Succes 2011: Jackie Chan

Jackie Chan (born Chan Kong sang, 陳港生; 7 April 1954) is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, filmmaker, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer.

In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts. Jackie Chan has been acting since the 1960s and has appeared in over 100 films. Chan has received stars on the Hong Kong Avenue of Stars and the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

As a cultural icon, Chan has been referenced in various pop songs, cartoons, and video games. An operatically trained vocalist, Chan is also a Cantopop and Mandopop star, having released a number of albums and sung many of the theme songs for the films in which he has starred.
In 1976, Jackie Chan received a telegram from Willie Chan, a film producer in the Hong Kong film industry who had been impressed with Jackie's stuntwork. Willie Chan offered him an acting role in a film directed by Lo Wei. Lo had seen Chan's performance in the John Woo film Hand of Death (1976) and planned to model him after Bruce Lee with the film New Fist of Fury.^[10] His stage name was changed to Sing Lung (Chinese: 成龍, also transcribed as Cheng Long,^[16] literally "become the dragon") to emphasise his similarity to Bruce Lee, whose stage name was Lei Siu-lung (Chinese: 李小龍, meaning "Little Dragon"). The film was unsuccessful because Chan was not accustomed to Lee's martial arts style. Despite the film's failure, Lo Wei continued producing films with similar themes, resulting in little improvement at the box office.
Chan's first major breakthrough was the 1978 film Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, shot while he was loaned to Seasonal Film Corporation under a two-picture deal. Under director Yuen Woo-ping, Chan was allowed complete freedom over his stunt work. The film established the comedic kung fu genre, and proved to be a breath of fresh air for the Hong Kong audience.Chan then starred in Drunken Master, which finally propelled him to mainstream success.
Upon Chan's return to Lo Wei's studio, Lo tried to replicate the comedic approach of Drunken Master, producing Half a Loaf of Kung Fu and Spiritual Kung Fu. He also gave Chan the opportunity to co-direct The Fearless Hyena with Kenneth Tsang. When Willie Chan left the company, he advised Jackie to decide for himself whether or not to stay with Lo Wei. During the shooting of Fearless Hyena Part II, Chan broke his contract and joined Golden Harvest, prompting Lo to blackmail Chan with triads, blaming Willie for his star's departure. The dispute was resolved with the help of fellow actor and director Jimmy Wang Yu, allowing Chan to stay with Golden Harvest.

Willie Chan had become Jackie's personal manager and firm friend, and has remained so for over 30 years. He was instrumental in launching Chan's international career, beginning with his first forays into the American film industry in the 1980s. His first Hollywood film was Battle Creek Brawl in 1980. Chan then played a minor role in the 1981 film The Cannonball Run, which grossed US$100 million worldwide. Despite being largely ignored by audiences in favour of established American actors like Burt Reynolds, Chan was impressed by the outtakes shown at the closing credits, inspiring him to include the same device in his future films.
After the commercial failure of The Protector in 1985, Chan temporarily abandoned his attempts to break into the US market, returning his focus to Hong Kong films.
Back in Hong Kong, Chan's films began to reach a larger audience in East Asia, with early successes in the lucrative Japanese market including The Young Master (1980) and Dragon Lord (1982). The Young Master went on to beat previous box office records set by Bruce Lee and established Chan as Hong Kong cinema's top star. With Dragon Lord, he began experimenting with elaborate stunt action sequences,including a pyramid fight scene that holds the record for the most takes for a single scene with 2900 takes, and the final fight scene where he performs various stunts, including one where he does a back flip off a loft and falls to the lower ground.
Chan produced a number of action comedy films with his opera school friends Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao. The three co-starred together for the first time in 1983 in Project A, which introduced a dangerous stunt-driven style of martial arts that won it the Best Action Design Award at the third annual Hong Kong Film Awards. Over the following two years, the "Three Brothers" appeared in Wheels on Meals and the original Lucky Stars trilogy. In 1985, Chan made the first Police Story film, a US-influenced action comedy in which Chan performed a number of dangerous stunts. It was named the "Best Film" at the 1986 Hong Kong Film Awards.^[28] In 1987, Chan played "Asian Hawk," an Indiana Jones-esque character, in the film Armour of God. The film was Chan's biggest domestic box office success up to that point, grossing over HK $35 million.

In 1998, Chan released his final film for Golden Harvest, Who Am I? After leaving Golden Harvest in 1999, he produced and starred alongside Shu Qi in Gorgeous a romantic comedy that focused on personal relationships and featured only a few martial arts sequences. Chan then helped create a PlayStation game in 2000 called Jackie Chan Stuntmaster, to which he lent his voice and performed the motion capture. He continued his Hollywood success in 2000 when he teamed up with Owen Wilson in the Western action comedy Shanghai Noon which was also a box office success and spawned the sequel Shanghai Knights (2003). He reunited with Chris Tucker for Rush Hour 2 (2001) which was an even bigger success than the original and experimented with special effects with The Tuxedo (2002) and The Medallion (2003). Despite the success of these films Chan became frustrated with Hollywood over the limited range of roles and lack of control over the film-making process. In response to Golden Harvest's withdrawal from the film industry in 2003, Chan started his own film production company, JCE Movies Limited (Jackie Chan Emperor Movies Limited) in association with Emperor Multimedia Group (EMG). His films have since featured an increasing number of dramatic scenes while continuing to succeed at the box office; examples include New Police Story (2004), The Myth (2005) and the hit film Rob-B-Hood (2006).
Chan's next release was the third installment in the Rush Hour series: Rush Hour 3 in August 2007. It grossed US$255 million. However, it performed poorly in Hong Kong, grossing only HK$3.5 million during its opening weekend.

As Chan had stated years before, there would be a point in his life in which he would have to be modernized and use special effects, and try new different things than martial arts flicks. This began in 2007, with the filming of The Forbidden Kingdom (released in 2008), Chan's first onscreen collaboration with fellow Chinese actor Jet Li, which was completed on 24 August 2007 and the film was released in April 2008. The film featured heavy use of effects and wires. Chan voiced the character Master Monkey in the DreamWorks Animation film, Kung Fu Panda, released in June 2008, appearing with stars Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman and Angelina Jolie. In addition, he has assisted Anthony Szeto in an advisory capacity for the writer-director's film Wushu, released on 1 May 2008. The film stars Sammo Hung and Wang Wenjie as father and son.
In November 2007, Chan began filming Shinjuku Incident, a dramatic role featuring no martial arts sequences with director Derek Yee, which sees Chan take on the role of a Chinese immigrant in Japan.The film was released on 2 April 2009. According to his blog, Chan discussed his wishes to direct a film after completing Shinjuku Incident, something he has not done for a number of years.The film is expected to be the third in the Armour of God series, and has a working title of Armour of God III: Chinese Zodiac. Chan originally stated that he would start filming on 1 April 2008, but that date had passed and the current state of the film is unknown. Because the Screen Actors Guild did not go on strike, Chan started shooting his next Hollywood movie The Spy Next Door at the end of October in New Mexico.^[50] In The Spy Next Door, Chan plays an undercover agent whose cover is blown when he looks after the children of his girlfriend; Chan most likely did the film to appeal to his younger audience in America. In Little Big Soldier, Chan stars, alongside Leehom Wang in a non-martial arts comedy movie based on the Warring States Period.
On 22 June 2009, Chan left Los Angeles to begin filming The Karate Kid, a remake of the 1984 original, in Beijing. The film was released in America on 11 June 2010 and sees Chan's first dramatic American film. In the film, he plays Mr. Han, a kung fu master and maintenance man who teaches Jaden Smith's character, Dre, kung-fu so he can defend himself from school bullies. In Chan's next movie, Shaolin, he plays the cook of the temple instead of one of the major characters.
Jackie Chan's 100th film 1911 will be released in 26 September 2011. He is both the co-director and star of the movie.
Jackie Chan wins Favorite Buttkicker award at the Nickelodeon's Kids' Choice Awards in 2011 for The Karate Kid.

