title: Tenerife

text: In addition, two large new hospitals have recently been built in the north and south areas of the island, located in the municipalities of Icod de los Vinos and Arona respectively. The Hospital del Norte de Tenerife ("Tenerife North Hospital") opened in 2012 and the Hospital del Sur de Tenerife ("Tenerife South Hospital") opened in 2015. These centers will function, according to their classification, as second level hospitals, with services of hospitalization, advanced diagnosis, ambulances and emergencies, and rehabilitation, etc. There are also a total of 39 centers of primary care and specialized clinics which complete the sanitary infrastructure of Tenerife.


title: Tenerife

text: Due to the geographic situation of Tenerife, the island enjoys an abundance of fish of various kinds. The species that are consumed the most are the Combtooth blennies ("viejas"), as well as sea bream ("sama"), red porgy ("bocinegro"), gold lined bream ("salema"), grouper ("mero"), and various and abundant types of "Thunnus". The Atlantic mackerel ("caballa"), sardine ("sardine"), and Jack mackerels ("chicharros") are also consumed frequently. Moray eels ("morenas") are also eaten, usually fried. Most seafood is cooked simply, usually boiled, or prepared "a la espalda" (cut into two equally shaped pieces along the spine) or "a la sal" (baked in salt). These dishes are usually accompanied by "mojo" (a local sauce) and wrinkly potatoes.


title: Tenerife

text: The typical festive meat dish of marinated pork tacos is a very popular dish prepared for town festivities in "ventorrillos", bars and private homes. Rabbit in salmorejo, goat, beef, pork and poultry are regularly consumed.


title: Tenerife

text: The fish dishes along with the meats are often accompanied by wrinkly potatoes ("papas arrugadas"). This is a typical Canarian dish which simply refers to the way the cooked potatoes look. They are boiled in their skins, in water with much salt, and the water is allowed to evaporate, leaving a salty crust.


title: Tenerife

text: Mojo, a word probably of Portuguese origin, describes a typical Canarian sauce, served as an accompaniment to food. The sauces come in a variety of colours, flavours and textures, and are usually served cold, often in separate dishes, for the diner to choose how much to apply. Green mojo usually includes coriander, parsley, and garlic; whilst red mojo is piquant, and made from a mix of hot and sweet peppers. A wide variety of other ingredients are also used, including; almonds, cheese, saffron and fried bread. Mojos are served with most meat, and some fish, dishes, and are often used on potatoes, or bread is dipped into them.


title: Tenerife

text: Tenerife exports about 3,400 tons of cheese per year, representing about 50 percent of the output of the island, and about 25 percent of the entire Canary Islands.


title: Tenerife

text: After the conquest of the Canary Islands, one of the first commercial activities to be started was cheese production. The sale of cheese provided the inhabitants with an income and cheese was even used as a form of currency for exchange and sale, becoming a crucial product in agricultural areas of the island.


title: Tenerife

text: Cheese grew to become one of the most commonly produced and consumed products on the island and is regularly served as part of a starter course or as a snack. Farms at Arico, La Orotava and Teno produced a variety of cheeses, including soft cheeses, cured, smoked and were mostly handmade. Today the main product is goat cheese, although certain amounts are made from sheep's or cow's milk, and according to the "Registro General Sanitario de Alimentos", the general health registry, around 75 different cottage cheeses are produced. The cheeses of the Canaries have generally received good international reviews, noted for their sweetness which differentiates them from certain other European cheeses. In particular, Tenerifan cured goats cheese was awarded best cheese in the world final of the 2008 World Cheese Awards held in Dublin, Ireland.


title: Tenerife

text: Cheeses from Tenerife now have a quality mark promoted by the Fundación Tenerife Rural, to standardize their quality in an attempt to publicize the qualities of the cheese and improve its marketing.


title: Tenerife

text: Gofio is one of the more traditional elements of cooking on the island, It is made with cereal grains that are roasted and then ground. Increasingly used to make a gofio on the island is wheat although there are other types, and they are often made with chickpeas. Relatively common is a mixed-type with wheat. It was served as main food to the "guanches" even before the Spanish conquest. In later times of scarcity or famine it was a staple of the popular Canarian diet. Today it is eaten as a main dish (gofio escaldado) or an accompaniment to different dishes, meats, fishes, soups, desserts. Some famous cooks have even made gofio ice cream, receiving good comments from the critics.


title: Tenerife

text: Confectionery in Tenerife is represented and strongly influenced by La Palma, with confections like "bienmesabe", "leche asada", "Príncipe Alberto", "frangollo", "huevos moles", "quesillo", etc.


title: Tenerife

text: Viticulture in the archipelago, and especially in Tenerife dates back to the conquest, when the settlers brought a variety of vines to plant. In the 16th and 17th centuries, wine production played an important role in the economy, and many families were dedicated to the culture and business. Of special mention is "malvasía canary", considered the best wine of Tenerife and at the time one of the most desired wines in the world, being shipped across to the major warehouses of Europe and America. Writers such as William Shakespeare and Walter Scott make reference to the wine in some of their works. Tenerife has 5 main wine growing regions. These include Abona, Valle de Güímar, Valle de La Orotava, Tacoronte-Acentejo and Ycoden-Daute-Isora.


title: Tenerife

text: This typical gastronomy is served in popular establishments known as "guachinches", opening day is the day of "San Andrés", 30 November, also known as the young wine festival "Festival de Vino Joven". The wine of the new harvest is traditionally served with roasted chestnuts, maturing at the same time, and grilled sardines, thus the season normally lasts from late autumn until early spring.


title: Tenerife

text: Over the last few years, Tenerife has become a popular filming location, being featured in several Hollywood blockbusters. Some of the most important films made on the island are:


title: Tenerife

text: Likewise, the island has been home to several musical recordings and as a scenic setting for music videos:


title: Tenerife

text: Among the important literary works that have the island's background or are alluded to, the following stand out: "La señorita de compañía" and "El hombre del mar", both by Agatha Christie, "La cueva de las mil momias" by Alberto Vazquez-Figueroa, "El picnic de los ladrones" of Leslie Charteris, the "El Sarcófago de las tres llaves" of Pompeyo Reina Moreno and "Atentado" of Mariano Gambín, among others.


title: Walt Whitman

text: Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was controversial in his time, particularly his 1855 poetry collection "Leaves of Grass", which was described as obscene for its overt sensuality.


title: Walt Whitman

text: Born in Huntington on Long Island, Whitman resided in Brooklyn as a child and through much of his career. At the age of 11, he left formal schooling to go to work. Later, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, and a government clerk. Whitman's major poetry collection, "Leaves of Grass", was first published in 1855 with his own money and became well known. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. During the American Civil War, he went to Washington, D.C. and worked in hospitals caring for the wounded. His poetry often focused on both loss and healing. On the death of Abraham Lincoln, whom Whitman greatly admired, he wrote his well known poems, "O Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", and gave a series of lectures. After a stroke towards the end of his life, Whitman moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. When he died at the age of 72, his funeral was a public event.


title: Walt Whitman

text: Whitman's influence on poetry remains strong. Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe argued: "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without "Leaves of Grass" ... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,' as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history can do without him." Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet ... He "is" America."


title: Walt Whitman

text: Walter Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, in West Hills, Town of Huntington, Long Island, to parents with interests in Quaker thought, Walter (1789–1855) and Louisa Van Velsor Whitman (1795–1873). The second of nine children, he was immediately nicknamed "Walt" to distinguish him from his father. Walter Whitman Sr. named three of his seven sons after American leaders: Andrew Jackson, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson. The oldest was named Jesse. The couple's sixth son, the youngest, was named Edward. At the age of four, Whitman moved with his family from West Hills to Brooklyn, living in a series of homes, in part due to bad investments. Whitman looked back on his childhood as generally restless and unhappy, given his family's difficult economic status. One happy moment that he later recalled was when he was lifted in the air and kissed on the cheek by the Marquis de Lafayette during a celebration in Brooklyn on July 4, 1825.


title: Walt Whitman

text: At the age of 11 Whitman concluded formal schooling. He then sought employment for further income for his family; he was an office boy for two lawyers and later was an apprentice and printer's devil for the weekly Long Island newspaper the "Patriot", edited by Samuel E. Clements. There, Whitman learned about the printing press and typesetting. He may have written "sentimental bits" of filler material for occasional issues. Clements aroused controversy when he and two friends attempted to dig up the corpse of the Quaker minister Elias Hicks to create a plaster mold of his head. Clements left the "Patriot" shortly afterward, possibly as a result of the controversy.


title: Walt Whitman

text: The following summer Whitman worked for another printer, Erastus Worthington, in Brooklyn. His family moved back to West Hills in the spring, but Whitman remained and took a job at the shop of Alden Spooner, editor of the leading Whig weekly newspaper the "Long-Island Star". While at the "Star", Whitman became a regular patron of the local library, joined a town debating society, began attending theater performances, and anonymously published some of his earliest poetry in the "New-York Mirror". At the age of 16 in May 1835, Whitman left the "Star" and Brooklyn. He moved to New York City to work as a compositor though, in later years, Whitman could not remember where. He attempted to find further work but had difficulty, in part due to a severe fire in the printing and publishing district, and in part due to a general collapse in the economy leading up to the Panic of 1837. In May 1836, he rejoined his family, now living in Hempstead, Long Island. Whitman taught intermittently at various schools until the spring of 1838, though he was not satisfied as a teacher.


title: Walt Whitman

text: After his teaching attempts, Whitman went back to Huntington, New York, to found his own newspaper, the "Long-Islander". Whitman served as publisher, editor, pressman, and distributor and even provided home delivery. After ten months, he sold the publication to E. O. Crowell, whose first issue appeared on July 12, 1839. There are no known surviving copies of the "Long-Islander" published under Whitman. By the summer of 1839, he found a job as a typesetter in Jamaica, Queens, with the "Long Island Democrat", edited by James J. Brenton. He left shortly thereafter, and made another attempt at teaching from the winter of 1840 to the spring of 1841. One story, possibly apocryphal, tells of Whitman's being chased away from a teaching job in Southold, New York, in 1840. After a local preacher called him a "Sodomite", Whitman was allegedly tarred and feathered. Biographer Justin Kaplan notes that the story is likely untrue, because Whitman regularly vacationed in the town thereafter. Biographer Jerome Loving calls the incident a "myth". During this time, Whitman published a series of ten editorials, called "Sun-Down Papers—From the Desk of a Schoolmaster", in three newspapers between the winter of 1840 and July 1841. In these essays, he adopted a constructed persona, a technique he would employ throughout his career.


