Monday, April 29, 2013

Success 2013: Robert Duvall, American actor and director. He has won an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards and a BAFTA

Robert Selden Duvall (born January 5, 1931) is an American actor and director. He has won an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards and a BAFTA over the course of his career.
A veteran actor, Duvall has starred in some of the most acclaimed and popular films and TV shows of all time, among them The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, To Kill a Mockingbird, THX 1138, Joe Kidd, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, MASH, Network, The Apostle, True Grit, The Conversation, Apocalypse Now, Falling Down, Tender Mercies, The Natural and Lonesome Dove.
He began appearing in theater during the late 1950s, moving into television and film roles during the early 1960s in such works as To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) (as Boo Radley) and Captain Newman, M.D. (1963). He landed many of his most famous roles during the early 1970s with films like the blockbuster comedy MASH (1970) (as Major Frank Burns) and the lead in George Lucas' THX 1138 (1971), as well as Duvall's own favorite, Horton Foote's adaptation of William Faulkner's Tomorrow (1972), a project developed at The Actors Studio. This was followed by a series of critically lauded performances in films which were also commercial successes.
Since then Duvall has continued to act in both film and television with such productions as Tender Mercies (1983) (for which he won an Academy Award), The Natural (1984), Colors (1988), the television mini-series Lonesome Dove (1989), Stalin (1992), The Man Who Captured Eichmann (1996), A Family Thing (1996), The Apostle (1997) (which he also wrote and directed), A Civil Action (1998), Gods and Generals (2003), Broken Trail (2006) and Get Low (2010).

Duvall became an important presence in American films beginning in the 1970s. He drew a considerable amount of attention in 1970 for his portrayal of Major Frank Burns in the film MASH and for his portrayal of the title role in the cult classic THX 1138 in 1971. His first major critical success came portraying Tom Hagen in The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974). The former film earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In 1976 Duvall played supporting roles in The Eagle Has Landed and as Dr. Watson in The Seven-Per-Cent Solution opposite Nicol Williamson, Alan Arkin, Vanessa Redgrave and Laurence Olivier.
Duvall received another Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor and won both a BAFTA Award and Golden Globe Award for his role as Lt. Colonel Kilgore in Apocalypse Now (1979). His line "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" from Apocalypse Now is regarded as iconic in cinema history. The full text is as follows:
You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. But the smell! You know - that gasoline smell... the whole hill! Smelled like... victory. (Pause) Some day this war is going to end...
Duvall received a BAFTA Award nomination for his portrayal of detestable television executive Frank Hackett in the critically acclaimed film Network (1976) and garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role in The Great Santini (1979) as the hard-boiled Marine LtCol. "Bull" Meechum. The latter role was loosely based on a Marine aviator, Colonel Donald Conroy, the father of the book's author Pat Conroy. He also portrayed United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the television miniseries Ike (1979).
In 1977 Duvall returned to Broadway to appear as Walter Cole in David Mamet's American Buffalo. For his performance he received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Play.

Duvall continued to appear in films during the 1980s, including the roles of cynical sportswriter Max Mercy in The Natural (1984) and Los Angeles police officer Bob Hodges in Colors (1988). He won an Oscar for Best Actor as country western singer Mac Sledge in Tender Mercies (1983). Duvall was said[by whom?] to have written the music, but the actor said he wrote only a few "background, secondary songs." Duvall did do his own singing, insisting it be added to his contract that he sing the songs himself; Duvall said, "What's the point if you're not going to do your own [singing]? They're just going to dub somebody else? I mean, there's no point to that."[25]
Actress Tess Harper, who co-starred, said Duvall inhabited the character so fully that she only got to know Mac Sledge and not Duvall himself. Director Bruce Beresford, too, said the transformation was so believable to him that he could feel his skin crawling up the back of his neck the first day of filming with Duvall. Beresford said of the actor, "Duvall has the ability to completely inhabit the person he's acting. He totally and utterly becomes that person to a degree which is uncanny."Nevertheless, Duvall and Beresford did not get along well during the production and often clashed during filming, including one day in which Beresford walked off the set in frustration.
In 1989, Duvall appeared in the miniseries Lonesome Dove in the role of Augustus "Gus" McCrae. He has stated in several forums,[citation needed] including CBS Sunday Morning,[date missing] that this particular role was his personal favorite. He won a Golden Globe Award and earned an Emmy Award nomination. For his role as a former Texas Ranger peace officer, Duvall was trained in the use of Walker revolvers by the Texas marksman Joe Bowman.

