth to the sea, while several of the side fjords have thresholds at the mouth of the main fjord.
The Sognefjord cuts so deeply into the country that it is only 15 km from the innermost arm at Skjolden to mountain peaks such as Store Skagastølstind in Jotunheimen. The water flow usually exits the fjord. The rivers create sandbanks where they run into the fjord, for example at Gudvangen, in Lærdal and in Gaupne. These sandbars are constantly expanding and changing shape.
The Sognefjord, especially the inner part, is surrounded by mountain massifs which are alpine in the inner part and more rounded in the outer part. The innermost arms of the fjord continue as deep and sometimes long valleys, including Lærdal , Årdal with Utladalen , Nærøydalen , Sogndalsdalen , Fjærland , Fortunsdalen , Aurlandsdalen and Jostedalen . The transition between the fjord and these valleys is determined by sea level, and the boundary has moved outwards at the uplift. Some of the side valleys, such as Vik and Fresvik, would have been hanging valleys in the same way as the Feigedalen if the Sognefjord was drained.
Name
Amund Helland writes " The Sognefjord's real name is Sogn , while Sogn is now used only for the surrounding landscape, and was thus already used in the Middle Ages. As a landscape name, the name is a masculine word and has undoubtedly been so as a fjord name as well." The name is connected to the word "suction", which probably refers to the suction or the difficult current conditions that are created when the water flows through the fjord mouth and over the threshold.
Geography
Large parts of the fjord are surrounded by steep mountains. Kvamsøy at Balestrand is a small island separated from the mainland by a short, shallow strait. Outside Balestrand there are small fjord arms and at Veganes ( Dragsvik ferry quay ) there is a significant branching with the Fjærlandsfjorden .
Municipalities
Municipalities with shoreline to the fjord, counted from west to east:
Solund
Hyllestad (north side)
Gulen (south side)
Høyanger (on both sides of the main fjord)
Vik (south side)
Sogndal (north side)
Aurland (south side, around the Aurlandsfjord)
Lærdal (south side)
Luster (north side, around Lustrafjorden)
Årdal (around the Årdalsfjord)
Depths
The Sognefjord has only one threshold which is at the mouth and the threshold is around 165 meters deep. The area beyond the threshold is called Sognesjøen , which is sheltered by islands to the north and south; there is no threshold outside Sognesjøen that has free circulation towards the ocean.
From the inner parts at Årdal or Skjolden, the fjord gradually deepens outwards (westwards). Between Fodnes-Mannheller and Rutledal-Rysjedalsvika, the bottom is at least 800 metres. The deepest part is approximately at Åkrestrand and Vadheim. The outer part of the fjord (at Losna and Sula ) has a marked threshold with depths of 100 to 200 metres, where the fjord bed rises abruptly from a depth of 1,200 meters to around 100 meters over a stretch of 5 km at Rutledal. In Lake Sognesjøen there are several small troughs (with depths down to 400-500 metres) with thresholds between them. Across the fjord, the bottom is partly completely flat with less than 1 meter variation in depth over a 2 km cross-section. The bottom is covered by fine material (clay) which at Vangsnes is up to 300 meters thick. Seismic shows that the greatest depth to the bedrock is approximately 1,600 m, but loose masses with a thickness of 200–400 m mean that the fjord bottom is nevertheless flat. Seismic surveys at Vangsnes have revealed a 300 meter thick layer of clay at the bottom.
Between 50 and 180 km from the mouth, the fjord bed is relatively flat. Almost all side fjords form hanging valleys to the main fjord. For example, the mouth of the Fjærlandsfjord is well over 400 meters deep, while the main fjord is close to 1,200 meters deep just outside the mouth. Vadheimfjord's mouth is 400 meters deep, here the greatest depth is over 1300 m. Ikjefjord's mouth is only 50 meters deep close to where the main fjord is at its deepest. In large parts of the fjord, it is "abruptly deep" in that the steep mountain sides continue just as steeply underwater.
In contrast to a number of other fjords, not every single part of the Sognefjord has its own name. Only the outermost part has its own name - Sognesjøen . However, there are many fjord arms. From west to east these are:
Sognesjøen
Straumsfjorden
Bjørnefjorden
Nessefjord
The Sognefjord
Lifjorden
Bøfjorden
The Risnefjord
The Ikjefjord
Vadheimsfjorden
Fuglsetfjorden
Høyangsfjorden
Lånefjorden
The Finnafjord
The Arnafjord
The Inner Fjord
Framfjorden
Vikbukti
The Esefjord
Fjærlandsfjorden
The Vetlefjord
Sværefjorden
The Norafjord
Sogndalsfjorden
Barsnes Fjord
The Eidsfjord
Aurlandsfjorden
The Nærøyfjord
Amla Bay
Lærdalsfjorden
Årdalsfjorden
The Lustrafjord
The Gaupnefjord
Climate and fresh water
The fjord colored by meltwater from the glacier.
Terrain formations and distance to the sea lead to great variations in climate along the fjord. The outer part has a mild and humid coastal climate, while the innermost part has an inland climate with cold and dry winters.
The amount of precipitation decreases strongly inwards into the fjord. Lærdal lies in the rain shadow and has very little rainfall, while west-facing slopes further out have a lot of rainfall and there the rainfall often increases with altitude. Brekke and Takle in Ytre Parish are among the places in Norway with the most rainfall. North of the Sognefjord lies the Jostedalsbreen, Norway's largest glacier, and parts of the meltwater drain into the Sognefjord. Wind conditions are strongly influenced by terrain formations. In winter, the dominant wind direction is out the fjord or out the side valleys in the form of so-called downwinds . Fall winds can be very strong and have a major impact on cooling and icing. The slopes and valleys along the inner parts of the fjord have a partially mild climate and are fertile, which makes the area suitable for growing fruit and berries, among other things. The slopes along the fjord partly have large conifer forests, including in the roadless area of Frønningen .
The fjord receives fresh water mainly from the rivers and very little precipitation directly on the fjord's water surface. In the inner part of the Sognefjord, the total supply of fresh water during one year corresponds to a depth of 33 meters if it were distributed over the entire area of the fjord. In spring and partly in autumn, the top 2-3 meters of the fjord are brackish water , especially in the side fjords. The salt content in the surface is lowest in summer and autumn. In June 1954, for example, 5 ‰ salt was measured in the uppermost meters of the Lustrafjord, while at great depths it was 34.5 ‰. Regulation of the waterways for power production has led to a larger proportion of fresh water flowing into the fjord in the winter. The most extensive regulation is in Aurland, Lærdal, Årdal and Jostedal. Regulations affect temperature in the surface layer and icing. In the inner part of the fjord, the rivers are fed by high mountains and glaciers.
The rivers Lærdalselvi , Aurlandselvi , Flåmselvi , Mørkridselvi , Henjaelvi , Grindselvi , Hamreelvi , Njøsaelvi , Kvinnafossen , Sogndalselvi and Jostedøla flow into the Sognefjord and normally have spring floods in June. [3] Lærdalselva has the largest catchment, followed by Jostedøla and Aurlandselva, and these three have roughly the same water flow (around 40 m 3 /second). The Årdalsvatnet drains to the Sognefjord through the short Åreidselva or Hæreidselvi through the Årdalstangen . The Eidsvatnet in Luster drains into the Sognefjord just by Mørkridselvi in Skjolden . Regulation of the waterways for hydropower has resulted in a more steady supply of fresh water throughout the year. Without regulation, 92% of the fresh water would have been supplied in the summer half-year from May to October. Several of the large rivers flow into fjord arms.
Geology
The bedrock along the outer and middle part of the fjord consists mostly of Precambrian gneiss with orientation east-west and northeast-southwest. The islands of Solund consist mostly of Devonian sandstone and conglomerates , while the interior (eastern part) consists mostly of Caledonian gabbro , anorthosite , granite and phyllite .
Jostedøla's material transport (in the form of sludge) involves sedimentation in the Gaupnefjord of 10 to 20 cm/year near the river basin, and 1 cm/year 2 km from the river basin. The river transports 50,000 to 100,000 tonnes of silt annually. The sludge concentration from Jostedøla is at most 1 g/litre. It is particularly at Gaupne that the meltwater from the glaciers is marked by the color of the water.
Icing
According to Helland, it was common for the ice to settle on several of the fjord arms every winter, including on Aurlandsfjorden, Nærøyfjorden and Årdalsfjorden. In the winter of 1888–1889, Lusterfjorden was iced over for six months straight. In the deepest parts of the Sognefjord, there is a year-round temperature of around 6.5 °C, according to Helland. Outer parts are almost never iced over, not even the side fjords. The inner parts can be frozen for several weeks at a stretch. Among other things, inner parts of the Aurlandsfjorden and the Nærøyfjorden freeze easily. Lærdalsfjorden is usually ice-free except for the very innermost part, while it has happened that Årdalsfjorden has been iced up to Ofredal and has been an obstacle to ship traffic. Historically, Lustrafjorden has often been iced over as far as Urnes. The Barsnesfjorden has often been covered with ice. In the Nærøyfjord it happened (among other things in the 1920s and in 1962) that the liner was unable to enter the fjord due to ice and had to dispatch at the ice edge.
Streams
In the Sognefjord, incoming current is hardly noticeable and is most noticeable in strong westerly winds. Outgoing current dominates and is particularly strong in spring and summer. At strong tides, the tidal flow can reach over 1 m/s (2 knots ) around the pier and headland. The Sognefjord is covered by a layer or stream of brackish water of up to 10 meters (varying with the seasons and supply from the rivers). Beneath the brackish water, a current or intermediate layer at a depth of 150 meters goes in and out of the fjord and below this lies the main basin, which has some connection with the ocean beyond the threshold. Together, these three currents contribute to the fact that the water in the fjord is replaced on average within 8-10 years, so that the fjord has life right down to the bottom. The brackish water layer has less density and therefore does not mix easily with the deeper layers. The brackish water that flows out of the fjord slowly mixes with the layer below so that the salt content increases at the same time as the brackish water layer increases up to 10 times the amount of fresh water supplied. The brackish water that flows towards the mouth must be replaced and sets up an incoming current in a slightly deeper layer.
Fish
The Sognefjord has herring and good sprat fishing . In the outer parts of the fjord, salmon has traditionally been fished with wedge nets . Salmon warp or "sitjenet" is a traditional method of salmon fishing and skilled players could catch a lot of fish with this method. Hook nets and drift nets have dominated in modern times and do not require the same active fishing as warp . The salmon's migration in the fjord is controlled by currents on the surface and the warps are placed where there are favorable current conditions where, due to the current, the salmon are driven close to land on their way into the fjord. In Leikanger and Balestrand there are many good places for sitejnot with Suppham being by far the best. Good salmon rivers such as Lærdalselva, Aurlandselva and Årøyelva flow into the Sognefjorden.
In the outer part of the fjord (Gulen and Solund) there is some fish farming. Several of the waterways are known for good salmon and sea trout fishing , and five of the rivers have been designated as national salmon rivers. Lærdalselva has a salmon-carrying stretch and has had by far the largest population. Aurlandselva has historically had a good catch of sea trout. The Sognefjord is among the most important in Norway for anadromous fish species. Norwegian spring-spawning herring are fished in the fjord, especially in the outer parts, as well as some coastal sprat.
In the Sognefjord there are plankton algae which in other Norwegian waters and the occurrence follows the seasons. In general, there is little occurrence in winter due to low light, diatoms bloom in March-April and are dependent on the supply of nutrient salts, in May-June diatoms and flagellates bloom in connection with the spring flood, in summer there is a varying population, new blooms in the autumn in connection with, among other things, floods, and married species can occur all year round.
Tourism
The Sognefjord was established as a tourist destination in the 19th century, among other things, with the establishment of Fylkesbåtane. One of the targets was Gudvangen, which in 1889 received 79 large tourist ships with a total of over 10,000 passengers. In 1889, 4,500 travelers came with the county boats. The German Emperor Wilhelm visited the Sognefjord and Balestrand for the first time in 1890. The emperor subsequently visited the Sognefjord 25 times. The fjord itself and the surrounding area with Jotunheimen, Jostedalsbreen and several stave churches have made the Sognefjord one of Norway's most prominent tourist destinations. Balestrand, Vangsnes, Aurland and Fjærland were among the early destinations for English tourists in the 19th century.
History
It has been the Guest of Death
It has sailed on a Torden
It is christened in Rædsler vorden
that has plowed the Sognefjord
from Forthun to Sognefæst.
If you have forgotten your Lord's Prayer,
do you remember a prayer to pray:
learn it from the wrath of God!
imagine, Sinder, then present
in a Bath on Sognefjord!
Henrik Wergeland
The Sognefjord has been an important transport artery since ancient times. The gulation was probably held near the mouth of the Sognefjord and probably because it was practical to hold the meeting where the ship lay along the coast met the great fjord. From the innermost arms of the fjord it is a relatively short distance to the inland villages of Eastern Norway, particularly through Lærdal to Valdres over the moderate mountain pass Filefjell . Lærdalsøyri was from the 17th century an important market and meeting place. There, farmers from Valdres, Hallingdal and Gudbrandsdalen sold slaughter, tar and other products from the interior and bought fish, salt, hemp and iron from the fjords and from Bergen. Around 1300, the authorities established a shuttle station at Maristova at the entrance to Filefjell. The first drivable road between east and west was built over Filefjell in 1792. From 1843 the paddle steamer "Constitutionen" plyed the route between Bergen and Lærdal, the county boats took over the route in 1857. The road over the Sognefjellet was built as a carriageway in 1938. The Flåmsbana connected the Sognefjord to the railway network in 1940. Stalheimskleivi , between Voss and Sogn, was built in 1850 and turned into a road in 1937. It has made it possible to transport agricultural products , fruit , berries and fish between the villages in Sogn and Bergen .
From 1785, the Trondhjem postal route crossed the Sognefjord by boat between Rutledal and Leirvik in Hyllestad . In 1647, a postal route was established between Bergen and Christiania. The post then took 7-8 days via Gudvangen, Lærdal and Valdres.
It was difficult to get to the Sognefjord by sailboat and the yachts could lie for many days or several weeks at the mouth waiting for favorable wind conditions. East wind was favorable out of the fjord, while south to Bergen, wind from the north or north-west was needed. To enter the fjord, a wind from the west was necessary. The steam and motor boats revolutionized transport on the fjord and these had completely taken over in the early 20th century The county boats were established in 1858 with boat routes on the Sognefjord and to Bergen as an important activity.
In 1934, a ferry route was established along the fjord from Vadheim to Lærdal. From 1939 until the Lærdal tunnel opened, there was a car ferry between Gudvangen and Lærdal - first the ferry went to Lærdalsøyri itself, from 1966 to Revsnes when a road was built there to shorten the ferry route. In the 1990s, the ferry connection Revsnes-Kaupanger was replaced by Mannheller-Fodnes , and after this Kaupanger has only been used by the tourist route Gudvangen-Kaupanger-Lærdal. The road system between Sogndal and Jølster on national highway 5 , including the Fjærlands tunnel , created a ferry-free road connection on the north side of the fjord.
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway , is a Nordic , European country and an independent state in the west of the Scandinavian Peninsula . Geographically speaking, the country is long and narrow, and on the elongated coast towards the North Atlantic are Norway's well-known fjords . The Kingdom of Norway includes the main country (the mainland with adjacent islands within the baseline ), Jan Mayen and Svalbard . With these two Arctic areas, Norway covers a land area of 385,000 km² and has a population of approximately 5.5 million (2023). Mainland Norway borders Sweden in the east , Finland and Russia in the northeast .