title: Walt Whitman

text: Whitman moved to New York City in May, initially working a low-level job at the "New World", working under Park Benjamin Sr. and Rufus Wilmot Griswold. He continued working for short periods of time for various newspapers; in 1842 he was editor of the "Aurora" and from 1846 to 1848 he was editor of the "Brooklyn Eagle". While working for the latter institution, many of his publications were in the area of music criticism, and it is during this time that he became a devoted lover of Italian opera through reviewing performances of works by Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi. This new interest had an impact on his writing in free verse. He later said, "But for the opera, I could never have written "Leaves of Grass"."


title: Walt Whitman

text: Throughout the 1840s he contributed freelance fiction and poetry to various periodicals, including "Brother Jonathan" magazine edited by John Neal. Whitman lost his position at the "Brooklyn Eagle" in 1848 after siding with the free-soil "Barnburner" wing of the Democratic party against the newspaper's owner, Isaac Van Anden, who belonged to the conservative, or "Hunker", wing of the party. Whitman was a delegate to the 1848 founding convention of the Free Soil Party, which was concerned about the threat slavery would pose to free white labor and northern businessmen moving into the newly colonised western territories. Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison derided the party philosophy as "white manism".


title: Walt Whitman

text: In 1852, he serialized a novel titled "Life and Adventures of Jack Engle: An Auto-Biography: A Story of New York at the Present Time in which the Reader Will Find Some Familiar Characters" in six installments of New York's "The Sunday Dispatch". In 1858, Whitman published a 47,000 word series called "Manly Health and Training" under the pen name Mose Velsor. Apparently he drew the name Velsor from Van Velsor, his mother's family name. This self-help guide recommends beards, nude sunbathing, comfortable shoes, bathing daily in cold water, eating meat almost exclusively, plenty of fresh air, and getting up early each morning. Present-day writers have called "Manly Health and Training" "quirky", "so over the top", "a pseudoscientific tract", and "wacky".


title: Walt Whitman

text: Whitman claimed that after years of competing for "the usual rewards", he determined to become a poet. He first experimented with a variety of popular literary genres which appealed to the cultural tastes of the period. As early as 1850, he began writing what would become "Leaves of Grass", a collection of poetry which he would continue editing and revising until his death. Whitman intended to write a distinctly American epic and used free verse with a cadence based on the Bible. At the end of June 1855, Whitman surprised his brothers with the already-printed first edition of "Leaves of Grass". George "didn't think it worth reading".


title: Walt Whitman

text: Whitman paid for the publication of the first edition of "Leaves of Grass" himself and had it printed at a local print shop during their breaks from commercial jobs. A total of 795 copies were printed. No name is given as author; instead, facing the title page was an engraved portrait done by Samuel Hollyer, but 500 lines into the body of the text he calls himself "Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos, disorderly, fleshly, and sensual, no sentimentalist, no stander above men or women or apart from them, no more modest than immodest". The inaugural volume of poetry was preceded by a prose preface of 827 lines. The succeeding untitled twelve poems totaled 2315 lines—1336 lines belonging to the first untitled poem, later called "Song of Myself". The book received its strongest praise from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote a flattering five-page letter to Whitman and spoke highly of the book to friends. The first edition of "Leaves of Grass" was widely distributed and stirred up significant interest, in part due to Emerson's approval, but was occasionally criticized for the seemingly "obscene" nature of the poetry. Geologist Peter Lesley wrote to Emerson, calling the book "trashy, profane & obscene" and the author "a pretentious ass". Whitman embossed a quote from Emerson's letter, "I greet you at the beginning of a great career", in gold leaf on the spine of the second edition, effectively inventing the modern book blurb. Laura Dassow Walls, Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, wrote: "In one stroke, Whitman had given birth to the modern cover blurb, quite without Emerson's permission."


title: Walt Whitman

text: On July 11, 1855, a few days after "Leaves of Grass" was published, Whitman's father died at the age of 65. In the months following the first edition of "Leaves of Grass", critical responses began focusing more on the potentially offensive sexual themes. Though the second edition was already printed and bound, the publisher almost did not release it. In the end, the edition went to retail, with 20 additional poems, in August 1856. "Leaves of Grass" was revised and re-released in 1860, again in 1867, and several more times throughout the remainder of Whitman's life. Several well-known writers admired the work enough to visit Whitman, including Amos Bronson Alcott and Henry David Thoreau.


title: Walt Whitman

text: During the first publications of "Leaves of Grass", Whitman had financial difficulties and was forced to work as a journalist again, specifically with Brooklyn's "Daily Times" starting in May 1857. As an editor, he oversaw the paper's contents, contributed book reviews, and wrote editorials. He left the job in 1859, though it is unclear whether he was fired or chose to leave. Whitman, who typically kept detailed notebooks and journals, left very little information about himself in the late 1850s.


title: Walt Whitman

text: As the American Civil War was beginning, Whitman published his poem "" as a patriotic rally call for the North. Whitman's brother George had joined the Union army and began sending Whitman several vividly detailed letters of the battle front. On December 16, 1862, a listing of fallen and wounded soldiers in the "New-York Tribune" included "First Lieutenant G. W. Whitmore", which Whitman worried was a reference to his brother George. He made his way south immediately to find him, though his wallet was stolen on the way. "Walking all day and night, unable to ride, trying to get information, trying to get access to big people", Whitman later wrote, he eventually found George alive, with only a superficial wound on his cheek. Whitman, profoundly affected by seeing the wounded soldiers and the heaps of their amputated limbs, left for Washington on December 28, 1862, with the intention of never returning to New York.


title: Walt Whitman

text: In Washington, D.C., Whitman's friend Charley Eldridge helped him obtain part-time work in the army paymaster's office, leaving time for Whitman to volunteer as a nurse in the army hospitals. He would write of this experience in "The Great Army of the Sick", published in a New York newspaper in 1863 and, 12 years later, in a book called "Memoranda During the War". He then contacted Emerson, this time to ask for help in obtaining a government post. Another friend, John Trowbridge, passed on a letter of recommendation from Emerson to Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, hoping he would grant Whitman a position in that department. Chase, however, did not want to hire the author of such a disreputable book as "Leaves of Grass".


title: Walt Whitman

text: The Whitman family had a difficult end to 1864. On September 30, 1864, Whitman's brother George was captured by Confederates in Virginia, and another brother, Andrew Jackson, died of tuberculosis compounded by alcoholism on December 3. That month, Whitman committed his brother Jesse to the Kings County Lunatic Asylum. Whitman's spirits were raised, however, when he finally got a better-paying government post as a low-grade clerk in the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior, thanks to his friend William Douglas O'Connor. O'Connor, a poet, daguerreotypist and an editor at "The Saturday Evening Post", had written to William Tod Otto, Assistant Secretary of the Interior, on Whitman's behalf. Whitman began the new appointment on January 24, 1865, with a yearly salary of $1,200. A month later, on February 24, 1865, George was released from capture and granted a furlough because of his poor health. By May 1, Whitman received a promotion to a slightly higher clerkship and published "Drum-Taps".


title: Walt Whitman

text: Effective June 30, 1865, however, Whitman was fired from his job. His dismissal came from the new Secretary of the Interior, former Iowa Senator James Harlan. Though Harlan dismissed several clerks who "were seldom at their respective desks", he may have fired Whitman on moral grounds after finding an 1860 edition of "Leaves of Grass". O'Connor protested until J. Hubley Ashton had Whitman transferred to the Attorney General's office on July 1. O'Connor, though, was still upset and vindicated Whitman by publishing a biased and exaggerated biographical study, "The Good Gray Poet", in January 1866. The fifty-cent pamphlet defended Whitman as a wholesome patriot, established the poet's nickname and increased his popularity. Also aiding in his popularity was the publication of "O Captain! My Captain!", a relatively conventional poem on the death of Abraham Lincoln, the only poem to appear in anthologies during Whitman's lifetime.


title: Walt Whitman

text: Part of Whitman's role at the Attorney General's office was interviewing former Confederate soldiers for Presidential pardons. "There are real characters among them", he later wrote, "and you know I have a fancy for anything out of the ordinary." In August 1866, he took a month off to prepare a new edition of "Leaves of Grass" which would not be published until 1867 after difficulty in finding a publisher. He hoped it would be its last edition. In February 1868, "Poems of Walt Whitman" was published in England thanks to the influence of William Michael Rossetti, with minor changes that Whitman reluctantly approved. The edition became popular in England, especially with endorsements from the highly respected writer Anne Gilchrist. Another edition of "Leaves of Grass" was issued in 1871, the same year it was mistakenly reported that its author died in a railroad accident. As Whitman's international fame increased, he remained at the attorney general's office until January 1872. He spent much of 1872 caring for his mother, who was now nearly eighty and struggling with arthritis. He also traveled and was invited to Dartmouth College to give the commencement address on June 26, 1872.


title: Walt Whitman

text: After suffering a paralytic stroke in early 1873, Whitman was induced to move from Washington to the home of his brother—George Washington Whitman, an engineer—at 431 Stevens Street in Camden, New Jersey. His mother, having fallen ill, was also there and died that same year in May. Both events were difficult for Whitman and left him depressed. He remained at his brother's home until buying his own in 1884. However, before purchasing his home, he spent the greatest period of his residence in Camden at his brother's home on Stevens Street. While in residence there he was very productive, publishing three versions of "Leaves of Grass" among other works. He was also last fully physically active in this house, receiving both Oscar Wilde and Thomas Eakins. His other brother, Edward, an "invalid" since birth, lived in the house.


title: Walt Whitman

text: When his brother and sister-in-law were forced to move for business reasons, he bought his own house at 328 Mickle Street (now 330 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard). First taken care of by tenants, he was completely bedridden for most of his time in Mickle Street. During this time, he began socializing with Mary Oakes Davis—the widow of a sea captain. She was a neighbor, boarding with a family in Bridge Avenue just a few blocks from Mickle Street. She moved in with Whitman on February 24, 1885, to serve as his housekeeper in exchange for free rent. She brought with her a cat, a dog, two turtledoves, a canary, and other assorted animals. During this time, Whitman produced further editions of "Leaves of Grass" in 1876, 1881, and 1889.


title: Walt Whitman

text: While in South Jersey, Whitman spent a good portion of his time in the then quite pastoral community of Laurel Springs, between 1876 and 1884, converting one of the Stafford Farm buildings to his summer home. The restored summer home has been preserved as a museum by the local historical society. Part of his "Leaves of Grass" was written here, and in his "Specimen Days" he wrote of the spring, creek and lake. To him, Laurel Lake was "the prettiest lake in: either America or Europe".


