title: Horror film

text: Some Japanese horror films have inspired American remakes. The visual interpretations of films can be lost in the translation of their elements from one culture to another, like in the adaptation of the Japanese film "" into the American film "The Grudge". The cultural components from Japan were slowly "siphoned away" to make the film more relatable to a western audience. This deterioration that can occur in an international remake happens by over-presenting negative cultural assumptions that, as time passes, sets a common ideal about that particular culture in each individual. Holm's discussion of "The Grudge" remakes presents this idea by stating, "It is, instead, to note that "The Grudge" films make use of an un-theorized notion of Japan... that seek to directly represent the country."


title: Horror film

text: The Korean horror film originated in the 1960s and became a more prominent part of the countries film production in the early 2000s. While ghosts have appeared as early as 1924 in Korean film, attempting to chart the history of the genre from this period was described by Alison Peirse and Daniel Martin, the authors of "Korean Horror Cinema" as "problematic", due to the control of the Japanese colonial government blocking artistic or politically independent films. Regardless of settings or time period, many Korean horror films such as "Song of the Dead" (1980) have their stories focused on female relationships, rooted in Korean Confucianism tradition with an emphasis on biological families. Despite the influence of folklore in some films, there is no key single canon to define the Korean horror film. Korean horror cinema is also defined by melodrama, as it does in most of Korean cinema.


title: Horror film

text: "The Housemaid" (1960) is widely credited as initiating the first horror cycle in Korean cinema, which involved films of the 1960s about supernatural revenge tales, focused on cruelly murdered women who sought out revenge. Several of these films are in dept to Korean folklore and ghost stories, with stories of animal transformation. Traces of international cinema are found in early Korean horror cinema. such as Shin Sang-ok's "Madame White Snake" (1960) from the traditional Chinese folktale Legend of the White Snake. Despite bans of Japanese cultural products that lasted from 1945 to 1998, the influence of Japanese culture are still found in "Kaibyō eiga" (ghost cats) themed films, such as "A Devilish Homicide" (1965) and "Ghosts of Chosun" (1970). Other 1960s films featured narratives involving "kumiho" such as "The Thousand Year Old Fox" ("Cheonnyeonho") (1969). These tales based on folklore and ghosts continued into the 1970s. Korea also produced giant monster films that received release in the United States such as "Yongary, Monster from the Deep" (1967) and "Ape" (1976).


title: Horror film

text: By the end of the 1970s, the Korean horror film entered a period known commonly as the "dark time" for South Korean cinema with audience attracted to Hong Kong and American imports. The biggest influence on this was the "3S" policy adopted by the Chun Doo-hwan government which promoted the production of "sports, screen and sex" for the film industry leading to more relaxed censorship leading to a boom in Erotic Korean films. Horror films followed this trend with "Suddenly at Midnight" (1981), a reimagining of "The Housemaid" (1960). As of 2013, many pre-1990 Korean horror films are only available through the Korean Film Archive (KOFA) in Seoul. It was not until the 1998 release of "Whispering Corridors" was the Korean horror film reinvigorated, with its style containing traces of traditional Korean cinema (culturally specific themes and melodrama) but also the American pattern of making a franchise of horror films, as the film received four sequels. Since the film's release, Korean horror films had had strong diversity with gothic tales like "A Tale of Two Sisters" (2003), gory horror films like "Bloody Reunion" (2006), horror comedy ("To Catch a Virgin Ghost" (2004)), vampire films ("Thirst" (2009)), and independent productions ("Teenage Hooker Became a Killing Machine" (2000)). These films varied in popularity with Ahn Byeong-ki's "Phone" (2002) reaching the top ten in the domestic box office sales in 2002 while in 2007, no locally produced Korean horror films were financially successful with local audiences. In 2020, Anton Bitel declared in "Sight & Sound" that South Korea was one of the international hot spots for horror film production in the last decade, citing the international and popular releases of films like "Train to Busan" (2016), "" (2019) "Peninsula" (2020) and "The Wailing" (2016).


title: Horror film

text: It is unknown when Australia's cinema first horror title may have been, with thoughts ranging from "The Strangler's Grip" (1912) to "The Face at the Window" (1919) while stories featuring ghosts would appear in "Guyra Ghost Mystery" (1921). By 1913, the more prolific era of Australian cinema ended with production not returning with heavy input of government finance in the 1970s. It took until the 1970s for Australia to develop sound film with television films that eventually received theatrical release with "Dead Easy" (1970) and "Night of Fear" (1973). "The Cars That Ate Paris" (1974) was the first Australian horror production made for theatrical release. 1970s Australian art cinema was funded by state film corporations, who considered them more culturally acceptable than local exploitation films (Ozploitation), which was part of the Australian phenomenon called the cultural cringe. The greater success of genre films like "Mad Max" (1979), "The Last Wave" (1977) and "Patrick" (1978) led to the Australian Film Commission to change its focus to being a more commercial operation. This closed in 1980 as its funding was abused by investors using them as tax avoiding measures. A new development known as the 10BA tax shelter scheme was developed ushering a slew of productions, leading to what Peter Shelley, author of "Australian Horror Films", suggested meant "making a profit was more important than making a good film." Shelley called these films derivative of "American films and presenting generic American material". These films included the horror film productions of Antony I. Ginnane. While Australia would have success with international films between the mid-1980s and the 2000s, less than 5 horror films were produced in the country between 1993 and 2000. It was only after the success of "Wolf Creek" (2005) that a new generation of filmmakers would continuously make horror genre films in Australia that continued into the 2010s.


title: Horror film

text: By 2005, New Zealand has produced around 190 feature films, with about 88% of them being made after 1976. New Zealand horror film history was described by Philip Matthews of Stuff as making "po-faced gothic and now we do horror for laughs." Among the earliest known New Zealand horror films productions are "Strange Behavior" (1981), a co-production with Australia and "Death Warmed Up" (1984) a single production. Early features such as Melanie Read's "Trial Run" (1984) where a mother is sent to remote cottage to photograph penguins and finds it habitat to haunted spirits, and Gaylene Preston's "Mr. Wrong" (1984) purchases a car that is haunted by its previous owner. Other films imitate American slasher and splatter films with "Bridge to Nowhere" (1986), and the early films of Peter Jackson who combined splatter films with comedy with "Bad Taste" (1988) and "Braindead" (1992) which has the largest following of the mentioned films. Film producer Ant Timpson had an influence curating New Zealand horror films, creating the Incredibly Strange Film Festival in the 1990s and producing his own horror films over the 2010s including "The ABCs of Death" (2012), "Deathgasm" (2015), and "Housebound" (2014). Timpson noted the latter horror entries from New Zealand are all humorous films like "What We Do in the Shadows" (2014) with Jonathan King, director of "Black Sheep" (2006) and "The Tattooist" (2007) stating "I'd love to see a genuinely scary New Zealand film but I don't know if New Zealand audiences – or the funding bodies – are keen."


title: Horror film

text: Ian Olney described the horror films of Europe were often more erotic and "just plain stranger" than their British and American counter-parts. European horror films (generally referred to as Euro Horror) draw from distinctly European cultural sources, including surrealism, romanticism, decadent tradition, early 20th century pulp-literature, film serials, and erotic comics. In comparison to the narrative logic in American genre films, these films focused on imagery, excessiveness, and the irrational.


title: Horror film

text: Between the mid-1950s and the mid-1980s, European horror films emerged from counties like Italy, Spain and France and were shown in the United States predominantly at drive-in theatre and grindhouse theatres.


title: Horror film

text: As producers and distributors all over the world were interested in horror films, regardless of their origin changes started occurring in European low-budget filmmaking that allowed for productions in the 1960s and 1970s for horror films from Italy, France, Germany, United Kingdom and Spain, as well as co-productions between these countries. Several productions, such as those in Italy were co-productions due to the lack of international stars within the country. European horror films began developing strong cult following since the late 1990s.


title: Horror film

text: France never truly developed a horror film movement to the volume that the United Kingdom or Italy had produced. In their book "European Nightmares", editors Patricia Allmer, Emily Brick, and David Huxley noted that French cinema was generally perceived as having a tradition of the fantastic, rather than horror films. The editors noted that French cinema had produced a series of outstanding individual horror films, from directors who did not specialize in the field. In their book "Horror Films", Colin Odell & Michelle Le Blanc referred to director Jean Rollin as one of the countries most consistent horror "auteurs" with 40 years of productions described as "highly divisive" low budget horror films often featuring erotic elements, vampires, low budgets, pulp stories and references to both high and low European art. Another of the few French directors who specialized in horror is Alexandre Aja, who stated that "the problem with the French is that they don't trust their own language [when it comes to horror]. American horror movies do well, but in their own language, the French just aren't interested."


title: Horror film

text: A 21st-century movement of transgressive French cinema known as New French Extremity was named by film programmer James Quandt in 2004, who declared and derided that films of Catherine Breillat, Claire Denis, Gaspar Noé, and Bruno Dumont, among others, had made "cinema suddenly determined to break every taboo, to wade in rivers of viscera and spumes of sperm, to fill each frame with flesh, nubile, or gnarled, and subject it to all manner of penetration mutilation and defilement." In her book "Films of the New French Extremity", Alexandra West described the phenomenon as initially an art house movement, but as the directors of those films started making horror films fitting arthouse standards such as "Trouble Every Day" (2001) and Marina de Van's "In My Skin" (2002), other directors began making more what West described as "outright horror films" such as Aja's "High Tension" (2003) and Xavier Gens' "Frontier(s)" (2007). Some of these horror films of the New French Extremity movement would regularly place on "Best Of" genre lists, such as "Martyrs" (2008), "Inside" (2007) and "High Tension" (2003) while Julia Ducournau's film "Titane" (2021) won the Palme d'Or at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival.


