title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: Since the release of her studio albums and the "High School Musical" franchise, Hudgens has focused on her acting career. She appeared in the films "Bandslam" (2009), "Beastly", "Sucker Punch" (both 2011), "", "Spring Breakers" (both 2012), "Second Act" (2018), "Bad Boys for Life" (2020), and "Tick, Tick...Boom!" (2021). She starred in the Netflix Christmas movies "The Princess Switch" (2018) and its sequels (2020 and 2021) and "The Knight Before Christmas" (2019), and co-produced the latter three.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: Hudgens played the role of Emily Locke in the NBC series "Powerless" (2017). She also played the title role in the Broadway musical "Gigi" (2015) and had roles in two of Fox's live musical productions: Rizzo in "Grease Live!" (2016) and Maureen Johnson in "" (2019). In 2022, Hudgens co-hosted the Met Gala in Manhattan.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: Hudgens was born in Salinas, California, and was raised along the West Coast, from Oregon to Southern California. Her mother, Gina (née Guangco), held a succession of office jobs, and her father, Gregory Hudgens, was a firefighter. She has a younger sister, Stella, who is also an actress. She was raised as a Catholic. Her father, who died of cancer in February 2016, was of Irish, French and Native American descent, and her mother is Filipina, a native of Manila. All of her grandparents were musicians.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: Starting in 1998, Hudgens performed in musical theater as a singer, and appeared in local productions of "Carousel", "The Wizard of Oz", "The King and I", "The Music Man", and "Cinderella", among others. Two years after her career in stage plays and musicals, she began auditioning for commercials and television shows, and her family moved to Los Angeles after she won a role in a television commercial. She began her acting career at age 15, and she briefly attended Orange County High School of the Arts, followed by homeschooling with tutors.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: Hudgens had her first acting role in an episode of the sitcom "Still Standing", airing on CBS in 2002, in which she portrayed Tiffany. Later that year, she guest starred in an episode of the series "Robbery Homicide Division", airing on CBS. Hudgens made her theatrical debut in the 2003 drama film "Thirteen", in the supporting role of Noel. The film, which revolved around teenager Tracy trying to fit in and getting caught up in the wrong crowd, was somewhat of a commercial success, grossing $10 million worldwide. Despite its minor commercial success, the film received positive critical reviews. "USA Today" called "Thirteen" the most "powerful of all recent wayward-youth sagas". Hudgens subsequently landed a role in the 2004 science fiction-adventure film "Thunderbirds", based on the 1960s television series. Hudgens portrayed the character of Tin-tin. The film was a commercial failure and was strongly criticized for "abandoning the original concepts".


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: In January 2006, Hudgens played Gabriella Montez, one of the lead roles in the Disney Channel Original Movie "High School Musical". The film saw Hudgens portraying the new girl at high school who falls for the captain of the basketball team. The two later reveal a passion for singing, and audition for the school play together. Hudgens starred alongside Zac Efron and Ashley Tisdale, the former of which she was partnered up with during the auditioning process due to their "chemistry". It was Disney Channel's most-watched film that year with 7.7 million viewers in its premiere broadcast in the US, until August's premiere of "The Cheetah Girls 2", which achieved 8.1 million viewers. For the film, Hudgens recorded numerous songs which had commercial success. The song "Breaking Free", a duet with Zac Efron, became Hudgens' highest peak on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 at number 4, and number 9 in the UK. Following the success of the film, Hudgens released her debut studio album, "V", on September 26, 2006. It sold 34,000 copies in its first week, and debuted at number 24 on the US "Billboard" 200 chart. In February 2007, the album was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. As of August 2009, the album has sold 570,000 copies in the US. It was preceded by two singles, "Come Back to Me" and "Say OK", both of which were moderately successful in several countries. Both singles received promotion on Disney Channel, with the music videos for both premiering on the channel.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: In 2007, Hudgens reprised her role as Gabriella in "High School Musical 2", released on August 17. The premiere was watched by over 17.2 million viewers in the US, almost 10 million more than its predecessor, making it the most-watched Disney Channel Original Movie of all time. Disney Channel aired a weekly program called "Road to High School Musical 2", beginning on June 8, and leading up to the premiere of "High School Musical 2" in August. The show offered viewers a behind-the-scenes look into the production of the movie. The world premiere of the opening number "What Time Is It" was on Radio Disney May 25, 2007, and similarly "You Are the Music in Me" premiered on July 13, 2007. The film was generally well received by critics. "USA Today"'s Robert Bianco awarded the film three stars out of four, stating that "High School Musical 2" was "sweet, smart, bursting with talent and energy, and awash in innocence". While critics enjoyed the film, they noted that the timing of its premiere seemed odd, premiering just when school was about to resume again whereas the film's plot involved the gang going on summer vacation.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: Her second studio album, "Identified", was released on July 1, 2008. It sold 22,000 copies in its first week, 12,000 less than "V". Despite the drop in sales, the album debuted at number 23 on the "Billboard" 200, one spot higher than "V". The album was preceded by one single, "Sneakernight", which peaked at number 88 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. Following the commercial failure of the album, Hudgens parted ways with Hollywood Records. Hudgens again reprised her role in "", the first film from the franchise to be released theatrically. It opened at number one at the North American box office in October 2008, earning $42 million in its first weekend, which broke the record previously held by "Mamma Mia!" for the biggest opening by a musical. The film finished with $252 million worldwide, which exceeded Disney's expectations.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: Following the completion of the "High School Musical" series, Hudgens confirmed that she was taking a break from her music career to focus more on acting. She played a supporting role in a musical comedy "Bandslam", which was released theatrically on August 14, 2009. Hudgens plays "Sa5m", a 15-year-old awkward freshman with untapped talents. Although "Bandslam" was commercially unsuccessful, Hudgens' performance received praise from critics. David Waddington of the "North Wales Pioneer" noted that Hudgens "outshines the rest of the cast, failing to fit in with the outcast narrative and making the inevitable climactic ending all the more expected", and Philip French of "The Guardian" compared her acting to Thandie Newton and Dorothy Parker.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: In 2010, Hudgens made a return to theater productions and starred in the musical "Rent" as Mimi. The stage production ran from August 6–8, 2010, at the Hollywood Bowl. Her involvement in the production drew negative comments, but director Neil Patrick Harris defended his decision with casting Hudgens by saying, "Vanessa [Hudgens] is awesome. She's a friend. I asked her to come in and sing to make sure she had the chops for it. And she was very committed and seemed great."


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: In 2011, Hudgens starred with Alex Pettyfer in the film "Beastly", based on Alex Flinn's 2007 novel. She played one of the main characters, Linda Taylor, and described her as "the 'beauty' of the story but not the stereotypical beauty everyone thinks of." Hudgens and Pettyfer were recognized as ShoWest Stars of Tomorrow. "Beastly" was released on March 4, 2011, to mostly negative reviews. It was ranked No. 45 in "The Times" predicted "50 Biggest Movies of 2010". The film was screened at ShoWest and drew enthusiastic reactions from the luncheon crowd of exhibition officials. The film went on to make $28 million worldwide as of 2012. Hudgens also starred as one of the five female leads in the action film "Sucker Punch", directed by Zack Snyder. She played Blondie, an institutionalized girl in an asylum. The film was released in March 2011, and grossed $19 million in its first weekend at the North American box office, opening at number two. By the end of its run, "Sucker Punch" totaled $89 million worldwide. Though the film's content was derided, it received some recognition for the visual effects of the fantasy sequences. "Sucker Punch" received a nomination at the 2011 Scream Awards for Best F/X, and its stunt work was nominated for a Taurus Award.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: In 2012, Hudgens starred alongside Dwayne Johnson and Josh Hutcherson in the science fantasy action-adventure film "" (2012), the sequel to the 2008 film "Journey to the Center of the Earth", playing Hutcherson's love interest. The film earned $325 million worldwide during its theatrical run, which outperformed its predecessor. It received generally mixed to negative reviews from critics. The consensus from Rotten Tomatoes is: "Aggressively unambitious, "Journey 2" might thrill teen viewers, but most others will find it too intense for young audiences and too cartoonishly dull for adults".


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: In 2013, Hudgens starred alongside Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine and James Franco in the film "Spring Breakers". The story followed four college-aged girls who decide to rob a fast food restaurant in order to pay for their spring break. It was released theatrically in March 2013, receiving generally positive reviews. The film featured mature themes such as drug use, violence, and sexual escapades. To coincide with the film, Hudgens released the dubstep-influenced song "$$$ex", with a music video featuring clips from the film. The song features guest vocals from YLA, and was produced by Rock Mafia. Hudgens later expressed her discomfort with a sex scene: "It was very nerve-racking for me. I told my agent that I never want to do it ever again." Later that year, Hudgens played Cindy Paulson in "The Frozen Ground", a film based on the Robert Hansen case wherein she plays his only victim who escaped. She co-starred with John Cusack and Nicolas Cage. She also starred in the action film "Machete Kills", based on the eponymous character of the same name from the "Spy Kids" franchise. The film was directed by Robert Rodriguez. By the end of the year, Hudgens starred alongside Michael Shannon, Joel Marsh Garland, Dree Hemingway, and Nick Lashaway in Spike Jonze's short comedy-drama film "Choose You". The cast performed the film live as a skit at the first YouTube Music Awards, to the music of Avicii.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: In 2014, Hudgens starred as a pregnant teenage runaway girl in the drama film "Gimme Shelter" with Brendan Fraser, written and directed by Ron Krauss.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: In 2015, Hudgens starred in the Columbia Pictures' comedy horror film "Freaks of Nature". That same year, she took on the title role in a production of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's "Gigi", which opened at the Kennedy Center from January 16 to February 12, before transferring to Broadway on April 8. The production closed on June 21.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: On January 31, 2016, Hudgens starred in the role of Rizzo in "Grease Live!", Fox's live broadcast based on the original Broadway musical. Hudgens dedicated her performance to her father, who died from cancer one day before the special aired.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: In 2017, Hudgens played Emily Locke on NBC's comedy series "Powerless", which was based on DC Comics characters. It was cancelled after one season. That same year, Hudgens was featured on Shawn Hook's single "Reminding Me" and starred in the music video. She hosted the "2017 Billboard Music Awards" with rapper Ludacris, which premiered on May 21. Hudgens also served as a permanent judge alongside Nigel Lythgoe and Mary Murphy on the 14th season of the American reality dance show "So You Think You Can Dance".