title: Walt Whitman

text: As the end of 1891 approached, he prepared a final edition of "Leaves of Grass", a version that has been nicknamed the "Deathbed Edition". He wrote, "L. of G. "at last complete"—after 33 y'rs of hackling at it, all times & moods of my life, fair weather & foul, all parts of the land, and peace & war, young & old." Preparing for death, Whitman commissioned a granite mausoleum shaped like a house for $4,000 and visited it often during construction. In the last week of his life, he was too weak to lift a knife or fork and wrote: "I suffer all the time: I have no relief, no escape: it is monotony—monotony—monotony—in pain."


title: Walt Whitman

text: Walt Whitman died on March 26, 1892, at his home in Camden, New Jersey at the age of 72. An autopsy revealed his lungs had diminished to one-eighth their normal breathing capacity, a result of bronchial pneumonia, and that an egg-sized abscess on his chest had eroded one of his ribs. The cause of death was officially listed as "pleurisy of the left side, consumption of the right lung, general miliary tuberculosis and parenchymatous nephritis". A public viewing of his body was held at his Camden home; more than 1,000 people visited in three hours. Whitman's oak coffin was barely visible because of all the flowers and wreaths left for him. Four days after his death, he was buried in his tomb at Harleigh Cemetery in Camden. Another public ceremony was held at the cemetery, with friends giving speeches, live music, and refreshments. Whitman's friend, the orator Robert Ingersoll, delivered the eulogy. Later, the remains of Whitman's parents and two of his brothers and their families were moved to the mausoleum.


title: Walt Whitman

text: Whitman's work broke the boundaries of poetic form and is generally prose-like. Its signature style deviates from the course set by his predecessors and includes "idiosyncratic treatment of the body and the soul as well as of the self and the other." It uses unusual images and symbols, including rotting leaves, tufts of straw, and debris. Whitman openly wrote about death and sexuality, including prostitution. He is often labeled the father of free verse, though he did not invent it.


title: Walt Whitman

text: Whitman wrote in the preface to the 1855 edition of "Leaves of Grass": "The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it." He believed there was a vital, symbiotic relationship between the poet and society. He emphasized this connection especially in "Song of Myself" by using an all-powerful first-person narration. An American epic, it deviated from the historic use of an elevated hero and instead assumed the identity of the common people. "Leaves of Grass" also responded to the impact of recent urbanization in the United States on the masses.


title: Walt Whitman

text: Whitman was a vocal proponent of temperance and in his youth rarely drank alcohol. He once stated he did not taste "strong liquor" until he was 30 and occasionally argued for prohibition. His first novel, "Franklin Evans, or The Inebriate", published November 23, 1842, is a temperance novel. Whitman wrote the novel at the height of the popularity of the Washingtonian movement, a movement that was plagued with contradictions, as was "Franklin Evans". Years later Whitman claimed he was embarrassed by the book and called it "damned rot". He dismissed it by saying he wrote the novel in three days solely for money while under the influence of alcohol. Even so, he wrote other pieces recommending temperance, including "The Madman" and a short story "Reuben's Last Wish". Later in life he was more liberal with alcohol, enjoying local wines and champagne.


title: Walt Whitman

text: Whitman was deeply influenced by deism. He denied any one faith was more important than another, and embraced all religions equally. In "Song of Myself", he gave an inventory of major religions and indicated he respected and accepted all of them—a sentiment he further emphasized in his poem "With Antecedents", affirming: "I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god, / I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, without exception". In 1874, he was invited to write a poem about the Spiritualism movement, to which he responded: "It seems to me nearly altogether a poor, cheap, crude humbug." Whitman was a religious skeptic: though he accepted all churches, he believed in none. God, to Whitman, was both immanent and transcendent and the human soul was immortal and in a state of progressive development. "American Philosophy: An Encyclopedia" classes him as one of several figures who "took a more pantheist or pandeist approach by rejecting views of God as separate from the world."


title: Walt Whitman

text: Though biographers continue to debate Whitman's sexuality, he is usually described as either homosexual or bisexual in his feelings and attractions. Whitman's sexual orientation is generally assumed on the basis of his poetry, though this assumption has been disputed. His poetry depicts love and sexuality in a more earthy, individualistic way common in American culture before the medicalization of sexuality in the late 19th century. Though "Leaves of Grass" was often labeled pornographic or obscene, only one critic remarked on its author's presumed sexual activity: in a November 1855 review, Rufus Wilmot Griswold suggested Whitman was guilty of "that horrible sin not to be mentioned among Christians".


title: Walt Whitman

text: Whitman had intense friendships with many men and boys throughout his life. Some biographers have suggested that he did not actually engage in sexual relationships with males, while others cite letters, journal entries, and other sources that they claim as proof of the sexual nature of some of his relationships. English poet and critic John Addington Symonds spent 20 years in correspondence trying to pry the answer from him. In 1890 he wrote to Whitman: "In your conception of Comradeship, do you contemplate the possible intrusion of those semi-sexual emotions and actions which no doubt do occur between men?" In reply, Whitman denied that his work had any such implication, asserting "[T]hat the calamus part has even allow'd the possibility of such construction as mention'd is terrible—I am fain to hope the pages themselves are not to be even mention'd for such gratuitous and quite at this time entirely undream'd & unreck'd possibility of morbid inferences—wh' are disavow'd by me and seem damnable", and insisting that he had fathered six illegitimate children. Some contemporary scholars are skeptical of the veracity of Whitman's denial or the existence of the children he claimed.


title: Walt Whitman

text: Peter Doyle may be the most likely candidate for the love of Whitman's life. Doyle was a bus conductor whom Whitman met around 1866, and the two were inseparable for several years. Interviewed in 1895, Doyle said: "We were familiar at once—I put my hand on his knee—we understood. He did not get out at the end of the trip—in fact went all the way back with me." In his notebooks, Whitman disguised Doyle's initials using the code "16.4" (P.D. being the 16th and 4th letters of the alphabet). Oscar Wilde met Whitman in the United States in 1882 and told the homosexual-rights activist George Cecil Ives that Whitman's sexual orientation was beyond question—"I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips." The only explicit description of Whitman's sexual activities is secondhand. In 1924, Edward Carpenter told Gavin Arthur of a sexual encounter in his youth with Whitman, the details of which Arthur recorded in his journal. Late in his life, when Whitman was asked outright whether his "Calamus" poems were homosexual—John Addington Symonds inquired about "athletic friendship," "the love of man for man," or "the Love of Friends"—he chose not to respond. The manuscript of his love poem "Once I Pass'd Through A Populous City", written when Whitman was 29, indicates it was originally about a man.


title: Walt Whitman

text: Another possible lover was Bill Duckett. As a teenager, he lived on the same street in Camden and moved in with Whitman, living with him a number of years and serving him in various roles. Duckett was 15 when Whitman bought his house at 328 Mickle Street. From at least 1880, Duckett and his grandmother, Lydia Watson, were boarders, subletting space from another family at 334 Mickle Street. Because of this proximity, Duckett and Whitman met as neighbors. Their relationship was close, with the youth sharing Whitman's money when he had it. Whitman described their friendship as "thick". Though some biographers describe him as a boarder, others identify him as a lover. Their photograph (left) is described as "modeled on the conventions of a marriage portrait", part of a series of portraits of the poet with his young male friends, and encrypting male–male desire. Yet another intense relationship of Whitman with a young man was the one with Harry Stafford, with whose family Whitman stayed when at Timber Creek, and whom he first met when Stafford was 18, in 1876. Whitman gave Stafford a ring, which was returned and re-given over the course of a stormy relationship lasting several years. Of that ring, Stafford wrote to Whitman: "You know when you put it on there was but one thing to part it from me, and that was death."


title: Walt Whitman

text: There is also some evidence that Whitman had sexual relationships with women. He had a romantic friendship with a New York actress, Ellen Grey, in the spring of 1862, but it is not known whether it was also sexual. He still had a photograph of her decades later, when he moved to Camden, and he called her "an old sweetheart of mine". In a letter, dated August 21, 1890, he claimed: "I have had six children—two are dead." This claim has never been corroborated. Toward the end of his life, he often told stories of previous girlfriends and sweethearts and denied an allegation from the "New York Herald" that he had "never had a love affair". As Whitman biographer Jerome Loving wrote, "the discussion of Whitman's sexual orientation will probably continue in spite of whatever evidence emerges."


title: Walt Whitman

text: Whitman reportedly enjoyed bathing and sunbathing naked. In "Manly Health and Training", using the pseudonym Mose Velsor, he advised men to swim naked. In "A Sun-bathed Nakedness", he wrote,


title: Walt Whitman

text: Whitman was an adherent of the Shakespeare authorship question, refusing to believe in the historical attribution of the works to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon. Whitman comments in his "November Boughs" (1888) regarding Shakespeare's historical plays:


title: Walt Whitman

text: Like many in the Free Soil Party who were concerned about the threat slavery would pose to free white labor and northern businessmen exploiting the newly colonized western territories, Whitman opposed the extension of slavery in the United States and supported the Wilmot Proviso. At first he was opposed to abolitionism, believing the movement did more harm than good. In 1846, he wrote that the abolitionists had, in fact, slowed the advancement of their cause by their "ultraism and officiousness". His main concern was that their methods disrupted the democratic process, as did the refusal of the Southern states to put the interests of the nation as a whole above their own. In 1856, in his unpublished "The Eighteenth Presidency", addressing the men of the South, he wrote "you are either to abolish slavery or it will abolish you". Whitman also subscribed to the widespread opinion that even free African-Americans should not vote and was concerned at the increasing number of African-Americans in the legislature; as David Reynolds notes, Whitman wrote in prejudiced terms of these new voters and politicians, calling them "blacks, with about as much intellect and calibre (in the mass) as so many baboons." George Hutchinson and David Drews have written that "what little is known about the early development of Whitman's racial awareness suggests that he imbibed the prevailing white prejudices of his time and place, thinking of black people as servile, shiftless, ignorant, and given to stealing," but that despite his views remaining largely unchanged, "readers of the twentieth century, including black ones, imagined him as a fervent antiracist."