Norway is a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy , where Harald V has been king and head of state since 1991 , and Jonas Gahr Støre ( Ap ) has been prime minister since 2021 . Norway is a unitary state , with two administrative levels below the state: counties and municipalities . The Sami part of the population has, through the Sami Parliament and the Finnmark Act , to a certain extent self-government and influence over traditionally Sami areas. Although Norway has rejected membership of the European Union through two referendums , through the EEA Agreement Norway has close ties with the Union, and through NATO with the United States . Norway is a significant contributor to the United Nations (UN), and has participated with soldiers in several foreign operations mandated by the UN. Norway is among the states that have participated from the founding of the UN , NATO , the Council of Europe , the OSCE and the Nordic Council , and in addition to these is a member of the EEA , the World Trade Organization , the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and is part of the Schengen area .
Norway is rich in many natural resources such as oil , gas , minerals , timber , seafood , fresh water and hydropower . Since the beginning of the 20th century, these natural conditions have given the country the opportunity for an increase in wealth that few other countries can now enjoy, and Norwegians have the second highest average income in the world, measured in GDP per capita, as of 2022. The petroleum industry accounts for around 14% of Norway's gross domestic product as of 2018. Norway is the world's largest producer of oil and gas per capita outside the Middle East. However, the number of employees linked to this industry fell from approx. 232,000 in 2013 to 207,000 in 2015.
In Norway, these natural resources have been managed for socially beneficial purposes. The country maintains a welfare model in line with the other Nordic countries. Important service areas such as health and higher education are state-funded, and the country has an extensive welfare system for its citizens. Public expenditure in 2018 is approx. 50% of GDP, and the majority of these expenses are related to education, healthcare, social security and welfare. Since 2001 and until 2021, when the country took second place, the UN has ranked Norway as the world's best country to live in . From 2010, Norway is also ranked at the top of the EIU's democracy index . Norway ranks third on the UN's World Happiness Report for the years 2016–2018, behind Finland and Denmark , a report published in March 2019.
The majority of the population is Nordic. In the last couple of years, immigration has accounted for more than half of population growth. The five largest minority groups are Norwegian-Poles , Lithuanians , Norwegian-Swedes , Norwegian-Syrians including Syrian Kurds and Norwegian-Pakistani .
Norway's national day is 17 May, on this day in 1814 the Norwegian Constitution was dated and signed by the presidency of the National Assembly at Eidsvoll . It is stipulated in the law of 26 April 1947 that 17 May are national public holidays. The Sami national day is 6 February. "Yes, we love this country" is Norway's national anthem, the song was written in 1859 by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832–1910).
Norway's history of human settlement goes back at least 10,000 years, to the Late Paleolithic , the first period of the Stone Age . Archaeological finds of settlements along the entire Norwegian coast have so far been dated back to 10,400 before present (BP), the oldest find is today considered to be a settlement at Pauler in Brunlanes , Vestfold .
For a period these settlements were considered to be the remains of settlers from Doggerland , an area which today lies beneath the North Sea , but which was once a land bridge connecting today's British Isles with Danish Jutland . But the archaeologists who study the initial phase of the settlement in what is today Norway reckon that the first people who came here followed the coast along what is today Bohuslân. That they arrived in some form of boat is absolutely certain, and there is much evidence that they could easily move over large distances.
Since the last Ice Age, there has been continuous settlement in Norway. It cannot be ruled out that people lived in Norway during the interglacial period , but no trace of such a population or settlement has been found.
The Stone Age lasted a long time; half of the time that our country has been populated. There are no written accounts of what life was like back then. The knowledge we have has been painstakingly collected through investigations of places where people have stayed and left behind objects that we can understand have been processed by human hands. This field of knowledge is called archaeology . The archaeologists interpret their findings and the history of the surrounding landscape. In our country, the uplift after the Ice Age is fundamental. The history of the settlements at Pauler is no more than fifteen years old.
The Fosna culture settled parts of Norway sometime between 10,000–8,000 BC. (see Stone Age in Norway ). The dating of rock carvings is set to Neolithic times (in Norway between 4000 BC to 1700 BC) and show activities typical of hunters and gatherers .
Agriculture with livestock and arable farming was introduced in the Neolithic. Swad farming where the farmers move when the field does not produce the expected yield.
More permanent and persistent farm settlements developed in the Bronze Age (1700 BC to 500 BC) and the Iron Age . The earliest runes have been found on an arrowhead dated to around 200 BC. Many more inscriptions are dated to around 800, and a number of petty kingdoms developed during these centuries. In prehistoric times, there were no fixed national borders in the Nordic countries and Norway did not exist as a state. The population in Norway probably fell to year 0.
Events in this time period, the centuries before the year 1000, are glimpsed in written sources. Although the sagas were written down in the 13th century, many hundreds of years later, they provide a glimpse into what was already a distant past. The story of the fimbul winter gives us a historical picture of something that happened and which in our time, with the help of dendrochronology , can be interpreted as a natural disaster in the year 536, created by a volcanic eruption in El Salvador .
In the period between 800 and 1066 there was a significant expansion and it is referred to as the Viking Age . During this period, Norwegians, as Swedes and Danes also did, traveled abroad in longships with sails as explorers, traders, settlers and as Vikings (raiders and pirates ). By the middle of the 11th century, the Norwegian kingship had been firmly established, building its right as descendants of Harald Hårfagre and then as heirs of Olav the Holy . The Norwegian kings, and their subjects, now professed Christianity . In the time around Håkon Håkonsson , in the time after the civil war , there was a small renaissance in Norway with extensive literary activity and diplomatic activity with Europe. The black dew came to Norway in 1349 and killed around half of the population. The entire state apparatus and Norway then entered a period of decline.
Between 1396 and 1536, Norway was part of the Kalmar Union , and from 1536 until 1814 Norway had been reduced to a tributary part of Denmark , named as the Personal Union of Denmark-Norway . This staff union entered into an alliance with Napoléon Bonaparte with a war that brought bad times and famine in 1812 . In 1814, Denmark-Norway lost the Anglophone Wars , part of the Napoleonic Wars , and the Danish king was forced to cede Norway to the king of Sweden in the Treaty of Kiel on 14 January of that year. After a Norwegian attempt at independence, Norway was forced into a loose union with Sweden, but where Norway was allowed to create its own constitution, the Constitution of 1814 . In this period, Norwegian, romantic national feeling flourished, and the Norwegians tried to develop and establish their own national self-worth. The union with Sweden was broken in 1905 after it had been threatened with war, and Norway became an independent kingdom with its own monarch, Haakon VII .
Norway remained neutral during the First World War , and at the outbreak of the Second World War, Norway again declared itself neutral, but was invaded by National Socialist Germany on 9 April 1940 .
Norway became a member of the Western defense alliance NATO in 1949 . Two attempts to join the EU were voted down in referendums by small margins in 1972 and 1994 . Norway has been a close ally of the United States in the post-war period. Large discoveries of oil and natural gas in the North Sea at the end of the 1960s led to tremendous economic growth in the country, which is still ongoing. Traditional industries such as fishing are also part of Norway's economy.
Stone Age (before 1700 BC)
When most of the ice disappeared, vegetation spread over the landscape and due to a warm climate around 2000-3000 BC. the forest grew much taller than in modern times. Land uplift after the ice age led to a number of fjords becoming lakes and dry land. The first people probably came from the south along the coast of the Kattegat and overland into Finnmark from the east. The first people probably lived by gathering, hunting and trapping. A good number of Stone Age settlements have been found which show that such hunting and trapping people stayed for a long time in the same place or returned to the same place regularly. Large amounts of gnawed bones show that they lived on, among other things, reindeer, elk, small game and fish.
Flintstone was imported from Denmark and apart from small natural deposits along the southern coast, all flintstone in Norway is transported by people. At Espevær, greenstone was quarried for tools in the Stone Age, and greenstone tools from Espevær have been found over large parts of Western Norway. Around 2000-3000 BC the usual farm animals such as cows and sheep were introduced to Norway. Livestock probably meant a fundamental change in society in that part of the people had to be permanent residents or live a semi-nomadic life. Livestock farming may also have led to conflict with hunters.
The oldest traces of people in what is today Norway have been found at Pauler , a farm in Brunlanes in Larvik municipality in Vestfold . In 2007 and 2008, the farm has given its name to a number of Stone Age settlements that have been excavated and examined by archaeologists from the Cultural History Museum at UiO. The investigations have been carried out in connection with the new route for the E18 motorway west of Farris. The oldest settlement, located more than 127 m above sea level, is dated to be about 10,400 years old (uncalibrated, more than 11,000 years in real calendar years). From here, the ice sheet was perhaps visible when people settled here. This locality has been named Pauler I, and is today considered to be the oldest confirmed human traces in Norway to date. The place is in the mountains above the Pauler tunnel on the E18 between Larvik and Porsgrunn . The pioneer settlement is a term archaeologists have adopted for the oldest settlement. The archaeologists have speculated about where they came from, the first people in what is today Norway. It has been suggested that they could come by boat or perhaps across the ice from Doggerland or the North Sea, but there is now a large consensus that they came north along what is today the Bohuslän coast. The Fosna culture , the Komsa culture and the Nøstvet culture are the traditional terms for hunting cultures from the Stone Age. One thing is certain - getting to the water was something they mastered, the first people in our country. Therefore, within a short time they were able to use our entire long coast.
In the New Stone Age (4000 BC–1700 BC) there is a theory that a new people immigrated to the country, the so-called Stone Ax People . Rock carvings from this period show motifs from hunting and fishing , which were still important industries. From this period, a megalithic tomb has been found in Østfold .
It is uncertain whether there were organized societies or state-like associations in the Stone Age in Norway. Findings from settlements indicate that many lived together and that this was probably more than one family so that it was a slightly larger, organized herd.
Finnmark
In prehistoric times, animal husbandry and agriculture were of little economic importance in Finnmark. Livelihoods in Finnmark were mainly based on fish, gathering, hunting and trapping, and eventually domestic reindeer herding became widespread in the Middle Ages. Archaeological finds from the Stone Age have been referred to as the Komsa culture and comprise around 5,000 years of settlement. Finnmark probably got its first settlement around 8000 BC. It is believed that the coastal areas became ice-free 11,000 years BC and the fjord areas around 9,000 years BC. after which willows, grass, heather, birch and pine came into being. Finnmarksvidda was covered by pine forest around 6000 BC. After the Ice Age, the land rose around 80 meters in the inner fjord areas (Alta, Tana, Varanger). Due to ice melting in the polar region, the sea rose in the period 6400–3800 BC. and in areas with little land elevation, some settlements from the first part of the Stone Age were flooded. On Sørøya, the net sea level rise was 12 to 14 meters and many residential areas were flooded.
According to Bjørnar Olsen , there are many indications of a connection between the oldest settlement in Western Norway (the " Fosnakulturen ") and that in Finnmark, but it is uncertain in which direction the settlement took place. In the earliest part of the Stone Age, settlement in Finnmark was probably concentrated in the coastal areas, and these only reflected a lifestyle with great mobility and no permanent dwellings. The inner regions, such as Pasvik, were probably used seasonally. The archaeologically proven settlements from the Stone Age in inner Finnmark and Troms are linked to lakes and large watercourses. The oldest petroglyphs in Alta are usually dated to 4200 BC, that is, the Neolithic . Bjørnar Olsen believes that the oldest can be up to 2,000 years older than this.
From around 4000 BC a slow deforestation of Finnmark began and around 1800 BC the vegetation distribution was roughly the same as in modern times. The change in vegetation may have increased the distance between the reindeer's summer and winter grazing. The uplift continued slowly from around 4000 BC. at the same time as sea level rise stopped.
According to Gutorm Gjessing, the settlement in Finnmark and large parts of northern Norway in the Neolithic was semi-nomadic with movement between four seasonal settlements (following the pattern of life in Sami siida in historical times): On the outer coast in summer (fishing and seal catching) and inland in winter (hunting for reindeer, elk and bear). Povl Simonsen believed instead that the winter residence was in the inner fjord area in a village-like sod house settlement. Bjørnar Olsen believes that at the end of the Stone Age there was a relatively settled population along the coast, while inland there was less settlement and a more mobile lifestyle.
Bronze Age (1700 BC–500 BC)
Bronze was used for tools in Norway from around 1500 BC. Bronze is a mixture of tin and copper , and these metals were introduced because they were not mined in the country at the time. Bronze is believed to have been a relatively expensive material. The Bronze Age in Norway can be divided into two phases:
Early Bronze Age (1700–1100 BC)
Younger Bronze Age (1100–500 BC)
For the prehistoric (unwritten) era, there is limited knowledge about social conditions and possible state formations. From the Bronze Age, there are large burial mounds of stone piles along the coast of Vestfold and Agder, among others. It is likely that only chieftains or other great men could erect such grave monuments and there was probably some form of organized society linked to these. In the Bronze Age, society was more organized and stratified than in the Stone Age. Then a rich class of chieftains emerged who had close connections with southern Scandinavia. The settlements became more permanent and people adopted horses and ard . They acquired bronze status symbols, lived in longhouses and people were buried in large burial mounds . Petroglyphs from the Bronze Age indicate that humans practiced solar cultivation.
Finnmark
In the last millennium BC the climate became cooler and the pine forest disappears from the coast; pine forests, for example, were only found in the innermost part of the Altafjord, while the outer coast was almost treeless. Around the year 0, the limit for birch forest was south of Kirkenes. Animals with forest habitats (elk, bear and beaver) disappeared and the reindeer probably established their annual migration routes sometime at that time. In the period 1800–900 BC there were significantly more settlements in and utilization of the hinterland was particularly noticeable on Finnmarksvidda. From around 1800 BC until year 0 there was a significant increase in contact between Finnmark and areas in the east including Karelia (where metals were produced including copper) and central and eastern Russia. The youngest petroglyphs in Alta show far more boats than the earlier phases and the boats are reminiscent of types depicted in petroglyphs in southern Scandinavia. It is unclear what influence southern Scandinavian societies had as far north as Alta before the year 0. Many of the cultural features that are considered typical Sami in modern times were created or consolidated in the last millennium BC, this applies, among other things, to the custom of burying in brick chambers in stone urns. The Mortensnes burial ground may have been used for 2000 years until around 1600 AD.
Iron Age (c. 500 BC–c. 1050 AD)
The Einangsteinen is one of the oldest Norwegian runestones; it is from the 4th century
Simultaneous production of Vikings
Around 500 years BC the researchers reckon that the Bronze Age will be replaced by the Iron Age as iron takes over as the most important material for weapons and tools. Bronze, wood and stone were still used. Iron was cheaper than bronze, easier to work than flint , and could be used for many purposes; iron probably became common property. Iron could, among other things, be used to make solid and sharp axes which made it much easier to fell trees. In the Iron Age, gold and silver were also used partly for decoration and partly as means of payment. It is unknown which language was used in Norway before our era. From around the year 0 until around the year 800, everyone in Scandinavia (except the Sami) spoke Old Norse , a North Germanic language. Subsequently, several different languages developed in this area that were only partially mutually intelligible. The Iron Age is divided into several periods:
Early Iron Age
Pre-Roman Iron Age (c. 500 BC–c. 0)
Roman Iron Age (c. 0–c. AD 400)
Migration period (approx. 400–600). In the migration period (approx. 400–600), new peoples came to Norway, and ruins of fortress buildings etc. are interpreted as signs that there has been talk of a violent invasion.
Younger Iron Age
Merovingian period (500–800)
The Viking Age (793–1066)
Norwegian Vikings go on plundering expeditions and trade voyages around the coastal countries of Western Europe . Large groups of Norwegians emigrate to the British Isles , Iceland and Greenland . Harald Hårfagre starts a unification process of Norway late in the 8th century , which was completed by Harald Hardråde in the 1060s . The country was Christianized under the kings Olav Tryggvason , fell in the battle of Svolder ( 1000 ) and Olav Haraldsson (the saint), fell in the battle of Stiklestad in 1030 .