Until recently, Jackie Chan performed all of his own stunts, which are choreographed by the Jackie Chan Stunt Team. He has stated in interviews that the primary inspiration for his more comedic stunts were films such as The General directed by and starring Buster Keaton, who was also known to perform his own stunts. Since its establishment in 1983, Chan has used the team in all his subsequent films to make choreographing easier, given his understanding of each member's abilities. Chan and his team undertake many of the stunts performed by other characters in his films, shooting the scenes so that their faces are obscured.
The dangerous nature of his stunts makes it difficult for Chan to get insurance, especially in the United States, where his stunt work is contractually limited. Chan holds the Guinness World Record for "Most Stunts By A Living Actor", which emphasizes "no insurance company will underwrite Chan's productions, in which he performs all his own stunts".In addition, he holds an unrecognised record for the most number of takes for a single shot in a film, having shot over 2900 retakes for a complex scene involving a Jianzi game in Dragon Lord.
Chan has been injured numerous times attempting stunts; many of them have been shown as outtakes or as bloopers during the closing credits of his films. He came closest to death filming Armour of God, when he fell from a tree and fractured his skull. Over the years, Chan has dislocated his pelvis and broken his fingers, toes, nose, both cheekbones, hips, sternum, neck, ankle and ribs on numerous occasions. Promotional materials for Rumble in the Bronx emphasized that Chan performed all of the stunts, and one version of the movie poster even diagrammed his many injuries.

Until recently, Jackie Chan performed all of his own stunts, which are choreographed by the Jackie Chan Stunt Team. He has stated in interviews that the primary inspiration for his more comedic stunts were films such as The General directed by and starring Buster Keaton, who was also known to perform his own stunts. Since its establishment in 1983, Chan has used the team in all his subsequent films to make choreographing easier, given his understanding of each member's abilities. Chan and his team undertake many of the stunts performed by other characters in his films, shooting the scenes so that their faces are obscured.
The dangerous nature of his stunts makes it difficult for Chan to get insurance, especially in the United States, where his stunt work is contractually limited. Chan holds the Guinness World Record for "Most Stunts By A Living Actor", which emphasizes "no insurance company will underwrite Chan's productions, in which he performs all his own stunts".In addition, he holds an unrecognised record for the most number of takes for a single shot in a film, having shot over 2900 retakes for a complex scene involving a Jianzi game in Dragon Lord.
Chan has been injured numerous times attempting stunts; many of them have been shown as outtakes or as bloopers during the closing credits of his films. He came closest to death filming Armour of God, when he fell from a tree and fractured his skull. Over the years, Chan has dislocated his pelvis and broken his fingers, toes, nose, both cheekbones, hips, sternum, neck, ankle and ribs on numerous occasions. Promotional materials for Rumble in the Bronx emphasized that Chan performed all of the stunts, and one version of the movie poster even diagrammed his many injuries.
Death hoax

Yesterday, early 150,000 Jackie Chan fans have “liked” a page memorializing the action film star… despite the fact Jackie Chan is, in fact, alive and well.
The page, originally called “Jackie Chan R.I.P 08/17/2011″ and now just called “Jackie Chan R.I.P” (perhaps for the next time “Jackie Chan dead” becomes a Twitter trending topic?) has been instrumental in pushing forward this incarnation of the Jackie Chan death hoax. For some reason, Chan can’t stay alive in the internet death hoax rumor mill this year. In March, news of his death spread virally on Twitter, and fans of the Rush Hour star poured out condolences until it became apparent Chan had not died of a heart attack as the rumor claimed.
While the number of Facebook likes on the Jackie Chan death hoax page may seem like a lot, compare it to the actual Jackie Chan fan page, which has 20,161,490 likes. (Chan actually owns the Facebook page for simply “Jackie,” like “Madonna,” or “Cher.”) Were there any official news on Jackie Chan’s health or significant injury, it would certainly turn up on Jackie Chan’s official page rather than some fly by night page that won’t allow access to its wall- a wall that’s probably covered in messages that insist Chan has not died.
38,000+ people have “liked” Chan’s most recent quote on the page, in which he says:

‎”When I work I do it from my heart, and my heart is that I bring love to the world. When I travel around the world I bring my love. I bring so much love in my heart. I hope you can feel that.”
- Jackie

Success 2011: Lee Westwood, the golfer that became the World number 1 in 2010, ending the reign of Tiger Woods

Lee John Westwood OBE (born 24 April 1973) is an English professional golfer. Noted for his consistency, Westwood is one of the few golfers who has won tournaments on every major continent, including victories on the European Tour and the PGA Tour. He was named player of the year for the 1998, 2000, and 2009 seasons. He has won the 2000 European Tour Order of Merit, and the renamed 2009 Race to Dubai. He has represented Europe for the last seven consecutive Ryder Cups. In late 2010 Westwood became the World number one golfer, ending the reign of Tiger Woods, and becoming the first British golfer since Nick Faldo in 1994 to hold that position. He held the number one position for a total of 22 weeks.

In 1996 he won his first professional tournament, the Volvo Scandinavian Masters, closely followed by the Sumitomo VISA Taiheiyo Masters in Japan. His success continued in 1997 defending his Japanese title and winning the Malaysian Open, the Volvo Masters in Spain, and the Holden Australian Open, beating Greg Norman in a playoff. He also partnered with Nick Faldo in the Ryder Cup that year.

Westwood has won 21 events on the European Tour and has also won tournaments in North America, Africa, Asia and Australia. His most successful year to date has been 2000 when he won seven tournaments worldwide and was ranked first on the European Order of Merit, ending Colin Montgomerie's long run of European Tour dominance.

Westwood took a significant break from the game following the birth of son Samuel Bevan in 2001, and together with a restructuring of his swing under David Leadbetter, led to him being out of contention in tournaments until his 2003 victory in Germany, his 25th worldwide.

Westwood returned to the winners circle in 2007 by winning both the Valle Romano Open de Andalucia and the Quinn Direct British Masters to bring his total European Tour wins to 18. As a result he moved back into the top 50 of the Official World Golf Rankings. Westwood finished the 2007 season with five top 10 finishes in the last five events. He carried this form into the 2008 season, starting with two tied second places and a fifth, moving back into the top 20 in the world rankings. At the Masters, Westwood finished tied for 11th and he narrowly missed out on becoming the first European in 38 years to win the U.S. Open, finishing 3rd on level-par, his best finish in a major. He followed this up in 2009 with two further 3rd place finishes, in the Open and the PGA Championship. In October 2009, Westwood ended his two-year wait for a tournament win by winning the Portugal Masters. This was followed the next month with a win at the Dubai World Championship, which also brought with it the inaugural Race to Dubai title.
Westwood has played in the Gary Player Invitational charity event several times to assist Player raise money for children in need around the world.

Westwood earned a career-best second place at the 2010 Masters Tournament, leading by one shot going into the final day before being overtaken by eventual champion Phil Mickelson. Westwood came through with his 2nd tour victory at the St. Jude Classic the week before the U.S. Open. Westwood claimed another second place finish at the 2010 Open Championship, although he was a distant runner-up to Louis Oosthuizen. Despite the two 2nd place finishes at the season's first three majors, Westwood did not compete in the PGA Championship due to injury.

In May 2011, Westwood contested a playoff at the BMW PGA Championship with fellow Englishman and at the time world number two Luke Donald. On the par five 18th, Donald hit his approach shot into the green leaving six feet for birdie. Westwood attempted to follow him in close to the hole but got too much backspin on his pitch and the ball spun back into the water hazard.

Westwood eventually chipped up from the drop zone and went on to make double bogey. Donald would then hole his birdie putt to win the championship and in the process become the new world number one.

In June 2011, Westwood equalled his best performance at the U.S. Open finishing in a tie for third place at Congressional CC, an event which was dominated by Rory McIlroy. This was the fourth time in his career that Westwood had finished third in a major.

TV Series : Friends (1994–2004) - Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry, Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow & Matt LeBlanc

Friends is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004. The series revolves around a group of friends in Manhattan. The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television. The original executive producers were Crane, Kauffman and Kevin S. Bright, with numerous others being promoted in later seasons.

Kauffman and Crane began developing Friends under the title Insomnia Cafe in November/December 1993. They presented the idea to Bright, with whom they had previously worked, and together they pitched a seven-page treatment of the series to NBC. After several script rewrites and changes, including a second title change to Friends Like Us, the series was finally named Friends and premiered on NBC's coveted Thursday 8:30 pm timeslot. Filming for the series took place at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California in front of a live studio audience. After ten seasons on the network, the series finale was promoted by NBC, and viewing parties were organized around the U.S. The series finale (the 236th episode), airing on May 6, 2004, was watched by 51.1 million American viewers, making it the fourth most watched series finale in television history and the most watched episode of the decade.