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: In 2018, Hudgens starred in the romantic comedy film "Dog Days", alongside Finn Wolfhard and Nina Dobrev. She collaborated with electronic dance music duo Phantoms on the single "Lay With Me", released in September 2018. She starred in the Netflix film "The Princess Switch" in November 2018, in which she portrayed both a European duchess and a pastry chef from Chicago, who temporarily switch roles. In December 2018, she co-starred opposite Jennifer Lopez in the comedy film "Second Act", directed by Peter Segal. Hudgens returned for the 15th season of "So You Think You Can Dance", as part of the panel of permanent judges. The same year, she essayed the role of Vanessa Morales in a production by Kennedy Center of Lin-Manuel Miranda's original musical "In the Heights."


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: In January 2019, Hudgens starred in another Fox live musical presentation, "", as Maureen Johnson. Hudgens also co-starred with Mads Mikkelsen in the Netflix film adaption of Víctor Santos's 2013 graphic novel "Polar: Came From the Cold". In November 2019, she starred in and served as a producer on the Netflix film "The Knight Before Christmas".


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: In 2020, Hudgens appeared in the third entry in the "Bad Boys" franchise, "Bad Boys for Life", which grossed over $426 million worldwide. In November that year, she starred in and produced the Netflix film "The Princess Switch"'s sequel, "", portraying an additional third role. By the end of the year, Hudgens hosted the "MTV Movie & TV Awards: Greatest of All Time" television special, which highlighted the greatest moments of film and television since the 1980s, as well as moments from past editions of the award ceremony.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: In 2021, she voiced the lead character, Sunny Starscout, in the animated Netflix film "". In November 2021, Hudgens appeared in Netflix's biographical film adaption of the musical "Tick, Tick... Boom!", as playwright Jonathan Larson's friend Karessa Johnson, directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Hudgens lent her voice to songs on the film's soundtrack. Later that month, she appeared in the third installment of Netflix's "The Princess Switch" film series, "," directed by Mike Rohl. Hudgens reprised her 3 roles from the second installment, and also served as a producer.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: In 2022, Hudgens starred alongside Alexandra Shipp, Kiersey Clemons, and Ezra Miller in the Paramount Pictures' action thriller film, "Asking for It." The film released in theaters, digitally, and on Blu-ray on March 4. Later that month, she co-hosted the 94th Academy Awards' red carpet pre-show with Terrence J, Sofia Carson, and Brandon Maxwell. In May 2022, Hudgens co-hosted the Met Gala red carpet livestream for Vogue with actress and television personality La La Anthony, and the magazine's editor-at-large Hamish Bowles. In June 2022, she co-hosted the 30th MTV Movie & TV Awards with Tayshia Adams, with Hudgens hosting the first half of the ceremony for film and scripted television.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: Hudgens will be voicing the character of Willow in the Netflix 3D anime-style series "Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas", which will serve as a prequel to the 2021 zombie heist film "Army of the Dead". She is re-teaming with director and executive producer Zack Snyder for the series, after they previously worked together on "Sucker Punch". The series is reported to release sometime in 2022.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: Hudgens will star in Hamish Linklater and Lily Rabe's film "Downtown Owl", alongside Rabe, Ed Harris, Finn Wittrock, Jack Dylan Grazer, and August Blanco Rosenstein. It is an adaption of Chuck Klosterman's 2008 novel , and is being produced by Sony Pictures' production label Stage 6 Films. Principal photography began in Saint Paul, Minnesota in April 2022.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: Hudgens has also signed to lead and executive produce the trucker adventure-drama film "Big Rig." Principal photography is slated to begin later in 2022.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: Hudgens was in a relationship with her "High School Musical" co-star Zac Efron from 2005 to 2010, and with actor Austin Butler from 2011 to 2020. In 2021, Hudgens confirmed via Instagram that she was in a relationship with Major League Baseball shortstop Cole Tucker.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: Hudgens was raised Catholic but now identifies as a non-denominational Christian. She attends the Los Angeles affiliate church of Hillsong Church.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: In May 2016, Hudgens paid $1,000 in restitution for damage of U.S. Forest Service property by carving initials within a heart on a rock in the Coconino National Forest and displaying it on her personal Instagram feed.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: In March 2020, Hudgens posted an Instagram video where she stated that it is "inevitable" that people will die from the COVID-19 pandemic. The video caused controversy as critics accused her of minimizing the impact of the disease and the need for preventive measures. She subsequently apologized for her "insensitive" remarks.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: On September 6, 2007, photos allegedly stolen from Hudgens were leaked online, one showing her posing in lingerie and another showing her nude. A statement from her publicist said that the photo was taken privately and it was unfortunate that they were released on the Internet. Hudgens later apologized, saying that she was "embarrassed over the situation" and regretted having "taken [those] photos". In January 2008, Hudgens released a statement indicating that she declined to comment further on the subject. In October 2007, "OK!" magazine speculated that Hudgens would be dropped from "High School Musical 3" as a result of the explicit images, but The Walt Disney Company denied this, stating, "Vanessa has apologized for what was obviously a lapse in judgment. We hope she's learned a valuable lesson."


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: In August 2009, another set of images showing Hudgens topless emerged on the Internet. Hudgens' representatives did not comment, though her lawyers requested the removal of the pictures. In late 2009, Hudgens sued www.moejackson.com for posting nude "self-portrait photographs" of her taken on a mobile phone in a private home. Hudgens later commented on the photos' impact on her career in the October issue of "Allure", stating, "Whenever anybody asks me, would I do nudity in a film, if I say that it's something I'm not comfortable with, they're like, 'Bullshit, you've already done it.' If anything, it makes it more embarrassing, because that was a private thing. It's screwed up that someone screwed me over like that. At least some people are learning from my mistake." According to "Us Weekly", additional nude images were released on the Internet on March 15, 2011.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: Hudgens was represented by William Morris Agency but signed on to Creative Artists Agency in 2011. In 2006, Hudgens' earnings were estimated to be $2 million. Hudgens was included in "Forbes" richest list in early 2007, and the "Forbes" article noted that she was included in "Young Hollywood's Top Earning-Stars". On December 12, 2008, Hudgens was ranked No. 20 in the list of "Forbes" "High Earners Under 30", having reported to have an estimated earnings of $3 million in 2008. She was number 62 at "FHM's 100 Sexiest Women 2008" and number 42 in the 2009 list. Hudgens is also featured in "Maxim"s lists. She was included in "People"s annual "100 Most Beautiful People" 2008 and 2009 lists.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: Hudgens promotes Neutrogena and was the 2008 featured celebrity for Sears' back-to school campaign. In 2007, she became a spokesperson for Marc Eckō products but ended the contract after two years. Hudgens regularly volunteers for charitable activities, including those for Best Buddies International, Lollipop Theater Network, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and the VH1 Save The Music Foundation. Hudgens is also featured in "A Very Special Christmas Vol.7" disc which benefits the Special Olympics. Hudgens is also part of the "Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C): Change The Odds" along with other Hollywood stars including Zac Efron, Dakota Fanning, Kristen Bell, and others.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: Brian Schall sued Hudgens in 2007 for an alleged "breach of contract"; according to the suit, Schall claims he advanced costs and expenses on Hudgens' behalf for her songwriting and recording career. Schall claims Hudgens owed him $150,000 after helping her earn more than $5 million for her music career. Hudgens argued that she was a 16-year-old minor when she signed the contract in October 2005, and therefore too young to do so. She subsequently disaffirmed it on October 9, 2008. Papers filed in court by her lawyer say California's Family Code "provides that the contract of a minor is voidable and may be disaffirmed before (age 18) or within a reasonable time afterward." In 2008, Hudgens was sued by Johnny Vieira, who claims he was owed a share of Hudgens' advances, royalties and merchandising revenue in exchange for his management services. Vieira accuses Hudgens of abandoning her talent team as soon as she became a commercial name. In early May 2009, the case was settled.


title: Vanessa Hudgens

text: Hudgens is a frequent attendee of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. She has been unofficially called the "Queen of Coachella". She is known for her boho-chic fashion style, occasionally going barefoot at the festival as well.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: Gwyneth Kate Paltrow (; born ) is an American actress and businesswoman. She is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: Paltrow gained notice for her early work in films such as "Seven" (1995), "Emma" (1996), "Sliding Doors" (1998), and "A Perfect Murder" (1998). She garnered wider acclaim for her performance as Viola de Lesseps in the romantic historical fiction film "Shakespeare in Love" (1998) which won her several awards, including the Academy Award for Best Actress. This performance was followed by roles in "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (1999), "The Royal Tenenbaums" (2001), "Shallow Hal" (2001), and "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" (2004).


