Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Succes 2013: Raymond Kopa, a former French football attacking midfielder. Winner of The Golden Ball in 1958. First footballer that was decorated with Légion d'honneur

Raymond Kopa ( born Kopaszewski, on 13 October 1931 in Nœux-les-Mines, Pas-de-Calais) is a former French football attacking midfielder, integral to the French national team of the 1950s.
Often considered one of leading players of his generation, Kopa was a free-role playmaker who was quick, agile and known for his love of dribbling. He was also a renowned playmaker, as well as a prolific scorer.

Born into a family of Polish immigrants, Kopa began his professional career at the age of 17 with SCO Angers in Ligue 2 and was transferred two years later to Stade de Reims, with whom he won French championships in 1953 and 1955. He helped Reims reach the first European Cup final in 1956, which the team lost to Alfredo Di Stéfano's Real Madrid, 4–3.
Kopa was transferred to Real Madrid the subsequent season, where he was soon joined by Ferenc Puskás. At Real Madrid, Kopa won the Spanish league in 1957 and 1958. Kopa also became the first French player to win the European Cup when Madrid defeated Fiorentina 2–0 in the 1957 final. He would go on to be European champion again in 1958 and 1959, the last against former side Stade de Reims, where Just Fontaine played.
In the 1959–60 season, Kopa returned to France to finish his career with Reims, where he won further Championnats in 1960 and 1962. In total, he scored 75 goals in 346 matches in France's top flight, and was given the Ballon d'or by France Football in 1958.
With the France national football team, Kopa scored 18 goals in 45 games between 1952 and 1962. He played in the 1958 FIFA World Cup in Sweden, where the French team finished third, losing to the Brazilian team.
Kopa was named by Pelé as one of the top 125 greatest living footballers in March 2004.


Achievements

I absolutely loved dribbling. Some people told me off for it, saying that I held on to the ball for too long and that I slowed the game down.
Raymond Kopa 
 
The uniquely talented Raymond Kopa was blazing a trail for French football long before the likes of Michel Platini and Zinedine Zidane came on the scene.
Standing only 5’6, Kopa made up for a relative lack of stature with some prodigious dribbling skills, and played an instrumental role in three of Real Madrid’s first five victorious campaigns in Europe.
Yet the pinnacle of his career arguably came at the 1958 FIFA World Cup Sweden, where he was recognised as the player of the tournament, a not inconsiderable achievement given the goalscoring feats of team-mate Just Fontaine and the exploits of an emerging teenager by the name of Pele.Born in the northern French town of Nœux-les-Mines to Polish immigrants, Raymond Kopaszewski – to give him his real name – endured a tough upbringing. He honed his gritty determination and will to win in his teenage years when he earned his keep by pushing coal-laden wagons in a mine.
It was the loss of a finger in an accident that prompted him to pursue a career in football, a sport he had already showed a considerable talent for from the age of ten.

From coaldust to stardust In May 1949 he took part in the Young Footballer Competition, a national event open to budding professionals and followed closely by the country’s foremost coaches. Finishing second overall, he signed a contract with Angers shortly afterwards. His career would take off two years later when he bumped into Albert Batteux, the legendary Stade de Reims coach, at a friendly match. “He had a gift for assessing players’ abilities and fielding them in the right positions,” said Kopa. “Without him, a lot of players would never have been able to express their skills, starting with me.”To make the most of his prodigy’s close dribbling skills, which were aided by a low centre of gravity, Batteux deployed Kopa just behind the strikers in a withdrawn No10 role that marked a departure from the conventions of the time.
“I absolutely loved dribbling,” commented Kopa. “Some people told me off for it, saying that I held on to the ball for too long and that I slowed the game down. My coaches always insisted that I stick to my style of play, though.”
Those bewildering dribbles invariably ended with pinpoint passes to well-placed team-mates, who made the most of Kopa’s gift for slowing the game down to find space for themselves or make a run.
After joining Reims in 1951, Kopa quickly became the orchestrator-in-chief of a brilliant team that took the French championship by storm and lost in a seven-goal thriller to Real Madrid in the first European Champion Clubs’ Cup final in 1956.
Within a few weeks of that memorable encounter, Kopa caused a sensation by agreeing terms with the newly crowned European champions. “I was the first French player to leave the country,” he later recalled. “At the time a lot of people saw me as a traitor. It was just my misfortune to be a pioneer.” It was during his time in Madrid that he acquired the nickname of Napoleon, teaming up with two living legends in Alfredo Di Stefano and Ferenc Puskas to conquer Europe and forge his own glittering reputation.“They were three fantastic years,” said the fabled Frenchman. “For three whole seasons we won the lot. We were also voted the team of the century by the fans in 2000, the club’s centenary year. There was an incredible atmosphere whenever we played, with 125,000 fans shaking their white handkerchiefs. We didn’t have any sponsors and there were no games on TV, so we had to play friendly matches across the world to keep the club going. They really were different times back then. I won three consecutive European Cups with Real, and in three years we only lost one home match in all competitions.”