Sources of prehistoric times
Shrinking glaciers in the high mountains, including in Jotunheimen and Breheimen , have from around the year 2000 uncovered objects from the Viking Age and earlier. These are objects of organic material that have been preserved by the ice and that elsewhere in nature are broken down in a few months. The finds are getting older as the melting makes the archaeologists go deeper into the ice. About half of all archaeological discoveries on glaciers in the world are made in Oppland . In 2013, a 3,400-year-old shoe and a robe from the year 300 were found. Finds at Lomseggen in Lom published in 2020 revealed, among other things, well-preserved horseshoes used on a mountain pass. Many hundreds of items include preserved clothing, knives, whisks, mittens, leather shoes, wooden chests and horse equipment. A piece of cloth dated to the year 1000 has preserved its original colour. In 2014, a wooden ski from around the year 700 was found in Reinheimen . The ski is 172 cm long and 14 cm wide, with preserved binding of leather and wicker.
Pytheas from Massalia is the oldest known account of what was probably the coast of Norway, perhaps somewhere on the coast of Møre. Pytheas visited Britannia around 325 BC. and traveled further north to a country by the "Ice Sea". Pytheas described the short summer night and the midnight sun farther north. He wrote, among other things, that people there made a drink from grain and honey. Caesar wrote in his work about the Gallic campaign about the Germanic tribe Haruders. Other Roman sources around the year 0 mention the land of the Cimbri (Jutland) and the Cimbri headlands ( Skagen ) and that the sources stated that Cimbri and Charyds lived in this area. Some of these peoples may have immigrated to Norway and there become known as hordes (as in Hordaland). Sources from the Mediterranean area referred to the islands of Scandia, Scandinavia and Thule ("the outermost of all islands"). The Roman historian Tacitus wrote around the year 100 a work about Germania and mentioned the people of Scandia, the Sviones. Ptolemy wrote around the year 150 that the Kharudes (Hordes) lived further north than all the Cimbri, in the north lived the Finnoi (Finns or Sami) and in the south the Gutai (Goths). The Nordic countries and Norway were outside the Roman Empire , which dominated Europe at the time. The Gothic-born historian Jordanes wrote in the 5th century about 13 tribes or people groups in Norway, including raumaricii (probably Romerike ), ragnaricii ( Ranrike ) and finni or skretefinni (skrid finner or ski finner, i.e. Sami) as well as a number of unclear groups. Prokopios wrote at the same time about Thule north of the land of the Danes and Slavs, Thule was ten times as big as Britannia and the largest of all the islands. In Thule, the sun was up 40 days straight in the summer. After the migration period , southern Europeans' accounts of northern Europe became fuller and more reliable.
Settlement in prehistoric times
Norway has around 50,000 farms with their own names. Farm names have persisted for a long time, over 1000 years, perhaps as much as 2000 years. The name researchers have arranged different types of farm names chronologically, which provides a basis for determining when the place was used by people or received a permanent settlement. Uncompounded landscape names such as Haug, Eid, Vik and Berg are believed to be the oldest. Archaeological traces indicate that some areas have been inhabited earlier than assumed from the farm name. Burial mounds also indicate permanent settlement. For example, the burial ground at Svartelva in Løten was used from around the year 0 to the year 1000 when Christianity took over. The first farmers probably used large areas for inland and outland, and new farms were probably established based on some "mother farms". Names such as By (or Bø) show that it is an old place of residence. From the older Iron Age, names with -heim (a common Germanic word meaning place of residence) and -stad tell of settlement, while -vin and -land tell of the use of the place. Farm names in -heim are often found as -um , -eim or -em as in Lerum and Seim, there are often large farms in the center of the village. New farm names with -city and -country were also established in the Viking Age . The first farmers probably used the best areas. The largest burial grounds, the oldest archaeological finds and the oldest farm names are found where the arable land is richest and most spacious.
It is unclear whether the settlement expansion in Roman times, migrations and the Iron Age is due to immigration or internal development and population growth. Among other things, it is difficult to demonstrate where in Europe the immigrants have come from. The permanent residents had both fields (where grain was grown) and livestock that grazed in the open fields, but it is uncertain which of these was more important. Population growth from around the year 200 led to more utilization of open land, for example in the form of settlements in the mountains. During the migration period, it also seems that in parts of the country it became common to have cluster gardens or a form of village settlement.
Norwegian expansion northwards
From around the year 200, there was a certain migration by sea from Rogaland and Hordaland to Nordland and Sør-Troms. Those who moved settled down as a settled Iron Age population and became dominant over the original population which may have been Sami . The immigrant Norwegians, Bumen , farmed with livestock that were fed inside in the winter as well as some grain cultivation and fishing. The northern border of the Norwegians' settlement was originally at the Toppsundet near Harstad and around the year 500 there was a Norwegian settlement to Malangsgapet. That was as far north as it was possible to grow grain at the time. Malangen was considered the border between Hålogaland and Finnmork until around 1400 . Further into the Viking Age and the Middle Ages, there was immigration and settlement of Norwegian speakers along the coast north of Malangen. Around the year 800, Norwegians lived along the entire outer coast to Vannøy . The Norwegians partly copied Sami livelihoods such as whaling, fur hunting and reindeer husbandry. It was probably this area between Malangen and Vannøy that was Ottar from the Hålogaland area. In the Viking Age, there were also some Norwegian settlements further north and east. East of the North Cape are the scattered archaeological finds of Norwegian settlement in the Viking Age. There are Norwegian names for fjords and islands from the Viking Age, including fjord names with "-anger". Around the year 1050, there were Norwegian settlements on the outer coast of Western Finnmark. Traders and tax collectors traveled even further.
North of Malangen there were Norse farming settlements in the Iron Age. Malangen was considered Finnmark's western border until 1300. There are some archaeological traces of Norse activity around the coast from Tromsø to Kirkenes in the Viking Age. Around Tromsø, the research indicates a Norse/Sami mixed culture on the coast.
From the year 1100 and the next 200–300 years, there are no traces of Norwegian settlement north and east of Tromsø. It is uncertain whether this is due to depopulation, whether it is because the Norwegians further north were not Christianized or because there were no churches north of Lenvik or Tromsø . Norwegian settlement in the far north appears from sources from the 14th century. In the Hanseatic period , the settlement was developed into large areas specialized in commercial fishing, while earlier (in the Viking Age) there had been farms with a combination of fishing and agriculture. In 1307 , a fortress and the first church east of Tromsø were built in Vardø . Vardø became a small Norwegian town, while Vadsø remained Sami. Norwegian settlements and churches appeared along the outermost coast in the Middle Ages. After the Reformation, perhaps as a result of a decline in fish stocks or fish prices, there were Norwegian settlements in the inner fjord areas such as Lebesby in Laksefjord. Some fishing villages at the far end of the coast were abandoned for good. In the interior of Finnmark, there was no national border for a long time and Kautokeino and Karasjok were joint Norwegian-Swedish areas with strong Swedish influence. The border with Finland was established in 1751 and with Russia in 1826.
On a Swedish map from 1626, Norway's border is indicated at Malangen, while Sweden with this map showed a desire to control the Sami area which had been a common area.
The term Northern Norway only came into use at the end of the 19th century and administratively the area was referred to as Tromsø Diocese when Tromsø became a bishopric in 1840. There had been different designations previously: Hålogaland originally included only Helgeland and when Norse settlement spread north in the Viking Age and the Middle Ages, Hålogaland was used for the area north approximately to Malangen , while Finnmark or "Finnmarken", "the land of the Sami", lay outside. The term Northern Norway was coined at a cafe table in Kristiania in 1884 by members of the Nordlændingernes Forening and was first commonly used in the interwar period as it eventually supplanted "Hålogaland".
State formation
The battle in Hafrsfjord in the year 872 has long been regarded as the day when Norway became a kingdom. The year of the battle is uncertain (may have been 10-20 years later). The whole of Norway was not united in that battle: the process had begun earlier and continued a couple of hundred years later. This means that the geographical area became subject to a political authority and became a political unit. The geographical area was perceived as an area as it is known, among other things, from Ottar from Hålogaland's account for King Alfred of Wessex around the year 880. Ottar described "the land of the Norwegians" as very long and narrow, and it was narrowest in the far north. East of the wasteland in the south lay Sveoland and in the north lay Kvenaland in the east. When Ottar sailed south along the land from his home ( Malangen ) to Skiringssal, he always had Norway ("Nordveg") on his port side and the British Isles on his starboard side. The journey took a good month. Ottar perceived "Nordveg" as a geographical unit, but did not imply that it was a political unit. Ottar separated Norwegians from Swedes and Danes. It is unclear why Ottar perceived the population spread over such a large area as a whole. It is unclear whether Norway as a geographical term or Norwegians as the name of a ethnic group is the oldest. The Norwegians had a common language which in the centuries before Ottar did not differ much from the language of Denmark and Sweden.
According to Sverre Steen, it is unlikely that Harald Hårfagre was able to control this entire area as one kingdom. The saga of Harald was written 300 years later and at his death Norway was several smaller kingdoms. Harald probably controlled a larger area than anyone before him and at most Harald's kingdom probably included the coast from Trøndelag to Agder and Vestfold as well as parts of Viken . There were probably several smaller kingdoms of varying extent before Harald and some of these are reflected in traditional landscape names such as Ranrike and Ringerike . Landscape names of "-land" (Rogaland) and "-mark" (Hedmark) as well as names such as Agder and Sogn may have been political units before Harald.
According to Sverre Steen
Italian postcard by Citrus Promotion, no. 0426. Photo: Universal / Working Title. Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant in Notting Hill (Richard Curtis, 1999).
American actress Julia Roberts (1967) won more than 30 other acting awards including an Academy Award for her leading role in Erin Brockovich (2000) plus Oscar nominations for Steel Magnolias (1989), Pretty Woman (1990) and August: Osage County (2013). Her films have grossed more than $3.9 billion globally, making her one of the most bankable film stars of all time.
Julia Fiona Roberts was born in Smyrna, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, in 1967. Julia is the youngest of three children of Walter Grady Roberts and Betty Lou Bredemus, one-time actors and playwrights. Her parents were close friends with Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King. Walter and Betty Lou Roberts ran the Actors and Writers Workshop, then the only integrated drama school in Atlanta, which the Kings' eldest daughter Yolanda King attended. The Kings paid the hospital bill for Julia's birth. When Roberts was four years old., her parents divorced. Her brother Eric stayed with his father and Julia and her sister Lisa continued to live with their mother in Atlanta. When Roberts was nine, her father died of cancer. As a child, due to her love of animals, Julia originally wanted to be a veterinarian, but later studied journalism. Her parents were in the drama club, so acting was soon in the cards. Her brother Eric was originally seen as the great acting promise of the family but ended up producing more quantity than quality in the eyes of critics. Sister Lisa is not actually a professional actress but has since appeared in twenty-four films in small supporting roles, mostly in titles by her younger sister. While at school, Roberts worked as a waitress in a pizzeria and spent some time behind the cash register in a supermarket. When Eric achieved some success in Hollywood, Julia decided to try acting. She started taking acting classes and went to live with her sister in New York where she signed with the Click Modeling Agency. She took speech lessons to get rid of her southern accent. She made her film debut with a bit role in Blood Red (Peter Masterson, 1989), starring her brother Eric Roberts, which was completed in 1986 but wouldn't be released until 1989. She appeared in several television features and series, including Miami Vice (1988). Her first break came in 1988 when she appeared in two youth-oriented films Mystic Pizza (Donald Petrie, 1988) and Satisfaction (Joan Freeman, 1988). It helped her earn the credentials she needed to land the part of Shelby, an ill-fated would-be mother in the comedy-drama Steel Magnolias (Herbert Ross, 1989). The tearjerker found her acting alongside Sally Field and Shirley MacLaine which culminated in an Oscar nomination for Roberts. Then followed the supernatural thriller Flatliners (Joel Schumacher, 1990) with her flame Kiefer Sutherland.
Julia Robert's biggest success was in the romantic comedy Pretty Woman (Garry Marshall, 1990) with Richard Gere. Originally intended to be a dark cautionary tale about class and prostitution in Los Angeles, the film was re-conceived as a romantic comedy with a large budget. Critic Roger Ebert: "Roberts does an interesting thing; she gives her character an irrepressibly bouncy sense of humor and then lets her spend the movie trying to repress it. Actresses who can do that and look great can have whatever they want in Hollywood." Julia got an Oscar nomination and also won the People's Choice award for Favorite Actress. It was widely successful at the box office and was the third-highest-grossing film of 1990. Julia's part as a good-hearted Hollywood prostitute who falls in love with a millionaire client was her definitive breakthrough role. Her role opposite Denzel Washington in the John Grisham adaptation The Pelican Brief (Alan J. Pakula, 1993), reaffirmed her status as a dramatic actress. Even though Julia would spend the next few years either starring in serious films or playing fantasy roles like Tinkerbell in Steven Spielberg's Hook (1991), filmgoers would always love Julia best in romantic comedies such as Notting Hill (Richard Curtis, 1999) with Hugh Grant, and Runaway Bride (Garry Marshall, 1999) with Richard Gere. In My Best Friend's Wedding (P.J. Hogan, 1997), she starred opposite Dermot Mulroney, Cameron Diaz and Rupert Everett, as a food critic who realizes she's in love with her best friend and tries to win him back after he decides to marry someone else. The cult comedy gave the genre some fresh life that had been lacking in Hollywood for some time. Roger Ebert: "One of the pleasures of Ronald Bass' screenplay is the way it subverts the usual comic formulas that would fuel a plot like this. It makes the Julia Roberts character sympathetic at first, but eventually her behavior shades into cruel meddling. Stories like this are tricky for the actors. They have to be light enough for the comedy, and then subtle in revealing the deeper tones. Roberts, Diaz and Mulroney are in good synch, and Roberts does a skillful job of negotiating the plot's twists: We have to care for her even after we stop sharing her goals. "
Julia Roberts' had her biggest success when she delivered an Oscar-winning performance playing the title role in Erin Brockovich (Steven Soderbergh, 2000). The film, based on the true story of Erin Brockovich, a single mother who, against all odds, won a heated battle against corporate environmental offenders, earned Roberts a staggering 20-million-dollar salary. The next year, Roberts starred in the crime caper Ocean's Eleven (Steven Soderbergh, 2001), in which she acted with Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and George Clooney. A success with critics and at the box office alike, Ocean's Eleven became the fifth highest-grossing film of the year with a total of $450 million worldwide. In 2004, Roberts signed on for the sequel, the aptly titled Ocean's Twelve (Steven Soderbergh, 2004). In 2006, she made her Broadway debut alongside Paul Rudd and Bradley Cooper in the revival of Richard Greenberg's play 'Three Days of Rain', but the production was not a success. Roberts teamed with Tom Hanks for Charlie Wilson's War (Mike Nichols, 2007), and then again for Larry Crowne (Tom Hanks, 2011). In between, she gave a critically acclaimed performance in Eat, Pray, Love (Ryan Murphy, 2010), in which she portrayed a divorcee on a journey of self-discovery. In 2012, she played Snow White's evil stepmother in Mirror, Mirror (Tarsem Singh, 2012). Roberts starred alongside Meryl Streep and Ewan McGregor in the black comedy drama August: Osage County (John Wells, 2013) about a dysfunctional family that reunites in the familial house when their patriarch suddenly disappears. Her performance earned her her fourth Academy Award nomination. Julia Roberts was in a relationship with actor Kiefer Sutherland for a while. In 1991, their relationship ended five days before they got married. She married country singer Lyle Lovett in 1993 but divorced him in 1995. She met her second husband, cameraman Danny Moder while shooting the film the road gangster comedy The Mexican (Gore Verbinski, 2000) with Brad Pitt. Roberts and Moder married in 2002 in Taos, New Mexico. Together they had twins in 2004, a daughter, Hazel Patricia, and a son, Phinnaeus 'Finn' Walter. In 2007, Roberts gave birth to their third child, Henry Daniel. All the children were given their father's surname. Julia Roberts also became involved with UNICEF charities and has made visits to many different countries, including Haiti and India, in order to promote goodwill. On-screen, she appeared in Jodie Foster's thriller Money Monster (2016), the coming-of-age drama Wonder (Steven Chbosky, 2017), and the romantic comedy Ticket to Paradise (Ol Parker, 2022) with George Clooney. She received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for the television adaptation of Larry Kramer's AIDS-era play The Normal Heart (Larry Murphy, 2014), had her first regular television role in the first season of the psychological thriller series Homecoming (2018), and portrayed Martha Mitchell opposite Sean in the political thriller series Gaslit (2022) about the Watergate Scandal.
