Friday, February 3, 2017

Mick Jagger, an English singer, songwriter, actor and, the lead singer and a co-founder of the Rolling Stones

Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English singer, songwriter, actor and, the lead singer and a co-founder of the Rolling Stones.[1]
Jagger's career has spanned over 50 years, and he has been described as "one of the most popular and influential frontmen in the history of Rock & Roll".[3] Jagger's distinctive voice and performance, along with Keith Richards' guitar style, have been the trademark of the Rolling Stones throughout the career of the band. Jagger gained press notoriety for his admitted drug use and romantic involvements, and was often portrayed as a countercultural figure.
In the late 1960s, Jagger began acting in films (starting with Performance and Ned Kelly), to mixed reception. In 1985, he released his first solo album, She's the Boss. In early 2009, Jagger joined the electric supergroup SuperHeavy. In 1989 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 2004 into the UK Music Hall of Fame with the Rolling Stones. In 2003, he was knighted for his services to popular music.

From the time that the Rolling Stones developed their anti-establishment image in the mid-1960s, Mick Jagger, with guitarist Keith Richards, has been an enduring icon of the counterculture. This was enhanced by his controversial drug-related arrests, sexually charged on-stage antics, provocative song lyrics, and his role of the bisexual Turner in the 1970 film Performance. One of his biographers, Christopher Andersen, describes him as "one of the dominant cultural figures of our time", adding that Jagger was "the story of a generation".[95]
Jagger, who at the time described himself as an anarchist and espoused the leftist slogans of the era, took part in a demonstration against the Vietnam War outside the US Embassy in London in 1968. This event inspired him to write "Street Fighting Man" that same year.[96] A variety of celebrities attended a lavish party at New York's St. Regis Hotel to celebrate Jagger's 29th birthday and the end of the band's 1972 American tour. The party made the front pages of the leading New York newspapers.

Monday, January 23, 2017

Bob Givens, an American animator, character designer and layout artist. He worked for numerous animation studios during his career, including Disney, Warner Bros. Cartoons, Hanna-Barbera and DePatie-Freleng Enterprises

 Robert "Bob" Givens (born March 2, 1918) is an American animator, character designer and layout artist. He worked for numerous animation studios during his career, including Disney, Warner Bros. Cartoons, Hanna-Barbera and DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, beginning his career during the 1930s and continuing until the early 2000s. He was a frequent collaborator with director Chuck Jones, working under Jones both at Warner Bros. and Jones' own production company.
After joining Disney he worked as an animation checker on several of their short subjects (mostly involving Donald Duck), before working on their first feature-length film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.[2]
He subsequently joined Warner Bros. for his first stint at the studio, which was spent working mostly under Chuck Jones and Tex Avery. For the 1940 cartoon A Wild Hare, Avery asked Givens to redesign a rabbit character previously designed by director Ben Hardaway and character designer Charles Thorson, which Avery thought had potential, but was "too cute" in his existing design. Givens therefore created the first official design for the rabbit, now named Bugs Bunny, who would become the studio's biggest star. Givens' design was subsequently refined by fellow animator Robert McKimson (under whom Givens would frequently work in the decades ahead) two years later.
Givens's initial spell at the studio was ended when he was drafted during World War II (his last cartoon for the studio before leaving, ironically, being 1942's The Draft Horse). As part of his military service he worked with former Warner Bros. animator Rudolf Ising on military training films.[4] He subsequently returned to Warner Bros. in the 1950s and mostly worked as a layout artist under McKimson, and also Jones later on, staying with the studio until its 1954 shutdown. Unlike many of his co-workers, Givens did not rejoin the Warner Bros. studio when it eventually opened again, and worked at various studios including UPA, Hanna-Barbera and the Jack Kinney studio.[5] He returned for one last spell at Warner Bros. in the early 1960s, continuing until the studio's final shutdown, and even acting as the layout artist on False Hare, the final cartoon (in production order) made by the studio.
Givens followed most of the Warner Bros. staffers to new studio DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, while also working with Jones once more on the Tom and Jerry cartoon produced by Jones at Sib Tower 12 Productions. He continued his Looney Tunes association by working at the Warner Bros.-Seven Arts cartoon studio in the late 1960s, remaining with that studio until it shut down. Further spells at DePatie-Freleng and Hanna-Barbera followed during the 1970s, before working at the reformed Warner Bros. Animation studio on The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie, Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales and Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island. He then had spells at Filmation (whose founder, Lou Scheimer had actually worked under Givens when the two were freelancers in the 1950s) and Film Roman.
Givens did the layout from Garfield and Friends from seasons 1 through 4 from the years 1988-1992 and Bobby's World from seasons 1 through 5 from the years 1989-1994 Film Roman studios.
In the 1990s he worked with Chuck Jones once again, handling the production design duties on the Looney Tunes cartoons Jones's production company worked on for Warner Bros. His last animation credit was on 2001's Timber Wolf, a direct-to-video animated feature written and produced by Jones.Following Jones's death the following year, Givens largely retired from active animation work, though continued to teach and give animation talks well into his nineties