The king of Sweden

Along with five other new boys – Cesar Ruminski, Lazare Gianessi, Armand Penverne, Thadee Cisowki and Joseph Ujlaki – Kopa made his France debut in a 3-1 defeat of Germany on 5 October 1952. This new generation would propel the French into the international elite, with the peerless Kopa playing an integral part in that process over the next ten years.Though the 1954 FIFA World Cup Switzerland came too early for France’s young bucks, who departed the competition at the end of the first round, they were more than ready when the world’s finest came together again four years later.“That tournament prepared the ground for the 1958 World Cup,” explained Kopa. “Nobody was expecting us to do well in Sweden, but we started off with a 7-3 victory over Paraguay, who were regarded as one of the three teams tipped to win the competition. After losing to Yugoslavia and defeating Scotland, we beat Northern Ireland before coming up against Brazil in the semi-finals, where a new boy called Pele scored a hat-trick in a 5-2 win.
“We were the two strongest teams at the time,” he continued. “And the reason they won so easily was because our captain Robert Jonquet got injured and we had to play with ten men (substitutes not being allowed at the time).”
Les Bleus claimed some consolation in their final game of the competition, when a scintillating attacking display by Kopa inspired them to a 6-3 defeat of Germany in the match for third place. Kopa’s finest hour in blue actually came three years earlier, in a friendly against Spain in Madrid in March 1955, the French wizard astounding the 125,000 crowd with an amazing display. He made what was to be his final appearance for his country in a 3-2 defeat to Hungary at the Stade Colombes in November 1962. Stationed in an unfamiliar position on the right flank, a disgruntled Kopa was unable to exhibit his usual flair, subsequently falling out with national coaches Henri Guerin and George Verriest before deciding to end his international career. 

No regrets

His club career continued for some time after. Returning to Reims following his three seasons in Madrid, he won his fourth and last league title with them in 1962. Powerless to prevent them dropping out of the top flight two seasons later, he finally announced his retirement from the professional game on 11 June 1967.A keen amateur player up until the ripe old age of 70, he has maintained close contact with the football world, and also found time to launch a sports apparel brand and appear on radio and TV as an expert summariser. A resident of Corsica since 2000, he sees his former team-mates on a frequent basis, no one more so than former sidekick Just Fontaine. Having now turned 80, he has no regrets about the path he took: “Football changed my life. Leaving my job in the mine for the stadiums made a man of me.” (fifa.com)


Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Success 2013: Tom Okker, a former Dutch tennis player. He was ranked World No. 1 in doubles in 1969, and among the world's top 10 singles players for seven consecutive years

Thomas Samuel "Tom" Okker (born 22 February 1944) is a former Dutch tennis player. He was ranked among the world's top 10 singles players for seven consecutive years, 1968–74, reaching a career high of World No. 3 in 1969. He also was ranked World No. 1 in doubles in 1969.

Okker was the Dutch champion from 1964 through 1968. In 1968, he turned professional and won his first important tournaments in singles and in doubles (with Marty Riessen) at the Italian Open. At Wimbledon, Okker reached the quarterfinals in 1968 and the semifinals in 1978.