Sources: Roger Ebert (Roger Ebert.com), Tracie Cooper (AllMovie), KD Haisch (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Italian postcard by Bromophoto, Milano, no. 1283. Photo: Rank Film. Publicity still for Dangerous Exile (1958).
British film actress Anne Heywood (1931) started her career as Miss Great Britain in 1950. In the mid-1950s, she began to play supporting roles as the ‘nice girl’ for Rank. Gradually she evolved into a leading lady, best known for her dramatic roles in the pioneer lesbian drama The Fox (1967) and La monaca di Monza/The Nun of Monza (1969).
Anne Heywood was born as Violet Joan Pretty in Handsworth (now Birmingham), England in 1932. She was one of the seven children. Her father, Harold Pretty, was a former orchestral violinist, turned factory worker. Her mother died when Violet was just 13. She had to leave school at fourteen to look after the younger members of her family. This frustrated her wish to go to art school. Instead, she joined in 1947 the Highbury Little Theatre in Sutton Coldfield near Birmingham and stayed there for two years gaining stage experience. At only 17, the knockout brunette won the National Bathing Beauty Contest in 1950, later renamed as the Miss Great Britain contest. Her prizes were £1000 and a silver rose bowl. The following year she made her film debut as a beauty contestant in the comedy Lady Godiva Rides Again (1951, Frank Launder) with Dennis Price. That year she also became the personal assistant of Carroll Levis, a talent spotter on a radio show, which toured along the main theatres of Great Britain. She stayed at the show for four years and even appeared three times with the show on television. Heywood attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. While playing the principal boy in Aladdin at the Chelsea Palace, she was spotted by a talent scout for the Rank Organization. In 1956, she signed a seven-year contract and her name was changed to Anne Heywood. According to Glamour Girls at the Silver Screen, she later recalled: “I always hated my name. It sounded unreal.” For Rank, she appeared in supporting roles as the 'nice girl'. Her films included the comedy Doctor at Large (1957, Ralph Thomas) starring Dirk Bogarde, the crime drama Violent Playground (1958, Basil Dearden) opposite Stanley Baxter, and the adventure Dangerous Exile (1958, Brian Desmond Hurst) starring Louis Jourdan. Gradually Heywood evolved into a leading lady.
Anne Heywood met in 1959 producer Raymond Stross at the set of A Terrible Beauty/The Night Fighters (1960, Tay Garnett) starring Robert Mitchum. A year later they married in Zurich, Switzerland. He was 16 years her senior. Stross started to reshape her image with such sexy, offbeat dramas as The Very Edge (1963, Cyril Frankel) with Richard Todd, and 90 Degrees in the Shade (1965, Jiri Weiss). At the Berlin Film Festival, the latter won the International Critics' Prize. Her breakthrough role was Ellen March in The Fox (1967, Mark Rydell), co-starring Sandy Dennis. This film adaptation of a D. H. Lawrence novel caused controversy at the time due to its lesbian theme. Gary Brumburgh at IMDb on Heywood and Dennis: “the two were quite believable as an unhappy, isolated couple whose relationship is irreparably shattered by the appearance of a handsome stranger (Keir Dullea). At the height of the movie's publicity, Playboy magazine revealed a ‘pictorial essay’ just prior to its 1967 release with Anne in a nude and auto-erotic spread.” Heywood was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. The Fox, a Canadian film, did win the ‘Best Foreign Film Golden Globe. Heywood did not. The Fox is now respected as a pioneer, ground-breaking lesbian film. Heywood’s next film was La monaca di Monza/The Nun of Monza (1969, Eriprando Visconti) with Hardy Krüger. This controversial drama tells the tale of how a 17th-century Italian nun's long-repressed sexual passion is awakened when a handsome nobleman rapes and impregnates her. Later she is captured and captured and given a horrible life sentence. This ‘true story’ of Sister Virginia, the nun of Monza, was shot in a fifteenth-century castle 27 miles north of Rome and in medieval churches in Lombardy, where the original story took place. The nasty exploitative drama grossed more than $1,000,000 in its initial run in Italy and paid back its negative cost in three weeks. The box office success lead to an Italian subgenre of ‘nunsploitation’ films in the 1970s.
Anne Heywood and Raymond Stross moved from Switzerland to the US. Despite the Golden Globe nomination and the Playboy spread, Heywood never endeared herself to American filmgoers. Such Hollywood productions as the caper Midas Run (1969, Alf Kjellin) with Fred Astaire, and the action drama The Chairman (1969, J. Lee Thompson) with Gregory Peck were no successes. She seemed drawn toward highly troubled, flawed characters, like in I Want What I Want (1972, John Dexter) and Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff (1979, Marvin J. Chomsky). In the 1970s, she also appeared in several Italian films, including the Giallo L'assassino... è al telefono/The Killer Is on the Phone (1972, Alberto De Martino) with Telly Savalas and Willeke van Ammelrooy, the nunsploitation Le monache di Sant'Arcangelo/The Nun & The Devil (1973, Domenico Paolella) with Ornella Muti, and the romantic drama La prima volta sull'erba/Love Under the Elms (1975, Gianluigi Calderone). Her career declined in the 1980s. Her final feature was What Waits Below (1985, Don Sharp. Hal Erickson at IMDb: “a goofy fantasy filmed on the cheap by the ever-canny Don Sharp. The story involves a team of anthropologists and military men who busy themselves exploring a serpentine system of subterranean caves. They discover of a lost race of Albinos, which wreaks havoc upon the surface-dwelling humans. The British actor Robert Powell and Timothy Bottoms star. According to some sources, Sharp and co. approached the production with extreme carelessness; thanks to an unfortunate accident, a large percentage of the cast and crew were almost fatally poisoned by carbon monoxide in the caves where the movie was filmed.” Her penultimate role was as Manon Brevard Marcel on the American TV series The Equalizer (1988), starring Edward Woodward. In 1988 her husband Raymond Stross died. The following year she appeared in a final television movie, Memories of Manon (1989, Tony Wharmby) based on the character from The Equalizer. After this role, she retired. She remarried to George Danzig Druke, a former New York Assistant Attorney General. Anne Heywood Druke resides with her husband in Beverly Hills, USA. She has one son, Mark (1963), with Raymond Stross.
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia, and IMDb.
According to the hotel's website this building was built in 1744, but the nomination form for the Princess Anne Historic District says "...the present frame 2 1/2-story structure with double chimneys at one gable dates from the second quarter of the nineteenth century, it may engulf an earlier building."
German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin-Templehof, no. FK 3390. Photo: Universal Film, Inc.
American film actor Tony Curtis (1925-2010) played a variety of roles, from light comedy, such as the musician on the run from gangsters in Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959), to serious dramatic roles, such as an escaped convict in The Defiant Ones (Stanley Kramer, 1958), which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. From 1949, he appeared in more than 100 films and made frequent television appearances.
Tony Curtis was born Bernard Herschel Schwartz in 1925 in Manhattan, New York City. He was the eldest of three children of Helen (Klein) and Emanuel Schwartz, Jewish immigrants from Hungary. His mother was later in life diagnosed with schizophrenia. His brother Robert was institutionalised with the same mental illness. Curtis himself admits that while he had almost no formal education, he was a student of the "school of hard knocks" and learned from a young age that the only person who ever had his back was himself, so he learned how to take care of both himself and younger brother, Julius. Curtis grew up in poverty, as his father, Emanuel, who worked as a tailor, had the sole responsibility of providing for his entire family on his meager income. This led to constant bickering between Curtis's parents over money, and Curtis began to go to movies as a way of briefly escaping the constant worries of poverty and other family problems. The financial strain of raising two children on a meager income became so tough that in 1935, Curtis's parents decided that their children would have a better life under the care of the state and briefly had Tony and his brother admitted to an orphanage. During this lonely time, the only companion Curtis had was his brother, Julius, and the two became inseparable as they struggled to get used to this new way of life. Weeks later, Curtis's parents came back to reclaim custody of Tony and his brother, but by then Curtis had learned one of life's toughest lessons: the only person you can count on is yourself. In 1938, shortly before Tony's Bar Mitzvah, tragedy struck when Tony lost the person most important to him when his brother, Julius, was hit by a truck and killed. After that tragedy, Curtis's parents became convinced that formal education was the best way Tony could avoid the same never-knowing-where-your-next-meal-is-coming-from life that they had known. However, Tony rejected this because he felt that learning about literary classics and algebra wasn't going to advance him in life as much as some real hands-on life experience would. He was to find that real-life experience a few years later when he enlisted in the navy in 1942 after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Inspired by Cary Grant's role in Destination Tokyo (Delmer Daves, 1943) and Tyrone Power's in Crash Dive (Archie Mayo, 1943), he joined the Pacific submarine force. Tony spent over two years getting that life experience doing everything from working as a crewman on a submarine tender, the USS Proteus (AS-19), to honing his future craft as an actor performing as a sailor in a stage play at the Navy Signalman School in Illinois.
In 1945, Tony Curtis was honorably discharged from the navy, and when he realised that the GI Bill would allow him to go to acting school without paying for it, he now saw that his lifelong pipe dream of being an actor might actually be achievable. Curtis auditioned for the New York Dramatic Workshop and was accepted on the strength of his audition piece, a scene from 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' in pantomime. In 1947, he studied acting under the influential German stage director Erwin Piscator. His contemporaries included Elaine Stritch, Harry Belafonte, Walter Matthau, Beatrice Arthur, and Rod Steiger. He then began to pay his dues by appearing in a slew of stage productions, including 'Twelfth Night' and 'Golden Boy'. While still at college, Curtis was discovered by Joyce Selznick, the notable talent agent, casting director, and niece of film producer David O. Selznick. After seeing his potential, Selznick arranged an interview for Curtis to see David O. Selznick at Universal Studios, where the 23-years-old Curtis was offered a seven-year contract. He changed his name from Bernard Schwartz to what he saw as an elegant, mysterious moniker, Tony Curtis, named after the novel 'Anthony Adverse' (1936) by Hervey Allen and a cousin of his named Janush Kertiz. Curtis began making a name for himself by appearing in small, offbeat roles in small-budget productions. His first notable performance was a two-minute role as a rumba dancer in Criss Cross (Robert Siodmak, 1949), in which he makes Burt Lancaster jealous by dancing with Yvonne De Carlo. This offbeat role resulted in Curtis's being typecast as a heavy for the next few years, such as playing a gang member in City Across the River (Maxwell Shane, 1949), starring Stephen McNally. Curtis continued to build up a showreel by accepting any paying job, acting in a number of bit-part roles for the next few years. It wasn't until late 1949 that he finally got the chance to demonstrate his acting flair when he was cast in an important role in an action-Western, Sierra (Alfred E. Green, 1950) starring Audie Murphy. On the strength of his performance in that film, Curtis was finally cast in a big-budget movie, Winchester '73 (Anthony Mann, 1950). While he appears in that film only very briefly, it was a chance for him to act alongside a Hollywood legend, James Stewart.
Tony Curtis was receiving numerous fan letters, so Universal awarded him the starring role in The Prince Who Was a Thief (Rudolph Maté, 1951), a Swashbuckler set in the Middle East with Piper Laurie. It was a hit at the box office and Curtis was now established. He followed it up with a role as a boxer in the Film Noir Flesh and Fury (Joseph Pevney, 1952), with Jan Sterling. His next films were the comedy No Room for the Groom (Douglas Sirk, 1952), and Son of Ali Baba (Kurt Neumann, 1952), another film set in the Arab world with Piper Laurie. Curtis then teamed up with then-wife Janet Leigh in Houdini (George Marshall, 1953), in which Curtis played the title role. He reunited with Burt Lancaster in the prestigious action drama Trapeze (Carol Reed, 1956). It was one of the biggest hits of the year. As his career developed, Tony Curtis wanted to act in films that had social relevance, ones that would challenge audiences. He achieved his first serious recognition as a dramatic actor in Sweet Smell of Success (1957) with co-star Burt Lancaster. The following year he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in The Defiant Ones (Stanley Kramer, 1958) alongside Sidney Poitier who was also nominated in the same category. Curtis then gave what could arguably be called his best performance: three interrelated roles in the now-classic comedy Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959) opposite Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe. That was followed by Operation Petticoat (Blake Edwards, 1959) with Cary Grant. These frantic comedies displayed his impeccable comic timing. He often collaborated with Edwards on later films. In 1960, Curtis played a supporting role in Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus (1960). He was advised against appearing as the subordinate sidekick in Spartacus, playing second fiddle to the equally famous Kirk Douglas. However, Curtis saw no problem with this because the two had recently acted together in dual leading roles in The Vikings (Richard Fleischer, 1958). Spartacus became another major hit for him.
Tony Curtis's stardom and film career declined considerably after 1960. Curtis took on the role of the Ukrainian Cossack Andrei in the historical action romance epic Taras Bulba (J. Lee Thompson, 1962) featuring Yul Bryner and also with German actress Christine Kaufmann, who became Curtis' second wife. Curtis then focused on comedies such as Sex and the Single Girl (Richard Quine, 1964), with Natalie Wood; The Great Race (Blake Edwards, 1965), with Wood and Jack Lemmon, and Boeing Boeing (John Rich, 1965) a sex farce with Jerry Lewis. His most significant dramatic part came in 1968 when he starred in the true-life drama The Boston Strangler (Richard Fleischer, 1968), which some consider his last major film role. The part reinforced his reputation as a serious actor with his chilling portrayal of serial killer Albert DeSalvo. He later starred alongside Roger Moore in the TV series The Persuaders!, with Curtis playing American millionaire Danny Wilde. The series ran twenty-four episodes. In 2008, he published his autobiography 'American Prince: A Memoir' in which he accused many people he worked with of holding anti-Semitic views. He settled in Henderson, Nevada, where he eventually died in 2010. He was 85. Tony Curtis was married six times and had six children. His wives were actress Janet Leigh (1951-1962), German actress Christine Kaufmann (1963-1968), Leslie Curtis (1968-1982), Andrea Savio (1984 - 1992), Lisa Deutsch (1993-1994), and Jill Vandenberg Curtis (1998-2019 - his death). He was the father of Jamie Lee Curtis and Kelly Curtis (with Janet Leigh), Allegra Curtis, and Alexandra Curtis (with Christine Kaufmann), Nicholas Curtis, and Benjamin Curtis (with Leslie Curtis). He became largely estranged from all six of his children. His son Nicholas Curtis, died of seizures due to an overdose of heroin in 1994. He disinherited all of his children from his will and left the bulk of his estate to his wife Jill Vandenberg Curtis, who was 46 years younger than he.
Source: James Briggs (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
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Italian postcard by Promocard, no. K 1298. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Cameron Diaz in There's Something About Mary (Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly, 1998).
Blue-eyed, natural blonde Cameron Diaz (1972) is a former model and film actress. Her big break arrived in 1994 with the Jim Carrey film The Mask. Roles in My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), There's Something About Mary (1998), and Shrek (2001) – in which she voiced Princess Fiona – solidified her as one of the most bankable Hollywood stars. Her other film credits include hits like Charlie's Angels (2000), Gangs of New York (2003) and In Her Shoes (2005).