Friends received positive reviews throughout most of its run, becoming one of the most popular sitcoms of all time. The series won many awards and was nominated for 63 Primetime Emmy Awards. The series, an instant hit from its debut, was also very successful in the ratings, consistently ranking in the top ten in the final primetime ratings. Many critics now regard it as one of the finest shows in television history, including TV Guide, which ranked it #21 on their list of the 50 greatest TV shows of all time. The series made a large cultural impact, which continues today. The Central Perk coffee house that was featured prominently in the series has inspired various imitations throughout the world. The series continues in syndication worldwide. All 10 seasons are available on DVD. The spin-off series Joey was created to follow up with the series after the finale.
The series featured six main characters throughout its run, with many other characters recurring throughout all ten seasons.

* Jennifer Aniston portrays Rachel Green, a fashion enthusiast and Monica Geller's best friend from high school. Rachel and Ross Geller are involved in an on-again-off-again relationship throughout the series. Rachel's first job is as a waitress at the coffeehouse Central Perk, but she later becomes an assistant buyer at Bloomingdale's and a buyer at Ralph Lauren in season five. At the end of season eight, Rachel and Ross have a daughter named Emma in "The One Where Rachel Has a Baby, Part Two".

* Courteney Cox portrays Monica Geller, the mother hen of the group and a chef, known for her obsessive-compulsive and competitive nature. Monica is often jokingly teased by the others for having been extremely overweight as a child, especially by her brother Ross. Monica works as a chef in various restaurants throughout the show and marries Chandler Bing in season seven.
* Lisa Kudrow portrays Phoebe Buffay, an eccentric masseuse and self-taught musician. Phoebe is ditsy but street smart and writes and sings (badly) her own quirky songs, accompanying herself on the guitar. She has an "evil" identical twin named Ursula. In the last season, she marries Mike Hannigan played by Paul Rudd.
* Matt LeBlanc portrays Joey Tribbiani, a struggling actor and food lover who becomes famous for his role on Days of our Lives as Dr. Drake Ramoray. Joey is a simple-minded womanizer with many short-term girlfriends throughout the series. He falls in love with Rachel in season eight.
* Matthew Perry portrays Chandler Bing, an executive in statistical analysis and data reconfiguration for a large multi-national corporation. Chandler quits his job and becomes a junior copywriter at an advertising agency during season nine. Chandler is known for his sarcastic sense of humor and bad luck in relationships. Chandler marries Monica in season seven, and they adopt twins at the end of the series.
* David Schwimmer portrays Ross Geller, Monica Geller's older brother, a paleontologist working at the Museum of Natural History, and later a professor of paleontology at New York University. Ross is involved in an on-again-off-again relationship with Rachel throughout the series. Ross has three failed marriages during the series: Rachel, Emily, and Carol, a lesbian who is also the mother of his son, Ben (Cole Sprouse). He and Rachel have a daughter at the end of season eight.
The main cast members were familiar to television viewers before their roles on Friends but were not considered stars. Cox had the highest profile career of the main actors when she was initially cast, having appeared in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Family Ties. Kudrow previously played Ursula Buffay on Mad About You, and reprised the dual role of twin sister Ursula as a recurring character during several episodes of Friends. Before her role on Friends, Kudrow was an office manager and researcher for her father, a headache specialist. LeBlanc had appeared as a minor character in the sitcom Married... with Children, and as a main character in its spin-offs, Top of the Heap and Vinnie & Bobby. Aniston and Perry had already appeared in several unsuccessful sitcom pilots before being cast in Friends. Before his role on Friends, Schwimmer played minor characters in The Wonder Years and NYPD Blue. During the series' ten-season run, the actors all became household names.

In their original contracts for the first season, cast members were paid $22,500 per episode. The cast members received different salaries in the second season, beginning from the $20,000 range to $40,000 per episode. Before their salary negotiations for the third season, the cast decided to enter collective negotiations, despite Warner Bros.' preference for individual deals. The actors were given the salary of the least-paid cast member, meaning Aniston and Schwimmer had their salaries reduced. The stars were paid $75,000 per episode in season three, $85,000 in season four, $100,000 in season five, $125,000 in season six, $750,000 in seasons seven and eight, and $1 million in seasons nine and ten. The cast also received syndication royalties beginning with the fifth season.

Series creator David Crane wanted all six actors to be equally prominent, and the series was lauded as being "the first true 'ensemble' show". The cast members made efforts to keep the ensemble format and not allow one member to dominate; they entered themselves in the same acting categories for awards, opted for collective salary negotiations, and asked to appear together on magazine cover photos in the first season. The cast members also became best friends off-screen, and guest star Tom Selleck reported sometimes feeling left out. The cast remained good friends after the series' run, most notably Cox and Aniston, with Aniston being godmother to Cox and David Arquette's daughter, Coco. In the official farewell commemorative book Friends 'Til The End, each separately acknowledged in interviews that the cast had become their family.

Succes 2011: Willie Nelson, an american icon of country music

Willie Hugh Nelson (born April 30, 1933) is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist.The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie (1973), combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger (1975) and Stardust (1978), made Nelson one of the most recognized artists in country music. He was one of the main figures of outlaw country, a subgenre of country music that developed at the end of the 1960s as a reaction to the conservative restrictions of the Nashville sound.

Nelson has acted in over 30 films, co-authored several books, and has been involved in activism for the use of biofuels and the legalization of marijuana.

Born during the Great Depression, and raised by his grandparents, Nelson wrote his first song at age seven and joined his first band at ten. During high school, he toured locally with the Bohemian Fiddlers as their lead singer and guitar player. After graduating from high school in 1950, he joined the Air Force but was later discharged due to back problems. After his return, Nelson attended Baylor University for two years but dropped out because he was succeeding in music. During this time, he worked as a disc jockey in Texas radio stations and a singer in honky tonks. Nelson moved to Vancouver, Washington, where he wrote "Family Bible" and recorded the song "Lumberjack" in 1956. In 1960, he signed a publishing contract with Pamper Music which allowed him to join Ray Price's band as a bassist. During that time, he wrote songs that would become country standards, including "Funny How Time Slips Away", "Hello Walls", "Pretty Paper", and "Crazy". In 1962, he recorded his first album, And Then I Wrote. Due to this success, Nelson signed in 1964 with RCA Victor and joined the Grand Ole Opry the following year. After mid-chart hits during the end of 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, and the failure to succeed in music, Nelson retired in 1972 and moved to Austin, Texas. The rise of the popularity of Hippie music in Austin motivated Nelson to return from retirement, performing frequently at the Armadillo World Headquarters.

In 1973, after signing with Atlantic Records, Nelson turned to outlaw country, including albums such as Shotgun Willie and Phases and Stages. In 1975, he switched to Columbia Records, where he recorded the critically acclaimed album, Red Headed Stranger. The same year, he recorded another outlaw country album, Wanted! The Outlaws, which he recorded with Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter, and Tompall Glaser. During the mid 1980s, while creating hit albums like Honeysuckle Rose and recording hit songs like "On the Road Again", "To All the Girls I've Loved Before", and "Pancho & Lefty", he joined the country supergroup The Highwaymen, along with fellow singers, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson. During 1990 Nelson's assets were seized by the Internal Revenue Service, that claimed that he owed US $32,000,000. It was later discovered that his accountants, Price Waterhouse did not pay Nelson's taxes for years. The impossibility of Nelson to pay his outstanding debt was aggravated by weak investments made by him during the 1980s. Nelson released in 1991 The IRS Tapes: Who'll Buy My Memories?, the profits of the double album, destined to the IRS and the auction of Nelson's assets cleared his debt by 1993. During the 1990s and 2000s, Nelson continued touring extensively, and released albums every year. Reviews ranged from positive to mixed. Nelson explored genres such as reggae, blues, jazz, and folk. Nelson made his first movie appearance in the 1979 film, The Electric Horseman, followed by other appearances in movies and on television.

Nelson is a major liberal activist and the co-chair of the advisory board of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, which is in favor of marijuana legalization. On the environmental front, Nelson owns the bio-diesel brand Willie Nelson Biodiesel, which is made from vegetable oil. Nelson is also the honorary chairman of the Advisory Board of the Texas Music Project, the official music charity of the state of Texas.