Duvall has maintained a busy film career, sometimes appearing in as many as four in one year. He received Oscar nominations for his portrayals of evangelical preacher Euliss "Sonny" Dewey in The Apostle (1997) — a film he also wrote and directed — and lawyer Jerome Facher in A Civil Action (1998).
He directed Assassination Tango (2002), a thriller about one of his favorite hobbies, tango. He portrayed General Robert E. Lee in Gods and Generals in 2003; he is a relative of the Confederate general.
Other roles during this period that displayed the actor's wide range included that of a crew chief in Days of Thunder (1990), a retiring cop in Falling Down (1992), a Hispanic barber in Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1993), a New York tabloid editor in The Paper (1994), a rural doctor in Phenomenon (1996), an abusive father in 1996's Slingblade, an astronaut in Deep Impact (1998), a trail boss in Open Range (2003), a soccer coach in the comedy Kicking & Screaming, an old free spirit in Secondhand Lions (2003), a Las Vegas poker champion in Lucky You and a New York police chief in We Own the Night (both 2007).
He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on September 18, 2003.[citation needed]
Duvall has periodically worked in television during from the 1990s on. He won a Golden Globe Award and garnered an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Joseph Stalin in the 1992 television film Stalin. He was nominated for an Emmy again in 1997 for portraying Adolf Eichmann in The Man Who Captured Eichmann. In 2006, he won an Emmy for the role of Prentice "Print" Ritter in the revisionist Western miniseries Broken Trail.
In 2005, Duvall was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President George W. Bush at the White House.[28]
Duvall founded a production company, Butcher's Run Films

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Ray Dorset, solistul trupei Mungo Jerry




Înfiinţată în 1969 de Ray Dorset, formaţia pop Mungo Jerry a avut un succes internaţional fantstic. Prima apariţie a trupei s-a petrecut în 1970, în timpul Hollywood Festival,unde au cantat alaturi de Jose Feliciano, Grateful Dead, Black Sabbath, Free, Ginger Baker's Airforce şi mulţi alţii.
MG se identifica de fapt cu solistul-compozitor Ray Dorset, care a infiintat, alaturi de Phil Collins, prima sa trupa - BLUE MOON SKIFFLE GROUP, la doar 11 ani.

Alături de Elton John, Ray este singurul artist britanic ce a avut acelaşi hit pe locul 1 în SUA de două ori.

Hituri ale formatiei MUNGO JERRY: IN THE SUMMERTIME 25 săptămâni în topuri - BABY JUMP 14 săptămâni în topuri - LADY ROSE 17 săptămâni în topuri - ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT 13 săptămâni în topuri - OPEN UP 9 săptămâni în topuri - WILD LOVE 8 săptămâni în topuri

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Success 2013: Dr Ronald Coy Jones, chief surgery resident at Parkland Memorial Hospital on November 22, 1963. He was one of the first doctors to see the president Kennedy and saw his neck wound before the tracheotomy was performed

 Dr. Ronald C. Jones was chief surgery resident at Parkland Memorial Hospital on November 22, 1963. He was having lunch when he received word that the president had been shot and was en route to the hospital. He and Dr. Malcolm Perry immediately ran to the emergency room, where they joined other physicians in the effort to resuscitate the president. Jones' continued involvement in the assassination includes a 1964 interview by the FBI and the Warren Commission, appearances in numerous books and documentaries about the death of President Kennedy and an interview by the Assassination Records Review Board in 1998. Since 1987, Jones has served as chief of surgery at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas.
Dr. Ronald Jones was one of the first doctors to see the president at Parkland Hospital.
He saw the neck wound before the tracheotomy was performed.