He achieved his best result in a Grand Slam tournament at the 1968 US Open, where he reached the final after defeating Pancho Gonzales in the quarterfinal and Ken Rosewall in the semifinal. He lost the final to American Arthur Ashe in five sets, 12-14, 7–5, 3-6, 6-3, 3-6.
Okker won 31 singles titles. As of 2000, 20 years after his retirement, Okker's 31 career open tennis singles victories (combined ATP tour, Grand Prix, and WCT tournaments) still ranked 20th all-time. Among Okker's singles titles were the 1970 German Open and Belgian Open, 1973 Dewar Cup and Canadian Open, and 1974 WCT Rothmans.[4][5] He also was the runner-up in 24 singles tournaments.

Okker is also among the most successful men's doubles players of all time. Okker won two Grand Slam doubles titles, the US Open in 1976 (with Riessen) and the French Open (with John Newcombe) in 1973.

In total, Okker won 78 doubles events, a record that was finally broken by Todd Woodbridge in 2005. Okker's other doubles titles include the 1973 Italian Open, 1973 London Grass Courts (with Riessen), 1973 Spanish Open (with Ilie Năstase), 1975 Opel International (with Arthur Ashe), and 1978 WCT World Doubles (with Wojtek Fibak).

 One of the first tennis professionals to win at least US $1 million in career prize money, Okker's WTC career earnings stood at US $1,257,200 when he retired in 1980 ($3,502,998 today).
 Between 1964 and 1981, Okker represented The Netherlands in the Davis Cup, playing in 13 ties and accumulating a 15–20 win-loss record.
 Okker was a fan favorite with his animated, quick-footed play. He was a slight but canny player, who often defeated larger, more powerful opponents. He was among the first players of his era to hit the ball with heavy topspin.

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.

Friday, February 22, 2013

Airship Hindenburg Collection. Werner Franz, the last surviving crew member of the zeppelin Hindenburg. He was a 14 year-old cabin boy on the Hindenburg's final voyage

Werner Franz was a 14-year-old cabin boy when he survived the destruction of the "Hindenburg" in 1937. Franz was cleaning china in the officers' quarters when the 804-foot-long German ship, held aloft by hydrogen, caught fire over Lakehurst, N.J. He escaped by breaking through the cloth of a nearby hatch.
 He is now the only survivor of the Hindenburg"s crew that survived the 1937 disaster.


The following story is from the Stars and Stripes archives, published in 1987:

THE HINDENBURG'S 15-year-old cabin boy was cleaning china in the officers' quarters when an explosion in the rear of the 804-foot airship shook it from front to back.
Fifty years-later, Werner Franz remembers exactly what happened.
"All the china came flying out of the cabinets," he said.
Franz ran out into a passageway. There was no time to be scared.
"It happened so fast, it was like a movie passing by," he said. "You act instinctively.
As the ship began to lurch at its mooring, he grabbed a girder and dangled in the air.
"As I hung there, I had a vision of my life passing by," he said.
The Hindenburg was engulfed in flames, the tail crashing to the ground and the nose settling more slowly as Franz made his way, coughing and choking, to the nearest hatch.
Pull cords opened the thick cloth covers of the hatches, but Franz didn't use one. "I just jumped," he said. "The cloth broke through. When the cook (Xaver Meier) saw me jump out of the hatch, he jumped out after me."
Franz stumbled away from the burning airship.
"When I got out, there were so many people running around screaming," he said. "I was in a daze. Some of the landing crew went inside the ship to help the crew and passengers get out."
Franz normally would have been in a landing detail that required several crewmembers to move to the nose of the ship as ballast. "This time six or eight men were sent to the front by the captain — all died," he said.
News of the Hindenburg disaster quickly reached Germany.
"My parents knew right afterwards what had happened — it was on the radio wires," he said. "At first I was on the death list. An hour later they updated it."
Franz and the other surviving crewmen spent 14 days at the air station, living with the Lakehurst airship crew.
The Germans were then driven to New York and put on a ship for Bremerhaven.
"The healthy ones came back first, and the badly burned ones came back later," he said:
Most of the crew transferred to the Graf Zeppelin I, built before the Hindenburg, upon returning to Germany. The Graf Zeppelin made 40 flights, delivering mail and making publicity appearances. It carried no passengers, and was dissembled in Frankfurt in 1940.
Franz chose to work in the airship ticket office in Zeppelinheim, Germany, then started an apprenticeship as an instrument maker. He joined the German air force in 1941.
Now retired, Franz lives in Bad Soden, a town near Frankfurt. He said six or eight Hindenburg crewmembers are still alive. All live in Germany, except one man who lives in Austria or Switzerland, he said. Franz keeps in touch with some of them.
"Most have contact, know where the others live," he said. "We had close ties between us all."
Franz said he prefers to remember the thrill of being a young boy traveling by airship to South America rather than the disaster. He was chosen for airship duty by an official of the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin (Airship Construction Company Zeppelin) who looked for prospective crewmembers at the Frankfurter Hof hotel, where Franz worked as a waiter.
When the opportunity to join the Hindenburg crew came, Franz was ready. "It's a one-shot deal," he said. "You don't turn down a chance like that!"
He made three trips between Germany and South America in 1936 and one in 1937. All of the crewmembers were considerably older than he was — the rest of the crew survivors are in their 80s. "But they took me in as one of them," he said.
An official review board determined the Hindenburg disaster to be freak accident. Franz, however, like many others, believes sabotage was involved. "To have the gas released from a hole, then you need a spark, to have all those things at the same time, just as you're landing ..."
But he believes the question is academic now.
"It doesn't really matter," he said. "It's already happened. It will always be a question."
 