title: Walt Whitman

text: Whitman is often described as America's national poet, creating an image of the United States for itself. "Although he is often considered a champion of democracy and equality, Whitman constructs a hierarchy with himself at the head, America below, and the rest of the world in a subordinate position." In his study "The Pragmatic Whitman: Reimagining American Democracy", Stephen John Mack suggests that critics, who tend to ignore it, should look again at Whitman's nationalism: "Whitman's seemingly mawkish celebrations of the United States ... [are] one of those problematic features of his works that teachers and critics read past or explain away" (xv–xvi). Nathanael O'Reilly in an essay on "Walt Whitman's Nationalism in the First Edition of "Leaves of Grass"" claims that "Whitman's imagined America is arrogant, expansionist, hierarchical, racist and exclusive; such an America is unacceptable to Native Americans, African-Americans, immigrants, the disabled, the infertile, and all those who value equal rights." Whitman's nationalism avoided issues concerning the treatment of Native Americans. As George Hutchinson and David Drews further suggest in an essay "Racial attitudes": "Clearly, Whitman could not consistently reconcile the ingrained, even foundational, racist character of the United States with its egalitarian ideals. He could not even reconcile such contradictions in his own psyche." The authors concluded their essay with:


title: Walt Whitman

text: In reference to the Mexican-American War, Whitman wrote in 1864 that Mexico was "the only [country] to whom we have ever really done wrong." In 1883, celebrating the 333rd anniversary of Santa Fe, Whitman argued that the indigenous and Spanish-Indian elements would supply leading traits in the "composite American identity of the future."


title: Walt Whitman

text: Walt Whitman has been claimed as the first "poet of democracy" in the United States, a title meant to reflect his ability to write in a singularly American character. An American-British friend of Whitman, Mary Whitall Smith Costelloe, wrote: "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without "Leaves of Grass" ... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,' as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history can do without him." Andrew Carnegie called him "the great poet of America so far". Whitman considered himself a messiah-like figure in poetry. Others agreed: one of his admirers, William Sloane Kennedy, speculated that "people will be celebrating the birth of Walt Whitman as they are now the birth of Christ".


title: Walt Whitman

text: Literary critic Harold Bloom wrote, as the introduction for the 150th anniversary of "Leaves of Grass":


title: Walt Whitman

text: In his own time, Whitman attracted an influential coterie of disciples and admirers. Other admirers included the Eagle Street College, an informal group established in 1885 at the home of James William Wallace in Eagle Street, Bolton, to read and discuss the poetry of Whitman. The group subsequently became known as the Bolton Whitman Fellowship or Whitmanites. Its members held an annual "Whitman Day" celebration around the poet's birthday.


title: Walt Whitman

text: Whitman is one of the most influential American poets. Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet ... He "is" America." To poet Langston Hughes, who wrote "I, too, sing America", Whitman was a literary hero. Whitman's vagabond lifestyle was adopted by the Beat movement and its leaders such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as anti-war poets such as Adrienne Rich, Alicia Ostriker, and Gary Snyder. Lawrence Ferlinghetti numbered himself among Whitman's "wild children", and the title of Ferlinghetti's 1961 collection "Starting from San Francisco" is a deliberate reference to Whitman's "Starting from Paumanok". June Jordan published a pivotal essay entitled "For the Sake of People's Poetry: Walt Whitman and the Rest of Us", praising Whitman as a democratic poet whose works speak to people of color from all backgrounds. United States poet laureate Joy Harjo, who is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, counts Whitman among her influences.


title: Walt Whitman

text: Whitman's poetry influenced Latin American and Caribbean poets in the 19th and 20th centuries, starting with Cuban poet, philosopher, and nationalist leader José Martí, who published essays in Spanish on Whitman's writings in 1887. Álvaro Armando Vasseur's 1912 translations further raised Whitman's profile in Latin America. Peruvian vanguardist César Vallejo, Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, and Argentine Jorge Luis Borges acknowledged Walt Whitman's influence.


title: Walt Whitman

text: Some, like Oscar Wilde and Edward Carpenter, viewed Whitman both as a prophet of a utopian future and of same-sex desire – the passion of comrades. This aligned with their own desires for a future of brotherly socialism. Whitman also influenced Bram Stoker, author of "Dracula", and was a model for the character of Dracula. Stoker said in his notes that Dracula represented the quintessential male which, to Stoker, was Whitman, with whom he corresponded until Whitman's death.


title: Walt Whitman

text: Whitman's life and verse have been referenced in a substantial number of works of film and video. In the movie "Beautiful Dreamers" (Hemdale Films, 1992) Whitman was portrayed by Rip Torn. Whitman visits an insane asylum in London, Ontario, where some of his ideas are adopted as part of an occupational therapy program.


title: Walt Whitman

text: In "Dead Poets Society" (1989) by Peter Weir, teacher John Keating inspires his students with the works of Whitman, Shakespeare and John Keats.


title: Walt Whitman

text: Whitman's poem "Yonnondio" influenced both a book ("Yonnondio: From the Thirties", 1974) by Tillie Olsen and a sixteen-minute film, "Yonnondio" (1994) by Ali Mohamed Selim.


title: Walt Whitman

text: Whitman's poem "I Sing the Body Electric" (1855) was used by Ray Bradbury as the title of a short story and a short story collection. Bradbury's story was adapted for the "Twilight Zone" episode of May 18, 1962, in which a bereaved family buys a made-to-order robot grandmother to forever love and serve the family.


title: Walt Whitman

text: "I Sing the Body Electric" inspired the showcase finale in the movie "Fame" (1980), a diverse fusion of gospel, rock, and orchestra.


title: Walt Whitman

text: Whitman's poetry has been set to music by more than 500 composers; indeed it has been suggested that his poetry has been set to music more than that of any other American poet except for Emily Dickinson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Those who have set his poems to music include John Adams; Ernst Bacon; Leonard Bernstein; Benjamin Britten; Rhoda Coghill; David Conte; Ronald Corp; George Crumb; Frederick Delius; Howard Hanson; Karl Amadeus Hartmann; Hans Werner Henze; Bernard Herrmann;Jennifer Higdon; Paul Hindemith; Ned Rorem; Howard Skempton; Eva Ruth Spalding; Williametta Spencer; Charles Villiers Stanford; Robert Strassburg; Ivana Marburger Themmen; Rossini Vrionides; Ralph Vaughan Williams; Kurt Weill; Helen L. Weiss; Charles Wood; and Roger Sessions. "Crossing", an opera composed by Matthew Aucoin and inspired by Whitman's Civil War diaries, premiered in 2015.


title: Walt Whitman

text: In 2014, German publisher issued the bilingual double-CD audio book of the "Kinder Adams/Children of Adam" cycle, based on translations by in the 2005 "Children of Adam from Leaves of Grass" (Galerie Vevais), accompanying a collection of nude photography by Paul Cava. The audio release included a complete reading by Iggy Pop, as well as readings by Marianne Sägebrecht; Martin Wuttke; Birgit Minichmayr; Alexander Fehling; Lars Rudolph; Volker Bruch; Paula Beer; Josef Osterndorf; Ronald Lippok; Jule Böwe; and Robert Gwisdek. In 2014 composer John Zorn released "On Leaves of Grass", an album inspired by and dedicated to Whitman.


title: Walt Whitman

text: The Walt Whitman Bridge, which crosses the Delaware River near his home in Camden, was opened on May 16, 1957. In 1997, the Walt Whitman Community School in Dallas opened, becoming the first private high school catering to LGBT youth. His other namesakes include Walt Whitman High School (Bethesda, Maryland), Walt Whitman High School (Huntington Station, New York), the Walt Whitman Shops (formerly called "Walt Whitman Mall") in Huntington Station, Long Island, New York, near his birthplace, and Walt Whitman Road located in Huntington Station and Melville, New York.


title: Walt Whitman

text: Whitman was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2009, and, in 2013, he was inducted into the Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display that celebrates LGBT history and people.


title: Walt Whitman

text: A statue of Whitman by Jo Davidson is located at the entrance to the Walt Whitman Bridge and another casting resides in the Bear Mountain State Park.


title: Ram Nath Kovind

text: Ram Nath Kovind (; born 1 October 1945) is an Indian politician who served as the 14th President of India from 2017 to 2022. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is the second person after K. R. Narayanan, from the Dalit community to occupy the post. Prior to his presidency, he served as the 26th Governor of Bihar from 2015 to 2017 and as a Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha from 1994 to 2006. Before entering politics, he was a lawyer for 16 years and practiced in the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court of India until 1993.


title: Ram Nath Kovind

text: Ram Nath Kovind was born in the Koli family of Maiku Lal and Kalawati during the British Raj on 1 October 1945, in Paraunkh village in the Kanpur Dehat district of Uttar Pradesh, as the youngest of five brothers and two sisters. His father Maikulal ran a shop and was also a farmer and a local vaidya. His mother Kalawati was a homemaker. Kovind was born in a mud hut, which eventually collapsed. He was only five when his mother died of burns when their thatched dwelling caught fire. Kovind later donated the land to the community.


title: Ram Nath Kovind

text: After his elementary school education, he needed to walk each day to Kanpur village, away, to attend junior school, as nobody in the village had a bicycle. He holds a bachelor's degree in commerce and an LLB from DAV College (affiliated with Kanpur University).


title: Ram Nath Kovind

text: After graduating in law from DAV College, Kanpur, Kovind went to Delhi to prepare for the civil services examination. He passed this exam on his third attempt, He scored high enough to work in an allied service rather than in IAS and thus started practising law.


title: Ram Nath Kovind

text: Kovind enrolled as an advocate in 1971 with the bar council of Delhi. He was Central Government Advocate in the Delhi High Court from 1977 to 1979. Between 1977 and 1978, he also served as the personal assistant of Prime Minister of India Morarji Desai. In 1978, he became an advocate-on-record of the Supreme Court of India and served as a standing counsel for the central government in the Supreme Court of India from 1980 to 1993. He practised in the Delhi High Court and Supreme Court until 1993. As an advocate, he provided pro-bono aid to weaker sections of society, women and the poor under the Free Legal Aid Society of New Delhi.


title: Ram Nath Kovind

text: He joined the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1991. He was the president of the BJP Dalit Morcha between 1998 and 2002 and the president of the All-India Koli Samaj. He also served as the national spokesperson of the party. He donated his ancestral home in Paraunkh to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Soon after joining the BJP, he contested Ghatampur assembly constituency, but lost and later contested Bhognipur in 2007 elections (both in Uttar Pradesh) assembly constituency on the BJP ticket but lost again.


title: Ram Nath Kovind

text: In 1997, Kovind, being from koli family, joined the protest against certain orders from the central government that had adverse effects on the SC/ST workers. Later, three amendments were made to the Constitution that revoked the orders, by the NDA government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.