Cameron Diaz was born in 1972 in San Diego, California. She is the daughter of a Cuban-American father and an Anglo-German mother. She graduated from Long Beach Polytechnic (Poly) High School (Class of 1990) in Long Beach, California. As a member of that school's 'Polyettes' dance-drill team, Cameron performed during half-time at football games. Self described as "adventurous, independent and a tough kid," she lived in such varied locales as Japan, Australia, Mexico, Morocco, and Paris. Returning to California at the age of 21, Diaz was discovered by a photographer at a Hollywood party. He helped her land a contract with the Elite Modeling Agency. She was working as a model when she auditioned for a big part in the comedy The Mask (Chuck Russell, 1994), based on a Dark Horse comic book series of the same name. To her amazement and despite having no previous acting experience, she was cast as the female lead in the film opposite Jim Carrey. It proved to be a great acting debut for her. The Mask is both a crazy comedy, which surpasses the imagination, but also works well as a thriller with a dark atmosphere. Over the next 3 years, she honed her acting skills in such low budget independent films as The Last Supper (Stacy Title, 1995), Feeling Minnesota (Steven Baigelman, 1996) with Keanu Reeves, and Head Above Water (Jim Wilson, 1996) with Harvey Keitel. She returned to main stream films in My Best Friend's Wedding (P.H. Hogan, 1997), in which she held her own against leading lady Julia Roberts. In 1998, she earned full fledged star status for her performance in the box office smash There's Something About Mary (Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly, 1998) with Matt Dillon and Ben Stiller. Her following two projects—the sports drama Any Given Sunday (Oliver Stone, 1999) starring Al Pacino, and Spike Jonze's surrealist fantasy Being John Malkovich (1999)—lent Diaz a reputation as a dramatic actress, the latter earning her her second Golden Globe nomination.
Cameron Diaz earned a third Golden Globe nomination for her supporting role in Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe, 2001) starring Tom Cruise and Penélope Cruz, and appeared in numerous high-profile films in the early 2000s, including Charlie's Angels (McG, 2000) with Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu, and its sequel Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (McG, 2003), as well as voicing the character of Princess Fiona in the Shrek series (2001–2010). In 2003, she was cast opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Day Lewis in the period epic Gangs of New York (Martin Scorsese, 2003), for which she earned her fourth Golden Globe nomination. Worldwide, the film grossed a total of US$193 million, while it was embraced by critics. Her subsequent films included the dramatic comedies In Her Shoes (Curtis Hanson, 2005) with Toni Colette, and The Holiday (Nancy Meyers, 2006) with Kate Winslet, and the disappointing psychological thriller The Box (Richard Kelly, 2009). Diaz appeared in supporting parts in The Green Hornet (Michel Gondry, 2011), followed by starring roles in the comedies The Other Woman (Nick Cassavetes, 2014) and Sex Tape (Jake Kasdan, 2014). After appearing in Will Gluck's film adaptation of Annie (Will Gluck, 2014), Diaz confirmed she was formally retiring from acting. Diaz is the author of two health books: The Body Book (2013), a New York Times bestseller, and The Longevity Book (2016). In 2015, Cameron Diaz married her boyfriend of 8 months, Benji Madden. After appearing in There's Something About Mary (1998), Diaz briefly dated her co-star Matt Dillon. The following year, she began a four-year relationship with actor Jared Leto,which ended in 2003. Later, she dated singer and actor Justin Timberlake. They separated in 2007. Her accolades include four Golden Globe Award nominations, three Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, and a New York Film Critics Award. In 2013, she was named the highest-paid actress over 40 in Hollywood. As of 2018, the U.S. domestic box office grosses of Diaz's films total over $3 billion USD, with worldwide grosses surpassing $7 billion, making her the fifth highest-grossing U.S. domestic box office actress.
Sources: Tom McDonough (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.
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Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 1213. Photo: Edizioni Economiche Romana.
Donna Reed (1921-1986) was an American film, television actress, and producer. Her career spanned more than 40 years, with performances in more than 40 films. She is well known for her role as Mary Hatch Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946). She received the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Lorene Burke in the war drama From Here to Eternity (Fred Zinnemann, 1953). Reed is also known as Donna Stone, a middle-class American mother, and housewife in the sitcom The Donna Reed Show (1958–1966).
Donna Reed was born Donna Belle Mullenger on a farm near Denison, Iowa, in 1921. She was the daughter of Hazel Jane and William Richard Mullenger. The eldest of five children, she was raised as a Methodist. In 1936, while she was a sophomore at Denison (Iowa) High School, her chemistry teacher Edward Tompkins gave her the book How to Win Friends and Influence People. Upon reading it she won the lead in the school play, was voted Campus Queen, and was in the top 10 of the 1938 graduating class. After graduating from Denison High School, she decided to move to California to attend Los Angeles City College on the advice of her aunt. While attending college, she performed in various stage productions, although she had no plans to become an actress. After receiving several offers to screen test for studios, Reed eventually signed with MGM. Reed made her film debut in The Get-Away (Edward Buzzell, 1941). She had a support role in Shadow of the Thin Man (W. S. Van Dyke, 1941) and in Wallace Beery's The Bugle Sounds (S. Sylvan Simon, 1942). Like many starlets at MGM, she played opposite Mickey Rooney in an Andy Hardy film, in her case the hugely popular The Courtship of Andy Hardy (George B. Seitz, 1942). Reed starred in the drama Calling Dr. Gillespie (Harold S. Bucquet, 1942), featuring Lionel Barrymore, and Apache Trail (Richard Thorpe, 1942). Then she did a thriller with Edward Arnold, Eyes in the Night (Fred Zinnemann, 1942). Reed had a support role in The Human Comedy (Clarence Brown, 1943) with Mickey Rooney, a big film for MGM. She was one of many MGM stars to make cameos in Thousands Cheer (George Sidney, 1943). Produced at the height of the Second World War, the film was intended as a morale booster for American troops and their families. Her "girl-next-door" good looks and warm onstage personality made her a popular pin-up for many GIs during World War II. She personally answered letters from many GIs serving overseas. She was in the Oscar Wilde adaptation The Picture of Dorian Gray (Albert Lewin, 1945) and played a nurse in John Ford's They Were Expendable (1945), opposite John Wayne. MGM was very enthusiastic about Reed's prospects at this time. Reed was top-billed in a romantic comedy Faithful in My Fashion (Sidney Salkow, 1946) with Tom Drake which lost money. MGM lent her to RKO Pictures for the role of Mary Bailey in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. The film has since been named as one of the 100 best American films ever made by the American Film Institute and is regularly aired on television during the Christmas season. Back at MGM, she appeared in Green Dolphin Street (Victor Saville, 1947) with Lana Turner and Van Heflin. It was a big hit. Reed was borrowed by Paramount to make two films with Alan Ladd, Beyond Glory (John Farrowm 1948), where she replaced Joan Caulfield at the last moment, and the Film Noir Chicago Deadline (Lewis Allen, 1949). In 1949 she expressed a desire for better roles.
In 1950, Donna Reed signed a contract with Columbia Studios.[ She appeared in two Film Noirs which teamed her with John Derek, Saturday's Hero (David Miller, 1951), and Scandal Sheet (Phil Karlson, 1952). Reed was the love interest of Randolph Scott in the Western Hangman's Knot (Roy Huggins, 1952), then was borrowed by Warner Bros for the comedy Trouble Along the Way (Michael Curtiz, 1953) with John Wayne. She was loaned out to play John Payne's love interest in Raiders of the Seven Seas (Edward Small, 1953). Reed played the role of Alma "Lorene" Burke, the girlfriend of Montgomery Clift's character, in the World War II drama From Here to Eternity (Fred Zinnemann, 1953). The role earned Reed an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for 1953. The qualities of her parts did not seem to improve: she was the love interest in The Caddy (Norman Taurog, 1953) with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis at Paramount; the Western Gun Fury (Raoul Walsh, 1953) with Rock Hudson; and the Western Three Hours to Kill (Alfred L. Werker, 1954) with Dana Andrews. Reed returned to MGM to act in the romantic drama The Last Time I Saw Paris (Richard Brooks, 1954) with Elizabeth Taylor. Reed began guest-starring on television shows such as The Ford Television Theatre, Tales of Hans Anderson, General Electric Theater, and Suspicion. She continued to appear in features, usually as the love interest, in The Benny Goodman Story (1956) with Steve Allen, playing Goodman's wife; Ransom! (1956) as Glenn Ford's wife; the Western Backlash (1956), with Richard Widmark. In Kenya, she filmed Beyond Mombasa (1957), with Cornel Wilde. She was injured while making the film. In England, she shot The Whole Truth (1958), with Stewart Granger. From 1958 to 1966, Reed starred in The Donna Reed Show, a television series produced by her then-husband, Tony Owen. The show featured her as Donna Stone, the wife of pediatrician Alex Stone (Carl Betz) and mother of Jeff (Paul Petersen) and Mary Stone (Shelley Fabares). Reed was attracted to the idea of being in a comedy, something with which she did not have much experience. She also liked playing a wife. The show ran for eight seasons. Reed won a Golden Globe Award and earned four Emmy Award nominations for her work on the series. Later in her career, Reed replaced Barbara Bel Geddes as Miss Ellie Ewing Farlow in the 1984–1985 season of the television melodrama Dallas. When she was abruptly fired upon Bel Geddes' decision to return to the show, she sued the production company for breach of contract. From 1943 to 1945, Donna Reed was married to make-up artist William Tuttle. After they divorced, in 1945 she married producer Tony Owen. They raised four children together: Penny Jane, Anthony, Timothy, and Mary Anne (the two older children were adopted). After 26 years of marriage, Reed and Owen divorced in 1971. Three years later, Reed married Grover W. Asmus, a retired United States Army colonel. They remained married until her death in 1986. Donna Reed died of pancreatic cancer in Beverly Hills, California, in 1986, 13 days shy of her 65th birthday. Her remains are interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
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British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, no. W. 382. Photo: MGM.
American actress Ann Sothern (1909-2001) had a career on stage, radio, film, and television, that spanned nearly six decades. In 1939, MGM cast her as Maisie Ravier, a brash yet lovable Brooklyn showgirl, which lead to a successful film series. In 1953, Sothern moved into television as the star of her own sitcom Private Secretary. In 1987, Sothern appeared in her final film The Whales of August, and earned her only Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
Ann Sothern was born Harriette Arlene Lake in 1909 in Valley City, North Dakota. She was the oldest of three daughters born to Walter J. Lake and Annette Yde. Her two younger sisters were Marion and Bonnie. Annette Yde was a concert singer, while Sothern's father worked in importing and exporting. Harriette and her sisters were raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her parents separated when she was four years old (they would later divorce in 1927). At the age of five, she began taking piano lessons. She later studied at the McPhail School of Music, where her mother also taught piano. She also began accompanying her mother on her concert tours when her school schedule permitted. By age 11, she had become an accomplished pianist and was singing solos in her church choir. At age 14, she began voice lessons and also continued to study piano and music composition. As a teen at Minneapolis Central High School, she appeared in numerous stage productions and also directed several shows. While visiting her mother in California, she won a role in the Warner Bros. revue The Show of Shows. She did a screen test for MGM and signed a six-month contract. Her film career started as an extra in Broadway Nights (Joseph Boyle, 1927). She worked as an extra for the next six years. It barely paid the bills. As a singer, she performed with Artie Shaw and His Orchestra. She was also a published songwriter and recorded two albums.
Originally a redhead, Ann Sothern began to bleach her hair blonde for comedy roles. After working at MGM and on Broadway, Ann was signed by Columbia Pictures for Let's Fall in Love (David Burton, 1933). Harry Cohn changed her name to Ann Sothern. The next year she would work with Eddie Cantor in his hit Kid Millions (Roy Del Ruth, 1934). Sothern would be in 11 "B" pictures until she was dropped by Columbia in 1936. She then went to RKO, where the quality of her films did not improve. She appeared in a series of "B' films such as Dangerous Number (Richard Thorpe, 1937) and She's Got Everything (Joseph Santley, 1937) with Gene Raymond, but her career was going nowhere. In 1938 she left RKO and played Jean Livingstone, the tart in Trade Winds (Tay Garnett, 1938), starring Fredric March and Joan Bennett, which got her a contract at MGM. She was given the lead in Maisie (Edwin L. Marin, 1939), a "B" comedy about a brassy, energetic showgirl, not a salesgirl - a role originally intended for Jean Harlow. The character was based on the Maisie short stories by Nell Martin. Maisie (Edwin L. Marin, 1939) became a huge hit and spawned a series of ten films with the last being Undercover Maisie (Harry Beaumont, 1947). The popularity of the film series led to her own radio program, 'The Adventures of Maisie', broadcast on CBS from 1945 to 1947.
Ann Sothern also appeared in such well-received features as Brother Orchid (Lloyd Bacon, 1940) with Edward G. Robinson, Cry 'Havoc' (Richard Thorpe, 1943) with Margaret Sullavan and Joan Blondell, and A Letter to Three Wives (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1949) with Linda Darnell and Jeanne Crain. During the 1950s, she played in only four films, including Fritz Lang's Film Noir The Blue Gardenia (1953) with Anne Baxter. By this time, however, Sothern had turned to the relatively new medium - television, where she would attract legions of new fans. She played the meddlesome Susie in the TV series Private Secretary (1953). Sothern was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for her role in the series four times. The series was cancelled in 1957 and Ann came back in The Ann Sothern Show (1958-1961). After The Ann Sothern Show ended, she returned to the cinema in The Best Man (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1964), opposite Henry Fonda. She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe for her work in the film. In 1965, she had a recurring role on her friend Lucille Ball's The Lucy Show as the "Countess Framboise" (née Rosie Harrigan). She also would be the voice of the 1928 Porter in the camp classic My Mother the Car (1965). This TV series was about a man (Jerry Van Dyke) who bought a 1928 Porter and, lo and behold, it was "Mom". The 1970s and 1980s were relatively quiet for Ann. She appeared in some B-films like the horror film The Killing Kind (Curtis Harrington, 1973) as the mother of psycho John Savage, but finally, she would be nominated for an Academy Award for her role as the neighbour of Lillian Gish and Bette Davis in The Whales of August (Lindsay Anderson, 1987). After, she lived in quiet retirement in Ketcham, Idaho near her daughter and granddaughter, until her death of heart failure at 92. Ann Sothern passed away in 2001 in Ketchum, Idaho.
Sources: Tony Fontana (IMDb), Denny Jackson (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.
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British postcard. Photo: Ian McKellen as Magneto in X-Men - The Last Stand (Bryan Singer, 2006).
The career of English actor Ian McKellen (1939) spans genres ranging from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and Science Fiction. He became a stalwart of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre of Great Britain. He achieved worldwide fame for his film roles, including the titular King in Richard III (1995), James Whale in Gods and Monsters (1998), Magneto in the X-Men films, and Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies. For his work, Mckellen received six Laurence Olivier Awards, a Tony Award, a Golden Globe Award, five Primetime Emmy Awards, four BAFTAs, and many other awards. He has been openly gay since 1988, and continues to be a champion for the LGBT movement.