He says that the wound in the throat is consistent with an exit wound of a very low velocity missile.

Arlen Specter asked Dr. Jones if he saw any wounds. Dr Jones responded he saw a small wound in the neck no greater than a quarter inch in diameter.


Mr. SPECTER - Did you observe any wounds?
Dr. JONES - As we saw him the first time, we noticed that he had a small wound at the midline of the neck, just above the superasternal notch, and this was probably no greater than a quarter of an inch in greatest diameter, and that he had a large wound in the right posterior side of the head.

Mr. SPECTER - Will you describe as precisely as you can the wound that you observed in the throat?


Dr. JONES - The wound in the throat was probably no larger than a quarter of an inch in diameter. There appeared to be no powder burn present, although this could have been masked by the amount of blood that was on the head and neck, although there was no obvious, amount of powder present. There appeared to be a very minimal amount of disruption of interruption of the surrounding skin. There appeared to be relatively smooth edges around the wound, and if this occurred as a result of a missile, you would have probably thought it was a missile of very low velocity and probably could have been compatible with a bone fragment of either--probably exiting from the neck, but it was a very small, smooth wound.

 Mr. SPECTER - In this report, Dr. Jones, you state the following, "Previously described severe skull and brain injury was noted as well as a small hole in anterior midline of the neck thought to be a bullet entrance wound. What led you to the thought that it was a bullet entrance wound, sir?

Dr. JONES - The hole was very small and relatively clean cut, as you would see in a bullet that is entering rather than exiting from a patient. If this were an exit wound, you would think that it exited at a very low velocity to produce no more damage than this had done, and if this were a missile of high velocity, you would expect more of an explosive type of exit wound, with more tissue destruction than this appeared to have on superficial examination.

Mr. SPECTER - Would it be consistent, then, with an exit wound, but of low velocity, as you put it?

Dr. JONES - Yes; of very low velocity to the point that you might think that this bullet barely made it through the soft tissues and just enough to drop out of the skin on the opposite side.


Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Alex Atala, Brazilian chef who runs the restaurant D.O.M. in São Paulo, rated the 4th best restaurant in the world by the S.Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants. His establishment also holds the title of "Acqua Panna Best Restaurant In South America"

Alex Atala (Milad Alexandre Mack Atala, born June 3, 1968 in São Paulo, Brazil), is a Brazilian chef who runs the restaurant D.O.M. in São Paulo. In May 2012, D.O.M. was rated the 4th best restaurant in the world by the S.Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants, published by Restaurant magazine. His establishment also holds the title of "Acqua Panna Best Restaurant In South America." He's known for transforming traditional Brazilian dishes, adopting French and Italian culinary techniques to native Brazilian ingredients. Atala also hosts a television show on Brazilian TV channel GNT.


ALEX ATALA - the most highly-rated South American chef of D.O.M. -  a regular chart-topper on the San Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurant Awards :
# 7 (2011) , #18 (2010), #24 (2009) , #40 (2008), #38 (2007), #50 (2006).