title: Ram Nath Kovind

text: He was elected and became a Rajya Sabha MP from the state of Uttar Pradesh in April 1994. He served a total of twelve years, two consecutive terms, until March 2006. As a member of parliament, he served on the Parliamentary Committee for Welfare of Scheduled Castes/Tribes, Home Affairs, Petroleum and Natural Gas, Social Justice and Empowerment, Law and Justice. He also served as the chairman of the Rajya Sabha House Committee. During his career as a parliamentarian, under the Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme, he focused on education in rural areas by helping in the construction of school buildings in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. As a member of parliament, he visited Thailand, Nepal, Pakistan, Singapore, Germany, Switzerland, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States on study tours.


title: Ram Nath Kovind

text: He has served on the Board of management of Dr. B.R Ambedkar University, Lucknow, and on the Board of Governors of IIM Calcutta. He has also represented India at the UN and addressed the United Nations General Assembly in October 2002.


title: Ram Nath Kovind

text: On 8 August 2015, President Pranab Mukherjee appointed Kovind as the governor of Bihar. On 16 August 2015, the acting Chief Justice of Patna High Court, Iqbal Ahmad Ansari, administered the oath to Kovind as the 26th governor of Bihar, in a ceremony at Raj Bhawan in Patna.


title: Ram Nath Kovind

text: Kovind's appointment was criticised by then Chief Minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar as it came months before 2015 state Assembly elections and the appointment was made without consulting the state government as recommended by Sarkaria Commission. However, Kovind's term as the governor was praised for constituting a judicial commission to investigate irregularities in promotion of undeserving teachers, mismanagement of funds and appointment of undeserving candidates in universities. In June 2017, when he was announced as a candidate for presidential election, Nitish Kumar backed his choice and praised him as being unbiased and working closely with the state government during his governorship.


title: Ram Nath Kovind

text: After nomination for the post of 14th president of India, he resigned from his post as the governor of Bihar, and the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, accepted his resignation on 20 June 2017. He won the election on 20 July 2017.


title: Ram Nath Kovind

text: Kovind received 65.65% of the valid votes, against former Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Meira Kumar, the presidential candidate of the Opposition who received 34.35%. Kovind received 2,930 votes (From MPs and MLAs) amounting to Electoral College votes of 702,044 (65.65%) as compared to 1,844 votes with a value of 367,314 (34.35%) votes for Meira Kumar lagging far behind with 367,314 votes, and 77 votes were invalid. He became only the second Dalit representative to become president after K. R. Narayanan, and also is the first BJP candidate with RSS background to be elected to the post. The tally of votes (367,314) polled by Meira Kumar is only the second-highest for a losing candidate, that of Neelam Sanjiva Reddy in the 1969 presidential elections being the highest ever; he received 405,427 votes as against 420,077 by V. V. Giri, the winner.


title: Ram Nath Kovind

text: Kovind took the oath as the 14th president of India on 25 July 2017. He was succeeded by Droupadi Murmu on 25 July 2022.


title: Ram Nath Kovind

text: Kovind married Savita on 30 May 1974. They have a son, Prashant Kumar, and a daughter, Swati who is an air hostess for Air India.


title: Ram Nath Kovind

text: In 2010, he was reported to have said that "Islam and Christianity are alien to the nation" as spokesperson of the BJP. As reported by "IANS" and published by "Hindustan Times", he made this comment in response to the Ranganath Misra Commission which recommended 15 percent reservation for religious and linguistic minorities in government jobs. Although more recently, the issue was raised in the media if whether or not he was misquoted and that he in fact said "Islam and Christianity are alien to the notion (of caste)" as opposed to what was reported as 'nation'.


title: Ram Nath Kovind

text: and to support the government over the CAA protests, farmer agitation and the removal or abrogation of Article 370.


title: Michael Stuhlbarg

text: Michael Stewart Stuhlbarg ( ; born July 5, 1968) is an American actor. He is known as a character actor having portrayed a variety of roles in film, television and theatre. He has received several awards including two Screen Actors Guild Awards with nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards, four Tony Awards, and a Golden Globe Award.


title: Michael Stuhlbarg

text: He rose to prominence as troubled university professor Larry Gopnik in the 2009 dark comedy film "A Serious Man", directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. Stuhlbarg has since become known as a character actor and has appeared in numerous films and television series portraying real life figures, such as George Yeaman in "Lincoln" (2012), Lew Wasserman in "Hitchcock" (2012), Andy Hertzfeld in "Steve Jobs" (2015), Edward G. Robinson in "Trumbo" (2015), Abe Rosenthal in "The Post" (2017), and Stanley Edgar Hyman in "Shirley" (2020). His other supporting roles include "Hugo" (2011), "Men in Black 3" (2012), "Blue Jasmine" (2013), "Pawn Sacrifice" (2014), "Arrival" (2016), "Call Me by Your Name", and "The Shape of Water" (both 2017). He joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe appearing as Nicodemus West in "Doctor Strange" (2016), and "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" (2022).


title: Michael Stuhlbarg

text: Stuhlbarg's most notable roles in television include his performances of Arnold Rothstein in HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" (2010–2013), Richard A. Clarke in "The Looming Tower" (2018), and as Richard Sackler in "Dopesick" (2021), for which he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie. His other television appearances include FX's "Fargo" (2017), Showtime's "Your Honor" (2020–present), and HBO's "The Staircase" (2022). On stage, Stuhlbarg has acted in numerous productions including the 2005 debut of Martin McDonagh's "The Pillowman" on Broadway, for which he won a Drama Desk Award and received a Tony Award nomination.


title: Michael Stuhlbarg

text: Stuhlbarg was born in Long Beach, California, the son of Susan and Mort Stuhlbarg, philanthropists. He was raised as a Reform Jew. He has said, "It's more of a spiritual resonance as opposed to particularly of Judaism." Stuhlbarg trained at The Juilliard School in New York City, where he was a member of the Drama Division's Group 21 (1988–1992). He graduated from Juilliard with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1992.


title: Michael Stuhlbarg

text: Stuhlbarg also studied acting at the University of California, Los Angeles, the Vilnius Conservatory in Lithuania, the British American Drama Academy at Oxford, and the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain at the University of London. He also studied mime with Marcel Marceau. Stuhlbarg is married to Mai-Linh Lofgren.


title: Michael Stuhlbarg

text: Stuhlbarg began his career appearing in stage productions. In a 1993 production of "Saint Joan", Stuhlbarg portrayed Charles VII of France; however, UPI critic Frederick M. Winship thought that Stuhlbarg was miscast in the production. The following year, he portrayed the title character in a production of "Richard II". Writing for "The New York Times", theater critic David Richards dubbed Stuhlbarg a "promising young actor", yet felt his portrayal of Richard came across as a "blend of Rasputin and an odious rent collector is altogether unavoidable, but I'd like to believe it's not his fault." He starred in the two character play "Old Wicked Songs" throughout late 1995. For his role in the 1996 production of the Eugene O'Neill play "Long Day's Journey into Night", Stuhlbarg won the Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Actor in a large company production. In a 1997 production of "Henry VIII", Stuhlbarg played multiple roles, including Thomas Cranmer.


title: Michael Stuhlbarg

text: Stuhlbarg made his film debut in the 1998 drama "A Price Above Rubies", which starred Renée Zellweger. In the 1999 Studio 54 production of the musical "Cabaret", Stuhlbarg played Ernst Ludwig, a German who in the course of the production is revealed to be a Nazi. Stuhlbarg played the dual role of both Time and Clown in a 2000 production of William Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale"; "The New York Press" critic Jonathan Kalb praised his "endearing stutter and hopping gait". In the Tim Blake Nelson-directed war drama "The Grey Zone" (2001), Stuhlbarg played a Jewish Hungarian who becomes a "Sonderkommando" in the Nazi Germany Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. Stuhlbarg had previously appeared in the play of the same by Nelson in 1996. Following appearances in productions of "Cymbeline", "Twelfth Night", and "The Persians", Stuhlbarg gave a critically acclaimed performance in the 2005 Broadway production of the Martin McDonagh play "The Pillowman". He played Michal, a mentally damaged man who has suffered years of abuse from his parents and gained 50 pounds for the role. Ben Brantley of "The New York Times" praised Stuhlbarg for "boldly and expertly" capturing "both the innocence and ugliness of Michal". Stuhlbarg won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play and received his first Tony Award nomination for his performance.


title: Michael Stuhlbarg

text: In 2006, Stuhlbarg appeared in the plays "Measure for Pleasure" and "The Voysey Inheritance". He played a recurring role on Aaron Sorkin's television series "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" from 2006 to 2007, which aired for one season. His first film appearance of 2008 was the independent drama "Afterschool", in which he played a "sanctimonious" high school principal and he had a one-line scene in Ridley Scott's "Body of Lies" as a lawyer. Also in 2008, Stuhlbarg portrayed Prince Hamlet in Oskar Eustis' production of William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" at the Delacorte Theater. In August of that year, Stuhlbarg was cast as the lead character in the Coen brothers film "A Serious Man". The dark comedy, in which he portrayed troubled Jewish university professor Larry Gopnik, was released in October 2009. In his review of the film, "Chicago Sun-Times" critic Roger Ebert felt that "Much of the success of "A Serious Man" comes from the way Michael Stuhlbarg plays the role. He doesn't play Gopnik as a sad-sack or a loser, a whiner or a depressive, but as a hopeful man who can't believe what's happening to him. He was nominated for Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performance in the film. "Cold Souls", his other release of 2009, featured Stuhlbarg in a smaller role as a hedge fund consultant, and he also guest starred in the episode "There's No Place Like Mode" of the comedy series "Ugly Betty".