Willie Nelson was born in Abbott, Texas during the Great Depression on April 30, 1933 to Myrle Marie (née Greenhaw) and Ira Doyle Nelson. The Nelson family had moved from Arkansas in 1929, looking for work. Nelson's grandfather, William, worked as a blacksmith, while his father worked as a mechanic. His mother left soon after he was born, and his father remarried and moved away, leaving the grandparents, who both studied music at night via a mail-order course, to bring up Nelson and his sister Bobbie. Nelson's grandfather bought him a guitar when he was six, and taught him a few chords; and with his sister Bobbie he sang gospel songs in the local church. He wrote his first song when he was seven, and played the guitar for the local band Bohemian Polka at age nine. During the summer, like most of Abbott's inhabitants, the family picked cotton. As Nelson didn't like picking cotton, starting at age thirteen and continuing through high school, he earned money by singing in local dance halls, taverns, and honky tonks. Nelson was influenced musically during his childhood by Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, Ernest Tubb, Django Reinhardt, Ray Price and Hank Snow.

Nelson attended Abbott High School where, as well as raising pigs for the Future Farmers of America organization, he was a halfback in the school football team, and also played basketball as a guard, and as a shortstop in baseball.[11] While still at school he sang and played guitar in The Texans, a band formed by his sister's husband, Bud Fletcher. After leaving school in 1950 he joined the United States Air Force for eight to nine months, then worked as a disc jockey at local radio stations. He had short stints with KHBR in Hillsboro, Texas and later with KBOP in Pleasanton, Texas. In 1952, he married Martha Matthews, and from 1954 to 1956 studied agriculture at Baylor University, where he joined the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, but dropped out to pursue success in music.

Nelson uses a variety of music styles to create his own distinctive blend of country music – a hybrid of jazz, pop, blues, rock and folk. His "unique sound", which uses a "relaxed, behind-the-beat singing style and gut-string guitar", and his "nasal voice and jazzy, off-center phrasing", has been responsible for his wide appeal, and has made him a "vital icon in country music", influencing the "new country, new traditionalist, and alternative country movements of the '80s and '90s".

Nelson is widely recognized as an American icon. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1993, and he received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1998.

In 2003 Governor Perry signed bill #2582, introduced by State Representative Elizabeth Ames Jones and Senator Jeff Wentworth,[127] which funded the Texas Music Project, the state's official music charity. Nelson was named Honorary Chairman of the Advisory Board of the project. In 2005, Democratic Texas Senator Gonzalo Barrientos introduced a bill to name 49 miles (79 km) of the Travis County section of State Highway 130 after Nelson, and at one point 23 of the 31 state Senators were co-sponsors of the bill.[129] The legislation was dropped after two Republican senators, Florence Shapiro and Wentworth, objected, citing Nelson's lack of connection to the highway, his fundraisers for Democrats, his drinking, and his marijuana advocacy.

An important collection of Willie Nelson materials (1975–1994) became part of the Wittliff collections of Southwestern Writers, Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas. The collection contains lyrics, screenplays, letters, concert programs, tour itineraries, posters, articles, clippings, personal effects, promotional items, souvenirs, and documents. It documents Nelson's IRS troubles and how Farm Aid contributions were used. Most of the material was collected by Nelson's friend Bill Wittliff, who wrote or co-wrote Honeysuckle Rose, Barbarosa and Red Headed Stranger.

In April 2010, Nelson received the "Feed the Peace" award from The Nobelity Project for his extensive work with Farm Aid and overall contributions to world peace. On June 23, 2010 he was inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry. Nelson is an honorary trustee of the Dayton International Peace Museum. In 2010, Austin, Texas renamed Second Street to Willie Nelson Boulevard. The city also planned to honor him with a life-size statue, to be placed at the entrance of Austin City Limits' new studio. The non-profit organization Capital Area Statues commissioned sculptor Clete Shields to execute the project.

For many years, Nelson's image was marked by his red hair, often divided into two long braids partially concealed under a bandanna. In the April 2007 issue of Stuff Magazine Nelson was interviewed about his long locks.[138] "I started braiding my hair when it started getting too long, and that was, I don't know, probably in the 70's." On May 26, 2010, the Associated Press reported that Nelson had cut his hair, and Nashville music journalist Jimmy Carter published a photograph of the pigtail-free Nelson on his website. Reportedly, he wanted a more maintainable hairstyle, as well helping him stay cool more easily at his Maui home.

Nelson's touring and recording group, the Family, is full of longstanding members, including his sister Bobbie Nelson, drummer Paul English, harmonicist Mickey Raphael, Bee Spears, Billy English (Paul's younger brother), and Jody Payne.Willie & Family tours North America in the bio-diesel bus Honeysuckle Rose IV, which is fueled by Bio-Willie.

As well as recording sixty seven studio albums, Nelson has appeared in over thirty films and TV shows. His acting debut was in the 1979 movie, The Electric Horseman, followed by appearances in Honeysuckle Rose, Thief, and Barbarosa.

Success 2011: Joan Armatrading, british singer, songwriter and guitarist

Joan Anita Barbara Armatrading, MBE (born 9 December 1950) is a British singer, songwriter and guitarist. Armatrading is a three-time Grammy Award-nominee and has been nominated twice for BRIT Awards as Best Female Artist. She also received an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contemporary Song Collection in 1996. In a recording career spanning almost 40 years she has released a total of 17 studio albums, as well as several live albums and compilations.

Joan Armatrading was born in Basseterre, on the Caribbean island of Saint Kitts, in 1950, as the third of six children. When she was three, her parents moved to Birmingham, England, where she joined them in 1958. Her father had played in a band in his youth, but he forbade his children from touching his guitar. She began writing lyrics and music at the age of 14 on a piano that her mother had bought. Shortly after that her mother bought her a £3 guitar from a pawn shop in exchange for two prams, and the younger Armatrading began teaching herself that instrument. As a teenager she began her career playing small sets of her own music at local clubs. She left school at the age of 15 to support her family, and her first job was at Rabone Chesterman, an engineering tool manufacturer in Hockley, Birmingham. She was released from this job because of her insistence on bringing her guitar to work and playing it during tea breaks.

In the early 1970s, Armatrading moved to London to perform in a repertory production of the stage musical Hair. There she met the lyricist Pam Nestor, and they worked together on Armatrading's debut album Whatever's for Us, released by Cube Records in 1972. Armatrading wrote the lyrics, performed all of the vocals, wrote all of the music and played an array of instruments on the album. Nestor was credited as co-lyricist, however Cube considered Armatrading to be the more likely star material. These events produced a tension which broke up the partnership. In 1973 Armatrading's first single "Lonely Lady", a song which had not been included on the album, was released by Cube on the Fly Label (catalogue: Bug 31). It was unsuccessful in the charts. A period of inactivity for Armatrading followed, while she extricated herself from her contract with Cube Records. The single was subsequently withdrawn by Cube and re-released as a promotional single in the US by Armatrading's new label A&M Records, the same year, as A&M1452.

In January 1974 she appeared on the BBC Radio 1 John Peel Show performing "Show Some Sort Of Love Song", "Lonely Lady" and "Freedom". Armatrading sang and played acoustic guitar and piano. Supporting musicians were Snowy White (guitar), Mike Tomich (bass) and Brian Glassock (drums).

In 1975, Armatrading was free to sign with A&M Records, and issued the album Back to the Night,[6] which was promoted on tour with a six-piece jazz-pop group called The Movies. Armatrading credited English singer Elkie Brooks on the sleeve notes as she had cooked for Armatrading and the band in the studio while they had been making the album, which was produced by Brooks' then-husband Pete Gage. A major publicity relaunch in 1976 and the involvement of producer Glyn Johns propelled her next album, Joan Armatrading, into the Top 20 and spawned the Top 10 hit single "Love and Affection". The album mixed acoustic work with jazz-influenced material, and this style was retained for the 1977 follow-up Show Some Emotion, also produced by Glyn Johns, as was 1978's To the Limit. These albums included songs which continue to be staples of Armatrading's live shows, including "Willow", "Down To Zero", "Tall in the Saddle", and "Kissin' and a Huggin". Also at this time, Armatrading wrote and performed "The Flight of the Wild Geese", which was used during the opening and end titles for the 1978 war film The Wild Geese. The song was included on the soundtrack album for the film, originally released by A&M Records, later released under licence as a Cinephile DVD. A live album entitled Steppin' Out was released in 1979.

In the 1970s Armatrading became the first Black British female singer/songwriter to enjoy international success.

In 1980, Armatrading radically revised her playing style and released Me Myself I, a harder pop-oriented album produced by Richard Gottehrer, who had previously produced albums for Blondie. The album became Armatrading's highest ever charting album both in the UK and the US, while the title track became her second UK Top 40 hit single. The same pop style, now coupled with synthesisers, was also evident on the 1981 album Walk Under Ladders and 1983's The Key. All three of these albums were Top 10 successes in the UK, with The Key also producing the hit single "Drop the Pilot", Armatrading's third UK Top 40 hit single. To capitalise on her success, A&M released the best of compilation album, Track Record in 1983.