title: Horror film

text: German postwar horror films remained marginal after its success during the silent film era. The Third Reich ended production of horror films and German productions never gained a mass audience in Germany's horror film output leading the genre to not return in any major form until the late 1960s. Between 1933 and 1989, Randall Halle stated about only 34 films that could be described as horror films and 45 which were co-productions with other countries, primarily Spain and Italy. Outside of Herzog's "Nosferatu" (1979) most of these films low-budget that focused on erotic themes over horrific turns in narrative. In the mid-1970s, "Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons" was tasked with protection of minors from violent, racist and pornographic content in literature and comic books which led to increased the code which became law in 1973. These laws expanded to home video in 1985 following the release of titles such as Sam Raimi's "The Evil Dead" (1981) and the political change when Helmut Kohl became chancellor in 1982. The amount of West German film productions were already low in the 1980s, leaving the genre to be shot by amateurs who had little to no budgets. In the early 1980s, West Germany's government cracked down on graphic horror films similar to the United Kingdom's Video nasty panic. A direct response to this led to West German independent directors in the late 1980s and early 1990s, West German indie directors to release a comparatively high number of what Kai-Uwe Werbeck described as low-budget "hyper-violent horror films" sometimes described as German underground horror. Werbeck described the most prominent of these were of Jörg Buttgereit, described by Werbeck as "arguably the most visible German horror director of the 1980s and early 1990s", one which Harald Harzheim claimed to be "the first German director since the 1920s to give the horror genre new impulses". Similar gory films such as Olaf Ittenbach's "The Burning Moon" was the first, and last film to be made in Germany that is still banned there as of 2016.


title: Horror film

text: German horror films made a comeback in what Werbeck described as a mainstream fashion in the 21st century. This included the box office hit "Anatomy" (2000) and "Antibodies" (2005), who Odell and Le Blanc described as being a similar to the 1960s "krimi" genre of crime films. The second were films made for international markets such as "Legion of the Dead" (2001) and the video game adaptations directed Uwe Boll such as "House of the Dead" (2003) and "Alone in the Dark" (2005).


title: Horror film

text: Early silent Italian "fantastique" films focused more on adventure and farce opposed to Germany's expressionism. The National Fascist Party in Italy had forced film in the early sound era to "spread the civilization of Rome throughout the world as quickly as possible." Another influence was the Centro Cattolico Cinematografico (Catholic Cinematic Centre) that was described by Curti as "permissive towards propaganda and repressive against anything related to sexuality or morality." The Vatican City's newspaper "L'Osservatore Romano" for example, critiqued the circulation of films like "Bride of Frankenstein" (1935) in 1940.


title: Horror film

text: As Italian neorealism had monopolized Italian cinema in the 1940s, and as the average Italian standard for living increased, Italian critic and historian Gian Piero Brunetta stated that it would "appear legitimate to start exploring the fantastic." Italian film historian Goffredo Fofi echoed these statements, stating in 1963 that "ghosts, monsters and the taste for the horrible appears when a society that became wealthy and evolves by industrializing, and are accompanied by a state of well-being which began to exist and expand in Italy only since a few years" Initially, this was a rise in "peplum" films after the release of "Hercules" (1958). Italy started moving beyond peplums making Westerns and horror films which were less expensive to produce than the previous sword-and-sandal films.


title: Horror film

text: Italy's initial wave of horror films were gothic horror were rooted in popular cinema, and were often co-productions with other countries. Curti described the initial wave of the 1960s Italian gothic horror allowed directors like Mario Bava, Riccardo Freda and Antonio Margheriti to helm what Curti described as "some of their very best works." Bava's "Black Sunday" (1960) was particularly influential. Many productions of this era were often written in a hurry, sometimes developed during filming production by production companies that often did not last very long, sometimes for only one film production. After 1966, the gothic cycle ended, primarily through a broader crisis that effected the Italian film industry with its audience rapidly shrinking. Some gothics continued to be produced into the beginning of the 1970s, while the influence of the genre was felt in other Italian genres like the spaghetti western.


title: Horror film

text: The term "giallo", which means "yellow" in Italian, is derived from "Il Giallo Mondadori", a long-running series of mystery and crime novels identifiable by their distinctive uniform yellow covers, and is used in Italy to describe all mystery and thriller fiction. English-language critics use the term to describe more specific films within the genre, involving a murder mystery that revels in the details of the murder rather than the deduction of it or police procedural elements. Tim Lucas deemed early films in the genre such as Bava's "The Girl Who Knew Too Much" (1963) while Curti described "Blood and Black Lace" (1964) as predominantly a series of violent, erotically charged set pieces that are "increasingly elaborate and spectacular" in their construction, and that Bava pushed these elements to the extreme which would solidify the genre. It was not until the success of Dario Argento's 1970 film "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage" that the "giallo" genre started a major trend in Italian cinema.


title: Horror film

text: Other smaller trends permutated in Italy in the 1970s such as films involving cannibals, zombies and Nazis which Newman described as "disreputable crazes". In Italy entered the 1980s, the Italian film industry would gradually move towards making films for television. The decade started with a high-budgeted production of Argento's "Inferno" (1980) and with the death of Mario Bava, Fulci became what historian Roberto Curti called "Italy's most prominent horror film director in the early 1980s". Several zombie films were made in the country in the early 80s from Fulci and others while Argento would continue directing and producing films for others such as Lamberto Bava. As Fulci's health deteriorated towards the end of the decade, many directors turned to making horror films for Joe D'Amato's Filmirage company, independent films or works for television and home video.


title: Horror film

text: The highest point of production of Spanish horror films took place during late Francoism, between 1968 and 1975, a period associated to the so-called Fantaterror, the local expression of Euro Horror, identifiable for its "disproportionate doses of sex and violence". During this period, several Spanish filmmakers appeared with unique styles and themes such as Jesús Franco's "The Awful Dr. Orloff" (1962), first internationally successful horror and exploitation film production from Spain. Dr. Orloff would appears in other films of Franco's during the period. Paul Naschy, the actor and screenwriter., and Amando de Ossorio with his zombie like medieval knights in "Tombs of the Blind Dead" (1972). These directors adapted established monsters from popular films, comics and pulp fiction and imbuing them with what Lazaro-Reboll described as "certain local flavour and relevance." A partial overview of films from this era focused on classic monsters ("Frankenstein's Bloody Terror" (1968), "Dr. Jekyll y el Hombre Lobo" (1972)) and films that grew from trends created by "Night of the Living Dead" and "The Exorcist" ("The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue" (1974), "Exorcismo" (1975)). Most films of the period were low-budget films with short shooting schedules, while occasional films had respectable budgets such as "99 Women" (1969) and others that had art house directors attempt commercial production such as Vicente Aranda's "The Blood Spattered Bride" and Jorge Grau's "Bloody Ceremony" (1973) Antonio Lazaro-Reboll wrote in 2012 that in the last forty years, the horror film has formed as a significant part of Spain's local transnational filmic production, that created its own "auteurs", stars and cycles. For decades, it was described by Beck and Rodríguez-Ortega in "Contemporary Spanish Cinema and Genre" that the view of the genre has been "almost exclusively been constructed negatively" and that the rise in horror film productions in the late 1960s and 1970s in Spain was "reviled by contemporary critics, film historians and scholars". In his 1974 book "Cine español, cine de subgéneros", author Román Gurbern saw contemporary Spanish horror films as "derivative of Authentic American and European traditions" that will "never make it into the histories of Spanish cinema, unless it is dealt with in a succinct footnote."


title: Horror film

text: Film production decreased dramatically in the late 1970s and 1980s for several reasons, including the boom in historical and political films in Spain during early year of democracy. The film legislation implemented by general director of cinematography Pilar Miró in 1983 introduced a selective subvention system, causing the overall number of annually made films (including horror films) to shrink, thereby dealing a heavy blow to horror industry and the Fantaterror craze. In addition, there were changing habits on audiences and the visual material they sought. It was not until the late 1990s and the 2000s that Spanish horror reached another production peak.


title: Horror film

text: After the success of private television operator Canal+ from the 1990s onward investing in the production of films by the likes of Álex de la Iglesia ("The Day of the Beast"; 1995) or Alejandro Amenábar ("Tesis"; 1996 and "The Others"; 2001) through Sogecine, other television companies such as Antena 3 and Telecinco (through Telecinco Cinema) came to see horror as a profitable niche, and the genre thereby became a successful formula for box-office hits in the 2000s, underpinning the wider switch in the industry from the largely State-dependent model of the 1980s to the hegemony of mass media holdings in domestic film production. Jaume Balagueró's "The Nameless" (1999), which became a popular film both in Spain and abroad, paved the way for new Spanish horror films. Filmax tried to capitalise on the success of the former film by creating the Fantastic Factory genre label and eventually came to develop one of the most successful Spanish film franchises with the "Rec" film series. The success of Juan Antonio Bayona's "The Orphanage" (2007) ensued with the release of ersatz gothic films featuring creepy children. Other key names for the development of the genre in the 21st-century Spanish industry include Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and Paco Plaza.


title: Horror film

text: After the 1931 release of a US-produced Spanish-language version of "Dracula" by George Melford for the Latin-American market employing Mexican actors, Mexican horror films were produced throughout the 1930s and 1940s, often reflecting on the overarching theme of science vs. religion conflict. Ushered by the release of "El vampiro", the Mexploitation horror film era started in 1957, with films characterised by their low production values and camp appeal, often featuring vampires, wrestlers, and aztec mummies. A key figure in the Mexican horror scene (particularly in Germán Robles-starred vampire films) was producer Abel Salazar. The late 1960s saw the advent of the prominence of Carlos Enrique Taboada as an standout Mexican horror filmmaker, with films such as "Hasta el viento tiene miedo" (1967), "El libro de piedra" (1968), "Más negro que la noche" (1975) or "Veneno para las hadas" (1984). Mexican horror cinema has been noted for the mashup of classic gothic and romantic themes and characters with autochthonous features of the Mexican culture such as the Ranchería setting, the colonial past or the myth of La Llorona (shared with other Hispanic-American nations).


title: Horror film

text: Horror has proven to be a dependable genre at the Mexican box office in the 21st-century, with Mexico ranking as having the world's largest relative popularity of the genre among viewers (ahead of South Korea), according to a 2016 research.


title: Horror film

text: In a study done by Uri Hasson et al., brain waves were observed via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This study used the inter-subject correlation analysis (ISC) method of determining results. It was shown that audience members tend to focus on certain facets in a particular scene simultaneously and tend to sit as still as possible while watching horror films.


title: Horror film

text: In another study done by John Greene & Glenn Sparks, it was found that the audience tends to experience the excitation transfer process (ETP) which causes a physiological arousal in audience members. The ETP refers to the feelings experienced immediately after an emotion-arousing experience, such as watching a horror film. In this case, audience members' heart rate, blood pressure and respiration all increased while watching films with violence. Audience members with positive feedback regarding the horror film have feelings similar to happiness or joy felt with friends, but intensified. Alternatively, audience members with negative feedback regarding the film would typically feel emotions they would normally associate with negative experiences in their life.


title: Horror film

text: Only about 10% of the American population enjoy the physiological rush felt immediately after watching horror films. The population that does not enjoy horror films could experience emotional fallout similar to that of PTSD if the environment reminds them of particular scenes.