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: After becoming a mother in 2004, Paltrow significantly reduced her film workload. She made occasional appearances in films, such as "Proof" (2005), for which she earned a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. In 2009, Paltrow received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for the children's audiobook "Brown Bear and Friends". In addition, she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her guest role as Holly Holliday on the Fox musical comedy drama television series "Glee" in 2011. From 2008 to 2019, Paltrow portrayed Pepper Potts in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: Beginning in 1995, Paltrow has been the face of Estée Lauder's Pleasures perfume; she was previously the face of the American fashion brand Coach. She is the founder and CEO of the lifestyle company Goop, which has been criticised for promoting pseudoscience, and has authored several cookbooks.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: Gwyneth Kate Paltrow was born on September 27, 1972, in Los Angeles, to actress Blythe Danner and film producer-director Bruce Paltrow. She has a younger brother, Jake, who is a director and screenwriter. Paltrow's father was Jewish, while her mother is from a Christian background. She was raised celebrating "both Jewish and Christian holidays." Her brother had a traditional Bar Mitzvah when he turned 13. Her father's Ashkenazi Jewish family emigrated from Belarus and Poland, while her mother has Pennsylvania Dutch (German) as well as some Irish and English ancestry. Paltrow's paternal great-great-grandfather was a Rabbi in Nowogród, Poland, and a descendant of the well-known Paltrowicz family of rabbis from Kraków. She is a half-cousin of actress Katherine Moennig, through her mother, and a second cousin of former U.S. Congresswoman Gabby Giffords (AZ-08) through her father. Through Giffords, she is a second-cousin-in-law of U.S. Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. Her godfather is director Steven Spielberg. Her uncle is opera singer and actor Harry Danner, whose daughter, actress Hillary Danner, is Paltrow's cousin and close friend. Paltrow recalls their family gatherings: "Hillary and I always had this in common, and to this day ... cooking for people we love, eating, hanging out as a family. It's how we were raised. It's what we do." Another cousin is Rebekah Paltrow Neumann, whose spouse is the Israeli-American millionaire Adam Neumann, founder of WeWork.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: Paltrow was raised in a very wealthy household, and lived in Santa Monica, California, where she attended Crossroads School, before enrolling in the Spence School, an all-girls private school in Manhattan. Later, she studied art history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, before dropping out to act. She is an "adopted daughter" of Talavera de la Reina (Spain), where at 15, she spent a year as an exchange student and learned to speak Spanish. She is also conversant in French, as her family frequently traveled to the South of France throughout her childhood.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: Her career beginnings can be credited to her acting family, as her acting debut was in "High" (1989), a TV film her father directed, and after spending several summers watching her mother perform at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts, Paltrow made her professional stage debut there in 1990. Her film debut followed with the musical romance film "Shout" (1991), starring John Travolta, and she was cast by her godfather Steven Spielberg in the commercially successful adventure feature "Hook" (1991) as the young Wendy Darling. Paltrow's next roles were in one episode of the Scottish soap opera "Take The High Road" (1992) and the made-for-television movies "Cruel Doubt" (1992) and "Deadly Relations" (1993).


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: Her first plum feature film role was in the noir drama "Flesh and Bone" (1993) as the much-younger girlfriend of James Caan. Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" described Paltrow as a scene-stealer "who is Blythe Danner's daughter and has her mother's way of making a camera fall in love with her."


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: In 1995, she starred in the thriller "Se7en", as the wife of a young detective (Brad Pitt), who is partnered with the retiring William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and then tasked with tracking down a serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins as tropes in his murders. The seventh highest grossing film of the year, "Seven" also earned her a nomination for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. She appeared in "Moonlight and Valentino", as a grieving chain-smoker, and in "Jefferson in Paris", portraying Martha Jefferson Randolph.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: In 1996, Paltrow played the title character in the period film adaptation "Emma", based on the 1815 novel of the same name by Jane Austen. Director Douglas McGrath decided to bring in Paltrow to audition for the part of Emma Woodhouse, after a suggestion from his agent and after seeing her performance in "Flesh and Bone". On his decision to cast the actress, McGrath revealed: "The thing that actually sold me on her playing a young English girl was that she did a perfect Texas accent. I know that wouldn't recommend her to most people ... I knew she had theater training, so she could carry herself. We had many actresses, big and small, who wanted to play this part. The minute she started the read-through, the very first line, I thought, 'Everything is going to be fine; she's going to be brilliant.'" While she recovered from wisdom-tooth surgery, Paltrow had a month to herself to do her own research for the part; she studied horsemanship, dancing, singing, archery and the "highly stylized" manners and dialect during a 3-week rehearsal period. The film was released to critical acclaim and commercial success through arthouse cinemas. "Variety" proclaimed: "Gwyneth Paltrow shines brightly as Jane Austen's most endearing character, the disastrously self-assured matchmaker Emma Woodhouse. A fine cast, speedy pacing, and playful direction make this a solid contender for the Austen sweepstakes." Paltrow starred in the crime film "Hard Eight".


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: 1998 marked a turning point in Paltrow's career as she took on leading roles in five high-profile film releases in the year"Great Expectations", "Sliding Doors", "Hush", "A Perfect Murder" and "Shakespeare in Love". In the adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel "Great Expectations", also starring Ethan Hawke, Robert De Niro, Anne Bancroft and Chris Cooper, she played the unrequited and haughty childhood love of a New York City painter. The British drama "Sliding Doors" saw her star as a woman whose life could take two central paths depending on whether or not she catches a train, causing different outcomes. "Great Expectations" and "Sliding Doors" both grossed over $55 million worldwide. Paltrow starred opposite Jessica Lange in the thriller "Hush", as an unsuspecting woman living with her psychotic mother-in-law. The film made $13.5 million domestically and was generally panned by critics. In another thriller, "A Perfect Murder", inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 film, "Dial M for Murder", Paltrow starred alongside Michael Douglas, playing Emily Taylor, who was based on Grace Kelly's character from the original film. Despite a mixed critical response towards "A Perfect Murder", the film grossed $128 million globally. She was also considered for the role of Rose DeWitt Bukater in the 1997 film "Titanic".


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: Her most critically acclaimed role in the year was that of the fictional lover of William Shakespeare in "Shakespeare in Love", opposite Joseph Fiennes in the titular part. "Entertainment Weekly" commented, "Best of all is Gwyneth Paltrow, who, at long last, has a movie to star in that's as radiant as she is." "The New York Times" summed up her performance as Viola thus: "Gwyneth Paltrow, in her first great, fully realized starring performance, makes a heroine so breathtaking that she seems utterly plausible as the playwright's guiding light." "Shakespeare in Love" made $289 million in box office receipts, and won Paltrow the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role, Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical, and Academy Award for Best Actress, among other honors. The pink Ralph Lauren dress she wore to the 71st Academy Awards in collecting her Oscar was extremely popular and was credited for bringing pink back into fashion.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: In 1999, Paltrow co-starred alongside Jude Law, Matt Damon and Cate Blanchett in the psychological thriller "The Talented Mr. Ripley", as the fiancée of a rich and spoiled millionaire playboy (Law) whose identity is adopted by a con artist (Damon). While "The Guardian", noting the "very underwritten" female roles in the story, found her to be "peaky and pallid", the film received positive reviews and grossed $80 million in North America. She showcased her singing ability in 2000s "Duets", which was directed by her father and co-starred singer Huey Lewis. In the film, about "the little known world of karaoke competitions and the wayward characters who inhabit it", she portrayed the estranged daughter of a hustler (Lewis). She performed a cover version of Smokey Robinson's "Cruisin', which was released as a single and went to number one in Australia, while her rendition of the Kim Carnes classic "Bette Davis Eyes" reached number three. Also in 2000, Paltrow co-starred with Ben Affleck in the moderately successful romantic drama "Bounce" as Abby Janello.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: She starred with Jack Black in the comedy "Shallow Hal" (2001), about a shallow man falling in love with an overweight woman. To play her role, she had to wear a specially designed 25-pound fatsuit and heavy makeup. "Shallow Hal" opened with $22.5 million and grossed $70.7 million in North America and $141.1 million around the globe. Roger Ebert remarked that she was "truly touching" in the film, which he described as "often very funny, but ... also surprisingly moving at times." In the Wes Anderson dramedy "The Royal Tenenbaums" (2001), co-starring Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Ben Stiller and Luke Wilson, Paltrow took on the role of the adopted daughter in an estranged family of former child prodigies reuniting with their father. A positive critical response greeted the film upon its release, and it made $71.4 million worldwide.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: In 2004, it was noted that since her Oscar win for "Shakespeare in Love", Paltrow's film career had been less noteworthy and critical acclaim had waned. She said she was unequipped for the pressure, leading to several bad film choices, agreeing with peers who believe the win is, in some ways, a curse. During this time, Paltrow rarely appeared in films, having taken a hiatus to raise her two children. In "The Guardian", she said she divided her career into movies for love and films for money: "The Royal Tenenbaums", "Proof", and "Sylvia" fell into the former category, while she signed on to "View from the Top" and "Shallow Hal" for the latter.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: In 2002, Paltrow made small appearances in the documentary "Searching for Debra Winger" and the action satire comedy "Austin Powers in Goldmember", while she starred in the thriller-drama "Possession" with Aaron Eckhart as a couple of literary scholars who unearth the amorous secret of two Victorian poets as they find themselves falling under a deepening connection. The film made a lukewarm $14.8 million worldwide. In the following year, she headlined the romantic comedy "View from the Top", where she obtained the part of woman from a small town who sets out to fulfill her dream of becoming a flight attendant. Budgeted at $30 million, the film only earned $7 million in its opening weekend; it eventually grossed $15.6 domestically and $19,526,014 worldwide. She herself later disparaged the film, calling it "terrible". Paltrow starred as the titular role in "Sylvia" (2003), a British biographical drama directed by Christine Jeffs and co-starring Daniel Craig chronicling the romance between prominent poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. Distributed for a limited release in most markets, "Sylvia" made $2.9 million internationally. "The New York Times", in its review for the film, wrote that "her performance goes well beyond mimicry. She has a vivid, passionate presence, even when her lively features have gone slack with depression and her bright blue eyes have glazed over."