Armatrading's next studio album was 1985's Secret Secrets. The album was a top 20 hit but failed to yield any hit singles, cementing Armatrading's status as an "album artist". Taking over production responsibilities herself, she continued to record the albums Sleight of Hand (1986), The Shouting Stage (1988) and Hearts and Flowers (1990) for A&M Records, which all made the UK Top 40 but failed to achieve the level of success of her earlier works despite successful national tours (a show from her 1988 "Shouting Stage" tour was also filmed for television).

In 1989 she was the guest of Sue Lawley on the BBC 4 radio programme Desert Island Discs where her favourite choice was Van Morrison's "Madame George". Armatrading’s full list included Ella Fitzgerald and Gustav Mahler. Her luxury item was a guitar, while her castaway's book was Why Didn't They Ask Evans? by Agatha Christie.

In 1991, A&M released the compilation The Very Best of Joan Armatrading which returned her to the Top 10. However, her following studio album for A&M, 1992's Square The Circle did not replicate this success and would be her final recording for the label. Following her departure from A&M, a label she had been with for almost 20 years, Armatrading signed with RCA for her 1995 album What's Inside. Despite various television appearances and a full tour (which included a string quartet in addition to her stage band), the album was not a commercial success, becoming her lowest charting studio album in 20 years.

In 2003, no longer attached to a major label, she released the album Lovers Speak. Though it was her first album in eight years, it met with little commercial success.

Armatrading's music is considered to be mostly pop with forays into rock, folk, jazz, blues, soul and even reggae.

Her 2007 album Into the Blues debuted at #1 on the US Billboard Blues Chart, making Armatrading the first UK female artist to earn that distinction. Into the Blues, which Armatrading calls "the CD I’ve been promising myself to write for a long time," was nominated for a Grammy Award, also making her the first female UK artist to be nominated in the Grammy Blues category.

Armatrading has been nominated twice for a Brit Award as best female vocalist and has received an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contemporary Song Collection in 1996 and in 2006 received an honorary degree from Aston University, Birmingham. In 2008 she was part of Cyndi Lauper's True Colors Tour 2008.

In 2007 Armatrading appeared in Episode 3 of the second series of Live from Abbey Road performing "Tall In The Saddle" from her 1976 self-titled album, and "Woman In Love" from the album Into The Blues. She also appeared on Later... with Jools Holland where she performed "Love and Affection", as well as "Woman In Love" and "My Baby's Gone" both from her 2007 Into The Blues album.

On 29 March 2010, she released This Charming Life, widely viewed as a return to her guitar-based singer-songwriter pop-rock. The album debuted atop the Amazon.com mp3 download charts, and reached the top of the U.S. Blues chart.[citation needed] She embarked on an international tour to promote it; a concert from this tour in April 2010 at the Royal Albert Hall in London was released on the CD/DVD album Live at the Royal Albert Hall, along with two tracks from a concert in Denver, Colorado, U.S., in February 2011.

In addition to recording, Armatrading has toured extensively and appeared in high profile concerts such as "The Picnic at Blackbushe" in 1978 (alongside Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton) and The Prince’s Trust Rock Gala in 1983. She also appeared in the film The Secret Policeman’s Third Ball in 1987. Several films have also used classic Joan Armatrading songs on their soundtracks, and these include Whoopi Goldberg’s 1995 Boys on the Side (the song "Willow") and Goldberg’s 1995 Moonlight and Valentino (the song "The Weakness in Me"). She has also made many appearances on television, including The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1975, “Joan Armatrading: Rock Over Europe” in 1980, “Joan Armatrading in Concert” in 1982, “Late Night in Concert” in 1984 and “Joan Armatrading” in 1985.

On 30 November 2010, "This Charming Life" was played on the season finale of Sons of Anarchy, the hit television show on FX.

Succes 2011: Carl Douglas, one-hit Wonder - "Kung Fu Fighting"

Carl Douglas (born 10 May 1942) is a former Jamaican-born, UK-based, singer, best known for his song "Kung Fu Fighting", which hit number one in both the UK Singles Chart and the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1974. The R.I.A.A. awarded gold disc status on 27 November, and it won a Grammy Award for Best Selling Single in 1974. It eventually went on to sell eleven million records worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time.

This homage to martial arts films has overshadowed the rest of the singer's career, resulting in his appearance on cover versions of the song. Douglas did release two other singles ("Blue Eyed Soul" and "Dance The Kung Fu", which was sampled by DJ Premier in his 2007 remix of Nike's 25th Air Force One anniversary single "Classic (Better Than I've Ever Been)", featuring Kanye West, Nas, KRS-One and Rakim ) but he has gone down in recording history as an example of a one hit wonder.

He was at one time managed by Eric Woolfson, later the primary songwriter behind The Alan Parsons Project.

In 1998, a re-recording of "Kung Fu Fighting", billed as Bus Stop featuring Carl Douglas, reached number 8 in the UK Singles Chart.

He now resides in Hamburg, Germany where he runs SMV (Schacht Musik Verlage), a publishing company that coordinates films, documentaries, and advertisements.

Kung Fu Fighting

"Kung Fu Fighting" is a disco song written and performed by Carl Douglas, and composed and produced by Biddu. It was released as a single in 1974, at the cusp of a chopsocky film craze, and eventually rose to the top of the British and American charts, in addition to reaching number one on the Soul Singles chart. It received a Gold certification from the RIAA in 1974, won the 1974 Grammy Award for Best Selling Single,[5] and popularized disco music. It eventually went on to sell eleven million records worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time. The song uses the quintessential Oriental Riff, a short musical phrase that is used to signify Chinese culture.

Kung Fu Fighting was rated number 100 in VH1's 100 Greatest one-hit wonders, and number 1 in the UK Channel 4's Top 10 One Hit Wonders list in 2000, the same channel's 50 Greatest One Hit Wonders poll in 2006 and Bring Back ... the one-hit Wonders, for which Carl Douglas performed the song in a live concert.

Success 2011: Gerd Müller, one of the most prolific goalscorers of all time. "Kleines dickes Müller, Bomber der Nation”

Gerhard "Gerd" Müller (born 3 November 1945 in Nördlingen) is a former German football player and one of the most prolific goalscorers of all time.

With national records of 68 goals in 62 international appearances, 365 goals in 427 Bundesliga games and the international record of 66 goals in 74 European Club games, he was one of the most successful goalscorers of his era. Müller is now 8th on the list of all time international goalscorers despite playing fewer matches than every player in the top 15. His nicknames are “Bomber der Nation” (the nation's Bomber) and “kleines dickes Müller” (short fat Müller; this name was given to him by Čik Čajkovski, his first coach at Bayern Munich. Čajkovski was Yugoslavian and got the German declension wrong.).

In 1970 Müller was elected European Footballer of the Year after a successful season at Bayern Munich and scoring 10 goals at the 1970 World Cup. Müller held the all-time goal-scoring record in the tournament with a 14-goal total, a record that stood for 32 years until it was broken by Brazil's Ronaldo against Ghana in the Round of 16 of the 2006 World Cup.

Bayern Munich

Born in Nördlingen, Germany, Müller began his football career at the TSV 1861 Nördlingen. Müller joined FC Bayern Munich in 1964 where he teamed up with future stars Franz Beckenbauer and Sepp Maier. The club, which would go on to become the most successful German club in history was then still in the Regionalliga Süd (Regional League South), which was one level below the Bundesliga at the time. After one season, Bayern Munich advanced to the Bundesliga and started a long string of successes. With his club, Müller amassed titles during the 60s and 70s: He won the German Championship four times, the German Cup four times, the European Champions' Cup three times, the Intercontinental Cup once, and the European Cup Winners’ Cup once. A supremely opportunistic goal-scorer, he also became German top scorer seven times and European top scorer twice. Müller scored 365 goals in 427 Bundesliga matches for Bayern Munich, almost 100 goals more than the second most successful Bundesliga scorer, Klaus Fischer. He holds the single-season Bundesliga record with 40 goals in season 1971–72. He scored 68 goals in 62 German Cup games. His record of 66 goals in 74 appearances at European Cups was just recently surpassed by Raúl González of Schalke 04.