title: Horror film

text: A 2021 study suggested horror films that explore grief can provide psychological benefits to the bereaved, with the genre well suited to representing grief through its genre conventions.


title: Horror film

text: In a study by Medes et al., prolonged exposure to infrasound and low-frequency noise (<500 Hz) in long durations has an effect on vocal range (i.e. longer exposure tends to form a lower phonation frequency range). Another study by Baliatsas et al. observed that there is a correlation between exposure to infrasound and low-frequency noises and sleep-related problems. Though most horror films keep the audio around 20–30 Hz, the noise can still be unsettling in long durations.


title: Horror film

text: Another technique used in horror films to provoke a response from the audience is cognitive dissonance, which is when someone experiences tension in themselves and is urged to relieve that tension. Dissonance is the clashing of unpleasant or harsh sounds. A study by Prete et al. identified that the ability to recognize dissonance relied on the left hemisphere of the brain, while consonance relied on the right half. There is a stronger preference for consonance; this difference is noticeable even in early stages of life. Previous musical experience also can influence a dislike for dissonance.


title: Horror film

text: Skin conductance responses (SCRs), heart rate (HR), and electromyographic (EMG) responses vary in response to emotional stimuli, showing higher for negative emotions in what is known as the "negative bias." When applied to dissonant music, HR decreases (as a bodily form of adaptation to harsh stimulation), SCR increases, and EMG responses in the face are higher. The typical reactions go through a two-step process of first orienting to the problem (the slowing of HR), then a defensive process (a stronger increase in SCR and an increase in HR). This initial response can sometimes result in a fight-or-flight response, which is the characteristic of dissonance that horror films rely on to frighten and unsettle viewers.


title: Horror film

text: Critic Robin Wood was not the first film critic to take the horror film seriously, but his article "Return of the Repressed" in 1978 helped inaugurate the horror film into academic study as a genre. Wood later stated that he was surprised that his work, as well as the writing of Richard Lippe and Andrew Britton would receive "historic importance" intellectual views of the film genre. William Paul in his book "Laughing Screaming" comments that "the negative definition of the lower works would have it that they are less subtle than higher genres. More positively, it could be said that they are more direct. Where lower forms are explicit, higher forms tend to operate more by indirection. Because of this indirection the higher forms are often regarded as being more metaphorical, and consequently more resonant, more open to the exegetical analyses of the academic industry."


title: Horror film

text: Steffen Hantke noted that academic criticism about horror cinema had "always operated under duress" noting that challenges in legitimizing its subject, finding "career-minded academics might have always suspected that they were studying something that was ultimately too frivolous, garish, and sensationalistic to warrant serious critical attention".


title: Horror film

text: Some commentary has suggested that horror films have been underrepresented or underappreciated as serious works worthy of film criticism and major films awards. As of 2021, only six horror films have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, with "The Silence of the Lambs" being the sole winner. However, horror films have still won major awards.


title: Horror film

text: Critics have also commented on the representation of women and disability in horror films, as well as the prevalence of racial stereotypes.


title: Horror film

text: In the United Kingdom, film censorship has frequently been applied to horror films. A moral panic over several slasher films in the 1980s led to many of them being banned but released on videotape; the phenomenon became popularly termed "video nasties". Constraints on permitted subject matter in Indonesian films has also influenced Indonesian horror films. In March 2008, China banned all horror films from its market.


title: Horror film

text: In the U.S., the Motion Picture Production Code which was implemented in 1930, set moral guidelines for film content, restraining movies containing controversial themes, graphic violence, explicit sexuality and/or nudity. The gradual abandonment of the Code, and its eventual formal repeal in 1968 (when it was replaced by the MPAA film rating system) offered more freedom to the movie industry.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: Ralph Dale Earnhardt Sr. (; April 29, 1951February 18, 2001) was an American professional stock car driver and team owner, who raced from 1975 to 2001 in the former NASCAR Winston Cup Series (now called the NASCAR Cup Series), most notably driving the No.3 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing. His aggressive driving style earned him the nicknames "The Intimidator", "The Man in Black", and "Ironhead". He is regarded as one of the greatest drivers in NASCAR history.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: The third child of racing driver Ralph Earnhardt and Martha Earnhardt, he began his career in 1975 in the World 600. Earnhardt won a total of 76 Winston Cup races over the course of his 26-year career, including four Winston 500s (1990, 1994, 1999, and 2000) and the 1998 Daytona 500. Along with his 76 career points wins, he has also won 24 non-points exhibition events, bringing his overall Winston Cup win total to 100, one of only 4 drivers in NASCAR history to do so. He is the only driver in NASCAR history to score at least one win in 4 different and consecutive decades (scoring his first career win in 1979, 38 wins in the 1980s, 35 wins in the 1990s, & scoring his final two career wins in 2000). He also earned seven Winston Cup championships, a record held with Richard Petty and Jimmie Johnson. Although he is tied for most championships, he is the only driver in NASCAR history to win seven championships under one single points system, and he is also the only driver in NASCAR history to finish either 1st or 2nd in the standings ten times under one single points system.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: On February 18, 2001, Earnhardt died in a sudden last-lap crash during the Daytona 500 due to a basilar skull fracture, an event that is regarded in the racing industry as being a crucial moment in improving safety in all aspects of car racing, especially NASCAR. He was 49 years old. Earnhardt has been inducted into numerous halls of fame, including the NASCAR Hall of Fame inaugural class in 2010.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: Ralph Dale Earnhardt was born on April 29, 1951, in the Charlotte suburb of Kannapolis, North Carolina, as the third child of Martha ( Coleman, 1930–2021) and Ralph Earnhardt (1928-1973). Earnhardt's father was one of the best short-track drivers in North Carolina at the time and won his first and only NASCAR Sportsman Championship in 1956 at Greenville Pickens Speedway in Greenville, South Carolina. In 1963 at the age of 12, Dale Earnhardt secretly drove his father’s car in one of his races and had a near victory against one of his father's closest competitors. In 1972, he raced his father at Metrolina Speedway in a race with cars from semi mod and sportsman divisions. Although Ralph did not want his son to pursue a career as a race car driver, Dale dropped out of school to pursue his dreams. Ralph was a hard teacher for Dale, and after Ralph died of a heart attack at his home in 1973 at age 45, it took many years before Dale felt as though he had finally "proven" himself to his father. Earnhardt had four siblings: two brothers, Danny (died 2021) and Randy (died 2013); and two sisters, Cathy and Kaye.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: In 1968, at the age of 17, Earnhardt married his first wife, Latane Brown. With her, Earnhardt fathered his first son, Kerry, a year later. Earnhardt and Brown divorced in 1970. In 1971, Earnhardt married his second wife, Brenda Gee, the daughter of NASCAR car builder Robert Gee. In his marriage with Gee, Earnhardt had two children: a daughter, Kelley King Earnhardt, in 1972, and a son, Dale Earnhardt Jr., in 1974. Not long after Dale Jr. was born, Earnhardt and Gee divorced. Earnhardt then married his third wife, Teresa Houston, in 1982. She gave birth to their daughter, Taylor Nicole Earnhardt, in 1988.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: Earnhardt began his professional career in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series in 1975, making his points race debut at Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina in the longest race on the Cup circuit—the 1975 World 600. He had made his Grand National debut in 1974 in an unofficial invitational exhibition race at Metrolina Speedway, where with eight laps to go he got under Richard Childress and spun out when battling for third. He drove the No. 8 Ed Negre Dodge Charger and finished 22nd in that race, just one spot ahead of his future car owner, Richard Childress. Earnhardt competed in eight more races until 1979.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: When he joined car owner Rod Osterlund Racing in a season that included a rookie class of future stars including Earnhardt, Harry Gant, and Terry Labonte in his rookie season, Earnhardt won one race at Bristol, captured four poles, scored eleven Top 5s and seventeen Top 10s, and finished seventh in the points standings despite missing four races due to a broken collarbone, winning Rookie of the Year honors.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: During his sophomore season, Earnhardt, now with 20-year-old Doug Richert as his crew chief, began the season winning the Busch Clash. With wins at Atlanta, Bristol, Nashville, Martinsville, and Charlotte, Earnhardt won his first Winston Cup points championship. He is the only driver in NASCAR Winston Cup history to follow a Rookie of the Year title with a NASCAR Winston Cup Championship the next season. He was also the third driver in NASCAR history to win both the Rookie of the Year and Winston Cup Series championship, following David Pearson (1960, 1966) and Richard Petty (1959, 1964). Ten drivers have since joined this exclusive club: Rusty Wallace (1984, 1989), Alan Kulwicki (1986, 1992), Jeff Gordon (1993, 1995), Tony Stewart (1999, 2002), Matt Kenseth (2000, 2003), Kevin Harvick (2001, 2014), Kyle Busch (2005, 2015), Joey Logano (2009, 2018), Chase Elliott (2016, 2020), and Kyle Larson (2014, 2021).