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: In 2004, she starred with her "The Talented Mr. Ripley" co-star Jude Law and Angelina Jolie in the science fiction film "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow". Her role in the film was Polly Perkins, the reporter for the fictional "New York Chronicle". Law became one of the producers of the film and used his clout to get Paltrow involved. Once she had been suggested for the role, Law did not remember "any other name coming up. It just seems that she was perfect. She was as enthusiastic about the script and about the visual references that were sort of put to her, and jumped on board." She said in an interview, "I thought that this is the time to do a movie like this where it's kind of breaking into new territory and it's not your basic formulaic action-adventure movie." While critical response was positive, with a budget of $70 million, "Sky Captain" only grossed $58 million at the international box office. Also in 2004, she was recognized as an outstanding woman in entertainment by Women in Film Los Angeles with the Crystal Award.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: In the drama "Proof" (2005), she starred as the depressed daughter of a brilliant, eccentric mathematician (played by Anthony Hopkins). The film was based on the play of the same name, in which Paltrow also played the same character at London's Donmar Warehouse between May and June 2002. On her portrayal in the film version, "Eye for Film" remarked: "As she has already shown in "Sylvia", "The Royal Tenenbaums" and even "Sliding Doors", Paltrow has an uncanny talent for playing women who are coming apart at the seams and her [character] veers from lovably eccentric to more disturbingly unhinged and back again with fluent ease. The scenes, which she and Hopkins share, as two difficult people bound together by affection, dependency, and mutual respect, are entirely believable and all the more touching for it." For her performance, Paltrow received her second Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: Paltrow filmed small roles for the 2006 films "Love and Other Disasters", "Running with Scissors" and "Infamous", where she sang Cole Porter's "What Is This Thing Called Love?" Her brother Jake Paltrow directed her in his feature debut, the romantic comedy "The Good Night" (2007), in which she starred opposite Penélope Cruz, Martin Freeman, Danny DeVito and Simon Pegg as the wife of a former keyboard player (Freeman). The film received a two-theater run in North America and garnered mixed reviews from critics. "View London" felt the actress was "clearly only playing her part as a courtesy to her director brother and it just makes you wish she'd go back to playing lead roles again."


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: Paltrow saw a resurgence in her career in 2008, when she was cast in "Iron Man" as Pepper Potts, Tony Stark's personal assistant, closest friend, and budding love interest. First hesitant to appear in a big-budget project, Paltrow asked Marvel to send her any comics they would consider relevant to her understanding of the character, whom she considered to be very smart, levelheaded, and grounded. She said she liked "the fact that there's a sexuality that's not blatant". The director Jon Favreau wanted Potts and Stark's relationship to be reminiscent of a 1940s screwball comedy, something which Paltrow considered to be fun in an "innocent yet sexy" way. "Iron Man" was favorably received by critics, and with a worldwide gross of $585 million, it became Paltrow's highest-grossing film until "The Avengers" (2012). She reprised her role in the sequels "Iron Man 2" (2010) and "Iron Man 3" (2013). While the second film grossed $623.9 million internationally, the third entry went on to gross $1.215 billion. She also reprised the role in "" (2017), "" (2018) and "" (2019).


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: Paltrow starred opposite Joaquin Phoenix in the romantic drama "Two Lovers" (2008), playing the beautiful but volatile new neighbor of a depressed bachelor. "Two Lovers" premiered in competition at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival in May, receiving largely positive reviews, especially for Paltrow's and Phoenix's performances;. "Los Angeles Times" felt: The film was an arthouse success, grossing $16 million worldwide.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: In the musical drama "Country Strong" (2010), Paltrow starred as an emotionally unstable country music star who attempts to resurrect her career. She recorded the song "Country Strong" for the film's soundtrack, and it was released to country radio stations in August 2010. The film received mediocre reviews and grossed a modest $20.2 million in North America. The consensus of review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes was: "The cast gives it their all, and Paltrow handles her songs with aplomb, but "Country Strong"s clichéd, disjointed screenplay hits too many bum notes." At the 83rd Academy Awards, Paltrow performed another song from the film, "Coming Home", which was nominated for Best Original Song.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: Paltrow made her first scripted television appearance on Fox's "Glee", as substitute teacher Holly Holliday, who fills in for Matthew Morrison's character when he falls ill. Her role was developed by co-creator Ryan Murphy, a personal friend of Paltrow's, who suggested that she showcase her vocal and dancing abilities ahead of the release of "Country Strong". In her first episode, "The Substitute", she sang "Nowadays" from the musical "Chicago" with Lea Michele, CeeLo Green's "Forget You", and a mash-up of "Singin' In the Rain" and Rihanna's "Umbrella" with Morrison and the rest of the cast. Her debut on "Glee" attracted significant buzz and positive commentary from critics; she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. Indeed, at the time, "Entertainment Weekly" Tim Stack and "E! Online"s Kristin dos Santos called her appearance Emmy-worthy, with the former rating it among her best performances, and the latter stating that Holly received "some of "Glee" best-ever one-liners".


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: Paltrow later performed "Forget You" with CeeLo Green himself and several puppet characters provided by The Jim Henson Company at the 2011 Grammy Awards. She reprised her role twice more that season, performing "Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)" by Gary Glitter, an acoustic version of "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac, "Kiss" by Prince, and Adele's "Turning Tables". Paltrow was briefly featured in "" after being filmed while she performed "Forget You" as Holly in the 2011 Glee Live! In Concert! tour performances of June 16 and 17, 2011. Later that year, Paltrow appeared in Steven Soderbergh's film "Contagion", featuring an ensemble cast consisting of Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet and her "The Talented Mr. Ripley" co-stars Matt Damon and Jude Law. The thriller follows the rapid progress of a lethal indirect contact transmission virus that kills within days. Paltrow played Elizabeth Emhoff, a "working mom" and one of the virus' first victims. "Contagion" received positive reviews and opened atop at the North American box office with $23.1 million; it went on to gross $75.6 million domestically and $135.4 million worldwide.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: Paltrow reprised her role of Pepper Potts in "The Avengers" (2012), which set numerous box office records, including the biggest opening weekend in North America; it grossed over $1.5 billion worldwide, becoming Paltrow's most widely seen film. Also in 2012, she starred in the independent romantic dramedy "Thanks for Sharing", opposite Mark Ruffalo as people learning to face a challenging and confusing road as they struggle together against sex addiction. Distributed for a limited release in certain parts of the United States, the film garnered mixed reviews and grossed $1 million domestically. "Paste" magazine noted that her role: "...exhibits some of the same obsessive diet and exercise habits that Paltrow herself has been accused ofa kind of meta character trait that balances the power in [the main roles'] budding relationship." In April 2013, Paltrow was named "People" magazine's annual "Most Beautiful Woman".


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: In 2014, Paltrow had a two-episode arc in the improvised online series "Web Therapy", as Maya Ganesh, "a new-age caricature". In 2015, she starred in "Mortdecai", alongside Johnny Depp, Olivia Munn, and Paul Bettany. In it, she portrayed the wife of an unscrupulous art dealer and swindler (Depp). Budgeted at $60 million, the film only grossed $7.7 million in North America and $47.3 million internationally. Paltrow was featured on the track "Everglow", which was included in Coldplay's seventh studio album "A Head Full of Dreams" (2015). In June 2017, Paltrow announced that she would take a break from acting to focus on her business Goop, stating: "I'm still going to do a little bit here and there, but [the company] really requires almost all of my time." In 2019, Paltrow reprised her role as Pepper Potts in "". That same year, she played a supporting role in the Netflix comedy drama series "The Politician", playing the mother of Ben Platt's character. In October 2021, Netflix released "Sex, Love, and Goop", a sex therapy-themed series produced by and starring Paltrow.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: Paltrow is a Save the Children artist ambassador, raising awareness about World Pneumonia Day. She is on the board of the Robin Hood Foundation, a charitable organization that works to alleviate poverty in New York City. In October 2014, she hosted a Democratic fundraiser attended by President Barack Obama at her private residence in Los Angeles.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: In May 2019, Paltrow and actor Bradley Whitford hosted a fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate Mayor Pete Buttigieg.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: In April 2020, Paltrow, along with other celebrities, discussed the COVID-19 pandemic with Dr. Anthony Fauci on a one-hour-long zoom call. Fauci hoped the celebrities would use their social media "megaphones" to encourage proper precautions among their followers.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: In 2009, Paltrow narrated the audiobook "The Brown Bear & Friends" by Bill Martin Jr., the first of a series of children's audiobooks that she narrated. "The Brown Bear & Friends" audiobook earned Paltrow a Grammy Award nomination for Best Spoken Word Album for Children. Since, she has also narrated Bill Martin's "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?", "Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?", "Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See?", and "Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?".