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[N 1] (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.
At 7:25 p.m. local time, the Hindenburg caught fire and quickly became engulfed in flames. Where the fire started is unknown; several witnesses on the port side saw yellow-red flames first jump forward of the top fin, around the vent of cell 4. Other witnesses on the port side noted the fire actually began just ahead of the horizontal port fin, only then followed by flames in front of the upper fin. One, with views of the starboard side, saw flames beginning lower and farther aft, near cell 1. No. 2 Helmsman Helmut Lau also testified seeing the flames spreading from cell 4 into starboard. Although there were five newsreel cameramen and at least one spectator known to be filming the landing, no camera was rolling when the fire started.
Wherever it started, the flames quickly spread forward. Instantly, a water tank and a fuel tank burst out of the hull due to the shock of the blast. This shock also caused a crack behind the passenger decks, and the rear of the structure imploded. Buoyancy was lost on the stern of the ship, and the bow lurched upwards as the falling stern stayed in trim.

As the Hindenburg's tail crashed into the ground, a burst of flame came out of the nose, killing nine of the 12 crew members in the bow. There was still gas in the bow section of the ship, so it continued to point upward as the stern collapsed down. The crack behind the passenger decks collapsed inward, causing the gas cell to explode. The scarlet lettering "Hindenburg" was erased by flames while the airship's bow descended. The airship's gondola wheel touched the ground, causing the bow to bounce up slightly as one final gas cell burned away. At this point, most of the fabric on the hull had also burned away and the bow finally crashed to the ground. Although the hydrogen had finished burning, the Hindenburg's diesel fuel burned for several more hours.
The time it took for the airship to be destroyed has been disputed. Some observers believe it took 34 seconds, others say it took 32 or 37 seconds. Since none of the newsreel cameras were filming the airship when the fire started, the time of the start can only be estimated from various eyewitness accounts. One careful analysis of the flame spread by Addison Bain of NASA gives the flame front spread rate across the fabric skin as about 49 ft/s (15 m/s), which would have resulted in a total destruction time of about 16 seconds (245 m / 15 m/s=16.3 s). Some of the duralumin framework of the airship was salvaged and shipped back to Germany, where it was recycled and used in the construction of military aircraft for the Luftwaffe, as were the frames of the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin and LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin II when both were scrapped in 1940.

The disaster is well recorded due to the significant extent of newsreel coverage and photographs, as well as Herbert Morrison's eyewitness radio report for station WLS in Chicago, which was broadcast the next day. Heavy publicity about the first transatlantic passenger flight of the year by Zeppelin to the U.S. attracted a large number of journalists to the landing. (The airship had already made one round trip from Germany to Brazil that year.)
Morrison's broadcast remains one of the most famous in history. Parts of it were later dubbed onto the newsreel footage, giving the impression that the words and film were recorded together. His plaintive "Oh, the humanity!" has been widely used in popular culture. Part of the poignancy of his commentary is due to its being recorded at a slightly slower speed, so that when it is played back at normal speed, it seems to have a faster delivery and higher pitch. When corrected, his account is less frantic sounding, though still impassioned.