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: 1981 would prove to be tumultuous for the defending Winston Cup champion. Sixteen races into the season, Rod Osterlund suddenly sold his team to Jim Stacy, an entrepreneur from Kentucky who entered NASCAR in 1977. After just four races, Earnhardt fell out with Stacy and left the team. Earnhardt finished out the year driving Pontiacs for Richard Childress Racing and managed to place seventh in the final points standings. Earnhardt departed RCR at the end of the season, citing a lack of chemistry.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: Earnhardt was also a color commentator for the Busch Clash, as David Hobbs was a pit reporter on that weekend.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: The following year, at Childress's suggestion, Earnhardt joined car owner Bud Moore for the 1982 and 1983 seasons driving the No. 15 Wrangler Jeans-sponsored Ford Thunderbird (the only full-time Ford ride in his career). During the 1982 season, Earnhardt struggled. Although he won at Darlington, he failed to finish 18 of the 30 races and ended the season 12th in points, the worst of his career. He also suffered a broken kneecap at Pocono Raceway when he flipped after contact with Tim Richmond. In 1983, Earnhardt rebounded and won his first of 12 Twin 125 Daytona 500 qualifying races. He won at Nashville and at Talladega, finishing 8th in the points standings, despite failing to finish 13 of the 30 races.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: After the 1983 season, Earnhardt returned to Richard Childress Racing, replacing Ricky Rudd in the No. 3. Rudd went to Bud Moore's No. 15, replacing Earnhardt. Wrangler sponsored both drivers at their respective teams. During the 1984 and 1985 seasons, Earnhardt went to victory lane six times, at Talladega, Atlanta, Richmond, Bristol (twice), and Martinsville, where he finished fourth and eighth in the season standings respectively.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: The 1986 season saw Earnhardt win his second career Winston Cup Championship and the first owner's championship for Richard Childress Racing. He won five races and had 16 top-fives and 23 top-10s. Earnhardt successfully defended his championship the following year, going to victory lane 11 times and winning the championship by 489 points over Bill Elliott. In the process, Earnhardt set a NASCAR modern-era record of four consecutive wins and won five of the first seven races. In the 1987 season, he earned the nickname "The Intimidator", due in part to the 1987 Winston All-Star Race. During this race, Earnhardt was briefly forced into the infield grass but kept control of his car and returned to the track without giving up his lead. The maneuver is now referred to as the "Pass in the Grass", even though Earnhardt did not pass anyone while he was off the track. After The Winston, an angry fan sent Bill France Jr. a letter threatening to kill Earnhardt at Pocono, Watkins Glen, or Dover, prompting the FBI to provide security for Earnhardt on the three tracks. The investigation was closed after the races at the three tracks finished without incident.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: The 1988 season saw Earnhardt racing with a new sponsor, GM Goodwrench, after Wrangler Jeans dropped its sponsorship in 1987. During this season, he changed the color of his paint scheme from blue and yellow to the signature black in which the No. 3 car was painted for the rest of his life. He won three races in 1988, finishing third in the points standings behind Bill Elliott in first and Rusty Wallace in second. The following year, Earnhardt won five races, but a late spin out at North Wilkesboro arguably cost him the 1989 championship, as Rusty Wallace edged him out for it by 12 points (Earnhardt won the final race, but Wallace finished 15th when needing to finish at least 18th to win). It was his first season for the GM Goodwrench Chevrolet Lumina.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: The 1990 season started for Earnhardt with victories in the Busch Clash and his heat of the Gatorade Twin 125's. Near the end of the Daytona 500, he had a dominant forty-second lead when the final caution flag came out with a handful of laps to go. When the green flag waved, Earnhardt was leading Derrike Cope. On the final lap, Earnhardt ran over a piece of metal, which was later revealed as a bell housing, in turn 3, cutting down a tire. Cope, in an upset, won the race while Earnhardt finished fifth after leading 155 of the 200 laps. The No. 3 Goodwrench-sponsored Chevy team took the flat tire that cost them the win and hung it on the shop wall as a reminder of how close they had come to winning the Daytona 500. Earnhardt won nine races that season and won his fourth Winston Cup title, beating Mark Martin by 26 points. He also became the first multiple winner of the annual all-star race, The Winston. The 1991 season saw Earnhardt win his fifth Winston Cup championship. This season, he scored four wins and won the championship by 195 points over Ricky Rudd. One of his wins came at North Wilkesboro, in a race where Harry Gant had a chance to set a single-season record by winning his fifth consecutive race, breaking a record held by Earnhardt. Late in the race, Gant lost his brakes, which gave Earnhardt the chance he needed to make the pass for the win and maintain his record.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: Earnhardt's only win of the 1992 season came at Charlotte, in the Coca-Cola 600, ending a 13-race win streak by Ford teams. Earnhardt finished a career-low 12th in the points for the second time in his career, with three last place finishes (Daytona and Talladega in July and Martinsville in September), and the only time he had finished that low since joining Richard Childress Racing. He still made the trip to the annual Awards Banquet with Rusty Wallace but did not have the best seat in the house. Wallace stated he and Earnhardt had to sit on the backs of their chairs to see, and Earnhardt said, "This sucks, I should have gone hunting." At the end of the year, longtime crew chief Kirk Shelmerdine left to become a driver. Andy Petree took over as crew chief. Hiring Petree turned out to be beneficial, as Earnhardt returned to the front in 1993. He once again came close to a win at the Daytona 500 and dominated Speedweeks before finishing second to Dale Jarrett on a last-lap pass. Earnhardt scored six wins en route to his sixth Winston Cup title, including wins in the first prime-time Coca-Cola 600 and The Winston, both at Charlotte, and the Pepsi 400 at Daytona. He beat Rusty Wallace for the championship by 80 points. On November 14, 1993, after the season-ending Hooters 500 at Atlanta, the race winner Wallace and 1993 series champion Earnhardt ran a dual Polish Victory Lap together while carrying #28 and #7 flags commemorating 1992 Daytona 500 winner Davey Allison and 1992 NASCAR Winston Cup Series champion Alan Kulwicki respectively, who both had died in separate plane accidents during the season.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: In 1994, Earnhardt achieved a feat that he himself had believed to be impossible—he scored his seventh Winston Cup championship, tying Richard Petty. He was very consistent, scoring four wins, and after Ernie Irvan was sidelined due to a near-deadly crash at Michigan (the two were neck-and-neck at the top of the points up until the crash), won the title by over 400 points over Mark Martin. Earnhardt sealed the deal at Rockingham by winning the race over Rick Mast. It was his final NASCAR championship and his final season for the GM Goodwrench Chevrolet Lumina. Earnhardt started off the 1995 season by finishing second in the Daytona 500 to Sterling Marlin. He won five races in 1995, including his first road course victory at Sears Point. He also won the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a win he called the biggest of his career. But in the end, Earnhardt lost the championship to Jeff Gordon by 34 points. The GM Goodwrench racing team changed to Chevrolet Monte Carlos.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: 1996 for Earnhardt started just like it had done in 1993—he dominated Speedweeks, only to finish second in the Daytona 500 to Dale Jarrett for the second time. He won early in the year, scoring consecutive victories at Rockingham and Atlanta. On July 28 in the DieHard 500 at Talladega, he was second in points and looking for his eighth season title, despite the departure of crew chief Andy Petree. Late in the race, Ernie Irvan lost control of his No. 28 Havoline-sponsored Ford Thunderbird, made contact with the No. 4 Kodak-sponsored Chevy Monte Carlo of Sterling Marlin, and ignited a crash that saw Earnhardt's No. 3 Chevrolet hit the tri-oval wall nearly head-on at almost 200 mph. After hitting the wall, Earnhardt's car flipped and slid across the track, in front of race traffic. His car was hit in the roof and windshield. This accident, as well as a similar accident that led to the death of Russell Phillips at Charlotte, led NASCAR to mandate the "Earnhardt Bar", a metal brace located in the center of the windshield that reinforces the roof in case of a similar crash. This bar is also required in NASCAR-owned United SportsCar Racing and its predecessors for road racing.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: Rain delays had canceled the live telecast of the race, and most fans first learned of the accident during the night's sports newscasts. Video of the crash showed what appeared to be a fatal incident, but once medical workers arrived at the car, Earnhardt climbed out and waved to the crowd, refusing to be loaded onto a stretcher despite a broken collarbone, sternum, and shoulder blade. Although the incident looked like it would end his season early, Earnhardt refused to stay out of the car. The next week at Indianapolis, he started the race but exited the car on the first pit stop, allowing Mike Skinner to take the wheel. When asked, Earnhardt said that vacating the No. 3 car was the hardest thing he had ever done. The following weekend at Watkins Glen, he drove the No. 3 Goodwrench Chevrolet to the fastest time in qualifying, earning the "True Grit" pole. T-shirts emblazoned with Earnhardt's face were quickly printed up, brandishing the caption, "It Hurt So Good". Earnhardt led for most of the race and looked to have victory in hand, but fatigue took its toll and he ended up sixth behind race winner Geoff Bodine. Earnhardt did not win again in 1996 but still finished fourth in the standings behind Terry Labonte, Jeff Gordon, and Dale Jarrett, with 2 wins, 13 top fives, 17 top tens, and his last 2 career poles, with an average finish of 10.6. David Smith departed as crew chief of the No. 3 team and RCR at the end of the year for personal reasons, and he was replaced by Larry McReynolds.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: In 1997, Earnhardt went winless for only the second time in his career. The only (non-points) win came during Speedweeks at Daytona in the Twin 125-mile qualifying race, his record eighth-straight win in the event. Once again in the hunt for the Daytona 500 with 10 laps to go, Earnhardt was taken out of contention by a late crash which sent his car upside down on the backstretch. He hit the low point of his year when he blacked out early in the Mountain Dew Southern 500 at Darlington in September, causing him to hit the wall. Afterward, he was disoriented, and it took several laps before he could find his pit stall. When asked, Earnhardt complained of double vision which made it difficult to pit. Mike Dillon (Richard Childress's son-in-law) was brought in to relieve Earnhardt for the remainder of the race. Earnhardt was evaluated at a local hospital and cleared to race the next week, but the cause of the blackout and double vision was never determined. Despite no wins, Earnhardt finished the season fifth in the final standings with 7 top fives and 16 top tens, with an average finish of 12.1.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: On February 15, 1998, Earnhardt finally won the Daytona 500 in his 20th attempt after failing to win in his previous 19 attempts. He began the season by winning his Twin 125-mile qualifier race for the ninth straight year, and the week before was the first to drive around the track under the newly installed lights, for coincidentally 20 laps. On race day, he showed himself to be a contender early. Halfway through the race, however, it seemed that Jeff Gordon had the upper hand. But by lap 138, Earnhardt had taken the lead and thanks to a push by teammate Mike Skinner, he maintained it. Earnhardt made it to the caution-checkered flag before Bobby Labonte. Afterwards, there was a large show of respect for Earnhardt, in which every crew member of every team lined pit road to shake his hand as he made his way to victory lane. Earnhardt then drove his No. 3 into the infield grass, starting a trend of post-race celebrations. He spun the car twice, throwing grass and leaving tire tracks in the shape of a No. 3 in the grass. He then spoke about the victory, saying, "I have had a lot of great fans and people behind me all through the years and I just can't thank them enough. The Daytona 500 is ours. We won it, we won it, we won it!" The rest of the season did not go as well, and the Daytona 500 was his only victory that year. Despite that, he did almost pull off a Daytona sweep, where he was one of the contenders for the win in the first nighttime Pepsi 400, but a pit stop late in the race in which a rogue tire cost him the race win. He slipped to 12th in the point standings halfway through the season, and Richard Childress decided to make a crew chief change, taking Mike Skinner's crew chief Kevin Hamlin and putting him with Earnhardt while giving Skinner Larry McReynolds (Earnhardt's crew chief). Earnhardt finished the 1998 season eighth in the final points standings, with 1 win, 5 top fives, and 13 top tens, with an average finish of 16.2.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: Before the 1999 season, fans began discussing Earnhardt's age and speculating that with his son, Dale Jr., making his Winston Cup debut, Earnhardt might be contemplating retirement. Earnhardt swept both races for the year at Talladega, leading some to conclude that his talent had become limited to the restrictor plate tracks, which require a unique skill set and an exceptionally powerful racecar to win. But halfway through the year, Earnhardt began to show some of the old spark. In the August race at Michigan, he led laps late in the race and nearly pulled off his first win on a non-restrictor-plate track since 1996. One week later, he provided NASCAR with one of its most controversial moments. At the Bristol night race, Earnhardt found himself in contention to win his first short track race since Martinsville in 1995. When a caution came out with 15 laps to go, leader Terry Labonte got hit from behind by the lapped car of Darrell Waltrip. His spin put Earnhardt in the lead with five cars between him and Labonte with five laps to go. Labonte had four fresh tires, and Earnhardt was driving on old tires, which made Earnhardt's car considerably slower. Labonte caught Earnhardt and passed him coming to the white flag, but Earnhardt drove hard into turn two, bumping Labonte and spinning him around. Earnhardt collected the win while spectators booed and made obscene gestures. "I didn't mean to turn him around, I just wanted to rattle his cage," Earnhardt said of the incident. He finished seventh in the standings that year, with 3 wins, 7 top fives, and 21 top tens, with an average finish of 12.0.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: In the 2000 season, Earnhardt had a resurgence, which was commonly attributed to neck surgery he underwent to correct a lingering injury from his 1996 Talladega crash. He scored what were considered the two most exciting wins of the year—winning by 0.010 seconds over Bobby Labonte at Atlanta, then gaining seventeen positions in the final four laps to win at Talladega, claiming his only No Bull million-dollar bonus along with his record 10th win at the track. Earnhardt also had second-place runs at Richmond and Martinsville, tracks where he had struggled through the late 1990s. On the strength of those performances, Earnhardt got to second in the standings. However, poor performances at the road course of Watkins Glen, where he wrecked coming out of the chicane, a wreck with Kenny Irwin Jr. while leading the spring race at Bristol, and mid-pack runs at intermediate tracks like Charlotte and Dover in a season dominated by the Ford Taurus in those tracks from Roush, Yates, and Penske, coupled with Bobby Labonte's extreme consistency, denied Earnhardt an eighth championship title. Earnhardt finished 2000 with two wins, 13 top fives, 24 top tens, an average finish of 9.4, and was the only driver besides Labonte to finish the season with zero DNF's.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: During the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on February 18, 2001, Earnhardt was killed in a three-car crash on the final lap of the race. He collided with Ken Schrader after making small contact with Sterling Marlin and hit the outside wall head-on. He had been blocking Schrader on the outside and Marlin on the inside at the time of the crash. Earnhardt's and Schrader's cars both slid off the track's asphalt banking into the infield grass just inside of turn 4. Seconds later, his driver Michael Waltrip won the race, with Michael’s teammate and his son Dale Earnhardt Jr. finishing second. Earnhardt was pronounced dead at the Halifax Medical Center at 5:16 PM Eastern Standard Time (22:16 UTC); he was 49 years old. NASCAR president Mike Helton confirmed Earnhardt's death in a statement to the press. An autopsy conducted on February 19, 2001, concluded that Earnhardt sustained a fatal basilar skull fracture. Four days later, on February 22, public funeral services were held at the Calvary Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: After Earnhardt's death, two investigations led by the Daytona Beach Police Department and NASCAR commenced; nearly every detail of the crash was made public. The allegations of seatbelt failure resulted in Bill Simpson's resignation from the company bearing his name, which manufactured the seatbelts used in Earnhardt's car and nearly every other NASCAR driver's car. NASCAR implemented rigorous safety improvements, such as mandating the HANS device, which Earnhardt refused to wear after finding it restrictive and uncomfortable. Several press conferences were held in the days following Earnhardt's death. After driver Sterling Marlin and his relatives received hate mail and death threats from angry fans, Waltrip and Earnhardt Jr. absolved him of any responsibility. Richard Childress made a public pledge that the number 3 would never again adorn the side of a black race car with a GM Goodwrench sponsorship. The number returned for the 2014 season, this time not sponsored by GM Goodwrench (which was rebranded GM Certified Service in 2011), driven by Childress's grandson Austin Dillon.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: At this time, his team was re-christened as the No. 29 team. Childress's second-year Busch Series driver Kevin Harvick was named as Earnhardt's replacement, beginning with the 2001 Dura Lube 400 at North Carolina Speedway. Special pennants bearing the No. 3 were distributed to everyone at the track to honor Earnhardt, and the Childress team wore blank uniforms out of respect, something which disappeared quickly and was soon replaced by the previous GM Goodwrench Service Plus uniforms. Harvick's car always displayed the Earnhardt stylized number 3 on the "B" posts (metal portion on each side of the car to the rear of the front windows) above the number 29 until the end of 2013, when he departed for Stewart-Haas Racing.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: Fans began honoring Earnhardt by holding three fingers aloft on the third lap of every race, a black screen of No. 3 in the beginning of "NASCAR Thunder 2002" before the EA Sports logo, and the television coverage of "NASCAR on Fox" and "NASCAR on NBC" went silent for each third lap from Rockingham to the following year's race there in honor of Earnhardt, unless on-track incidents brought out the caution flag on the third lap. Three weeks after Earnhardt's death, Harvick, driving a car that had been prepared for Earnhardt, scored his first career Cup win at Atlanta. On the final lap of the 2001 Cracker Barrel Old Country Store 500, he beat Jeff Gordon by .006 seconds (the margin being 0.004 of a second closer than Earnhardt had won over Bobby Labonte at the same race a year ago) in an identical photo finish, and the images of Earnhardt's longtime gas man Danny "Chocolate" Myers crying after the victory, Harvick's tire-smoking burnout on the frontstretch with three fingers held aloft outside the driver's window. The win was also considered cathartic for a sport whose epicenter had been ripped away. Harvick would win another race at the inaugural event at Chicagoland en route to a ninth-place finish in the final points, and won Rookie of the Year honors along with the 2001 NASCAR Busch Series Championship.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: Dale Earnhardt, Inc. won five races in the 2001 season, beginning with Steve Park's victory in the race at Rockingham just one week after Earnhardt's death. Earnhardt Jr. and Waltrip finished first and second in the series' return to Daytona in July for the Pepsi 400, a reverse of the finish in the Daytona 500. Earnhardt Jr. also won the fall races at Dover (first post 9/11 race) and Talladega and came to an eighth-place points finish.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: Earnhardt's remains were interred at his estate in Mooresville, North Carolina after a private funeral service on February 21, 2001.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: Earnhardt drove the No. 3 car for the majority of his career, spanning the latter half of the 1981 season, and then again from 1984 until his death in 2001. Although he had other sponsors during his career, his No. 3 is associated in fans' minds with his last sponsor GM Goodwrench and his last color scheme — a predominantly black car with bold red and silver trim. The black and red No. 3 continues to be one of the most famous logos in North American motor racing.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: A common misconception was that Richard Childress Racing "owned the rights" to the No. 3 in NASCAR competition (fueled by the fact that Kevin Harvick's car had a little No. 3 as an homage to Earnhardt from 2001 to 2013 and the usage of the No. 3 on the Camping World Truck Series truck of Ty Dillon when he ran in that series), but in fact NASCAR, and no specific team, owns the rights to this or any other number. According to established NASCAR procedures, Richard Childress Racing had priority over other teams if they chose to reuse the number, which they did when Austin Dillon was promoted to the Cup series in 2014. While Richard Childress Racing owns the stylized No. 3 logos used during Earnhardt's lifetime (and used presently with Dillon), those rights would hypothetically not prevent a future racing team from using a different No. 3 design (also, a new No. 3 team would most likely, in any case, need to create logos which fit with their sponsor's logos).