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: In May 2005, Paltrow became the face of Estée Lauder's Pleasures perfume. She appeared in Chicago on August 17, 2007, to sign bottles of the perfume, and on July 8, 2008, she promoted Lauder's Sensuous perfume in New York with the company's three other models. Estée Lauder donates a minimum of $500,000 of sales of items from the 'Pleasures Gwyneth Paltrow' collection to breast cancer research. In 2006, she became the face for Bean Pole International, a Korean fashion brand and in 2014, she partnered with Blo Blow Bar, teaming up with the brand's creative branch.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: In September 2008, Paltrow launched the weekly lifestyle newsletter Goop, encouraging readers to 'nourish the inner aspect'. Goop has expanded into a web-based company, Goop.com. According to Paltrow, the company's name came from someone telling her that successful internet companies have double O's in their name, and "is a nickname, like my name is G.P., so that is really where it came from. And I wanted it to be a word that means nothing and could mean anything." Goop has expanded into e-commerce, collaborating with fashion brands, launching pop-up shops, launching a wellness summit, a print magazine, a podcast, and a documentary series streamed on Netflix.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: Goop, and by extension Paltrow, have faced backlash for showcasing expensive products and promoting medically and scientifically impossible treatments, many of which have harmful consequences. The controversies have included vaginal steaming, the use of jade eggs, a dangerous coffee enema device, and "Body Vibes", wearable stickers that were claimed to "rebalance the energy frequency in our bodies" and which Goop falsely claimed were made of a NASA-developed material. Goop settled a lawsuit regarding the health claims it made over the jade eggs.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: Jill Avery, a brand analyst, has noted how Goop's response to criticism seems designed to "strengthen their brand and draw their customers closer", noting Goop's references to feminism, traditional Asian medicines and Eastern philosophies, and anti-establishment politics to do so. Late Show host Stephen Colbert had repeatedly lampooned Goop products; in 2018 Paltrow appeared in a Late Show sketch seemingly making fun of her company's approach.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: On January 24, 2020, Netflix released "The Goop Lab," a documentary series. The 6-part show promotes Goop, and covers pseudoscientific topics in energy healing, the use of psychedelic drugs, cold therapy, anti-aging, mediumship, and female sexuality. Critics argued that granting Goop access to Netflix's platform was a "win for pseudoscience". Upon release of the first trailer, and again after the full six-episode series was available, the series sparked controversy concerning the medical and scientific misinformation it presented.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: On January 27, 2020, Truth in Advertising watchdog (TINA.org) filed another complaint with the district attorneys of California alleging that Goop has continued to engage in deceptive marketing, even after Goop was sued by the State of California earlier that year and agreed to refrain from "making any claims regarding the efficacy or effects of any of its products without possessing competent and reliable scientific evidence that substantiates the claims" for a period of five years. TINA.org's complaint alleges that Goop claims their products are "clinically-proven" to treat such symptoms as anxiety, depression, OCD and more.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: In January 2021, it was announced that Paltrow was an early investor in Thirteen Lune, an e-commerce site focused on makeup, skincare, haircare and wellness products owned by people of color and ally brands. In April 2021, Goop became Thirteen Lune's first ally brand.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: In October 2007, Paltrow signed for the PBS television series "Spain... on the Road Again", which showcases the food and culture of Spain. In 2008, Paltrow co-wrote the book "Spain... A Culinary Road Trip" with Mario Batali. In 2011, she wrote a book titled "My Father's Daughter: Delicious, Easy Recipes Celebrating Family and Togetherness". That same year she penned the book "Notes From the Kitchen Table". Two years later she published a book titled "It's All Good: Delicious Easy Recipes That Will Make You Look Good and Feel Great", which promoted an elimination diet that is unsupported by medical evidence. Included in that book was a recipe for avocado toast which was widely copied and adapted as part of a 2010s food trend. Also in 2013, Paltrow wrote a foreword for a book by Ross Mathews, "Man Up! Tales of My Delusional Self-Confidence". In 2016, Paltrow published a cookbook: "It's All Easy: Delicious Weekday Recipes for the Super-Busy Home Cook".


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: Negative reaction by a group of scientist and science communication mothers to Paltrow's 2015 video pushing for mandatory labeling of food containing genetically modified organisms led to the creation of a documentary, "Science Moms". The film is about mothers who advocate for science-based decision-making concerning the health and nutrition of children.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: In February 2021 it was reported that Paltrow was suffering from long COVID, leaving her with "some long-tail fatigue and brain fog". She advocated treatments for it which involved a "ketogenic and plant-based" diet (with no sugar or alcohol), fasting until 11:00 every day and taking infrared saunas. This advice was criticized by NHS England's Professor Stephen Powis.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: In 2004, Paltrow practiced cupping therapy, attending a film premiere with bruises on her back. , Paltrow practices Transcendental Meditation.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: In 2017, Paltrow revealed that during the filming of "Emma" (1996), producer Harvey Weinstein made unwanted sexual advances toward her. She confided in her then-fiancé Brad Pitt, who subsequently confronted the producer at an industry event. Weinstein later warned Paltrow not to tell anyone else. She was, in 2017, a major source for an article written by "The New York Times" investigative journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey about Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: In January 2019, retired optometrist Terry Sanderson sued Paltrow for $3.1 million, claiming that three years earlier she collided with him on a ski slope at Deer Valley Resort in Park City, Utah, causing him permanent traumatic brain injury. Paltrow counter-sued Sanderson that February, claiming that he was the one who crashed into her. She sought a symbolic one dollar in damages, as well as repayment of her legal fees.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: Paltrow has received backlash from the scientific community and medical professionals for promoting unproven treatments based on pseudoscience through her company Goop.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: Paltrow became engaged at age 24 to actor Brad Pitt, whom she dated from 1994 to 1997. According to Paltrow, they called off the engagement because she was not ready for marriage. She later said that, as this was her first high-profile relationship with another celebrity, it taught her the need for public discretion about her love life.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: Paltrow began dating actor Ben Affleck in October 1997 after meeting at a Miramax dinner, and they worked together on "Shakespeare in Love" (1998). Although they split in January 1999, months later Paltrow persuaded Affleck to co-star with her in "Bounce" (2000) and they rekindled their relationship. They eventually broke up in October 2000. In 2015, Paltrow said she and Affleck remain friends.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: In October 2002, Paltrow met Chris Martin of the British band Coldplay backstage three weeks after the death of her father, Bruce Paltrow, for which the Coldplay song "Fix You" was written to help Paltrow through her grief. They married in December 2003 in a ceremony at a hotel in Southern California. She was pregnant with their child at the time of their wedding. Paltrow and Martin have two children together: a daughter born in 2004, and a son born in 2006. Their son's name was inspired by a song Chris Martin wrote for Paltrow. Simon Pegg and Martin's bandmate Jonny Buckland are her daughter's godfathers.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: Paltrow cut down on work after becoming a mother. She also suffered from postpartum depression after the birth of her younger child in 2006. In March 2014, Paltrow announced that she and Martin had separated after ten years of marriage, describing the process as "conscious uncoupling." In her official announcement, Paltrow had her doctor, Habib Sadeghi, and his dentist wife, Sherry Sami, explain conscious uncoupling as "the ability to understand that every irritation and argument [within a marriage] was a signal to look inside ourselves and identify a negative internal object that needed healing," Sadeghi explained. "From this perspective, there are no bad guys, just two people, it's about people as individuals, not just the relationship". In April 2015, Paltrow filed for divorce, which was finalized on July 14, 2016.


title: Gwyneth Paltrow

text: In 2014, Paltrow began dating producer Brad Falchuk, whom she met on the set of "Glee" in 2010. The couple went public with their relationship in April 2015, and announced their engagement on January 8, 2018. Their marriage ceremony was held on September 29, 2018 in the Hamptons on Long Island, New York.


title: Gaslighting

text: Gaslighting is a colloquialism, loosely defined as manipulating someone so as to make them question their own reality. The term derives from the title of the 1944 American film "Gaslight", which was based on the 1938 British theatre play "Gas Light" by Patrick Hamilton, though the term did not gain popular currency in English until the mid-2010s.


title: Gaslighting

text: The term may also be used to describe a person (a "gaslighter") who presents a false narrative to another group or person, thereby leading them to doubt their perceptions and become misled, disoriented or distressed. Often this is for the gaslighter's own benefit. Normally, this dynamic is possible only when the audience is vulnerable, such as in unequal power relationships, or fearful of the losses associated with challenging the false narrative.


title: Gaslighting

text: The term "gaslighting" derives from the title of the 1944 American film "Gaslight", in which a husband uses trickery to convince his wife that she is mentally unwell so he can steal from her. The title refers to the gaslight illumination of the house which seems to waver whenever the husband leaves his wife alone at home. The term "gaslighting" itself is not in the screenplay or mentioned in the movie. The 1944 film is a remake of the 1940 British film of the same name, which in turn is based on the 1938 thriller play, set in the Victorian era, "Gas Light".


title: Gaslighting

text: "Gaslighting" was largely an obscure or esoteric term until the mid-2010s, when it broadly seeped into English lexicon. According to the American Psychological Association, it "once referred to manipulation so extreme as to induce mental illness or to justify commitment of the gaslighted person to a psychiatric institution but is now used more generally". The term is now defined in Merriam-Webster as "psychological manipulation" to make someone question their "perception of reality" leading to "dependenc[e] on the perpetrator".


title: Gaslighting

text: "The New York Times" first used the common gerund form, "gaslighting", in Maureen Dowd's 1995 column. However, there were only nine additional uses in the following twenty years. The American Dialect Society recognized the word "gaslight" as the "most useful" new word of the year in 2016. Oxford University Press named "gaslighting" as a runner-up in their list of the most popular new words of 2018.


title: Gaslighting

text: Abuser will vehemently call into question a victim's memory in spite of the victim having remembered things correctly.


title: Gaslighting

text: Abuser changes the conversation from the subject matter to questioning the victim's thoughts and controlling the conversation.


title: Gaslighting

text: Abuser pretends to forget things that have really occurred; the abuser may deny or delay things like promises that are important to the victim. Although anyone can deny or delay, the gaslighter does it regularly in the absence of real external limitations. The gaslighter may make up or create artificial barriers to allow themselves to deny or delay that which is important to the victim.


title: Gaslighting

text: "Gaslighting" is occasionally used in clinical literature but is considered a colloquialism by the American Psychological Association.


title: Gaslighting

text: Since the 1970s the term has been used in psychoanalytic literature to describe deliberate attempts by perpetrators to manipulate the perception of self, environment and relationships of their victims.


title: Gaslighting

text: The research paper "Gaslighting: A Marital Syndrome" (1988) includes clinical observations of the impact on wives after their reactions were mislabeled by their husbands and male therapists. In a case study published in 1977, Lund and Gardiner reviewed a case of paranoid psychosis in an elderly female who was reported to have recurrent episodes, apparently induced by the staff of the institution where the patient was a resident. Other experts have noted values and techniques of therapists can be harmful as well as helpful to clients (or indirectly to other people in a client's life).


title: Gaslighting

text: In the 1996 book "Gaslighting, the Double Whammy, Interrogation and Other Methods of Covert Control in Psychotherapy and Analysis", Theo L. Dorpat, M.D. recommends non-directive and egalitarian attitudes and methods on the part of clinicians, and "treating patients as active collaborators and equal partners". He writes, "Therapists may contribute to the victim's distress through mislabeling the [victim's] reactions. [...] The gaslighting behaviors of the spouse provide a recipe for the so-called 'nervous breakdown' for some [victims, and] suicide in some of the worst situations." Dorpat also cautions clinicians about the unintentional abuse of patients when using interrogation and other methods of covert control in Psychotherapy and Analysis, as these methods can subtly coerce patients rather than respect and genuinely help them.