Ian Murray McKellen was born in 1939 in Burnley, Lancashire. He was the son of Margery Lois (née Sutcliffe) and Denis Murray McKellen. He had a sister, Jean, five years his senior. McKellen's father was a civil engineer and lay preacher. His home environment was strongly Christian, but non-orthodox. When he was 12, his mother died of breast cancer; his father died when he was 24. McKellen's acting career started at Bolton Little Theatre, of which he is now the patron. An early fascination with the theatre was encouraged by his parents, who took him on a family outing to Peter Pan at the Opera House in Manchester when he was three. When he was nine, his main Christmas present was a fold-away wood and bakelite Victorian theatre from Pollocks Toy Theatres, with cardboard scenery and wires to push on the cut-outs of Cinderella and of Laurence Olivier's Hamlet. His sister took him to his first Shakespeare play, Twelfth Night, by the amateurs of Wigan's Little Theatre. In 1958, McKellen, at the age of 18, won a scholarship to St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he read English literature. While at Cambridge, McKellen was a member of the Marlowe Society, where he appeared in 23 plays over the course of 3 years. He already gave performances that have since become legendary such as his Justice Shallow in Henry IV alongside Trevor Nunn and Derek Jacobi in 1959. During this period McKellen was directed by Peter Hall, John Barton and Dadie Rylands, who had a huge impact on McKellen's future career. He made his first professional appearance in 1961 as Roper in A Man for All Seasons. After four years in regional repertory theatres he made his first West End appearance, in A Scent of Flowers. It was a success. In 1965 he was a member of Laurence Olivier's National Theatre Company at the Old Vic. With the Prospect Theatre Company, McKellen made his breakthrough performances of Richard II and Marlowe's Edward II. In the 1970s and 1980s McKellen became a well-known figure in British theatre, performing frequently at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre, where he played several leading Shakespearean roles, including the title role in Macbeth, and Iago in Othello, in award-winning productions directed by Trevor Nunn. Both productions were adapted into television films, also directed by Nunn. In 2007 he returned to the Royal Shakespeare Company, in productions of King Lear and The Seagull, both directed by Trevor Nunn. In 2009 he appeared in a very popular revival of Waiting for Godot, directed by Sean Mathias, and playing opposite Patrick Stewart. In late August 2012, he took part in the opening ceremony of the London Paralympics, portraying Prospero from The Tempest. In October 2017, McKellen played King Lear at Chichester Festival Theatre, a role which he said was likely to be his "last big Shakespearean part". He performed the play at the Duke of York's Theatre in London's West End during the summer of 2018.
Ian McKellen had taken film roles throughout his career—beginning with his role of George Matthews in A Touch of Love (Waris Hussein, 1969) starring Sandy Dennis, and his first leading role was as D. H. Lawrence in Priest of Love (Christopher Miles, 1980). He played war minister John Profumo involved in sa scandalous affair with an exotic dancer in Scandal ( Michael Caton-Jones, 1989). In the 1990s he became more widely recognised after several roles in Hollywood films. In 1993, he had a supporting role as a South African tycoon in the critically acclaimed Six Degrees of Separation (Fred Schepisi, 1993), with Stockard Channing, Donald Sutherland, and Will Smith. In the same year, he appeared in the TV miniseries Tales of the City (Alastair Reid, 1993), based on the novel by his friend Armistead Maupin, and the film Last Action Hero (John McTiernan, 1993), in which he briefly played Death opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger. McKellen also appeared in the TV film And the Band Played On (Roger Spottiswoode, 1993) about the discovery of the AIDS virus for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award. He played the title role in Richard III (Richard Loncraine, 1995) with Annette Bening and Robert Downey Jr., which transported the setting into an alternative 1930s in which England is ruled by fascists. The film which McKellen co-produced and co-wrote, was a critical success. His performance in the title role garnered BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor and won the European Film Award for Best Actor. His screenplay was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He also appeared in the modestly acclaimed film Apt Pupil (1998), which was directed by Bryan Singer and based on a story by Stephen King. McKellen portrayed a fugitive Nazi officer living under a false name in the US who is befriended by a curious teenager (Brad Renfro) who threatens to expose him unless he tells his story in detail. He was subsequently nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor for his role in Gods and Monsters (Bill Condon, 1998), wherein he played of Frankenstein (1931) director James Whale.
Ian McKellen was cast, again under the direction of Bryan Singer, to play the comic book supervillain Magneto in X-Men (2000) and its sequels X2: X-Men United (2003) and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). He later made a short appearance as an older Magneto in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), sharing the role with Michael Fassbender, who played a younger version of the character in X-Men: First Class (2011). While filming the first X-Men film in 1999, McKellen was cast as the wizard Gandalf in Peter Jackson's three-film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002), and The Return of the King (2003) . He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role. He provided the voice of Gandalf for several video game adaptations of the Lord of the Rings films, then reprised the role on screen in Jackson's film adaptation of The Hobbit, which was released in three parts from 2012 to 2014. He also appeared as Sir Leigh Teabing in The Da Vinci Code (Ron Howard, 2006) opposite Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou. McKellen portrayed Sherlock Holmes in Holmes (Bill Condon, 2017), and Cogsworth in the live-action adaptation of Disney's Beauty and the Beast (Bill Condon, 2017), starring Emma Watson. Also in 2017, McKellen appeared in the documentary McKellen: Playing the Part, (Joe Stephenson, 2017), which explores McKellen's life and career as an actor. McKellen's first partner was Brian Taylor, a history teacher from Bolton. Their relationship lasted from 1964 till 1972. In 1978 he met his second partner, actor-director Sean Mathias. This relationship lasted until 1988, and the couple worked later together on the film Bent (Sean Mathias, 1997) as well as in several stage productions. In 1988, McKellen came out to the general public on BBC Radio. The controversial Section 28 of the Local Government Bill was then under consideration in the British Parliament. McKellen became active in fighting the proposed law, and, during a BBC Radio 3 programme where he debated Section 28 with the conservative journalist Peregrine Worsthorne, declared himself gay. Section 28 was, however, enacted and remained on the statute books until 2000 in Scotland and 2003 in England and Wales. McKellen has continued to be very active in LGBT rights efforts. Ian McKellen was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990 for his efforts in the arts. Ian Mc Kellen stays active for the cameras. He can soon be seen in Bill Condon's The Good Liar (2019) opposite Helen Mirren and as Gus, the theatre cat in Cats (Tom Hooper, 2019).
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
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Italian postcard by Stab. Del Duca, Milano. Photo: Columbia. Jean Arthur in If You Could Only Cook (William A. Seiter, 1935).
American actress Jean Arthur (1900-1991) was known for her distinctive voice: sometimes high-pitched, sometimes husky. She played willful, uncompromising career women in classic comedies by Frank Capra and George Stevens.
Jean Arthur was born Gladys Georgianna Greene in upstate New York, 20 miles south of the Canadian border. She had her year of birth cited variously as 1900, 1905 and 1908. Her place of birth has often been cited as New York City. She made her screen debut in a bit part in Cameo Kirby (John Ford, 1923), starring John Gilbert. Then, she spent several years playing unremarkable roles as ingénue or leading lady in comedy shorts and low-budget Westerns. With the arrival of sound she was able to appear in films whose quality was but slightly improved over that of her past silents. She had to contend, for example, with the consummately evil likes of Dr. Fu Manchu, played by future 'Charlie Chan' Warner Oland. Her career bloomed with her appearance in Ford's The Whole Town's Talking (John Ford, 1935), in which she played opposite Edward G. Robinson, the latter in a dual role as a notorious gangster and his lookalike, a befuddled, well-meaning clerk. Here is where her wholesomeness and flair for farcical comedy began making themselves plain. The turning point in her career came when she was chosen by Frank Capra to star with Gary Cooper in the classic social comedy Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Frank Capra, 1936). Here she rescues the hero - thus herself becoming heroine! - from rapacious human vultures who are scheming to separate him from his wealth. In Capra's masterpiece Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Frank Capra, 1939), she again rescues a besieged hero (James Stewart), protecting him from a band of manipulative and cynical politicians and their cronies and again she ends up as a heroine of sorts.
Jean Arhur received a Best Actress Academy Award nominationor her performance in George Stevens' The More the Merrier (1943), in which she starred with Joel McCrea and Charles Coburn, but the award went to Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette (Henry King, 1943). Her career began waning toward the end of the 1940s. She starred with Marlene Dietrich and John Lund in Billy Wilder's fluff about post-World War II Berlin, A Foreign Affair (Billy Wilder, 1948). Thereafter, the actress would return to the screen but once, again for George Stevens but not in comedy. She starred with Alan Ladd and Van Heflin in Stevens' Western Shane (George Stevens, 1953), playing the wife of a besieged settler (Heflin) who accepts help from a nomadic gunman (Ladd) in the settler's effort to protect his farm. It was her silver-screen swansong. She would provide one more opportunity for a mass audience to appreciate her craft. In 1966 she starred as a witty and sophisticated lawyer, Patricia Marshall, a widow, in the TV series The Jean Arthur Show (1966). Her time was apparently past, however; the show ran for only 11 weeks. Jean Arthur died of heart failure in 1991 in Carmel, California. She was married twice. Her first marriage to Julian Aster Ancker in 1928 was annulled after 1 day. In 1932, she married producer Frank Ross. The marriage ended in a divorce in 1949.
Sources: Bill Takacs (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.
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British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D 769. Photo: Warner Bros. Publicity still for Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955).
American actor James Dean (1931-1955) was the quintessential 1950s teenager, brooding and romantic. An air of androgyny attributed to his iconic appeal to both men and women. The three roles that defined his stardom are as troubled teenager Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), loner Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955) and surly ranch hand Jett Rink in Giant (1956). After his death in a car crash, the only 24-years-old Dean became the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
James Byron Dean was born in 1931, in Marion, Indiana, the only child of Winton Dean and Mildred Marie Wilson. Six years after his father had left farming to become a dental technician, Dean and his family moved to Santa Monica, California. In 1938, his mother was suddenly struck with acute stomach pain and quickly began to lose weight. She died of uterine cancer when Dean was nine years old. Unable to care for his son, Dean's father sent him to live with his aunt and uncle, Ortense and Marcus Winslow, on their farm in Fairmount, Indiana, where he was raised in their Quaker household. Dean's overall performance in school was exceptional and he was a popular student. He played on the baseball and varsity basketball teams, studied drama, and competed in public speaking through the Indiana High School Forensic Association. After graduating from Fairmount High School in May 1949, he moved back to California with his dog, Max, to live with his father and stepmother. He enrolled in Santa Monica College (SMC) and majored in pre-law. He transferred to UCLA for one semester and changed his major to drama, which resulted in estrangement from his father. While at UCLA, Dean was picked from a group of 350 actors to portray Malcolm in Macbeth. At that time, he also began acting in James Whitmore's workshop. In January 1951, he dropped out of UCLA to pursue a full-time career as an actor. Dean's first television appearance was in a Pepsi Cola commercial His first speaking part was as John the Beloved Disciple, in Hill Number One (1951), an Easter television special dramatizing the Resurrection of Jesus. Dean subsequently obtained three walk-on roles in films: as a soldier in Samuel Fuller’s moody study of a platoon in the Korean War, Fixed Bayonets! (Samuel Fuller, 1951), a boxing cornerman in the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy Sailor Beware (Hal Walker, 1952), and a youth in the comedy Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (Douglas Sirk, 1952) with Rock Hudson. While struggling to get jobs in Hollywood, Dean also worked as a parking lot attendant at CBS Studios, during which time he met Rogers Brackett, a radio director for an advertising agency, who offered him professional help and guidance in his chosen career, as well as a place to stay. In July 1951, Dean appeared on Alias Jane Doe, which was produced by Brackett. In October 1951, Dean moved to New York City. There, he worked as a stunt tester for the game show Beat the Clock, but was subsequently fired for allegedly performing the tasks too quickly. He also appeared in episodes of several CBS television series The Web, Studio One, and Lux Video Theatre, before gaining admission to the Actors Studio to study method acting under Lee Strasberg. There, he was classmates and close friends with Carroll Baker, alongside whom he would eventually star in Giant (George Stevens, 1956). Dean's career picked up and he performed in further episodes of several early 1950s television. One early role, for the CBS series Omnibus in the episode Glory in the Flower (1953), saw Dean portraying the type of disaffected youth he would later portray in Rebel Without a Cause. Positive reviews for Dean's 1954 theatrical role as Bachir, the blackmailing Arab house boy, in an adaptation of André Gide's book The Immoralist, led to calls from Hollywood.
In 1954, James Dean was cast in the emotionally complex role of 'Cal Trask' in East of Eden (Elia Kazan, 1955), an adaptation of John Steinbeck's 1952 novel East of Eden. The lengthy novel deals with the story of the Trask and Hamilton families over the course of three generations, focusing especially on the lives of the latter two generations in Salinas Valley, California, from the mid-19th century through the 1910s. In contrast to the book, the film script focused on the last portion of the story, predominantly with the character of Cal. Though he initially seems more aloof and emotionally troubled than his twin brother Aron (Richard Davalos), Cal is soon seen to be more worldly, business savvy, and even sagacious than their pious and constantly disapproving father (Raymond Massey) who seeks to invent a vegetable refrigeration process. Cal is bothered by the mystery of their supposedly dead mother, and discovers she is still alive and a brothel-keeping 'madam'; the part was played by actress Jo Van Fleet. Much of Dean's performance in the film was unscripted, including his dance in the bean field and his fetal-like posturing while riding on top of a train boxcar (after searching out his mother in nearby Monterey). The most famous improvisation of the film occurs when Cal's father rejects his gift of $5,000, money Cal earned by speculating in beans before the US became involved in World War I. Instead of running away from his father as the script called for, Dean instinctively turned to Massey and in a gesture of extreme emotion, lunged forward and grabbed him in a full embrace, crying. Kazan kept this and Massey's shocked reaction in the film. Wikipedia: “Dean's performance in the film foreshadowed his role as Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause. Both characters are angst-ridden protagonists and misunderstood outcasts, desperately craving approval from their fathers.” In recognition of his performance in East of Eden, Dean was nominated posthumously for the 1956 Academy Awards as Best Actor in a Leading Role of 1955, the first official posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history. East of Eden was the only film starring Dean that he would see released in his lifetime.
James Dean quickly followed up his role in Eden with a starring role as the brooding red-jacketed teenager Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955) with Sal Mineo and Natalie Wood. The film depicts the dilemma of a typical teenager of the time, who feels that no one, not even his peers, can understand him. The film scrupulously follows the classic theatrical disciplines, telling all within a 24-hour period. Jim Stark was Dean’s true starring role, and Rebel Without a Cause proved to be hugely popular among teenagers. The landmark juvenile-delinquent drama fixed James Dean’s image forever in American culture. In his next film, Giant (George Stevens, 1956), Dean played a supporting role to Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. This was due to his desire to avoid being typecast as a rebellious teenager like Cal Trask or Jim Stark. In the film, he plays Jett Rink, a Texan ranch hand who strikes oil and becomes wealthy. His role was notable in that, in order to portray an older version of his character in the film's later scenes, Dean dyed his hair gray and shaved some of it off to give himself a receding hairline. Giant would prove to be Dean's last film. At the end of the film, Dean was supposed to make a drunken speech at a banquet; this is nicknamed the 'Last Supper' because it was the last scene before his sudden death. Due to his desire to make the scene more realistic by actually being inebriated for the take, Dean mumbled so much that director George Stevens decided the scene had to be overdubbed by Nick Adams, who had a small role in the film, because Dean had died before the film was edited. Dean received his second posthumous Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his role in Giant at the 29th Academy Awards in 1957 for films released in 1956.