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: In 2004, ESPN released a made-for-TV movie entitled "", which used a new (but similarly colored) No. 3 logo. The movie was a sympathetic portrayal of Earnhardt's life, but the producers were sued for using the No. 3 logo. In December 2006, the ESPN lawsuit was settled, but details were not released to the public.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: Dale Earnhardt Jr. made two special appearances in 2002 in a No. 3 Busch Series car: these appearances were at the track where his father died (Daytona) and the track where he made his first Winston Cup start (Charlotte). Earnhardt Jr. won the first of those two races, which was the season-opening event at Daytona. He also raced a No. 3 sponsored by Wrangler on July 2, 2010, for Richard Childress Racing at Daytona. In a green-white-checker finish he outran Joey Logano to win his second race in the No. 3.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: Otherwise, the No. 3 was missing from the national touring series until September 5, 2009, when Austin Dillon, the 19-year-old grandson of Richard Childress, debuted an RCR-owned No. 3 truck in the Camping World Truck Series. Dillon and his younger brother Ty Dillon drove the No. 3 in various lower level competitions for several years, including the Camping World East Series. In 2012, Austin Dillon began driving in the Nationwide Series full-time, using the No. 3; he had previously used the No. 33 while driving in that series part-time.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: Richard Childress Racing entered a No. 3 in the Daytona truck race on February 13, 2010 with a sponsorship from Bass Pro Shops driven by Austin Dillon. It was involved in a wreck almost identical to that which took the life of Earnhardt: being spun out, colliding with another vehicle, and being turned into the outside wall in turn number four. He walked away unscathed. Dillon again returned to a No. 3 marked racecar when he started fifth in the 2012 Daytona Nationwide Series opener in an Advocare sponsored black Chevrolet Impala. On December 11, 2013, RCR announced that Austin Dillon would drive the No. 3 car in the upcoming 2014 Sprint Cup season, bringing the number back to the series for the first time in 13 years.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: Only the former International Race of Champions actually retired the No. 3, which they did in a rule change effective in 2004. Until the series folded in 2007, anyone wishing to use the No. 3 again had to use No. 03 instead.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: Formula One driver Daniel Ricciardo chose the number "3" as his permanent racing number when F1's rules changed to allow drivers to choose their own numbers for 2014 and stated on Twitter that part of the reason for his choice was that he was a fan of Earnhardt's, while his helmet design features the number stylized in the same way.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: "Earnhardt Tower", a seating section at Daytona International Speedway was opened and named in his honor a month before his death at the track.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: Earnhardt has several roads named after him, including a street in his hometown Kannapolis. Dale Earnhardt Boulevard (originally Earnhardt Road) is marked as exit 60 off Interstate 85, northeast of Charlotte. Dale Earnhardt Drive is also the start of The Dale Journey Trail, a self-guided driving tour of landmarks in the lives of Earnhardt and his family. The North Carolina Department of Transportation switched the designation of a road between Kannapolis and Mooresville near the headquarters of DEI (that used to be called NC 136) with NC 3, which was in Currituck County. In addition, exit 72 off Interstate 35W, one of the entrances to Texas Motor Speedway, is named "Dale Earnhardt Way".