Guest Chef at The Sukothai, Bangkok :
“Filled with energy and creativity, Alex Atala, chef owner of the prestigious D.O.M. Gastronomia Brasileira in Sao Paolo, has become known in Brazil and around the world for thoroughly exploring the culinary possibilities of local Brazilian ingredients, uniting its classic basis to completely new techniques.
Alex began his career at the age of 19 as a chef in the Namur hotel school in Belgium and worked at Bruneau Restaurant, owned by 2-Michelin Star Chef Jean-Pierre Bruneau, and also with the legendary Chef Bernard Loiseau at the Côte D’Or Hotel in France. In 1994, he returned to Brazil with a great desire to find his own culinary identity. At the end of 1999, Alex opened D.O.M., the contemporary restaurant with an original cuisine in harmonious balance between the classic and the modern, the known and the wild. Thus began a new era in Brazilian Gastronomy, that of The New Brazilian Cuisine.
D.O.M. has recently been ranked 7th Best Restaurant in the World by The S.Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2011, moved up from 18th last year. It is the 6th time D.O.M. has been included in this review. The restaurant also holds the title “The Acqua Panna Best Restaurant in South America”.”
Bangkok is blessed with many high-profile chefs visiting the Mandarin Oriental and the Sukothai each year. While Oriental’s Le Normandie tradtionally focuses on bringing ‘traditional’ 3 Michelin chefs , mostly from France , the Sukhothai borders on being adventurous and thus at the forefront of current state of the gastronomic art. Alex Atala was one such ‘big name’ that was the most highly-anticipated chef to arrive in many years, not least because , let’s face it, most of us aren’t going to be visiting Brazil anytime soon.
We were thankful that Chef Atala indeed brought many of his signature dishes, packing into his suitcase rare Amazon ingredients like ‘Filhote’ fish, ‘heart of palms’, Chibe – Brazillian cous-cous, producing one of the most exciting and accomplished meals we had in 2011, including 2 ‘TO-CRY-FOR’ dishes!! NOW, we have to visit his restaurant in Sao Paulo!



A menu by Alex Atala is almost an entry into the Wikipedia of Latino Ingredients. Like Noma, Chef Atala is proud to eschew usage of ingredients like foie gras, caviar which would be ‘too easy’ for chefs of this caliber in this day and age. (streelife.com)

Books

  • Por uma Gastronomia Brasileira - Alex Atala - Editora Bei, 2003 - ISBN 85-86518-35-2
  • Com Unhas, Dentes & Cuca - Alex Atala - Editora Senac, 2008
  • Escoffianas Brasileiras - Alex Atala - Editora Larousse Brasil, 2008 - ISBN 978-85-7635-254-9
D.O.M. is a Brazilian cuisine restaurant in São Paulo run by Brazilian chef Alex Atala. Known for the use of native Brazilian ingredients, D.O.M. has been considered the best restaurant in South America for the last four years by Restaurant magazine, and since 2006 included in the S.Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants list. In May 2012, the restaurant reached the 4th place in the prestigious list.
The chef Alex Atala researches the ingredientes used in his restaurant and supervises himself its production in various parts of Brazil. Some of these ingredients are: Tucupi juice, pirarucu and piraíba fishes, the herb jambu and the tapioca from manioc flour.

Friday, March 8, 2013

Success 2013: Vic Seixas, American former tennis player, cited as being the World No. 1 in newspaper Reading Eagle in 1953. He is currently the oldest living male Grand Slam singles champion

Elias Victor Seixas, Jr. (born August 30, 1923) is an American former tennis player.
Seixas was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, of Portuguese Sephardi Jewish ancestry. After serving in World War II, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), where he was a member of Alpha Sigma of the Chi Psi fraternity. He graduated in 1949, the same year that UNC awarded him the Patterson Medal in athletics.
Thirteen times he was ranked in the Top Ten in the U.S. between 1942 and 1966. In 1951 Seixas was ranked No. 4 in the world, two spots below Dick Savitt, while he was No. 1 in the U.S. ranking, one spot ahead of Savitt. In 1953, Seixas was ranked No. 3 in the world by Lance Tingay, and was also cited as being the World No. 1 in newspaper Reading Eagle the same year.
.He is currently the oldest living male Grand Slam singles champion.

In a very long career, Seixas won scores of singles, doubles, and mixed doubles titles. His career was interrupted for three years by World War II, during which he served as a pilot in the United States Army Air Forces. He also became an All-American during his years at UNC.
His major singles wins include Wimbledon in 1953 over Kurt Nielsen and the U.S. National (U.S. Open) in 1954 over Rex Hartwig.
He was also a great doubles and mixed doubles player, in which his major victories include: four consecutive mixed doubles crowns at Wimbledon from 1953–56, the first three with Doris Hart and the fourth with Shirley Fry; the U.S. National mixed doubles from 1953–55, all with Doris Hart; the U.S. National doubles in 1952 with Mervyn Rose and again in 1954 with Tony Trabert; the French National (French Open) doubles in 1954 and 1955, both with Trabert; the French National mixed doubles in 1953, with Doris Hart; and the Australian National (Australian Open) doubles in 1955, with Trabert.
In 1966, Seixas was rated as the Senior Squash Champion of America.