National team

Müller scored 68 goals in 62 games for West Germany. His international career started in 1966 and ended on 7 July 1974 with the win of the World Cup at his home stadium in Munich. He scored the winning goal for the 2–1 victory over the Netherlands in the final. His four goals in that tournament and his ten goals at the 1970 World Cup combined made him the all-time highest World Cup goalscorer overall at the time with 14 goals; his record stood until the 2006 tournament, coincidentally held in Germany, when it was broken by Brazilian forward Ronaldo on 27 June 2006 playing against Ghana and was equalled by his countryman Miroslav Klose in 2010. As of the end of the 2006 tournament, Ronaldo has scored 15 goals in four World Cups. Müller also participated in the 1972 European Championship, becoming top scorer with four goals (including two in the final) and winning the Championship with the German team.

Life after football

After Müller ended his career in 1982, he fell into a slump and suffered from alcoholism. However, his former companions at Bayern Munich convinced him to go through alcohol rehabilitation. When he emerged, they gave him a job as a coach at Bayern Munich II, where he still works to this day. There is also a collection of apparel released by sporting giants Adidas under the Gerd Müller name. It is part of the adidas originals series. In July 2008, the Rieser Sportpark, in Nördlingen, where Müller had begun his career, was renamed the Gerd-Müller-Stadion in his honour.

In his book "Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football", David Winner writes, "Müller was short, squat, awkward-looking and not notably fast; he never fit the conventional idea of a great footballer, but he had lethal acceleration over short distances, a remarkable aerial game, and uncanny goalscoring instincts. His short legs gave him a strangely low center of gravity, so he could turn quickly and with perfect balance in spaces and at speeds that would cause other players to fall over. He also had a knack of scoring in unlikely situations."

The Birds (1963) : Tippi Hedren

Nathalie Kay "Tippi" Hedren (born January 19, 1930) is an American actress and former fashion model with a career spanning six decades. She is primarily known for her roles in two Alfred Hitchcock films, The Birds and Marnie, and her extensive efforts in animal rescue at Shambala Preserve, an 80-acre (320,000 m2) wildlife habitat which she founded in 1983.

Hedren is the mother of Academy Award nominee Melanie Griffith, and they share credits on several productions, notably Pacific Heights (1990).
Hedren was born in New Ulm, Minnesota in 1930 to Dorothea Henrietta (née Eckhardt) and Bernard Carl Hedren. Her paternal grandparents were immigrants from Sweden, and her maternal ancestry was German and Norwegian. Her father ran a small general store in the small town of Lafayette, Minnesota and gave her the nickname "Tippi." "My father thought Nathalie was a little bit much for a brand new baby," Hedren explained at a 2004 screening of The Birds.

As a teenager, Hedren took part in department store fashion shows. Her parents relocated to California while she was still a high school student. When she reached her 18th birthday, she bought a ticket to New York and began a professional modeling career. Within a year she made her film debut (minus dialogue) as a Petty Girl model in The Petty Girl (1950) musical comedy, although in interviews she refers to The Birds (1963) as her first film.
Hedren had a successful modeling career in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing on covers of national magazines, such as Life magazine.[6] She was discovered by Hitchcock, who was watching The Today Show when he saw Hedren in a commercial for Sego, a diet drink. Hitchcock was looking for an actress who possessed something of the sophistication, self-assurance and cool-blonde sex appeal of Grace Kelly, with whom he had made three films. Hedren, expensively groomed and mentored by Hitchcock, appeared in his films The Birds and Marnie. At the time of the films' releases, she was criticized for being too passive in The Birds and too expressive in Marnie. It took years before she received respect for her work in both films from American film critics.

At a packed house in Lancaster, California's Antelope Valley Independent Film Festival Cinema Series screening of The Birds on September 28, 2004, Hedren recalled how she was mysteriously selected for a lead role: "I said, 'Well, who is this person? Who is interested?'... Nobody would tell me who it was." (It was Alfred Hitchcock, who soon announced his choice of Hedren.)

Hitchcock put Hedren through a then-costly $25,000 screen test, doing scenes from his previous films, such as Rebecca, Notorious and To Catch a Thief with actor Martin Balsam. He signed her to a multi-year exclusive personal contract, something he had done in the 1950s with Vera Miles. Hitchcock's plan to mold Hedren's public image went so far as to carefully control her style of dressing and grooming.[citation needed] Hitchcock insisted for publicity purposes that her name should be printed only in single quotes, "Tippi". The press mostly ignored this directive from the director, who felt that the single quotes added distinction and mystery to Hedren's name. In interviews, Hitchcock compared his newcomer not only to her predecessor Grace Kelly but also to what he referred to as such "ladylike", intelligent, and stylish stars of more glamorous eras as Irene Dunne and Jean Arthur. Later, Hedren indicated that she didn't want to be known as the next Grace Kelly but rather as the first Tippi Hedren.

Her appearance in The Birds brought a wealth of publicity. In a December 1962 Look magazine cover story "Hitchcock's New Grace Kelly", Alfred Hitchcock compared her to his star of To Catch a Thief and Rear Window, saying, "'Tippi' has a faster tempo, city glibness, more humor. She displayed jaunty assuredness, pertness, an attractive throw of the head. And she memorized and read lines extraordinarily well and is sharper in expression."

Hedren said of Hitchcock, "He is subtle as a psychiatrist and never gives displaced encouragement." With the release of the film, she got a very tepid reception, the only exceptions being critic Bob Thomas ("Miss Hedren makes an impressive debut") and Time ("pleasant and ladylike, as Grace Kelly was.") Years after the film's release, she remembered the location work at Bodega Bay as dangerous and taxing, commenting, "For a first film, it was a lot of work."

For the final attack scene in a second-floor bedroom, filmed on a closed set at Universal-International Studios, Hedren had been assured by Hitchcock that mechanical birds would be used. Instead, Hedren endured five solid days of prop men, protected by thick leather gloves, flinging dozens of live gulls, ravens and crows at her (their beaks clamped shut with elastic bands). Cary Grant visited the set and told Hedren, "I think you're the bravest lady I've ever met." In a state of exhaustion, when one of the birds gouged her cheek and narrowly missed her eye, Hedren sat down on the set and began crying. A physician ordered a week's rest, which Hedren said at the time was riddled with "nightmares filled with flapping wings". The Birds brought her a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer.

Premiere magazine chose Hedren's character, Melanie Daniels in The Birds as one of "The 100 Greatest Characters of All Time". Marnie (1964), a psychological thriller from the novel by Winston Graham, was Hedren's second Hitchcock assignment, co-starring with Sean Connery. She recalls Marnie as the favorite of her two films for Hitchcock because of the central character, an emotionally battered young woman who travels from city to city assuming various guises in order to rob her employers. On release, the film was greeted by mixed reviews and indifferent box-office returns. Although Hitchcock continued to have Hedren in mind for several other films after Marnie, the actress declined any further work with him. Other directors who wanted to hire her had to go through Hitchcock, who would inform them she was unavailable. "It grew to be impossible. He was a very controlling type of person, and I guess I'm not about to be controlled", said Hedren. When Hedren tried to get out of her contract, she recalls Hitchcock telling her he'd ruin her career. "And he did: kept me under contract, kept paying me every week for almost two years to do nothing."

By the time Hitchcock sold her contract to Universal and she was fired for refusing work on one of its television shows, Hedren's career had stalled.

On April 13, 2011, at the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, NY, Hedren stated in an interview with Turner Classic Movies' Ben Mankiewicz, prior to a screening of The Birds, that because she refused Hitchcock’s sexual advances, Hitchcock effectively stunted her career.

Charles Chaplin cast her as the sophisticated, brittle, cheated-upon wife of Marlon Brando in his shipboard comedy A Countess from Hong Kong (1967). She made more than 40 films between 1967 and 2006, including Pacific Heights, Citizen Ruth and I Heart Huckabees.[citation needed] More recently, she has appeared in episodes of The 4400 in 2006 and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation in 2006. She was a cast member of the night-time soap opera Fashion House in 2006. Hedren has also appeared in many independent films. In 2009, she co-starred with actress Brittany Murphy in the made-for-television movie Tribute.
A Louis Vuitton ad campaign in 2006 paid tribute to Hedren and Hitchcock with a modern-day interpretation of the deserted railway station opening sequence of Marnie. Her 1963 publicity picture from The Birds was the cover for Jean-Pierre Dufreigne's book Hitchcock Style (2004). In interviews, Naomi Watts has stated that her character interpretation in Mulholland Drive (2001) was influenced by the look and performances of Hedren and Kim Novak in Hitchcock films. Watts and Hedren later acted in I Heart Huckabees (2004) but didn't share any scenes together onscreen. Off-screen, the film's director David O. Russell introduced them both, and Watts has said about Hedren, "I was pretty fascinated by her then because people have often said that we're alike." Watts was once expected to star in a remake of The Birds (1963) and has dressed up as Hedren's title character from Marnie for a photo shoot for March 2008 issue of Vanity Fair magazine. In the same issue, Jodie Foster dressed up as Hedren's character, Melanie Daniels from The Birds (1963).