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: Between the 2004 and 2005 JGTC (renamed Super GT from 2005) season, Hasemi Sport competed in the series with a sole black G'Zox-sponsored Nissan 350Z with the same number and letterset as Earnhardt on the roof.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: During the NASCAR weekend races at Talladega Superspeedway on April 29, 2006 – May 1, 2006, the DEI cars competed in identical special black paint schemes on Dale Earnhardt Day, which is held annually on his birthday—April 29. Martin Truex Jr., won the Aaron's 312 in the black car, painted to reflect Earnhardt's Intimidating Black No. 3 NASCAR Busch Grand National series car. In the Nextel Cup race on May 1, No. 8 Dale Earnhardt Jr.; No. 1 Martin Truex Jr.; and No. 15 Paul Menard competed in cars with the same type of paint scheme.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: On June 18, 2006, at Michigan for the 3M Performance 400, Earnhardt Jr. ran a special vintage Budweiser car to honor his father and his grandfather Ralph Earnhardt. He finished third after rain caused the race to be cut short. The car was painted to resemble Ralph's 1956 dirt cars, and carried 1956-era Budweiser logos to complete the throwback look.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: In the summer of 2007, Dale Earnhardt, Inc. (DEI) with the Dale Earnhardt Foundation, announced it will fund an annual undergraduate scholarship at Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina for students interested in motorsports and automotive engineering. Scholarship winners are also eligible to work at DEI in internships. The first winner was William Bostic, a senior at Clemson majoring in mechanical engineering.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: In 2008, on the 50th anniversary of the first Daytona 500 race, DEI and RCR teamed up to make a special COT sporting Earnhardt's 1998 Daytona 500 paint scheme to honor the tenth anniversary of his Daytona 500 victory. In a tribute to all previous Daytona 500 winners, the winning drivers appeared in a lineup on stage, in chronological order. The throwback No. 3 car stood in the infield, in the approximate position Earnhardt would have taken in the processional. The throwback car featured the authentic 1998-era design on a current-era car, a concept similar to modern throwback jerseys in other sports. The car was later sold in 1:64 and 1:24 scale models.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: The Intimidator 305 roller coaster has been open since April 2, 2010, at Kings Dominion in Doswell, Virginia. Named after Earnhardt, the ride's trains are modeled after his black-and-red Chevrolet.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: Atlanta Braves assistant coach Ned Yost was a friend of Earnhardt, and Richard Childress. When Yost was named Milwaukee Brewers manager, he changed jersey numbers, from No. 5 to No. 3 in Earnhardt's honor. (No. 3 is retired by the Braves in honor of outfielder Dale Murphy, so Yost could not make the change while in Atlanta.) When Yost was named Kansas City Royals assistant coach, he wore No. 2 for the 2010 season, even when he was named manager in May 2010, but for the 2011 season, he switched back to No. 3.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: During the third lap of the 2011 Daytona 500 (a decade since Earnhardt's death), and 2021 Daytona 500 (two decades since Earnhardt's death) the commentators on FOX fell silent while fans raised three fingers in a similar fashion to the tributes throughout 2001.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: The north entrance to New Avondale City Center in Arizona will bear the name Dale Earnhardt Drive. Avondale is where Earnhardt won a Cup race in 1990.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: His helmet from the 1998 season is at the National Museum of American History in the Smithsonian museum in Washington D.C.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: Weedeater, a sludge metal band from North Carolina, paid tribute to Earnhardt on their 2003 album "Sixteen Tons", with the song "No. 3". The song is played with audio clips from television broadcasts about Earnhardt mixed in the background. He is also mentioned in a 2001 song composed by John Hiatt entitled "The Tiki Bar Is Open," along with his legendary race number.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: On February 28, 2016, after winning the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, during his victory lap, driver Jimmie Johnson held his hand out of his window, with three fingers extended in tribute to Earnhardt. This was following Johnson's 76th Cup Series win, which tied the career mark of Earnhardt's. This is also the track where Earnhardt claimed his sixth Winston Cup Series title.


title: Dale Earnhardt

text: In the week of the 2021 Formula One United States Grand Prix, McLaren driver, Daniel Ricciardo drove the iconic Wrangler car from the 1980s as a tribute to Earnhardt and his family, as Ricciardo has been a fan of Earnhardt since he was a child. The opportunity came after winning the Italian Grand Prix that year, and the McLaren Team Owner, Zak Brown promised him that he would give him a chance to drive the iconic car.


title: Hilarie Burton

text: Hilarie Ros Burton (born July 1, 1982) is an American actress, businesswoman, author and producer. A former host of MTV's "Total Request Live", she portrayed Peyton Sawyer on The WB/CW drama "One Tree Hill" for six seasons (2003–2009). Post "One Tree Hill", Burton starred in "Our Very Own", "Solstice", and "The List". She has also had supporting or recurring roles in television series, including her role as Sara Ellis on "White Collar" (2010–2013), Dr. Lauren Boswell on the ABC medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" (2013), Molly Dawes on the ABC drama series "Forever" (2014), and Karen Palmer on the Fox television series "Lethal Weapon" (2016).


title: Hilarie Burton

text: Burton was born and raised in Sterling, Virginia. Her father is a veteran of the US Army, and her mother is a real estate agent. She is the eldest of four children with three brothers. She graduated from Park View High School in 2000, where she was student council treasurer her sophomore year, vice-president her junior year, and captain of the cheerleading squad, student council president, and homecoming queen her senior year.


title: Hilarie Burton

text: Burton's first big break came when working as a VJ for MTV's "Total Request Live (TRL)". She was supposed to be a guest commentator for one segment, but producers decided to offer her a permanent job. Burton went on to present at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards and MTV's "Iced Out New Year's Eve". Burton went on to portray herself on The WB drama "Dawson's Creek" in 2002, which marked her television debut.


title: Hilarie Burton

text: In October 2017, when news of the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases broke, Burton retweeted a 2003 video clip from "TRL Uncensored" in which Ben Affleck squeezed her breast on air. This was in response to a fan tweet that quipped, "[Affleck] also grabbed Hilarie Burton-Morgan's breasts on TRL once. Everyone forgot though." Burton replied, "I didn't forget [about it] ... I was a kid." Affleck, who'd just publicly criticized Weinstein, subsequently responded on Twitter to apologize to Burton. When asked about the incident a month later on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert", Affleck said, "I don't remember it, but I absolutely apologize for it. I certainly don't think she's lying or making it up.'"


title: Hilarie Burton

text: On May 5, 2020, Burton published her first non-fiction book "The Rural Diaries: Love, Livestock, and Big Life Lessons Down on Mischief Farm".


title: Hilarie Burton

text: In 2021, Burton started a podcast with "One Tree Hill" co-stars Sophia Bush and Bethany Joy Lenz titled "Drama Queens".


title: Hilarie Burton

text: Burton was cast in The WB drama series "One Tree Hill" as Peyton Sawyer, an independent visual and musical artist and cheerleader, in April 2003. The series premiered on September 23, 2003, and went on to be the network's top rated program of the year. The role was considered Burton's breakout role and is her best known to date. For her role in the series, Burton was featured on the cover of "Maxim", "American Cheerleader Magazine" and "People". Her performance received critical praise and she earned three Teen Choice Award nominations. In May 2009, The CW announced Burton would not be returning for the show's seventh season based on her own decision not to return, contrary to rumors she left owing to salary issues.


title: Hilarie Burton

text: One Tree Hill heightened Burton's public profile. In May 2007 she was ranked #77 in "Maxim"s "Hot 100 List of 2007". She also appeared on the cover of the November 2006 edition of "Maxim" with "One Tree Hill" co-stars Sophia Bush and Danneel Harris. In previous years, Burton ranked #2 on "Femme Fatales" "The 50 Sexiest Women of 2005", and #12 on Much Music's "20 Hottest Women of 2003".


title: Hilarie Burton

text: While still a "One Tree Hill" cast member, Burton made her feature film debut opposite Allison Janney and Cheryl Hines in the 2005 well-reviewed drama "Our Very Own" which centered on five small-town teenagers who dream of a better life. Burton and her co-stars received the "Outstanding Ensemble Acting" award at the prestigious Sarasota Film Festival. Burton appeared in the 2007 Lifetime drama "Normal Adolescent Behavior" which followed a group of friends who are in a six-way polyfidelitous relationship. That same year, Burton co-starred in the supernatural horror film "Solstice" opposite Amanda Seyfried and Elisabeth Harnois. Burton also created her own production company, Southern Gothic Production (SoGoPro) in 2007, along with Nick Gray, Kelly Tenney, James Burton, and Meg Mortimer.


title: Hilarie Burton

text: In 2008, Burton appeared in both the Fox Searchlight Pictures drama "The Secret Life of Bees", as the deceased mother of Dakota Fanning's character, and the limited release thriller "The List". Burton was next cast in the film "Bloodworth" opposite Hilary Duff and Val Kilmer, an adaptation of the novel "Provinces of Night" by William Gay. The film premiered after her exit from One Tree Hill, at the 2010 Santa Barbara International Film Festival, but made little money in limited release. Burton won a recurring arc in the USA Network crime drama series "White Collar" in 2010 as Sara Ellis, an insurance investigator in the second season. She was upgraded to a series regular in 2011 for the third season, but switched back to the recurring cast in the fourth season. 2012 saw Burton guest-starring on the ABC police comedy-drama "Castle" (season 4, episode 13) as a reality television star who is accused of murder. Next came a recurring role in the ABC medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" for the final three episodes of the 2013 ninth season, as Dr. Lauren Boswell. That fall, Burton had a recurring role on the short-lived CBS drama "Hostages". Burton reunited with "One Tree Hill" co-star Tyler Hilton for a recurring role on CBS sci-fi drama "Extant" in 2015. Burton appeared as the DEA agent love interest of main character Martin Riggs on "Lethal Weapon" from the seventh episode of the first season in 2016 through the third episode of the second season in 2017.


title: Hilarie Burton

text: In November 2017, Burton spoke out in light of charges that "One Tree Hill" creator Mark Schwahn had sexually harassed some of the female crew, alleging that she had also been sexually harassed by Schwahn.