 Seixas and Trabert won the Davis Cup in 1954, against Australia. Seixas is rated fifth in the category of Most Davis Cup Singles matches (24), just behind Bill Tilden (25) and Arthur Ashe (27). He served three times as Captain of the US Davis Cup team. He was 38–17 lifetime in Davis Cup matches.


 The 6-foot-1, 180-pound right-handed Seixas was an attacker who won more on determination and conditioning than on outstanding form. His volleying was exceptional, and he had an excellent match temperament, but a thrashing topspin forehand and sliced backhand were utilitarian.


Seixas was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1971.
He was inducted into the Blue Gray National Tennis Classic Hall of Fame.
A first rate athlete who considered himself “a frustrated baseball player,” Vic Seixas was an enduringly successful tennis player who made the most of himself in that venture. Seixas competed at the U.S. Championships at Forest Hills no fewer than 28 times from 1940 to 1969, setting a record in the process. On his last appearance he was 46 years old. Seixas, a relentless attacking player who packaged the serve skillfully with the volley, won Wimbledon at 29, took the championship of his country the following year, and was a prime contributor to the U.S. Davis Cup triumph of 1954.

Grand Slam Record

Australian Championship

  • Doubles Champion 1955

French Open

  • Doubles Champion 1954, 1955
  • Mixed Doubles Champion 1953

Wimbledon

  • Singles Champion 1953
  • Mixed Doubles Champion 1953-56

US National Championship

  • Singles Champion 1954
  • Doubles Champion 1952, 1954
  • Mixed Doubles Champion 1953-55

Career Achievements

Davis Cup Team Member 1951-57


Monday, March 4, 2013

Jamie Oliver, a British chef, restaurateur, media personality, known for his food-focused television shows, cookbooks. Oliver's speciality is Italian cuisine, although he has a broad international repertoire

 James Trevor "Jamie" Oliver, MBE (born 27 May 1975) is a British chef, restaurateur, media personality, known for his food-focused television shows, cookbooks and more recently his campaign against the use of processed foods in national schools. He strives to improve unhealthy diets and poor cooking habits in the United Kingdom and the United States. Oliver's speciality is Italian cuisine, although he has a broad international repertoire.

His first job was a pastry chef at Antonio Carluccio's Neal's Yard restaurant, where he first gained experience with preparing Italian cuisine, and developed a relationship with his mentor Gennaro Contaldo.Oliver then moved to The River Café, Fulham, as a sous chef.
It was there that he was noticed by the BBC in 1997 after making an unscripted appearance in a documentary about the restaurant, "Christmas at the River Cafe". That year, his show The Naked Chef debuted and his cookbook became a number one best-seller in theUK.
That same year, Oliver was invited to prepare lunch for the Prime Minister of that time, Tony Blair at No. 10 Downing Street.
In 2000, Oliver became the face of the UK supermarket chain Sainsbury's through an endorsement deal worth $2 million a year.After 11 years the partnership between Oliver & Sainsbury's ended. The final television advertisement was for Christmas 2011.
Oliver created Fifteen in 2002. Each year, fifteen young adults who have a disadvantaged background, criminal record or history of drug abuse, are trained in the restaurant business.
In 2003, he was awarded an MBE.
In 2005, he initiated a campaign called "Feed Me Better" in order to move British schoolchildren towards eating healthy foods and cutting out junk food. As a result, the British government also pledged to address the issue. Delving into politics to push for changes in nutrition resulted in people voting him as the "Most Inspiring Political Figure of 2005," according to a Channel 4 News annual viewer poll.
His emphasis on cooking healthily continued as he created Jamie's Ministry of Food, a television series where Oliver travelled to inspire everyday people in Rotherham, Yorkshire, to cook healthy meals. Another television series is Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution (2010–2011), where he travelled first to Huntington, West Virginia and then to Los Angeles to change the way Americans eat, and address their dependence on fast food.
Oliver's holding company, Sweet As Candy, has made enough profit for Oliver to have been listed on The Sunday Times list of richest Britons under 30.
In June 2008 he launched Jamie's Italian, his very first high-street business venture[clarification needed] in Oxford, England.
It was reported in October 2009 that Oliver is in the process of raising US$22 million to help fund 30 of his Italian restaurants in Asia.
In December 2009, Oliver received the 2010 TED Prize.