Today, James Dean is often considered an icon because of his perceived experimental take on life, which included his ambivalent sexuality. Most of his so-called affairs with various starlets were made up by the Warner Brothers public relations. Dean's best-remembered relationship was with young Italian actress Pier Angeli, whom he met while Angeli was shooting The Silver Chalice (1955) on an adjoining Warner lot, and with whom he exchanged items of jewelry as love tokens. Angeli's mother disapproved of Dean. After finishing his role for East of Eden, he took a brief trip to New York in October 1954. While he was away, Angeli unexpectedly announced her engagement to Italian-American singer Vic Damone. The press was shocked and Dean expressed his irritation. Angeli married Damone the following month. Dean also dated Swiss actress Ursula Andress. She was seen with Dean in his sports cars, and was with him on the day he bought the car that he died in. The Gay Times Readers' Awards cited him as the greatest male gay icon of all time. Dean’s ambiguous relationship with Sal Mineo in the angst-ridden Rebel Without A Cause has led many to speculate and view this golden age film as years ahead of its time. When questioned about his sexual orientation, Dean is reported to have said, "No, I am not a homosexual. But I'm also not going to go through life with one hand tied behind my back." Dean, with time on his side during down times of filming, often frequented gay bars in mornings, afternoons and evenings in both Hollywood, Studio City and North Hollywood. He and screenwriter and theatre student from UCLA, William Bast lived together as roommates for a number of years. Bast later became Dean's first biographer and told he and Dean ‘experimented’ sexually. Journalist Joe Hyams suggests that any gay activity Dean might have been involved in appears to have been strictly "for trade", as a means of advancing his career. However, the ‘trade only’ notion is contradicted by Bast and other Dean biographers. Biographer Val Holley: “There's been quite an evolution in the thinking since Dean's death in 1955, moving from ‘James Dean was straight’ to ‘Dean had sex with men but only to advance his career’ to ‘Dean had sex with women but only to advance his career.’ In 2016, a new gossipy biography was published, James Dean: Tomorrow Never Comes, by Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince. The authors claim Dean was in love with Marlon Brando and the two would had a long affair with S&M overtones. We may never know for certain if Dean identified as gay, straight, bisexual, but, regardless, what he’s come to represent still resonates with many LGBT audiences.
In 1954, James Dean had become interested in developing an auto racing career. He purchased various vehicles after filming for East of Eden had concluded, including a Triumph Tiger T110 and a Porsche 356. Just before filming began on Rebel Without a Cause, he competed in his first professional event at the Palm Springs Road Races, which was held in Palm Springs, California on March 26–27, 1955. Dean achieved first place in the novice class, and second place at the main event. His racing continued in Bakersfield a month later, where he finished first in his class and third overall. Dean hoped to compete in the Indianapolis 500, but his busy schedule made it impossible. Dean's final race occurred in Santa Barbara on Memorial Day, 30 May 1955. He was unable to finish the competition due to a blown piston. His brief career was put on hold when Warner Brothers barred him from all racing during the production of Giant. Dean had finished shooting his scenes and the movie was in post-production when he decided to race again. Dean was scheduled to compete at a racing event in Salinas, California on 30 September 1955. Accompanying the actor to the occasion was stunt coordinator Bill Hickman, Collier's photographer Sanford Roth, and Rolf Wütherich, the German mechanic from the Porsche factory who maintained Dean's Porsche 550 Spyder "Little Bastard" car. Wütherich, who had encouraged Dean to drive the car from Los Angeles to Salinas to break it in, accompanied Dean in the Porsche. At 3:30 p.m. Dean was ticketed for speeding, as was Hickman who was following behind in another car. As the group traveled to the event via U.S. Route 466, (currently SR 46) at approximately 5:15 p.m. a 1950 Ford Tudor was passing through an intersection while turning, ahead of the Porsche. Dean, unable to stop in time, slammed into the driver's side of the Ford resulting in Dean's car bouncing across the pavement onto the side of the highway. Dean's passenger, Wütherich, was thrown from the Porsche, while Dean was trapped in the car and sustained numerous fatal injuries, including a broken neck. The driver of the Ford, Donald Turnupseed, exited his damaged vehicle with minor injuries. Dean was pronounced dead on arrival shortly after he arrived by ambulance at the Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital at 6:20 p.m. The Failure Analysis Associates later reconstructed and recreated all details of the accident and have concluded that James Dean was travelling 55 to 56 mph when the fateful accident occurred, thereby proving he had not been speeding, as rumor had it. Ed Stephan at IMDb: “At age 24, James Dean was killed almost immediately from the impact from a broken neck. His very brief career, violent death and highly publicized funeral transformed him into a cult object of apparently timeless fascination.”
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Ed Stephan (IMDb), Daniel Bates (Daily Mail), Towleroad, Wikipedia, and IMDb.
De Hallen Amsterdam, McDonalds (Rotterdam), Tennisclub IJburg, Small church Klein Wetsinge (Winsum), Swimming pool Het Noorderparkbad (Amsterdam), Plus Ultra (Wageningen Campus), het KWR Watercycle Research Institute (Nieuwegein) and the underground parking garage Katwijk aan Zee are nominated for the best Dutch building of 2016.
British postcard by Art Photo, no. 133.
American actress Paulette Goddard (1905-1990) started her career as a fashion model and as a Ziegfeld Girl in several Broadway shows. In the 1940s, she became a major star of Paramount Pictures. She was Charlie Chaplin's leading lady in Modern Times (1936), and The Great Dictator. Goddard was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for So Proudly We Hail! (1943). Her husbands included Chaplin, Burgess Meredith, and Erich Maria Remarque.
Paulette Goddard was born Pauline Marion Levy in Whitestone Landing, Long Island, New York. Sources variously cite her year of birth as 1911 and 1914, and the place as Whitestone Landing, New York, USA. However, municipal employees in Ronco, Switzerland, where she died, gave her birth year of record as 1905. Goddard was the daughter of Joseph Russell Levy, the son of a prosperous Jewish cigar manufacturer from Salt Lake City, and Alta Mae Goddard, who was of Episcopalian English heritage. They married in 1908 and separated while their daughter was very young, although the divorce did not become final until 1926. According to Goddard, her father left them, but according to J. R. Levy, Alta absconded with the child. Goddard was raised by her mother, and did not meet her father again until the late 1930s, after she had become famous. To avoid a custody battle, she and her mother moved often during her childhood, even relocating to Canada at one point. Goddard began modeling at an early age to support her mother and herself, working for Saks Fifth Avenue, Hattie Carnegie, and others. An important figure in her childhood was her great uncle, Charles Goddard, the owner of the American Druggists Syndicate. He played a central role in Goddard's career, introducing her to Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld. She made her stage debut as a dancer in Ziegfeld's summer revue, 'No Foolin' (1926), which was also the first time that she used the stage name Paulette Goddard. Ziegfeld hired her for another musical, 'Rio Rita', which opened in February 1927, but she left the show after only three weeks to appear in the play 'The Unconquerable Male', produced by Archie Selwyn. It was, however, a flop and closed after only three days following its premiere in Atlantic City. Soon after the play closed, Goddard was introduced to the much older lumber tycoon Edgar James, president of the Southern Lumber Company, by Charles Goddard. She married him in June 1927 in Rye, New York, but the marriage was short. Goddard was granted a divorce in Reno, Nevada, in 1929, receiving a divorce settlement of $375,000. Tony Fontana at IMDb: "A stunning natural beauty, Paulette could mesmerize any man she met, a fact she was well aware of. "
Paulette Goddard first visited Hollywood in 1929, when she appeared as an uncredited extra in two films, the Laurel and Hardy short film Berth Marks (Lewis R. Foster, 1929), and George Fitzmaurice's drama The Locked Door (1929). Following her divorce, she briefly visited Europe before returning to Hollywood in late 1930 with her mother. Her second attempt at acting was no more successful than the first, as she landed work only as an extra. In 1930, she signed her first film contract with producer Samuel Goldwyn to appear as a Goldwyn Girl in Whoopee! (Thornton Freeland, 1930) with Eddie Cantor. She also appeared in City Streets (Rouben Mamoulian, 1931) with Gary Cooper, Ladies of the Big House (Marion Gering, 1931) starring Sylvia Sidney, and The Girl Habit (Edward F. Cline, 1931) for Paramount, and The Mouthpiece (James Flood, Elliott Nugent, 1932) for Warners. Goldwyn and she did not get along, and she began working for Hal Roach Studios, appearing in a string of uncredited supporting roles for the next four years, including Young Ironsides (James Parrott, 1932) with Charley Chase, and Pack Up Your Troubles (1932) with Laurel and Hardy. One of her bigger roles in that period was as a blond 'Goldwyn Girl' in the Eddie Cantor film The Kid from Spain (Leo McCarey, 1932). Goldwyn also used Goddard in The Bowery (Raoul Walsh, 1933) with Wallace Beery, Roman Scandals (Frank Tuttle, 1933), and Kid Millions (Roy Del Ruth, 1934) with Eddie Cantor. The year she signed with Goldwyn, Goddard began dating Charlie Chaplin, a relationship that received substantial attention from the press. They were reportedly married in secret in Canton, China, in June 1936. It marked a turning point in Goddard's career when Chaplin cast her as his leading lady in his box office hit, Modern Times (1936). Her role as 'The Gamin', an orphan girl who runs away from the authorities and becomes The Tramp's companion, was her first credited film appearance and garnered her mainly positive reviews, Frank S. Nugent of The New York Times describing her as "the fitting recipient of the great Charlot's championship". Following the success of Modern Times, Chaplin planned other projects with Goddard in mind as a co-star, but he worked slowly, and Goddard worried that the public might forget about her if she did not continue to make regular film appearances. She signed a contract with David O. Selznick and appeared with Janet Gaynor in the comedy The Young in Heart (Richard Wallace, 1938) before Selznick lent her to MGM to appear in two films. The first of these, Dramatic School (Robert B. Sinclair, 1938), co-starred Luise Rainer, but the film received mediocre reviews and failed to attract an audience. Her next film, The Women (George Cukor, 1939), was a success. With an all-female cast headed by Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, and Rosalind Russell, the film's supporting role of Miriam Aarons was played by Goddard. Pauline Kael later wrote of Goddard, "she is a stand-out. fun."
David O' Selznick was pleased with Paulette Goddard's performances, particularly her work in The Young in Heart, and considered her for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939). Initial screen tests convinced Selznick and director George Cukor that Goddard would require coaching to be effective in the role, but that she showed promise, and she was the first actress given a Technicolor screen test. After he was introduced to Vivien Leigh, he wrote to his wife that Leigh was a "dark horse" and that his choice had "narrowed down to Paulette, Jean Arthur, Joan Bennett, and Vivien Leigh". After a series of tests with Leigh that pleased both Selznick and Cukor, Selznick cancelled the further tests that had been scheduled for Goddard, and the part was given to Leigh. Goddard's next film, The Cat and the Canary (Elliott Nugent, 1939) with Bob Hope, was a turning point in the careers of both actors. The success of the film established her as a genuine star. Her performance won her a ten-year contract with Paramount Studios, which was one of the premier studios of the day. They promptly were re-teamed in The Ghost Breakers (George Marshall, 1940), again a huge hit. Goddard starred with Chaplin again in his film The Great Dictator (1940). In 1942, Goddard was granted a Mexican divorce from Chaplin. The couple split amicably, with Chaplin agreeing to a generous settlement. At Paramount, Goddard was used by Cecil B. De Mille in the action epic North West Mounted Police (1940), playing the second female lead. She was Fred Astaire's leading lady in the acclaimed musical Second Chorus/Swing it (H.C. Potter, 1940), where she met actor Burgess Meredith, her third husband. Goddard made Pot o' Gold (George Marshall, 1941), a comedy with James Stewart, then supported Charles Boyer and Olivia de Havilland in Hold Back the Dawn (Mitchell Leisen, 1941), from a script by Wilder and Brackett, directed by Mitchell Leisen. Goddard was teamed with Hope for a third time in Nothing But the Truth (Elliott Nugent, 1942), then made The Lady Has Plans (Sidney Lanfield, 1942), a comedy with Ray Milland. She co-starred with Milland and John Wayne in Reap the Wild Wind (Cecil B. DeMille, 1942), playing the lead, a Scarlett O'Hara type character. The film was a huge hit. Goddard did The Forest Rangers (George Marshall, 1942) with Fred MacMurray. One of her better-remembered film appearances was in the variety musical Star Spangled Rhythm (George Marshall, 1943), in which she sang "A Sweater, a Sarong, and a Peekaboo Bang" with Dorothy Lamour and Veronica Lake.
Paulette Goddard received one Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for So Proudly We Hail! (Mark Sandrich, 1943) opposite Claudette Colbert and Veronica Lake. She didn't win, but it solidified her as a top draw. Goddard was teamed with Fred MacMurray in the delightful comedy Standing Room Only (Sidney Lanfield, 1944) and Sonny Tufts in I Love a Soldier (Mark Sandrich, 1944). In May 1944, she married Burgess Meredith at David O. Selznick's home in Beverly Hills. Goddard's most successful film was Kitty (Mitchell Leisen, 1945), in which she played the title role. Denny Jackson/Robert Sieger at IMDb: "The film was a hit with moviegoers, as she played an ordinary English woman transformed into a duchess. The film was filled with plenty of comedy, dramatic and romantic scenes that appealed to virtually everyone." In The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946), Goddard starred with husband Burgess Meredith under the direction of Jean Renoir. It was made for United Artists. At Paramount she did Suddenly It's Spring (Mitchell Leisen, 1947) with Fred MacMurray, and De Mille's 18th century romantic drama Unconquered (Cecil B. DeMille, 1947), with Cary Grant. During the Hollywood Blacklist, when she and blacklisted husband Meredith were mobbed by a baying crowd screaming "Communists!" on their way to a premiere, Goddard is said to have turned to her husband and said, "Shall I roll down the window and hit them with my diamonds, Bugsy?" In 1947, she made An Ideal Husband in Britain for Alexander Korda, and was accompanied on a publicity trip to Brussels by Clarissa Spencer-Churchill, niece of Sir Winston Churchill and future wife of future Prime Minister Anthony Eden. She divorced Meredith in June 1949, and also left Paramount. In 1949, she formed Monterey Pictures with John Steinbeck. Goddard starred in Anna Lucasta (Irving Rapper, 1949), then went to Mexico for The Torch (Emilio Fernández, 1950). In England, she was in Babes in Bagdad (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1952), then she went to Hollywood for Vice Squad (Arnold Laven, 1953) with Edward G. Robinson, and Charge of the Lancers (William Castle, 1954) with Jean-Pierre Aumont. Her last starring role was in the English production A Stranger Came Home/The Unholy Four (Terence Fisher, 1954).
Paulette Goddard began appearing in summer stock and on television, guest starring on episodes of Sherlock Holmes, an adaptation of The Women, this time playing the role of Sylvia Fowler, The Errol Flynn Theatre, The Joseph Cotten Show, and The Ford Television Theatre. She was in an episode of Adventures in Paradise and a TV version of The Phantom. After her marriage to Erich Maria Remarque in 1958, Goddard largely retired from acting and moved to Ronco sopra Ascona, Switzerland. In 1964, she attempted a comeback in films with a supporting role in the Italian film Gli indifferenti/Time of Indifference (Francesco Maselli, 1964), starring Claudia Cardinale and Rod Steiger, which was her last feature film. After Remarque's death in 1970, she made one last attempt at acting, when she accepted a small role in an episode of the TV series The Snoop Sisters, The Female Instinct (Leonards Stern, 1972) with Helen Hayes and Mildred Natwick. Upon Remarque's death, Goddard inherited much of his money and several important properties across Europe, including a wealth of contemporary art, which augmented her own long-standing collection. During this period, her talent at accumulating wealth became a byword among the old Hollywood élite. During the 1980s, she became a fairly well known (and highly visible) socialite in New York City, appearing covered with jewels at many high-profile cultural functions with several well-known men, including Andy Warhol, with whom she sustained a friendship for many years until his death in 1987. Paulette Goddard underwent invasive treatment for breast cancer in 1975, successfully by all accounts. In 1990, she died at her home in Switzerland from heart failure while under respiratory support due to emphysema, She is buried in Ronco Village Cemetery, next to Remarque and her mother. Goddard had no children. She became a stepmother to Charles Chaplin's two sons, Charles Chaplin Jr. and Sydney Chaplin, while she and Charlie were married. In his memoirs, 'My Father Charlie Chaplin' (1960), Charles Jr. describes her as a lovely, caring and intelligent woman throughout the book. In October 1944, she suffered the miscarriage of a son with Burgess Meredith. Goddard, whose own formal education did not go beyond high school, bequeathed US$20 million to New York University (NYU) in New York City.