title: Gaslighting

text: Some psychologists are not encouraged by this increased international awareness of the dangers of gaslighting, warning that overuse of the term could dilute its potency and downplay the serious health consequences of such abuse.


title: Gaslighting

text: "Gaslighting" is a term used in self-help and amateur psychology to describe a dynamic that can occur in personal relationships (romantic or parental) and in workplace relationships. Gaslighting involves two parties; the "gaslighter", who persistently puts forth a false narrative, and the "gaslighted", who struggles to maintain their individual autonomy. Typically, gaslighting is effective only when there is an unequal power dynamic or when the gaslighted has given the gaslighter their respect.


title: Gaslighting

text: Gaslighting is different from genuine relationship disagreement, which is both common and important in relationships. Gaslighting is distinct in that:


title: Gaslighting

text: Gaslighting typically occurs over a long duration and not on a one-off basis. Over time, the listening partner may exhibit symptoms often associated with anxiety disorders, depression, or low self-esteem. Gaslighting differs from genuine relationship disagreement in that one party is manipulating the perceptions of the other.


title: Gaslighting

text: Gaslighting is a way to control the moment, stop conflict, ease anxiety, and feel in control. However, it often deflects responsibility and tears down the other person. Some may gaslight their partners by denying events, including personal violence.


title: Gaslighting

text: Gaslighting is a learned trait. A gaslighter is a student of social learning. They witness it, experience it themselves, or stumble upon it, and see that it works, both for self-regulation and coregulation. Studies have shown that gaslighting is more prevalent in couples where one or both partners have maladaptive personality traits such as traits associated with short-term mental illness (e.g., depression), substance induced illness (e.g., alcoholism), mood disorders (e.g., bipolar), anxiety disorders (e.g., PTSD), personality disorder (e.g., BPD, NPD, etc.), neurodevelopmental disorder (e.g., ADHD), or combination of the above (i.e., comorbidity) and are prone to and adept at convincing others to doubt their own perceptions.


title: Gaslighting

text: "Medical gaslighting" is an informal term sometimes used to describe when a medical professional does not know how to resolve a patient's condition or want to get involved in a complex situation and downplays a patient’s concerns about their health or tries to persuade them that their symptoms are imaginary. Medical gaslighting is an exploitation of trust.


title: Gaslighting

text: Health facilities describe patients as Somatic. This formula and procedure of hospital facilities creates a power dynamic in medicine which results in neglect of a patient's care. Many patients will suffer from failure to continue to find treatment for symptoms.


title: Gaslighting

text: In the 2008 book "State of Confusion: Political Manipulation and the Assault on the American Mind", the authors contend that the prevalence of gaslighting in American politics began with the age of modern communications:


title: Gaslighting

text: The term has been used to describe the behavior of politicians and media personalities on both the left and the right sides of the political spectrum. Some examples include:


title: Gaslighting

text: The word "gaslighting" is often used incorrectly to refer generally to conflicts and disagreements. According to Robin Stern, PhD, co-founder of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, "Gaslighting is often used in an accusatory way when somebody may just be insistent on something, or somebody may be trying to influence you. That’s not what gaslighting is."


title: Gaslighting

text: Some mental health experts have expressed concern that the broader use of the term is diluting its usefulness and may make it more difficult to identify the specific type of abuse described in the original definition.


title: Gaslighting

text: One of the earliest uses of the term in television was in a 1974 episode of "The Six Million Dollar Man". In the second season episode, "The Seven Million Dollar Man", Steve Austin accuses Oscar Goldman, Rudy Wells and nurse Carla Peterson of gaslighting him after all three try to convince him that an incident he saw did not happen.


title: Gaslighting

text: In 1994, the character Roz Doyle uses the phrase in "Fortysomething", an episode of the American television sitcom "Frasier".


title: Gaslighting

text: In a 2000 interview, the writers of the song "Gaslighting Abbie" (Steely Dan album "Two Against Nature") explain that the lyrics were inspired by a term they heard in New York City, "gaslighting", which they believed was derived from the 1944 movie "Gaslight". "It is about a certain kind of mind [manipulation] or messing with somebody’s head".


title: Gaslighting

text: During the period 2014–2016, BBC Radio 4's soap opera "The Archers" aired a two-year long storyline about Helen who was subjected to slow-burning coercive control by her bullying, manipulative husband, Rob. The show shocked the United Kingdom, sparking a national discussion about domestic abuse.


title: Gaslighting

text: In the 2016 film "The Girl on the Train", Rachel suffered from severe depression and alcoholism. The storyline evolved around Rachel's blackouts as her husband consistently tells her that she had done terrible things that she didn't actually do.


title: Gaslighting

text: In 2017, the phrase was used to describe Harvey Weinstein's extraordinary measures (see ) to gaslight the women he sexually preyed upon, the journalists investigating their stories, and the public.


title: Gaslighting

text: In 2018, NBC's soap opera "Days of Our Lives" had a months-long storyline about retaliation and Gabi's systematic efforts to have her best friend Abigail committed into a mental health care facility. In the end, Gabi gleefully confessed to Abigail what she had done to her and why.


title: Gaslighting

text: In 2019, CNN's nightly news commentary, "Anderson Cooper 360°", aired 24 episodes about the lies being told by politicians in the news. The segments were named "Keeping Them Honest: We'll Leave The Gaslight On For You, Part __".


title: Gaslighting

text: In 2020, Country Music group The Chicks released a song titled "Gaslighter" about a manipulative husband.


title: Gaslighting

text: In 2022, Merriam-Webster named "gaslighting" as its Word of the Year due to the vast increase in channels and technologies used to mislead and the word becomming common for the perception of deception.


title: Computer

text: A computer is a digital electronic machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These programs enable computers to perform a wide range of tasks. A computer system is a nominally complete computer that includes the hardware, operating system (main software), and peripheral equipment needed and used for full operation. This term may also refer to a group of computers that are linked and function together, such as a computer network or computer cluster.


title: Computer

text: A broad range of industrial and consumer products use computers as control systems. Simple special-purpose devices like microwave ovens and remote controls are included, as are factory devices like industrial robots and computer-aided design, as well as general-purpose devices like personal computers and mobile devices like smartphones. Computers power the Internet, which links billions of other computers and users.


title: Computer

text: Early computers were meant to be used only for calculations. Simple manual instruments like the abacus have aided people in doing calculations since ancient times. Early in the Industrial Revolution, some mechanical devices were built to automate long tedious tasks, such as guiding patterns for looms. More sophisticated electrical machines did specialized analog calculations in the early 20th century. The first digital electronic calculating machines were developed during World War II. The first semiconductor transistors in the late 1940s were followed by the silicon-based MOSFET (MOS transistor) and monolithic integrated circuit (IC) chip technologies in the late 1950s, leading to the microprocessor and the microcomputer revolution in the 1970s. The speed, power and versatility of computers have been increasing dramatically ever since then, with transistor counts increasing at a rapid pace (as predicted by Moore's law), leading to the Digital Revolution during the late 20th to early 21st centuries.


title: Computer

text: Conventionally, a modern computer consists of at least one processing element, typically a central processing unit (CPU) in the form of a microprocessor, along with some type of computer memory, typically semiconductor memory chips. The processing element carries out arithmetic and logical operations, and a sequencing and control unit can change the order of operations in response to stored information. Peripheral devices include input devices (keyboards, mice, joystick, etc.), output devices (monitor screens, printers, etc.), and input/output devices that perform both functions (e.g., the 2000s-era touchscreen). Peripheral devices allow information to be retrieved from an external source and they enable the result of operations to be saved and retrieved.


title: Computer

text: According to the "Oxford English Dictionary", the first known use of "computer" was in a 1613 book called "The Yong Mans Gleanings" by the English writer Richard Brathwait: "I haue read the truest computer of Times, and the best Arithmetician that euer breathed, and he reduceth thy dayes into a short number." This usage of the term referred to a human computer, a person who carried out calculations or computations. The word continued with the same meaning until the middle of the 20th century. During the latter part of this period women were often hired as computers because they could be paid less than their male counterparts. By 1943, most human computers were women.


title: Computer

text: The "Online Etymology Dictionary" gives the first attested use of "computer" in the 1640s, meaning 'one who calculates'; this is an "agent noun from compute (v.)". The "Online Etymology Dictionary" states that the use of the term to mean calculating machine' (of any type) is from 1897." The "Online Etymology Dictionary" indicates that the "modern use" of the term, to mean 'programmable digital electronic computer' dates from "1945 under this name; [in a] theoretical [sense] from 1937, as "Turing machine"".


title: Computer

text: Devices have been used to aid computation for thousands of years, mostly using one-to-one correspondence with fingers. The earliest counting device was most likely a form of tally stick. Later record keeping aids throughout the Fertile Crescent included calculi (clay spheres, cones, etc.) which represented counts of items, likely livestock or grains, sealed in hollow unbaked clay containers. The use of counting rods is one example.


title: Computer

text: The abacus was initially used for arithmetic tasks. The Roman abacus was developed from devices used in Babylonia as early as 2400 BC. Since then, many other forms of reckoning boards or tables have been invented. In a medieval European counting house, a checkered cloth would be placed on a table, and markers moved around on it according to certain rules, as an aid to calculating sums of money.


title: Computer

text: The Antikythera mechanism is believed to be the earliest known mechanical analog computer, according to Derek J. de Solla Price. It was designed to calculate astronomical positions. It was discovered in 1901 in the Antikythera wreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete, and has been dated to approximately . Devices of comparable complexity to the Antikythera mechanism would not reappear until the fourteenth century.