Monday, February 25, 2013

Airship Hindenburg Collection. Werner Doehner, Hindenburg Disaster Survivor. Last passenger still alive that witnessed the disaster


Werner Doehner, was just 8 when the airship suddenly began to tilt. “Instantly, the whole place was on fire,” Doehner told the Associated Press. “My mother threw me out the window. She threw my brother out. Then she threw me, but I hit something and bounced back. She caught me and threw me the second time out.” Doehner, his brother and his mother all survived — but his father and younger sister were not so lucky. To this day, Doehner is still so pained by the memories he rarely grants interviews.
Doehner was eight years old and was travelling with his parents, Hermann and Matilde, and his siblings, 10-year-old Walter and 16-year-old Irene. The Doehner boys were the youngest of the 36 passengers on board during that flight.
Today, Doehner lives a quiet life as a retiree in Colorado. He declined to comment on this story beyond saying, “I lead a private life. That happened in the past and I’d prefer it stay there.” (manchester-nj.patch.com)

The Hindenburg disaster took place on Thursday, May 6, 1937, as the German passenger airship LZ 129 Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed during its attempt to dock with its mooring mast at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station, which is located adjacent to the borough of Lakehurst, New Jersey. Of the 97 people on board (36 passengers, 61 crew), there were 35 fatalities; there was also one death among the ground crew.

The disaster was the subject of spectacular newsreel coverage, photographs, and Herbert Morrison's recorded radio eyewitness report from the landing field, which was broadcast the next day. A variety of hypotheses have been put forward for both the cause of ignition and the initial fuel for the ensuing fire. The incident shattered public confidence in the giant, passenger-carrying rigid airship and marked the end of the airship era.After opening its 1937 season by completing a single round trip passage to Rio De Janeiro in late March, the Hindenburg departed from Frankfurt on the evening of May 3 on the first of 10 round trips between Europe and the United States that were scheduled for its second year of commercial service. The United States' American Airlines, which had contracted with the operators of the Hindenburg, was prepared to shuttle fliers from Lakehurst to Newark for connections to airplane flights.
Except for strong headwinds which slowed its passage, the Hindenburg's crossing was otherwise unremarkable until the airship's attempted early evening landing at Lakehurst three days later on May 6. Although carrying only half its full capacity of passengers (36 of 70) and 61 crew members (including 21 training crew members), the Hindenburg's return flight was fully booked with many of those passengers planning to attend the festivities for the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in London the following week.

The airship was hours behind schedule when it passed over Boston on the morning of May 6, and its landing at Lakehurst was expected to be further delayed because of afternoon thunderstorms. Advised of the poor weather conditions at Lakehurst, Captain Max Pruss charted a course over Manhattan, causing a public spectacle as people rushed out into the street to catch sight of the airship. After passing over the field at 4 p.m., Captain Pruss took passengers on a tour over the seasides of New Jersey while waiting for the weather to clear. After finally being notified at 6:22 p.m. that the storms had passed, the airship headed back to Lakehurst to make its landing almost half a day late. However, as this would leave much less time than anticipated to service and prepare the airship for its scheduled departure back to Europe, the public was informed that they would not be permitted at the mooring location or be able to visit aboard the Hindenburg during its stay in port.