title: Michael Stuhlbarg

text: Beginning in September 2010, Stuhlbarg portrayed organized crime boss Arnold Rothstein in Terence Winter's HBO crime drama series "Boardwalk Empire". The character was written off after the show's fourth season in 2013. Martin Scorsese directed the pilot episode of the show, after having previously directed Stuhlbarg in the short film "The Key to Reserva" (2007). In Scorsese's historical adventure film "Hugo" (2011), Stuhlbarg played René Tabard, a film historian. Stuhlbarg appeared in the science fiction comedy sequel "Men in Black 3" (2012) as Griffin, an alien with clairvoyant abilities who helps Agent J (played by Will Smith) and K (played by Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin) on their mission. The film's director, Barry Sonnenfeld, said that after seeing Stuhlbarg's script and notebook filled with "tiny scribbles, notes, diagrams" that “It made me suspect that perhaps I had actually cast an alien. To Michael, all his little notations made sense. To me, they were scary and indecipherable.” Later in the year, Stuhlbarg briefly appeared as a hitman alongside his "Boardwalk Empire" co-star Michael Pitt in the opening scene of Martin McDonagh's dark comedy "Seven Psychopaths". His third release of 2012 was the historical drama "Lincoln", directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Daniel Day-Lewis as President Abraham Lincoln. In the film, he portrayed Democratic Congressman George Yeaman, representative of Kentucky. The Alfred Hitchcock biopic "Hitchcock" was his final release of the year, with Stuhlbarg portraying talent agent and studio executive Lew Wasserman. In Woody Allen's comedy-drama "Blue Jasmine" (2013), starring Cate Blanchett, Stuhlbarg appeared as a dentist who makes unwanted sexual advances to Blanchett's character.


title: Michael Stuhlbarg

text: Stuhlbarg played chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer's manager, Paul Marshall, in the 2014 film "Pawn Sacrifice", starring Tobey Maguire as Fischer. In Danny Boyle's 2015 "Steve Jobs" biopic, Stuhlbarg portrayed computer scientist Andy Hertzfeld, who was a member of the original Mac team. He appeared in two more biographical films in that year – "Trumbo", based on the life of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (played by Bryan Cranston), featured Stuhlbarg portraying actor Edward G. Robinson, who was accused of having ties to the Communist Party during the Hollywood blacklist and Stuhlbarg played a supporting role in Don Cheadle's "Miles Ahead", based on the life of Miles Davis. Stuhlbarg played a CIA agent in the science fiction drama "Arrival" (2016), appearing alongside Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, and Forest Whitaker as they attempt to translate communications from an extraterrestrial craft. In the same month, Stuhlbarg played Nicodemus West, colleague and rival to the titular character (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) in the superhero film "Doctor Strange". In his final release of the year, the political thriller "Miss Sloane", Stuhlbarg featured as an Irish lobbying firm head battling against gun control. Brian Truitt of "USA Today" praised his "superb" performance and declared him "One of the best in Hollywood right now".


title: Michael Stuhlbarg

text: In the third season of the crime anthology television series "Fargo", Stuhlbarg played Sy Feltz, loyal and dedicated business partner to Ewan McGregor's character Emmit Stussy. The season premiered in April 2017. In November, Stuhlbarg co-starred as Samuel Perlman, an archaeology professor, whose son Elio (played by Timothée Chalamet) develops a relationship with his father's assistant (played by Armie Hammer), in the romantic drama "Call Me by Your Name". Stuhlbarg was moved by Perlman's "sense of generosity and love and understanding" and director Luca Guadagnino said he cast Stuhlbarg because he wanted "someone who could carry a sort of softness and warmth and at the same time communicate a great knowledge and great culture". Perlman's consoling speech given to his son in the film was described by "Huffington Post" writer Nell Minow as being "one of the most moving scenes ever filmed." For Guillermo del Toro's fantasy drama "The Shape of Water", released in December 2017 to critical and box office success, Stuhlbarg was required to speak Russian to play Dr. Robert Hoffstetler, a Soviet spy. His final performance of 2017 and second release of December, was as "The New York Times" executive editor A. M. Rosenthal, in Steven Spielberg's political thriller "The Post", which starred Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep and depicts the publishing of the "Pentagon Papers" by journalists from "The Washington Post" and "The Times". With his performances in "Call Me By Your Name", "The Shape of Water", and "The Post", he became the sixth actor to appear in three films nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture in the same year.


title: Michael Stuhlbarg

text: Stuhlbarg was due to appear as Gore Vidal's domestic partner Howard Austen in the biopic "Gore", starring Kevin Spacey as Vidal, but the film was withdrawn from release during post-production amid ongoing sexual misconduct allegations against Spacey. He appeared in the 2018 miniseries "The Looming Tower" as counter-terrorism czar Richard A. Clarke, for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.


title: Michael Stuhlbarg

text: In the miniseries "Your Honor" (2020), Stuhlbarg played Jimmy Baxter, the mob boss of a prominent organized crime family in the city of New Orleans.


title: Anna Gunn

text: Anna Gunn (born August 11, 1968) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Skyler White on the AMC drama series "Breaking Bad" (2008–2013), for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2013 and 2014. She has also played Jean Ward in "The Practice" (1997–2002), and Martha Bullock in "Deadwood" (2004–2006).


title: Anna Gunn

text: Gunn was born in Cleveland, Ohio, but grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is the daughter of Sharon Anna Kathryn "Shana" Gunn ("née" Peters), an interior designer, and Clemens Earl Gunn Jr., who worked in real estate. She graduated from Santa Fe Preparatory School in 1986, then attended Northwestern University, where she majored in theater and graduated in 1990. In the fall of 1988, she spent a semester abroad to study at the British American Drama Academy. She moved to Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, where she shared a house with Pamela Adlon.


title: Anna Gunn

text: Gunn is known for her role as Skyler White in the AMC drama series "Breaking Bad", for which she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2012, 2013 and 2014, winning in 2013 and 2014. In August 2013, she wrote an op-ed piece for "The New York Times" examining the public dislike directed toward her character.


title: Anna Gunn

text: Gunn had a recurring role as Assistant District Attorney Jean Ward on the ABC series "The Practice" from 1997 to 2002, and was series regular Martha Bullock on HBO's "Deadwood" from 2005 to 2006. She appeared on "Seinfeld" in the episode "The Glasses", in the "Six Feet Under" episode "Parallel Play", and on the first season of "Murder One".


title: Anna Gunn

text: She provided the voice of Ariel in the "Legacy of Kain" series of video games, and appeared in the "Quantum Leap" episode "The Play's the Thing". In 2011, she had a lead role in the Lifetime movie "Secrets of Eden", opposite John Stamos. Her other film credits include "Without Evidence", "Enemy of the State", "Treading Water", "Twelve Mile Road", and "Red State".


title: Anna Gunn

text: In February 2013, cable network Bravo announced that Gunn would star in a pilot for a one-hour TV drama, "Rita", based on a Danish TV series about a private-school teacher and mother. The Fox TV Studios pilot was to be written by Krista Vernoff and directed by Miguel Arteta.


title: Anna Gunn

text: In 2014, Gunn starred Off-Broadway with Billy Magnussen in "Sex with Strangers", directed by David Schwimmer at Second Stage Theater.


title: Anna Gunn

text: She starred in the 2016 film "Equity". Billed as the first female-driven Wall Street movie, it premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.


title: Anna Gunn

text: In 2019, Gunn starred as Maxine Faulk in the Noël Coward Theater limited-time production of Tennessee Williams' "The Night of the Iguana".


title: Anna Gunn

text: Gunn married Scottish actor and real estate broker Alastair Duncan in 1990. They divorced in 2009. They have two daughters, Eila Rose and Emma.


title: Danny McBride

text: Daniel Richard McBride (born December 29, 1976) is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter and producer. He starred in the HBO television series "Eastbound & Down", "Vice Principals", and "The Righteous Gemstones", also co-creating the former two with frequent collaborator Jody Hill while creating the latter himself. He has appeared in films such as "The Foot Fist Way" (2006), "Hot Rod" (2007), "Pineapple Express" (2008), "Tropic Thunder" (2008), "Up in the Air" (2009), "Your Highness" (2011), "This Is the End" (2013), and "" (2017). He has done voice acting for "Despicable Me" (2010), "Kung Fu Panda 2" (2011), "Hell and Back" (2015), "The Angry Birds Movie", "Sausage Party" (both 2016), "The Angry Birds Movie 2" (2019), and "The Mitchells vs. the Machines" (2021).


title: Danny McBride

text: McBride was born on December 29, 1976 in Statesboro, Georgia. His mother, Kathy Rudy, and his stepfather both work at Marine Corps Base Quantico, as civilian support. McBride has Irish, Scottish, English and Jewish ancestry; with Catholic ancestors from Ulster who emigrated to Virginia in the 1870s. He was raised Baptist, and has said, "church was very much part of my life when I was a kid. My parents were really involved and went all the time." His mother performed sermons in church using puppets, and McBride stated that his "interest in telling stories comes from her." He was raised in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, where he graduated from Courtland High School and attended University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and became one of the "Three Flavas" along with director Jody Hill and Kris Baucom.


title: Danny McBride

text: McBride made his acting debut in 2003, playing a supporting role in his college friend David Gordon Green's second feature film "All the Real Girls".


title: Danny McBride

text: In 2006, McBride played Fred Simmons in the low-budget comedy film "The Foot Fist Way", which he co-wrote with collaborators Jody Hill and Ben Best. He appeared in character as Simmons to promote the film on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" on February 26, 2008. He wrote and starred in the HBO original comedy series "Eastbound & Down" (also a collaboration with Hill and Best), as Kenny Powers, a washed-up former major league baseball pitcher with anger management issues. The series was produced by Gary Sanchez Productions, and the pilot episode premiered on February 15, 2009, featuring Will Ferrell and Craig Robinson.


title: Danny McBride

text: On April 8, 2009, HBO announced it had renewed the series for a second season. On July 2, 2012, HBO renewed the series for a fourth season. The series ended on November 17, 2013. In March 2009, because of his role as Powers, he received an offer to play semi-professional baseball for the Pensacola Pelicans, a minor league team in the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball.


title: Danny McBride

text: In 2010, he signed an endorsement deal with K-Swiss shoes and played the eponymous roadie in the Tenacious D music video for "Roadie" in 2012. McBride co-starred in the HBO comedy series "Vice Principals" from 2016 to 2017.


title: Danny McBride

text: McBride provided the voice for Duane Earl, a fictional talk radio host in the 2013 video game Grand Theft Auto V. Earl, the owner of the Blaine County Radio station, is the host of Beyond Insemination, a segment where Earl (McBride) converses with callers.


title: Danny McBride

text: In 2017 McBride appeared in "" directed by Ridley Scott starring alongside Katherine Waterston, Michael Fassbender and Billy Crudup. McBride told Vanity Fair in an interview that he was both surprised and glad for the opportunity to be involved with the Alien movie since he had been a longtime fan of the franchise.