title: Computer

text: Many mechanical aids to calculation and measurement were constructed for astronomical and navigation use. The planisphere was a star chart invented by Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī in the early 11th century. The astrolabe was invented in the Hellenistic world in either the 1st or 2nd centuries BC and is often attributed to Hipparchus. A combination of the planisphere and dioptra, the astrolabe was effectively an analog computer capable of working out several different kinds of problems in spherical astronomy. An astrolabe incorporating a mechanical calendar computer and gear-wheels was invented by Abi Bakr of Isfahan, Persia in 1235. Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī invented the first mechanical geared lunisolar calendar astrolabe, an early fixed-wired knowledge processing machine with a gear train and gear-wheels, .


title: Computer

text: The sector, a calculating instrument used for solving problems in proportion, trigonometry, multiplication and division, and for various functions, such as squares and cube roots, was developed in the late 16th century and found application in gunnery, surveying and navigation.


title: Computer

text: The planimeter was a manual instrument to calculate the area of a closed figure by tracing over it with a mechanical linkage.


title: Computer

text: The slide rule was invented around 1620–1630 by the English clergyman William Oughtred, shortly after the publication of the concept of the logarithm. It is a hand-operated analog computer for doing multiplication and division. As slide rule development progressed, added scales provided reciprocals, squares and square roots, cubes and cube roots, as well as transcendental functions such as logarithms and exponentials, circular and hyperbolic trigonometry and other functions. Slide rules with special scales are still used for quick performance of routine calculations, such as the E6B circular slide rule used for time and distance calculations on light aircraft.


title: Computer

text: In the 1770s, Pierre Jaquet-Droz, a Swiss watchmaker, built a mechanical doll (automaton) that could write holding a quill pen. By switching the number and order of its internal wheels different letters, and hence different messages, could be produced. In effect, it could be mechanically "programmed" to read instructions. Along with two other complex machines, the doll is at the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and still operates.


title: Computer

text: In 1831–1835, mathematician and engineer Giovanni Plana devised a Perpetual Calendar machine, which, through a system of pulleys and cylinders and over, could predict the perpetual calendar for every year from AD 0 (that is, 1 BC) to AD 4000, keeping track of leap years and varying day length. The tide-predicting machine invented by the Scottish scientist Sir William Thomson in 1872 was of great utility to navigation in shallow waters. It used a system of pulleys and wires to automatically calculate predicted tide levels for a set period at a particular location.


title: Computer

text: The differential analyser, a mechanical analog computer designed to solve differential equations by integration, used wheel-and-disc mechanisms to perform the integration. In 1876, Sir William Thomson had already discussed the possible construction of such calculators, but he had been stymied by the limited output torque of the ball-and-disk integrators. In a differential analyzer, the output of one integrator drove the input of the next integrator, or a graphing output. The torque amplifier was the advance that allowed these machines to work. Starting in the 1920s, Vannevar Bush and others developed mechanical differential analyzers.


title: Computer

text: Charles Babbage, an English mechanical engineer and polymath, originated the concept of a programmable computer. Considered the "father of the computer", he conceptualized and invented the first mechanical computer in the early 19th century. After working on his revolutionary difference engine, designed to aid in navigational calculations, in 1833 he realized that a much more general design, an Analytical Engine, was possible. The input of programs and data was to be provided to the machine via punched cards, a method being used at the time to direct mechanical looms such as the Jacquard loom. For output, the machine would have a printer, a curve plotter and a bell. The machine would also be able to punch numbers onto cards to be read in later. The Engine incorporated an arithmetic logic unit, control flow in the form of conditional branching and loops, and integrated memory, making it the first design for a general-purpose computer that could be described in modern terms as Turing-complete.


title: Computer

text: The machine was about a century ahead of its time. All the parts for his machine had to be made by hand – this was a major problem for a device with thousands of parts. Eventually, the project was dissolved with the decision of the British Government to cease funding. Babbage's failure to complete the analytical engine can be chiefly attributed to political and financial difficulties as well as his desire to develop an increasingly sophisticated computer and to move ahead faster than anyone else could follow. Nevertheless, his son, Henry Babbage, completed a simplified version of the analytical engine's computing unit (the "mill") in 1888. He gave a successful demonstration of its use in computing tables in 1906.


title: Computer

text: During the first half of the 20th century, many scientific computing needs were met by increasingly sophisticated analog computers, which used a direct mechanical or electrical model of the problem as a basis for computation. However, these were not programmable and generally lacked the versatility and accuracy of modern digital computers. The first modern analog computer was a tide-predicting machine, invented by Sir William Thomson (later to become Lord Kelvin) in 1872. The differential analyser, a mechanical analog computer designed to solve differential equations by integration using wheel-and-disc mechanisms, was conceptualized in 1876 by James Thomson, the elder brother of the more famous Sir William Thomson.


title: Computer

text: The art of mechanical analog computing reached its zenith with the differential analyzer, built by H. L. Hazen and Vannevar Bush at MIT starting in 1927. This built on the mechanical integrators of James Thomson and the torque amplifiers invented by H. W. Nieman. A dozen of these devices were built before their obsolescence became obvious. By the 1950s, the success of digital electronic computers had spelled the end for most analog computing machines, but analog computers remained in use during the 1950s in some specialized applications such as education (slide rule) and aircraft (control systems).


title: Computer

text: By 1938, the United States Navy had developed an electromechanical analog computer small enough to use aboard a submarine. This was the Torpedo Data Computer, which used trigonometry to solve the problem of firing a torpedo at a moving target. During World War II similar devices were developed in other countries as well.


title: Computer

text: Early digital computers were electromechanical; electric switches drove mechanical relays to perform the calculation. These devices had a low operating speed and were eventually superseded by much faster all-electric computers, originally using vacuum tubes. The Z2, created by German engineer Konrad Zuse in 1939, was one of the earliest examples of an electromechanical relay computer.


title: Computer

text: In 1941, Zuse followed his earlier machine up with the Z3, the world's first working electromechanical programmable, fully automatic digital computer. The Z3 was built with 2000 relays, implementing a 22 bit word length that operated at a clock frequency of about 5–10 Hz. Program code was supplied on punched film while data could be stored in 64 words of memory or supplied from the keyboard. It was quite similar to modern machines in some respects, pioneering numerous advances such as floating-point numbers. Rather than the harder-to-implement decimal system (used in Charles Babbage's earlier design), using a binary system meant that Zuse's machines were easier to build and potentially more reliable, given the technologies available at that time. The Z3 was not itself a universal computer but could be extended to be Turing complete.


title: Computer

text: Zuse's next computer, the Z4, became the world's first commercial computer; after initial delay due to the Second World War, it was completed in 1950 and delivered to the ETH Zurich. The computer was manufactured by Zuse's own company, , which was founded in 1941 as the first company with the sole purpose of developing computers.


title: Computer

text: Purely electronic circuit elements soon replaced their mechanical and electromechanical equivalents, at the same time that digital calculation replaced analog. The engineer Tommy Flowers, working at the Post Office Research Station in London in the 1930s, began to explore the possible use of electronics for the telephone exchange. Experimental equipment that he built in 1934 went into operation five years later, converting a portion of the telephone exchange network into an electronic data processing system, using thousands of vacuum tubes. In the US, John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford E. Berry of Iowa State University developed and tested the Atanasoff–Berry Computer (ABC) in 1942, the first "automatic electronic digital computer". This design was also all-electronic and used about 300 vacuum tubes, with capacitors fixed in a mechanically rotating drum for memory.


title: Computer

text: During World War II, the British code-breakers at Bletchley Park achieved a number of successes at breaking encrypted German military communications. The German encryption machine, Enigma, was first attacked with the help of the electro-mechanical bombes which were often run by women. To crack the more sophisticated German Lorenz SZ 40/42 machine, used for high-level Army communications, Max Newman and his colleagues commissioned Flowers to build the Colossus. He spent eleven months from early February 1943 designing and building the first Colossus. After a functional test in December 1943, Colossus was shipped to Bletchley Park, where it was delivered on 18 January 1944 and attacked its first message on 5 February.


title: Computer

text: Colossus was the world's first electronic digital programmable computer. It used a large number of valves (vacuum tubes). It had paper-tape input and was capable of being configured to perform a variety of boolean logical operations on its data, but it was not Turing-complete. Nine Mk II Colossi were built (The Mk I was converted to a Mk II making ten machines in total). Colossus Mark I contained 1,500 thermionic valves (tubes), but Mark II with 2,400 valves, was both five times faster and simpler to operate than Mark I, greatly speeding the decoding process.


title: Computer

text: The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first electronic programmable computer built in the U.S. Although the ENIAC was similar to the Colossus, it was much faster, more flexible, and it was Turing-complete. Like the Colossus, a "program" on the ENIAC was defined by the states of its patch cables and switches, a far cry from the stored program electronic machines that came later. Once a program was written, it had to be mechanically set into the machine with manual resetting of plugs and switches. The programmers of the ENIAC were six women, often known collectively as the "ENIAC girls".


title: Computer

text: It combined the high speed of electronics with the ability to be programmed for many complex problems. It could add or subtract 5000 times a second, a thousand times faster than any other machine. It also had modules to multiply, divide, and square root. High speed memory was limited to 20 words (about 80 bytes). Built under the direction of John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert at the University of Pennsylvania, ENIAC's development and construction lasted from 1943 to full operation at the end of 1945. The machine was huge, weighing 30 tons, using 200 kilowatts of electric power and contained over 18,000 vacuum tubes, 1,500 relays, and hundreds of thousands of resistors, capacitors, and inductors.


title: Computer

text: The principle of the modern computer was proposed by Alan Turing in his seminal 1936 paper, "On Computable Numbers". Turing proposed a simple device that he called "Universal Computing machine" and that is now known as a universal Turing machine. He proved that such a machine is capable of computing anything that is computable by executing instructions (program) stored on tape, allowing the machine to be programmable. The fundamental concept of Turing's design is the stored program, where all the instructions for computing are stored in memory. Von Neumann acknowledged that the central concept of the modern computer was due to this paper. Turing machines are to this day a central object of study in theory of computation. Except for the limitations imposed by their finite memory stores, modern computers are said to be Turing-complete, which is to say, they have algorithm execution capability equivalent to a universal Turing machine.