title: Hilarie Burton

text: Burton guest-starred in the tenth season of "The Walking Dead" as Negan's wife Lucille, appearing alongside her real-life husband Jeffrey Dean Morgan who plays Negan.


title: Hilarie Burton

text: During her time on "One Tree Hill", Burton resided in Wilmington, North Carolina, where the show was filmed.


title: Hilarie Burton

text: In 2009, Burton began a relationship with actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan, after being introduced on a blind date set up by Jensen Ackles and his wife Danneel, their previous co-stars.


title: Hilarie Burton

text: Burton has been candid on social media about their struggle to conceive, stating that it took five years to successfully carry a second baby to term. The couple married on October 5, 2019. Their private wedding was attended by many of their "One Tree Hill" and "Supernatural" co-stars.


title: Hilarie Burton

text: Morgan and Burton have made their home in Rhinebeck, New York, on a 100-acre working farm in the Hudson Valley with cows, ducks, chickens, alpacas, donkeys, and an emu.


title: Hilarie Burton

text: Since 2014, they have been co-owners (along with Morgan's friend, actor Paul Rudd) of Samuel's Sweet Shop, a Rhinebeck candy store they saved from being closed after the previous owner, a friend of theirs, died suddenly.


title: Glenn Howerton

text: Glenn Franklin Howerton III (born April 13, 1976) is an American actor, producer and screenwriter. He is best known for the long-running dark satirical comedy "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" (2005–present) on FX/FXX, a show he co-created with Charlie Day and Rob McElhenney, and on which he plays Dennis Reynolds, in addition to being an executive producer and writer. His other notable performances include the lead role of Jack Griffin in "A.P. Bio" on NBC, a recurring role as Cliff Gilbert on "The Mindy Project" on Fox and lead role Corey Howard in the short-lived spinoff sitcom "That '80s Show".


title: Glenn Howerton

text: Glenn Franklin Howerton III was born on April 13, 1976 in Japan, the son of American parents Janice and Glenn Franklin Howerton Jr. His father was a fighter pilot. Almost immediately after his birth, his family moved to Arizona and then New Mexico for a short while. When he was three years old, they moved to the English town of Felixstowe, Suffolk. They subsequently moved to Virginia, followed by South Korea, where they settled in Seoul. When he was 10 years old, the family moved to Montgomery, Alabama.


title: Glenn Howerton

text: After graduating from Jefferson Davis High School, he moved to Miami where he spent two years at New World School of the Arts of Miami Dade College. In 1996, he entered Juilliard School's Drama Division in New York City where he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts as part of Group 29 (1996–2000).


title: Glenn Howerton

text: In 2002, Howerton starred as Corey Howard in "That '80s Show". He went on to guest star on "ER" as Dr. Nick Cooper in 2003. He had small roles in the films "Must Love Dogs" (2005), "Serenity" (2005), "Two Weeks" (2006), and "The Strangers" (2008). He also appeared as a doctor in "Crank" (2006), and reprised the role in its 2009 sequel, "".


title: Glenn Howerton

text: Howerton is most well-known for playing the deeply narcissistic and anti-social bartender of Paddy's Pub, Dennis Reynolds, one of the main characters on the FX sitcom "It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia" (2005–present). The series was co-created by Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day and him, and the three serve as executive producers, writers and main cast members alongside Kaitlin Olson and Danny DeVito. As of season 14, he has also directed two episodes. In December 2021, "Always Sunny" became the longest-running live-action America comedy of all time with the release of its fifteenth season.


title: Glenn Howerton

text: In 2008, Howerton co-created sci-fi comedy "Boldly Going Nowhere" with Day, McElhenney and writing assistant Adam Stein, but the pilot was permanently shelved. He has also had producing roles on various projects created by other "Always Sunny" colleagues like David Hornsby such as "How to Be a Gentleman", "Unsupervised" and "The Cool Kids." Howerton also did several voice roles including a recurring part on "The Cleveland Show" as Ernie Krinklesac from 2009 to 2013.


title: Glenn Howerton

text: He played the lead role in a film for the first time in 2013, when he landed the character of Will in the CollegeHumor comedy film "Coffee Town" with co-stars Steve Little and Ben Schwartz. Soon after, he landed recurring roles at the time on the Fox comedy series "The Mindy Project" (2012–2017) as Cliff Gilbert, the divorce lawyer introduced in season 2 as one of Mindy's love interests, and on the critically-acclaimed first season of the FX dark comedy series "Fargo" (2014–present) as Don Chumph. He even had a small part as the gun-running Dominic in the Netflix Original "Officer Downe" (2016) starring Kim Coates.


title: Glenn Howerton

text: His next major television role came in 2018 on the NBC single-camera comedy created by Mike O'Brien, "A.P. Bio" (2018–2021), where he played Jack Griffin, an arrogant Harvard philosophy professor whose fall from grace had forced him to get a job teaching biology to high school students in his hometown of Toledo while plotting to exact revenge on his nemesis and restore his career. The show ran for two seasons on NBC before it was moved to Peacock, NBC's streaming service, where it ran for two more seasons, when it was cancelled for good. In October 2022, it was announced that he would be voicing Fred Jones on the upcoming HBO Max animated series "Velma".


title: Glenn Howerton

text: Starting in November 2021, Day, McElhenney and Howerton launched "The Always Sunny Podcast", a weekly show loosely based on the rewatch format of podcasting, which had grown in popularity in recent years, to coincide with the release of the record-breaking season 15 of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia". In June 2022, they released "Four Walls" "Whiskey" with all proceeds from the 15-year single-malt Irish whiskey going towards supporting the Pennsylvania hospitality industry which was badly hit by the pandemic.


title: Glenn Howerton

text: On September 8, 2009, Howerton married actress Jill Latiano, who guest-starred on the "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" episode "The D.E.N.N.I.S. System" broadcast two months later. Their first son, Miles Robert, was born in 2011, and their second son, Isley Ray, in August 2014.


title: Robert De Niro filmography

text: Robert De Niro Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His early films included "Greetings" (1968), ' (1969), "Bloody Mama" (1970), "Hi, Mom!" (1970), "Jennifer on My Mind" (1971), ' (1971), and "Mean Streets" (1973). In 1974, De Niro was cast as the young Vito Corleone in "". His performance in the film led him to win the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. After "The Godfather Part II", he starred in Martin Scorsese's psychological drama "Taxi Driver" (1976). In the film, De Niro portrayed Travis Bickle, who is a lonely, depressed 26-year-old living in isolation in New York City. He won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor, National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor, New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor, and he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. De Niro's "You talkin' to me?" dialogue was ranked number 10 on the American Film Institute's AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes. In 1978, De Niro appeared in Michael Cimino's war drama "The Deer Hunter", a film based on a trio of steelworkers whose lives were changed forever after fighting in the Vietnam War. De Niro was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.


title: Robert De Niro filmography

text: After "Taxi Driver", De Niro collaborated with Scorsese on musical drama "New York, New York" (1977). The film was a box-office failure, and the disappointing reception drove Scorsese into depression and drugs. While Scorsese was in rehab, De Niro asked him to read "", a book about the boxer Jake LaMotta, which Scorsese threw away and said was "full of shit". After nearly dying from a drug overdose, Scorsese agreed to make the film. "Raging Bull" (1980) received widespread critical acclaim, and De Niro received the Academy Award for Best Actor, Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama, and the National Board of Review Award for Best Actor. After "Raging Bull", De Niro appeared in neo-noir "True Confessions" (1981), in which he was praised for his performance. In 1983, De Niro was cast in Martin Scorsese's satirical black comedy "The King of Comedy", in which he appeared as a struggling comedian with mental health issues. While the film bombed at the box office, it was well received by critics. Mark Kermode of "The Guardian" wrote, "While all these movies are terrific indeed, they pale by comparison with Scorsese and De Niro's finest – and most often overlooked – work: "The King of Comedy"". The following year, De Niro appeared in epic crime drama "Once Upon a Time in America". In the film, De Niro plays David "Noodles" Aaronson, who struggles as a street kid in a neighborhood on Manhattan's Lower East Side in the 1920s. "Once Upon a Time in America" was a financial disaster, grossing $5.3 million on a $30 million budget.


title: Robert De Niro filmography

text: In 1990, De Niro starred in Penny Marshall's "Awakenings", based on Oliver Sacks's 1973 memoir of the same title and for his performance he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. The following year, De Niro appeared in Scorsese's psychological thriller "Cape Fear" as Max Cady, a convicted rapist. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance. In 2000, De Niro appeared in the comedy film "Meet the Parents", which was a commercial success, later reprising his role in the 2004 and 2010 sequels. In 2012, De Niro appeared in the David O. Russell film "Silver Linings Playbook", for which he received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor nomination. In 2019, De Niro starred in Todd Phillips' psychological thriller "Joker", film based on DC Comics characters. In the film, De Niro plays Murray Franklin, a talk show host. The film grossed over $1 billion, making it the first R-rated film to do so. After "Joker", De Niro collaborated with Martin Scorsese on "The Irishman" (2019). In the film, he plays the role of Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran, a truck driver who becomes a hitman involved with mobster Russell Bufalino and his crime family. De Niro's performance in the film was widely praised by critics.


title: Michael C. Hall

text: Michael Carlyle Hall (born February 1, 1971) is an American actor and singer best known for his roles as Dexter Morgan, the titular character in the Showtime series "Dexter," and David Fisher in the HBO drama series "Six Feet Under." These two roles collectively earned Hall a Golden Globe Award and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. He has also acted in Broadway shows and narrated audiobooks.


title: Michael C. Hall

text: Born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina, Hall graduated from New York University's graduate acting program at the Tisch School of the Arts in 1996. He began his acting career on Broadway in the revival of "Cabaret" and appeared in a variety of shows in the mid- to late 1990s. Aside from his acclaimed roles on "Six Feet Under" and "Dexter," he starred in the Broadway musical "Hedwig and The Angry Inch" from 2014 to 2015. He has also starred in films including "Paycheck" (2003), "Gamer" (2009), "" (2017), "Game Night" (2018), and "In the Shadow of the Moon" (2019). In 2021, he reprised his role of Dexter Morgan for the miniseries revival "".