title: Danny McBride

text: In January 2018, two trailers were released online for what was supposedly a "Crocodile Dundee" sequel, titled "Dundee: The Son of a Legend Returns Home". The film was said to star McBride as Brian Dundee, the son of the original Crocodile Dundee. The trailers feature cameo appearances by Australian actors Chris Hemsworth, Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Margot Robbie, and Ruby Rose. From the beginning, various aspects of the campaign made some publications believe that film was an elaborate hoax. It was later reported that these ads were actually part of a lead up to a Super Bowl commercial for Tourism Australia.


title: Danny McBride

text: McBride and David Gordon Green co-wrote the script for "Halloween", the 2018 sequel to "Halloween" (1978). The film was directed by Green, executive produced by series creator John Carpenter, and produced by Jason Blum.


title: Danny McBride

text: Since 2018 McBride has been the face of bookmaker Coral's television commercials in the United Kingdom, playing a character called "Sports Rodstein", described as "the world's biggest sports fan (although not the savviest)".


title: Danny McBride

text: In late 2018, HBO ordered "The Righteous Gemstones", a new show from McBride and his Rough House Pictures label, straight to series. The show, a comedy co-starring McBride, John Goodman, Adam Devine, and Edi Patterson is centered on a world-famous televangelist family with a long tradition of deviance, greed and charitable work.


title: Danny McBride

text: In 2021, McBride provided the voice of Rick Mitchell in the Sony Pictures Animation film "The Mitchells vs. the Machines".


title: Danny McBride

text: McBride has been married to art director Gia Ruiz since October 15, 2010. They have a son and a daughter. He lives with his family in Charleston, South Carolina.


title: Sondra Locke

text: Sandra Louise Anderson ("née" Smith; May 28, 1944 – November 3, 2018), professionally known as Sondra Locke, was an American actress and director. She achieved worldwide recognition for her relationship with Clint Eastwood and the six hit films they made together.


title: Sondra Locke

text: An alumna of Middle Tennessee State University, Locke broke into regional show business with assorted posts at the Nashville-based radio station WSM-AM, then segued into television as a promotions assistant for WSM-TV. In 1968, she made her film debut in "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter", for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Locke went on to appear in such box office successes as "Willard" (1971), "The Outlaw Josey Wales" (1976), "The Gauntlet" (1977), "Every Which Way but Loose" (1978), "Bronco Billy" (1980), "Any Which Way You Can" (1980) and "Sudden Impact" (1983). She worked regularly with Eastwood, who was her companion for 14 years despite their marriages to other people. She also directed four films, notably "Impulse" (1990), and published an autobiography, "The Good, the Bad, and the Very Ugly: A Hollywood Journey" (1997).


title: Sondra Locke

text: Locke's persona belied her age, and she habitually played roles written for women much younger than herself. She claimed to have been born several years later than 1944, and her true age remained a secret throughout her career. For reasons never made clear, her death was not publicly announced, and was only confirmed by vital statistics six weeks after she died of cardiac arrest at the age of 74.


title: Sondra Locke

text: Sandra Louise Smith was born on May 28, 1944, the daughter of New York City native Raymond Smith, then serving in the military, and Pauline Bayne, a pencil factory worker from Huntsville, Alabama, who was of mostly Scottish descent, with matrilineages in South Carolina extending back to the late 18th century. Locke's parents separated before her birth. In her autobiography, Locke noted that "although Momma would not admit it, I knew Mr. Smith never married my mother." She had a maternal half-brother, Donald (born April 26, 1946) from Bayne's subsequent brief marriage to William B. Elkins. When Bayne married Alfred Locke in 1948, Sandra and Donald assumed his surname. She grew up in Shelbyville, Tennessee, where her stepfather owned a construction company; the family later moved to nearby Wartrace. Self-described as introspective and ambitious, Locke started working part-time at age 16, drove her own car, and had a phone installed in her bedroom.


title: Sondra Locke

text: Locke was a cheerleader and class valedictorian in junior high. From 1958, she attended Shelbyville Central High School, where she was again valedictorian and voted "Duchess of Studiousness" by classmates. She also played on the girls' basketball team, served as PTSA representative and was president of the French club. Despite this, she wasn't considered "date material" by the more socially prominent boys in her class. Following graduation in 1962, Locke enrolled at Middle Tennessee State University (then Middle Tennessee State College) in Murfreesboro on a full scholarship. Majoring in drama, she was a member of the Alpha Psi Omega honor society while at MTSU and appeared on stage in "Life with Father" and "The Crucible". She dropped out after completing two semesters of study.


title: Sondra Locke

text: In or around 1963, Locke essentially broke off contact with her family, concluding: "It made no sense for any of us to spend our lives pretending to have relationships that did not really exist." She never knew her biological father, and did not attend the funerals of her mother (deceased 1997) or stepfather (deceased 2007), nor did she have anything to do with her brother, sister-in-law and three nieces. Donald blamed Gordon Anderson – Locke's best friend since adolescence and future husband – for the rift, claiming Anderson had "an almost hypnotic spell on her."


title: Sondra Locke

text: Locke held a variety of jobs, including as a bookkeeper for Tyson Foods and secretary in a real-estate office. For a time she lived in the commuter town of Gallatin. In 1964, she joined the staff at radio station WSM-AM 650 in Nashville and was promoted to its television affiliate WSM-Channel 4 the following year. Locke's biggest coup while employed there was hosting actor Robert Loggia when Loggia visited Nashville to promote his TV pilot "T.H.E. Cat", during which he "flirted outrageously" with Locke. She also modeled for "The Tennessean" fashion page, acted in commercials for Rich-Schwartz ladies apparel and Southerland Gel mattresses, among others, and gained further stage experience in productions for Circle Players Inc. In 1966, the 22-year-old appeared in a UPI wire photo that showed her cavorting in new fallen snow. Within one year of this exposure, she decided to pursue a career in film and changed the spelling of her first name to avoid being called Sandy.


title: Sondra Locke

text: In July 1967, Locke competed with 590 other Southern actresses and dozens of New York hopefuls for the part of Mick Kelly in a big-screen adaptation of Carson McCullers' novel "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" opposite Alan Arkin. For the first audition in Birmingham, then-fiancé Gordon Anderson gave his bride a so-called Hollywood makeover: he bound her bosom, bleached her eyebrows and carefully fixed her hair, makeup and outfit so as to create a more gamine appearance. They also lied about her age, shaving off six years to make her seem younger – a pretense Locke would keep up for the rest of her career. After callbacks in New Orleans and Manhattan, she was cast in the role by recommendation from Marion Dougherty.


title: Sondra Locke

text: The film came out in the summer of 1968 to critical acclaim. Locke's performance garnered her an Academy Award nomination, as well as a pair of Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress and Most Promising Newcomer – Female. Being the oldest nominee in the latter category, she concealed that distinction through retconning with aid from studio publicists. She won "Most Promising New Star of the Year" at the Show-A-Rama film exhibitor convention. Although her salary for the film was reported in newspapers as $15,000, Locke later claimed it was less than one-third that amount.


title: Sondra Locke

text: Hoping to shed the plain image she accentuated in her screen debut, in January 1969 Locke posed for a semi-nude pictorial by photographer Frank Bez, which was published in the December issue of "Playboy". The "Playboy" layout established Locke's status as a sex symbol, and the images were recycled in other men's magazines as her fame increased. Nearly three decades later, Locke said she still got those photos in fan mail requesting her autograph.


title: Sondra Locke

text: Her next role was as Melisse in "Cover Me Babe" (1970), originally titled "Run Shadow Run", opposite Robert Forster. She made it as part of a $150,000 three-picture deal with 20th Century Fox, and was compensated for the other two which never came to fruition. It was announced that she would play the lead in "Lovemakers" – a film adaptation of Robert Nathan's novel "The Color of Evening" – but no movie resulted. Locke was offered Barbara Hershey's role in "Last Summer" (1969), but her management turned it down without telling her. Shortly afterwards she passed on the lead in "My Sweet Charlie" (1970), which won an Emmy for its eventual star Patty Duke.


title: Sondra Locke

text: In 1971, Locke co-starred with Bruce Davison and Ernest Borgnine in the psychological thriller "Willard", which became a surprise box office smash. Locke felt overqualified for her role but did it as a favor to Davison, who at the time was her unofficial paramour. She was then featured in William A. Fraker's underseen mystery "A Reflection of Fear" (1972), which required her to project the image of a character nearly half her age, and held the title role in "The Second Coming of Suzanne" (1974), winner of three gold medals at the Atlanta Film Festival. Both films were shelved for two years before finally opening in arthouse cinemas, attracting little attention at first. Over time "Suzanne" has developed a cult following, while "Reflection" is cited as an early example of media portrayals of transgender people.


title: Sondra Locke

text: In 1973, Locke was attached to star in "Terminal Circle". "It's a woman's role that comes along once in a lifetime," she said. The San Francisco-set drama was to be directed by Mal Karman and shot by cinematographer Robert Primes, who did camerawork for "Gimme Shelter", but it was scrapped for lack of funds. She was up for a big part in "Earthquake" (1974), but lost out to Geneviève Bujold.


title: Sondra Locke

text: Locke guested on top-rated television drama series throughout the first half of the 1970s, including "The F.B.I.", "Cannon" (as two different characters), "Barnaby Jones" and "Kung Fu". She was advised by her agents to stay away from TV, but thought it foolish to sit around not working between films. In the 1972 "Night Gallery" episode "A Feast of Blood", she played the victim of a curse planted by Norman Lloyd; the recipient of a brooch that devoured her. Lloyd acted with Locke again in "Gondola" (1973), a racially themed, three-character teleplay co-starring Bo Hopkins, and commended the actress for "a beautiful performance – perhaps her best ever." Ron Harper, who worked with Locke on the short-lived 1974 show "Planet of the Apes", was even more effusive: "After acting with her in a couple of scenes, there was something so feminine about her that I could picture myself easily falling for her ... She's one of those women who exudes femininity, and you just become so attracted to that."


title: Sondra Locke

text: In 1975, Locke was cast in the western film "The Outlaw Josey Wales" as the love interest of Clint Eastwood's eponymous character. Locke said she chose the role for its exposure, following a run of unremarkable credits. She took a pay cut just to be in the film; her salary for "Josey Wales" was $18,000, less than half of what she'd earned for her previous job. The film was one of the top 15 grossing films of 1976 and revived Locke's career. She followed it up with a lead role alongside Eastwood in the popular action film "The Gauntlet" (1977), the duo replacing Steve McQueen and Barbra Streisand, who bowed out from the production owing to a reported clash of egos. Its pre-publicity touted Locke as "the first actress ever to be in a Clint Eastwood movie and get equal billing on screen with the macho star." Eastwood predicted that she would win an Oscar for her performance. Locke wasn't even nominated and received mixed critical response at best: on the upside, Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" said "Locke is not only pretty, but also occasionally genuinely funny" and "Los Angeles Times" critic Kevin Thomas stated that Locke "has not received such a rich opportunity since her Academy Award-nominated debut"; in contrast, Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" said "she's wasted here" and "TV Guide" felt that "Locke is simply repulsive."