title: Computer

text: Early computing machines had fixed programs. Changing its function required the re-wiring and re-structuring of the machine. With the proposal of the stored-program computer this changed. A stored-program computer includes by design an instruction set and can store in memory a set of instructions (a program) that details the computation. The theoretical basis for the stored-program computer was laid out by Alan Turing in his 1936 paper. In 1945, Turing joined the National Physical Laboratory and began work on developing an electronic stored-program digital computer. His 1945 report "Proposed Electronic Calculator" was the first specification for such a device. John von Neumann at the University of Pennsylvania also circulated his "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC" in 1945.


title: Computer

text: The Manchester Baby was the world's first stored-program computer. It was built at the University of Manchester in England by Frederic C. Williams, Tom Kilburn and Geoff Tootill, and ran its first program on 21 June 1948. It was designed as a testbed for the Williams tube, the first random-access digital storage device. Although the computer was described as "small and primitive" by a 1998 retrospective, it was the first working machine to contain all of the elements essential to a modern electronic computer. As soon as the Baby had demonstrated the feasibility of its design, a project began at the university to develop it into a practically useful computer, the Manchester Mark 1.


title: Computer

text: The Mark 1 in turn quickly became the prototype for the Ferranti Mark 1, the world's first commercially available general-purpose computer. Built by Ferranti, it was delivered to the University of Manchester in February 1951. At least seven of these later machines were delivered between 1953 and 1957, one of them to Shell labs in Amsterdam. In October 1947 the directors of British catering company J. Lyons & Company decided to take an active role in promoting the commercial development of computers. Lyons's LEO I computer, modelled closely on the Cambridge EDSAC of 1949, became operational in April 1951 and ran the world's first routine office computer job.


title: Computer

text: The concept of a field-effect transistor was proposed by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld in 1925. John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, while working under William Shockley at Bell Labs, built the first working transistor, the point-contact transistor, in 1947, which was followed by Shockley's bipolar junction transistor in 1948. From 1955 onwards, transistors replaced vacuum tubes in computer designs, giving rise to the "second generation" of computers. Compared to vacuum tubes, transistors have many advantages: they are smaller, and require less power than vacuum tubes, so give off less heat. Junction transistors were much more reliable than vacuum tubes and had longer, indefinite, service life. Transistorized computers could contain tens of thousands of binary logic circuits in a relatively compact space. However, early junction transistors were relatively bulky devices that were difficult to manufacture on a mass-production basis, which limited them to a number of specialised applications.


title: Computer

text: At the University of Manchester, a team under the leadership of Tom Kilburn designed and built a machine using the newly developed transistors instead of valves. Their first transistorised computer and the first in the world, was operational by 1953, and a second version was completed there in April 1955. However, the machine did make use of valves to generate its 125 kHz clock waveforms and in the circuitry to read and write on its magnetic drum memory, so it was not the first completely transistorized computer. That distinction goes to the Harwell CADET of 1955, built by the electronics division of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell.


title: Computer

text: The metal–oxide–silicon field-effect transistor (MOSFET), also known as the MOS transistor, was invented by Mohamed M. Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1959. It was the first truly compact transistor that could be miniaturised and mass-produced for a wide range of uses. With its high scalability, and much lower power consumption and higher density than bipolar junction transistors, the MOSFET made it possible to build high-density integrated circuits. In addition to data processing, it also enabled the practical use of MOS transistors as memory cell storage elements, leading to the development of MOS semiconductor memory, which replaced earlier magnetic-core memory in computers. The MOSFET led to the microcomputer revolution, and became the driving force behind the computer revolution. The MOSFET is the most widely used transistor in computers, and is the fundamental building block of digital electronics.


title: Computer

text: The idea of the integrated circuit was first conceived by a radar scientist working for the Royal Radar Establishment of the Ministry of Defence, Geoffrey W.A. Dummer. Dummer presented the first public description of an integrated circuit at the Symposium on Progress in Quality Electronic Components in Washington, D.C. on 7 May 1952.


title: Computer

text: The first working ICs were invented by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor. Kilby recorded his initial ideas concerning the integrated circuit in July 1958, successfully demonstrating the first working integrated example on 12 September 1958. In his patent application of 6 February 1959, Kilby described his new device as "a body of semiconductor material ... wherein all the components of the electronic circuit are completely integrated". However, Kilby's invention was a hybrid integrated circuit (hybrid IC), rather than a monolithic integrated circuit (IC) chip. Kilby's IC had external wire connections, which made it difficult to mass-produce.


title: Computer

text: Noyce also came up with his own idea of an integrated circuit half a year later than Kilby. Noyce's invention was the first true monolithic IC chip. His chip solved many practical problems that Kilby's had not. Produced at Fairchild Semiconductor, it was made of silicon, whereas Kilby's chip was made of germanium. Noyce's monolithic IC was fabricated using the planar process, developed by his colleague Jean Hoerni in early 1959. In turn, the planar process was based on Mohamed M. Atalla's work on semiconductor surface passivation by silicon dioxide in the late 1950s.


title: Computer

text: Modern monolithic ICs are predominantly MOS (metal-oxide-semiconductor) integrated circuits, built from MOSFETs (MOS transistors). The earliest experimental MOS IC to be fabricated was a 16-transistor chip built by Fred Heiman and Steven Hofstein at RCA in 1962. General Microelectronics later introduced the first commercial MOS IC in 1964, developed by Robert Norman. Following the development of the self-aligned gate (silicon-gate) MOS transistor by Robert Kerwin, Donald Klein and John Sarace at Bell Labs in 1967, the first silicon-gate MOS IC with self-aligned gates was developed by Federico Faggin at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1968. The MOSFET has since become the most critical device component in modern ICs.


title: Computer

text: The development of the MOS integrated circuit led to the invention of the microprocessor, and heralded an explosion in the commercial and personal use of computers. While the subject of exactly which device was the first microprocessor is contentious, partly due to lack of agreement on the exact definition of the term "microprocessor", it is largely undisputed that the first single-chip microprocessor was the Intel 4004, designed and realized by Federico Faggin with his silicon-gate MOS IC technology, along with Ted Hoff, Masatoshi Shima and Stanley Mazor at Intel. In the early 1970s, MOS IC technology enabled the integration of more than 10,000 transistors on a single chip.


title: Computer

text: System on a Chip (SoCs) are complete computers on a microchip (or chip) the size of a coin. They may or may not have integrated RAM and flash memory. If not integrated, the RAM is usually placed directly above (known as Package on package) or below (on the opposite side of the circuit board) the SoC, and the flash memory is usually placed right next to the SoC, this all done to improve data transfer speeds, as the data signals don't have to travel long distances. Since ENIAC in 1945, computers have advanced enormously, with modern SoCs (Such as the Snapdragon 865) being the size of a coin while also being hundreds of thousands of times more powerful than ENIAC, integrating billions of transistors, and consuming only a few watts of power.


title: Computer

text: The first mobile computers were heavy and ran from mains power. The IBM 5100 was an early example. Later portables such as the Osborne 1 and Compaq Portable were considerably lighter but still needed to be plugged in. The first laptops, such as the Grid Compass, removed this requirement by incorporating batteries – and with the continued miniaturization of computing resources and advancements in portable battery life, portable computers grew in popularity in the 2000s. The same developments allowed manufacturers to integrate computing resources into cellular mobile phones by the early 2000s.


title: Computer

text: These smartphones and tablets run on a variety of operating systems and recently became the dominant computing device on the market. These are powered by System on a Chip (SoCs), which are complete computers on a microchip the size of a coin.


title: Computer

text: The term "hardware" covers all of those parts of a computer that are tangible physical objects. Circuits, computer chips, graphic cards, sound cards, memory (RAM), motherboard, displays, power supplies, cables, keyboards, printers and "mice" input devices are all hardware.


title: Computer

text: A general-purpose computer has four main components: the arithmetic logic unit (ALU), the control unit, the memory, and the input and output devices (collectively termed I/O). These parts are interconnected by buses, often made of groups of wires. Inside each of these parts are thousands to trillions of small electrical circuits which can be turned off or on by means of an electronic switch. Each circuit represents a bit (binary digit) of information so that when the circuit is on it represents a "1", and when off it represents a "0" (in positive logic representation). The circuits are arranged in logic gates so that one or more of the circuits may control the state of one or more of the other circuits.


title: Computer

text: When unprocessed data is sent to the computer with the help of input devices, the data is processed and sent to output devices. The input devices may be hand-operated or automated. The act of processing is mainly regulated by the CPU. Some examples of input devices are:


title: Computer

text: The means through which computer gives output are known as output devices. Some examples of output devices are:


title: Computer

text: The control unit (often called a control system or central controller) manages the computer's various components; it reads and interprets (decodes) the program instructions, transforming them into control signals that activate other parts of the computer. Control systems in advanced computers may change the order of execution of some instructions to improve performance.


title: Computer

text: A key component common to all CPUs is the program counter, a special memory cell (a register) that keeps track of which location in memory the next instruction is to be read from.


title: Computer

text: The control system's function is as follows— this is a simplified description, and some of these steps may be performed concurrently or in a different order depending on the type of CPU:


title: Computer

text: Since the program counter is (conceptually) just another set of memory cells, it can be changed by calculations done in the ALU. Adding 100 to the program counter would cause the next instruction to be read from a place 100 locations further down the program. Instructions that modify the program counter are often known as "jumps" and allow for loops (instructions that are repeated by the computer) and often conditional instruction execution (both examples of control flow).


title: Computer

text: The sequence of operations that the control unit goes through to process an instruction is in itself like a short computer program, and indeed, in some more complex CPU designs, there is another yet smaller computer called a microsequencer, which runs a microcode program that causes all of these events to happen.