In another issue of Vanity Fair, the magazine referred to January Jones's character in Mad Men as "Tippi Hedren's soul sister from Marnie". The New York Times television critic earlier had echoed the same sentiment in his review of Mad Men. January Jones said that she "takes it a compliment of sorts" when compared to Grace Kelly and Hedren.Actress Tea Leoni said that her character in the film Manure (2009) is made up to look like Hedren.

In 1981, Hedren produced Roar, an 11-year project that ended up costing $17 million and starring dozens of African lions. "This was probably one of the most dangerous films that Hollywood has ever seen", remarked the actress. "It's amazing no one was killed." During the production of Roar, Hedren, her husband at the time, Noel Marshall, and daughter Melanie were attacked by lions; Jan de Bont, the director of photography, was scalped. She later co-wrote the book Cats of Shambala (1985) about the experience. Roar made only $2 million worldwide. Hedren ended her marriage to Marshall a year later in 1982. The film directly led to the 1983 establishment of the non-profit Roar Foundation and Hedren's Shambala Preserve, located at the edge of the Mojave Desert in Acton, California between the Antelope Valley and the Santa Clarita Valley 40 miles (64 km) northeast of Los Angeles. Shambala currently houses some 70 animals, including African lions, Siberian and Bengal tigers, leopards, servals, mountain lions and bobcats. Hedren lives on the Shambala site and conducts monthly tours of the preserve for the public. Hedren took in and cared for Togar, a lion that belonged to Anton LaVey, after he was told by San Francisco officials that he couldn't keep a fully grown lion as a house pet. More recently, Shambala became the new home for Michael Jackson’s two Bengal tigers, Sabu and Thriller, after he decided to close his zoo at his Neverland Valley Ranch in Los Olivos, California. On December 3, 2007, Shambala Preserve made headlines when Chris Orr, a caretaker for the animals, was mauled by a tiger named Alexander.

Several documentaries have focused on Shambala Preserve, including the 30-minute Lions: Kings of the Serengeti (1995), narrated by Melanie Griffith, and Animal Planet's Life with Big Cats (1998), which won the Genesis Award for best documentary in 1999. The animals at the preserve served as the initial inspiration for the life's work of artist A. E. London, who started her career working for Hedren.

North by Northwest (1959): Eva Marie Saint

North by Northwest is a 1959 American thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason, and featuring Leo G. Carroll and Martin Landau. The screenplay was written by Ernest Lehman, who wanted to write "the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures".

North by Northwest is a tale of mistaken identity, with an innocent man pursued across the United States by agents of a mysterious organization who want to stop his interference in their plans to smuggle out microfilm containing government secrets (a classic MacGuffin).

Author and journalist Nick Clooney praised Lehman's original story and sophisticated dialogue, calling the film "certainly Alfred Hitchcock's most stylish thriller, if not his best".

This is one of several Hitchcock movies with a music score by Bernard Herrmann and features a memorable opening title sequence by graphic designer Saul Bass. This film is generally cited as the first to feature extended use of kinetic typography in its opening credits.

A Madison Avenue advertising executive, Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant), is mistaken for a Mr. George Kaplan when he summons a hotel bellhop who is paging Kaplan, and is kidnapped by Valerian (Adam Williams) and Licht (Robert Ellenstein). They take him to the house of Lester Townsend on Long Island. There he is interrogated by a man he assumes to be Townsend, but who is really foreign spy Phillip Vandamm (James Mason). Thornhill repeatedly denies he is Kaplan, but Vandamm refuses to believe his men picked up the wrong man. He orders his right-hand man Leonard (Martin Landau) to get rid of him.

Thornhill is forced to drink bourbon in an attempt to stage a fatal road accident. However, he pushes one thug out of the car and drives off. After a perilous drive, he is arrested for drunk driving. He is unable to get the police, the judge, or even his mother (Jessie Royce Landis) to believe what happened to him, especially when a woman at Townsend's residence says he got drunk at her dinner party; she also mentions that Townsend is a United Nations diplomat.

Thornhill and his mother go to Kaplan's hotel room, but cannot find anyone there who has seen him. While in the room, Thornhill answers the phone; it is one of Vandamm's henchmen. Narrowly avoiding recapture, Thornhill takes a taxi to the General Assembly building of the United Nations, where Townsend is due to deliver a speech. Thornhill meets Townsend face to face and is surprised to find that the diplomat is not the man who interrogated him, and Townsend expresses surprise that anybody else has been living in his house. Before he can ask any more questions, Valerian throws a knife, striking Townsend in the back. He falls forward, dead, into Thornhill's arms. Without thinking, Thornhill removes the knife, making it appear to witnesses that he is the killer. He flees.

Knowing that Kaplan has a reservation at a Chicago hotel the next day, Thornhill sneaks onto the 20th Century Limited. On board, he meets Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), who hides Thornhill from policemen searching the train. She asks about his personalized matchbooks with the initials ROT; he says the O stands for nothing. Unbeknownst to Thornhill, Eve is working with Vandamm and Leonard, who are in another compartment. Upon arriving in Chicago, Thornhill borrows a porter's uniform and carries Eve's luggage through the crowd, eluding police. Eve (who is Vandamm's lover) lies to Thornhill, telling him she has arranged a meeting with Kaplan. She gives him directions to the place.

In an iconic sequence, Thornhill travels by bus to an isolated crossroads, with flat countryside all around and only scarce traffic. Another man is dropped off at the bus stop, but turns out to be unconnected to Thornhill; the man leaves on a bus after observing that a nearby biplane is "dusting crops where there ain't no crops." Moments later, the plane turns toward Thornhill. To his terror, it dives at him, passing him at an altitude of only a few feet, forcing him to throw himself to the ground; immediately after that, someone on the plane opens fire on Thornhill with an automatic weapon, missing him just barely. This process is repeated several times. Thornhill flees to the cover of a cornfield, but the plane dusts it with pesticide, forcing him out. Desperate, Thornhill steps in front of a speeding gasoline tank truck, which stops barely in time. The plane crashes into it and explodes. When passing drivers stop to see what is going on, Thornhill steals a pickup truck and drives back to Chicago.

Thornhill returns to the hotel, where he is surprised to learn that Kaplan had already checked out when Eve claimed to have spoken to him. Suspicious, he goes to Eve's room to question her. She lets him get cleaned up as she leaves. From the impression of a message written on a notepad, Thornhill learns her destination: an art auction. There, he finds Vandamm, Leonard, and Eve. Vandamm purchases a pre-Columbian Tarascan statue and departs. Thornhill tries to follow, only to find all exits covered by Vandamm's men. He escapes from them by placing nonsensical bids, making such a nuisance of himself that the police have to be called to remove him.

Thornhill tries to remain safely in police custody and identifies himself as a wanted fugitive, but the officers are ordered to take him to Midway Airport instead of a police station. (There, a gate for Northwest Airlines is seen, playing on the film's title). He meets the Professor (Leo G. Carroll), an American spymaster who is after Vandamm. The Professor reveals that George Kaplan does not exist: he was invented to distract Vandamm from the real government agent—Eve, whose life is now in danger. To protect her, Thornhill agrees to help the Professor.

They fly to Rapid City, South Dakota, where Thornhill (now pretending to be Kaplan) meets Eve and Vandamm in a crowded cafeteria at the base of Mount Rushmore. He offers to let Vandamm leave the country in exchange for Eve, but is turned down. When he tries to keep her from leaving, Eve shoots Thornhill and flees. He is taken away in an ambulance. At a secluded spot, however, he emerges unharmed, having been shot with blanks. To his dismay, he learns that, having proven her loyalty and made herself a fugitive, Eve will accompany Vandamm out of the country that night. To keep him from interfering further, Thornhill is locked in a hospital room.