title: Sondra Locke

text: Over the course of their decade-and-a-half-long personal relationship, Locke did not work in any capacity on any theatrical motion picture other than with Eastwood except for 1977's experimental horror western "The Shadow of Chikara". The home invasion film "Death Game" (1977), though released after they became an item, was actually shot in 1974. "Clint wanted me to work only with him," said Locke. "He didn't like the idea of me being away from him."


title: Sondra Locke

text: In 1978, Locke and Eastwood appeared with an orangutan named Clyde in that year's fourth highest-grossing film, "Every Which Way but Loose". She portrayed country singer Lynn Halsey-Taylor in the adventure-comedy. Its 1980 sequel "Any Which Way You Can" – for which Locke earned a six-figure salary plus a share of the profits – was nearly as successful. Locke recorded several songs for the soundtracks of these films and was whispered to be shopping for a record deal at the time. On the coattails of the franchise's success, she performed live in concert (one-off gigs) with The Everly Brothers, Eddie Rabbitt and Tom Jones.


title: Sondra Locke

text: During this period, Eastwood did a few movies that had no prominent female character for Locke to play. In the meantime, she accepted some television offers, co-starring with an all-female ensemble cast in "Friendships, Secrets and Lies" (1979) and portraying big band era vocalist Rosemary Clooney in "Rosie: The Rosemary Clooney Story" (1982). While the biopic followed Clooney from ages 17 to 40, Locke was 38 when she played the role, and though hardly counting as a proper exception due to its nonlinear structure, this marked the only time she played a mother onscreen.


title: Sondra Locke

text: Locke starred as a bitter heiress who joins a traveling Wild West show in "Bronco Billy" (1980), her only film with Eastwood not to reach blockbuster status, though it still ranked among the annual box office top 25. "The New York Times" critic Janet Maslin noticed that "each of them works more delicately here than they have together previously." Locke cited "Bronco Billy" and "The Outlaw Josey Wales" as her favorites of the movies they made. The couple's final collaboration as performers was "Sudden Impact" (1983), the highest-grossing film in the "Dirty Harry" franchise, in which Locke played an artist with her own code of vigilante justice. Her fee was a reported $350,000.


title: Sondra Locke

text: Locke never appeared in a wide release after "Sudden Impact". The film premiered five months before her 40th birthday. Locke announced plans to develop and star in a movie about Marie Antoinette, but the project fell apart. Eastwood then directed Locke in a 1985 "Amazing Stories" episode entitled "Vanessa in the Garden".


title: Sondra Locke

text: In 1986, Locke made her feature directorial debut with "Ratboy", a parable about a youth who is part rat and part human, produced by Eastwood's company Malpaso. When asked why she'd been absent from her longtime beau's recent star vehicles, Locke replied simply, "I wasn't right for the roles." "Ratboy" had limited distribution in the United States, where it was a critical and financial flop, but was well received in Europe, with French newspaper "Le Parisien" calling it the highlight of the Deauville Film Festival.


title: Sondra Locke

text: Locke's second foray behind the camera was "Impulse" (1990), starring Theresa Russell as a police officer on the vice squad who goes undercover as a prostitute. Siskel & Ebert gave the film "two thumbs up". In a subsequent interview with Siskel, Locke said she wasn't eager to act again. "If you love the craft of filmmaking as much as I do, it's hard to go back to acting after you've tasted the high of directing."


title: Sondra Locke

text: After a long interruption in her career due to legal difficulties and health issues, Locke directed the made-for-television film "Death in Small Doses" (1995), based on a true story, and the independent feature "Trading Favors" (1997), starring Rosanna Arquette.


title: Sondra Locke

text: In 1997, Locke's autobiography "The Good, the Bad, and the Very Ugly: A Hollywood Journey" was published by William Morrow and Company. In it she called Eastwood "a completely evil, manipulating, lying excuse for a man." Eastwood's lawyers sent a warning letter to the publisher, and although no slander charges arose, "Entertainment Tonight" canceled a scheduled interview with Locke. She was also bumped from "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and, in her words, "shut out of most venues to promote the book, in particular the networks." The book received a supportive rave review from "New York Daily News" writer Liz Smith, while "Entertainment Weekly"'s Dana Kennedy dismissed the book as a "peculiar, not terribly consequential, life story."


title: Sondra Locke

text: Locke told a Spanish website that she'd been informed "Entertainment Weekly" originally planned to publish a positive review, but for reasons unclear, it was pulled and a negative review appeared instead. "The Advocate", a monthly LGBT-interest magazine, was set to do a big article on Locke's book; suddenly and uncharacteristically, Eastwood gave "The Advocate" an interview, and they decided not to run the piece. She reflected in 2012: "Clint has said so many bad things about me to the media since we split up, and he has so much more access and power to do that. He's said things that were hurtful to my character and hurtful to me professionally." Locke was nonetheless grateful to have a platform at all, stating: "It was a miracle that a major publisher took it."


title: Sondra Locke

text: After 13 years away from acting, Locke returned to the screen in 1999 with cameo roles in the straight-to-video films "The Prophet's Game" with Dennis Hopper and "Clean and Narrow" with Wings Hauser. In 2014, it was announced that Locke would serve as an executive producer on the Eli Roth film "Knock Knock", starring Keanu Reeves. She came out of retirement once more in 2016, shooting Alan Rudolph's indie "Ray Meets Helen" with Keith Carradine. The film was screened at Laemmle Music Hall on May 6, 2018, less than six months before Locke died.


title: Sondra Locke

text: During her tenure at WSM, Locke participated in the annual United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) telethons. One year, she toured Birmingham with folk singer Richard Law.


title: Sondra Locke

text: In 1992, Locke served as honorary chairwoman for the "Starry, Starry Night" silent auction in Costa Mesa, California to benefit Human Options, a shelter for victims of domestic violence. "Being a woman I have great empathy for these women. I can understand how stranded they must feel, how hard it is to change one's life," Locke said.


title: Sondra Locke

text: On September 25, 1967, Locke married sculptor Gordon Leigh Anderson (born August 2, 1944, Batesville, Arkansas) at the First Presbyterian Church in Nashville, one week after "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" commenced principal photography. Dr. Walter Rowe Courtenay presided over the ceremony. They remained married for 51 years until her death in 2018.


title: Sondra Locke

text: Locke had known Anderson since at least the late 1950s; accounts as to when they met vary by as much as four years. In early 1969, as Locke was flooded with script offers after her Oscar nomination, she and Anderson left Tennessee and moved into a condo at The Andalusia in West Hollywood.


title: Sondra Locke

text: According to a 1989 affidavit, the marriage was "tantamount to sister and brother" and they never consummated it. Anderson was gay. Locke, testifying under oath to a jury, characterized her husband as being "more like a sister to me" and explained, "it's funny the sort of cultural changes, but in those days males and females never lived together unless they were married." According to her death certificate, the two were residing at the same address when she died, and he was the person who reported her death.


title: Sondra Locke

text: Anderson is a central presence in Locke's autobiography, but she doesn't elaborate on her reasons for marrying him beyond the following passage:


title: Sondra Locke

text: Given that Locke waited decades to confirm that her marriage was platonic, most of her actual romantic attachments went unpublicized. In the mid-1960s, she dated her supervisor at WSM-TV's PR department, Brad Crandall (1920–1973). She started as secretary to Tom Griscom in local sales for WSM Radio. According to co-worker Alan Nelson, who died eight months after Locke, he and other staff members believed her promotion resulted from nepotism.


title: Sondra Locke

text: George Crook, a cameraman for WSM, squired Locke to Nashville society events including the 1965 hunt ball. He later got into local politics and was elected mayor of Belle Meade in 2000. Another early boyfriend, personal injury attorney Gary Gober, starred with Locke in Circle Players' productions while attending Vanderbilt University Law School. Locke also dated a sculptor (she did not name him) prior to marrying Anderson.


title: Sondra Locke

text: During her marriage, Locke was rumored to have been linked amorously to co-stars Robert Fields ("Cover Me Babe"), Bruce Davison ("Willard"), Paul Sand ("The Second Coming of Suzanne") and Bo Hopkins ("Gondola"), as well as producer Hawk Koch, real estate agent Herb Goldfarb, and John F. Kennedy's nephew Robert Shriver. For a while in the early 1970s, she shared a liaison with married actor David Soul after they played siblings in an episode of "Cannon".


title: Sondra Locke

text: Locke referred to these intervals as "casually exploring for a romantic relationship," noting that she had not fallen in love with any of the men. "Love ... was not something to search out actively; it finds you, I believed."


title: Sondra Locke

text: Locke and actor/director Clint Eastwood entered a domestic partnership in October 1975. She first met Eastwood in 1972 when she unsuccessfully lobbied for the title role in his film "Breezy" (1973); they became involved upon arrival at the shooting location of "The Outlaw Josey Wales" (1976) in Page, Arizona. "It was just an immediate attraction between the two of us," Locke recalled in a 2012 documentary. She had simultaneously been wooed by screenwriter Philip Kaufman but chose Eastwood over him. After wrapping the film in December 1975, the couple shuttled between Eastwood's houses in Sherman Oaks and Carmel, as well as rented homes in San Francisco and Tiburon. They eventually settled at 846 Stradella Road in Bel-Air, which Eastwood still owned at the time of Locke's death.


title: Sondra Locke

text: Eastwood was married during the early years of their relationship, before their affair became public in 1978, but his marriage was a nominal one just as Locke's was: he had sired at least two publicly unacknowledged children outside the marriage and confided he'd "never been in love before." Locke claimed Eastwood even sang "She Made Me Monogamous" to her. Eastwood's wife Maggie Johnson lived on a colossal estate in Pebble Beach, where Eastwood rarely stayed, and he and Johnson were understood to have had an open marriage from the start. "I never knew I could love somebody so much, and feel so peaceful about it at the same time," Locke said he told her. Conversely, the media's running narrative was that Eastwood "left" or "walked out on" his wife for Locke as opposed to simply giving up the facade. Locke resented having her relationship with Eastwood labeled as an affair and being made to feel sordid as if she had "stolen" a married man, but did not contemporaneously refute such notions.