Sources: Tony Fontana (IMDb), Denny Jackson / Robert Sieger (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.
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City main parish church of Saint Giles
Object ID: 49309, Parish square 7
Cadastral Community: Klagenfurt
The Roman Catholic parish church Klagenfurt-Saint Giles stands in the town of Klagenfurt at the lake Wörthersee in Carinthia. The parish church Heiliger Ägidius belongs to the deanery Klagenfurt-Stadt in the diocese Gurk-Klagenfurt. The former city main parish church is under monument protection.
History
On the site of today's St. Egid Church was an older church building, which was mentioned as a vicariate of Maria Saal in 1255 for the first time in a document and 1303 was endowed with parochial rights. 1347 was the first documentary mention of a church "sand Gilgen" (St. Egid). 1519 followed the nomination of three priests at the church of St. Egid in the Schematism and 1540 was a restoration of the church.
The architectural form of the original church is evident from existing maps of the years 1605 and 1649. The church had a Gothic high choir, seven altars, a protruding transept and two spiers with pointed helmets connected by a covered wooden corridor.
From 1563 until the recatholicization in 1600, Protestant services were celebrated in the church. 1571 began with the keeping of baptismal books. From 1593 Johannes Herold was cantor. In 1603 the parish became independent.
Fires destroyed the rectory in 1535 and 1636. The Romanesque charnel house fell victim to the fire in 1636. Earthquakes affected the church in 1571, 1680 and 1688. The damage required in 1690 the demolition of the Romanesque church.
The consecration of the new church was carried out by Bishop Kaspar von Lavant on September 8, 1697. The laying of the foundation stone for the new tower was carried out by the Klagenfurt burgrave J. F. Count Orsini-Rosenberg on July 30, 1692. In 1706 the new ringing sounded for the first time and in 1709 the tower was completed. In 1723 there were renewed fire damages to church and tower. Thereafter, the tower was equipped with a Baroque onion helmet. With a height of 91.7 meters, it is after the parish tower in Villach, the second highest church tower in Carinthia and is considered one of the two landmarks of Klagenfurt. As part of guided tours, the 50-meter-high viewing platform of the watchman gallery can be climbed.
The new church was designed as a four-aisled gallery church with a two-bay square choir. Several barrel vaults with lunette caps rest on stucco-lustro pilasters with richly ornamented capitals. The triumphal arch is indicated by a transverse arch on wall pillars. Four side chapels with cross vaults and Baroque windows complete the building. The galleries feature lunette windows, also from the Baroque period.
Four artistically valuable side altars complete the interior design:
Nepomuk Altar (1822): The altar is made of imitation marble and contains as an image the motif of John the Baptist (1728) by Josef Ferdinand Fromiller and laterally figures of the Holy Family. The altar was donated by Egger-Lodron.
Crucifixion altar (1702). The central picture Crucifixion of Christ was painted in 1607 by Adam Imhof.
Barbara Altar (1702). Main image: Saint Barbara with tower and goblet.
Josef's altar (1699) donated by the Orsini-Rosenberg family. Main picture: Saint Joseph. Main painting: Marriage of Mary (both attributed to the Klagenfurt painter Adam Claus).
1729 followed the construction of the new high altar, which was first replaced in 1742 and 1780 by the until now existing high altar.
Around 1740 Benedikt Bläß created a Baroque pulpit, which may be considered one of the most beautiful in Carinthia; its main theme is the aspect of penance. In 1749, the introduction of the Holy-Head-Devotion was under Lorenz Klein. 1760/61 it came to the attachment of the ceiling frescoes by Fromiller and Mölckh.
The parish had in this time the branch churches Holy Spirit (consecrated in 1639) and Kreuzbergl (consecrated in 1742). 1772 was the abandonment of the cemetery in front of the church, having been the burial place for the whole city. 1780 belonged to St. Egid 9689 people, of which 8344 'communicants'. In 1784, it came to the regulation of the now three city parishes under Emperor Joseph II.
The storm damages from 1817 to 1827 after two hurricanes made a ceiling renovation necessary. In this context, it came in 1827 to the consecration of a new bell. 1832 was the separation of the legal connection from the parish of Gurk cathedral chapter. From 1859 to 1861 the church was restored inside. 1877 was again a renovation of the church tower.
Architect Franz Schachner redesigned the façade in 1893 and since 1895 there is a statue of Maria Lourdes in the northeast of the church. In 1906, Novak built a new organ for the church. In 1909, followed the demolition of the row of houses on the old Ring wall (including the organist's house) towards the hay square.
During the First World War, the bells of the church were removed and transported away. In 1924, the consecration of a new ringing took place, which consisted of the Poor soul, Floriani, Mary, Heroes- and Homeland bell. 1942, the bells were removed except for the Homeland bell again for war purposes. During National Socialism there were severe restrictions on the church, during the heavy bombings in Klagenfurt church and rectory remained largely spared.
In 1932, the church music association was founded at St. Egid. Also in 1932 followed the consecration of the church Christ the King and the new priest's house on the Lend Canal. In 1972, the parish of St. Hemma was created by separating an area in the northwest of St. Egid.
From 1964 to 1965, the new vicarage was built. From 1969 to 1974 the church was renovated inside and from 1982 to 1984 outside including the tower. From 1989 Ernst Fuchs designed the south sacristy as a chapel.
In 1990, the church received a new ringing, in 1992 an organ by the Czech organ builder Rieger-Kloss and in 2006 a total restoration was made. The vicarage was extended from 2006 to 2007 and an underground car park was built.
personalities
The writer Julien Green was buried at his own request in 1998 in the city's main parish church of St. Egid in a chapel designed for him. The tomb adorns a text from his diary of November 1954.
From 1991 to 2010, the Austrian painter Ernst Fuchs created an apocalyptic series of scenes for the south chapel ("Fuchs Chapel").
Stadthauptpfarrkirche Heiliger Egid
Objekt ID: 49309, Pfarrplatz 7
Katastralgemeinde: Klagenfurt
Die römisch-katholische Pfarrkirche Klagenfurt-St. Egid steht in der Stadtgemeinde Klagenfurt am Wörthersee in Kärnten. Die Pfarrkirche Heiliger Ägidius gehört zum Dekanat Klagenfurt-Stadt in der Diözese Gurk-Klagenfurt. Die ehemalige Stadthauptpfarrkirche steht unter Denkmalschutz.
Geschichte
An der Stelle der heutigen St. Egid-Kirche befand sich ein älteres Kirchengebäude, das als Vikariat von Maria Saal 1255 erstmals urkundlich erwähnt und 1303 mit pfarrlichen Rechten ausgestattet wurde. 1347 war die erste urkundliche Erwähnung eines Gotteshauses “sand Gilgen” (St. Egid). 1519 folgte die Nennung von drei Priestern an der Kirche St. Egid im Schematismus und 1540 erfolgte eine Restaurierung der Kirche.
Die Baugestalt der ursprünglichen Kirche ist aus vorhandenen Stadtplänen der Jahre 1605 und 1649 ersichtlich. Die Kirche verfügte über einen gotischen Hochchor, sieben Altäre, ein vorspringendes Querschiff und zwei Türme mit Spitzhelmen, die durch einen überdachten hölzerner Gang miteinander verbunden waren.
Von 1563 bis zur Rekatholisierung im Jahr 1600 wurden in der Kirche evangelische Gottesdienste gefeiert. 1571 begann man mit der Führung von Taufbüchern. Ab 1593 war Johannes Herold Kantor. 1603 wurde die Pfarre selbständig.
Brände zerstörten das Pfarrhaus 1535 und 1636. Der romanische Karner fiel dem Brand im Jahr 1636 zum Opfer. Erdbeben betrafen die Kirche 1571, 1680 und 1688. Die Schäden machten 1690 den Abbruch der romanischen Kirche erforderlich.
Die Einweihung der neuen Kirche erfolgte durch Bischof Kaspar von Lavant am 8. September 1697. Die Grundsteinlegung für den neuen Turm nahm der Klagenfurter Burggraf J. F. Graf Orsini-Rosenberg am 30. Juli 1692 vor. 1706 erklang erstmals das neue Geläute und 1709 erfolgte die Fertigstellung des Turms. 1723 kam es zu neuerlichen Brandschäden an Kirche und Turm. Danach wurde der Turm mit einem barocken Zwiebelhelm ausgestattet. Mit einer Höhe von 91,7 Metern ist er nach dem Stadtpfarrturm in Villach der zweithöchste Kirchturm Kärntens und gilt als eines der beiden Wahrzeichen von Klagenfurt. Im Rahmen von Führungen kann die 50 Meter hohe Aussichtsplattform der Türmergalerie bestiegen werden.
Die neue Kirche wurde als vierjochige Emporenkirche mit einem zweijochigen quadratischen Chor ausgeführt. Mehrere Tonnengewölbe mit Stichkappen ruhen auf Stucco-lustro-Pilastern mit reich verzierten Kapitellen. Der Triumphbogen wird durch einen Gurtbogen auf Wandpfeilern angedeutet. Je vier Seitenkapellen mit Kreuzgewölben und barocken Fenstern schließen den Bau ab. Die Emporen verfügen über Lünettenfenster, die ebenfalls aus der Barockzeit stammen.
Vier künstlerisch wertvolle Seitenaltäre runden die Innenausstattung ab:
Nepomuk-Altar (1822): Der Altar ist aus Kunstmarmor und enthält als Aufsatzbild das Motiv Johannes der Täufer (1728) von Josef Ferdinand Fromiller und seitlich Figuren der Heiligen Familie. Der Altar wurde von Egger-Lodron gestiftet.
Kreuz-Altar (1702). Das Mittelbild Kreuzigung Christi wurde 1607 von Adam Imhof gemalt.
Barbara-Altar (1702). Hauptbild: Heilige Barbara mit Turm und Kelch.
Josefs-Altar (1699) gestiftet von der Familie Orsini-Rosenberg. Hauptbild: Heiliger Josef. Aufsatzbild: Vermählung Mariens (beide dem Klagenfurter Maler Adam Claus zugeordnet).
1729 erfolgte die Errichtung des neuen Hochaltars, der bereits 1742 erstmals und 1780 durch den seither bestehenden Hochaltar ersetzt wurde.
Um 1740 schuf Benedikt Bläß eine Barockkanzel, die als eine der schönsten in Kärnten angesehen werden darf; ihr Hauptthema ist der Aspekt der Buße. 1749 war die Einführung der Heilig-Haupt-Andacht unter Lorenz Klein. 1760/61 kam es zur Anbringung der Deckenfresken von Fromiller und Mölckh.
Die Pfarre verfügte in dieser Zeit über die Filialkirchen Heiliger Geist (geweiht 1639) und Kreuzbergl (geweiht 1742). 1772 erfolgte die Auflassung des Friedhofs vor der Kirche, der Begräbnisstätte für die ganze Stadt war. 1780 gehörten zu St. Egid 9689 Personen, davon 8344 ‘Kommunikanten’. 1784 kam es zur Regulierung der inzwischen drei Stadtpfarren unter Kaiser Joseph II.
Die von 1817 bis 1827 entstandenen Sturmschäden nach zwei Orkanen machten eine Deckenrenovierung notwendig. In diesem Zusammenhang kam es 1827 zur Einweihung einer neuen Glocke. 1832 erfolgte die Lösung der rechtlichen Verbindung der Pfarre vom Gurker Domkapitel. Von 1859 bis 1861 wurde die Kirche innen restauriert. 1877 erfolgte neuerlich eine Renovierung des Kirchturms.
Architekt Franz Schachner gestaltete 1893 die Fassade neu und seit 1895 steht im Nordosten der Kirche eine Maria-Lourdes-Statue. 1906 baute Novak eine neue Orgel für die Kirche. 1909 folgte die Schleifung der Häuserreihe an der alten Ringmauer (u. a. das Organistenhaus) zum Heuplatz.
Im Ersten Weltkrieg wurden die Glocken der Kirche abgenommen und abtransportiert. 1924 fand die Einweihung eines neuen Geläutes statt, das aus der Armenseelen-, Floriani-, Marien-, Helden- und Heimatglocke bestand. 1942 wurden die Glocken mit Ausnahme der Heimatglocke wieder für Kriegszwecke abtransportiert. Während des Nationalsozialismus gab es starke Beschränkungen für die Kirche, bei den schweren Bombardements in Klagenfurt blieben Kirche und Pfarrhof weitgehend verschont.
1932 kam es zur Gründung des Kirchenmusikvereins zu St. Egid. Ebenfalls 1932 erfolgte die Weihe der Christkönigskirche und des neuen Priesterhauses am Lendkanal. 1972 entstand die Pfarre St. Hemma durch Abtrennung eines Gebiets im Nordwesten von St. Egid.
Von 1964 bis 1965 wurde der neue Pfarrhof errichtet. Von 1969 bis 1974 die Kirche innen und von 1982 bis 1984 außen einschließlich des Turms renoviert. Ab 1989 gestaltete Ernst Fuchs die Südsakristei als Kapelle.
1990 erhielt die Kirche ein neues Geläut, 1992 eine Orgel von der tschechischen Orgelbaufirma Rieger-Kloss und im Jahre 2006 wurde eine Gesamtrestaurierung vorgenommen. Der Pfarrhof wurde 2006 bis 2007 erweitert und eine Tiefgarage errichtet.
Persönlichkeiten
Der Schriftsteller Julien Green wurde 1998 auf eigenen Wunsch in der Stadthauptpfarrkirche St. Egid in einer für ihn gestalteten Kapelle beigesetzt. Das Grab ziert ein Text aus seinem Tagebuch vom November 1954.
Der österreichische Maler Ernst Fuchs gestaltete 1991 bis 2010 eine apokalyptische Szenenfolge für die Südkapelle („Fuchs-Kapelle“).
Nomination for Drisyam 2008 exhibition, Ernakulam Town Hall (26th - 30th December) Taken on Alleppey beach.
Vintage postcard by European Greetings, no. 535615. Image: Disney. Meeko and Percy in Pocahontas (Mike Gabriel, Eric Goldberg, 1995).
Pocahontas (Mike Gabriel, Eric Goldberg, 1995) was the 33rd Disney animated feature film and is loosely based on the life of the Native American woman of the same name. The film tells the romance between the daughter of an Algonquin chief named Pocahontas and Capt. John Smith, an English soldier, who journeyed to the New World, seventeenth-century Virginia, with other settlers to begin fresh lives. Her powerful father, Chief Powhatan, disapproves of their relationship and wants her to marry a native warrior, the tribe's dashing bachelor, Kocoum. Meanwhile, Smith's fellow Englishmen hope to rob the Native Americans of their gold. Can Pocahontas' love for Smith save the day? Pocahontas was released to mixed reactions from reviewers, who praised its animation and music but criticized its story; the film's racial overtones and historical inaccuracy also garnered a mix of condemnation and praise. However, everybody liked Meeko, Pocahontas's pet raccoon with a love of food, especially John Smith's biscuits.
During the famed "Disney Renaissance", a period that started with the release of The Little Mermaid (1989), the studio was creating modern classics with every film they released. Many at Disney had high hopes for Pocahontas (1995) upon its initial release. Then-studio head Jeffrey Katzenberg regarded it even as a more prestigious project than The Lion King (1994), and believed that it had a chance of earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, following in the steps of Beauty and the Beast (1991). The design for the film is sumptuous, with mostly blues and a seamless style that never gets in the way and illustrates the action (and the feminine nature of the film) beautifully. The film was less successful commercially than was hoped. Pocahontas dealt with more adult themes and tones and did not appeal to younger children, as much as the earlier Disney hits had. However, Pocahontas did succeed at the box office, earning $346 million, and it received two Academy Awards for Best Musical or Comedy Score for Alan Menken and Best Original Song for 'Colors of the Wind'.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
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