He manages to escape, goes to Vandamm's mountainside home, and slips inside undetected. He learns that the Tarascan statue contains secrets on microfilm. Then, while Eve is out of the room, Leonard fires the gun she used at Vandamm, demonstrating how the shooting was faked. Vandamm decides to throw Eve out of the airplane when they are flying over water. Thornhill manages to warn her by writing a note inside one of his ROT matchbooks and dropping it where she can find it.

On the way to the airplane, Eve grabs the statue and joins Thornhill. Leonard and Valerian chase them across the top of the Mount Rushmore monument. Valerian lunges at the pair, but falls to his death. Eve slips and clings desperately to the steep mountainside. Thornhill grabs her hand, while precariously holding on with his other hand. Leonard appears and treads on his hand. They are saved when the Professor has a police marksman shoot Leonard, who falls to his death, and Vandamm is arrested.

The scene transitions from Thornhill pulling Eve up to safety on Mount Rushmore to him pulling her, now his wife, onto an upper bunk on a train. The final shot shows their train speeding into a tunnel.

Success 2011: Eva Marie Saint, a classic actress with an Oscar and two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Eva Marie Saint (born July 4, 1924) is an American actress who has starred in films, on Broadway, and on television in a career spanning seven decades. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama film On the Waterfront (1954), and later starred in the thriller film North by Northwest (1959), directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Saint received Golden Globe and BAFTA award nominations for the drama film A Hatful of Rain (1957) and won an Emmy Award for the television miniseries People Like Us (1990). Her film career also includes roles in Raintree County (1957), Because of Winn-Dixie (2005), and Superman Returns (2006).

Saint was born in Newark, New Jersey, the daughter of Eva Marie (née Rice) and John Merle Saint. She attended Bethlehem Central High School in Delmar, New York, graduating in 1942. Eva Marie was inducted into the high school's hall of fame in 2006. She studied acting at Bowling Green State University, while a member of Delta Gamma Sorority. There is a theater on Bowling Green's campus named for her. She was an active member in the theater honorary fraternity, Theta Alpha Phi and served as Secretary of the Bowling Green Student Government in 1944.

Saint's first feature-film role was in On the Waterfront (1954), directed by Elia Kazan and starring Marlon Brando - a performance for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her role as Edie Doyle (whose brother's death sets the film's drama in motion), which she won over such leading contenders as Claire Trevor, Nina Foch, Katy Jurado, and Jan Sterling also earned her a British Academy of Film and Television Award nomination for "Most Promising Newcomer." In his New York Times review, film critic Bosley Crowther wrote:

"In casting Eva Marie Saint - a newcomer to movies from TV and Broadway - Mr. Kazan has come up with a pretty and blond artisan who does not have to depend on these attributes. Her parochial school training is no bar to love with the proper stranger. Amid scenes of carnage, she gives tenderness and sensitivity to genuine romance."

In a 2000 interview in Premiere magazine, Saint recalled making the hugely influential film:
“Kazan put me in a room with Marlon Brando. He said 'Brando is the boyfriend of your sister. You're not used to being with a young man. Don't let him in the door under any circumstances'. I don't know what he told Marlon; you'll have to ask him - good luck! Brando came in and started teasing me. He put me off-balance. And I remained off-balance for the whole shoot.”

The watershed success of the film launched Saint into many of the best known films of her early screen career. They include starring with Don Murray in the pioneering drug-addiction drama, A Hatful of Rain (1957), for which she received a nomination for the "Best Foreign Actress" award from the British Academy of Film and Television, and the lavish Civil War epic Raintree County, opposite Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift.

Director Alfred Hitchcock surprised many by choosing Saint over dozens of other candidates for the femme fatale role in what was to become a suspense classic North by Northwest (1959) with Cary Grant and James Mason. Written by Ernest Lehman, the film updated and expanded upon the director's early "wrong man" spy adventures of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, including The 39 Steps, Young and Innocent, and Foreign Correspondent. North by Northwest became a box-office hit and an influence on spy films for decades. The film ranks number forty on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time.

At the time of the film's production, much publicity was garnered by Hitchcock's decision to cut Saint's waist-length blonde hair for the first time in her career. Hitchcock explained at the time, "Short hair gives Eva a more exotic look, in keeping with her role of the glamorous woman of my story. I wanted her dressed like a kept woman - smart, simple, subtle and quiet. In other words, anything but the bangles and beads type." The director also worked with Saint to make her voice lower and huskier and even personally chose costumes for her during a shopping trip to Bergdorf Goodman in New York City.

The change in Saint's screen persona, coupled with her adroit performance as a seductive woman of mystery who keeps Cary Grant (and the audience) off-balance, was widely heralded. In his New York Times review of August 7, 1959, critic Bosley Crowther wrote, "In casting Eva Marie Saint as [Cary Grant's] romantic vis-a-vis, Mr. Hitchcock has plumbed some talents not shown by the actress heretofore. Although she is seemingly a hard, designing type, she also emerges both the sweet heroine and a glamorous charmer." In 2000, recalling her experience making the picture with Cary Grant and Hitchcock, Saint said, "[Grant] would say, 'See, Eva Marie, you don't have to cry in a movie to have a good time. Just kick up your heels and have fun.' Hitchcock said, 'I don't want you to do a sink-to-sink movie again, ever. You've done these black-and-white movies like On the Waterfront. It's drab in that tenement house. Women go to the movies, and they've just left the sink at home. They don't want to see you at the sink.' I said, 'I can't promise you that, Hitch, because I love those dramas.'"

Although North by Northwest might have propelled her to the top ranks of stardom, she elected to limit film work in order to spend time with her husband since 1951, director Jeffrey Hayden, and their two children. Nevertheless, in the 1960s, Saint continued to distinguish herself in both high-profile and offbeat pictures. She co-starred again with Paul Newman in the historical drama about the founding of the state of Israel Exodus (1960), directed by Otto Preminger. She also co-starred with Warren Beatty, Karl Malden and Angela Lansbury as a tragic beauty in the drama All Fall Down (1962). Based upon a novel by James Leo Herlihy and a screenplay by William Inge, the film was directed by John Frankenheimer.

She was seen with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the melodrama The Sandpiper for Vincente Minnelli, and with James Garner in the World War II thriller 36 Hours (1964), directed by George Seaton. Saint joined an all-star cast in the comedic satire The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, directed by Norman Jewison and the international racing drama Grand Prix (1966) presented in Cinerama and directed by Frankenheimer.

Saint received some of her best reviews[citation needed] for her appearance in Loving (1970), co-starring as the wife of George Segal in a critically acclaimed but underseen drama about a commercial artist's relationship with his wife and other women. Because of the mostly second-rate film roles that came her way in the 1970s, Saint returned to television and the stage in the 1980s. She appeared in a number of made-for-television films and played the mother of Cybill Shepherd on the television series Moonlighting over a three-year period. She received an Emmy nomination for the 1977 miniseries How The West Was Won, and a 1978 Emmy nomination for Taxi!!!.

Saint returned to the big screen for the first time in over a decade as Tom Hanks' mother in the Garry Marshall-directed comedy Nothing in Common (1986). Critics applauded her return to features, but Saint was soon back on the small screen in numerous projects.

After receiving five nominations, Saint won her first Emmy Award for the 1990 miniseries film People Like Us. She appeared in a number of television productions in the 1990s and was cast as the mother of Frasier Crane's radio producer, Roz Doyle, in a 1999 episode of the hit comedy series Frasier.

In 2000, she returned to feature films once again in I Dreamed of Africa with Kim Basinger. In 2005 she co-starred with Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard in Don't Come Knocking. Also in 2005, she appeared in the family film Because of Winn-Dixie, co-starring Annasophia Robb, Jeff Daniels and Cicely Tyson.

In 2006, Saint appeared in Superman Returns, as Martha Kent, the adoptive mother of Superman, alongside Brandon Routh, Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, and a computer-generated performance from her On The Waterfront co-star Marlon Brando.

Saint has appeared in a number of television specials and documentaries, particularly in the past decade, including The Making of North by Northwest, which she narrated and hosted. In 2009, she made a rare public appearance at the 81st Academy Awards ceremony as a Best Supporting Actress presenter. In 2011, Saint participated in two screenings of North by Northwest with Robert Osborne.


She has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for motion pictures at 6624 Hollywood Boulevard, and television at 6730 Hollywood Boulevard.

Saint has also been confirmed to appear in the 2012 Nickelodeon animated series Avatar: The Legend of Korra, which is a sequel to the hit TV Show Avatar: The Last Airbender. It is not yet known what role she will play in the series.