title: Michael C. Hall

text: Hall was born in Raleigh, North Carolina. His mother, Janice (née Styons) Hall, is a mental health counselor at Lees-McRae College, and his father, William Carlyle Hall, a systems engineer manager for IBM. Hall had one older sister who died in infancy before his birth. His father died of prostate cancer in 1982 at the age of 39 when Hall was 11 years old. He has said of this, "There was a very one-on-one, immediate family relationship, my mom and I." In a 2004 interview, Hall spoke about his experience in the wake of his father's death: "Certainly, for a young boy, there's no good age, but I think I was on the cusp of a time in my life where I was starting to reach puberty, to relate to my father. To have him ... something gets frozen. As you revisit it for the rest of your life, it's sort of this slow—but hopefully sure—crawling out of that frozen moment."


title: Michael C. Hall

text: Hall graduated from Ravenscroft School in Raleigh in 1989, and from Earlham College, a liberal arts college in Richmond, Indiana, in 1993. While he has said that he had planned to become a lawyer, he later acknowledged that he had never formed a serious intent to go to law school. Hall graduated from New York University's graduate acting program at the Tisch School of the Arts in 1996.


title: Michael C. Hall

text: Hall discovered acting early in life: he performed in "What Love Is" when he was in second grade at Ravenscroft School. In fifth grade, he began singing, first in a boys' choir, and later, in high school, in musicals, performing in standards such as "The Sound of Music", "Oklahoma!", and "Fiddler on the Roof". While a student at Earlham College, he continued acting, starring in "Cabaret" and other productions.


title: Michael C. Hall

text: Hall's professional acting career began in the theater. Off-Broadway, he appeared in "Macbeth" and "Cymbeline" at the New York Shakespeare Festival; in "Timon of Athens" and "Henry V" at The Public Theater; "The English Teachers" at the Manhattan Class Company (MCC); and the controversial play "Corpus Christi" at the Manhattan Theatre Club. He also performed the role of Paris Singer in the workshop production of a Sondheim musical (titled "Wise Guys" at the time, and in later versions, "Bounce" and then "Road Show". His character's songs and function were transferred to the character Hollis Bessamer in the final version.) In Los Angeles, Hall appeared in "Skylight" at the Mark Taper Forum. As part of the Texas Shakespeare Festival in the summer of 1995, he played Lancelot in "Camelot", Lysander in "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and Claudio in "Much Ado About Nothing".


title: Michael C. Hall

text: In 1998, Hall performed in William Shakespeare's "Cymbeline", in the role of Posthumus, which ran from August 4 to 30. In 1999, director Sam Mendes cast Hall as the flamboyant Emcee in the revival of "Cabaret"; this was Hall's first Broadway role. Mendes suggested Hall for the role of closeted David Fisher, when Alan Ball began casting the TV drama "Six Feet Under". "Everything opened up for me in "Cabaret"," but, Hall reported in a 2004 interview, "It slammed shut for David."


title: Michael C. Hall

text: Hall's work in the first season of "Six Feet Under" was recognized with a nomination for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series and for an AFI Award nomination for Actor of the Year in 2002. In addition, he shared in the Screen Actors Guild nominations for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series all five years that the show was in production, winning the award in 2003 and 2004.


title: Michael C. Hall

text: In 2003, Hall toured as Billy Flynn in the musical "Chicago". In 2005, he returned to off-Broadway theater in the premiere of Noah Haidle's "Mr. Marmalade", playing the title character, an emotionally disturbed little girl's imaginary friend.


title: Michael C. Hall

text: Hall starred in and co-produced the Showtime television series "Dexter", in which he played a psychopathic blood-spatter analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department, who moonlights as a serial killer/vigilante. Jennifer Carpenter played his adoptive sister, Debra Morgan. The series premiered on October 1, 2006, and ended its run in 2013. After months of rumors, on April 18, 2013, Showtime announced via social media that season eight would be "Dexter"s final season. Hall also voiced Dexter Morgan in the animated web series "".


title: Michael C. Hall

text: For his work on "Dexter", Hall was nominated for five Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series from 2008 to 2012. The show itself was also nominated for Emmy citations in the Drama Series category in the same years. He won the 2007 Television Critics Association award for Individual Achievement in Drama. Hall was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Drama in 2007, 2008, and again in 2010. Also in 2010, he won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series.


title: Michael C. Hall

text: In 2014, Hall stated he would be open to returning for a spinoff series, but said: "I can't even wrap my mind around that. And it's all just theoretical until there is some sort of script reflecting somebody's idea of where it could possibly go. But it's hard for me to imagine what that would be. Yeah, as far as playing Dexter again for an undefined amount of time, that's a little daunting to consider. But doing another television series—there's a lot of amazing stuff on TV. I don't want to do that right away. But I wouldn't say never to that." He has said he would consider revisiting his role as the serial killer if something was written that he deemed "worth pursuing".


title: Michael C. Hall

text: Hall's film credits include the thriller "Paycheck" (2003), the science fiction thriller "Gamer" (2009), the 2011 drama "The Trouble with Bliss" (2011), the comedy "Peep World" (2012), and "Kill Your Darlings" (2013). Hall performed in a film adaptation of Joe R. Lansdale's cult novel "Cold in July", directed by Jim Mickle. The film premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Hall will portray Abraham Lincoln's advisor, Leonard Swett, in the documentary film "The Gettysburg Address".


title: Michael C. Hall

text: In 2014, he returned to Broadway in the play "The Realistic Joneses", starring in the role of John Jones. He assumed the title role in "Hedwig and The Angry Inch" on Broadway on October 16, 2014, and performed the role until January 18, 2015. Hall returned to the role of Hedwig from February 17–21, 2015, to replace John Cameron Mitchell, who had a knee injury.


title: Michael C. Hall

text: At the end of 2015 and the start of 2016, Hall starred as Thomas Newton in the NYTW stage production of "Lazarus", created by David Bowie and Enda Walsh. Hall performed the song "Lazarus", which appeared on Bowie's final album, "Blackstar" (2016), on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" in December 2015. He later appeared in the London production from October 25, 2016, until January 22, 2017.


title: Michael C. Hall

text: On January 16, 2014, Showtime President David Nevins said there had been discussions for a "Dexter" spinoff series that would take the character in a different direction and not continue the previous series. Nevins said they would only do the show if Hall agreed to return. On October 14, 2020, Showtime confirmed that Hall would reprise his role of Dexter Morgan in a 10-episode limited series, with Clyde Phillips returning as showrunner. The series premiered on November 7, 2021 and ended on January 9, 2022. The series finale was the most watched finale in the history of the network, it also set streaming records as well.


title: Michael C. Hall

text: In 2017, Hall played John F. Kennedy in season two, episode eight of the Netflix historical drama "The Crown," alongside actress Jodi Balfour as Jackie Kennedy. He also starred as Tom Delaney, British widower and doctor, in "Safe", an eight-part Netflix original crime drama which premiered on May 10, 2018. In 2018, Hall starred as Thom Pain in the off-Broadway production of "Thom Pain (based on nothing)", a one-man show written by Will Eno. The show was directed by Oliver Butler for the Signature Theatre in New York City, and it ran from October 23, 2018, to December 9, 2018, after being extended twice.


title: Michael C. Hall

text: On February 3, 2019, Hall starred as a fictionalized version of himself in the half-hour-long, one-time-only Broadway musical, "". Also in 2019, Hall starred as Holt in the Netflix thriller film "In the Shadow of the Moon". Hall voices the character Toffee in Daron Nefcy's "Star vs. the Forces of Evil" and also voiced Batman in "".


title: Michael C. Hall

text: In 2018, Hall narrated the audiobook version of Stephen King's horror novel "Pet Sematary". In 2019, Hall starred alongside Martha Plimpton and Hamish Linklater in an episode of the theatre podcast "Playing on Air", titled "Nudity Rider". Hall has sung for the band Princess Goes to the Butterfly Museum since 2018, alongside Matt Katz-Bohen and Peter Yanowitz. On September 3, 2019, they filmed their first music video for their song, "Ketamine", in Tarrytown, New York. The audio for the song was released October 25, 2019, with the official music video premiering on "Collider" on December 12, 2019. The band's eponymous debut EP was released on April 2, 2020.


title: Michael C. Hall

text: In 2002, Hall married actress Amy Spanger. The summer after their wedding, Hall played Billy Flynn opposite Spanger's Roxie Hart in the Broadway musical "Chicago". The pair divorced in 2006.


title: Michael C. Hall

text: In 2007, Hall began dating his "Dexter" co-star Jennifer Carpenter. They eloped on New Year's Eve 2008 in California and publicly appeared together for the first time as a married couple at the 66th Golden Globe Awards in January 2009. In December 2010, Hall and Carpenter released a statement announcing that they had filed for divorce after having been separated "for some time". The divorce was granted for irreconcilable differences and finalized in December 2011; however, the two remain close friends.


title: Michael C. Hall

text: In September 2012, Hall began dating Morgan Macgregor, who was an associate editor at the "Los Angeles Review of Books", and they married on February 29, 2016.


title: Michael C. Hall

text: On January 13, 2010, Hall's agent and spokesman confirmed that Hall was undergoing treatment for a form of Hodgkin's lymphoma. In an interview, Hall said that it was upsetting to learn of his cancer when he was 38 years old, as his father had died from cancer at age 39. Hall accepted his Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award in 2010 while wearing a knitted cap over his bald head, having lost his hair due to chemotherapy. Hall wore a wig for season 5 of "Dexter" to cover up his hair loss due to chemotherapy. On April 25, 2010, Carpenter announced that Hall's cancer was fully in remission and he was set to get back to work for a new season of "Dexter".


title: Michael C. Hall

text: Hall is the face of the Somalia Aid Society's "Feed The People" campaign. He has also worked with Kiehl's to promote a limited-edition skin care line that benefits the Waterkeeper Alliance, an environmental nonprofit organization that works toward clean and safe water worldwide.


title: Michael C. Hall

text: In 2011, Hall was the celebrity spokesperson for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's "Light the Night Walk" fundraising campaign.


title: Neal McDonough

text: Neal McDonough (born February 13, 1966) is an American actor. He is known for his portrayal of Lieutenant Lynn "Buck" Compton in the HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers" (2001), Deputy District Attorney David McNorris on "Boomtown" (2002–2003), Tin Man in the Sci Fi Channel miniseries "Tin Man", and a main cast role as Dave Williams in Season 5 of "Desperate Housewives" (2008–2009). He has also appeared in films such as "", "Minority Report", "Walking Tall", and as Dum Dum Dugan in various Marvel Cinematic Universe films and TV series. In the DC Arrowverse, he has appeared as Damien Darhk in the TV series "Arrow", "Legends of Tomorrow", and "The Flash". He had a major role in "Suits" for several seasons (2014–2019) and played Malcolm Beck on "Yellowstone" (2019).